I am in the field of applied math, and it took me 6 months to produce a paper. And now, I am out of ideas for new papers.
What should I do? How do I even continue? This is sooo difficult…
Hey, think about all the mathematicians that were way smarter than you, did way more, and still had to get a regular job to support themselves.
You’re not better than them, are you? You don’t deserve more before others who have less?
I am not I your field, so take this as you may: I have seen two things in common across fields when it comes to prolific publishers.
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low hanging fruit. There are papers that need to be written or have never been written simply because people see it as low hanging fruit and too easy or low effort. This issue for the field would be that people still want to reference something that says this simple idea in their paper. This means that the people who write these ‘low hanging fruit’ papers get cited a ridiculous amount for their simple, basic, bullshit paper.
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collaborations. My PI (again, different field) is up there as one of the top contributing authors of the field and is easily what you would consider a prolific publisher. The has anywhere between 2-4 publications per year in high impact journals. And this isn’t counting posters, presentations, or the occasional bonus authorship you get for just being around when that paper was written. She does this through constant networking with people and collaboration in projects. She is also more than happy to look at other people’s long running projects and take out a slice of data and do a writeup on it. There are several projects people do that look at huge data collections, but then only analyze what they cared about and ignored the rest. Those become easy papers to write.
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My math prof loved math. He pursued a B.Sc. in Mathmatics and looked for work. He could teach high school, or go back to school. He got his M.Sc in mathmatics. Looked at what he could do as a career. He could teach mathmatics at colleges, or go back to school. He got his PhD. in mathmatics from a prestigious school. He looked for a career. He could teach mathmatics at a 3rd rate University or die of hunger, homeless and chased by wolves.
He taught at my school and was a very strong proponent of not studying pure math. Comp Sci, Actuarial Sciences anything but pure math. He said math was a rich kids hobby, not a career.
I had a military history professor, and he felt the same way. He opened his entry level classes with a speech that amounted to “nobody should be here because they want to work in military history. ROTC kids and military buffs only; all you can do with what this class covers is teach this class, and this lecture hall has as many students in it as there are jobs in this field.”
Well, I am in applied math rather than pure math.
I can go do programming, but that scene seems just as hostile now.
More seriously, applied math is great, especially if you are good at probability and aren’t too disgusted by AI. Most of AI as far as I can tell is a mix of quite old fashioned probability, linear algebra, and numerics. There’s tons of money in it. Watch some fast.ai videos and a lot of marketing BS will be demystified.
If your math is applied, is there not some field of research where it is applied?
If you’re not planning on staying in academia, you should be developing professional connections right now.
Thing is, I suck at developing connections. Also people seem to dislike me by default…
For me it was far far far easier to get a decent job in computers than academia. More importantly my computer job is far easier than teaching or doing research. It pays far more money. I have far more job security, healthcare security, geographic security, etc. I have co-workers than I know and like…
My advice would be to ditch academia and just get an entry-level computer job, but it took me far too long to take this advice myself.
(Also you’re in another country, so I don’t know how that affects any of my questionable advice.)
The only guy I know who has a PhD in math is a postmaster at one of my local post offices. He seems to be doing okay.
That’s great to hear, but it sounds like he’s doing okay despite his PhD…
If someone doesn’t love “pure math”, then they don’t love math. Like most people, they don’t even know what “pure math” is. If your teacher only got a masters, it’s probably because they couldn’t finish the PhD.
Realistically academia is a terrible career for any field. But it’s not like everybody in academia is a “rich kid”. Many people love their field or like teaching or have no choice, etc.
If you want to make money, then you need to serve capital, militarism, etc. and not education, not science, not truth. Sure, “actuarial science” is a great way to do that.
It’s the age of conflict between doing what capitalism wants you to do versus doing what you love, what is true, etc.
idea: vapour-pressure deficit occuring in plantlife like trees because of difference in temperature of root to crown.
Compared to biological sciences in the USA at least, 6 months is pretty short for a paper. Did you get published?
Going to conferences and presenting your research can introduce you to some new ideas which can spark creativity.
Research is a bit of a slow grind so, take your time, and take care of yourself!
Talk to your advisor.
Over the seven years of my PhD (Physics), I was first or second author on less than 5 papers (3 iirc). However, I am really happy with the quality of those few papers, and so were the reviewers on my thesis and, ultimately, my employer after I defended. Unless you want to stay in academia and become a professor, the quantity is not that important.
Have a frank conversation with your advisor. If you are out of ideas, I bet they aren’t. You are a student, not an independent researcher, so the expectation should not be that you are the sole driver behind the direction of your work. As a personal anecdote, I majorly changed the direction of my thesis after about three years in because the experiments were just really not working. It led to my degree taking longer, but I was seriously lost in the wilderness of discovery until I had a series of discussions with my advisor about where we could pivot the work that I had already done.
Thanks a lot, I should talk to my advisor. That said, they are very busy; I took a mistake of going to a busy advisor…
Why are is your advisor so busy? Who is paying them to be busy? Is there enough cash to go around? Gotta weasel yourself in there for a piece of that pie…
The number of papers churned depends heavily on the field and even the advisor.
If you want to get a job, that probably depends more on your advisor, their connections, and your connections.
The important thing is not how much you publish, but how much your research can profit capital, the MIC, etc.
If you just want money, then you need to get into weapons, grifts like “AI”, etc.
What kind of applied math do you do? Does your advisor have any contacts with money?
Workers of the World Unite!
Maybe you can teach math?
I suck ass at teaching, also doesn’t one need enough qualifications to teach math?
[USA] A math degree? Which you presumably already have. iirc, A masters in any field to teach at community, a masters or doctorate in a specific field to teach higher. For highschool a single sunject credential, (Though a multi subject legally works) K-12 [Elementary] is a milti subject credential, and preschool is a masters teachers permit
Ah, yeah so I do not live in US, so
- I cannot teach in uni without PhD.
- I cannot teach in highschool and such, it takes way more effort to get into that scene in my country.
Thoguht so. Best of luck going foward.
Ah I forgot to say, thanks for thoughtful reply! Although it does not help me much, it should have been helpful to people in US.
Which country do you live in?
I live in South Korea, why?
Join other researchers?
Well how good is the paper? If you’ve solved a Millenium problem, you have it made, at least for a while. Heck, Brian Josephson got a Nobel (physics) for a 3 page paper he wrote while a graduate student. So cheer up, anything is possible.
Yeah so it is not bad, but not also great. I expect it to be accepted in a conference, dunno where it would go though. Thanks!
