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Most depts do have some kind of official review, but it's more of a formality. I think they're also concerned about how students would react if they suggest that academia isn't for them directly. So instead they resort to more passive-aggressive or arbitrary measures.

On the other hand, not all departments are good fits with students and there's a very wide asymmetry in information between many new students and programs, even if you "do your research" beforehand, given just how specialized these disciplines are at a high level. It would be nice if transferring programs was made easier and if more departments would just agree to help students "master out" and look for jobs rather than discard them like roadkill.

This. Most grad school classes are poorly taught and the professors indifferent or discouraging to actually helping you learn. PhD students are assumed to be capable of learning these things on their own or already knowing them. If you are encountering things for the first time, you'll likely be behind.

In contrast, if you come in mostly ready to go and these classes are just refreshers, you can spend time in that class working on actual research and impressing the prof as well as not panicking if/when you realize you don't understand what's going on.

I actually really like the analogy. You are running a "business" of ideas. You are competing against a lot of other very smart people who are also trying to start their own ideas business and competing for a very limited pool of support (funding, postdocs, tenure-track jobs, etc.). The professors you are trying to impress in grad school are "investors" and having their imprimatur on your business will help in both advice and in obtaining more funding and convincing others that your business is worth supporting.

If you can run a successful ideas business for 10+ years in multiple locations and convince several gauntlets of committees to keep supporting you, then there's a great deal at the end for choosing this education route--your business gets a significant degree of permanent support and protection (tenure)! But to get to that point, you have to sell your ideas and develop a product that will get buy-in and support from others in your field.

There are no limits on how hard or how much you can work. There are also no guarantees that working hard will pay off either. There's a lot of luck and sometimes the market just isn't buying what you're selling at that time, even if your product is great.

I'm not sure the salaries are better. Most R1s are now offering 90-120k starting in my field, but regional teaching Us start around 50-60k, with liberal arts colleges in the 50-80k range.

The point about the lack of opportunities for advancement/moving due to the course preps and teaching taking up your time is very true. While your friends at R1s are on pre-tenure sabbaticals, getting course buyouts, and teaching a nice grad seminar for a semester, you might be doing 3-4 new preps a year and likely getting piled with service work.

Generally, the focus here should be on: 1) Not bombing any classes (i.e. A/A- in all, maybe a B+ in one; a B or below is failing) 2) Doing very good work and trying to write an original paper for professors that you want to work with while doing just enough to get by in other classes [this is in part how you figure out who you want to work with] 3) Being good enough with the literature to pass the comprehensive exams (or, as another comment points out, have some kind of protection from a sponsor; it is not uncommon to have profs use comps as a chance to take out students they don't like for various reasons, even as small as "they do X field, which I don't like" or "they work with Y, who really gets on my nerves).

Of course there's plenty of additional ways to derail this as well, including advisor moving, advisor getting into a fight with the rest of the department, advisor giving poor advice, advisor deciding that they don't like you, etc.

"Honestly it really just seems like the world’s PhD programs are designed to ritually haze students and sort them into academic society based on unsustainable and barely acceptable expectations." This is accurate. It's very hard to explain to people who haven't been through a PhD program the kinds of expectations that are placed on students (example: highly influential profs telling an incoming cohort that their expectations were "all of you should get a top-20 job"). Those who do not "make it" are spoken of in hushed tones as if they died and even those who go on to great industry jobs are considered failures of some degree.

Many of those who "make it" and get those vaunted prestigious TT jobs are also desperately depressed in many cases (at least up through getting tenure, but even afterward the whole experience seems scarring). This seems to select for incredibly dedicated and usually quite intelligent, but also very obsessive and emotionally fragile people to finally make it through into permanent employment in academia. They then often have similar expectations for their grad students to do the same as they did, even if they claim on social media to be "caring" and such.

Some of the most interesting recent academic work has come out of adversarial collaborations, e.g. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/152910062311631...

The list of research projects on this website looks fascinating. Hope that these kinds of projects continue to get funded.

I keep seeing people swear by the NY Times' Wirecutter and they do have a much more upfront set of standards for reviewing products, but I've actually been pretty underwhelmed by the recommended buys from them. Still, I respect that they're trying. Wish that Consumer Reports was more easily available now too.

I agree, though the other issue for smaller places is that they are more susceptible to review-bombing by one disgruntled party (do we really need 6 reviews from 6 different people about how the same table had to wait an hour to get the check one time?) or "5 stars for 30% off" incentives (which I have unfortunately seen a number of, especially at small businesses trying to distinguish themselves).

