I got a Ph.D. at age 66 (2018)

https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2018/07/its-never-too-late-stretch-your-wings-why-i-got-phd-age-66

by sohkamyung • 6 years ago

300 194 6 years ago

klenwell• 6 years ago

My grandmother spent the last several years of her life living off a fixed income happily occupied with continuing education classes at the local state university. It seemed like a pretty appealing lifestyle to me. It occurred to me that you might even mainstream the idea. Instead of building retirement communities around golf courses, build them around universities. If I'm not mistaken, I think I've seen small advertisements for such things in the back pages of the New Yorker.

Given the costs of modern universities, and the current identity crisis they're facing, this might be a new business model for them, especially if wealthy foreign students are to no longer be admitted to the country.

At the same time, I'm reminded of an exchange from an episode of This American Life about how in some parts of the country state disability payments have become a de facto retirement and welfare system:

Ethel Thomas: You asked me a while back what would be the perfect job. I thought about it, and I said that the perfect job, it would be like I would sit at a desk like the Social Security people, and just weed out all the ones that come in and file for disability.

Chana Joffe-Walt: At first, I thought Ethel's dream job was to be the lady at Social Security, because she thought she'd be good at weeding out the cheaters. But no. After a confusing back and forth, it turned out Ethel wanted this woman's job because she gets to sit. That's it. And when I asked her, OK, but why that lady? Why not any other job where you get to sit? Ethel said she could not think of a single other job where you get to sit all day. She said she'd never seen one.

I brushed this off in the moment. I was getting in my car. It was getting late. And also, it just did not seem possible to me that there would be a place in America today where someone could go her whole working life without any exposure to jobs where you get to sit, until she applied for disability and saw a woman who gets to sit all day.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/490/transcript

whatshisface• 6 years ago

That makes a lot of sense actually, because the reason we really need (as in need, not just want) retirement and welfare payments, are because some people are either not able to work or no longer able to work.

dugmartin• 6 years ago

My wife's great uncle (a retired college president) lives in a Kendall community near Dartmouth, his old alma mater.

Kendall has a focus on senior learning:

https://www.kendal.org/about-kendal/kendal-values/lifelong-l...

owenversteeg• 6 years ago

Oh, that is a really fascinating episode of This American Life. Thanks for sharing!

I would highly recommend anyone take a look at it - it explains where people go and what happens when those linchpin factories in a small town close down, and the growth of disability programs.

rfrey5• 6 years ago

I spent my 20s trying to get rich enough to become a professional student. My 30s too. Its looking like this is also how I'll spend my 50s, which are approaching like a steam train. Bring on the MIT Golden Years Home for the Intellectually Dissatisfied.

discordance• 6 years ago

Did you end up becoming a professional student? - If so, how's that going?

rfrey5• 6 years ago

Nope, still working - just incorporated my latest startup. 7th time the charm?

garmaine4• 6 years ago

Try a different country where higher education is nearly free (by comparison)?

cortesoft• 6 years ago

Most countries don't let random foreign students come study for free. You either have to be really good or pay your way.

jhanschoo• 6 years ago

When people talk about cheap or free, good-quality, higher education, the reason why it is so is because it is subsidized by the state. You usually have to meet several conditions to qualify.

rfrey5• 6 years ago

That helps... my dream involves personal financial independence though. I'd want to study what I wanted without regard for what was publishable, whether I was tainting myself with the Cross-Disciplinary Death Scent, whether the people I worked with were cited enough, etc. In other words, a hobby PhD.

It's a ridiculous and selfish goal, somewhat like wanting to own a tropical island or talking about spending ten years sailing around the world.

rajlego6• 6 years ago

Why do it through university when you have the internet and can more effectively learn things by yourself?

TeaDrunk• 6 years ago

Exposure to peers.

mikekchar• 6 years ago

Not the OP, and it's definitely not my style, but some people really like taking classes. They love the environment and energy that a university life gives them. I've known one or two people who have spent decades just taking classes (and accumulating degrees).

tasogare4• 6 years ago

That’s tech biaised perspective. For a lot of topics there isn’t much resources available online, or not of good quality enough to get started and for this university classes are really helpful. Moreover, university and using the internet are not mutually exclusive: a lot of universities offers remote degrees. Depending on the languages you speak it can be very cheap (French univ are around 400€/year + one travel for final exam).

mbreese• 6 years ago

I would say because there are things that you can more effectively directly from others. It's easy to learn facts by yourself. It's more difficult to learn what they mean, or how to analyze them, or (sometimes) even how to pronounce the terms. (Side note: maybe this is why there are such great debates in the tech world about pronunciations...)

That's not to say you can't learn remotely, but rather than in many fields, it certainly helps to have a teacher/guide.

danielscrubs2• 6 years ago

You are correct in that regard.

But universities really make you push through those things you are not motivated enough to do (and subjects that seems to have no purpose) and many times you find out it was fun after grooking it and it actually made a lot of other things way easier. The first week after the exam you might be upset over the exam, feel something was unfair, but eventually those feelings fade away and you have another telescope to view the world through and arguably you have gained some grit. The universities are a guiding hand off what the experts in their field find important to know.

It's a bit like ordering the chef's choice in a restaurant. Sure you might hate a piece and never come back, but you might also find new combinations of flavours that you start to love but looked tasteless.

Anyway how many of us haven't felt great because we can code and suddenly we are more logical? What happens when you suddenly start to study logic or even learn something extremely simple as De Morgan's laws [1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Morgan%27s_laws

PS. I would also say that good universities are very, very different from high school. When the professors say something, they've studied it for years so they use precise language and are strict in their teaching. Definitions mean everything for them and you can't just say language is fluid to score a point which seems popular nowadays.

