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Why do so many people continue to pursue doctorates?

• prions 11y ago
  It's no secret that the life sciences field is over saturated, competitive, and vastly underpaid with a high barrier for entry. Industry demand is low on both bachelors and doctorate level positions. A bachelors really doesn't get you anything as a sciences student. Besides QA/Tech positions, there aren't many options to cut a viable path within the field. Most companies demand a minimum Masters with a preference for PhD's for most Scientist level positions. Having upward career mobility is very tough without a higher degree. Spurned on by a lack of better options, most students pursue grad school in hopes of landing a tenure track position or hope their research aligns with relevant industry markets. Competition is insanely high though from the sheer churn of graduate students who are essentially cheap labor for their universities.
• jseliger 11y ago
  Having done so myself and observed lots of people do it: 1. It's a way to (pointlessly) delay adulthood. 2. Fear of the job market. 3. Don't know what else to do. 4. Magical thinking (despite the numerous articles out there, like mine (http://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-before-you-start-grad-school-in-english-literature-the-economic-financial-and-opportunity-costs/ http://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-befor...) that attempt to dissuade it). I think this is the biggest issue. In addition, there seems to be a Lake Woebegone effect: Everyone thinks they're going to be above average. EDIT: I forgot to add another important one: Grad school is pretty easy and fun! You get to hang out on campus, think about ideas, take a minimal number of classes, do a bit of teaching, and have copious free time. The problem is that, as time advances and your priorities start changing (want a real life / job, date people who don't date people whose lives aren't together, etc.), reality starts to intrude. Many grad students have an unacknowledged Peter Pan complex.
  • eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    >Grad school is pretty easy and fun! You get to hang out on campus, think about ideas, take a minimal number of classes, do a bit of teaching, and have copious free time. What on Earth? Did I go to grad-school in an alternate dimension or something?
  • iends 11y ago
    It's fun (mostly).
  • RIMR 11y ago
    I did really well when I finished my undergraduate program, and my professors kept trying to get me to pursue a Doctorate or PhD. in my field. They were really enthusiastic about it telling me that with my talents I deserve more than a B.A. None of them could give me a convincing answer as to how I would benefit long-term for continuing my education. None of them could give me an example of a job that I would be unable to get with my current level of education. All of them admitted that it would require 4-6 more years of my life, and that even with the best financial aid / scholarships, I would still be paying $60-100k out-of-pocket for the experience. So basically, it would have required me to put off getting a full time job to instead drive myself deep into debt all while sacrificing all of my free-time until I was 30. Instead, I moved to Seattle, found a job in I.T. and I have been climbing the corporate ladder ever since, making more than enough money to live comfortably and save money. I was lucky enough to earn my B.A. without any student debt. My degree isn't even in an I.T. field. I have a B.A. in Journalism! The thing that has done more to further my resume has been my full-time employment and my technical certifications. I get to expense my certifications to my company... Furthering my education would have ruined my future. Ending my education has accelerated it. Sadly, I worry that this is going to become true of Undergrad programs in the next decade, and that's not a good thing...
    • beambot 11y ago
      In STEM, if you don't get a financial offer along with your PhD program acceptance letter, then you've probably just been politely rejected. The financial offer will usually cover your living costs (a few $k per month), so it won't cover any lost opportunity costs... but you shouldn't need to take on debt to do your PhD in STEM. I'm guessing journalism is a different story! For STEM, it's also true that certain job opportunities (eg. elite R&D facilities) more-or-less require a PhD or equivalent levels of mastery. It's possible to obtain those jobs after a long period of field work (without PhD), but it's a lot more difficult. Plus, you will always be butting up against credentialing norms during those jobs' recruiting processes. (Whether that's equitable or not is another story.) Just my $0.02.
      • archgoon 11y ago
  • threatofrain 11y ago
    Some practicing, non-research positions are gated and require a doctorate, such as psychology.
    • barry-cotter 11y ago
      Legally required qualifications may make a nod towards being for the good of the general population but there's a great deal of rent seeking involved. In Germany until a few years ago you could practice as a psychotherapist after doing your Master's (which included a large practical component.) Now they tacked on more post graduation training time. In the USA and other unfortunate countries that follow its example medicine, dentistry and law are all postgraduate degrees, elsewhwere they're undergraduate. In the USA until recently physiotherapy was a Master's degree. Now they require a "professional doctorate" like an Ed.D. or Psy.D. You can still practice in the US with a Bachelor's in physiotherapy acquired in Europe. In Germany physiotherapy is an apprenticeship. In my home country of Ireland they recently increased the necessary qualifications for teaching from a one year post bachelor's diploma to a Master's. This despite the fact that the evidence for positive effects of teaching qualification on effectiveness are minimal, at best. Credentialism.
      • a_bonobo 11y ago
        >In Germany until a few years ago you could practice as a psychotherapist after doing your Master's (which included a large practical component.) Now they tacked on more post graduation training time. I think in the special German case this was made to allow for more career switching - I have a relative who has a diploma in Pedagogy, he took one of the new short psychotherapy courses ("post graduation training time") and is now a certified child psychologist, a career that was before this new course impossible for him without the prior psychology degrees.
      • threatofrain 11y ago
        Many disciplines don't have a reliable way of predicting professional performance from a simple test, like the actuarial discipline, and I think psychology and pedagogy would be among those fields. So, an employer looking at many undifferentiated candidates would likely choose someone with a masters or doctorate, if not at least to cover their hiring decision if ever questioned. The development of a fast and cost-efficient test would lower the need for credentials as a gateway.
