The Suicide PhD Candidate Huixiang Chen (2019)(huixiangvoice.medium.com)
huixiangvoice.medium.com
The Suicide PhD Candidate Huixiang Chen (2019)
https://huixiangvoice.medium.com/the-hidden-story-behind-the-suicide-phd-candidate-huixiang-chen-236cd39f79d3
89 comments
Most universities have absolutely zero policy or protocol for changing supervisor.
I had to do this and even though everyone involved were exceptionally kind people with the utmost integrity, it was made pretty clear to me that if my old supervisor would have launched an even halfhearted campaign against me (they did not), nobody at the university would have stuck their neck out for some junior grad student.
And this was primarily b/c there is no established process. One should be able to:
1. Confidentially state to an ombudsman that you wish to change supervisor
2. Have the ombudsman obtain the consent of the would-be new supervisor to take on the student
3. Have the ombudsman inform the old supervisor that a decision had been made to change supervisor
4. The ombudsman, old, and new supervisors sit down and discuss what projects the student can keep persuing
If anyone here is faculty at a university and cares about their grad students, please promote something like this.
I had to do this and even though everyone involved were exceptionally kind people with the utmost integrity, it was made pretty clear to me that if my old supervisor would have launched an even halfhearted campaign against me (they did not), nobody at the university would have stuck their neck out for some junior grad student.
And this was primarily b/c there is no established process. One should be able to:
1. Confidentially state to an ombudsman that you wish to change supervisor
2. Have the ombudsman obtain the consent of the would-be new supervisor to take on the student
3. Have the ombudsman inform the old supervisor that a decision had been made to change supervisor
4. The ombudsman, old, and new supervisors sit down and discuss what projects the student can keep persuing
If anyone here is faculty at a university and cares about their grad students, please promote something like this.
I changed supervisors 5 years into my Mathematics PhD program.
As in your case, everyone was cordial. But even so, it was immensely difficult, because, as you said, there was no protocol for "breaking up" with the supervisor I was working with.
Luckily, he broke up with me when it became apparent that the academic relationship isn't working out, and he saw that I'm ~seeing other people~ attending conferences in a different field.
As in your case, everyone was cordial. But even so, it was immensely difficult, because, as you said, there was no protocol for "breaking up" with the supervisor I was working with.
Luckily, he broke up with me when it became apparent that the academic relationship isn't working out, and he saw that I'm ~seeing other people~ attending conferences in a different field.
I'd never make it in that world beacuse some guy I'm working with putting all these feelings into this relatively unimportant [0] working relationship freaks me out. It's like when you are growing up and you learn a girl likes you but is just way too in her head about it[1], thinking deeply about a relationship that isn't there, planning for a future with you without your input, makes my skin crawl.
[0] In life terms, your PHD advisor isn't going to hold you after your cancer diagnosis for example. Obviously its important for playing the higher ed game.
[1]https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/e/ea/Overl...
[0] In life terms, your PHD advisor isn't going to hold you after your cancer diagnosis for example. Obviously its important for playing the higher ed game.
[1]https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/e/ea/Overl...
"Your PhD advisor isn't going to hold you after your cancer diagnosis" — not saying this would never happen, but it's certainly not the norm. "Together till death do us part" (as, sadly, was the case here) is, however, common.
It sounds like you're taking about "that world" while not being a part of it, or having a clue about how things work there.
Mentorship is a relationship, and the relationship with one's advisor isn't just lifelong — it's enshrined in history forever.
Look up the math genealogy project. I can track my academic lineage hundreds of years back simply by going up the chain of who-was-whose-student.
It sounds like you're taking about "that world" while not being a part of it, or having a clue about how things work there.
Mentorship is a relationship, and the relationship with one's advisor isn't just lifelong — it's enshrined in history forever.
Look up the math genealogy project. I can track my academic lineage hundreds of years back simply by going up the chain of who-was-whose-student.
I dropped out of PhD altogether.
Back when I was in grad school, I TA’ed a physics course with an older grad student in our department, and although he was technically in our department (Princeton Physics) under an advisor here, he was actually living in New York and working in NYU Applied Math / CS department doing ML research. I didn’t ask about the administrative details but it was pretty weird.
100% agree, this is the crux of the issue. Pretty much everyone I know, myself included, felt used and taken advantage of by their PhD advisors.
The combination of complete control over their students (mainly due to being able to decide when/whether they can graduate) and the pressure of tenure and the publishing race makes it no surprise that so many professors slide into abuse. Reporting abuse while still a student is obviously extremely risky, and even reporting it after graduating can cause a career setback by giving up the recommendation letter.
I wonder if it would be possible to expand the role of the PhD committee (which is currently pretty much relevant only for the thesis defense) to become a replacement for a single advisor.
The combination of complete control over their students (mainly due to being able to decide when/whether they can graduate) and the pressure of tenure and the publishing race makes it no surprise that so many professors slide into abuse. Reporting abuse while still a student is obviously extremely risky, and even reporting it after graduating can cause a career setback by giving up the recommendation letter.
I wonder if it would be possible to expand the role of the PhD committee (which is currently pretty much relevant only for the thesis defense) to become a replacement for a single advisor.
I agree with all you said but am not optimistic about empowering the committee as a universal fix.
Power politics in academic departments were worse than any I’ve seen in my subsequent career. My committee was firmly under the thumb of my advisor. Any discussions I had with them about the pi being unreasonable were terse at best, and “we’ll talk in the next meeting when everyone is there” at worst.