PPS. University is free in my country, so I don't consider cost-effectiveness to get a job. Especially as it seems pretty much anyone can get a coding-gig (we had a hot-shot consultant from a very prestigious firm (if you have lived in US, you've heard of it) ask me why his CSV file wouldn't work in our software. He had just taken an Excel-file and renamed the file-ending to CSV instead of exporting it! He could code, it was just that his knowledge was very, very shallow. We where quite expensive too).

lordnacho• 6 years ago

While I do think a lot can be learned on your own, university in the traditional way gives you some things you might find useful:

- Peers that aren't just voices on an internet board

- Validation of the syllabus, and a sense of which parts are more important in the field. For instance, my econ tutor who was a famous Marxist didn't find it of high importance for me to study Marx.

- A timeline that is relatively inflexible. If you're in uni you need to learn how that proof works be the time of the exam, and you'll have to put off other things in your life. Outside of uni you can learn it today or when those things have happened.

bregma2• 6 years ago

Google is not a very good teacher for learning about stuff you didn't even know you didn't know about. Sure, it's not impossible on your own, but it's where formalized education excels.

University is also an excellent facility for making contacts in your field. Not every expert hangs out on Slack.

jimbokun4• 6 years ago

Most of the arguments for/against work from home/work in an office setting for business apply to in person university/online learning, too.

rfrey5• 6 years ago

Teadrunk said it in another reply - peers. I really want to hang out around smart, curiosity-driven people who are pushing the boundaries of knowledge. I realize that describes a small subset of PhD candidates and professors, but I believe they exist.

PeterisP2• 6 years ago

People are very different, and most can't learn more effectively by themselves. This is an approach that works well for some students and very poorly for the majority for whom a structured learning environment is pretty much a prerequisite for sustained progress.

edge172• 6 years ago

People learn effectively in different ways. In my mid-30's, I've come to realize that I get the most from my time taking university classes to study robotics vs trying to learn it on my own. For me, I find the added pressure of a grade helps push me harder. As a younger person grades were annoying, but as an older person I just use the pressure to my own advantage.

jmeister• 6 years ago

A PhD is supposed to train you to formulate, grapple with, and solve novel problems that contribute to the progress of the chosen field. As well as prepare to train students in the future.

It’s a skill that cannot be learnt from books or lecture videos. You need intimate apprenticeship under an expert.

jonathanstrange2• 6 years ago

I did it the other way round, became a professional student, then PhD student, then postdoc. Now that it's no longer very likely that I'll get tenure - for various reasons that mostly have nothing to do with my scientific performance - I'll have to spend time trying to get rich enough so I don't have to be a professional student any longer. I'll have to fund a company for the first time, while getting close to my 50s, and better earn some money with it.

I don't regret anything, the bottom-line of the story is just that it's hard to know in advance which strategy is better, and even afterwards you can never be sure. That's the problem with the counterfactual reasoning that is the basis of these kind of life decisions.

rfrey5• 6 years ago

Sorry for the roadblocks it sounds like your career has hit.

I think I chose correctly - I'd only really enjoy a PhD if I were doing it as a member of the Leisured Aristocracy. I only regret not having entered that club, despite having worked through three software booms where everyone else with a compiler and powerpoint deck apparently got stinkin' rich.

AndrewKemendo• 6 years ago

I guess I don't see why it wouldnt always be optimal to try and gain financial independence first. That allows maximum flexibility and a time buffer to switch careers/industry if needed.

pletsch• 6 years ago

What's your PhD in?

SamuelAdams• 6 years ago

You know, just about every major university needs good IT people to run the place. Many offer free tuition as a perk of working there. For example, MIT is currently looking for a software developer:

https://careers.peopleclick.com/careerscp/client_mit/externa...

And they offer tuition reimburstment:

https://hr.mit.edu/benefits/tuition-plan

ALso here's some california universities for West Coast people.

https://jobs.universityofcalifornia.edu/site/advancedsearch?...

at_a_remove• 6 years ago

Many do offer free tuition as a perk of working at them, but look very very closely, there's often a catch. I spent entirely too many years trying to find my way out of the maze created. They did a great job at leading me around by my nose for a long time, more fool I.

dragonsh• 6 years ago

Very inspiring to highlight education and learning is lifelong. Ph.D. even though symbolism (not really needed if only aim is knowledge assimilation and creation through learning), will serve as a big boost in confidence for middle age workers, who think there aren’t enough opportunities for them.

Also Ph.D. gives chances to work with younger people keeping middle and older generations more active and alive.

I hope to continue learning in my middle and old age like the post, not sure of Ph.D. though. But may consider if it opens a way for me to work alongside young researchers can learn new things from them and feel alive.

BeetleB3• 6 years ago

I think we should be careful not to conflate the pursuit of knowledge with acquiring a PhD. The latter is a very constrained and narrow way to do it, and can easily disappoint.

As I get older, the (non-financial) value of the PhD keeps diminishing in my eyes, whereas the pursuit of knowledge hasn't. As I have less time on Earth, I want to optimize my time, and much of PhD work is orthogonal to my goals of gaining knowledge. A PhD will force you to spend years on an extremely narrow topic (of course, acquiring some breadth along the way). When you're older, that time is precious. It better be a problem you really are passionate about.

Consider:

1. You likely will work on your advisor's research ideas and not your own.

2. You will have to fulfill several steps tied to the culture of academia, and none of these is needed to acquire knowledge. But tradition is tradition, and you have to do it.

3. There can be a lot of politics involved - also orthogonal to acquiring knowledge, but you will have to put up with them, play them, and suffer because of them.