  • brownbat 11y ago
    > Magical thinking (despite the numerous articles out there... I think humanity applies the lessons from these articles in the aggregate, but at an individual level, this is a much messier story. It features people (like myself) who didn't really understand or place any importance on marketability when asked to choose a major at 17. Four years later you get another fun choice: accept your current job prospects, grab an advanced degree, or start from scratch on a different undergrad degree, which is psychologically quite hard.[0] I know a lot of people push for universally free college tuition. A part of me though would much rather encourage school loans that signal to students the viability of their major by adjusting interest rates or availability of credit based on the field of study. Though that has it's problems too. We'd want to pay teachers considerably more, for instance. Ok, I mostly just wish someone had handed me a copy of "So Good They Can't Ignore You" when I was young and stupid. [0] And some people successfully convince a great manager to take a chance on them. That involves a lot of search costs and a lot of luck, though. It also filters for risk-tolerant employers, which becomes a high-risk strategy itself.
  • mathattack 11y ago
    All of your reasons are valid. I would add one more: 5. Academic success has been rewarded every step of the way. I look at my high school classmates who I know went on to get Phds. (Sample size of 8) All of them were among the smartest few percent in the class. Every success that they got through the end of undergrad was due to academic performance. But afterwards things slowed down. Only 2 of 8 stayed through to tenure. The two smartest got Phds in math and wound up in non-faculty positions. One other got a science industry job. One wound up at a hedge fund. And two teach high school. All things considered it's not a bad lot in life, but these were amongst the best and brightest of my peer group. Five of Seven would have been better served taking other paths to their end destinations. There is a systemic incentives problem going on. Every individual school has an incentive to push as many people as possible into academia. This is for both cheap labor, and because their brand goes up when absolute #s of their grads go on to big things. The schools in aggregate also benefit when there are more Phd grads than job applicants. (Again keeps costs down) The systemic over-supply punishes the graduates as a whole. It's a case where the individuals who have gotten the most mileage listening to their teachers, are also the ones who most need to stop listening to them. :-)
    • civilian 11y ago
      Yeah! I did my senior thesis in an 8-person biochemistry lab, graduated in 2009. I was probably solidly in the bottom 2 students of the group. I was just as smart as my labmates, and I had a lack of attention to detail and a weak work ethic. A handful of them went on to more education, and most of them stayed in the field. I think I might be doing the best, career-wise, unless any of them pivoted to be a medical doctor. I got fired from a biotech job (that pesky work-ethic...) and learned python while working data-entry. Being a C student in college kinda paid off, if it helped me dodge a career in the life sciences. Linkedin/FB stalked, of the 8 of us we have: Research Associate (has a Masters now), Phd/MD Student, Scientist II, Research Lab Tech (might be unemployed & traveling the world?), Research Lab Tech, PhD Student, Physician's Assistant, Senior Software Eng. All but one of these people are harder-working than I am, and all are just as smart. I just lucked out by having an economist for my dad, who planted the idea that I should look at switching to a field in demand.
  • GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
    > Grad school is pretty easy and fun This is not a universally shared experience.
    • Joof 11y ago
      I frequently hear it's the exact opposite of easy and fun with lots of free time.
      • Gibbon1 11y ago
        Friend said he and his wife joked about being peeved that their PhD's didn't come with the line 'Successfully completed without resort to psychotherapy or drugs'
  • sbardle 11y ago
    On point number 1, since we are living longer (Happy Birthday, Your Majesty), there is a logic to delaying adulthood by around 5 years until your mid to late 20s. Grad school can also be a great place to date, and the time can be used to reflect on what you really want to do in the future. All your points resonate with me and the people I knew in grad school. I had two criteria when it came to doing a PhD: it had to be funded and it had to be relatively short (so UK rather than the US).
  • tiplus 11y ago
    My experience was different. 1. It's a way to (pointlessly) delay adulthood. adulthood != working for a company Developing the next CRISPR, detecting gravitational waves, or building a stellator is a pretty grown up thing. In the end there is a non zero chance of achieving or contributing to something exceptional during your 20s (depending on your field). 2. Fear of the job market. Well said. No other entity is recruiting young undergrads like academia does. Only topped by consulting firms, maybe. 3. Don't know what else to do. The fellow students I encountered (~30) were mostly driven/obsessed by curiosity (2-3 exceptions maybe). 4. Magical thinking Academia problem or society in general? This pattern prevails everywhere. disclaimer: physics PhD
    • jerf 11y ago
      "Developing the next CRISPR, detecting gravitational waves, or building a stellator is a pretty grown up thing. In the end there is a non zero chance of achieving or contributing to something exceptional during your 20s (depending on your field)." It is a mistake to look at a field full of so many thousands of people and focus on the outliers. The common case of the PhD experience is proving cheap labor to a tenured professor on their projects while moving your own PhD process forward, in a field that lacks the hard science component that allows you to paint such a glowing image of the process. You dipped into physics twice, in fact; even accidentally, I'd suggest this means something. Further, both fields you named are fields where getting a PhD still leaves you quite eminently hireable even if you "fail out" of academia... this, too, is not the common experience. Someone getting their PhD needs to make sure they ask questions about what is most likely, not what the most awesome possibilities are, who are, by that very token, getting drowned in applications for those positions. Do you have a good story as to why you will get those positions?
    • msdos 11y ago
      No other entity is recruiting young undergrads like academia does. The military does.
  • rinzao 11y ago
    I really fall under #3. My wife got a job offer which implied relocating on a short notice. I wasn't finding any work at all and a PhD seemed like a way to keep busy for 3 years doing something (potentially) interesting.