> and even reporting it after graduating can cause a career setback by giving up the recommendation letter.
Recommendation letters should be dropped as selection means. Leads to extreme subjectivity, unaccountability, and opens the door to abuse.
Recommendation letters should be dropped as selection means. Leads to extreme subjectivity, unaccountability, and opens the door to abuse.
The power dynamic isn’t the inherent problem. Apprenticeship has been a successful training model for many hundreds of years.
The more central problem is the incentive structure of the academy. Genuine training outcomes cannot be measured by the bureaucracy and therefore don’t matter.
Without solving the incentive problem nothing can really be improved. In aggregate the most successful PIs will be the most ruthless blood sucking fraudsters. A few exceptional empathetic geniuses will sneak through on principle, but mostly we’ll continue hobbling along.
The more central problem is the incentive structure of the academy. Genuine training outcomes cannot be measured by the bureaucracy and therefore don’t matter.
Without solving the incentive problem nothing can really be improved. In aggregate the most successful PIs will be the most ruthless blood sucking fraudsters. A few exceptional empathetic geniuses will sneak through on principle, but mostly we’ll continue hobbling along.
> Apprenticeship has been a successful training model for many hundreds of years.
Is this meant as a proof that however it's done now is perfect? There are many tweaks one can make to the model to make it less lopsided and still keep the fundamental apprenticeship model. I am willing to bet that if you look at how it's done around the globe there are many ways of doing apprenticeship where the power balance is different, and historically it's probably also been practiced in many different ways.
Is this meant as a proof that however it's done now is perfect? There are many tweaks one can make to the model to make it less lopsided and still keep the fundamental apprenticeship model. I am willing to bet that if you look at how it's done around the globe there are many ways of doing apprenticeship where the power balance is different, and historically it's probably also been practiced in many different ways.
Apprenticeship is simply 1:1 training over some extended period. Of course, it can go well or very badly.
Focusing on the structure of that relationship and hoping that more bureaucracy will protect the most vulnerable PhD students from misaligned advisors just doesn’t seem to work in my experience.
The fundamental issue is the incentive structure. Without changing it you’ll just drive personal abuse further behind closed doors.
Focusing on the structure of that relationship and hoping that more bureaucracy will protect the most vulnerable PhD students from misaligned advisors just doesn’t seem to work in my experience.
The fundamental issue is the incentive structure. Without changing it you’ll just drive personal abuse further behind closed doors.
> Apprenticeship has been a successful training model for many hundreds of years.
This is such a bizarrely vague statement that it's meaningless. You and I both have zero clue what the environment was like for apprenticeships in these hundreds of years, or how issues like this were resolved. Further, if the system of apprenticeship was historically as abusive as PhDs seem to be today, then I'm not sure we should look to it for guidance.
Germany, for example, still uses apprenticeship for many careers. But there are a great many legal protections for Azubis (Auszubildende/apprentices) that protect them and provide avenues for changing companies and reporting issues. They have stronger legal protections than normal workers in some cases. It still isn't perfect and it can still be problematic to handle issues, but there's a system in place.
This is such a bizarrely vague statement that it's meaningless. You and I both have zero clue what the environment was like for apprenticeships in these hundreds of years, or how issues like this were resolved. Further, if the system of apprenticeship was historically as abusive as PhDs seem to be today, then I'm not sure we should look to it for guidance.
Germany, for example, still uses apprenticeship for many careers. But there are a great many legal protections for Azubis (Auszubildende/apprentices) that protect them and provide avenues for changing companies and reporting issues. They have stronger legal protections than normal workers in some cases. It still isn't perfect and it can still be problematic to handle issues, but there's a system in place.
> Apprenticeship has been a successful training model for many hundreds of years.
Have you ever read historical books about what it was like? Because quite a lot of that system was pretty abusive and controlling. Power differecial did caused quite a lot of harm in the past.
Have you ever read historical books about what it was like? Because quite a lot of that system was pretty abusive and controlling. Power differecial did caused quite a lot of harm in the past.
I talked to my advisor about this when we butted heads and he didn't see it this way at all. I am free to change advisors at any time and there is very little he can do to stop it. And thereby he looses all the time he invested in me. So it's really in his interest to make sure we get along. You just need to find another professor that likes you if you wanna switch. People don't jive with advisors regularly and at least in my department it happens regularly that people jump teams
> And thereby he looses all the time he invested in me.
Attribution rules mean you're still likely to need listing your former advisor as co-author, unless you completely scrap your work and pivots to something completely different. So I wouldn't count that as a total loss.
Attribution rules mean you're still likely to need listing your former advisor as co-author, unless you completely scrap your work and pivots to something completely different. So I wouldn't count that as a total loss.
And adding insult to injury is that the PhD candidate won't even know how bad it is until it's too late.
This is an extremely dark take that is certainly not true in most CS and EE programs. Students change advisors all the time and there are plenty of internal mechanisms to report misconduct and blow the whistle. The fact that the student felt bullied and pressured is of course extraordinarily unfortunate, but it has more to do with cultural issues and a particularly abusive and toxic working relationship set up in that research group and maybe institution.
Blaming the system is wildly off base.
Blaming the system is wildly off base.
I'm glad to hear that some schools have good internal mechanisms and a nontoxic culture, but unfortunately I suspect this is not the case in general.
In my case (a top school in the USA), even with copious and explicit evidence of misconduct, and a history of student complaints against my advisor, whistleblowing was a year-long nightmare during which the administration consistently backed the professor.
