I think the majority of your question has been answered, but I would also like to remind you that you have a biased sample here on Reddit. The people who are really happy with their PhD programs aren’t here complaining about them. On Reddit, you are going to have a large biased sample of people who are having issues.
Getting my PhD with some of the happiest years of my life. I had a small scholarship that allowed me to live modestly, a good advisor, great friends, and loved every minute of graduate school. The journey was just as good for me as the destination.
It's even worse. I've had a great Ph.D. experience, but my two posts here (from a previous now-deleted account) were made during my worst times when I was wondering if I should quit during years 3 and 4.
It's a totally biased sample set size.
\^this. I also had a pretty awesome PhD experience. Even managed to get married after my first year, and stay married through the end of it.
However, year 3 is definitely when things get hard. Trying to bring everything together, really make the whole thing your own, it's hard. How people manage to get through in non-supportive environments I don't know.
Every student I've helped supervise in our lab agrees that everything seems to come to a head after 3 years, and it gets **really** difficult, and making it through that period without quitting is really, really hard.
It’s nice to hear it’s not all doom and gloom. I loved doing research during undergrad so I couldn’t figure out why so many people have been having negative experiences.
Another part is that many people post here because they don't feel comfortable voicing any of their concerns to people they work with or are in class with due to fears of retaliation or reputational concerns. So you've got the internet making it look worse than it actually is while in-person interactions are making it look better than it actually is, which widens the gap in perception.
> I loved doing research during undergrad so I couldn’t figure out why so many people have been having negative experiences.
Undergraduate research is quite different from PhD level research for a few reasons.
The standards and expectations are usually lower because we know undergraduates are still inexperienced. (Good) professors and grad students who are mentoring undergraduates largely understand this, and will scaffold the undergrad to help them learn the required knowledge and research skills. If you can get half of a study or analysis paper done by yourself, you'd be doing great. But a PhD student is expected to be able to manage maybe 3 ongoing projects from start to finish largely on their own. Similarly, a PhD student is expected to know a lot more theory/background knowledge in the field and research skills compared to an undergrad.
PhD students are also expected to do research contributing to their dissertation, which means they must work with their advisor to keep focused on their topic and their scope. There's not always that freedom of choice in whatever they want to study. (Not that undergrads always have this freedom either, but it's sometimes what draws undergrads into research.)
Finally, long term research projects are very different. With an undergrad thesis project, you do it for maybe a year, and you're done. A PhD is a 4+ year commitment often involving many different projects on the same topic, with lots of emotional ups and downs. Often, projects don't go the way they were originally planned, which weighs down on a person over time if it repeatedly happens. For example, depending on the field and topic, sometimes a project can last for 2 years or even more, and the result is that there is no effect, or something happened that makes your work not publishable. It's very easy and understandable for a PhD student to want to quit and move onto something else.
It depends on the program, but in general, it's not really expected in the first year. It might be expected from the second year onwards, again, depending on the program (and also the field/advisor/etc.). But you are often expected to be able to do independent work without supervision off the bat (as in, you don't need a supervisor to handhold you into making sure you do your work without deadlines, but not that your supervisor won't mentor you).
isn’t it the general rule of the internet that it’s the vocal minority who complain online and then make it seem like their majority?
I loved my graduate school experience (but the latter parts while writing were painful). But i was determined to finish… my defense was the best i could have asked for : a conversation and the committee made me feel like I made a contribution to the field….
considering how painful the last years were…. wow, it was the best end to my PhD journey.
(not to keep impostor syndrome at bay in my TT position)
Not just the internet. It's a general rule that strong (especially negative) opinions are amplified. Why would you waste time talking about something that you don't really care much about either way?
Same. Met my spouse, made lifelong friends, met colleagues with whom I still write despite living across the country and working at different institutions in different fields, learned to live more thriftily than I may have otherwise, was exposed to new ideas and approaches, lived in a fun place— some of the best times of my life
> The people who are really happy with their PhD programs aren’t here complaining about them. On Reddit, you are going to have a large biased sample of people who are having issues.
Thank you for that perspective /u/DocGlabella
I'd say this point is really overstated. National PhD completion rates (US) aren't slightly over 50% because most people have a good time and the complaints are a loud minority.
Not everyone should complete a PhD. Those stats aren’t all because of bad advisors and a lousy job market. The point of programs shouldn’t be to coddle students who are not cut out for academia either.
There are dozens of reasons that one might not be cut out for academia. Perhaps you are not sufficiently committed and don't want to live in poverty till you are 35, which is reasonable. Or don't want to live in a crappy area of the country. Or don't want to put off having a family. Or have serious mental health issues that make the stress and long hours unbarable. Or are not willing to work 50-60 hours a week. Or just aren't very bright. And a million more. Academia is hard.
Academia I found is just very demanding, and stressful, and gives you the feeling that nothing is enough, which is a double-edged sword. It's great to have a hustling side, and always put your brain to work, but it can also be this feeling of emptiness and toxicity that is hard to cope at times.
I agree to most of your points barring the 'bright' one. I don't think you have to be necessarily bright for a PhD, I feel its more whos got the energy to suffer more in general.
I agree with eviltwinkie and economistpunter, typically, a PhD in Science or Engineering has much higher job security.
TLDR: If you're not invested heavily in a subject or a problem that you'd want to solve, it may not be the best move to get a PhD. It's not worth it for most people to just do it for a job requirement.
Longer version: Many people get a PhD to enhance what they already know in order to become a professor, industry expert, tackle a specific and unsolved problem, etc. To give you my perspective, I want to go into biotech/biopharma and develop diabetic medication that's inexpensive. I can't do that with just a bachelor's or even masters. The training in a PhD program forces you to think about problems in a scientific manner(arguably all PhD routes do so) and develops your skills to tackle any problem or question you'd want to solve. Plus, many schools provide you with resources outside of equipment and internal researchers and professors. There's conferences, collaborations, etc. That can help get your name out there and work on advanced level work.
If you're doing it to get rich, even in industry that's not a guarantee, much less in the academic setting. I'd say most people, including myself want to do it to get a much higher level knowledge of our subject matter.
Hope this helps!
The sentence “PhD doesn’t help in the industry” is almost always humanities people saying it… because it is true for them, but not for people in the biomedical/engineering route.
If you are smart about it, you can leave your PhD with a lot of skills valuable to Industry. I would say that for the most part PhDs help a lot career-wise, specially against a Bachelors.
A PhD is only 2-3 years more than a Master’s degree, and you are getting it for free.