4. Professors will often work you harder than you'll want at an older age. Their rationale is often a variant of "Well, if you want a career in research/academia, this is the workload you will have to deal with". But a 60+ year old usually has very different goals. Of course, I have seen plenty of professors who are sympathetic to such people.

Overall, if you're at an older age, don't do it unless you already have a research problem you really want to work on, and can find a sympathetic advisor who cares more about you than their own careers.

Disclaimer: My view on this topic is a bit biased. I spent most of a decade in grad school (at a younger age) but eventually quit the PhD program. I was at the point where I felt I had attained most of the benefits of a PhD except that final paper (acquired a lot of knowledge, published in journal, lots of personal development/introspection, gained much from being around the intellectual environment, etc). I quit because my work was not good enough to get my dream research jobs (in academia or industry), and spending the 2 or so more years fulfilling my advisor's requirements knowing it would not lead me to my dream jobs was just pointless. Sure - I could get a postdoc and do enough good work there to land my dream job, but I decided it wasn't worth the gamble.

I often fantasize about becoming financially independent and going back to university and hopefully do some research (in a different discipline this time). I do miss the intellectual discussions, etc. But while the studying and research problem aspect appeal to me, I really don't have the patience to put up with all the negatives I listed above. And I didn't even get into how in some disciplines (or sub-disciplines), journal publications are a racket (with both the publisher and academia being guilty parties). If I ever did anything interesting and novel enough, I'd likely write it up in a blog post or at most post to arxiv. I really don't want to participate in the current journal publishing culture.

But of course, kudos to the person in this submission!

analog31• 6 years ago

In my view, a broader statement -- not necessarily a counterpoint -- is that the grad school experience is highly variable. For instance my own experience was quite positive.

>> 1. You likely will work on your advisor's research ideas and not your own.

You choose a professor based on how their research program appeals to you, and there is often room for compromise. This is a conversation that happens before joining their group. There are some benefits to starting with at least a suggested project. In my case, such a project idea came with a fully equipped lab including a quarter million 1986 dollars worth of gear. But my unique interests and abilities definitely steered my project in a direction that my advisor had not originally imagined when I started out.

In the humanities, where the cost of research is close to zero, you might have more latitude, again depending on how you choose your advisor. I have a friend who literally created her own project and pitched it to a couple of departments who agreed to let her pursue a dual discipline PhD in education and psychology. She was 60.

>> Overall, if you're at an older age, don't do it unless you already have a research problem you really want to work on, and can find a sympathetic advisor who cares more about you than their own careers.

True at any age. I think that in general, there aren't really that many top rungs for professors to grasp for, and most are comfortable having a relatively stable career and focusing on the educational aspect of their research programs. I live in the shadow of a great university, and some of my relatives are professors, and this pretty much describes their attitudes. They have their own grips about the system, but every system has a system.

I sympathize with not finishing, and would never hold it against anybody. One thing finishing did for me was force me to keep going until my project was really ready to go out the door. Granted that's something I would also have learned the hard way, had I started a start-up, but that was just not on my radar as a physics student in the 1980s for whatever reason.

tasogare4• 6 years ago

This hit very close to home, especially point 1. I was told recently that something was not my research topic but someone’s else in the lab despite having written about in my application for the lab and the other guy switching to that very recently. The main issue is power imbalance. I need my advisors signature graduate so I have to accept more abuse than I would otherwise. This lead to a loss-loss situation were I’m particularly dissatisfied and put more energy on my side projects and papers than on thing I’m told to do.

spsd• 6 years ago

You are an Inspiration to me! Thanks for sharing your story.

blastonico• 6 years ago

THANK YOU for sharing this. All we got these days are pandemics, deaths, protests, anger. Even HN, that I like so much with all those brilliant people sharing their great projects, is now politics and anger. I mean read about your successful victory is inspiring. Thank you.

jmole• 6 years ago

'Sitting at my desk, staring at environmental impact reports and grant applications on my computer screen, I began to think, “They cannot pay me enough to do this job.”'

Honestly, this sounds like most PhD programs I'm familiar with.

freetime2• 6 years ago

I think the most important takeaway from this article is not that getting a PhD will make you happy... but rather when you start having that feeling it’s time to make a change.

slavik81• 6 years ago

Pierre Bézier (1910–1999) is a famous example of a late Ph.D. He was awarded his doctorate in 1974.

logicchains• 6 years ago

Seems he really went against the curve.

pkaye• 6 years ago

I seem to remember California allows those over 60 to take classes for credit without paying tuition. I believe for both the CSU and UC system. A met a few who did it when I did my education in both systems. I hope its still around.

smegger001• 6 years ago

when I was a college student I have to admit I resented continuing education programs. Here were thousands of people like me were racking up of thousands of dollars in debt literally mortgaging our future to pay for these classes and there were senior paying little to nothing to take classes. I still am not sure how we can justify a system where we convince impressionable minors that they need to in-debt themselves for decades and then allow seniors to take the classes free? this just seems inequitable to me.

LeanderK• 6 years ago

not an American, but I also view this very critically. In Germany the university is free, but in reality it's just hugely subsidised. I just can't justify pumping a lot of money into free (real) university education for seniors. The money is needed elsewhere. There's a huge difference between a university and other education-institutions, university-education is just such a luxury. You can take classes with highly-esteemed researchers etc. It's really unbelievable valuable, but also quite a societal investment.

There should, of course, be ways for pensioners challenge their intellectual ability, but studying at a university is just way over the top I think. There must be another way. Maybe expand the adult-education-centres with special programs for seniors, I don't know.

