Should I Get a Ph.D.?

by johndcook • 12 years ago

216 158 12 years ago

bcantrill• 12 years ago

These are really solid interviews. For those considering a PhD, I would also recommend "Getting What You Came For"[1]. When my mother was considering getting her PhD, I bought it for her -- and also read it myself as someone who aspired to get a PhD. My mom loved the book (and did indeed get her PhD, a requirement in her field), but the book inspired me to consider non-PhD options. Once I started exploring those options, it was clear that they were a better fit for me -- and I have never felt the desire to return for a PhD. (Though given my genetic predisposition to late-in-life PhDs -- my grandfather, mother and aunt all earned their PhDs after the age of 50 -- I suppose I should say only that I haven't felt the desire yet.)

[1] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/460669.Getting_What_You_C...

lisper2• 12 years ago

Lisper's second law: the hardest part of getting what you want is figuring out what it is.

comboy• 12 years ago

I'm putting it on my wall.

noobermin• 12 years ago

I'm curious, when does this ever happen? College? After college in an internship? A dream with a flaming pie?

lisper2• 12 years ago

What, figuring out what you want? Yes, of course. Different people figure it out at different times in their lives (and some never figure it out).

marknutter• 12 years ago

Anyone else surprised the site wasn't just a blank white page with the word "No" in 200px font?

tych0• 12 years ago

Yeah, I am. It's sort of like stuff at stores where the price isn't listed: if you have to ask, a Ph. D. isn't for you.

rdc12• 12 years ago

Nothing wrong with trying to make an informed decision

zzleeper5• 12 years ago

The thing is, what you see while in school and in academia before deciding to do the PhD are the survivors. The ones who like the power play, the grant-writing, and possibly those more prone to Stockholm Effect from their PhD years.

When deciding, you don't see the ones who flunked, who killed themselves, who lost years of their life for the PhD and went to the private sector. Even then, most people won't tell you "yes I did the PhD and it sucked".. you can't say that even after years because you will appear weak or unskilled. Instead, people oft say "it was a great learning experience, etc etc".

AndrewKemendo• 12 years ago

That is exactly what I was expecting, but I was glad with what resulted because there is value there and for a small subset of people it is worth it.

pbnjay• 12 years ago

As someone with a PhD... yes. It was good for me and my career plans... but I actively tell people NOT to pursue one in this job/funding climate. I know quite a few people who basically have no aspirations past the PhD, and hence no real drive or quality of work.

It's sad really, because I know so many PhDs who are doing great stuff, but at this level it's also just so hard to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of quality.

sebastianavina• 12 years ago

I'm starting my PhD on 2016, I've already filled most of the paper work. Side note is that I graduated on 2007 with a master on industrial automation. I was planning to study a PhD immediately but instead I decided to take a sabatic year... after several months I started working and funded two companies. Today I must say I'm a successful business man, working on my thesis on probability and about tying things down for taking a year off of my own company in order to attend a year of classes of a top research center for a PhD on automatic control.

I'm so happy.

emplynx5• 12 years ago

I was hoping to provide something more nuanced with the website. For that, you could see my corresponding Twitter account: https://twitter.com/shouldyougetphd

ascotan• 12 years ago

Lol. Yes the answer is no. I realized too late that salaries in the computer industry follow the "reverse hockey stick". Even badly trained programmers do pretty well and if you spend those early years before you get married with kids collecting a good salary you'll be in a better position then the guy that spent 7 years racking up student loan debt to get a phd. Now if you love research - go for it. Otherwise get a job early and make money. Frankly there are a lot of fun things to do in CS without the need fora phd. Honestly spending time fishing for money to do research is probably a lot less fun then spending your time at a start up or just working.

jamesaguilar• 12 years ago

You paid to get your PhD? I thought that was pretty uncommon?

gambiting3• 12 years ago

Debt for a PhD? I work as a junior programmer and all of my friends who went to do their PhDs make a lot more money than I do(almost 10k pounds more/year). I actively considered quitting my job to become a PhD student purely because it pays so much better.

siege_engineer• 12 years ago

Proxy question: Do you want to be a professor? If "yes!" go for a PhD. If there's any uncertainty, don't.

I wish someone had told me that before I started.

emplynx5• 12 years ago

I wouldn't be so fast. Lots of people want to be professors, way more people than there are viable jobs. Some of the interviews bring out that point.

harveywi• 12 years ago

I've been through it all - from qualifying exams, to candidacy, to defense, to postdoc. To me, these sorts of articles are comparable to "join the army and see the world" propaganda. You never hear about legs blown off, brains addled, suicides, shrapnel, shellshock, and other likely outcomes.

But the PhD experience is so varied that it's not really the fault of the interviewees/authors! They probably really did have it this good! There is also survivorship bias. And people who have the grit to finish a PhD probably don't want to openly admit weakness on the Internet or, more likely, burn bridges (it's hard to be anonymous about this sort of stuff). Even after they finish the PhD, they still have to worship the ground of their overlords to keep those letters of recommendation flowin'. So we have mostly these rosy happy "learn you a PhD" stories. Not good.

I know you are out there: Young, highly motivated, highly intelligent, unbeatable willpower. You need to know just how bad it can be. You're not getting the whole story.

I'm not talking about "oh no, I might not finish" or "oh gee, maybe it will take me eight years but I'll try real hard and get through." I'm talking real life risks to your mental and physical health, destruction of relationships, opportunity cost, and (potentially) the vaporization of that awesome scientific career that you spent over a decade building because the one person in charge of you with no oversight decided they didn't like you.

I've seen so many amazing, kind, bright, talented, hard-working people exploited for years on end only to be thrown out into the academic garbage can. But the stakes go far beyond academia - what will you do about the panic attacks that continue for years, and years, and years after you finish? How about the insomnia and screaming nightmares? I bet that at least one of your fellow students will wind up in a psychiatric hospital. It could be you.

"Oh come on now," you say. "It's just science! What's so scary about a math problem or writing a few paragraphs. You're either a marshmallow, you're overreacting, or maybe you just didn't have what it takes." The science is the easy part. The hard work is the easy part. It's the people who will rule over you, the people who can (and do) ruin you. These articles always talk about a benevolent best-chum advisor/faculty that you have long conversations with and then go have another cup of tea with. But you never hear about that one narcissist/psychopath on your committee that has done everything in his power to get you out of the program, the micromanager, the manipulator, the grotesque exploitation.

In PhD land, you are at the complete mercy of a very small collection of merciless people who know that you exist to be exploited, and they know that they have you right where they want you. You better hope that those people are benevolent or neutral. In the case of many people I know, this was not the case.

When people write articles about "choosing an advisor" and "how will I know he/she is the one for me," they make it sound like a decision about whether to get a puppy or a kitten. Consider this scenario: You open a dialogue with someone whose work you have studied for years, they offer you a position in their lab, you quit your job and drag your family halfway across the US for this "golden opportunity", and then you find out that this person is by far the biggest jerk that you have ever met and you cannot work with them. What do you do then? Where do you put all of that expertise that you acquired? I've seen this happen over and over again: You start from scratch - time to grind and level up all over again, but now you're not so sure you're good at the thing you're doing - you could be terrible at it.