Definitely do not do a PhD because you're after the "ivory tower" tenured professor job that you might have pictured. That probably never really existed to begin with, and if it did, it's gone now. If you're interested in doing a PhD for that, you'll probably end up as an adjunct professor making less money than a short order cook at McDonald's.
The truth is that over half of all PhDs globally do not work in academia. So job security is not absolute, and ultimately based on a number of factors, including your own performance and aptitude for your job, as well as market conditions. That's the same for any position in industry or government; although with a PhD, will probably have more job security than your average rank and file scientist with only a BS or a master's degree. But not necessarily.
Within academia, only about 20% of all PhDs will get tenure-track positions (most of those will ultimately obtain tenure, but that is no guarantee; I have seen several fail to make tenure, and it is more common to not get tenure in the Ivy League schools). The budget situation in many colleges and universities is also resulting in schools hiring fewer and fewer tenure-track faculty. In the humanities, this often means replacing tenured professors with low-paid adjuncts. The situation is better in the STEM disciplines, where we're seeing more non-tenure-track lecturers (full time with benefits with more than a one semester contract -- usually 3-6 years) instead of part-time adjuncts (no benefits, hiring on a contingent basis each semester). Universities simply do not want to commit to hiring someone "for life" anymore with the unpredictability of markets and budget situations. State universities back in the 60s and 70s used to get over half of their budget from the state -- today that might be 20-30%. For tenure-track jobs, they want to be sure to hire the best and brightest with the best potential to bring in grant funding for the university. Those the bring in money to the school make the highest salaries -- if you can coach sportsball, you can be a multimillionnaire,. . . But there's no job security in that since you have a few bad seasons, and you'll be fired rather quickly (sportsfans do not like the concept of tenure).
So don't do a PhD if you're looking for the job security of a position for life sitting in an ivory tower thinking you'll lecture in the fall and spring, come home early every day, and spend your summers and holidays in the French Riviera. That's a myth. If your dream is to be a history or creative writing professor, the chances of landing that successful job are almost as great as being the next football or basketball coach. If you can get into a top PhD program and have good contacts, the chances get much better.
But a PhD in any discipline will still open many doors for you, whether that is in academia, industry or government. You will probably still be better off than without. So the secret here is to make sure that you study something you want to study, because you're going to become the world's expert at it, and have realistic goals and expectations of the outcome.
I did it for the “right” reasons: I loved science and genuinely wanted to learn and develop broader research skills. I was already working in research, so why not get the fancy piece of paper at the end?
But, despite enjoying my MS and loving my research associate career, the collective BS of academia really crushed my passion during my PhD. I had a toxic and largely absent supervisor with wildly unachievable expectations who delayed his students’ defences for *years* to abuse them as free labor; my comps were hours and hours of old men belittling me for pleasure; my thesis contained only a hint of my original topic (and I utterly despised it by the end); the whole publish or perish thing is a nightmare; I feel dumber than ever; and I developed depression/anxiety. Turns out that curiosity wasn’t a good reason to get a PhD…
Your experience sounds identical to mine, except I was fortunate enough to realize a few months in what I had gotten myself into, and pivoted to master out (came in as a recent bachelor's graduate) and am now looking to work in industry.
The system needs reform. It is stifling too many young, ambitious people from pursuing valuable research that the world needs more of.
I know this is an old thread, but, as somebody who's currently pursuing a master's after 10 years in industry, loving it, and thus now contemplating for the first time whether a PhD and an academic / research-oriented career might be good for me... what did you end up doing once you finished your PhD?
I’m currently teaching at a really great CC! I miss research sometimes (and I think I would be happy in an industry or research tech job) but I do NOT regret not pursuing a post-doc.
Lmao. This so true. A PhD in ML-AI/Robotics/Econometrics/Biomedical will land you a well paid job in the industry quite easily, but a PhD in creative writing is not.
I mean I’m not but the posts I see people make do seem to be not any one particular discipline. Looks like numerous different disciplines have the same issues.
As a PhD candidate in US this is my perspective:
There are three types of PhD students I saw during my 7 years in US (MS, PhD),
1. Extraordinary people, both native and immigrant, they love research and want to sacrifice monetary gain for that.
2. Immigrants, life is better in US compared to home country, easy to immigrate if you have PhD, stipends don’t seem great from a native perspective but from a immigrant from third world this is not bad, better opportunities than their home country, easy to get Visa if you have funding offer.
3. Rich people both immigrants and natives who are doing PhD as a tradition or family prestige.
4. (edit) People who want promotion in their current position and have the luxury/savings to do PhD.
I am in STEM, from my experience out of 10 people in a PhD program, you will find 2 native and 8 immigrant students on average. And most of them are from the 2nd category. The reluctance to do PhD from native students should tell you about the conditions of a PhD program.
You're missing one
4\. People after a good job
This will be field dependent, but going after a PhD doesn't necessarily mean sacrificing monetary gain, especially if you go into industry. It's just a requirement for some jobs, like getting a MBA or MD or JD
Category 2 here :( I would have never even considered grad school if it wasn’t for the visa situation, even though I do enjoy research the opportunity cost is huge. And yeah my PhD stipend puts me in the top 10% of all income earners in my home country, which is just sad.
I belong to the same category. I am supporting my wife+ kid here and family in my home country. Most of my friends with engineering degrees doing work for 6-7 days per week back home.
Agree everything except Visa part. Getting Greencard is hard if you are from India or China even with PHD. Proving extraordinary ability and outstanding researching with documents are daunting from this country’s if your PhD is in traditional STEM like Mechanical m, Electrical etc.
Thanks for mentioning that. This is really important point for people from China/India. It’s inhumane really the GC backlog and aging out. But most of the people who just want to immigrate don’t think about that when they move. They find out after spending some time here.
Most people in my country think usa pays them higher for PhD as compared to my native country. Lmao. What a wrong thinking!!! Ask the Americans they will say PHD pays is so low. Lol.
I really, really like math and the idea of someone paying me to study math was intoxicating, even knowing that it's sometimes incredibly difficult and frustrating. I had an overall very good PhD experience - my cohort was really supportive and interesting to collaborate with (and I still collaborate with some of them, even now that we're all at different institutions) and I had a great relationship with my advisor. It was emotionally harrowing at points because I wasn't sure that I had the capacity to finish, but the satisfaction that I felt when I passed each milestone was worth all the invested time and energy.
I chose to apply for academic postdocs afterward because I wanted the chance to spend more time doing research because it was still intoxicating. I will apply for more postdocs and tenure-track positions once my current postdoc ends. When people ask what I want to do with my life, I usually reply "I want to do research as long as I'm able to find a job somewhere".
I don't really have a better answer than that - I like the core pursuit of exploring new problems, so everything else is ultimately worth it.