EDIT: this comment is not about getting a PhD. I would not lobby for any age-restricted subsidy for getting your PhD, since I think PhDs are producing an immense amount of benefit for society, regardless of whether they're in humanities or natural science.

wolco• 6 years ago

It make sense. You could go online and take many of those courses or better courses for free. But you signup go in person and pay thousands per year to get a degree. That degree is a key that opens up employment opportunities and wealth. Most people your age go to school for future employment opportunities and pay the cost as an investment. The cost reflects the demand.

Seniors have no employment goals. There is no need to limit supply because it doesn't affect the marketplace. These seniors buy books and pay for other costs and schools can get additional government money. It helps society because you have more educated people with additional knowledge who may share back with the community at little cost.

Mediterraneo104• 6 years ago

If doing a PhD will bring no career benefits, it gets harder to submit to all of the limitations on one’s life that come with going back to a degree program.

I took a break after I got my MA in a humanities field. I eventually planned to return for a PhD, but then two things happened in the intervening years: 1) I was already able to write up journal articles and successfully get them published, because in double-blind peer review all that mattered was the strength of my research and my familiarity with the literature, and no one knew or cared that I had only an MA; and 2) I got used to traveling a lot and having a very flexible schedule, because as my day job I established a remote freelancing career.

Now people are interested in my research and inviting me to come back and do a PhD, but I’m not sure I can ever go back to having to wake up early in the morning, sit in a boring seminar, be pressured to take on teaching duties, and not be able to escape to a warm country in the cold winter. (That’s me, others may want e.g. more time to spend with their families.) I talk to my colleagues and get the impression that I have more time for research than they do, because anyone in a formal position is saddled with bullshit administration duties.

I realize that I am lucky to be interested in a humanities field. I know that in hard sciences, you cannot meaningfully contribute to the field without access to a lab and other such infrastructure, and therefore you have to go back to a university position.

srl• 6 years ago

I know that in hard sciences, you cannot meaningfully contribute to the field without access to a lab and other such infrastructure

Well, that's not quite true I guess, because in most areas of math, or theoretical physics, you certainly don't need much beyond pen, paper, and (usually) a reasonable computer.

In physics, I suspect the value of collaboration is a major effect keeping research bound to the universities and national labs. Single-author papers are quite rare. The big experimental groups infamously have 100- or 1000-author papers, but even in theory, a 10-author paper is no longer particularly surprising.

I don't know of any (halfway-reputable) independent researchers in theoretical physics, though. I'm not sure if the above reason justifies that. The more important thing may be that's it's just impossible to get funding without a university/lab appointment.

Actually --- that's a good question. Where does your income for your lovely warm-weather travel come from? Is somebody paying you for research, outside of the strictures of universities?

danielscrubs2• 6 years ago

Remote work with traveling opportunities is the holy grail.

looping__lui4• 6 years ago

Maybe reaching out to international faculties in your field could be an idea?

E.g., in Germany you get the entire spectrum from “be a professors slave for 6 years with minimum pay” to “I don’t care where you are - but the publications count”.

I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that there are quite a few professors in Europe who would be willing to guide you through (the relatively light weight bureaucracy) PhD process as long as you create and publish high quality research.

Usually a PhD process requires SOME formal training (e.g., attending a fee seminars), peer-reviewed publications and a cumulative summary over your research.

Personally I respect somebody who “freestyled” his way through PhD as measured by research output a lot. E.g., quite a few women take that route along with maternity leaves; which is great because of flexibility without compromise on quality.

I mean, in CS, engineering, physics, there are plenty of areas where you don’t need a lab per se but can just simulate etc. I must admit that depending in the field interaction with fellow PhD students can be super great an valuable (that’s just gonna make life harder for you if you don’t take advantage of it).

Good luck!

jsinai• 6 years ago

Personally I respect somebody who “freestyled” his way through PhD as measured by research output a lot. E.g., quite a few women take that route along with maternity leaves

Nitpick: You may want to change "his way" to the gender neutral "their way" especially since you use women taking maternity leave as an example. :)

pleasecalllater2• 6 years ago

E.g., in Germany you get the entire spectrum from “be a professors slave for 6 years with minimum pay” to “I don’t care where you are - but the publications count”.

Yea... I wanted to start PhD this year. Unfortunately it turned out that the only thing that counts, are my previous and future publications. Any work experience seems like a disadvantage. They value more someone with no experience, but with a couple of, usually not very inventive, publications.

I have over 18 years of work experience. I used to make more complicated things at work, than you can find in many published papers or even PhDs. So I asked a professor about how to start it.

It turned out that: the pay is much below the minimum salary + I will be thrown away if I won't have one publication in a good journal after the first year. If you also think that after sending a paper to a journal, they usually reply in six-nine months with a rejection or a list of comments to fix... it turned out that I have to start my PhD with a bunch of papers already written. And to have them count, they need to be exactly about the same topic as my PhD.

So, after rethinking all this, I stopped dreaming about a PhD. I can publish my paper on arXiv without all the academic fun.

chrisseaton2• 6 years ago

but I’m not sure I can ever go back to having to wake up early in the morning, sit in a boring seminar, be pressured to take on teaching duties, and not be able to escape to a warm country in the cold winter

This really isn’t what a PhD is like. A PhD is a research degree - you do research in your own time. You don’t have to be in seminars if you don’t want to and you don’t have to teach (unless you need the money.) Think of a PhD more like a sabbatical to focus on your own research. There’s a goal you need to achieve but freedom in how you get there.

