Re:‘I don’t want this kind of life’: graduate students quest...
by Al-Khwarizmi on Tuesday November 08, 2022 @05:18PM
(#33525100)
You seem to make the assumption that large contributions should be made within the duration of a PhD program. In my view, a PhD program's goal is to train new researchers. If awesome breakthroughs are generated before the thesis, of course it's a big plus, but not the point... PhD graduates still have several decades of career ahead of them to paint their Gioccondas. The PhD is just to get them started, when they graduate they should be able to fly alone and generate independent research.
There is the problem that research funding (also after the PhD) is associated to projects that only last for a few years, but that seems to be pretty much universal.
> It's not even possible to go beyond 5 years
And we still wonder why nobody is trying to paint a new Giocconda now, and where are the big results.
First they repeat ad nauseam that only want the very passionate people, but then require you to choose a mediocre theme to work on it and to solve very complex problems that nobody has figured before, in a couple of years, plus other to write. And then the grants delay the payment for three years.
This happens by two very simple reules
1. Anybody starting in science must be dumber than this boss.
I want to study a complex theme for six or ten, or twenty years with my own money, well... is my problem. Who are the politicians to say that I can't do it?. Oh, the second rule:
2. Any grant money give for a politician must benefit the politician career. Period. This means that science is now crushed to fit electoral intervals of four years. Period.
Unexpected maternity? Two years of covid?, say bye to your career and the investment of decades of study