  • dagw 11y ago
    1. It's a way to (pointlessly) delay adulthood. That one I don't get. Having watched my wife get her PhD, I'd say that it requires at least much "adulthood" (place in that word what you will) as any job I've ever had, and probably a lot more.
    • deleted 11y ago
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    • Gibbon1 11y ago
      I'm reminded of sitting first day in class, English 101. The teacher said 'I won't accept late work in this class' And I'm like fair enough. Then she added 'because when you get out into the real world your boss won't accept late work' And the other students are nodding their heads while I'm trying hard not to snort coke out my nose. The difference between me, the other students and the teacher was I'd had been working at technical job through school. In the real world crap's late all the time. Meeting the deadline involves jettisoning requirements like the sailors in a stricken ship tossing valuable cargo over side. You know your wife is an adult. And school actually is the real world. Grad school is often harder, you don't have a boss. You don't have tasks that are neatly sectioned. Work places tend to be organized to psychologically pressure you into getting stuff done. Self motivation is a big factor in being successful in school. Lot of students don't get that though. And the potential transition out of school seems scary. So they punt.
• seaghost 11y ago
  Everything explained here. https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_cre...
• Rhapso 11y ago
  I am actually going to get my PhD in the next few days. Perhaps I am an outlier, but I really think it was the right thing for me. I hit the end of my undergraduate degree and I felt like I had just started learning, so I looked into graduate school and liked what I saw. I've spent the last 4 years working on my PhD and I have learned a lot, I've made real improvements to human knowledge, and I've gotten a job that would have been impossible with a bachelors and 4 years of work experience. But the biggest reason is simple and terrifying: because it is fun.
  • chias 11y ago
    Very much this! I'm about to start my seventh year, and if all goes well, my last. It's been a blast, and I've learned so much: whenever I've thought to myself "gosh, I wish I knew more about ___" I could choose to learn about it from a leading expert, for free. For people who measure their success in dollars earned a PhD is an idiotic investment. About a year ago I calculated the difference in how much money I have, and how much money I would currently have had I accepted an offer from Google after my first year. Obviously that stung a little. But I wouldn't trade the last six years for anything... not even the above-mentioned amount of money ;)
    • Joof 11y ago
      Experiences are important. Otherwise the days turn into weeks, then months, then years without you noticing.
  • gozur88 11y ago
    >I've spent the last 4 years working on my PhD and I have learned a lot, I've made real improvements to human knowledge, and I've gotten a job that would have been impossible with a bachelors and 4 years of work experience. The real problem with oversupply of PhDs is there are fields of study which aren't remunerative outside academia. If you get a PhD in electrical engineering, say, or something medical, you can get a job. But if you field of study was sociology or literature and you can't find a job in academia (and you probably can't), you're never going to be able to pay of eight or ten year's worth of student loans.
• bonniemuffin 11y ago
  I'm currently quite happy in an industry job in which my PhD is an asset, but I'd still advise others against pursuing a PhD. I could've found a career path that would be just as fulfilling without a PhD, and I could've gotten there faster if I hadn't spent 10 years on a PhD+postdoc. My standard advice to people currently in grad school is to drop out with a masters.
• lazzlazzlazz 11y ago
  I am not aware of a way to get into a "scientist" level position doing biology research, in industry, without a PhD. This alone would answer the question "Why do so many people continue to pursue doctorates?" If somebody has evidence to the contrary, please fill me in.
  • jankedout 11y ago
    There's data scientist. You don't need a PhD to pursue that. I mean, you probably won't be researching cures for cancer, but you'll still be applying research methodologies. You'll be getting paid more and probably won't have to wait half your lifetime to get a plum position. I abandoned grad school after seeing the rigor mortis that has set into academia and private research companies.
    • nrjames 11y ago
      I work as a data scientist at a nonprofit research organization (rti.org) and have to apply far more skills than the PhD researchers here. While we fall back on them for depth in subject matter expertise, we also have to understand conceptual design, research methodology, stats, newer data sci methods, software development, 3+ programming languages, user experience design, tech stacks, database design and deployment, data visualization, business consulting, public speaking, etc... Often, we lead client engagements, determine project deliverables, co-author academic papers, present at conferences, schmooze with key stakeholders, and so on. ALL of us, however, would lose our minds if we had to focus on a single domain area or spend a protracted amount of time on one problem. I worked on > 50 projects across the biological sciences, social sciences, and humanities in 2015. It can be exhausting, but it is a real blast most of the time. So... Consider the path of a research data scientist if that sounds fun. It's also very lucrative, which is nice, too, though I'm not personally motivated by the finances of it.
      • chestervonwinch 11y ago
        I'm confused. All the skills you cite are exactly the ones I would expect a PhD researcher (esp. in math, comp. sci, stats, etc...) to be proficient in (although, perhaps not the schmoozing). You're saying your PhD researchers aren't skilled in research methodology and stats??
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• allisthemoist 11y ago
  I'm actually at the point of considering graduate school to help my chances of establishing a life science based start-up in the future. Is getting a graduate level degree (at least a Masters) a necessity to be the head of such a company? From what I've seen, most other companies in the space seem to be headed by people with either a PhD or MBA.
  • seangrogg 11y ago
    Unless you're trying to start a "professional" firm (Law, Civil Engineering, Accounting, etc.) there are not really any educational requirements. Hell, most well-known entrepreneurs didn't even stick college out long enough to get a Bachelor's.
