Analytic philosopher turned data scientist. I have been teaching university courses in philosophy, statistics, and economics for the past eight years. Now looking to change careers to data science and machine learning. I love both analytic philosophy and working with data, especially building machine learning models to get new insights from natural language data.
Jeff Haines
Karma: 20
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I really enjoyed hearing about you, O Carciente!
In some ways your remind me of myself (well, not the musical talent bit). I did a BA in philosophy/political science from an unremarkable state university, bounced around a bit at some random jobs, then went into a PhD program in philosophy.
I would say, first of all, don’t sell yourself short about getting in to a top 20 school. At least for a MA, it is probably not as hard as you might think. A couple of years ago I applied to several artificial intelligence MS programs. The easiest one to get in to was Johns Hopkins (may not be top 20, but is probably close enough). I have also known many people who got one MA or another from Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, or Stanford. Yes they are smart and capable, but not noticeably more so than other graduate degree holders, in my opinion. (I have even known some undergraduates of questionable talent who went on to do a MA in philosophy at Oxford).
In my experience working in (and of course taking courses in) higher education for the past 10 years, the modus operandi of many of the MA/MS programs at big-name universities is to charge a lot of money for the name recognition. Ultimately this is why I turned down Johns Hopkins—I wasn’t willing to spend around $50,000 for an MS when I could get one at another perfectly good (albeit lower ranked) university for less than half the price. For many of the MA/MS programs at top unis, as long as you meet their minimum prerequisites (e.g., a MS computer science program won’t admit you if you never had an algorithms course) and requirements (3.0 GPA usually; they often don’t require GRE), you will get in, so long as you can pay.
Unfortunately many employers do seem to place weight on the school you went to. For MA/MS degrees, though, I think the school you went to says more about your disposable wealth (or tolerance of risk) than it does about your ability or knowledge.
Now, for PhD studies (and maybe the rare funded MA program) it is another situation entirely. Getting into a top-10 or top-20 program is extremely competitive, and, well, good luck with that. I also went to an unremarkable uni, had very good GRE scores, and barely got into a top-40 program in philosophy.
You mention pursuing an academic path (which of course would require a PhD). I would probably recommend against that. (Full disclosure—I am currently a university lecturer outside the US and am looking to leave academia myself.) Yes, I am sure your professors recommend taking an academic path because it worked out for them 20 or so years ago (selection bias!). But it is a high-risk, low-reward path—especially in some fields like philosophy (I am less familiar with the job market in psychology, but I doubt it is much better). Even if you were to manage to get into a top-20 school, you would be facing a saturated job market. In my PhD studies the most qualified job-seeker I met was a post-doc at Yale (don’t remember where he got his PhD) with a book deal from Oxford University Press. He got a position at a not so good university in a really boring part of the US, likely earning less than that typical economics BA holder. It is safe to assume if you don’t have a Yale postdoc and OUP book deal, you will get something worse. In my time in my PhD program, there were a few “successes” who went on to tenure-track jobs worse than the Yale postdoc’s, but far more either (1) accepted an adjunct position somewhere for pitiful pay and no advancement prospects or (2) gave up and left academia after countless job rejections (and learning that their applications were one of 500 or 600 for a single opening).
Given recent trends in higher education (ever higher numbers of graduates from PhD programs, lower numbers of people going to college, more reliance on adjuncts and online learning), it is unlikely that many academic job markets (especially those in the humanities and social sciences) are going to improve any time soon. Don’t get brainwashed into thinking that an academic path is the best (or for that matter even a plausible) route into improving the world. What I would recommend is getting a MA or MS, especially in a more quantitative field (and from as good a university as you can afford, given employer bias on the issue). That will give you a lot more options, both in the EA world and among higher-paying employers.
As for 80,000 Hours, I think everybody runs into difficulty and disappointment there. After just receiving my 20th or so EA job rejection, I came here to read about other people’s experiences… and, well, it seems even the exoribitantly high achievers get rejected. I think 80,000 Hours is are probably doing the best they can, but there is an extreme amount of labor supply (it is good for EA as a movement that so many people want such jobs) but relatively little labor demand.
I think your summer camp idea is interesting and worth pursuing (although it also sounds like a lot of work!). I would just say that while you are pursuing that idea, keep investing in your skills, either through a MA/MS or at least by taking MOOCs or something similar.
Sorry for the long comment. You touched on some personal issues for me. XD