@Hellawyn @anne_kreft

Your university must be a very bad one. The PhD I got and the ones I advised definitely were big educational experiences, where the student received lots of benefit -- formal courses, technical lectures, personal advising, resources, experience, publishing support, etc. As for TA work, one may debate whether the amount was enough, whether there should have been workers benefit, etc, but the university did explicitly pay for the work. >>

@Hellawyn @anne_kreft

>> As for the papers and research, while they benefited the university, the advisor, and hopefully humanity, they were much more valuable for the student -- and they would not have been published without much work and advice from the advisor, and the univ's resources.

In fact, in public and non-profit univs, the main benefit that the university gets from papers by PhD students is the ability to get more grant money to pay the students and buy equipment for them. >>

@JorgeStolfi @Hellawyn You’re making a hell of a lot of assumptions here… and I respectfully disagree with a lot of them. And of course publications help the authors. That applies to most researchers, from PhD students to profs. Same for benefiting from university resources 🤷🏼‍♀️ Of course PhD students are still learning, but they contribute a lot more than you’re acknowledging

@anne_kreft @JorgeStolfi
@academicchatter

The situation of a PhD candidate is indeed very special and leads to passionate debate.

Ignoring either of the aspects, "student being entitled to some form of tuition" and "employee with production objectives and associated rights" leads to serious problems: if students only, the risk is exploitation and financial struggle, if only employee, the risk is to forget that they are learning to become researchers and should be supervised adequately.

1/n

@jocelyn_etienne @JorgeStolfi @academicchatter Fair point! But I object to someone coming in and saying "your university must be a very bad one." Sweden, Norway and a few other countries have a very successful PhD education system where student are state employees (at 100%). Attrition is extremely low, compared to e.g. the US, publication output very high, and research funding *and supervision* were excellent for me. People need to inform themselves before making such blanket statements

@anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @JorgeStolfi @academicchatter

i can only secund that.

Simple fact is, Ph.D.'s work.

And more than 40h a week if they'd like a career. Wether for their own benefits—a later career, which many won't have in professional academia because of the cut-down of fixed positions at universities— or those of their supervisors, and institutions—how to get 20+ papers a year without having 5+ Ph.D.'s working *for* you?

You work, you're employed. No discussion needed.

@grimmiges @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter

Pd.D. students definitely (often) work hard. But if that was reason enough, grammar and high school students should be school employees too, and be paid for attending classes, and get overtime pay for homework and exam cramming. And piano students should pay the students, rather than the other way around. >>

@JorgeStolfi @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter

This simply demonstrates a severe misunderstanding what a Ph.D. is.

It's not just an educational degree.

The very reason Germany pays 50% for a Ph.D. is because — it says so in the standard contract with the instiution not the "STATE" – they should work 50% for their institute/department and the rest use for their "Ausbildung": on their thesis.

Also, private companies pay their employees for further qualification.
(1/2)

@JorgeStolfi @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter

(2/2) In the Anglosaxon system, now adapted widely, I can enter the job market with a mere bachelors degree.

Arguing that because a scientist (Master, Ph.D.) works for tax-paid but notably independent(!) institutions, one should not be treated as an employee, is simply ludicrous.

Especially when compared to other public jobs (administration, police) or the private sector.

@grimmiges @JorgeStolfi @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter I'm not sure but there might also be cultural differences - in the Netherlands where I did my PhD, it was after a 4-year degree, not right after a BSc instead of a Masters, and heavily skewed to working as a researcher rather than "formal" education; which might differ elsewhere.

But even if you need more of it at a different level, you've definitely had copious amounts of training. And PIs need cheap *labour*, let's be real.

@TEG @grimmiges @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter

PhD is DEFINTELY an educational program: its goal is to TEACH the student to do front-line research. But the only way to do it is to have the student work hard on such research.

If the goal was the research itself, there would be no PhD programs at the universities. The State would just do what it already does: fund only *research institutes*, which hire researchers as employees, without wasting their time with thesis etc.

@TEG @grimmiges @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter

That said, as I wrote before, many unoversities, departments, and advisors do abuse their students in various ways.