  • jtfairbank 11y ago
    I dropped out of college to found a med-tech company that went on to be funded by YC. Every other company in my space is founded by a doctor. I haven't noticed a difference in how we are treated yet. If you're good, you're good, and you can always hire the PhDs later on.
    • timr 11y ago
      To be fair, you folks aren't doing research -- you're doing residency program scheduling. And domain expertise is more important for your product than any sort of theoretical knowledge of science or medicine. To found a company doing scientific research, it helps a great deal not just to have a PhD, but to to be an established researcher in the field you're commercializing. Most scientific startups founded by outsiders are...transparently bad.
      • jtfairbank 11y ago
        Agreed. It really depends on what you are going for. You can learn domain knowledge on the fly (a lot of ours is how the organization functions), but you can't gain a deep understanding of the science side like that.
  • 11y ago
• geebee 11y ago
  There is a very good essay titled "Graduate School in the Humanities - Just Don't Go" that gives a really excellent description of the mindset that exists when young people go to graduate school. This described me well when I was floating around in my early to mid 20s. I enrolled in a doctoral program in industrial engineering and (ended up leaving with a masters) rather than humanities, but still, I see a lot of myself in what this article describes. http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the-Huma/44846/ http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the-Huma/448... All this is a bit less applicable to some fields. I've heard that employment is good PhDs for CS and some other engineering fields - but then again, so is employment with an MS or BS. Economics may be a good field for a PhD. One other factor is that getting a graduate degree from a US based university can be a path to immigrate to the US. There really aren't many options for people who don't have family reunification as an option, so going to grad school in a STEM field in particular may have value that isn't captured in pay relative to fields that don't provide this path to the same extent. The article mentions that enrollment in PhD programs hasn't declined like it has for law schools and historically hasn't been a path to immigration. One way to measure this would be to see if there has been a substantial decline in enrollment in PhD programs from people who already have the right to live in and work in the US.
• tumbas 11y ago
  look ma no hands :-DDD
• Gatsky 11y ago
  This is a good question to ask. Prospective and current PhD students need to understand the pros and cons, and the incentives driving their recruitment. But in terms of defining the problem, it all depends on your perspective... As a society, we are severely lacking in people doing deep dedicated study in important areas. Understanding biology at a level that allows us to alleviate much of human suffering is still a long way away, for example. So perhaps the question is 'Why do we pauperize people interested in doing serious science and then make them feel bad about it?'
• woodandsteel 11y ago
  Two thoughts on why people go for doctorates even though they are unlikely to get a job that requires it. One is that there is a real conflict of interest for their professors. They are supposed to be advising their students in their best interests, but they need to keep a big surplus of graduate students to keep their graduate programs going, and often also as research assistants. The other is that American elementary and secondary education is designed to funnel people into higher education, and so that is what students learn how do do, rather than getting a job in the real world. Contrast this with Germany, where there is a very solid track for learning useful skilled manual trades (and that is a key reason German manufacturing continues to be very healthy in the face of Asian competition)
  • sbardle 11y ago
    Germany has good academic (selective) schools and good technical schools. We used to have something similar in the UK. I have a PhD and was good academically. I recently bumped into an old school friend, who was not academic in the slightest and is now a tradesman earning great money. If I had kids, I wouldn't mind one bit if they decided to pass on higher education and learn a trade instead. I call it, "Revenge on the snobs."
• guelo 11y ago
  The 40% with employment commitments doesn't seem that bad actually. It's probably higher than the percentage for B.S. graduates.
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• soufron 11y ago
  Well, I was paid for the first five years of my PhD... and then I dropped off :)
• f_allwein 11y ago
  One point that has not been made here yet: Because you enjoy doing research and teaching more than you would working in a 9-5 office job! I'm approaching the end of a 4 year PhD and so far do not miss the world of work too much. But ask me again in a year...
• jheriko 11y ago
  i'm a drop out so i may be biased, but my experience of software developers with doctorates is that they are very consistently not as good as self taught juniors in the workplace. this makes sense.. a doctorate is a research effort with a very different kind of end goal to the typical workplace environment. its an opportunity to explore the field and do work that most employers will never let you - but more importantly the skill set required is, imo, highly orthogonal to the skills require for day-to-day 'boring' work. why do people expect doctorates to result in employment outside of academia? they are poorly suited to this by design... and afaik its completely intentional because of the aforementioned difference in skill requirements.
  • argonaut 11y ago
    There's another selection bias at play: the really good PhD's in CS who didn't go to academia and aren't doing research at a research lab, are making millions at Google/Facebook/quant finance, and not <foo corp>.
    • jheriko 11y ago
      its funny how all of the best programmers i know have quite a lot of disdain for the idea that Google or Facebook are good at engineering... their public facing code is good evidence of it too. HHVM is full of rank amatuer crappiness, as well as some fairly cool stuff... but mostly crappiness and WebRTC is an absolute nightmare to use in practice compared to most rookie efforts in the same area (and its not because of what it does, its because Google have lots of internal stuff to work around the shittiness that isn't public afaik). i've met plenty of very shitty googlers and facebookers, as well as some truly excellent ones. but i suspect you will find much better guys in games, vfx, military and finance (which at least backs up some of your point). in my experience there is a much lower tolerance for crappiness in those fields by necessity. the performance and quality bar they have to meet is orders of magnitude higher in a lot of cases...
• sweezyjeezy 11y ago
  I would never have forgiven myself if I hadn't done a doctorate degree. It turned out that I wasn't a star, I didn't produce the research that would put me on to a tenure-track position with ease. But I don't think there was any way I would have found my limitations without doing it, without seeing how much smarter some people were - I would always have been left wondering what could have been. Now, I have come to terms with it, and moved on.