In my case (a top school in the USA), even with copious and explicit evidence of misconduct, and a history of student complaints against my advisor, whistleblowing was a year-long nightmare during which the administration consistently backed the professor.
The academic system is to preserve a very specific culture that happened to be really good at uncovering the truth. You can tell that because otherwise none of the rigmarole around degrees makes a lot of sense. The only way I know of to preserve cultures is a really lopsided teacher-student relation where the teacher has absurd amounts of power. Otherwise the culture won't be preserved.
There is this odd tension between academics and society where there was this system that was never designed for it is being treated like some sort of vocational certification system. It'll be a pity if academic culture gets destroyed on the way through.
Anyway, TLDR; I agree that the academic system is archaic and paternalistic but if that is a problem people should expect to go build a new system. Preserving a culture is going to get archaic in less than a generation.
There is this odd tension between academics and society where there was this system that was never designed for it is being treated like some sort of vocational certification system. It'll be a pity if academic culture gets destroyed on the way through.
Anyway, TLDR; I agree that the academic system is archaic and paternalistic but if that is a problem people should expect to go build a new system. Preserving a culture is going to get archaic in less than a generation.
> but if that is a problem people should expect to go build a new system
Imagine you're walking on the street and see a helicopter crashed on a tree. You don't need to be a helicopter mechanic, or aeronautical engineer, or a pilot, to know that the helicopter shouldn't be on that tree. And you definitely don't need to propose new helicopter control methods to apply common sense and conclude that it's a bad thing that the helicopter crashed on the tree and we should try to not do that again in the future.
Imagine you're walking on the street and see a helicopter crashed on a tree. You don't need to be a helicopter mechanic, or aeronautical engineer, or a pilot, to know that the helicopter shouldn't be on that tree. And you definitely don't need to propose new helicopter control methods to apply common sense and conclude that it's a bad thing that the helicopter crashed on the tree and we should try to not do that again in the future.
Sure, but imagine you go to a university and see a pretty standard mentor-apprentice relationship designed to perpetuate a culture. We don't need to be psychologists to apply common sense and say it is done that way for a good reason and alternative approaches should be trialled in a different system.
It would be good to have a better system, but we can develop it without risking the valuable academic culture. You can see how valuable it is because people keep signing up to it despite the archaic nature of its traditions.
It would be good to have a better system, but we can develop it without risking the valuable academic culture. You can see how valuable it is because people keep signing up to it despite the archaic nature of its traditions.
Not only the mentor, but the whole academic system
Thanks but no thank
Thanks but no thank
What does it have to do with “paternalism”?
paternalism
the policy or practice on the part of people in authority of restricting the freedom and responsibilities of those subordinate to or otherwise dependent on them in their supposed interest.
the policy or practice on the part of people in authority of restricting the freedom and responsibilities of those subordinate to or otherwise dependent on them in their supposed interest.
The entire relationship between an advisor and the the candidate is paternalistic, the advisor holds so much control over the student’s future. I’m glad I quit in hindsight.
My limited experience of academia, as an under grad was enough to put me off academia for life. I much prefer doing and learning stuff, practical stuff, than jumping through academic hoops. I'll be glad when it's done finally. I can't imagine bothering with further study after since it all seems more geared towards pretense than anything useful.
Obviously this is my opinion based on my experience as an old student who came to it late just to see if had certain things been picked up in school I might have been able to go to university/college then. I don't know if my life experience has made me jaded by the experience, despite all benefit I have gained from it...
Obviously this is my opinion based on my experience as an old student who came to it late just to see if had certain things been picked up in school I might have been able to go to university/college then. I don't know if my life experience has made me jaded by the experience, despite all benefit I have gained from it...
Poor guy - very sad story.
A reminder not to put one’s work or academic achievements at the very top - they are not worth of loosing the peace of mind and moreover health/life.
Have to periodically check myself if my priorities are right.
It’s a whole skill how to do your best at work, but yet not take it too close to heart and keep hoping in eternal things and not temporal…
A reminder not to put one’s work or academic achievements at the very top - they are not worth of loosing the peace of mind and moreover health/life.
Have to periodically check myself if my priorities are right.
It’s a whole skill how to do your best at work, but yet not take it too close to heart and keep hoping in eternal things and not temporal…
It depends on the culture you were brought up in. In Indian/Chinese/Asian cultures ones sense of identity is typically tied up with academic achievements.
Idk perhaps. But men generally have a high suicide rate and I think there are two main contributers: feelings of loneliness and feelings of failure (both involving deep feelings of helplessness) and I think the latter applies in this case :/
If you find yourself explaining the intricacies of CNN algorithms in your suicide note, consider that you are too "dug into" a bespoke topic. In 2 years, none of these math problems would be his mind at all.
Choosing to do a PHD means you are willing to dig into a bespoke topic.
They had no way out of their predicaments - it seems their mentor had forced them into a corner, where either they had to produce fraudulent work, or abandon their entire career.
I think there is also a lot of cultural pressure at play also. Being caught after producing fraudulent work is also an easy way to have the same effect of abandoning your whole career.
And without a fruitful result of your life's work, it would feel that you have wasted your whole life.
And in some cultures, that would mean being terribly judged by your family and friends, and worse.
So they did really think that they had no other options out and everything else was "worse than death".
They had no way out of their predicaments - it seems their mentor had forced them into a corner, where either they had to produce fraudulent work, or abandon their entire career.
