今天晚上在B站主页刷到“老石谈芯”的一期视频——《“读博，是人生中仅有的两次摘星机会”专访帝国理工学院教授George Constantinides | Shilicon Talk第四期》，如本文标题，教授的这句话吸引了我，我把整个视频都完整地看了一遍，其中关于读博部分的对话我摘录如下，让我对于自己读博更加坚定了。

读博还是工作？

UP:

Let's move on to the next phase, because one ofmany of my viewers and audiences is actually students, and many of themactually would like to pursue academic track of research. But as a, you know,professor, um, so what do you think?

So let's talk about PhD 1st.Like many people wouldlike to become PhD, but recently, many people argue like a PhD, it doesn't needit. In many of the area. If you go to industry, you may not need a PhD degreeto get into together engineering job. So what do you think is the mainadvantages of a PhD specifically?

Professor:

Yeah, so I-I think what a PhD program gives youis is a solid block of time to really explore, um, deeply, some ideas, um,without the the constraints that you're typically encounter in a in anindustrial setting, of time to market, of issues around around ensuring ofchanging business units, and how that might may affect you, know, what you'reworking on.

UM it it provides you, ultimately, I think,a PhD

provided with the ability to go where your imagination leads, right And,and, of course, UM, the ability to to work with people that you hopefullyadmire in order to to help you to bring out those ideas and that work.

And so it's this,it's this solid time without

external pressures that would move you away from reaching for the stars, ifyou like.

And I think this is really interesting.

So in a sense, there are, there are two times in a in a person's life thatI've observed, where people really have that opportunity.

If you take an academic if you take an industrial route, okay, so there are twoIf you if you are planning to to go into industry, um, there are really twotimes where I think industrial people have had that, that opportunity to reachfor the stars that I've observed.

The 1st one is before they start.

If you do aPhD there, or sometimes, you know, they'llcome back and do a PhD.

So I've had some of my best PhD students have been people who've gone intoindustry and then come back.

But it's harder. So before you start, and there you have the um, you may nothave the experience to know what are the interesting problems, but youdefinitely have the intellect and you have the time, right?

So I think there, if you compare yourself, if you if you pay, pair up with agood supervisor who can help with the experience of what are the interestingproblems, then I think you can make great progress.

Then the other group of of industrial people who who have got thatopportunity are those who are actually very senior and often quite old, youknow, so they've reached the end of their career.

Maybe they have titles like Fellow, you know, in some you see, and and And they'veoften kind of earned enough for the company that they're given the freedom tocan explore whatever they want.

And and that's a great position to be in as well, if you want to to do thatexploration.

But you tend not to have that opportunity when

you're in your twenties, and so the PhD is really probably the only opportunity

you have when you're in your twenties to do that kind of,

UP:

yeah, yeah, I would definitely agree, because whenI think about the PhD journey, is more like, I can get the industry experiencelater.

But if we want to gain the experience of PhD, you probably don't have time atall in life, as you said, unless you reach to a very, very senior level or tothe end of your career.

But at that time, you probably don't have to drive for passions or motivationsto do to spend a few years, like just solely on research area.

But in terms of that, how would you think to find love, passion or researchdirections?

You mentioned a bell paired with a supervisor.

But for personal point of view, how do you think waysto pursue

Professor:

So, I mean, I think for me, it's about explorationand curiosity.

So, you know, even just these kind of discussions that you and I are havingtoday, they make me think about things, right?

And they they make me think about things maybe from a differentperspective.

So maybe tomorrow I'm going to start working on a slightly different problembecause of our discussion today.

And I think the that the idea of exploring everything that you encounter, to becurious to talk to people about it in the way we're we're doing now.

Um. And I do think, you know, picking an adviser who's on the same wavelengthas you, right?

So someone who's excited about the same stuff that excites you isimportant.

UM, these things are really how to to build that, that passion.

Um, I would say that the key thing really is, and this goes for also before youwould start to pitch, even as an undergraduate student.

Um, if you're taught, so people are taught in different ways, right?

But let's say you're taught, oh, you design a digital circuit by building acarnal map of this thing, right?

So, um, there are two ways that students tend to react to that, right?

One is they say, okay, I must memorize this way of doing this, and then if Irepeat it in the exam, I'll get good marks.

Yeah? And, and that's fine. Another way is to say, why are the Why shouldthe axis of economy be labeled in the way they are?

And what happens if I do it a different way?

What's the impact of that? Um?

And does this only work for boody and veins, or could I put like some otherdata type in there and still get the same result?

And if you always courage ask these questions, um, why is it done thisway?

Could I change the way it's done?

And could I generalize this? So, OK, it works for this, but is there somebigger group of problems that this technique could solve?

If you always ask that, then I think you naturally build this kind ofresearch and passion and interest in your in your field.

UP:

Okay, yes, I do absolutely agree.

So I think asking learning is not one way road, especially to ways you canlearn if you don't create or if you don t asking, you know, why and how can Iapply?

Professor:

And I think, I think, from a, you know, as a as a teacher, I think this isreally the joy of a PhD from my side, right?

So to have PhD students, this is really the joy, because, you know, we have 200students in per year in our undergraduate course, and I would love to be ableto have that one to one discussions about these things with all of them.

There's no chance to have to have that with 200 students.

So you find other ways of doing and you do it with groups and so on.

But with PhD students, you can.

So this is the real opportunity.

So instead of it being a transmission of knowledge, it becomes a community thatwe both play our roles to develop our knowledge together.

I'm not going to pass you the knowledge.

We're going to develop it together.

That's exciting to me.

谁适合读博？

UP:

Another question is, like, you said you've got 200students or undergraduate students, but is a PhD for everyone? I know theanswer probably is no. What do you think?

Professor:

I mean, so you can be a, you can be a very goodengineer without a PhD this trip.

UP:

Absolutely.

Professor:

Um and and so um.

So there are kind of two prerequisites for for um PhD.

Number one is you want to, you want to do research.

And doing research is not the same as doing engineering, right?

I mean, you can do research in engineering, but it's not the same thing asdoing engineering.

So, um, you need to,you need to to have an inventive perspective,right?

So I'm interested in developing new things.

So that's not true for everyone, and there's nothing wrong with with it ifyou're if that's not really your interest.

But also, you just need to be passionate about your field, right?

So if you, if you, if you want really passionate about your area, then yougenerally want to improve your area, not just work in your area.

And so this idea of improving your area is essentially research.

So I-I think there's, there's a kind of, there's a passion side of it, andthere's also, um, there's also an inventiveness sighed the bed.

And if you've got both of these, then you've got the prerequisites to do PhDNow,then the question is, do you want to do pitch?

And of course, you know, different people have different different views onthat.

So, you know, some sometimes there are financial reasons that it's not theright thing for you to do, and that's completely, completely fine, right?

But, you know, sometimes you have that freedom, and if you have that freedom,uh, you know, there's, there's a fairly limited window.

So I would say, grab it.

UP:

Absolutely.

So, I totally agree it's not for for many people orfor everyone to pursue it, but it's not impact your innovations or passion ordriving you to pursue, like you said, improve your field.

You don't have to be a PhD to improve your field, but, uh, but you can be, youknow, do that, you know, at any positions and stuff.

So, yeah, that's probably all from me.

Thank you very much today for, you know, have a chat with me as veryinsightful, um, you know, perspectives and thinking on all that can technologymight set, you know, future trend and research and academics and things.

Thank you very much. George, thank you.

Professor:

Thank you. And it's been great talking to you as well.

UP:

Thank you. Thank you. And take care.