  • glial 11y ago
    I'm in my 6th year of a (hopefully soon-to-be-completed) doctorate, and my experience has been very similar. I started the degree because I wanted to learn more about a particular field and develop the related technical skills. I couldn't think of a job where I could get the same benefits. I've learned a ton, but have also seen that while I have certain strengths, there are others who are smarter, more motivated, and frankly have different priorities than I do. Like you, I'm now coming to terms with it, but I have a better idea of what strengths I do have and am working towards putting them to good use.
    • sbardle 11y ago
      Motivation is the big factor. Most PhDs are smart enough to pursue a career in higher ed, but it takes a PhD to evaluate your level of motivation / love of the subject. Intrinsic motivation is becoming even more important given the incentives for entering the field are diminishing (job insecurity, more senior management, publish or perish).
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• stegosaurus 11y ago
  The article seemingly is very focused on employment. It's taken as axiomatic that people must do whatever they do because it leads them into an employer's arms, at some point. What about whether a PhD helps people with romantic relationships, sense of belonging in the community, happiness, social ranking, whatever other goals they might have in their lives? In light of that I think the topic should be changed on HN - I expected a much more balanced analysis. The current headline on the site itself is "The Ever-Tightening Job Market for Ph.D.s".
• patmcguire 11y ago
  Don't forget immigration. It's a lot easier to get a student visa than a working one, and a lot easier to get a working one with higher degrees.
  • hocuspocus 11y ago
    Especially given the current H1B situation. It looks like almost anyone with a PhD and a good immigration lawyer can get an O1, even if they're being hired as an entry-level developer or another position that clearly doesn't require extraordinary skills.
• URSpider94 11y ago
  What this leaves out is that not all Ph.D. programs are equal. If you are good enough in your field to get accepted into one of the Top 10 graduate programs, you're going to have a great chance of getting a high-quality job when you graduate, assuming you do well. If not, then you're chopped liver. Those top 10 programs can probably fulfill most of the faculty openings in any given field, nationwide, with enough graduates left over to fill all of the needs of private industry and government labs as well. There is just no reason for recruiters to look further down-list. I have friends who have taken faculty positions at PhD granting programs ranked 20th or so in the country. They have reported back that their grad students are, um, underwhelming, and they end up doing a lot of their own research hands-on.
• 7402 11y ago
  A Ph.D. is a union card for doing research. If you want to be a university professor, a principal investigator at a lab, a Chief Scientist or Chief Scientific Officer at a major corporation, then you need that union card. A Ph.D. program should not be for people who just like learning more stuff. You can take classes, get a masters degree, or just study on your own, if that's what you want. A Ph.D. is supposed to be a certification that you can create an original work of new research, at a quality level that meets the approval of other professional researchers. The research project is typically substantial enough to require years of effort, and the support of others who have already gone through the process.
  • tomw2005 11y ago
    This is a better way of explaining something I wanted to put in my comment. You have been accepted by your peers as an independent researcher and many companies will pay good money for that.
  • collyw 11y ago
    Thats the theory. Plenty of PhD students I see just do what their supervisor tells them and don't seem to be especially smart these days.
    • appleflaxen 11y ago
      7402 is saying it's necessary. you are saying it's not sufficient. you might both be right; they are different properties.
• Joof 11y ago
  Status, life experience and the opportunity to do interesting jobs that may require additional study. Why do people keep getting degrees in journalism when there are no jobs?
• sbardle 11y ago
  Most PhDs pursue their subject because they are very interested in it. That interest may stay the same, it may (in most cases) die down / be satisfied, or it may intensify. You will always be wondering whether academic was for you or not unless you do a PhD.
• known 11y ago
  1. Decent Scholarship 2. Better long term prospects
• tzs 11y ago
  Suppose you have an intellectual interest in some STEM field, and want to learn enough to be able to follow the leading edge of research in that field, and perhaps even advance that yourself. Let's assume you've obtained a bachelor's degree in that field. Let's consider some options now available to you. 1. You get a job in programming or IT, perhaps at a startup, and perhaps make a ton of money. You pursue your STEM field interest in your spare time. 2. You find a job that is actually in your STEM field but that only requires a bachelor's degree. As with option #1 you pursue you advanced interests in your spare time. You probably don't make as much money compared to #1, but you are more likely to do work actually related to your STEM interest. 3. You spend, say, 7 years getting your PhD. Let's compare these at the end of 7 years. As far as how much you know about your STEM field goes, option #3 wins by a long shot. With option #3 you've spent 7 years where basically your full time task was to learn your field at an advanced level, interrupted by the occasional undergraduate class you have to teach. With option #1 or #2, you have something else occupying much of your time. You are going to have progressed in your STEM field nowhere near as far as you would have under option #3. For most people they will never be able to get under #1 or #2 to the point where they would have been at the end of #3...work just doesn't leave enough time. When you are trying to understand the most advanced things in a STEM field you need to be able to devote reasonably long periods of sustained concentration and study. Financially, those who choose option #1 or #2 are generally better off after 7 years than those who choose #3. A good PhD program in a STEM field should be fully funded. It will cover your tuition, and give you a stipend and/or teaching assignments that will cover the expenses if a modest scholarly lifestyle. So the question you have to ask yourself is this: "if someone will cover my expenses so that I can spend 7 years devoted to my STEM interest, getting to a level of knowledge in that field that I probably will never be able to get any other way, is it worth starting the 'make a lot of money/start a family/settle down' phase of my life 7 years later than I could otherwise start it?" The answer is yes for many people.