I think there is also a lot of cultural pressure at play also. Being caught after producing fraudulent work is also an easy way to have the same effect of abandoning your whole career.
And without a fruitful result of your life's work, it would feel that you have wasted your whole life.
And in some cultures, that would mean being terribly judged by your family and friends, and worse.
So they did really think that they had no other options out and everything else was "worse than death".
When you are young, and you are researching something as a PhD student, it really can seem like the most important thing in your life. All of your waking thoughts (and late night thoughts) can be shaped by it. When you walk outside you're not even noticing things around you but you're lost in thought about the current problem.
This is why it's so important to have some "spiritual" life of some sort as you cultivate an academic career, where you can practice appreciating the truly valuable aspects of life, and be grateful and peaceful when you need to be. For many people on this path you don't learn these things until much later in life. This is reinforced by your entire life being dictated by grades and exam scores until the moment you start your research.
This is why it's so important to have some "spiritual" life of some sort as you cultivate an academic career, where you can practice appreciating the truly valuable aspects of life, and be grateful and peaceful when you need to be. For many people on this path you don't learn these things until much later in life. This is reinforced by your entire life being dictated by grades and exam scores until the moment you start your research.
The audience for this note is his colleagues and this quandary is the central tenant leading to his decision.
While killing oneself over an academic pursuit seems extreme, getting a PhD is a pretty extreme thing to do and one of those things where it seems like one's life to that point has been entirely dedicated to the pursuit.
Reading Philip Guo's "The PhD Grind" several years back ended up giving me one of those multi-year Kafkaesque nightmares that caused me to wake up in a cold sweat. I get it.
While killing oneself over an academic pursuit seems extreme, getting a PhD is a pretty extreme thing to do and one of those things where it seems like one's life to that point has been entirely dedicated to the pursuit.
Reading Philip Guo's "The PhD Grind" several years back ended up giving me one of those multi-year Kafkaesque nightmares that caused me to wake up in a cold sweat. I get it.
Being forced to Produce fraudulent work has nothing to do with details of what the work was.
Follow up on what happened with the professor:
https://www.wuft.org/education/2021-04-23/university-of-flor...
https://www.wuft.org/education/2021-04-23/university-of-flor...
This was 3 years ago - I wonder what the investigation concluded.
I only found this petition demanding the disclosure of investigation - https://www.change.org/p/demand-that-uf-release-the-investig...
I only found this petition demanding the disclosure of investigation - https://www.change.org/p/demand-that-uf-release-the-investig...
Doesn’t matter. He resigned in disgrace, will never work in academia again. Honestly I’m now curious what he’s been up to the last two years.
As someone who very recently finished his Ph.D. in CS and was working full-time as a software engineer at the same time, I must say that getting a Ph.D. is difficult and takes a lot of willpower and dedication. It's not easy. Some people will say this person wastes years learning about this particular obscure problem, some people say this person doesn't have industry experience. But after getting a PhD myself, I have a huge respect for anyone who has a PhD. It's not easy. Too many times 5 minutes before meeting my advisor I wanted to tell him I wanted to quit or take 1 year off. I was under immense mental pressure and was having similar thoughts because my parents thought I was close to finishing but I was not. I don't know this particular person but I feel the pain he went through.
Ya, the nightmares towards the end when you are finally writing your thesis are the worst, but it was mentally fulfilling and I guess I don’t regret it, even though my thesis will never be read by anyone else. The things you actually learn and the thing you study can be really different.
I actually still have nightmares about not finishing my thesis for some reason, or having my topics rejected (although for some reason, the mental stress didn’t start until I got past that point).
Design topics are the worst: you can’t measure how fast they are or how effective they are. My advice to anyone who wants to do a PhD is to get into a field where the metrics are obvious, and then lean into Goodhart’s law for all its worth (but be super honest with numbers and careful with your methodology).
I actually still have nightmares about not finishing my thesis for some reason, or having my topics rejected (although for some reason, the mental stress didn’t start until I got past that point).
Design topics are the worst: you can’t measure how fast they are or how effective they are. My advice to anyone who wants to do a PhD is to get into a field where the metrics are obvious, and then lean into Goodhart’s law for all its worth (but be super honest with numbers and careful with your methodology).
How pervasive is corruption higher academia? The big names (Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Ariely, etc.) will make headlines, but how many more are there that we never hear about? I happen to know a prolific cheater who became a professor at a well-known university. I'd be surprised if their cheating stopped when they got to university and beyond...
In my naïve early years as a phd student (doing experimental organic chemistry), I tried to replicate some promising results.
I'm a poor experimentalist (so poor I later switched to computational chemistry), but these procedures were absolutely impossible to follow once you got down to the details.
My advisor told me "yeah. we don't try to replicate anything that comes out of that lab." and left it at that.
Sobered me up real quick to the realities of how widespread these bullshit cheating practices are.
I'm a poor experimentalist (so poor I later switched to computational chemistry), but these procedures were absolutely impossible to follow once you got down to the details.
My advisor told me "yeah. we don't try to replicate anything that comes out of that lab." and left it at that.
Sobered me up real quick to the realities of how widespread these bullshit cheating practices are.
You are right. I remember I read an article about a PhD student struggling to reproduce experiment results despite he performed them hundreds of times. And when he talked about his worries to his friends, they told him they were in the same situation. So everyone had to write in his/her paper the results the mentors wanted. I wish I could find that article. He was into biology.