Google Maps I still don't understand where they get a lot of reviews from in the first place. While some look like normal reviews, there's a lot that have no comments at all or comments completely unrelated to the place ostensibly being reviewed (or just cryptic things like "not good" or "good"). It's not a bad comparison to use alongside Yelp, but it's definitely led to more clunkers, especially for places with n<20 reviews.

The professor who wrote that book, interestingly, ended up being denied tenure and was subsequently unable to get another academic job despite years of trying. Here's a recent podcast with him: https://www.persuasion.community/p/deresiewicz

It may not be the best thing in the world to be an "excellent sheep," but perhaps it's better than being a lone ram.

All it takes is one or two very angry people to start a mob online and destroy someone's entire career. I'm not surprised that authors, especially in a field as precarious as writing, are more than willing to follow what is deemed to be "safe" language, though it's definitely a loss for society as a whole and indirectly works to undermine writing as an art.

It's not just academia, it's the modern "meritocracy" more broadly. When getting into a campus club at a top college requires four rounds of interviews, you look for easy ways to signal your eliteness and being hip to the new verbal trends is a great way for the well-heeled to extend their advantage over the less-enlightened.

This also applies to jobs whose occupants need to justify their own existence, which they can do so be seeking to remake language in an organization and launch a few fun purges to boot. These new terms are basically a new form of arcane knowledge that allows those who chant these magical new incantations social and professional prestige in the modern meritocracy rat race.

Many codes of conduct and various other speech codes do, in fact, violate freedom of speech and have often been struck down as violations of freedom of expression. Appeals to "courtesy" and "civility" tend to be used selectively. I agree that it would be ideal if people debated courteously, but "civility" is far too often only desired in one direction (and employed as such in practice).

There are plenty of ways for an outnumbered group to still have its voice heard, from speaking at public meetings to writing opinion columns to being active on social media. Or in academia, they can start their own journals, organize their own conferences, etc. Dissenting opinions in court rulings are excellent examples of including the minority opinion as well.

If anything, supporting freedom of speech and expression protects those who are in the minority more than adding more restrictions on speech (since, as other comments have pointed out, who gets to decide what speech to censor? it's those with the power on campus).

And in other contexts, you can imagine supporting the right of Communists to speak and organize even if you find Communism abhorrent and misguided.

Note too the benefits of allowing/supporting the right of [insert disliked political group] to speak: 1) You find out who is in that group when they speak (as opposed to them remaining anonymous/hidden online) and potentially address them directly 2) You might be able to question them to find out what led them to that position to prevent more people from going in that direction 3) You can be aware of the message that they are trying to send and counter it with more speech

In contrast, doing something like banning support for the Communist party is likely to lead to 1) more sympathy for Communism as an oppressed outgroup; 2) a lack of understanding of how extensive support for Communism is and what might be causing it; 3) the use of "Communism" as something that people can use to denounce each other as part of petty/unrelated feuds.

1. There are already pretty good definitions out there for speech that rises to the level of "harassment" if it is severe, pervasive, and/or repeated. There are also ways to restrict speech in a content-neutral way (i.e. no bullhorns at 11 PM for anyone). Those can definitely still be used. And, of course, physical harm is not the same as words and should never be confused with that.

2. You balance it by allowing free speech and encouraging robust debate rather than demanding loyalty tests or speech codes. Restricting speech or telling people that they "can't say that" is an excellent way to result in groupthink; encouraging free speech and especially a culture of free speech that respects differences is the best way to prevent one-sided groupthink. Such one-sidedness has many negative consequences, including (but not limited to) ineffective actions, alienating wider groups of people, supporting bad science, and limiting the scope of discovery and study.

I once met a local winemaker from a tiny winery in a foreign country who was proud to say that their wine was being served a restaurant in the US. I asked them how much they thought the wine would be priced at given that it was their entry-level wine. The winemaker estimated $20-25. We looked it up--it was $60.

I really wonder how much of the suspicion of wine comes from the class-conflict accoutrements and marketing.

I used to be a big wine skeptic. It seemed pretentious, overpriced, and boring. The people who liked it were the kind of people I disliked. Most of the places in the town I grew up in all had the same "big reds" at ridiculous prices. Wine was the thing that cost $12 that you paid $60 for at the local steakhouse to look important.

Then, I moved to a lesser-known wine-producing state and started actually trying wine. It took some time--and there were more than a few encounters with snobs and commercial puffery that made me want to rethink it--but it soon opened up into a huge world that I had no idea about before. It was far more fascinating and enduring than previous interests in whiskey or craft beer.

It's a pity that wine gets such a pretentious reputation. It's a fascinating blend of chemistry, geology, geography, and culture that at its heart is an agricultural enterprise.