I could go on and on. Maybe I will someday.

Well, hopefully this will inspire a little more well-rounded picture of what else it can be like to go through with a PhD.

milesskorpen• 12 years ago

Is the awful side of PhD-dom really that secret? I haven't been to graduate school, but I know tons of people who hated (and a few who really loved) getting their doctorates. And I had professors who openly warn some of my peers. I'm just not clear if I'm lucky, or your opening is a bit hyperbolic.

analog312• 12 years ago

I would say yes and no. What we don't really know are probability and severity. And any of us can imagine that those things don't apply to us because we're exceptional in some way, especially when we really want to rationalize getting the degree.

Probability? Dropout rates are published, but only in aggregate form. That doesn't reveal what actually happens to people. Situations involving faculty misconduct are likely to be un-reported, and it's probably easy to blame the student.

Severity? What's the actual impact of dropping out from a PhD program? You don't get to be a professor? Most PhDs will never get to be professors. Opportunity cost? Sure. I won't downplay that.

The psychological toll? I would take it seriously, at whatever rate it's actually happening. Grad school isn't just a job. It's like working for an extended period, for a lump sum payment, while absorbing 100% of the risk. The controversy over graduate education, while justified, may have the effect of further raising the stakes, if Professor and Failure are widely believed to be the only two possible outcomes.

Disclaimer: I enjoyed grad school, though I took 6 years and came very close to quitting. When it's good, it's great. It can be the kind of "good work" that many of us prefer, even if it's stressful, over easy work that's boring.

If I were to compare it to anything, it would be like starting a small business, i.e., lots of risk, opportunity cost, and massively deferred reward, with a similar implied psychological pressure: Millionaire or Failure.

emplynx5• 12 years ago

I intentionally found interviewees to bring a variety of perspective. Some are very positive. Carl definitely brings the perspective you offer.

mslot• 12 years ago

There's a difference between variety and sample. I fully expected this website to be a big red "NO ...unless..."

idunning• 12 years ago

Countering your counter-point: this seems like the most pessimistic comment about doing a PhD I've ever seen. There are many types of department, many fields, that don't operate like the type of setup you are describing. I'd be damn surprised if anyone in my department is waking up with "screaming nightmares" or is "on their way to the psychiatric hospital" - though maybe I'm just ignorant about my peers, or got a lucky roll of the dice.

I'm not saying this doesn't happen, or trying to diminish your personal experience, but you've presented your dark scenario as being as inevitable as the happy scenario you are railing against.

zzleeper5• 12 years ago

I'm in a finance PhD program at a top US school. What he says is quite close to the true, from my experience with friends in finance and partly economics (the marketing and accounting people seem to be having healthier lives in my school).

I have several friends who are depressed or have a diverse array of issues, none of which existed before grad school. Yes, I completely agree that "your mileage may vary", but I've seen it happen many times. Asshole advisers that have you at their mercy. Gruesome grading hours for no pay. Etc.

For instance, I just got an email a few hours ago about my weekend. They told me I have to work for 19 hours between Saturday and Sunday afternoon grading MBA exams ("work" is of course generous because the word usually implies me getting money out of it). What can I do? Nothing really...

[Details: I need to proctor MBAs exam on Saturday until noon, and then I have to help grading 400 exams which NEED TO BE GRADED on Sunday afternoon (because the profs go on vacation early on Monday and also MBAs want their grade fast). The prof. told me that at 2.5 minutes per exam (for my part), it will take me 16 hours, besides typing the grades and the 3-hour proctoring. That's 19 hours of work in a 24 hour lapse. And they don't blink an eye, because I just have to take it (it's unpaid because it's "part of scholarship")

Sure, I can complain, but if I do I'm dead and will be called a troublemaker (seen it happen a few times). Moreso, my grading load is on the low side compared to some friends who spend an insane amount of time grading, teaching, and preparing slides for their advisors.]

phloxicon• 12 years ago

I know it sounds unrealistically pessimistic but it's very similar to my experience. Colleagues developing a host of awful conditions due to a terribly stressful environment. Doing a Ph.D. was my biggest regret.

dalke6• 12 years ago

"67 percent of graduate students said they had felt hopeless at least once in the last year; 54 percent felt so depressed they had a hard time functioning" (quoted in http://scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/2009/02/23/grad-schoo...; I don't have access to the original publication.)

If someone in your department was waking up with screaming nightmares, would you know about it? Most people don't want to talk about these issues.

kphild• 12 years ago

From my experience, people in the corporate world tend to be all that and also low on IQ.

I see no reason to commit before you get to know your supervisor/boss well.

cinquemb• 12 years ago

I took more or less one of the paths described in the article (internship -> undergrad -> drop out -> startup -> startup -> startup -> research lab), and everything seems like a mess in its own way and I feel like why I'm not wrapping burritos now is out of luck/ meeting people along the way/ hacking my way through this mess.

At this point, I can't imagine going to academia or industry through traditional means, it's just too much of a mental drain to watch how expectations don't match reality in everything around me, despite being pitched constantly on otherwise.

frozenport• 12 years ago

At the office you do 40 hours a week making bank, doing a PhD you live it 24/7 at will be lucky to save. You listen to your friends talk about their vacation, hobbies, and families. You are uncertainty about you abilities, in addition to willful academic fraud. Then you depend on an adviser who views you as a tool for personal glory, and doesn't feel morally obligated to act different because they were treated in the same manner. The only thing that will get you through is love of your work but you most likely already compromised on those dreams. This is the experience of many PhD in the physical sciences, who do experiments all day and will never become professors.

jurassic2• 12 years ago

I'm talking real life risks to your mental and physical health, destruction of relationships, opportunity cost, and (potentially) the vaporization of that awesome scientific career that you spent over a decade building because the one person in charge of you with no oversight decided they didn't like you.

This person's rant describes my experience reasonably well. Insomnia? Check. Neutral-at-best advising relationship? Check. Declining general health due to overwork and stress? Check. Narcissist/psychopath on my committee? Check. Know somebody who ended up in a psychiatric hospital? Check.

Check. Check. Check.

Edit: I was in a top-5 science/engineering PhD program.

yequalsx2• 12 years ago

At first I was thinking you are doing an excessive amount of fear mongering but then I read this sentence

"I bet that at least one of your fellow students will wind up in a psychiatric hospital."

I knew two students in my Ph.D. program in math who ended up in a psychiatric ward.

Full disclosure, I'm ABD in math and quit because I saw no future as a math professor at a research institution. In retrospect my advisor was not a good fit for me either. I wish I had left the program earlier than I did the opportunity cost was indeed quite high.

moyix3• 12 years ago

At first I was thinking you are doing an excessive amount of fear mongering but then I read this sentence "I bet that at least one of your fellow students will wind up in a psychiatric hospital." I knew two students in my Ph.D. program in math who ended up in a psychiatric ward.

Sorry, but this is also anecdotal fear-mongering. I just graduated with a PhD in CS, currently doing a postdoc, and do you know the number of people in my program who ended up in a psychiatric ward? None.