Off-topic, but related: "Reproducibility trial: 246 biologists get different results from same data sets" (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03177-1)
Off-topic, but related: "Reproducibility trial: 246 biologists get different results from same data sets" (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03177-1)
While I don't think we'll have a Terminator 2 style Judgment Day in the future because of AI, I do think there's a great deal of misconduct in many areas that's going to be exposed due to massive abilities to cross-correlate data at nuanced levels.
People who have been up to shifty things should be very nervous, and those entertaining doing shifty things should consider that it's very likely it will be exposed in the next decade.
People who have been up to shifty things should be very nervous, and those entertaining doing shifty things should consider that it's very likely it will be exposed in the next decade.
I imagine as pervasive as it is generally. People lie abundantly on resumes, skip payment on their taxes, about 1 in 10 admit to shoplifting when polled, etc. Cheating is pretty openly present at universities nowadays.
Warren Buffett is pretty open that some kind of fraud is probably occurring at every one of his companies.
Warren Buffett is pretty open that some kind of fraud is probably occurring at every one of his companies.
>> But this paper has very severe issues: the design doesn’t make any sense and the reviewers also pay no attention to it. The paper was accepted at no reason which can make anyone feel guilty in this case.
After the deadline, crazy modifications of the paper were made and I started to...
My understanding:
- The paper didn't had proper review, yet got accepted. Hmmm.
- To save everyone faces, the author did some hacks/patches. Unfortunately, it deviated significantly from the original claim.
- The supervisor refused to help him.
Couldn't you just retract your paper? Thus, no need to lie.
After the deadline, crazy modifications of the paper were made and I started to...
My understanding:
- The paper didn't had proper review, yet got accepted. Hmmm.
- To save everyone faces, the author did some hacks/patches. Unfortunately, it deviated significantly from the original claim.
- The supervisor refused to help him.
Couldn't you just retract your paper? Thus, no need to lie.
The entire world of scientific papers is ridiculous and I wrote it many times.
I worked in one of the most prestigious labs in the world and seen it first hand.
And people wonder why 85%+ of papers in natural sciences are not reproducible. The incentives are all wrong in academia and science, it's just farming papers, farming citations, money and politics.
The two major wrong incentives are the pressure to publish on high impact papers for PhDs and postdocs, as their career depends on it (this gives them limited timeframes to fail and really explore), and lab funding being tied to the same incentive.
The pressure to publish is also a major factor behind tweaking data. As your PhD is ending you need those publications or you can forget an academic career. And it's a pyramid, so you need to get ahead of others in your situations. You tweak data, you pull your strings, you leverage your or your labs connections.
On top of that, add the fact that as soon as you move in any direction you are effectively entering a niche where the number of people qualified to review your paper is small, and everybody knows each other.
If you're working on helicoidal peptides as energy transmitters on metal surfaces it's a niche. Advanced perovskite synthesis? Niche. Hormonal regulation of some gland? Niche.
There can't be that many experts on pretty much any topic in science, those are all small clubs, even when you get to popular topics.
It's a perverse system.
I worked in one of the most prestigious labs in the world and seen it first hand.
And people wonder why 85%+ of papers in natural sciences are not reproducible. The incentives are all wrong in academia and science, it's just farming papers, farming citations, money and politics.
The two major wrong incentives are the pressure to publish on high impact papers for PhDs and postdocs, as their career depends on it (this gives them limited timeframes to fail and really explore), and lab funding being tied to the same incentive.
The pressure to publish is also a major factor behind tweaking data. As your PhD is ending you need those publications or you can forget an academic career. And it's a pyramid, so you need to get ahead of others in your situations. You tweak data, you pull your strings, you leverage your or your labs connections.
On top of that, add the fact that as soon as you move in any direction you are effectively entering a niche where the number of people qualified to review your paper is small, and everybody knows each other.
If you're working on helicoidal peptides as energy transmitters on metal surfaces it's a niche. Advanced perovskite synthesis? Niche. Hormonal regulation of some gland? Niche.
There can't be that many experts on pretty much any topic in science, those are all small clubs, even when you get to popular topics.
It's a perverse system.
From the student's chat log, he thinks that upon retraction, the supervisor would be so unhappy that
1. His future doctoral program would be hard.
2. It would be impossible to graduate.
3. He would be killed by the supervisor.
It's hard to say how much of these is warranted. He said 3 was concluded from a conversation with his supervisor. However, tragically he thought these are real enough for him that there was no other way than to suicide.
1. His future doctoral program would be hard.
2. It would be impossible to graduate.
3. He would be killed by the supervisor.
It's hard to say how much of these is warranted. He said 3 was concluded from a conversation with his supervisor. However, tragically he thought these are real enough for him that there was no other way than to suicide.
> My understanding:
Maybe take a step back and consider where your understanding is sourced from. I don't think I'd take the claims or ravings of a suicidal person as completely true representations of facts you need to account for the fact that this is all just the representations of someone that we know holds particularly extreme views.
Maybe take a step back and consider where your understanding is sourced from. I don't think I'd take the claims or ravings of a suicidal person as completely true representations of facts you need to account for the fact that this is all just the representations of someone that we know holds particularly extreme views.
The professor has resigned after being placed on leave, FWIW:
https://www.wuft.org/education/2021-04-23/university-of-flor...
https://www.wuft.org/education/2021-04-23/university-of-flor...
I think what's so fascinating about academia (really, university life in general) is the juxtaposition of intelligence with the cheating and fraudulent behavior that occurs.