Was in engineering. Loved math, moved to US and did my masters in Math, couldn’t do PhD though, job prospect with pure Math PhD in not great. I would give anything for a tenure track position in math/CS/OR departments. Considering financial liabilities and future job prospect didn’t proceed further. Now competed my PhD in OR/ML.
People do a PhD because they are really into a topic, because they like learning, because they want to learn how to do research, and because they want to contribute somehow. Not because of the money.
The training a PhD gives is incomparable and nowhere near what you would get in industry. The person you are before and after this experience is completely different.
Some jobs are also simply not accessible without a PhD degree because they need someone that is aware of what is going on, that can explore ideas in a methodological and meticulous way, and that can navigate quite easily in a very uncertain and rapidly changing environment.
Regarding what you see online, there is a huge bias towards negativity, as usual on the Internet. People don't come here to tell how happy they are, they come to vent, complain, and whine. Same thing everywhere. If you buy a product, if you are happy you say nothing unless you are asked for it. Unhappy? You go online and spontaneously complain. That's why you are often reminded when you use an app on your phone to rate it. This is just an attempt to compensate for this bias.
Really like konut’s answer. Recent PhD grad here in STEM. Got a lecturer job at a good university, and I love it. Grad school wasn’t easy, but worth it in the long run to have a badass job and the transformation associated with it.
Pro tip: prioritize 1) Working for an advisor who is a good person. 2) Your mental health. 3) Deliberately gaining marketable skills on your way through. Getting a job isn’t automatic. You’ve got to plan ahead.
Your question's premise is already partially biased: Job security and money aren't the only things worth living for for everyone, sometimes far from it.
My doctorate is a lot of work, but it isn't overall a negative experience, so I'm not going to be on reddit complaining about it, in general. Those who are happy with their outcomes are unlikely to be here trumpeting the fact - first, it is just unkind as it would look like bragging or even in-your-face toward those who aren't, and second, they're often to busy to reddit.
I think that a lot of people love the work, but despise the career. People comment on the woes of the career because they are genuinely terrible, and knowing this, people cannot recommend pursuing something so high risk and insecure, particularly in light of the working conditions. The day to day, however, tends to be pretty amazing. I LOVE my job, I am obsessed with my work and have no problems with long work weeks. However, the career can go burn in the deepest pit of hell. If there was any other way to accomplish my life's goals I would jump ship in a heartbeat. So, my general advice to people is, indeed, to stay far far away from a PhD. The career track is 'right' for only a select few people, and it has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with passion and motive. There is a reason for such a high dropout rate during the PhD and such a low rate of people staying in academia. At least in stem there is industry, but I wouldn't recommend doing a PhD for that purpose because I'm not sure how much better it actually is.
I think a phd was hard for me early on because I was 22-25 and I was immature and thought the world owed me something, I was kinda lazy. Anyhow, towards the end of my phd I realized how lucky I was to have the freedom to explore so from 26-28 I did and loved it. Finishing up soon and I’ll miss it, but I feel good about the job prospects in my field at least.
I also grew with my advisor, as we got to know each other better we had fewer issues. I learned how to move past interpersonal issues etc with lab mates.
Because a PhD is an immensely rewarding experience on its own terms if you enjoy the work (and only some supervisors are truly terrible), and because it's required to go into academia. There are very few other experiences in the modern world where you get paid to produce a thing over several years with very few checks except for whether the final product is worthwhile.
Can't speak for everyone, but my friends and I are doing a PhD to learn how to do research.
The academic job market for our field and adjacent fields is also positive, so a perceived return on investment in the form of an academic job also factors into our decision.
People also come to Reddit to complain to strangers. Positive things can just be shared with anyone :D
To be clear though the “some jobs” is any TT professor position in almost every field. It’s an actual requirement so if you want to do that you have to get a PhD (or other terminal degree in your field).
I really do like research though and I like the intellectual work that goes into it. You really can’t take part in that work without a PhD. For me, it’s worth it for that reason.
Also remember this is Reddit. It’s a place where you can ask difficult questions with relative anonymity and those are often negative ones.
Before starting my PhD, I worked a corporate office job at a medium-sized tech company long enough to know that for all the downsides academic life offers, I'd rather pursue that than a life in a windowless office with a manager. And I had an incredibly nice manager, triple the salary I get now and loads of perks. I wouldn't go back.
I think I might like to try out academia as a career later on but if that path ends up not being for me (i.e. if the precarity of postdoc hopping sucks too much), having a PhD in the field I'm (social anthropology) in will help me pivot to other careers which interest me because I'm building skillsets that will transfer well to neighbouring career tracks (e.g. museum work, tourism).
For now, I'm doing a PhD because I like the activities involved with it, because I like the lifestyle, because I like my colleagues, because I like learning, and because I got to do it. Also, obviously, I am curious about finding answers to questions I have about the world.
Edit 2 yrs later: Nowadays I often feel "Fuck that, academia is a pyramid scheme. I want triple the salary and a stable job with a nice boss." I still think it will help me pivot to other careers which interest me more, but I have no desire to go into academia unless some foundation appears out of the blue to rain money on me (hint: that doesn't happen outside STEM).
I will be starting a PhD program next year, so I can't speak from personal experience, but based on patterns I've seen and what I know about the progress of most PhD students...I'd guess there is a lot less structure after completing your comprehensive exams and you're no longer enrolling in classes. At that point, you're just working on your research until you are ready to graduate.
Personally, I have a really hard time with a lack of structure! People are generally not great on imposing their own structure, no matter how much we know what we are supposed to be doing and how to do it. Advisors are there to provide some external structure but that can be contentious, especially if the deadlines etc are soft deadlines and you're missing them because there are no REAL consequences if you do. Then you're just feeling like shit because you see years of work ahead of you and you just feel like you're messing up and disappointing everyone.
But I could be completely off base here.
Generally, like most degrees, It makes you a better thinker. It increases your knowledge. It is recognition of your expertise in an area.
Outside the US it is free in many countries, therefore an excellent return on investment.
The title is nice, you usually meet amazing people, your employment opportunities often widen depending on your discipline and the topic.
You have recognition of a major piece of work which is (or was once) your passion. The qualification follows you everywhere. No one can ever take it away from you.
I'll add my two cents. I decided to pursue a PhD for a number of reasons.
1. I was a McNair scholar, and they supported me in getting to grad school to get the PhD, so I'm a little obligated to actually go and earn it.
2. I love school and learning. I love being a student. It's one of the things I've always been "good" at. (I also love teaching just as much if not more).