Mediterraneo104• 6 years ago

No, this differs from field to field and from country to country. There are only a tiny handful of departments dedicated to my subfield worldwide, and I know that they all require, at the very least, attendance at a weekly seminar so that you can share with your fellow students what you have been up to. In some places, the department can demand that one teach in order to hold a PhD position, or that one take part in the editing of publications produced by the department (which can be so much work that it distracts from one’s own research).

jcelerier• 6 years ago

This really isn’t what a PhD is like. A PhD is a research degree - you do research in your own time. You don’t have to be in seminars if you don’t want to and you don’t have to teach (unless you need the money.)

At least in france there are some minimum legal hours of seminars you have to attend and classes you have to teach during your phd.

crazygringo2• 6 years ago

I mean, that ignores the Master's requirement. All PhD programs I've ever looked at have a Master's as part of them, which has all the coursework.

For example, a political science PhD at Columbia (including the Masters) requires a full 12 courses, as well as teaching for at least a year (more if you receive a fellowship, up to 20 hrs/wk).

And you can't do your Masters somewhere else first and then just do the PhD part at Columbia, that's not an option.

https://polisci.columbia.edu/content/phd-requirements

arkades4• 6 years ago

In the US the first two years of a PhD are heavily focused on classwork, with a research component; the latter years are the "sabbatical to focus on your own research." People who quit after the first two years are often granted a parting Master's degree, because that's basically what a Master's is - the two years of graduate coursework that kick off a PhD.

This does, of course, differ by program.

OJFord• 6 years ago

An alternative: one of my lecturers (and a great one) was not a PhD. Full-time faculty member, researcher, lecturer, but somehow wound up there without a doctorate.

OK you don't want to teach, but I suppose my point is if people are already 'interested in your research' which is peer-reviewed & published etc. then maybe they'd consider hiring you without that formal training. Maybe, not like I've tried it.

TheRealSteel• 6 years ago

as my day job I established a remote freelancing career.

Sorry, I know this is a tangent. Do you have any blog posts about this, or advice you can give now? This would be my dream but I wouldn't even know where to start finding work.

ngcc_hk2• 6 years ago

Working on my 2nd master degree on my 60 and found it not worth it. The problem is my interest even if coincide with the course the details are not the same. I would like to use my IT knowledge and my understanding of may philosophical fields ... but who cares about these in those seminars lecturer and classmates (all are seniors) are busy on digging the materials very narrowly. Guess I just quit and do my own knowledge research it would be better. But one thing I would miss is the need to study things which I have no interest - in my case (I am on Philosophy one a Greek guy and a Chinese guy before 500 BC) which work out very useful for my pursuit. Hence, still wonder.

dahart8• 6 years ago

If doing a PhD will bring no career benefits

That’s certainly possible if you start the PhD after finishing a career like the author, and in some fields of research too. I just wanted to point out that more broadly speaking, an advanced degree usually brings financial benefits. The Fed recently published statistics on this that completely surprised me: in the U.S., people with advanced degrees earn on average about 50% more than bachelor’s degree holders, and 3x more than non-degree holders. I had no idea the average difference was that high until I read the report. https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/revie...

arkades4• 6 years ago

Comparing the field of people with PhDs to the field of people with BSs isn't exactly comparable to comparing PhDs to people with Master's degrees who are already doing all the relevant academic work and receiving academic acclaim in the field.

There may be financial benefit, maybe not. There's also the opportunity cost of giving up your career income for four+ years to get a grad student stipend (if it's a program with stipends at all).

I understand you were broadening the point, but I think "first-career PhDs" vs. "second-career PhDs" are the topic under discussion, and broadening it to "bachelor's" is too broad.

swinnipeg• 6 years ago

Physicians, and Lawyers also hold advanced degrees.

Both of these fields have a non-trivial amount of people earning excess $1M a year.

It is really hard to come up with a useful average when including with History PhD's and Dermatologists as part of the same cohort.

sukilot• 6 years ago

Not everyone who could get a PhD does. Compare those number to the 75th or 90th percentile of non-PhD Bachelor's holders, before, uh, getting your statistics PhD.

arkades4• 6 years ago

but I’m not sure I can ever go back to having to wake up early in the morning, sit in a boring seminar, be pressured to take on teaching duties, and not be able to escape to a warm country in the cold winter.

Oh yeah. I went to med school after having an actual career. Going back to a heavy-handed bureaucracy whose primary intention is to herd a mob of people with the least benefit of doubt is incredibly infantilizing. It's hard to endure the first time, when you're in uni, but after you've already been an adult?

throw1234651234• 6 years ago

Right. This guy got a PhD to get a PhD. That's fine, but there is no moral to this story, nor is there any purpose to this.

joshvm2• 6 years ago

Now people are interested in my research and inviting me to come back and do a PhD, but I’m not sure I can ever go back to having to wake up early in the morning, sit in a boring seminar, be pressured to take on teaching duties, and not be able to escape to a warm country in the cold winter.

I understand that this may be specific to your sub-field, but this is absolutely not the case for many students. It varies heavily with university and country. I believe it makes a big difference whether you're considered to be a staff member or a student. In the UK you're a student, in Germany, you're staff.

We have several part-time PhD and Masters students in our department and I think the requirements are generally relaxed for them. Most of them work remotely. Many of them also have other jobs, families, etc. One is a sci-fi author!

Here, teaching is something that students occasionally do to earn a bit of money. It's rare though, usually it's only lab supervision or grading - we pay lecturers to teach. So this is absolutely not the case for a lot PhD positions. In the US and other European countries this is different and requirements will vary.