So, what does this tell us? Nothing. These are anecdotes. They give you at best a sample size of ~50 people, and a highly biased one at that.

I agree that we need to share both positive and negative stories from PhD programs (and honestly, I've seen plenty of both sorts posted to HN – the stories being told are not as uniformly rosy as the GP claims), but maybe we need to supplement these with an actual accounting of the risks and outcomes of a PhD in a given field, rather than ghost stories and fairy tales.

Bahamut• 12 years ago

There wasn't any that I know of from my math PhD program that wound up in a psychiatric ward - I might have been the craziest one, but I ended up ok in the end, largely on my resilience.

I left after 4 years, and in hindsight, I wish I left sooner. The wasted time did give me more of a sense of urgency in anything I do though, so that I do not end up regretting what I have done professionally.

nycthbris• 12 years ago

Thanks for posting this. I don't think your experience is uncommon. I have actually worked in two separate academic labs and both of the PIs exhibited some sort of sociopathic behavior (lacked empathy, were extremely self-centered, set forth incredibly unreasonable expectations, etc.). I've tried to convince myself that they simply lack good managerial skills but I think something else is afoot. The academic system and funding climate breeds and selects for these sorts of egotistical investigators. They have to work extremely hard to sell their work to funding agencies that are tightening their belts to begin with against a flood of newly minted PhDs/post-docs that have sunk nearly a decade into their own education just to catch the slightest break. It would make sense then that the only types of people who would follow this carrot-on-a-stick model are those who have thoroughly convinced themselves that they are better than all of the others and should be the recipient of all research funding in their field. Couple this with the fact that nobody gets funding for having humility or admitting that they are wrong and you end up with cut throat competition where salesmanship is valued over the skills of a good scientist or student mentor. Not to mention the bias a bright undergrad gets from a professor on whether or not to pursue graduate study.

I'm not surprised you and I have had negative experiences in academia pursuing an advanced degree. I agree that the politics of it all prevent some of the more unfortunate stories from surfacing because who doesn't need another letter of recommendation or reference these days. It's not hard to find the culture of exploitation in academia. I'd really like to know the numbers on what grad school drop outs go on to do. Even more interesting would be how they're doing in the mental health department.

On a more positive note, I appreciate this article for being a collection of advice for someone considering getting a PhD. More resources like this should be made available to young undergrads still on the educational conveyor belt.

frogpelt• 12 years ago

"you quit your job and drag your family halfway across the US for this "golden opportunity", and then you find out that this person is by far the biggest jerk that you have ever met and you cannot work with them."

Honestly, now. If you're bold enough to take this kind of risk , be bold enough to recover from a bad decision.

jake_jakeson• 12 years ago

Amen. Having gone through -the process- intact, relatively speaking, I've had the pleasure of the misfortune to experience everything mentioned first or second hand.

Two close friends that weren't so lucky, now six years later still circling the drains on the psyche ward.

Another close one that gave up literally two weeks before dissertation time never to return, now years later still oscillating between relief and regret daily.

I had it easy with a return tick trip from the normal institution to the mental one, mixed with two periodic strong bouts of insomnia and a thankfully short period where a bottle of crimson red before lunch got the engine going.

Tons of things to add but indeed, it's hard to be anonymous about this sort of stuff.

Several years later I'm still in the state of "glad to have gone through it, yet had I known in advance what it would entail there's not a single chance in hell I'd accept.".

sytelus3• 12 years ago

So how is this really different from getting a job? On the job you would also have a manager who has exactly same position and powers you attribute to adviser. You are probably moving across US to get some job X, just to find a manager who is jerk and being a new person you probably have less credibility and mobility. Sure, changing jobs are easy but nevertheless you can't do that endlessly. I guess only big advantage I see is that you probably get paid more, although I doubt fair because you would be considered fresh out of college anyway. In return, you probably have much more higher stress and tight definitive schedules.

So if your choices comes down to getting a job in industry vs doing PHD - there are few advantages for sure but everything you have described seems to apply to both options more or less.

pfisch• 12 years ago

This is really just not true. Mostly because in a normal job you don't receive all of your pay in a lump sum at the end of 5+ years. The degree of lock in you see in a phd program creates this kind of strange indentured servitude situation where the phd candidates have basically no recourse in most situations. In a real job you can just quit when there is sexual harassment happening, you basically can't in a phd situation without losing everything. You generally can't even switch PIs without losing years of work.

jurassic2• 12 years ago

The way that the success or failure of a graduate student's scientific career is in the hands of a very small number of people without oversight has no parallel in private industry. If you're lucky and spot trouble early on you can maybe get a new project/advisor, but you can't change graduate programs. You're committed for 4-6 (or 7 or 8) years. Contrast this with industry, where you can leave an abusive job after a year or two and still have a very productive career.

Even in the worst case that an evil manager fires you from your first job, you can get another. You probably will. In academia, if your halo ever loses its shine you can never get it back. There are no do-overs or next-times when it comes to your scientific reputation.

Also, don't underestimate the importance of money. Materially speaking, the opportunity cost amounts to many hundreds of thousands of dollars. And in terms of psychology, only people who've done it know how much it sucks to still be making $25k/yr in your late 20's. It's worse than ever now that we have Facebook as a mirror to show us where we could have been if we'd chosen industry instead.

martin1975• 12 years ago

No, it is nothing like getting a job or working in industry. A former boss, and a mentor of mine, who graduated top class w/a B.Sc. in physics from the University of West Indies at Mona, and a M.S./Ph.D. in CS in the USA from a top notch school, AND has 25+ years of hard core industry experience in addition to his educational background more or less reflects the sentiments of the first guy who commented (HarveyWi).... And walked away from all the b.s. mostly because he is a purist and idealist at heart, and believe it or not, he found it easier to manifest that in code than in his day to day dealings as a professor at the university he studied at, where you have degenerate Ph.D./tenured professors who barely earn their keeps and others who bust their ass and never see tenure because of something completely unrelated to the amount of papers they produce/collaborate on or courses they teach.... not to mention dealing with lazy graduate students who want a grade rather than want to learn.... and don't even wanna mention undergraduate, he just wouldn't deal with their crap - so he refused to teach any undergrad courses.

This man is one of the most accomplished engineers AND scientists I have ever known... with deep knowledge of computer science, and prior to it, physics, both theoretical and applied. A genius, to say the least.... (in my view).

And he bolted from academia and said, good riddance.

You have NO idea what you are talking about - and while your generalizations are nice and soothing to you, they are invalid, bogus and do a disservice to people who might actually be considering a Ph.D. and weighing the trade-offs before they embark on something so monumental as a Ph.D. program..... that will eat a huge chunk of their life.

I'd MUCH rather see responses like harveywi's rather than the rosy stuff these guys posted ... and if all the crap doesn't extinguish that last bit of desire to dig yourself into a whole from which you won't be able to get out of for quite a while, then by all means, go get your Ph.D.

My personal take on Ph.D. is, unless you want to teach or perhaps work in research at well-funded government labs or massive corporations that can afford to throw away money at research (i.e. Microsoft Research or IBM), there's truly no need for anything past a Masters degree....