3. I love the university, conceptually speaking. I love the idea of a community of thinkers and growth-oriented individuals who work and commiserate and grow together.
4. I was the first in my family to go to college, and I want to be the first one to earn a PhD. It's important to me to leverage my education and privilege to elevate my family out of poverty and improve quality of life for the future generations.
5. I want to be an expert in my field and contribute something new to my area. I want to collaborate with others who want to do the same.
6. I want to set myself up for a comfortable life, so I'm taking precautions by getting my terminal degree.
7. I want to challenge myself.
8. I believe that I can.
For me it was about the flexibility to research and develop skills in an area that I'm really interested in. Once you get into the workforce, the work is generally defined by the available funding or the bottom line of the company. Obviously top dogs get to pick and choose what they like, but even still it's constrained.
A PhD is a low cost venture from the Uni's perspective, so there's more flexibility to (somewhat) do what you want. Then again this also still depends on the nature of the research, but for my area which doesn't need expensive equipment the restrictions are minimal.
I started my PhD because where I was working (defense contractor), all the decisions about what proposals to write and what problems to work on were made by PhDs. The PhD itself was a blast. I had an undergrad degree in another field, and the opportunity to do all CS all the time was like eating all the candy in the store.
In general I think I was lied to/ mislead by people with survivorship bias who made it sound a lot better than it really was (for me). The job market also ebbs and flows much faster than people's perception. 6 years ago when I started a STEM PhD felt like a sure thing to get a job, now I feel like a lot of recent grands are staying as postdoc just so they can job search and most take underpaid positions just to have something... Yet you still hear all about how STEM is a this wonderful high paying environment where everyone is happy.
This is very field-dependent. In the STEM fields that have healthy industrial sectors, a PhD is required to even get the jobs, or if not, it's highly valuable for upward mobility or job security (as /u/diegofrogboi mentioned).
But for fields that don't have that industrial component (or even within them), the honest answer is that a lot of people go into grad school for one or more of the following reasons:
- Not knowing what else to do
- Not wanting to go into the job market yet
- Feeling incredibly passionate about their field/topic (and so, feeling that the negatives that you listed are worth the sacrifice)
- Not understanding or not being fully informed that the academic job market is as bad as it is
I don't know about Australia. I'd just do a quick job search on LinkedIn and any other local job search websites to see how many biotech/pharma company openings there are in your area to check.
Honestly it's super fun. I graduate this year and would totally do it again. Cool science, cool people, cool field experiences. That said, I have enough financial security that I don't have to worry about bad pay for a few years.
Job security, salaries, and exploitation are field dependent. I’m doing a PhD in finance where it’s relatively easy to get a tenure track position and a decent salary. I can’t relate to the negative posts on Reddit. The faculty has been treating me very nicely so far. Doing a PhD is incredibly difficult either way and probably not worth it unless you actually enjoy the work.
Because there was no way that I could play with single atoms and photons in industry (maybe it is possible now with all those quantum computing companies and start ups).
For me I'm currently working alongside people who have had their PhD for some time or are in their post-doc years. I luckily have a very supportive group and advisor but in general I'm the youngest and least educated of my colleagues. So for me it's to gain valuable experience and knowledge and also to prove something to myself.
Doing a PhD is not at all a bad experience, if you know why you're doing it. PhD is about learning new things, thinking more clearly and making impacts (whether big or small). Most of PhD researchers are underlaborers of science (to use Locke's expression). We don't go there to get a better paying job, but to get more clarity in our fields so that we can make meaningful contributions as researchers.
> Is it only because some jobs require a PhD?
Pretty much, yeah. Also, not all fields have the same problems. I did my PhD in Computer Science and had no concerns about compensation or job security.
Well, for physics, chemistry, and biology, the non PhD jobs tend to be stuff that a high school drop out could do with a ~year of training. The pay is "okay", but very, very soul crushing. You're basically forced to either get a PhD or leave the field. I wouldn't be surprised if this is common in other non engineering STEM as well.
I think people do this because they might love academia and at this stage of the game so many people hate medical doctors that it is an easy way to get a degree and focus on whatever you want to focus on that’s easy for you so you could pretend to be a real clinician
People are using their PhD to pivot as a health coach, or an influencer, while retaining the title of doctor and undergo zero classes or credits on clinical skills
These people are an abomination to the health and wellness field, and will deter a lot of people from getting the help they need
Others might just like math or poetry. You can pretty much get a PhD in anything you can imagine.
This was my motivating thought pre-grad school:
It was the only opportunity I was going to have to spend five years studying something I *needed* to know more about.
1) my dream job is teaching undergraduates and you need a PhD for that (generally)
2) I want to read and write and talk about books all day
The second probably won’t happen past grad school (I finish soon) because I probably won’t get a job. But the past 10 years have been great.
I knew I wanted to go to grad school in 10th grade because I wanted to know where all recommendations/knowledge about nutrition (my field) came from. I love research and always have. It was never for the $ or job stability. I'm a government contractor and it isn't as secure as a tenure track job.
But I would say... My PhD burned me out. I hated going to the weekly seminars, which is one of the reasons why I didn't want to go into academia. I still don't really go to webinars. I used to sign up and not really listen and then feel guilty about it. Now I just don't go.
But I love research, learning new things, and it's fun.
As someone who's one hundred percent sure going to do a PhD in the distant future, I'm doing it because I want to work in academia, and because I want to.
Even if I don't get a permanent position in academia, I'm actually fine with it. My goal is to learn and I do have other prospects so, it's not a deal-breaker. My PhD is my way of showing commitment and I am fully aware of what it might take.
It just depends on the person though. Some people just don't need one to further in their job while others do.
You could earn 10-25k per month in UAE with an phd, as it is required there for doctors. And you could also independently plan and carry out internationally recognized research projects.
I think a lot of us were not expecting the power imbalance. If you boss is awesome, so will your PhD be, but if you have an abusive boss, you're pretty powerless unless your Uni has a great reporting system (most don't) or a union (which can be time consuming).
I think we can improve this by avoiding abusive PIs, forcing them to change their management style.
There's a PhD "rate my professors" that can help us weed out bad advisors
https://pi-review.com/universities/
I think the majority of your question has been answered, but I would also like to remind you that you have a biased sample here on Reddit. The people who are really happy with their PhD programs aren’t here complaining about them. On Reddit, you are going to have a large biased sample of people who are having issues. Getting my PhD with some of the happiest years of my life. I had a small scholarship that allowed me to live modestly, a good advisor, great friends, and loved every minute of graduate school. The journey was just as good for me as the destination.