Our lab's core hours are 10 AM - 4 PM. When you go into work is mostly dependent on your supervisor. In the majority of cases they're laid back and as long as research gets done, they're happy. I routinely arrived at midday and left at 6-7PM during my PhD (and I do the same in my postdoc). Similarly nobody cares if you need to take the morning or afternoon off for personal reasons. That said, I know some people who have more traditional supervisors who treat their group like a sweat shop.

Students funded by research councils here get around 8 weeks of holiday a year. I don't think anyone counts though and it's rare for anyone to actually book that much time off. As a postdoc, I get 30 days, plus up to 5 carried over (and that doesn't include forced closures over Christmas). Staff can accrue up to 35 I think. Winter sun is definitely an option. I knew someone at Oxford (mathematics) who took 3 weeks off and just shrugged when we asked if his boss knew where he was. I confess to taking the odd week off, forgetting to tell anyone, and having to call into an unexpected telecon from my campsite.

We do make PhD students attend seminars, but that's mostly to get them involved in research, asking questions, etc. Boring is I guess a matter of opinion - you're expected to hear what other people in your field are doing. On the plus side, our seminars are either on Wednesdays, followed by subsidised dinner with the speaker; or they're on Fridays and followed by pub in the evening.

I know that in hard sciences, you cannot meaningfully contribute to the field without access to a lab and other such infrastructure, and therefore you have to go back to a university position.

Well this is definitely not true, unless you deal with instrumentation or experimental work. You need infrastructure for sure, but unless you're actually doing practical work that can be remote access. Most students here log into our cluster to do work.

I talk to my colleagues and get the impression that I have more time for research than they do, because anyone in a formal position is saddled with bullshit administration duties.

This bit is unfortunately true. The higher up you get, the more admin you need to do. And once you go permanent, teaching does become a necessity in most departments.

Mediterraneo104• 6 years ago

You mention eight weeks of holiday, and taking three weeks off at a time. That is no different than any non-remote office job in the EU, and it is nowhere near close to being able to leave cold Europe for the entire northern hemisphere winter. I realize that I am fortunate to have found a day job where I can work fully remote (though remote work is fairly mainstream now in my own country), but once you enter this lifestyle, it is really hard to ever go back.

Boring is I guess a matter of opinion - you're expected to hear what other people in your field are doing.

Obviously anyone interested enough in a field to do a PhD, is going to be interested in the work all the other people are doing. However, that would preferably be done by reading, where one is free to schedule that reading at the times one sees fit, and one is free to skim (which I know everyone does, because otherwise it would be impossible to keep up with the volume of publications). If you have to attend a weekly seminar, you’re on someone else’s schedule, and then you’re stuck there for the entire time of the seminar.

abdullahkhalids• 6 years ago

When I went to submit a physical copy of my PhD thesis to the relevant office, the person in front of me was an old lady, at least in her 70s or even her 80s.

We had an interesting conversation. She had completed a PhD in Greek literature, I think. Self-funded. Taken the standard time. She was sorry about all the domestic responsibilities she had put on her husband. She had, with her, a younger friend (a lady probably late 50s, early 60s) to help her with computers :D

Made me feel very differently about all the hard work I had done. Very inspiring and uplifting. She said, she did it because she was bored and wanted to go beyond her two Masters degrees.

TheOtherHobbes• 6 years ago

This suggests all kinds of interesting questions about the point of university.

For undergrads it's clearly a combination of finishing school, networking hothouse, and social club, with some education thrown in.

For postgrads, it's a long-shot chance at tenure (extremely unlikely unless you're the product of an Ivy, but it's nice to dream) and perhaps some improved job prospects. (Also unlikely, but not as much.)

For universities, it's a cash grab. First they get the fees, then they get the bequests. Also, some education is thrown in.

Considering the age/wealth profile is now heavily skewed to the over-50s, it would make sense for universities to cater more for mature students. Remaking university culture as life-long access rather than here-come-the-teens would break a lot of cultural expectations - but might also be the only way to keep the university model alive over the medium term.

mbeex• 6 years ago

For undergrads it's clearly a combination of finishing school, networking hothouse, and social club, with some education thrown in.

Never was it for me, and I'm certainly not alone.

n4r9• 6 years ago

Form postgrads, it's a long-shot chance at tenure (extremely unlikely unless you're the product of an Ivy, but it's nice to dream) and perhaps some improved job prospects. (Also unlikely, but not as much.)

Meh, I'm probably atypical (though not unique) but my postgrad was mostly a matter of doing what seemed the most interesting and fun/bearable at the time. I continued as a lecturer for a couple of years for the same reason. I've left academia but I'm ultimately following the same path, although I'm now also thinking a bit more about the impact of my work on society.

bregma2• 6 years ago

This suggests all kinds of interesting questions about the point of university.

The point of a university is that it is a store house of universal knowledge. That's even where the name came from.

The point of professors is to generate more knowledge and to pass it along. The most important place in a university is the library, although much of the library these days might physically be rack of flashing lights and cooling fans in a dark room somewhere.

The task of young adults is to prepare themselves for a career, do networking, build social contacts, and broaden their education. That they do that at university as well as everywhere else is irrelevant.