I despise analogies and metaphors, generalizations - not because I don't use them in my day to day programming :), but mostly because they serve no purpose other than to tickle someone's ego or fancy.... present some kind of a twisted map into a territory that is completely unknown to the person embarking on it.

Unless one has a TRUE heart for teaching... for giving his or her life over to research... and by heart, I mean you've wanted to do this since you were 10.... short of this, doing a Ph.D. is only a symptom of a deeper psychological issue...a compensation for something that is lacking in the emotional makeup of a person... perhaps a desire to look good and a fear to admit vulnerability in front of others....or in front of authority.... or as in one case I've seen, in a moment of truth/epiphany/serenity/whatever you want to call it, a 5-tuple Ph.D. man admits to getting all of those degrees to prove to his daddy that he is smart...because his dad scolded him when he was 9 for not getting an equation with a single unknown right after the first or second time... ya know, because 9 year olds are supposed to get equations on the first try.

I am GLAD Harvey and the other guy who did the "check check check" on Harvey's response posted the kind of paint in the ass of an ordeal a Ph.D. is....

And nothing against you, but I'd appreciate if you or anyone else not make weak projections via analogies/metaphors/generalizations whatever logic your mind intuits while reading this or any other website, because your attempt at ameliorating the reality of what a Ph.D. means (even more grueling than medical school or getting a law degree/passing the bar) can seriously screw someone up.

It is, in my view, BEST to get first hand experience/testimony from people who have done it (or know someone who has, which is my case, as I know my friend for 15 years now), and you want to ask them not only about the benefits of the Ph.D. but also about the ginormous cost to the person's entire being.

Whomever is reading here, please take both the positive AND the negative or however you wish to paint the information, to HEART, before you commit to a Ph.D. And then commit, or not. Do ANYTHING but sit on the fence about this. The LAST thing you want is to piss away 5-10 years of your life and then wonder if you did the right thing. Anything or anyone that can successfully dissuade you from such a lofty goal, you should thank him or her for saving your life.

If you don't, you still might thank them 10 years later...

stared• 12 years ago

In normal job, you can quit without forfeiting a few years of work, and needing to wait 0.5-1.5 year for another work opportunity. Plus, you can deal without recommendation from your previous boss. In academia, no matter how but it turns, you can't.

Power to say "I quit" at expense lesser that many years, is a great power you don't realize.

Fede_V• 12 years ago

I want to add to this post - in my experience, a crappy PhD project with a great advisor is orders of magnitude better than a great PhD project with a shitty advisor.

A shitty advisor will make your life horrific - will pile a toxic combination of guilt, uncertainty, with just the right amount of compliments to make you keep going while hating your life. I've seen many brilliant colleagues completely burn themselves out because of this.

I've had an excellent advisor both for my PhD and later my postdoc - and while I've had strong disagreements with both, they are now excellent friends and people who I really cherish.

Before you accept a PhD in a lab, talk to your advisor's students privately, and ideally also to her ex students.

reuven4• 12 years ago

Yes yes yes yes yes.

Well said.

Find out how many of your advisor's former students want to continue working with him or her. That might be a good measure of how much they want to deal with him or her once they don't need to.

crocowhile2• 12 years ago

I am PI and Lecturer at top 10 World University and this is the advice I give to my students: don't focus too much on the project; chances are that in 3-4 years you'll move on and work on something completely different anyway. The working environment is the most important thing:your PI, your lab mates, the department/institute. Having said this, I agree with those who say Science is full of jerks. Two out of two of my advisors when I was PhD students and then postdocs where jerks. However, there is also people who try really hard to be as nice as possible yet maintaining a friendly and competitive/ambitious environment. They are just very difficult to recognize a priori if you are a student or a postdoc.

Xcelerate• 12 years ago

This is so true. I was naive going into grad school and got an email over the summer from a professor who wanted to work with me. I thought "well that sounds interesting" and accepted his offer immediately.

I got VERY lucky. My advisor is absolutely amazing. He goes far out of his way to make sure I am taken care of. He finds conferences for me to attend, fellowships I can apply for, and research collaborations with other professors. He even takes the grad students in his group hiking.

But I realize this isn't typically the case. I feel bad for some other grad students in different departments that are essentially free labor, with advisors who aren't as great as mine. I'll reemphasize: I got lucky. But if you are considering getting your PhD, eliminate the dice-roll from the equation and find a kind, caring person to do research with, because it makes a world of a difference. I would argue it is the most important aspect of getting a PhD, and it can make or break your time in grad school.

Everyone told me grad school would be the most difficult, grueling time of my life. In fact, it's the exact opposite. I get to wake up every day, work wherever I like, and I no longer have classes so the only thing I have to do is research. I get to use the world's best supercomputers and neutron sources. I'm essentially getting paid to have fun. Plus, I have access to all my university's resources (health insurance, workout centers, library, a large student body to interact with) without any of the administrative overhead that professors have (grant writing, internal politics, teaching).

sytelus3• 12 years ago

Before you project your anecdot as a massive generalization of all PHD programs, consider the fact that at least in computer science, there are VERY happy PHDs working at Google, Twitter, FB and others who are glad to have an expertise in fields like machine learning, NLP, IR and computer vision which otherwise would be difficult to attain. Many of these people in fact got hired at these companies because of their PHD degree. In fact, just about few years ago Google had reputation of sweeping clean pretty much all CS PhDs from top 50 schools IIRC. So getting PHD in fields like CS is definitely not a waste of time. Now sure you can end up with bad advisor but that's where you are supposed to do your homework ie background checks on professors and consult former students on their experience. The process of choosing advisor is very critical, you need to find your cultural fit and you need to have very strong intersection on research areas. If you don't have a lot of choice then you are likely underqualified and you would end up choosing something suboptimal that is destined to make you unhappy. Perhaps you were better off just looking for real job in that case instead of insisting on PHD degree. Either way I don't see why your experience with your advisor should be a reason to universally downgrade all PHD programs out there.

dalke6• 12 years ago

harveywi never suggested that a PhD program was all doom and gloom nor that it was personal anecdote. I, for one, agree with harveywi's observations.

Carl Vogel - one of the people questioned on the site - does too, in the comment: "The world is full of miserable grad students. Stressed-out, depressed, uncertain about when or if they’ll graduate and what will happen to them when they do. Far more people go into Ph.D. programs than should."

Vogel is the least optimistic about graduate school of the people interviewed, and also the only one who is neither a PhD nor a current PhD student. This is in line with harveywi's comment about survivorship bias. Your response assumes the same bias, by only considering those finish a PhD from a top school, and diminishing the 50% who did not finish by saying they were "underqualified" or solely at fault for making a suboptimal decision, not recognizing that resolving that question of staying in school (and the potential to be hired at Google) vs. leaving (and being branded 'underqualified' by people like you) is no simple matter.

collyw3• 12 years ago

Not got a PhD here, though I do work in academia, so I am surrounded by them.