• henrik_w 11y ago
  My experience: M.Sc. in Computer Science, worked for 5 years in industry, went back to do a Ph.D. but quit after 1 year. I liked industry much better than doing a Ph.D., even though I loved all the subjects I studied at university. More details here: https://henrikwarne.com/2016/03/07/ph-d-or-professional-programmer/ https://henrikwarne.com/2016/03/07/ph-d-or-professional-prog...
  • pc86 11y ago
    I'm sorry but this is the second comment in this thread that is trying to push people to the author's personal blog. I don't think the point of commenting on HN should be to drive traffic.
    • thedufer 11y ago
      You picked an interesting one to comment on - henrik_w's comments contain, based on a quick scan, a bit more than one link to that blog per comment. That no longer seems like commenting, so much as spamming.
      • pc86 11y ago
        Wow I didn't even notice that when I commented. That's like a Michael O. Church level of "hey everybody look what I wrote!"
    • henrik_w 11y ago
      Point taken. Thanks for your feedback.
• tomw2005 11y ago
  I appreciate the article is written from a US perspective but here is how it works in STEM in the UK: 1. Get a funded PhD offer for 3-4 years (The funding is tax free so comparable to the average grad salary). 2. Complete in 3-4 years (it is hard to get more than a 6 month extension, technically they can take their money back if you do but this rarely happens as the system wants you to quit early or succeed). 3. Be more employable (I'm speaking from personal experience here. I didn't go looking for jobs like I did after my undergrad, they came to me via LinkedIn/Monster etc.) As an avid reader of PhD comics I have always struggled to understand why the US system is so different. As a side note it is worth pointing out that it is foolish to assume that doing a PhD inherently leads to a Professorship now. What it does do is give you 3-4 years experience (which employers like) and a vast range of research and communication skills (which employers love).
  • gambiting 11y ago
    I do agree with this comment. I work as a c++ programmer and my friends who stayed at uni to do their PhDs are bringing more money home each month than I do, mostly because it's tax free and they get paid a lot of money to do marking and demonstrating on top of their PhD stipend. And yes, you have to finish in 4 years, extensions are uncommon.
    • tomw2005 11y ago
      On yeah, I used to take home around 200GBP a month when I did teaching. It did make Tuesdays a minimum 12 hour day though.
    • toyg 11y ago
      On the other hand though, if they cannot get on track for a role in academia, once they get a job in industry they'll likely make less than you because of lack of practical experience. In such an ageist marketplace as programming in particular, being older and inexperienced is really unattractive.
  • daemin 11y ago
    I would be dubious about the "more employable" bit. There are plenty of examples where having a PhD makes one less employable. It would vary by field as well, so at the end it would be a wash, and not specifically a reason to do a PhD.
• puranjay 11y ago
  Serious question: my fiancee is thinking of pursuing a PhD in the humanities field. She has a BA, MA and MPhil, and the natural next step is to get a PhD She has consistently been among the top 5% of every academic institution she has been in. Her GRE is 333, and she has several research papers under her belt. Would it make sense for her to get a PhD? Or is the job market too terrible in the humanities?
  • dozzie 11y ago
    And what would she do with this new title? This should be the main thing that determines whether it's worth it.
    • skj 11y ago
      People focus on the title and what it can buy you, but forget the skill set acquired and what that can buy you. I have a PhD, but it didn't really help me get my job. What it did do is change me from a worker drone into an independent thinker and designer who can write design docs blindingly fast (compared to my highly esteemed, but slower writing, peers). Not saying that everyone without a PhD is a worker drone, just that I was.
      • nbclapton 11y ago
        I've known PhDs who wrote very high level design docs full of hand-waved features. When they implemented anything, half of the features were segfaulting and the code base was a mess. None of this changed their self confidence in the slightest. Curiously, people pushing for formal methods, unit tests and sane design practices were all non-PhDs.
• johanneskanybal 11y ago
  Everything in this article is purely from an american point of view. It's not exactly news worthy that it's a bad system. Also forgotten in there is the journey part of it instead only focusing on it like it was an illogical move in some non-existent game to maximize ones total life earnings. Apart from those pretty big gripes it was an interesting read, just a bit one-dimensional.
• ThePhysicist 11y ago
  What the article doesn't mention at all is that many people pursue a PhD not for financial reasons but because it (often) provides an opportunity to work on very interesting problems with very smart people, something which is just not possible in most industry jobs. And I don't mean this in a derogatory way, it's just that (non-applied) Academic research is something that is fundamentally different from company research/work because it is (usually) not money-driven and has a very long-term focus. Not everything in life is about the money, otherwise all people would try to become investment bankers.
  • thaumasiotes 11y ago
    > Not everything in life is about the money, otherwise all people would try to become investment bankers. This doesn't follow at all. Most people aren't capable of becoming investment bankers and wisely make no effort in that direction. There's no reason that would change even if they all really wanted to be investment bankers as an end in itself.
  • morgante 11y ago
    While some people certainly are motivated by interest in doing pure research, I don't think that's the dominant factor. From my anecdotal experience, far more are turning to PhDs simply as a way to avoid the brutal job market. They're choosing it for financial reasons, even though their reasons are backed by faulty information.