It's OK for anyone of any age to go to a university to gain knowledge, because that's its main purpose. It's great that anyone can obtain formal recognition for a level of knowledge gained, at any age.

atemerev• 6 years ago

This should be more commonplace. I have just applied for a PhD program in 37, and got some strange looks and questions. Hope I’ll pass. :)

pottertheotter• 6 years ago

Don't let anyone get to you! I recently finished my PhD at the same age. The late Clayton Christensen[1] was one of the most accomplished business professors and I believe he started his PhD at age 37.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Christensen

jccalhoun2• 6 years ago

On some of the academic subreddits, one of the semi-frequently occurring posts is "am I too old to go to grad school?" and inevitably the post is from someone who is under 30. It always drives me crazy that people think any age is too late to start a career in a non-physically demanding field.

mmhsieh• 6 years ago

As an undergrad I had a friend in the math department who came back to school to get a PhD after some years of making enough $$ to retire on in software. He did not aspire to an academic career. He just liked math and enjoyed spending time on it. He helped us rando undergrads with our problem sets. He is one of the happiest individuals I have ever met. A PhD makes sense at any age for happiness reasons if you don't have financial obligations hanging over you.

hatmatrix2• 6 years ago

or family obligations

M5x7wI3CmbEem102• 6 years ago

would it be better to do a PhD as soon as possible to prevent family weighing you down, or to become financially independent first?

bachmeier• 6 years ago

A PhD makes sense at any age for happiness reasons if you don't have financial obligations hanging over you.

Conditional on actually wanting to go that deep in courses and research. Many PhD students take a couple semesters of courses (the hardest year of their life) and they quit after they realize the research they're going to be doing for at least the next few years. It's certainly not for everyone.

ipnon• 6 years ago

Joe Armstrong received his Ph.D. at age 52.[0]

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Armstrong_(programmer)

WalterBright2• 6 years ago

After my uncle retired, he enrolled in a graduate program in vulcanology. Why? Because he was always interested in volcanos!

My grandfather was a vulcanologist, too. He worked on proving the continental drift theory.

0823498723498722• 6 years ago

Continental drift would have been accepted sooner if the oceanic magnetic maps had been declassified earlier.

(a case of parallel construction affecting science: the data were only declassified after they covered enough of the sea basins that it was no longer obvious what the common boomer cruise routes were)

WalterBright2• 6 years ago

He did it by setting up measuring stations in Iceland. WW2 intervened and he was not able to go back to get the results.

KKKKkkkk1• 6 years ago

A lot of people have a romantic perspective on grad school, similarly to how the flower children of the 60s viewed travel to India. You turn on, tune in, drop out, and go to academia to become enlightened.

It's not all it's cracked up to be. People are people wherever you go, and you'll see the same shit in academia that you encounter outside, except you're paid much less (if you get paid at all).

There is one big plus, and that is that you're not the only one who bought into academia's narrative of enlightenment, so you're likely to get more respect from your peers and family if you go to academia than if you do meaningless stuff like sell ads for Google.

mjburgess3• 6 years ago

I'm a bit more sceptical/cynical even, about the people PhD programmes typically attract.

Very low-EQ, highly competitive, highly self-regarding. In my experience PhD departments are worse that top-tier software engineering groups, as PhDs tend to be depressed and underappreciated in addition.

I think the whole model is one big mental health meat grinder, and the meat going in is quite bitter in the first place.

steev2• 6 years ago

God forbid anyone pursues higher education because they want to become a better researcher.

I would suggest you spend some time thinking about your EQ rather than spending time on the internet posting nonsense generalizations about entire classes of people.

mkl• 6 years ago

Not one bit of that matches my PhD experience.

jccalhoun2• 6 years ago

I think that really depends on the field. I don't think my phd in communication wasn't full of highly competitive, low-EQ people.

gbronner2• 6 years ago

I see little difference between using scarce university resources to produce human capital that will not be used and art.

I'm sure the author enjoyed it, but it, but it doesn't seem that she will use her new educational skills at all. To the extent that her professors could have done something else, she sucked up a lot of resources that could have been used lot productively.

This will become a bigger issue going forward....

Rochus6• 6 years ago

Well, then we should start thinking about focusing on the study areas which indeed produce human capital. There are still far too many academic studies today that bring little or no benefit to the economy, where graduates hardly find jobs and instead increase social costs. As long as we don't do that, it doesn't matter if someone is still studying and doing a doctorate at 66. At least then they will already have an old-age pension and will not have to draw unemployment benefit or social assistance.

bananamerica7• 6 years ago

YSK that there are numerous ways to contribute to society beyond formal work to acquire fungible currency.

coldcode2• 6 years ago

If economic benefit is all that matters to educational resources, you can eliminate most physicists and mathematicians, who rarely produce anything useful in the same generation. Yet what they do might bring massive new technologies or other improvements to society decades later. You can make the same argument about lots of degrees. Value to society is rarely obvious. Steve Jobs audited a class in calligraphy which seems utterly useless, let it lead to the Mac and the importance of fonts and graphics in computers in general.

gbronner2• 6 years ago

My comment was independent of study area. A 66 year old woman has a life expectancy of perhaps 18 years, but an expected labor force participation of only a few years.

It is difficult to start a PhD worthy job in a new field at 66, as there's still a lot of domain specific learning (in the private sector), and most companies don't want to commit to making that investment in someone likely to voluntary retire, or quit due to health issues.

So, instead of working for 6 years, she got a very expensive degree that society is unlikely to benefit from, as there's often no way to apply these skills in the economy

dntbnmpls2• 6 years ago

Agreed. There are a fixed number of PhD spots. What sense is there to give that spot to a 66 year old senior rather than someone younger who will actually do something productive with the expertise and credentials?

I'm all for continued learning but can't that be done in a non-credentialed manner that doesn't disadvantage young people?

bananamerica7• 6 years ago

Are we in an alternate reality where 67 year olds immediately drop dead? Is this an episode of Twilight Zone?

bloodorange• 6 years ago

Mate, most people live to grow old. What fulfillment in life would one have if many productive and/or desierable tasks were reserved for the young? Wouldn't it make the later years even harder for them?

marceloabsousa2• 6 years ago

- There are a fixed number of funded PhD spots but there's really no limit to the number of PhD spots in a faculty. I don't know if this was the case but if you can fund your own PhD, very few universities will refuse your admission. Anyway, PhDs are extremely cheap labor - most of the research money is spent on materials/hardware and travel expenses for PIs.