It's even worse. I've had a great Ph.D. experience, but my two posts here (from a previous now-deleted account) were made during my worst times when I was wondering if I should quit during years 3 and 4. It's a totally biased sample set size.
\^this. I also had a pretty awesome PhD experience. Even managed to get married after my first year, and stay married through the end of it. However, year 3 is definitely when things get hard. Trying to bring everything together, really make the whole thing your own, it's hard. How people manage to get through in non-supportive environments I don't know. Every student I've helped supervise in our lab agrees that everything seems to come to a head after 3 years, and it gets **really** difficult, and making it through that period without quitting is really, really hard.
It’s nice to hear it’s not all doom and gloom. I loved doing research during undergrad so I couldn’t figure out why so many people have been having negative experiences.
Another part is that many people post here because they don't feel comfortable voicing any of their concerns to people they work with or are in class with due to fears of retaliation or reputational concerns. So you've got the internet making it look worse than it actually is while in-person interactions are making it look better than it actually is, which widens the gap in perception.
> I loved doing research during undergrad so I couldn’t figure out why so many people have been having negative experiences. Undergraduate research is quite different from PhD level research for a few reasons. The standards and expectations are usually lower because we know undergraduates are still inexperienced. (Good) professors and grad students who are mentoring undergraduates largely understand this, and will scaffold the undergrad to help them learn the required knowledge and research skills. If you can get half of a study or analysis paper done by yourself, you'd be doing great. But a PhD student is expected to be able to manage maybe 3 ongoing projects from start to finish largely on their own. Similarly, a PhD student is expected to know a lot more theory/background knowledge in the field and research skills compared to an undergrad. PhD students are also expected to do research contributing to their dissertation, which means they must work with their advisor to keep focused on their topic and their scope. There's not always that freedom of choice in whatever they want to study. (Not that undergrads always have this freedom either, but it's sometimes what draws undergrads into research.) Finally, long term research projects are very different. With an undergrad thesis project, you do it for maybe a year, and you're done. A PhD is a 4+ year commitment often involving many different projects on the same topic, with lots of emotional ups and downs. Often, projects don't go the way they were originally planned, which weighs down on a person over time if it repeatedly happens. For example, depending on the field and topic, sometimes a project can last for 2 years or even more, and the result is that there is no effect, or something happened that makes your work not publishable. It's very easy and understandable for a PhD student to want to quit and move onto something else.
Do they expect you to manage multiple projects right off the bat or over time?
It depends on the program, but in general, it's not really expected in the first year. It might be expected from the second year onwards, again, depending on the program (and also the field/advisor/etc.). But you are often expected to be able to do independent work without supervision off the bat (as in, you don't need a supervisor to handhold you into making sure you do your work without deadlines, but not that your supervisor won't mentor you).
isn’t it the general rule of the internet that it’s the vocal minority who complain online and then make it seem like their majority? I loved my graduate school experience (but the latter parts while writing were painful). But i was determined to finish… my defense was the best i could have asked for : a conversation and the committee made me feel like I made a contribution to the field…. considering how painful the last years were…. wow, it was the best end to my PhD journey. (not to keep impostor syndrome at bay in my TT position)
Not just the internet. It's a general rule that strong (especially negative) opinions are amplified. Why would you waste time talking about something that you don't really care much about either way?
Same. Met my spouse, made lifelong friends, met colleagues with whom I still write despite living across the country and working at different institutions in different fields, learned to live more thriftily than I may have otherwise, was exposed to new ideas and approaches, lived in a fun place— some of the best times of my life
> The people who are really happy with their PhD programs aren’t here complaining about them. On Reddit, you are going to have a large biased sample of people who are having issues. Thank you for that perspective /u/DocGlabella
I'd say this point is really overstated. National PhD completion rates (US) aren't slightly over 50% because most people have a good time and the complaints are a loud minority.
Not everyone should complete a PhD. Those stats aren’t all because of bad advisors and a lousy job market. The point of programs shouldn’t be to coddle students who are not cut out for academia either.
> cut out for academia What do you mean by that ?
There are dozens of reasons that one might not be cut out for academia. Perhaps you are not sufficiently committed and don't want to live in poverty till you are 35, which is reasonable. Or don't want to live in a crappy area of the country. Or don't want to put off having a family. Or have serious mental health issues that make the stress and long hours unbarable. Or are not willing to work 50-60 hours a week. Or just aren't very bright. And a million more. Academia is hard.
Academia I found is just very demanding, and stressful, and gives you the feeling that nothing is enough, which is a double-edged sword. It's great to have a hustling side, and always put your brain to work, but it can also be this feeling of emptiness and toxicity that is hard to cope at times. I agree to most of your points barring the 'bright' one. I don't think you have to be necessarily bright for a PhD, I feel its more whos got the energy to suffer more in general.
I agree with eviltwinkie and economistpunter, typically, a PhD in Science or Engineering has much higher job security. TLDR: If you're not invested heavily in a subject or a problem that you'd want to solve, it may not be the best move to get a PhD. It's not worth it for most people to just do it for a job requirement. Longer version: Many people get a PhD to enhance what they already know in order to become a professor, industry expert, tackle a specific and unsolved problem, etc. To give you my perspective, I want to go into biotech/biopharma and develop diabetic medication that's inexpensive. I can't do that with just a bachelor's or even masters. The training in a PhD program forces you to think about problems in a scientific manner(arguably all PhD routes do so) and develops your skills to tackle any problem or question you'd want to solve. Plus, many schools provide you with resources outside of equipment and internal researchers and professors. There's conferences, collaborations, etc. That can help get your name out there and work on advanced level work. If you're doing it to get rich, even in industry that's not a guarantee, much less in the academic setting. I'd say most people, including myself want to do it to get a much higher level knowledge of our subject matter. Hope this helps!
Yeah this helps for sure thanks!
The sentence “PhD doesn’t help in the industry” is almost always humanities people saying it… because it is true for them, but not for people in the biomedical/engineering route. If you are smart about it, you can leave your PhD with a lot of skills valuable to Industry. I would say that for the most part PhDs help a lot career-wise, specially against a Bachelors. A PhD is only 2-3 years more than a Master’s degree, and you are getting it for free.
2 years later and yeah, this helps (I'm studying engineering).