While I wouldn't recommend it unless you are really into your field of study (basically I see academia like a ponzi scheme at the moment with far more PhD's than future PI positions). I would say that describing it as having "real risks to your mental and physical health" is a bit over the top. Sure anyone can take their job so seriously that they are stressed out and are damaging their health, but that's not a requirement of doing a PhD and not specific to it either. Plenty of PhDs seem to take things easy around here and most seem to have a decent life until the last year when they have to knuckle down.

blackkettle• 12 years ago

This is a really excellent summary. I'd like to add though, that the 'people stuff' you mention - which I think you are spot on about - continues after the PhD; and furthermore it is a fact of life in nearly every other mildly competitive sphere you might decide to participate in, in nearly any area of personal or professional life.

One of the most important lessons I learned was how to spot different kinds of pathological personalities from a distance.

This is a really, really painful - but invaluable - skill to acquire and I am firmly convinced it can only be learned through the school of hardest-knocks.

rwallace• 12 years ago

There is some truth in what you say, but I disagree with your last point. It doesn't have to be learned in the school of hardest knocks. In particular, learning from experience is best done in a context where experience doesn't cost too much, where you have room to maneuver; in this case, you're better off learning how to deal with pathological personalities in a commercial environment where you have much more freedom to walk away than you do in academia.

drdeadringer• 12 years ago

how to spot different kinds of pathological personalities from a distance

Could you expand upon this? What catches your eye, what do you "look for?"

ehurrell3• 12 years ago

I continue to feel extraordinarily lucky about my experience with my PhD. It was grueling, it was tough, but I had some fantastic support. I know many who weren't so lucky, and the effects are profound.

jstalin• 12 years ago

Sounds very similar to law school and the legal profession. For some reason, law attracts lots of sociopaths.

porter• 12 years ago

Geez, for all that stress and risk, you might as well start a company.

mathattack• 12 years ago

A few observations based on limited data...

A good friend hit everything right. MD/Phd on a full ride followed by a high-prestige post-doc that included international research. It took him until his late 30s to be comfortable financially, but now he's in his early 40s worried about tenure since the NIH is cutting grands. And he doesn't have a lot of backup options.

The painful thing is I can't think of him doing anything else with his talents. It's unfortunate.

The flip side is I see a lot Phds in areas like Computer Science, Math and Physics who can reinvent themselves as soon as they decide the Phd hamster wheel is done. (Or can step off a few years in)

GFK_of_xmaspast• 12 years ago

If you have to ask, the answer is 'no'.

sonabinu• 12 years ago

You need to be young, you need to be a dreamer and you need to have resilience ... I know people who have taken over 7 years. You need to have that time!

danieltillett8• 12 years ago

You should get a Ph.D if you want to change who you are. Doing a Ph.D gave me the strength to take chances that I would never have risked unless I had a Ph.D. It gave me confidence in my ideas and that if I single handly focused on something I can do it. This has proven to be very valuable.

I also had some of the best times of my life as Ph.D student (and also some of the worst), but it is not something I have regretted doing for one second since.

chuckcode3• 12 years ago

If you're really unsure, try out a masters. It can actually be helpful in the job market and you get a couple extra years of advanced coursework and projects. In my experience getting a PhD is more about doing something for yourself, comparable to running a marathon for example. Where many can find joy in a simple jog but it can be difficult to explain why it is more "fun" at mile 20 than mile 2. PhDs certainly aren't about making money, or getting famous, or having a rich social life and thus aren't for a lot of people.

zzleeper5• 12 years ago

They are quite different in practice, because in the PhD you are really at the mercy of the advisers and have made a huge commitment compared to a 1-2 yr masters).

bglazer• 12 years ago

Hi zzleeper, you've mentioned here and above in your top level comment that a bad adviser can make a PhD torturous. Perhaps this is a naïve question, but can you switch? Is it possible to just find and study under better advisor?

Thanks for providing your perspective on this.

chuckcode3• 12 years ago

Certainly different but a couple years in the program you get to see it all up close and personal and much of the coursework is usually the same so not a total waste of time. Like any job or 5+ year commitment you also want to be sure that the program and people are a good fit for you personally and a masters is one way start with a commitment of "just" a couple years.

uint32• 12 years ago

Seems rather narrow in focus, given the general title.

cossatot• 12 years ago

Although this isn't the same in all disciplines, in those that have significant fieldwork components, graduate school can offer some amazing experiences for young people that are difficult (though certainly not impossible) to get elsewhere.

I did my MS and PhD in geology/geophysics and did a good amount of fieldwork, including 8 international field campaigns in places like the Lesser Antilles and Tibet. It's a cool experience to be 23 and send to Nicaragua with a ton of scientific equipment and run small team for a month or two. There are aspects of it that are like tourism, but you go off the backpacker circuit more and interact with the locals, and actually have inescapable intellectual challenges and responsibilities. It's also a bit less heavy than the Peace Corps.

This is pretty common in the earth sciences, although not required. Lots of people in the social sciences have analogous opportunities.

In any case, I think that the overall discussion in the article and in the comments here provide a good range of possible experiences and considerations. But I just wanted to add my piece because it hasn't been mentioned, and it was what really tipped the scales on going to grad school for me. And that was, for me, a great decision.

I'd also add that anyone with an interest in both earth science and coding will find that if they really learn the 'earth' part of the sciences, there are very many opportunities to use relatively simple computations to make advances that a lot of the field scientists haven't worked through yet, and lots of industry opportunities if you're into that as well.

red_dazzler• 12 years ago

Friends don't let friends get PhDs

rrtwo• 12 years ago

Any advice for someone who is about to finish a PhD in CS? Like pro/cons of doing a postdoc vs. going straight to the industry, or best way to migrate to the industry?

analog312• 12 years ago

I studied physics, not CS, but my experience was that it boiled down to weighing the specific job offers that you get in each sector.

A possible reason to do a post-doc is if a full blown industry job search would detract from finishing your PhD. Nothing is worth delaying your PhD.

On the other hand, at least in my field, a post doc was not a step towards industry.

seanmcdirmid• 12 years ago

Postdocs are fun if you like your research. Finding a job that allows you to continue what you like working on is essential and could take awhile.

freyr• 12 years ago

I did a ten month stint as a postdoc while I wrapped up some research and looked for a job. This was common for people in my program at the time, i.e. graduating from a top 20 school (but not top 10) in a weak job market.

That was a few years back, but in a recent job interview the interviewer spotted the post-doc on my CV, raised an eyebrow, and asked "What's this all about? Why couldn't you land a job after graduating?" Kind of jerky. I don't know if it was a serious question or she was just looking for a reaction.

robdoherty2• 12 years ago

They should have more interviews with people who chose not to go for a PhD, and whether they feel they were successful in spite of (or because of) that choice.

blt• 12 years ago

Someone help me... I am applying for CS Ph.D. programs right now. I've been in industry for a few years and I have become a skilled programmer but I never get to work on really interesting problems. I am sick of wiring up buttons and sitting in UI design meetings. The kind of problems I want to work on require a lot of heavy math/algorithms that I don't know like Control Theory and Machine Learning. I have learned a lot from listening to online courses but I never actually do the projects/homework because my boring day job programming makes me too burnt out on programming to dedicate a lot of time to side projects. I want to get the Ph.D. to become a highly skilled expert R&D engineer so I can go back to industry and do the most interesting jobs instead of the menial ones. Should I do it? (of course I'm going to finish my applications, I can always say no, but seems like people in this thread would have useful input...)

chriskanan• 12 years ago

This is a great time to get a PhD to work on problems in machine learning and machine perception, especially if you want to go into industry. There is a lot of demand. I finished my PhD about two years ago, and I do R&D at NASA in machine learning and computer vision (although I'm leaving to become a professor).