I have never, ever cheated in school. I was really surprised when I went to college, with the amount of cheating that went on. A huge proportion of my class would take a shortcut. Get the answers to an assignment from a friend, cheat the clicker, plagiarize. A smaller subset were determined to never honestly do an assignment. Every assignment was approached, first and foremost, with a strategy for how to defraud it.
What's so interesting is that so many of these cheaters, the worst ones included, were extremely intelligent people. The most capable cheaters were as smart as the honest top of the class. (The slackers, who just wanted the degree, all muddled through with C's. Which is fine!). Academic fraud at the highest level, among tenured professors, is the most extreme possible case of this.
What gets me is that if you stop and think about fraud, about cheating, for literally a minute, you can only come to the conclusion that it's a huge disservice to absolutely everyone. It's obviously a disservice to the honest people in your cohort, because it robs them of advancement. It's a disservice to you, because you waste time cheating instead of learning -- which only leads to issues down the road, because you need the things you're learning about in school.
But I think most importantly, it's a joyless activity. Any pride you have in your work, passion for what you're doing, it's all permanently tainted by the fraud. One of the funnest, most enjoyable parts of life, in my mind, is getting really really good at something really really hard, and mastering it. These people are the absolute best. Tao Li, the stories in here [1], the Alzheimer's case. I mean I'm angry about these things of course, but more than anything, it's a pity/feeling bad for/disgust reaction. They wasted their whole lives on getting to the top of the field, only to suck all of the joy out of the achievement by cheating to get there.
These people are so clearly gifted. How is it that they cannot make this connection?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39643437
I have never, ever cheated in school. I was really surprised when I went to college, with the amount of cheating that went on. A huge proportion of my class would take a shortcut. Get the answers to an assignment from a friend, cheat the clicker, plagiarize. A smaller subset were determined to never honestly do an assignment. Every assignment was approached, first and foremost, with a strategy for how to defraud it.
What's so interesting is that so many of these cheaters, the worst ones included, were extremely intelligent people. The most capable cheaters were as smart as the honest top of the class. (The slackers, who just wanted the degree, all muddled through with C's. Which is fine!). Academic fraud at the highest level, among tenured professors, is the most extreme possible case of this.
What gets me is that if you stop and think about fraud, about cheating, for literally a minute, you can only come to the conclusion that it's a huge disservice to absolutely everyone. It's obviously a disservice to the honest people in your cohort, because it robs them of advancement. It's a disservice to you, because you waste time cheating instead of learning -- which only leads to issues down the road, because you need the things you're learning about in school.
But I think most importantly, it's a joyless activity. Any pride you have in your work, passion for what you're doing, it's all permanently tainted by the fraud. One of the funnest, most enjoyable parts of life, in my mind, is getting really really good at something really really hard, and mastering it. These people are the absolute best. Tao Li, the stories in here [1], the Alzheimer's case. I mean I'm angry about these things of course, but more than anything, it's a pity/feeling bad for/disgust reaction. They wasted their whole lives on getting to the top of the field, only to suck all of the joy out of the achievement by cheating to get there.
These people are so clearly gifted. How is it that they cannot make this connection?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39643437
I think you're deceiving yourself with your implication that cheaters tend to be "extremely intelligent." Being able to exhibit intelligence in short bursts is not the same capability as being able to exercise it for hours a day, for months on end, in a mental marathon like academia or many other career paths require. The cheaters that you're referring to, are at best, clever, which is inferior to being intelligent.
You may believe that they simply lack the desire to use their intelligence over a longer timespan, but there is effectively no difference between never wanting to do it and not being able to do it.
There may occasionally be cheaters who cheat because they get a kick out of it, and happen to be intelligent, but that isn't the norm.
You may believe that they simply lack the desire to use their intelligence over a longer timespan, but there is effectively no difference between never wanting to do it and not being able to do it.
There may occasionally be cheaters who cheat because they get a kick out of it, and happen to be intelligent, but that isn't the norm.
> But I think most importantly, it's a joyless activity.
You are completely wrong. Cheating is an art of its own, and mastering the skill of cheating is similar to mastering any other skill, like, for example, playing an instrument. Every time you cheat you take a risk because someone might get to know, and this risk might be thrilling.
You are completely wrong. Cheating is an art of its own, and mastering the skill of cheating is similar to mastering any other skill, like, for example, playing an instrument. Every time you cheat you take a risk because someone might get to know, and this risk might be thrilling.
Yep. Cheating was one of the few truly creative and exciting things I did in school and uni. Printing out large amounts of pieces of paper with 3.75 font that included significant parts of Halliday and Resnick allowed me to pass my physics exam. And copying things from them during exam without being noticed is almost like a thing from spy movies.
> What's so interesting is that so many of these cheaters, the worst ones included, were extremely intelligent people.
It's not surprising at all. In Computer Science at least, intelligent people quickly realise that CS university curriculum is not particularly useful or relevant for their further career or life. The degree (and high GPA in case of US) is just a hoop to jump through, required for getting a good job. So, they focus on what's important - degree and high GPA, while treating knowledge acquisition as a secondary priority.
It's not surprising at all. In Computer Science at least, intelligent people quickly realise that CS university curriculum is not particularly useful or relevant for their further career or life. The degree (and high GPA in case of US) is just a hoop to jump through, required for getting a good job. So, they focus on what's important - degree and high GPA, while treating knowledge acquisition as a secondary priority.