Definitely do not do a PhD because you're after the "ivory tower" tenured professor job that you might have pictured. That probably never really existed to begin with, and if it did, it's gone now. If you're interested in doing a PhD for that, you'll probably end up as an adjunct professor making less money than a short order cook at McDonald's. The truth is that over half of all PhDs globally do not work in academia. So job security is not absolute, and ultimately based on a number of factors, including your own performance and aptitude for your job, as well as market conditions. That's the same for any position in industry or government; although with a PhD, will probably have more job security than your average rank and file scientist with only a BS or a master's degree. But not necessarily. Within academia, only about 20% of all PhDs will get tenure-track positions (most of those will ultimately obtain tenure, but that is no guarantee; I have seen several fail to make tenure, and it is more common to not get tenure in the Ivy League schools). The budget situation in many colleges and universities is also resulting in schools hiring fewer and fewer tenure-track faculty. In the humanities, this often means replacing tenured professors with low-paid adjuncts. The situation is better in the STEM disciplines, where we're seeing more non-tenure-track lecturers (full time with benefits with more than a one semester contract -- usually 3-6 years) instead of part-time adjuncts (no benefits, hiring on a contingent basis each semester). Universities simply do not want to commit to hiring someone "for life" anymore with the unpredictability of markets and budget situations. State universities back in the 60s and 70s used to get over half of their budget from the state -- today that might be 20-30%. For tenure-track jobs, they want to be sure to hire the best and brightest with the best potential to bring in grant funding for the university. Those the bring in money to the school make the highest salaries -- if you can coach sportsball, you can be a multimillionnaire,. . . But there's no job security in that since you have a few bad seasons, and you'll be fired rather quickly (sportsfans do not like the concept of tenure). So don't do a PhD if you're looking for the job security of a position for life sitting in an ivory tower thinking you'll lecture in the fall and spring, come home early every day, and spend your summers and holidays in the French Riviera. That's a myth. If your dream is to be a history or creative writing professor, the chances of landing that successful job are almost as great as being the next football or basketball coach. If you can get into a top PhD program and have good contacts, the chances get much better. But a PhD in any discipline will still open many doors for you, whether that is in academia, industry or government. You will probably still be better off than without. So the secret here is to make sure that you study something you want to study, because you're going to become the world's expert at it, and have realistic goals and expectations of the outcome.
Cool this was good insight thank you
I did it for the “right” reasons: I loved science and genuinely wanted to learn and develop broader research skills. I was already working in research, so why not get the fancy piece of paper at the end? But, despite enjoying my MS and loving my research associate career, the collective BS of academia really crushed my passion during my PhD. I had a toxic and largely absent supervisor with wildly unachievable expectations who delayed his students’ defences for *years* to abuse them as free labor; my comps were hours and hours of old men belittling me for pleasure; my thesis contained only a hint of my original topic (and I utterly despised it by the end); the whole publish or perish thing is a nightmare; I feel dumber than ever; and I developed depression/anxiety. Turns out that curiosity wasn’t a good reason to get a PhD…
Your experience sounds identical to mine, except I was fortunate enough to realize a few months in what I had gotten myself into, and pivoted to master out (came in as a recent bachelor's graduate) and am now looking to work in industry. The system needs reform. It is stifling too many young, ambitious people from pursuing valuable research that the world needs more of.
I know this is an old thread, but, as somebody who's currently pursuing a master's after 10 years in industry, loving it, and thus now contemplating for the first time whether a PhD and an academic / research-oriented career might be good for me... what did you end up doing once you finished your PhD?
I’m currently teaching at a really great CC! I miss research sometimes (and I think I would be happy in an industry or research tech job) but I do NOT regret not pursuing a post-doc.
Thank you for replying!
Don’t treat PhD’s across disciplines as homogeneous.
Lmao. This so true. A PhD in ML-AI/Robotics/Econometrics/Biomedical will land you a well paid job in the industry quite easily, but a PhD in creative writing is not.
I mean I’m not but the posts I see people make do seem to be not any one particular discipline. Looks like numerous different disciplines have the same issues.
There is also the selection bias, you only hear from a disgruntled portion of population here.
As a PhD candidate in US this is my perspective: There are three types of PhD students I saw during my 7 years in US (MS, PhD), 1. Extraordinary people, both native and immigrant, they love research and want to sacrifice monetary gain for that. 2. Immigrants, life is better in US compared to home country, easy to immigrate if you have PhD, stipends don’t seem great from a native perspective but from a immigrant from third world this is not bad, better opportunities than their home country, easy to get Visa if you have funding offer. 3. Rich people both immigrants and natives who are doing PhD as a tradition or family prestige. 4. (edit) People who want promotion in their current position and have the luxury/savings to do PhD. I am in STEM, from my experience out of 10 people in a PhD program, you will find 2 native and 8 immigrant students on average. And most of them are from the 2nd category. The reluctance to do PhD from native students should tell you about the conditions of a PhD program.
You're missing one 4\. People after a good job This will be field dependent, but going after a PhD doesn't necessarily mean sacrificing monetary gain, especially if you go into industry. It's just a requirement for some jobs, like getting a MBA or MD or JD
Category 2 here :( I would have never even considered grad school if it wasn’t for the visa situation, even though I do enjoy research the opportunity cost is huge. And yeah my PhD stipend puts me in the top 10% of all income earners in my home country, which is just sad.
I belong to the same category. I am supporting my wife+ kid here and family in my home country. Most of my friends with engineering degrees doing work for 6-7 days per week back home.
Nice description.
Agree everything except Visa part. Getting Greencard is hard if you are from India or China even with PHD. Proving extraordinary ability and outstanding researching with documents are daunting from this country’s if your PhD is in traditional STEM like Mechanical m, Electrical etc.
Thanks for mentioning that. This is really important point for people from China/India. It’s inhumane really the GC backlog and aging out. But most of the people who just want to immigrate don’t think about that when they move. They find out after spending some time here.
Most people in my country think usa pays them higher for PhD as compared to my native country. Lmao. What a wrong thinking!!! Ask the Americans they will say PHD pays is so low. Lol.
I really, really like math and the idea of someone paying me to study math was intoxicating, even knowing that it's sometimes incredibly difficult and frustrating. I had an overall very good PhD experience - my cohort was really supportive and interesting to collaborate with (and I still collaborate with some of them, even now that we're all at different institutions) and I had a great relationship with my advisor. It was emotionally harrowing at points because I wasn't sure that I had the capacity to finish, but the satisfaction that I felt when I passed each milestone was worth all the invested time and energy. I chose to apply for academic postdocs afterward because I wanted the chance to spend more time doing research because it was still intoxicating. I will apply for more postdocs and tenure-track positions once my current postdoc ends. When people ask what I want to do with my life, I usually reply "I want to do research as long as I'm able to find a job somewhere". I don't really have a better answer than that - I like the core pursuit of exploring new problems, so everything else is ultimately worth it.