• skywhopper 11y ago
  This article is clearly written by someone without much perspective into the actual people getting these degrees, the programs that offer them, or the process by which they are granted. But why let that stop you from writing an article based on some numbers you saw? First of all, yes, the market for academic jobs in general is pretty bad, despite increasing demand for college education, because of relentless government slashing of public higher education funding over the past 20 years. The comparison to what has happened recently with law schools is completely senseless, though. Law school was seen by many to be a certain path to an extremely high-paying job, and was pursued by the most ambitious, most money-driven individuals. And for a long time, the reward really was there. That all changed suddenly, and the jobs dried up, so when most of the reason applicants choose a law career goes away, of course applications will drop. But many academic fields have always had poor job markets, few tenure-track positions, and cruddy pay. It may be getting marginally worse every year, but it's not like there's a sudden sea change in what you can expect if you go get a degree in English. And in any case, the sort of person who pursues a PhD is almost never motivated by a desire for money, or a "great career". The people who are so motivated are the ones who look at tables of graduate school ROI and used to choose law. Your Art History PhD student probably has never seen such a chart, wouldn't care if they did, and doesn't think in terms of ROI. The other problem with the law school comparison is just raw numbers. Law schools likely put out an order of magnitude more JDs each year than all typical PhD fields combined. The PhD pipeline is far more stable. The author questions why schools are pushing more people through graduate programs when demand is decreasing, but that's easy to answer. First of all, at the micro level, each individual department and PhD program has an internal incentive to continue the work they've been doing for years. This is their job, after all, and there are customers. The universities that run these programs also have every incentive for them to continue. 1) Accreditation boards, US News and World Report rankings, and research funding all give you bonus points for having a PhD program. 2) Graduate tuition is higher than undergraduate tuition. 3) PhD students are an even cheaper source of labor with even fewer rules about mistreating them than adjunct faculty! This one is huge. There are some schools where most of your classes will be taught by PhD students, not by actual professors. The author also doesn't seem to have ever talked to anyone who's gotten a PhD. Those median time-to-completion numbers are meaningless. Yes, some fields (mostly hard science) have their PhD candidates doing research for their dissertation for years on end, but in most fields, you do a couple of years of PhD coursework and then you work on your dissertation until you finish. Many programs will pay you a tiny bit to stick around if you will teach classes, at least for a couple more years, but in general the onus to complete this massive project is on the individual student. And given that they probably have families by this point in their life and that they're most likely working some unrelated or semi-related job in the meantime to pay the bills, yeah, sometimes it takes years and years to complete the dissertation. Go to any academic-related administrative department at a large state university and you will find it filled with people who have full time jobs supporting the university, but are also slowly working through their PhD in Education or something similar. They get a slight bump in pay and respect when they complete it, but for the most part they are there working for the university and working on their PhD because they love their field, and they're passionate about helping students learn. Of course, the stats given also leave out the fields in which there is plenty of demand for PhD-holding professors. If you want a six figure starting salary and schools falling over themselves to hire you, go get a PhD in Accounting. Finally, there's not enough context in the article on the stats showing "no job commitment" for PhD students. It apparently means "tenure track professorship", but I think you'll find that most of the people in those fields know exactly what they're getting into, end up in totally acceptable jobs, and are pleased about doing the work to get their PhD.
• teekert 11y ago
  4 years of focusing on one subject, going to conferences all over the world and coupling them to vacations there, working with smart people of the same age, working in a "students atmosphere" while getting paid, having the time to really find out how things work, picking courses you like... Why are not more people doing PhDs? (Or this is a Dutch perspective?) (Granted: I didn't have that publish or perish attitude that landed some of my colleagues in places like MIT, still I have a very nice job at the moment.) Don't know how it is now but we used to work 38 hrs, the additional 2 were given as free time on top of the standard 25 days/year giving you about 7 weeks off each year. You have no kids yet (in general) so you can travel a bit (as said, often after a conference so the boss pays the ticket.) I had a blast. I did have some problems finding a job afterwards but this was end of 2009 when companies here basically stopped hiring for some time. But I spend 8 months applying while getting 74% of my last paid wages as a PhD student. Still, that was not as fun as it sounds.
  • wheaties 11y ago
    In the US, the "salary" you earn places you in the "poverty" designation of the economic earnings scale. Now do 10yrs of that and see how you would retire, buy a house or even have children any time soon.
  • Bedon292 11y ago
    Yeah, that is definitely not the US perspective on it. Here you have to pay to go to school, unless you are one of the lucky few who gets some sort of research grant, or teaching position. In which case you get to live on basically minimum wage, and travel is a extremely rare occurrence. You have now spent 10+ years getting yourself into debt, rather than making any money beyond what it takes to survive, and your job prospects aren't greatly increased. Its not that great a deal here.
    • teekert 11y ago
      Wow 10+ years. Here the University receives a sum of money when you get your PhD, that motivates them quite a lot to get you to finish. Most people finish within 4-5 years in my experience. Getting a PhD is like a job here, I didn't know it actually cost money in the US, in that case I can certainly understand people doubting the added value. What I got out was about the value of taking control, my prof gave me quite some freedom. But here also sometimes PhD students are used a measurement slaves by some micro-managing UD (assistant Professor). And also here sometimes people quit but it is more because they are lost without progress after 2 years or so. In the US: Market forces seem to diminish the value of a PhD. In the Netherlands: Market is ignored by subsidies from the government. No idea what is better, let it die or keep the PhD system alive artificially. I don't know, the whole system feels a bit archaic to me. I always tell people that IQ and level of education are hardly related. I think it is difficult to fail a PhD here at least it doesn't happen often, especially when you have a professor that says exactly what you should do, and then you do it. I never met a dumb PhD student though.