Once you are in a PhD program, be upfront with your advisor about this goal and you will likely have an easier time graduating than those students that claim they want to become professors. Typically, to get a PhD you just need to finish your coursework (fairly easy) and produce about three published papers (can be brutally hard or fairly straightforward depending on a ton of factors). The latter's ease also depends on your tolerance for disappointment, because the rewards and successes in research are somewhat sparse.

A lot of the problems people have with the PhD is that there aren't enough academic jobs. You aren't seeking one, so you will be fine as long as you focus on your goal and maintain a good work-life balance most of the time throughout school (this can be very challenging to do, in practice).

albertzeyer• 12 years ago

I think it was Yann LeCun who said on a Reddit AMA that if you want to go into Machine Learning, a PhD is very much mandatory.

I'm doing a PhD myself right now in Machine Learning / Deep Learning. I started half a year ago. I don't have any bad experience yet. But I haven't heard too much bad things at all in Germany. My chair: http://www-i6.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/

brational2• 12 years ago

Yann's answer was in regards to machine learning specific research. If someone merely wants to work on hard computer science and engineering problems that require ML knowledge, a PhD is not required. Though it will definitely not hurt in any way.

currywurst• 12 years ago

I would suggest that you follow some of work done in conferences related to the field that you are interested in. See what topics are currently being tackled and see if you can come up with initial hypothesis on the road to a solution.

A PhD usually requires you to come out of "code-it-up" mode. You clearly have to state a sufficiently scoped problem, why it hasn't been solved before and why your solution can claim to solve it.

If you are looking for more interesting jobs, it is easier just to switch companies. Many RnD companies don't exclusively hire PhD candidates. All the best :)

brational2• 12 years ago

I'm actually going to suggest yes to you. OR at least you should start one. I, like you, cannot self-learn outside of work because my brain is done and needs to recharge. I, like you, read plenty and do the courses, but don't actually do the problems.

The real solution to your problem is to get another job. And I will disagree with some of the other posters that a PhD is required for ML because that is not necessarily true. I have a BS/MS in applied math and do research into how to apply ML into engineering automation problems for a fortune 50 manufacturing/eng company. Granted, we are not pushing the bounds of ML research. But we are looking at unsolved problems and using ML, control theory, robotics, etc to solve them.

This is what you want. And yes it is very math/algorithms heavy. Whenever we try to hire more people, HR sends us tons of BS cs guys that are sorely lacking the math background. Most of our hires are engineers (mech/ee/comp/aero) or oddballs with math/physics/ computational science like me.

So you can certainly look for other jobs (and if you want I will look at a resume to give more specific feedback). But if you already know that you don't have the background for controls and ML.. then go get it!

Here's the thing with CS or compEng PhDs. You don't have to finish them to get tons of valuable knowledge and move into the 'cool jobs' out there. But (per the rest of this HN thread) if you happen to get an awesome advisor and team relationship then you might as well finish.

alexalex• 12 years ago

I* believe that implicit in the curriculum of a doctoral program is the education on how to take on any question or problem and contribute to it. I'm not a computer scientist but do a lot programming and work with many people with a CS education. Many have an incredible ability to architect a solution to a problem by breaking it down into straightforward operations. A PhD is like that, but for questions and bigger problems. If you want to build something that other people haven't built before, or answer a question that nobody else has answered before, a PhD will give you great confidence and experience in doing that. It is incredibly enabling and will change how you approach problems for the rest of your life.

However, you also learn why nobody has done it before: because those things take a lot of time. And in a PhD program time is not a limited resource, money is. You will be doing stuff that is a waste of time by any objective measure. You have to be very mindful of the time cost of tasks, work, and your choices, because nobody else is. If you're not careful, a very meaningful period of time will have gone by without a lot to show for.

My advice for people who ask me about getting a PhD is that it is risky entering a PhD program without certainty in what you want to do. You can go to college and figure out what to do. But in a doctoral program, you are too likely to get lost in the system, have a bad experience, waste too much time, and accrue too much opportunity cost. You will regret it if that happens.

_______

*PhD in a Physics/Engineering program and research work in neuroscience and medicine. My one reccurring nightmare in life is waking up certain that I'm missing a credit, signature, or form and I'm still in graduate school.

jckt2• 12 years ago

A question for those who got their PhDs -- do you think there is a difference between getting one in a European Uni versus getting one in the USA? I've known a few science PhDs in the UK that seemed to be quite content in their decision, while the people that seem to have a bad time tend to do theirs in the USA (speculation in general, not just from the comments in this thread). Would this be an accurate assessment or does the location of your institution not really matter?

danieltillett8• 12 years ago

The big difference is the UK uni's are in a big rush to get you in and out in 3 years. I have seen people from the UK with Ph.Ds that are really just a master thesis.

Edit. Australian degrees are about half way in between the UK and US system. Most candidates take around 4 years.

jckt2• 12 years ago

What would be the UK equivalent of a US PhD? A postdoc position? And in that situation would the stress be comparable? Or is the system just totally different?

tfgg3• 12 years ago

3.5-4 years funding is the norm these days in the UK, and departments start to get fined if you go over 4 years. Masters are usually an entry requirement, normally done as an integrated undergrad masters, so I was 4 years undergrad and 4 years PhD. Undergrad programs here are also usually more focused on the subject that you're studying and don't have additional requirements. Go back a few decades and it was the norm to do 3 year undergrads and 3 year PhDs.

The only people I know who finished their PhD in 3 years were exceptionally good (not to mention lucky in their research) and wanted to move on for other reasons, such as leaving the country with a partner for a postdoc job.

Derbasti• 12 years ago

The article seems to imply that you can do either a master's or a PhD. Is that correct? In Germany, a master's is a prerequisite for the PhD.

iak8god2• 12 years ago

The article seems to imply that you can do either a master's or a PhD. Is that correct?

Yes. I wouldn't recommend it. As different as the MS and PhD are, doing an MS will be more like a PhD than anything else a person will have experienced during their undergraduate years.

graycat• 12 years ago

Yes, I got a Ph.D. in applied math from a famous research university and for a while, for reasons having to do with my wife, was a prof in a well known MBA program.

Yup, I've seen Ph.D. programs destroy a lot of really good people. People crushed for life, suicide, etc.

I got through okay, but some of the politics was grim. I got into a fight, had to take a year off, and, net, a department Chair and three profs got fired.

How'd I get through? Mostly just did the work on my own. Entered the program very well prepared. Brought my own Ph.D. dissertation research problem, with a good intuitive understanding of how to get a solution, with me to the program and did the real research part independently in my first summer.

