Comment by paulpauper
13 hours ago
A PhD in Arithmetic Geometry and a publication in a top tier journal is hardly mediocre in and of itself, as far the author is concerned. The equivalent for a software engineer is probably a leading AI engineer, with a strong publication count. I think a lot of people who are not mediocre are unaware of what mediocrity actually is. Yeah if you're only in the top .1% and comparing yourself to the literal best in the world, you will feel mediocre in that sense . A mid mathematician maybe publication in worse journals, teaching community college.
> A PhD in Arithmetic Geometry and a publication in a top tier journal is hardly mediocre in and of itself, as far the author is concerned.
It kinda is (sadly) because unlike engineering there aren't thousands of postdoc jobs in arithmetic geometry.
And ofc in a year because of AI all math PhDs will be mediocre by definition.
As a professional mathematician, if you’re not advancing your subfield of research consistently you are mediocre.
If you say so.
Saying most tenured faculty at research 1 institutions are mediocre seems to be stretching the definition, though.
Who’s saying that?
It's still impressive, but it's not enough.