Academia's dirty little secret | The eye-opening truth about PhD research

In this video I talk about all of academia's dirty little secrets and how you can game the system to make your career more "successful" At least in the eyes of the current system.
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0:00 - Introduction
0:59 - How academics gauge success
4:29 - Gaming the H index - 4 Methods
11:32 - Follow the money
14:17 - Summary

[@anne.athenadura]

OMG scientists citing themselves is my biggest pet peeve!!

[@isaac80745]

That’s why I did not decide to go to grad school because I sort of got an introduction to that. I started reading more academic papers and getting a sense of what you were talking about. I went to school for physics.

[@lolixxxx988]

This is so depressing and true...but I knew what I was getting myself into when I started my PhD in food chemistry. I am not sorry, I am learning a lot right now, but I don't see myself spending the rest of my career chasing some very arbitrary number. There are people who "push" their results so that they get publishable data. Also, many times, you want to reproduce some relevant experiment to compare it with yours and they leave out something vital to the method and they can't be done the way the paper says it does. There are also those papers which only present results/data with no plausible explanation/theory to back those results. Ever since science became a profession, it ceased to be "for the higher search of knowledge", now it's just another rat race. How sad!!

[@DrAndyStapleton]

It can be demotivating but don't let that stop you from achieving what you are there to do which is to get a higher degree to serve your next goal… It is a bit of a rat race but if you play it wisely and understand what academia is really for it can really improve your perception of it. That is why I am here!

[@YNajjar]

Same here. I’m doing my PhD in Pharmacognosy now but I will definitely not be doing it as a full time career. I just don’t agree with the process, like this ridiculous H index and many other, especially when your whole career depends on whether someone else is willing to fund your research and basically keep your job ( grants). So, I will be switching careers when I’m done with my PhD. Health care is more appealing to me as a career.

[@lolixxxx988]

@@YNajjar Exactly!!! It is terrible to think that your career has nothing to do with your talent as a scientist...like it's not up to you to improve yourself or your career. It's great that you've already decided what to do after your PhD...I haven't yet. I was thinking of doing post grad work in another country, I have always wanted to learn other ways of working, but I haven't figured out what to do after that...I wish I could go on teaching but unfortunately, TAing is a little bit of a dead end job if you don't do research. It's a shame because I love it and teaching is far more meaningful than chasing grants/awards for the rest of my life.

[@YNajjar]

@@lolixxxx988 Agree! I mean there is the option of teaching in a non-research institution like a community college or simply being a lecturer. Don’t know much about the process, but I’m sure there is something out there that you’d love to do and yet don’t feel like you wasted your time doing a PhD. I don’t know about you, but I live in Chicago, USA. Academia and research here is pretty distressing too in my opinion. Since we’re in the same position, let’s connect and talk about it more! You can DM me on my Instagram: yahyanajjarr! 🙂

[@PrecisionSportScience]

@@DrAndyStapleton does the ORDER of the authors count for anything? (Ex: 1st author vs 2nd vs Last)

[@mau345]

I remembered a supervisor of mine who told me to separate two target traits that came from the same study into two separate papers… i asked why (by heart and mind, i felt uncomfortable) and the schmuck straight out answered that more papers the better. Im like whaat??? I know the world is shitty but try to be less shitty yknow?

[@Amanimi]

ahahahah my supervisor, dog bless her, also suggested me a similar thing, though she was very nice and otherwise ethical (as far as i could tell). i didn't hold it against her, as i realized what was the game that we were playing there.. but it was one of the (many) episodes that made me rethink the whole academia thing, and i'm really glad that i could finish and quit those environments.

[@mau345]

Its like a publicly available social credit score, it feels weird. You dont see lawyers, accountants and doctors having an official score of themselves as if theyre characters in a game with levels

[@drdopesec]

True, until and unless that extra citation is really helpful and critical for your work, it's all score game.

[@ahmhmd1990]

The h-index unfortunately created researchers who know how to write papers but they don't know science. I met people with high h-index and they are not that impressive. And I met some really clever people who worked at MIT as a postdoc and their h index is just 4.

[@sirmclovin9184]

It's just a matter of time until the wake-up call hits back at academia. The rise and fall of string theory, for instance, is a great example, but people have not started questioning the institutional structure of academia because of it yet.

[@berserker8884]

@@sirmclovin9184 very very true. Academia is too separate from the general job market and thus we have this shitty "bubble"(not in an economic way) of academics. Man especially the string theory fiasco...

[@sirmclovin9184]

@@berserker8884 I am not sure if we actually agree. To me the problem is that the academy is underfounded (because of lack of power, obviously), that we allowed business people to have too much of a say in how things are run, and that the "outside world" has become so precarious that people want to have a permanent academic position just for the job safety it provides.

[@sirmclovin9184]

@@berserker8884 Another opinion, if you allow me: I personally think that the crisis of string theory gets dwarfed by the crisis in the field of economics, which is in need of nothing short of a paradigm shift.

