This editorial from Nature has been widely circulated, and for good reason. PhD training (so-called) has been in need of reform for decades now. When I was studying for a PhD in the 1980s the issues cited here were already apparent, and as graduate student president for two years I did everything I did to bring to light the inadequacy of funding, supervision, and working conditions. And after all that I never did graduate with a doctorate. Given that, decades later, I have enjoyed a successful academic career as a researcher, this seems to me to be more the institution's failing than my own. But changing direction will be, as the article says, like changing the direction of the Titanic. We're far more likely to see responses like this from Andrew Akbashev affirming support for exactly those parts of the PhD experience that don't work.
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