ToPhDorNotToPhd

These are the opportunities that I'm still trying to explore.

Even though my PhD would be in basic science, there are lots of potential applications. In fact, the program I'd be at has very, very strong links with the medical school. I'd probably be able to use some of these techniques on clinical populations and doing some translational research (i.e., stuff that has direct applications). For example, using machine learning with fMRI has some potential in mental health diagnostics.

The big question for me is if these things will take off in the next few years. Currently, I haven't seen any companies really growing in these sorts of areas (though I look at it and think the potential is immense).

the facts are that they expect you to follow the academia path

The bad news here is that while my potential advisor is really great (and probably okay with people not becoming professors) the people that haven't jumped into the post-doc route haven't had any of these sorts of outcomes. The few that haven't gone the academic route have become staff scientists or gone into government (though, those individuals graduated 5+ years ago, and my work would possibly be more technical since the lab has gone down the machine learning path).

Answers:

Married: No

Cash: Not a ton (maybe a years worth)

Smarts: Maybe (on my best days)

Motivation: Yes (over the last 2 years at least....though over the last two years I had a clear goal: academia. Without that, I'm not certain that my doubts won't get in the way).

And agreed. If I were 21, this would probably be an easy decision. I'd just go, push through and see where it took me. At 31 though, I have other goals that I'm not sure if I'll be able to meet if I do the PhD. I'd probably have to put off getting married, having kids, etc. Not to mention, putting away cash will be almost impossible.

So, this seems risky. I could end up in my late 30s with some really interesting publications, but limited funds and no idea where I'd be finding a job.

The good news for me is that cognitive neuroscience doesn't face those pressures (yet). Most of the students doing cogNeuro and even computational neuroscience are from the US and Canada. In general, I got the impression that competition between students in these programs is much less important than collaboration.

That said, your point is very well taken: cutting edge research will still be very competitive. And, since the stuff I want to do comes very close to bio-medical engineering, I might face more of these sorts of competitive pressures than most people in my field.

I have considered just going and seeing how it turns out (some people have given me the advice to go .... no better way to find out if I'll like it than to try).

I think you're right about the stuff coming up on the horizon. From what I know, some of the HCI stuff is problematic (I just talked to an EEG guy that was lamenting how problematic his machine learning/EEG research has been, given the noisiness of the data), but people are really starting to think about this stuff. There are also individuals using fMRI as a neurofeedback device (Chris DeCharms of Omneuron has started down that path: http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_decharms_scans_the_brai...). Relatedly, some researchers have started to throw in classifiers such that one can focus on distributed brain states, as opposed to specific regions (which is what DeCharms does).

I read about this stuff and I'm fairly convinced that eventually the HCI, neurotraining, neurotech industries will take off, but for me it's a question of when. Will the growth of those industries happen in 5 years or 25 years? If it happens in 5 or 6 years, I'd be golden. If 25, then I'd be looking for a job when I come out.

As for the startup idea, I really have thought about that. The issue would be age again .... I'd be 37 with limited funds trying to crawl through the startup "Valley of Death." It wouldn't totally be off the table, but a lot would depend on the state of the industry.

So, all in all, I look at this PhD opportunity and think that there's definitely exciting work to be done, and the potential for really interesting jobs in the future. But it seems very high risk considering that I'd need to get the timing just right.