Some students asked me why I decided to leave IT industry and become an academic. I think the real question is whether I think it is a good idea to try to become a professor. And the answer is a firm no. I must emphasize that I am not advocating for abolishing PhD programs. It is important for a society to push for advancement in science and humanity. What I meant is that for the vast majority of people, a career in academic is not a good choice. ...
Photo by ThisIsEngineering from Pexels The joke A friend sent me an article titled Is Science a Pyramid Scheme? posted on viXra, an e-print archive. The abstract is as follows – A grievance expressed by some PhD students and Postdocs is that science works like a pyramid scheme: Young scientists are encouraged to invest into building scientific careers although the chances at remaining in science are extremely slim. … The super-prolific authors at the top of the pyramid … are usually heads of large institutes with many subgroups and large numbers of PhD students, while the bottom of the pyramid is populated by PhD students and Postdocs … A new index, the Ponzi factor, is proposed to quantify this phenomenon. ...