The biggest mistake I have made in completing coursework in many cases has been losing time understanding the readings when I could have used the time to rush through and submit the assignment.
Reading the material to understand it first? Not enough time will remain to do the graded work, and my grade suffers, but at least I’ve learned something and expanded my understanding.
Rushing through the graded work instead? Sometimes I have completely forgotten that the assignment had happened by the time the A arrives, and I have to locate the instructions to know what it had been about.
Reading the material to understand it first? Not enough time will remain to do the graded work, and my grade suffers, but at least I’ve learned something and expanded my understanding.
Rushing through the graded work instead? Sometimes I have completely forgotten that the assignment had happened by the time the A arrives, and I have to locate the instructions to know what it had been about.
Competition in academia is so vicious because the stakes are so small.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law
Those two are unrelated. Academic politics involve mostly those who have already won. Competition is fierce in the academia, because many people find academic research inherently interesting, but there is only money to employ a small fraction of them.
>Competition is fierce in the academia, because many people find academic research inherently interesting
Why do we keep telling ourselves that profit is the only way to motivate competition? It is a lie.
>there is only money to employ a small fraction of them
But there is plenty of money for profit? The dictates of our society are beginning to sound like a bunk academic paper.
Why do we keep telling ourselves that profit is the only way to motivate competition? It is a lie.
>there is only money to employ a small fraction of them
But there is plenty of money for profit? The dictates of our society are beginning to sound like a bunk academic paper.
But the stakes aren’t low in academia, you can have your career destroyed by a bad couple of years…
I think the quote is referring to the stakes of the underlying decision being made, not necessarily the stakes of the politics. Academics will argue in great detail about trivialities and those trivialities can decide careers.
Just go work in the industry, this obsession with staying forever in the ivory tower is perplexing
Most PhDs are not able to be competitive in the job market
A friend recently gave up a career in which his very soul was bound but which had kept him impoverished and struggling, always having to navigate churn to afford to live. He works in a call center now, and he’s so much less depressed that it’s like he’s a different person.
I mean that's great but honestly if you're a PhD or postdoc, being told that working in a call centre is better for you is hardly an encouraging thought. In fact, it would bring great shame to most people from their families.
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Don't these careers pay pretty low, especially for the level of education?
I always assumed that was the low stakes part. Its like making game-of-thrones-esque will-to-power moves at your McDonalds job.
After a victory in a vicious trial by combat: "To your knees, I now dub you assistant manager of McDonalds store #1263245, your pay now raises two and a half percent and you get to park a little closer to the building."
I always assumed that was the low stakes part. Its like making game-of-thrones-esque will-to-power moves at your McDonalds job.
After a victory in a vicious trial by combat: "To your knees, I now dub you assistant manager of McDonalds store #1263245, your pay now raises two and a half percent and you get to park a little closer to the building."
No, I get paid very competitively here in Germany
This brings up something very important for grad students to know these days, since I've heard of wronged students at various universities over the years...
Any grad student who encounters academic dishonesty by their advisor (at least in the US)... First go talk to a lawyer. A lawyer of your own, not connected with the university (except perhaps as an alum). Not a dean, not an ombud, not the kindly professor who's a friend to all students, not that other professor who sounded especially forthright in class.
Ask the lawyer for a free initial consultation. Where you might find they're comfortable handling this situation, or they might recommend a better lawyer for it. They can also talk about how the costs would work for your situation. You can check out a few lawyers this way.
Once you have a lawyer, they can advise you how to approach the university, and/or approach the university themself, to protect you, and to get the harm to you fixed.
Getting a lawyer doesn't mean you can't work things out with the university, and finish successfully.
But if you try to do it on your own, trusting university channels, there will likely be people who don't believe you, people who are friends/colleagues of the person committing misconduct and not wanting it to be a big deal, people scared of the person's influence, and people who will ruthlessly cover up wrongdoing to cover either their own butt or the university's. Also, if a dishonest advisor suspects you are a threat, they are in a position to easily ruin your career with impunity, and you don't want to gamble on their true character.
You need help navigating that.
You can come back from this. You just need the the help of a lawyer, so even the sketchiest elements of the university will know they have to take you seriously, and deal with you fairly. And a lawyer can help make sure that they follow through on fixing it.
Also, whatever you do, don't let yourself be destroyed like this person in the article did. It sounds like he didn't feel he had options, was extremely stressed, probably sleep deprived, temporarily disenchanted with the field by the situation, and had been physically threatened. His case was tragic. Don't let another tragic case happen. You have more power than you think, and you'll feel better about the field and life once this BS is fixed.
Any grad student who encounters academic dishonesty by their advisor (at least in the US)... First go talk to a lawyer. A lawyer of your own, not connected with the university (except perhaps as an alum). Not a dean, not an ombud, not the kindly professor who's a friend to all students, not that other professor who sounded especially forthright in class.
Ask the lawyer for a free initial consultation. Where you might find they're comfortable handling this situation, or they might recommend a better lawyer for it. They can also talk about how the costs would work for your situation. You can check out a few lawyers this way.
Once you have a lawyer, they can advise you how to approach the university, and/or approach the university themself, to protect you, and to get the harm to you fixed.
Getting a lawyer doesn't mean you can't work things out with the university, and finish successfully.
But if you try to do it on your own, trusting university channels, there will likely be people who don't believe you, people who are friends/colleagues of the person committing misconduct and not wanting it to be a big deal, people scared of the person's influence, and people who will ruthlessly cover up wrongdoing to cover either their own butt or the university's. Also, if a dishonest advisor suspects you are a threat, they are in a position to easily ruin your career with impunity, and you don't want to gamble on their true character.
