"The people who drop out of PhD programs usually are plenty smart enough, they just don't know how to make things happen." It's possible that those of us who d

"The people who drop out of PhD programs usually are plenty smart enough, they just don't know how to make things happen." It's possible that those of us who drop out of PhD programs have, in fact, made quite a few things "happen" in our lives and realized that the job market was terrible, the subject was... just stupid... and that there are other things in life than petty academic squabbles. Just to disclose, I was about 6 months away from defending my dissertation and didn't want to throw another half a year of my life away working at a minimum wage job so I might (possibly) be able to work at a poorly paying job for the rest of my life. It was the first really great adult decision that I made in my life.