Along the way I polished my halo:

One way was in a course, supposed to be really hard. The course was carefully graded, and the intention was that the class be competitive.

But before the course, I'd studied the material, in part in courses but mostly independently, over and over from a stack of the best books, elementary, intermediate, and advanced, applied the material, understood quite a lot about the corresponding numerical analysis, had written software for the material, etc. I could have given all but a few of the lectures on the first day of the class. So, on graded homework, tests, mid-term, and final. I blew away all the other students by wide margins, and I wasn't even trying to be competitive.

In a course there was a question but no answer. So, I asked for reading course as a chance to find an answer. Two weeks later, from working sitting by my wife on our bed as she watched TV, I had a nice, clean answer, with more than I'd hoped to get. Two weeks, course over. Work publishable -- did publish it later.

So, I suggest:

(1) Be very well prepared, from undergraduate school, a Masters from another school, on the job learning, independent study, whatever.

(2) Get an applied Ph.D., say, in engineering or "applied science* or some such. Then for the research, start with a problem from outside academics. Get at least a good intuitive solution before entering the Ph.D. program.

If the lectures, seminars, etc. of the program can give you some tools, ideas, etc. to help you with your research, fine.

(3) Do not ask for a research problem or research direction from a professor. Instead, just do the work independently. If there is any question about the quality of the work, then publish it or at least get it accepted for publication.

The big question, though, is why bother?

One point: Usually a person without a Ph.D. doesn't want to work with a person with a Ph.D. The person without can feel intimidated and threatened, and that one might guess that a Ph.D. might be relevant to his work he can take as an insult. People without have a lot of ways to denigrate people with.

Some of the challenge of a Ph.D. is summarized by D. Knuth in a remark in his The TeXBook:

"The traditional way is to put off all creative aspects until the last part of graduate school. For seventeen or more years, a student is taught examsmanship, then suddenly after passing enough exams in graduate school he's told to do something original."

That "suddenly ... told" can be a big shock.

Here are two common problems:

(1) Good Students.

Ph.D. programs tend to want only good students as in PBK, Summa Cum Laude, Woodrow Wilson, NSF Fellowships, etc.

Well, one of the more common ways to be such a good student is, in addition to being bright, liking the material, being highly determined, and working hard, is to be terribly afraid, of criticism, failure, failing to come up to what parents wanted, what high school teachers expected, of some relative saying that they "expect great things", etc.

So, such a student can be a case of anxiety disease, have done well in K-12 and in college just by making A grades and otherwise not thinking much about anything else. Then the "suddenly ... told" can be a severe challenge, a risk of failure, of the first criticism in life, a threat to self image as a great student, etc.

There can be anxiety, stress, depression, failure, more stress, clinical depression, and suicide.

It can help to have (a) a thick skin and (b) good grounding academically, etc. before entering a Ph.D. program.

I got a thick skin in grades 1-8 -- the teachers treated me like dirt. With my success in math in grades 9-12, I got a little better treatment. But the big day was when the SAT scores came back and the teacher who'd had me in the sixth grade read the Math score and, gulp, "There, uh, there, uh, must be some mistake." Yup, there had been, hers and that of the rest of the teachers, for 12 long, painful, largely wasteful years where I'd been treated like dirt.

But someone up there liked me: I got sent to an NSF summer program in math and physics.

I'd learned that there was no direct way I could ever hope to please the teachers, but with math I could do work that neither they nor anyone else could fault. So, math it was. And physics.

(2) Opaque Criteria.

Mostly students are not told just what the criteria are for the work, the social aspects of the field, the department politics, for research, for publication, for a dissertation, etc.

So, students can do too little in some respects and get into trouble or do too much in other respects, go too slowly, and again get into trouble.

My solution: Largely avoid the opaque stuff. For the learning, do that largely independently. For the research, do that independently and well enough to be publishable, e.g., "new, correct, and significant" and, in case there is any doubt, just submit the work for objective, blind, expert peer-review and, then, publication.

I haven't been at all interested in an academic career or much interested in publishing, but all the papers I've written as sole author or co-author have been accepted for publication right away; so, it's possible to follow the work style I've explained and get published. Getting published in academics is much like making money in business -- lots of other potential problems melt away.

For efforts, work style, such as I have described here, independently and/or in a grad program, is there any benefit? Well, all the best work I've done in my career has been from just that work style. Currently I'm doing a start-up, and the crucial, core secret sauce is from just such work, with some of the grad school work a big source of the prerequisites. So, if my start-up is successful, then the work style I explained above will have been successful.

plinkplonk• 12 years ago

Hey graycat.

Your 'work style' is fascinating. Is there a way to contact you, so I could ask some questions about this approach to study/research? I couldn't find an email in your profile . I promise not to take up too much of your time. Thanks in advance.

(my email id is in my profile, if you prefer contacting me offline)

reality_czech• 12 years ago

I was expecting this to be a static website that said "no."

Disappointing.

jvdh• 12 years ago

The most important advice I tell people who are thinking about getting a PhD is that they have to be really really motivated. 100% of the PhD students have at least one moment during their PhD work that they are seriously considering quitting. And this can happen at any point during the period, ranging from after one year, until year four.

If you are motivated, it is one hell of an experience that you are very unlikely to get anywhere else. This of course depends highly on the group you are joining and the research field that you are going to be in. It is very likely that you get to travel the world and meet interesting new people.

But it is no picknick, and I can confirm some of the other horror stories that you read here. Then again, these made me a better, more focused person.

mdup• 12 years ago

I'm honestly surprised to all the comments in here. This is not my experience at all. I thought I may share my perspective.

I'm currently pursuing a PhD program here in France. This is a special kind of PhD, called "CIFRE" which roughly means "PhD in a company". You're employed for 3 years by both an academic lab/uni and a company. The goal is to solve an industrial research problem that benefits both the lab and the company.

Personally I'm very happy to be doing this kind of thesis. I'm not in a major lab, so I'm pretty sure I won't be able to fight much against Ivy League PhDs but I'm still getting the degree and I'm okay with it. In the future I don't seek to teach a lot but to do mostly research.

Besides having a good relationship with my advisors I'm also super happy that I don't have a student debt (French education is mostly free -- even for top engineering schools). The pay is good, not as much as an engineer but plenty of people with lower degrees would already be happy with it, so no reason to complain. With this company-linked PhD I also get to study 100% while being officially employed as an engineer, it's on my contract. If I ever want to hide the PhD from my resume (I'm sure I never will), I can basically write "I've been a research engineer for three years" and this would be the truth.

I also get to see how it works in the industrial world and to be more aware when, after the degree, I have to choose between going back to the engineer path or getting further into the academic road.

tfgg3• 12 years ago

Most of the comments seem to be referring to US programmes. I chose to do my PhD in the UK and not bother with US programmes, which seem to have a toxic culture (similar to interns in banks working ridiculous hours for no reason). I accept that I'll probably have to do a postdoc before being considered equal to a US PhD, but that's a low cost for not being abused as free labour and having the opportunity to get out with something. I also wonder if in the US not having to have a masters first, four year undergrad masters courses are the norm here for hard sciences, makes it harder for people to make informed decisions.