I don't think that you are truly "in charge of your own destiny" at many programs. I get the comparison, but it's more like you're a startup in an oversaturated market with funders who have very little invested in you (and may not even know/care about you) and constantly demand that you perform circus acts to keep them funding you (sometimes in very paltry amounts) for just a bit longer. They will also be very disappointed if you turn out to be anything other than a unicorn.

And on top of all this, you could just be out of luck due to factors outside your control. I've seen multiple cases of well-published researchers with excellent teaching records, good social skills, and prestigious postdocs spend 2-3 years on the market and get nothing. It's a random roll of the dice, and I would discourage most people from trying it.

Wow, Pine Bluff is quite a place to move to out the blue. Still, there's good interstate access and a local state U. Curious why the city is so reluctant to support new businesses.

You might try Jonesboro, Fort Smith, or Hot Springs if you're looking for cheap nearby places. North Little Rock or someplace in NW Arkansas too would have more nearby amenities, albeit at higher (though still quite affordable nationally) prices.

Flawed characters are simpler more interesting to read about than people who aren't flawed. Stories of the lives of saints tend to be didactic and boring; those of flawed sinners are much more interesting and varied. See also the Mary/Marty Sue problem.

Put another way: many people read Dante's Inferno, few are interested in the Paradiso.

Don't think this attitude is just limited to STEM though as Gioia implies. Humanities majors have plenty of hubris themselves, though it may have a different moral flavor than in the sciences. Similar career incentives though for sure.

Amazing work from Bret as usual, but very sad that this kind of popular/actually useful history is completely unrewarded in academia. This is far more valuable than whatever top university press book most historians write.

Plus the highest suicide rate in the US by far comes from white men: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7108a7.htm

And women not only outnumber men in college, but that divide is increasing rapidly and now includes most higher degrees as well: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/23/business/dealbook/women-c...

I would recommend taking a moment to read the actual articles instead of dismissing the sources offhand. The City Journal article has links to the actual documents in question. The Washington Examiner has screenshots of the actual training. The WSJ has links to the actual politically biased and ideologically narrow hiring criteria being used. You can complain about the bias of these sources (just like other people do CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, etc.), but take a look at the actual documents here.

If you'd like more reliable sources, here you go: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1418878112 Experimental evidence for favoring hiring women over men in academia https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21565503.2018.14... Strong evidence for preference for hiring minority candidates in academia https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2019/12/31/life-science-jobs-... (with links to actual documents included revealing clear use of DEI statements to cull huge swaths of applications) https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/minority-professor-deni... How DEI statements are used to discriminate against researchers on grants https://www.thefire.org/fire-calls-on-uc-santa-cruz-to-drop-... More schools using DEI as a first cut in hiring

Maybe this is different in some companies, but from what I understand it seems to be happening at the same pace as well.

What about reading black nationalists? I think there's plenty of value in reading the Black Panthers' and Nation of Islam's writings despite their often-abhorrent views. Same with the "Weather Underground" manifestos, the speeches of Osama Bin Ladin, the writings of Mao, etc.

Keep in mind too that many on the right would view a lot of what the left says on various contemporary issues to be "false" and "misleading." Should a professor be allowed to say that all white students are inherently racist? That communism is the best system of government? And is there a difference between exposing students to these ideas vs. requiring students to parrot them back on assignments?

The AAUP drew a pretty good line in terms of setting the limits on "free speech" that I think would address the kind of hypotheticals mentioned: "Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject...The intent of this statement is not to discourage what is “controversial.” Controversy is at the heart of the free academic inquiry which the entire statement is designed to foster. The passage serves to underscore the need for teachers to avoid persistently intruding material which has no relation to their subject."

Exactly. This is something that a lot of comments seem to be missing about this article and Mill's larger point.

Free speech, as Mill views it, always helps individuals better understand why they hold views in the first place as well as why others hold seemingly unsavory views as well. If you want to successfully combat those unsavory views in the political sphere, it is necessary to understand the other side; censoring them pre-emptively is ineffective both for your own understanding and in terms of politically opposing them (see also from the other side: bans on teaching anything related to CRT).

Especially in a democratic country like the US that is highly polarized and divided into very different political geographies, supporting free speech is necessary if you want to understand where the other side is coming from better. (See this article about how both sides, but liberals in particular, misunderstand the other: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...)

Not allowing college professors to choose what readings they want to assign in class is, in fact, stifling free speech.

The essay is advocating against "forced" speech in terms of only allowing consideration of one point of view and refusing to even provide/offer other points of view.

If I'm reading the standings correctly, they are competing as a team from a single HS while most of the others are all-star teams composed of students from multiple different HSes in a state or area? And they finished higher than noted supermagnet TJHSST?

That is impressive, even if it looks like Lexington HS (MA) finished ahead of them. Are there any other similar school-based team math competitions (I know there are lots of individual ones)?