You need help navigating that.
You can come back from this. You just need the the help of a lawyer, so even the sketchiest elements of the university will know they have to take you seriously, and deal with you fairly. And a lawyer can help make sure that they follow through on fixing it.
Also, whatever you do, don't let yourself be destroyed like this person in the article did. It sounds like he didn't feel he had options, was extremely stressed, probably sleep deprived, temporarily disenchanted with the field by the situation, and had been physically threatened. His case was tragic. Don't let another tragic case happen. You have more power than you think, and you'll feel better about the field and life once this BS is fixed.
I think this is bad advice. Bringing a lawyer to the academy is a fundamentally adversarial move, and barring exceptional circumstances will not go well (some female academics denied tenure in the 80s did do well from lawsuits on gender discrimination grounds).
Doesn't a professor committing academic fraud constitute exceptional circumstances?
If an advisor at the university is doing misconduct, the grad student should consult a lawyer.
The lawyer doesn't yet have to be facing the university, but you need advice.
All the anecdata I've heard is that elements of the university will be adversarial and underhanded in response to legitimate and constructive raising of something that elements would rather be buried.
The sketchy people will want to make the student go away, ideally an international student who can be sent back to their country, or otherwise neutralized. It's harder to come back from that. Having a lawyer from the start helps avoid being neutralized.
Some universities might be more or less sociopathic than others, and a rare school might be genuinely warm and fuzzy and benevolent in every aspect. But I strongly recommend starting by assuming that, for some elements of the university, it's much like a big for-profit corporation in behavior, only one accustomed to better PR and less accountability.
(I have a fondness for university ideals, and there are particular ones, and especially particular professors, who I respect highly. But there's realistic advice some people really need to hear, if they don't want to throw away brilliant careers in which they've invested their lives thus far.)
If an advisor at the university is doing misconduct, the grad student should consult a lawyer.
The lawyer doesn't yet have to be facing the university, but you need advice.
All the anecdata I've heard is that elements of the university will be adversarial and underhanded in response to legitimate and constructive raising of something that elements would rather be buried.
The sketchy people will want to make the student go away, ideally an international student who can be sent back to their country, or otherwise neutralized. It's harder to come back from that. Having a lawyer from the start helps avoid being neutralized.
Some universities might be more or less sociopathic than others, and a rare school might be genuinely warm and fuzzy and benevolent in every aspect. But I strongly recommend starting by assuming that, for some elements of the university, it's much like a big for-profit corporation in behavior, only one accustomed to better PR and less accountability.
(I have a fondness for university ideals, and there are particular ones, and especially particular professors, who I respect highly. But there's realistic advice some people really need to hear, if they don't want to throw away brilliant careers in which they've invested their lives thus far.)
Academia is a club of purportedly professional peers, with a strong social norm of supporting one another. If you bring a lawsuit against your advisor you might be able to get them fired, but you will kiss any chance of a career goodbye.
That said, I’d be curious to know of any examples of students bringing lawsuits against their advisors, and what the legal and professional outcomes were for student and advisor.
That said, I’d be curious to know of any examples of students bringing lawsuits against their advisors, and what the legal and professional outcomes were for student and advisor.
I didn't say bringing lawsuit against anyone. The lawyer advises how to approach the university, possibly approaches the university themself, and monitors how things are developing.
What you say highlights an aspect of the risk and harm to grad students that I didn't articulate, but is implicit in my suggestions of how to approach this. (And there's also a related aspect of "damaged goods" that a wise person told me about: even if it was clear that the student was totally in the right, the mere fact that they got burned by someone else suggests they might have lingering problems from the stress, and people would prefer a bright-eyed clean slate student.)
You need the right level of the university to know they have to take you seriously and cannot just neutralize you. And preferably before other university people compound the problem with "coverup is worse than the crime", creating more reason to cover up.
Approach this game-theoretic, and make it in everyone's best interests for the university to do the right thing, early -- before the underhanded and the arrogant scattered throughout positions of influence in the university do what they would do otherwise, and make the problem much harder to fix.
What you say highlights an aspect of the risk and harm to grad students that I didn't articulate, but is implicit in my suggestions of how to approach this. (And there's also a related aspect of "damaged goods" that a wise person told me about: even if it was clear that the student was totally in the right, the mere fact that they got burned by someone else suggests they might have lingering problems from the stress, and people would prefer a bright-eyed clean slate student.)
You need the right level of the university to know they have to take you seriously and cannot just neutralize you. And preferably before other university people compound the problem with "coverup is worse than the crime", creating more reason to cover up.
Approach this game-theoretic, and make it in everyone's best interests for the university to do the right thing, early -- before the underhanded and the arrogant scattered throughout positions of influence in the university do what they would do otherwise, and make the problem much harder to fix.
IIRC the 2021 follow-on article was more informative. Discussed at the time:
A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26211670 - Feb 2021 (191 comments)
A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26211670 - Feb 2021 (191 comments)
A follow-up post from 2021 that got some more attention here:
A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26211670
A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26211670
Academia: the only winning move is not to play
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bdjsiqoocwk(2)
This guy obviously wasn't cut out to do this sort of work. The real question here is was that his advisors intention or his misfortune?
It is very sad that Huixiang lost his life over a paternalistic, archaic system. And he isn't the only one who was badly impacted.