When I started my PhD, in the late 1970s, doctorates in the UK were among the hardest in the world. In the US, once you are admitted to a PhD program, with just hard work you can be fairly certain to exit at the other end with a degree. That was not the case in the UK. >>

@TEG @grimmiges @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter

Back then, to get a PhD in the UK you had to make some really significant scientific discovery, and be the first to publish it. I know someone who lost many years of PhD work because someone else published his big result just before he defended his thesis. >>

@JorgeStolfi @TEG @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter

I cannot put this nicely: you really have NO idea about how science and Ph.D. reality in the 21st century.

What you describe is the academic serfdom of a bygone era. At least in developed states. And even developing science nations:
In Turkey, you can only start a Ph.D. when there is an according open position, and you'd be guaranteed a job afterwards (system going back to Atatürk)

@grimmiges @TEG @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter

Well, what you call a "PhD" in Turkey is obviously not what "PhD" means in the rest of the world. It is more like the Italian system of country-wide exams for academic jobs.

@JorgeStolfi @TEG @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter

It's a Ph.D., by international standards. Only that this system avoids overproduction of Ph.D.s who than start working as cashiers in supermarkets or replacement teachers at schools.

Andere Länder, andere Sitten. Some systems are better than others. And those that don't pay for work done are simply the worst and cannot be excused.

@grimmiges @TEG @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter

Again: work that PhD students do ONLY for the benefit of the University or the advisor should be treated as employment and paid accordingly. But work that a student does towards his thesis is for HIM, just like the work of any students at any lower level. And advising, like teaching, is work *by the advisor*, *for him* too.

@JorgeStolfi @grimmiges @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter Sketching my experience: bigshot PI gets millions to "do research", and uses that to buy say a dozen PhD students and maybe a postdoc or two who all work to actually do that research. The PI is last author on everything automatically and therefore gets the next big grant.

The PhD students are first and foremost working towards the interests of the PI; they get a doctorate at the end but won't necessarily be set for a career.

@TEG @grimmiges @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter

Yes, I know some such "feudal" researchers with big "research estates". But many of them DO give enough advice and help to the students to more than compensate what they get from the students. >>

@TEG @grimmiges @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter

Becoming a good researcher without going through a PhD program is like becoming a world-class pianist without the help of a piano teacher and doing a zillion hours of practice with his/her supervision. It is not impossible, but very very hard. Choosing problems, developing theories, planning experiments, analyzing data, writing convincing papers --- I learned all that in my PhD, and would hardly learn it otherwise.

@JorgeStolfi @TEG @grimmiges @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter I think this also raises questions of what counts as "doing research" the academy as a whole has created criteria and hierarchies designed to privilege and marginalize. To your analogy. It's like only recognizing classical music with classic training as high quality performance, and "street music" as inferior.
I think about participatory action research and other methods that are often positioned as unworthy, which is really problematic.
I also think about people who push back on this and think more expansively. It is nice to see books like Street Data come out to create greater access.

https://books.google.com/books/about/Street_Data.html?id=MEATEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

@ZingerLearns @TEG @grimmiges @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter

I did not mean that classical music is better than other types. Just that if that is what one wants to be, one must invest an insane amount of work AND get the guidance of a good teacher. Same for world class athletes, glass blowers, astronauts...

@JorgeStolfi @ZingerLearns @TEG @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter

Didn't realise that NASA, ESA etc. don't pay those entering their trainee programme.

Glass blowers only get paid when they are masters of their art and can sell it. Well, back in the Medivial Age (they do get paid in Stockholm's Skansen, however...)

And it would be insane to be paid for training as a world class athlete.

Or while in in-service training. After all, you do it for yourself not your company, right?

@grimmiges @JorgeStolfi @TEG @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter I would just ask who is allowed entry into these professions and fields if the extensive work of training is unpaid? Who can afford to do that?
As a point of reference, in the US at least, the majority of reputable Ph.D. programs are funded, where graduate students are paid (hopefully at or close to) a living wage and have their tuition paid. Similarly, college students whose families make less than particular thresholds go to college for free.
This also raises questions about what is an individual or private good? And what is a public good? Like k-12 education.