Just chiming in to say that this depends on the country quite a bit (although I appreciate this thread is US-focused). UK PhDs have a lot of freedom to choose t

Just chiming in to say that this depends on the country quite a bit (although I appreciate this thread is US-focused). UK PhDs have a lot of freedom to choose their research direction, and they're generally quite a bit shorter and less of a major life risk. My PhD was (supervisor 'challenges' aside...) a really positive experience for me overall, despite the fact that I worked out pretty early on that I didn't want to go further in academia.