- The vast majority of PhDs don't do anything productive with their research topic or work in their research field later on. Doing a PhD is about advancing human knowledge and a lot of personal growth - it has very little to do with productivity. The current trend is that you get burned out and sick of your research area and decide to do something totally different. There are very few areas where you do a PhD for credentials or to advance in your career.

jimbokun4• 6 years ago

There are a fixed number of PhD spots.

In what sense? I'm quite positive the number of PhDs being produced has grown by leaps and bounds over the years.

bananamerica7• 6 years ago

Last time I checked most people in developed countries live a lot longer than 66 years.

jmull• 6 years ago

could have been used [more] productively

Ah, that's the thing though.

Who gets to determine what is a worthwhile use of time and resources, and what isn't?

You?

Or the faculty, administration and the student herself?

I think you have trust them to know their business. Who better?

Anyway, is counting widgets produced (or software released, or academic papers published) really the best way to measure value?

JoeAltmaier3• 6 years ago

Assuming facts not in evidence? With all those career changes and job skills, why assume the OP author will never teach nor publish? Opportunities to do so will only increase with a PhD.

coldcode2• 6 years ago

I was accepted into a PhD program in Chemistry in the early 80's but decided to work as a programmer instead (and still do); I then thought about getting a PhD in Computer Science in the early 00's but a professor talked me out of it since it appeared that most of the jobs were in academia (right before Google started hiring them in droves).

Oh well, two chances and no dice.

drewmassey• 6 years ago

I earned a PhD in the humanities before going into tech. I loved it, and it was a tough slog to make the pivot. I know there is a lot of advice encouraging folks to “optimize their human capital” but I spent my 20s full time making my mind a great place to live in, and OP is an inspiration for doing the same at any age.

ngcc_hk2• 6 years ago

It is good for him to find the journey he liked.

xmksv• 6 years ago

Amazing! It's never too late.

johnminter2• 6 years ago

I think the key to a good exerience obtaining a Ph.D. is the choice of a good advisor. My advisor explained that the process of getting the degree was to teach us to find important problems and learn what we needed to solve them. Typically, that involved collaboration. He also stressed that it was a doctorate in Philosophy even though our department was in the Physical Sciences and Engineering School. That advice served me well as a scientist in a corporate materials analysis group.

Now that I am retired, I still find challenging projects to work on, mainly helping to improve open source electron microanalysis software.

edge172• 6 years ago

Are there also open source electron microscope designs?

johnminter2• 6 years ago

Not to my knowlege.

JoeAltmaier3• 6 years ago

My wife, with two BS degrees and a MS from Stanford, is currently enrolled as undergrad with an Archaeology major.

Why? Insurance. She pays 1/5 what the open market would cost, even factoring in the tuition and fees. Because she at 60 is grouped with young healthy people.

The college is not upset about this. In fact they have a whole program and an advisor to assist older folks in negotiating the paperwork.

nvusuvu• 6 years ago

That's incredible!

arkades4• 6 years ago

What university is this where tuition plus school-based insurance is < 20% of open market insurance?

JoeAltmaier3• 6 years ago

She only takes 1 class to qualify. Its the state school. Her insurance was otherwise ~ $2000/month.

Her tuition is only that, and is good for half a year. The student insurance cost is small and annual.

Priem19• 6 years ago

Added this to my forum where I collect educational sources and similar inspirational late bloomer examples: https://philomath.boards.net/thread/22/persistence-great-sub...

dghughes• 6 years ago

And here I thought I was doing well going to college in my 40s. I'm finding it hard to get recognized at all ghosted interviews or no response at all. It seems being new to IT (career-wise) is not for anyone over age 25.

ntwalker4• 6 years ago

Perhaps that could be a regional thing? The things I hear about the Bay Area for instance make it sound like another planet. A friend of mine (27) just got IT certifications (never went to college) and he has a cool new job in IT support, working on becoming a sysadmin. But either way, keep trying!

_xnmw• 6 years ago

Ugh, first world problems. I'm currently considering a Ph.D at age 26, but this kind of story fills me with a strange loathing and determination not to fall into this trap when I get older. If, at 50, I still need to go to an "academic counsellor" who asks me "what I enjoyed as a child", then I'll consider myself a failure. I don't think self-enjoyment is a legitimate purpose in life. Thus if, at age 50, I'm still wondering "what I enjoy", I'll consider myself a zombie. By that age I want to be dedicated to something outside of myself, some revolutionary new thought, or the advancement of some great cause, even religion or God, or even just the well-being of my kids and grandkids. Even a short hedonistic life of partying I consider to be a a greater success than this kind of zombie-like continuation of academia with no external goal.

anyanswers• 6 years ago

weird. isn't self discovery a worthwhile goal?

unemphysbro• 6 years ago

I enjoyed my PhD.

The challenge of coming up with ideas, writing proposals for compute resources or funding, and trying to deliver on the research was fun. Most of my PhD was industry funded so there was potential for product integration.

The added bonus is that you're around really smart and motivated people in a variety of disciplines. I was exposed to the hard problems in Finance, Accounting, and Economics hung out with opera singers, stage directors and novelists.

The years I didn't have funding were pretty miserable. 40-60 hours in the lab plus 20 hours teaching per week for $23K kind of wears you down.

I got a Ph.D. at age 66 (2018)

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