ezyang's blog

the arc of software bends towards understanding

2011/09

Why you shouldn't do a PhD in systems

The opinions presented in this post are not necessarily mine. I’m just one very confused undergraduate senior with a lot of soul searching to do.

When I tell my friends, “I’m going to get a PhD,” I sometimes get the response, “Good for you!” But other times, I get the response, “Why would you want to do that?” as if I was some poor, misguided soul, brainwashed by a society which views research as the “highest calling”, the thing that the best go to, while the rest go join industry. “If you’re a smart hacker and you join industry,” they say, “you will have more fun immediately, making more impact and more money.”

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Let's play a game

Ever wondered how Haskellers are magically able to figure out the implementation of functions just by looking at their type signature? Well, now you can learn this ability too. Let’s play a game.

You are an inventor, world renowned for your ability to make machines that transform things into other things. You are a proposer.

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But there are many who would doubt your ability to invent such things. They are the verifiers.

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