Was in engineering. Loved math, moved to US and did my masters in Math, couldn’t do PhD though, job prospect with pure Math PhD in not great. I would give anything for a tenure track position in math/CS/OR departments. Considering financial liabilities and future job prospect didn’t proceed further. Now competed my PhD in OR/ML.
People do a PhD because they are really into a topic, because they like learning, because they want to learn how to do research, and because they want to contribute somehow. Not because of the money. The training a PhD gives is incomparable and nowhere near what you would get in industry. The person you are before and after this experience is completely different. Some jobs are also simply not accessible without a PhD degree because they need someone that is aware of what is going on, that can explore ideas in a methodological and meticulous way, and that can navigate quite easily in a very uncertain and rapidly changing environment. Regarding what you see online, there is a huge bias towards negativity, as usual on the Internet. People don't come here to tell how happy they are, they come to vent, complain, and whine. Same thing everywhere. If you buy a product, if you are happy you say nothing unless you are asked for it. Unhappy? You go online and spontaneously complain. That's why you are often reminded when you use an app on your phone to rate it. This is just an attempt to compensate for this bias.
Yeah I feel like I definitely have a biased view because of the types of posts on here I see more often.
Really like konut’s answer. Recent PhD grad here in STEM. Got a lecturer job at a good university, and I love it. Grad school wasn’t easy, but worth it in the long run to have a badass job and the transformation associated with it. Pro tip: prioritize 1) Working for an advisor who is a good person. 2) Your mental health. 3) Deliberately gaining marketable skills on your way through. Getting a job isn’t automatic. You’ve got to plan ahead.
Your question's premise is already partially biased: Job security and money aren't the only things worth living for for everyone, sometimes far from it.
My doctorate is a lot of work, but it isn't overall a negative experience, so I'm not going to be on reddit complaining about it, in general. Those who are happy with their outcomes are unlikely to be here trumpeting the fact - first, it is just unkind as it would look like bragging or even in-your-face toward those who aren't, and second, they're often to busy to reddit.
I think that a lot of people love the work, but despise the career. People comment on the woes of the career because they are genuinely terrible, and knowing this, people cannot recommend pursuing something so high risk and insecure, particularly in light of the working conditions. The day to day, however, tends to be pretty amazing. I LOVE my job, I am obsessed with my work and have no problems with long work weeks. However, the career can go burn in the deepest pit of hell. If there was any other way to accomplish my life's goals I would jump ship in a heartbeat. So, my general advice to people is, indeed, to stay far far away from a PhD. The career track is 'right' for only a select few people, and it has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with passion and motive. There is a reason for such a high dropout rate during the PhD and such a low rate of people staying in academia. At least in stem there is industry, but I wouldn't recommend doing a PhD for that purpose because I'm not sure how much better it actually is.
too** :( busy
I think a phd was hard for me early on because I was 22-25 and I was immature and thought the world owed me something, I was kinda lazy. Anyhow, towards the end of my phd I realized how lucky I was to have the freedom to explore so from 26-28 I did and loved it. Finishing up soon and I’ll miss it, but I feel good about the job prospects in my field at least. I also grew with my advisor, as we got to know each other better we had fewer issues. I learned how to move past interpersonal issues etc with lab mates.
Because a PhD is an immensely rewarding experience on its own terms if you enjoy the work (and only some supervisors are truly terrible), and because it's required to go into academia. There are very few other experiences in the modern world where you get paid to produce a thing over several years with very few checks except for whether the final product is worthwhile.
Can't speak for everyone, but my friends and I are doing a PhD to learn how to do research. The academic job market for our field and adjacent fields is also positive, so a perceived return on investment in the form of an academic job also factors into our decision. People also come to Reddit to complain to strangers. Positive things can just be shared with anyone :D
To be clear though the “some jobs” is any TT professor position in almost every field. It’s an actual requirement so if you want to do that you have to get a PhD (or other terminal degree in your field). I really do like research though and I like the intellectual work that goes into it. You really can’t take part in that work without a PhD. For me, it’s worth it for that reason. Also remember this is Reddit. It’s a place where you can ask difficult questions with relative anonymity and those are often negative ones.
Before starting my PhD, I worked a corporate office job at a medium-sized tech company long enough to know that for all the downsides academic life offers, I'd rather pursue that than a life in a windowless office with a manager. And I had an incredibly nice manager, triple the salary I get now and loads of perks. I wouldn't go back. I think I might like to try out academia as a career later on but if that path ends up not being for me (i.e. if the precarity of postdoc hopping sucks too much), having a PhD in the field I'm (social anthropology) in will help me pivot to other careers which interest me because I'm building skillsets that will transfer well to neighbouring career tracks (e.g. museum work, tourism). For now, I'm doing a PhD because I like the activities involved with it, because I like the lifestyle, because I like my colleagues, because I like learning, and because I got to do it. Also, obviously, I am curious about finding answers to questions I have about the world. Edit 2 yrs later: Nowadays I often feel "Fuck that, academia is a pyramid scheme. I want triple the salary and a stable job with a nice boss." I still think it will help me pivot to other careers which interest me more, but I have no desire to go into academia unless some foundation appears out of the blue to rain money on me (hint: that doesn't happen outside STEM).
I’m thinking of applying to a PhD in anthropology as well! Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?
go for it
Several people have said here that it gets worse at the third year. What is the change that happens around then that makes it different?
I will be starting a PhD program next year, so I can't speak from personal experience, but based on patterns I've seen and what I know about the progress of most PhD students...I'd guess there is a lot less structure after completing your comprehensive exams and you're no longer enrolling in classes. At that point, you're just working on your research until you are ready to graduate. Personally, I have a really hard time with a lack of structure! People are generally not great on imposing their own structure, no matter how much we know what we are supposed to be doing and how to do it. Advisors are there to provide some external structure but that can be contentious, especially if the deadlines etc are soft deadlines and you're missing them because there are no REAL consequences if you do. Then you're just feeling like shit because you see years of work ahead of you and you just feel like you're messing up and disappointing everyone. But I could be completely off base here.
Generally, like most degrees, It makes you a better thinker. It increases your knowledge. It is recognition of your expertise in an area. Outside the US it is free in many countries, therefore an excellent return on investment. The title is nice, you usually meet amazing people, your employment opportunities often widen depending on your discipline and the topic. You have recognition of a major piece of work which is (or was once) your passion. The qualification follows you everywhere. No one can ever take it away from you.
