An unhealthy addiction to academia

Comments · 446

• AZ

  @aziz0x00 · 1 year ago

  G really did think i would enjoy a game background rather than measure theory text typing background

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• SA

  @safko_dsp · 1 year ago

  Fighting Malenia seems like a pretty apt metaphor for your experience in Academics

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• IS

  @Isparavanjeloollollololl · 1 year ago

  This video hits way harder if you're a postdoc watching it in the background at 11pm on a Friday while trying to finish a paper that you're hoping to submit next week and also slurping up instant noodles for dinner on the side. From, uh, personal experience.

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• WI

  @williamohle5057 · 1 year ago

  It always blows my mind that professors don't meet with their students regularly.  Every day I feel lucky that the professor who reached out to me and offered me funding is good about communication (weekly meetings, visits to the lab, fast emails), and has let me into his network with connections to industry giants and his peers at MIT.

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• UN

  @uncertainty_s · 1 year ago

  moral of the story: online hobby community > academic (industry) community

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• AL

  @AllenKnutson · 1 year ago

  Math prof here, PhD &apos;96. I wanted to point out a couple (intertwined) places that one might get incorrect impressions from this video. One is that the American system of math PhD students and math postdocs is very different from the Canadian and European systems: in the US, the funding most often comes from the department rather than some particular person&apos;s grant. Relatedly, the main source of money for math academics is teaching. Unlike, e.g., geology departments, math departments are primarily <i>service</i> departments, with most of the work being teaching non-math majors. The video makes the point that money talks, but in US departments most of the money involved is not earmarked for some particular fields/projects, but rather is tied up with the teaching enterprise.

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• CA

  @capncoolio · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2s05HGGbdI&amp;t=1089">18:09</a> nah man, thank you for being here ❤

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• AD

  @adiaphoros6842 · 1 year ago (edited)

  I have an unhealthy addiction to duality in category theory... I&apos;m now neck deep in Haskell, please send help.<br><br>Also, did you eventually beat Malenia?

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• MI

  @Miterosan · 1 year ago

  Why are reality checks always so painfull

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• AD

  @adityakhanna113 · 1 year ago

  Academia is such a fuckin industry and I hate how they have shot themselves in the foot. The reason PhDs students are paid less is because we have convinced us as a society that they are not worth paying. I teach a class which has 92k coming in as tuition per sem and i barely get 10% of that. Absolutely horrendous. That&apos;s why unions are so important and how private universities recently increased stipends after demands

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• MR

  @mrtthepianoman · 1 year ago

  I had a very similar experience. &nbsp;I got my Ph.D in math because I loved it and because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. &nbsp;However, I had no idea what I wanted to study, and basically let my advisor pick my research topic (ended up in geometric group theory). &nbsp;I considered becoming a professor, but opted to go into industry (software development) because I needed more flexibility in my career to support my family (and the higher pay was a nice perk!). It was still a very difficult decision to make, and I am considering going back to academia after my kids are a little older. &nbsp;I have also considered starting my own YouTube channel, but I haven’t had enough motivation to follow through with that. &nbsp;But I love your stuff! &nbsp;Keep doing what you are doing!

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• DE

  @debord4545 · 1 year ago

  I feel like so many of these grad school horror stories that I see online start with crummy, detached, or actively abusive supervisors. And considering that your anecdotal &apos;least passionate&apos; colleagues are the ones who had the best experiences in grad school, maybe it&apos;s no wonder where these crummy supervisors are coming from.<br>I&apos;m just about to finish undergrad very soon and will be going to grad school as well, and hearing all the warnings from faceless internet people, I still feel like it is the right decision. The people there that work on exactly the math that I want to work on seem exceptional, and they already specifically advocated for my acceptance against the admin&apos;s decision that my cumulative GPA was too low (long story) for acceptance. It seems from my current perspective that there is a lot of green flags. I just hope that a good grad school experience is even remotely possible at all, considering I don&apos;t think I&apos;ve ever seen people writing about that online before.<br>You are right though about the industry experience point. That is absolutely something I need to think a lot harder about, and at least some part of my motivation for going to grad school is in the fact that I have literally nothing marketable about me other than &quot;can do some math problems.&quot; Thank you for making this video, and I hope that you continue to find greater happiness and satisfaction in life.

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