[@berserker8884]

@@sirmclovin9184 yes I see and I think I disagree to a certain extend. I think your view is too idealistic here, because in this current society and world, if you want to survive, you have to provide something of as immediate value as possible. The more abstract your contribution is, the less likely people will care about it and pay you for your work. Now, you might say that artists are a direct counterexample to my point, but not really, because they immediately provide value, i.e. enjoyment. Academia is based on the shaky ground of people having trust in knowledge and research, which can be very very shaky as you know. Requesting more funding sounds like a bad plan, not because the goal is bad, but because you will rarely succeed. As a math student, trying to convince a general audience to fund research in say K-theory sounds nigh impossible. I'm not saying that academia should be run more by bussiness people and be closer to the real world in that sense, not at all, but that we need to humble ourselves and take some notes of bussiness practices from the industry. Also, politically, we need to work harder on convincing the general audience why academia is as important as it is. This is a very hard task, but not many seem to try, understandably so, when they all try to simply survive. The pay is far from the only thing that matters here. The one thing that will save academia is funding though, I agree on this. We need more job and prosperity in the academic world, but this means that we need to be far more politically active than we currently are. One possible solution would be to try work closer with the industry, as much as that is possible, and instead of focusing so hard on h-index, try to maybe de-minmax the system a bit. Yes you risk a shittier researcher, but you also guarantie much better mental health and potentially higher quality research to a certain extent. IDK, those are just some ideas however and this is an impossibly difficult social issue to solve. I might be completely off the rails with my views here.

[@CaptZenPetabyte]

I have spent a LOT of time putting together PhD applications to a number of Unis, I have regularly been told that my ideas and presentations are great, however I get the, "...thanks, there is no opening at the moment". You have opened my eyes quite a bit.

[@jasondellatolla]

Andy, I honestly watch almost every single one of your vids and shorts, and I find them all valuable... but this one especially hit close to home as it angers me to my core when I see publications with 7-15 names on them. I am still waiting to hear back from universities re: my PhD applications; if i do end up getting accepted, I'll be the most prepared grad student on campus thanks to your insights ❤🤣

[@DrAndyStapleton]

Good luck with your application, Jason. That's my mission - to make you the most prepared grad student on campus!

[@jiwanliu]

Your videos are great! They are very helpful and insightful as they give us a view into the world of academia and what doing PhDs are like. I was wondering if you happened to have a podcast? I looked on your website and looked for one but unfortunately there was none there. If you ever do or are thinking about setting up a podcast, I would be very interesting in listening to it :DD thanks again for the great insight and advice!

[@DrAndyStapleton]

Check out my Podcast here: podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/publish-perish-or-podcast/id1108392119! Thanks for supporting the channel!

[@ivandersiley7161]

I've known a few overseas students studying for a PhD. Most of them, aren't academics; there knowledge is poor & their interest in the field is limited. It's all about getting 'the title'. The University! It's all about the cash. Failing these students, is not good for business.

[@CoalmineCanary7]

Great video! #truth. The system has definitely already imploded on itself.

[@Dr.Shymaa]

Amazing videos im following you recently, Regarding the topic of this video and the ridiculous H index as a way of evaluation and discrimination as well , Dr.Andy I heard that some universities put The H index officially as a hiring requirement for a position in Uni

[@Spaski1234]

Interesting insights Andy. 👏🧠 I wonder how this impacts the highly competitive practice of International University rankings? This to me seems to be an area open to irregularities and a lack of student transparency.

[@tomassilva1642]

Great content, seems like the h index really drives you insane, and btw, your beard is genuinely distracting, I love it

[@sujeetpawar7415]

Most junk papers are also getting cited from well know names in academia.

[@henleytv5065]

I am a third year student studying Computer Science and was even think of going into academia one day but after watching this video I feel like academia is not worth it. What is the point then? But anyway I love your your channel. : )

[@5kamon]

for citations do review paper early on.

[@sashanealand8315]

yeah Ive seen foriegn postdocs come to my lab and do all the work and write their paper soley on their own with no input from the PI then being forced to add the professors list of cronies onto the author list. When I asked them the postdocs had no idea who these people were, had never had any contact with them.

[@ademikunle]

The whole system is depressing! Most people gaming the system and only few people doing sincere science. I’ll stick to genuinely pushing the boundaries of knowledge though. And I’ll still get my desired job!

[@kittyroo9294]

Hi Andy, is the H index more for scientific fields or is it everyone? I am in the Humanities.

[@kvm2987]

I like watching your videos but I can't even get accepted for a PhD position, I don't even know why I'm doing it anymore 😂

[@asianistlife]

Can relate 😅

[@johnbarryyallagher1128]

Is there an index that focuses on first and second authorship through the Credit system of stated author contributions

[@na-cp9kp]

THIS ISSSS SPAAAART. Wait, it IS ANDY!

[@apollicino1705]

How does this index factor into emerging fields? I'm going into trans studies and there aren’t even really trans studies departments. The fact that this is still an emerging(trendy) niche is beneficial in some sense, but I wonder how this effects being cited. Perhaps this makes smart titles even more important. Are there other hacks or tips for people trying to expand and normalize a topic that is still not widely understood or utilized? There is also the issue of alot of problematic research to correct or clarify hopefully in a tactful way.

[@anthonyhalog3978]

Academic career and promotion, etc. are all about money. Being a Professor in Australia Means Money.

[@MisterTutor2010]

My h-index is 3 :(

[@MisterTutor2010]

The punchline is that it reached 3 shortly after I started grad school and has been struck there for more than a decade. It would have gone up in my graduate advisor and postdoctoral supervisor did screw me out of a total of4 papers.

[@Anonymous-ru9jv]

i feel like your audience is intelligent enough that "exclusive content" and "invite only" don't do much, to me they just seem like psychological tricks to make the stuff seem more, well, exclusive, even tho there's practically no difference between an invite only and non-invite only q&a in this context

[@Pongant]

It's instagram for supposedly clever people

[@joseluisermini6822]

Come on, you can wrap it up in 3 sentences this video. Also, more than secret is playing rules

[@anthonyhalog3978]

It's all about Metrics Nowadays! Disappointing!