Ultimately, does the UK, or other countries with different systems such as France, produce less good science? No.

sporkenfang• 12 years ago

How difficult do you think it would be for a U.S. master's student with published research to get into a PhD programme in the UK, France, or just somewhere !US?

semi-extrinsic2• 12 years ago

I'm on a similar kind of program in Norway, and I agree with you. Sure there are ups and downs, but most people enjoy and recommend the experience.

Also, don't make yourself think from the beginning that those Ivy League guys are so much better. Go out there with the intention to kick their ass; that's the only way you will be able to do so.

mailshanx• 12 years ago

What is program is that?

TimJRobinson• 12 years ago

Being a startup forum I'm surprised no one has compared doing a PhD to starting a startup. Has anyone done both and if so are they similar in stress levels, willpower needed etc? What are the similarities and differences?

return03• 12 years ago

Startup is more rewarding, you steer it where you want, and reap the rewards. In science, even if you make the big discovery you have a shit ton of politics to go through yet. (source: after building an indie business, i took up a pHd in a (very interesting) field). I love what i learned and will run away from academia as soon as i get the PhD. I don't understand how super smart people allow themselves to be treated the way they are treated there sometimes.

sbardle• 12 years ago

Startups and PhDs do tend to attract intellectually curious people. The startup scene seems to be benefiting from the brain-drain away from academia due to push and pull factors. But there are some differences: A startup involves working in a team; for a PhD, you're mostly on your own. A startup has no guarantee of success; for a PhD, there is an institutional bias in getting you through.

arethuza• 12 years ago

I spent 6 years working on a PhD before dropping it and going off and co-founding a start-up - from '89 to '95.

I wasn't terribly highly motivated about the PhD work towards the end - the main thing I learned during the process was that I did not want to work in academia. I didn't see much point in a PhD as a general purpose credential and basically used my time for the last 18 months or so getting our company sorted out.

Having said that, academia - particularly post-grads, is a great place to meet people. I met my co-founder through a research project and a couple of other people I knew from there came on-board as early stage employees and worked out really well.

return03• 12 years ago

You should get a PhD if you want, and you should see it for what it is: a job, with an end date and a certification. Many of you here act as if the PhD was a life-forming experience that defines your life. It's just one of the many things that can define your life.

In my experience the academic world is a closed society of people with similar, often pointless anxieties, an interesting, but quite uniform culture, and often a vague connection with the rest of the universe. I mean, things like publishing, impact factors, tenures and ego-bashing, are things that do not matter in the end, only the science matters, yet many academics' life incessantly revolves around it.

Another place where i have seen a similar "closed world" is the army. People there obsess over mindless pointless things all the time.

I think you should get a PhD because the world is getting richer and you can afford to do this, but make it about learning rather than anything else. If you dont build huge bridges in academia, who cares, you can always join a day job or start your own business. These are exciting times.

danieltillett8• 12 years ago

If a Ph.D is not a life-forming experience then you have not done a Ph.D. You might have been enrolled in a course and handed in a thesis, but unless you are changed by it you have missed the point.

return03• 12 years ago

I went there because i wanted to learn and i did. I also did pretty well and came out wiser, that was the whole point for me. What point did i miss?

reuven4• 12 years ago

I finished my PhD about 6 months ago, at the age of 44, married and with three children. It took me 11 years, and cost an enormous amount of money. Before I started, I was an independent consultant. After finishing, I'm an independent consultant. I never planned to go into academia.

So, why did I do a PhD? I was told that I would learn lots of new things, and meet lots of new people -- and escape, to some degree, the frustration that I was experiencing with my consulting business.

It's true that I met lots new people. And it's true that I learned a ton. And I'm very proud of the research that I did, resulting in a Web site that is used by thousands of researchers and students every week. (The Modeling Commons -- http://modelingcommons.org/, if you're curious.) And I also go to experience a different sort of frustration than I have had when consulting.

And yet, was it worthwhile? I continue to wrestle with that question. My family and I were hugely stressed for more than a decade. Our finances are improving (thanks to my consulting work), but it'll be another year or so before we're back to where we were. I'm frustrated that I didn't create lots of products and businesses during those 11 years.

And the incredible frustration of the PhD process, and of having an advisor who drove me completely and utterly batty, cannot be ignored.

If you want to do research, then you should do a PhD -- but you should know what you're getting into beforehand, and be really sure that you want to do research.

If you don't want to do research, but want to boost your creds, and if you're single and young, then it might be worthwhile.

If you're like me, in your mid-30s, married, with children, and the primary breadwinner, then you should think long and hard about whether you want the PhD. Several of the others who did PhDs mid-career in my program had spouses earning good incomes, didn't have children, or both.

I do believe that having the PhD has already helped to boost my career a bit, helping me to find newer and bigger clients who somehow think that having a PhD makes you smarter or better than the rest of the population.

But would I recommend it to someone else in my position? Not without a lot of thought and consideration. And an understanding that what you think will take 5 years or so might take much longer than that.

edem• 12 years ago

So is it a yes or a no?

pfortuny• 12 years ago

If you are asking that question, you most probably should not get a PhD.

You either want to or need to but never should.

wyclif• 12 years ago

Is this site new? Or simply new to HN? I had not seen it before, so thanks to @johndcook.

emplynx5• 12 years ago

The interviews have been on my blog for a year: http://stiglerdiet.com. I put up the dedicate site yesterday.

DSingularity• 12 years ago

My my. Just try it and if you dont like it leave after the masters. I dont think every question needs to be answered based on others experiences. Sometimes, you have to find the answer yourself.

billpg• 12 years ago

Answer: See Betteridge's law of headlines.

silverlake• 12 years ago

If you go to a top 10 school: Yes. If you have full funding and want to do R&D in industry: Yes. If you have full funding and just want to work on cool stuff for a while: Yes. Otherwise, No.

geebee• 12 years ago

Lots of interesting comments here. My biggest bit of advice to someone asking if he or she should get a PhD is to phrase it differently.

If that person got into an elite Medical, Law, or Business School, they should ask "should I get an MD, JD, or MBA". The reason it's ok to phrase it this way is that attrition rates are typically below one half of one percent in those degree programs at the elite (top 10) level.

Science PhD programs, even elite ones, often have attrition rates at 50%. Engineering is a bit better, at around 35% attrition rates, though this varies by program.

So you should be saying "should I take a 50% shot at getting a PhD" - or, if not, take a very objective look at why the 50% doesn't apply to you. I know, if you got into the PhD program at Berkeley, you justifiably think you're really good at this sort of thing, but really, everyone's good. The 50% who drop or fail out aren't slackers or unintelligent. They're often exceptionally smart and motivated people.

These degrees are very different from professional degrees at the elite level. They are extraordinarily difficult to complete.

On a personal note, I was a PhD student in Industrial Engineering at Berkeley, and I felt there was far too much failure and attrition for such a bright and accomplished group of people. Nobody I knew ended up in an insane asylum (as mentioned in other posts), but it was an emotionally rough experience for many of them, and I could see it getting there. I felt the system did border on being cruel at times.

Should I Get a Ph.D.?

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