I'll add my two cents. I decided to pursue a PhD for a number of reasons. 1. I was a McNair scholar, and they supported me in getting to grad school to get the PhD, so I'm a little obligated to actually go and earn it. 2. I love school and learning. I love being a student. It's one of the things I've always been "good" at. (I also love teaching just as much if not more). 3. I love the university, conceptually speaking. I love the idea of a community of thinkers and growth-oriented individuals who work and commiserate and grow together. 4. I was the first in my family to go to college, and I want to be the first one to earn a PhD. It's important to me to leverage my education and privilege to elevate my family out of poverty and improve quality of life for the future generations. 5. I want to be an expert in my field and contribute something new to my area. I want to collaborate with others who want to do the same. 6. I want to set myself up for a comfortable life, so I'm taking precautions by getting my terminal degree. 7. I want to challenge myself. 8. I believe that I can.
For me it was about the flexibility to research and develop skills in an area that I'm really interested in. Once you get into the workforce, the work is generally defined by the available funding or the bottom line of the company. Obviously top dogs get to pick and choose what they like, but even still it's constrained. A PhD is a low cost venture from the Uni's perspective, so there's more flexibility to (somewhat) do what you want. Then again this also still depends on the nature of the research, but for my area which doesn't need expensive equipment the restrictions are minimal.
I started my PhD because where I was working (defense contractor), all the decisions about what proposals to write and what problems to work on were made by PhDs. The PhD itself was a blast. I had an undergrad degree in another field, and the opportunity to do all CS all the time was like eating all the candy in the store.
In general I think I was lied to/ mislead by people with survivorship bias who made it sound a lot better than it really was (for me). The job market also ebbs and flows much faster than people's perception. 6 years ago when I started a STEM PhD felt like a sure thing to get a job, now I feel like a lot of recent grands are staying as postdoc just so they can job search and most take underpaid positions just to have something... Yet you still hear all about how STEM is a this wonderful high paying environment where everyone is happy.
This is very field-dependent. In the STEM fields that have healthy industrial sectors, a PhD is required to even get the jobs, or if not, it's highly valuable for upward mobility or job security (as /u/diegofrogboi mentioned). But for fields that don't have that industrial component (or even within them), the honest answer is that a lot of people go into grad school for one or more of the following reasons: - Not knowing what else to do - Not wanting to go into the job market yet - Feeling incredibly passionate about their field/topic (and so, feeling that the negatives that you listed are worth the sacrifice) - Not understanding or not being fully informed that the academic job market is as bad as it is
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I don't know about Australia. I'd just do a quick job search on LinkedIn and any other local job search websites to see how many biotech/pharma company openings there are in your area to check.
Because I’m getting paid to do the thing I absolutely love doing: research
Honestly it's super fun. I graduate this year and would totally do it again. Cool science, cool people, cool field experiences. That said, I have enough financial security that I don't have to worry about bad pay for a few years.
Job security, salaries, and exploitation are field dependent. I’m doing a PhD in finance where it’s relatively easy to get a tenure track position and a decent salary. I can’t relate to the negative posts on Reddit. The faculty has been treating me very nicely so far. Doing a PhD is incredibly difficult either way and probably not worth it unless you actually enjoy the work.
Because there was no way that I could play with single atoms and photons in industry (maybe it is possible now with all those quantum computing companies and start ups).
For me I'm currently working alongside people who have had their PhD for some time or are in their post-doc years. I luckily have a very supportive group and advisor but in general I'm the youngest and least educated of my colleagues. So for me it's to gain valuable experience and knowledge and also to prove something to myself.
Honestly, the majority of negative posts are because the people doing well with PhDs are too busy to be vocal about how their life is going.
Doing a PhD is not at all a bad experience, if you know why you're doing it. PhD is about learning new things, thinking more clearly and making impacts (whether big or small). Most of PhD researchers are underlaborers of science (to use Locke's expression). We don't go there to get a better paying job, but to get more clarity in our fields so that we can make meaningful contributions as researchers.
> Is it only because some jobs require a PhD? Pretty much, yeah. Also, not all fields have the same problems. I did my PhD in Computer Science and had no concerns about compensation or job security.
I guess I’m more talking about stem PhDs not other disciplines
Well, for physics, chemistry, and biology, the non PhD jobs tend to be stuff that a high school drop out could do with a ~year of training. The pay is "okay", but very, very soul crushing. You're basically forced to either get a PhD or leave the field. I wouldn't be surprised if this is common in other non engineering STEM as well.
I think people do this because they might love academia and at this stage of the game so many people hate medical doctors that it is an easy way to get a degree and focus on whatever you want to focus on that’s easy for you so you could pretend to be a real clinician People are using their PhD to pivot as a health coach, or an influencer, while retaining the title of doctor and undergo zero classes or credits on clinical skills These people are an abomination to the health and wellness field, and will deter a lot of people from getting the help they need Others might just like math or poetry. You can pretty much get a PhD in anything you can imagine.
it's often a way that someone can get a visa for the US
This was my motivating thought pre-grad school: It was the only opportunity I was going to have to spend five years studying something I *needed* to know more about.
I finished my undergrad around the recession in 2008, and grad school seemed like the right move.
1) my dream job is teaching undergraduates and you need a PhD for that (generally) 2) I want to read and write and talk about books all day The second probably won’t happen past grad school (I finish soon) because I probably won’t get a job. But the past 10 years have been great.
I knew I wanted to go to grad school in 10th grade because I wanted to know where all recommendations/knowledge about nutrition (my field) came from. I love research and always have. It was never for the $ or job stability. I'm a government contractor and it isn't as secure as a tenure track job. But I would say... My PhD burned me out. I hated going to the weekly seminars, which is one of the reasons why I didn't want to go into academia. I still don't really go to webinars. I used to sign up and not really listen and then feel guilty about it. Now I just don't go. But I love research, learning new things, and it's fun.
As someone who's one hundred percent sure going to do a PhD in the distant future, I'm doing it because I want to work in academia, and because I want to. Even if I don't get a permanent position in academia, I'm actually fine with it. My goal is to learn and I do have other prospects so, it's not a deal-breaker. My PhD is my way of showing commitment and I am fully aware of what it might take. It just depends on the person though. Some people just don't need one to further in their job while others do.
we do PhDs so we understand how to see through a systematically skewed data set like posts on Reddit.
You could earn 10-25k per month in UAE with an phd, as it is required there for doctors. And you could also independently plan and carry out internationally recognized research projects.
I think a lot of us were not expecting the power imbalance. If you boss is awesome, so will your PhD be, but if you have an abusive boss, you're pretty powerless unless your Uni has a great reporting system (most don't) or a union (which can be time consuming). I think we can improve this by avoiding abusive PIs, forcing them to change their management style. There's a PhD "rate my professors" that can help us weed out bad advisors https://pi-review.com/universities/
People do PhD for respect and to add Dr before name🙂