Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderWell, I went from academia (after finishing my PhD) to industry, to get more Freedom, Ownership, Personal growth, Status and Expertise. Here is a blog post on my transition from theoretical physics to data science (and how it made my life much better): http://p.migdal.pl/2015/12/14/sci-to-data-sci.html I understand that Andriej Karpathy (my favourite author/lecturer in Deep Learning, by a large margin) had a wonderful PhD, in a fast-growing field, with a golden fall-back option. But most PhD students I know…
These pieces of advice are useful. However, they don't touch the bottleneck: mental health. And no, it is not "like any other demanding job". A PhD hits on two fronts - one is "all or nothing". If you spend years and still haven't submitted your dissertation, it is a career-ending failure. The other is its tie to one's identity. You put sweat, blood, and tears into your research, only to be rejected at a journal or conference because the result…
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 499
- Total comments
- 236
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-09-07 | A Survival Guide to a PhDFirst breakout · Best thread | wlrd | 319 | 124 |
| 2022-05-23 | A Survival Guide to a PhD (2016) | miguelrochefort | 2 | 0 |
| 2024-01-24 | A Survival Guide to a PhD | marcobambini | 4 | 0 |
| 2026-03-10 | A Survival Guide to a PhD (2016)Latest 20+ point return | vismit2000 | 174 | 112 |