• jvvw 11y ago
  I did a PhD because I really loved my subject (mathematics). I never envisaged it being a path to riches and it didn't bother me unduly that my friends who went into jobs on graduation were earning much more than me. It really didn't occur to me to do anything other than do a PhD - I certainly wasn't doing it to postpone making a decision. I actually felt relatively wealthy because my grant I got as a postgrad was far more than the money I had as an undergraduate. The issue in my case is that I discovered that I didn't actually enjoy doing research for a number of reasons and having a PhD in a non-vocational subject generally makes you less employable rather than more - or at least changes the opportunities on offer. It is also difficult to extract yourself gracefully from a PhD program before the end - I ploughed on to submit my thesis and get my doctorate even though I'd realise a long time before that I didn't intend to pursue a research career. I was also quite naive about the realities of pursing an academic career (despite having a parent who is an academic), but given that research wasn't really for me, that probably wasn't too important in the grand scheme of things.
• morgante 11y ago
  I've just had this debate with several friends (trying to convince them not to go for PhDs), and overwhelmingly their goal is simply to avoid the job market. Totally anecdotally, it remains very hard to get an entry-level job unless you have some hard skills. A PhD offers the promise of avoiding the grueling process of applying for jobs and they often (incorrectly) think that it will make them much more employable.
  • ipunchghosts 11y ago
    Apply for jobs is way easier than candidacy and comps, not to mention a dissertation. I stopped after my masters, bought a house, and had 2 phd candidate friends move in with me (we live in a city with a university). They tried to tell me that grad school was harder than the real world. I argued that its easier citing my experience in grad school and now the real world. I put in a solid 40 hours a week. In grad school, I was at the office roughly 50-60 but it was largely unproductive. I find that graduate labs encourage bad habits like staying up too late to fix a problem that could be easily fixed in the morning after a good night sleep. To prove to my friends that grad school was easier than the real world, I offered to drive them to university everyday and pick them up on my way home. I noticed that neither of them worked while at home. After the first week of a straight 40 hours, they were exhausted. After a month of this, they found another ride to school because they said working a straight 8 hour everyday was too much!
    • morgante 11y ago
      > Apply for jobs is way easier than candidacy and comps, not to mention a dissertation. They're different skills. I certainly would find getting into a PhD problem much harder than getting a job. But I've spent most of my undergraduate career working and networking—and my GPA/research reflects that. On the other hand, many of my friends never realized that the real world isn't a series of hoops. They've done great academically (3.9+ GPA, serious research with professors) but neglected to develop any real hard skills or to learn about employability. So the job market is incredibly intimidating to them, while a PhD looks like another series of hoops, which is comforting. > I argued that its easier citing my experience in grad school and now the real world. I have no idea what grad school is like, but I do think that the "real world" is a lot easier than undergrad. With jobs, you have a defined amount of work to do each day and have loads of free time to do whatever you want with. Whereas academics have a limitless supply of potential things to do, without defined hours. But maybe that's just because I've always loved work a lot more than school.
• squozzer 11y ago
  I think the answer is very simple - a doctorate still packs a lot of prestige. It says that one is Smart, especially nowadays when more people than ever hold a bachelor's.
• ipunchghosts 11y ago
  I've wondered this for years. I got a nice job at a University Research Lab. I have lots of creative freedom, can write grants, and am well funded. Most of my colleages are Phds yet most of our customers assume I do. I did an honors undergrad with thesis and a masters. I chose a good adviser and after those experiences, I feel I can easily keep up with other phds here but without having to go through the stress of comps, etc.
• atemerev 11y ago
  3 most important motivations are: 1) Love for science (it is hard to do full-time funded research without a PhD) 2) Prestige 3) Desire to work for the government (some high-profile public service positions make it easier to get in with a PhD). Nearly nobody is doing a PhD for "employability" (except specific target positions from #3) or financial reward.
• bbgm 11y ago
  I did my PhD in theoretical chemistry/biophysics in the late 90s. I was funded throughout so didn't have to take on any debt (I was married for the last 3 years). I learnt a lot during those years including how to really think about a problem, design experiments, and collaborate with the bench scientists on the team. I also fell in love with protein structure, got to understand spectroscopy, the electronic structure of vision, and got to run stuff on some of the biggest supercomputers in the US. PhDs require (IMO) a love of your field, lots of discipline, and tons of patience. I never wanted to be an academic and worked in the scientific industry for 8 years at startups and BigCos (5 of them in product management). The last 8 years I've done something else (although a lot of my interest came from my HPC experience) but have never lost touch with my roots. Regrets? None. Every experience has been completely worth it. Many of my friends have done PhDs and postdocs. Some are academics, some lead large research teams, others R&D teams at biotech startups, and some have moved on to different fields like me. Almost none regret doing what they do or the path they've chosen. Sure there is a lot to change with the system and too many PhDs in some fields, but a doctorate was a rewarding experience for me and for a good chunk of those I know who have one.
• gr33nman 11y ago
  For many it is a calling - a deeply felt desire to explore and seek answers to questions that are currently beyond human understanding. There are few careers outside of academia that enable the focused pursuit of knowledge. Only the most advanced societies in history have supported such endeavors, and public universities were a democratic experiment in extending this support beyond the wealthy elite. Sadly, it seems that the United States has lost the will and vision to provide this opportunity for its citizens. Now we only talk of job training and ROI. The financial burden has been shifted from the society to the individual, and the true promise of higher education is but a fading memory.
• mchaver 11y ago
  Another point is that advanced degree in the right subject make acquiring a work visa easier in many countries, though US work visas are challenging to get regardless.
• tychonoff 11y ago
  I did a PhD in pure mathematics decades ago, simply because it was so interesting. None of it seemed practical at the time (eg. category theory, topology, Horn logic) but that changed when computing began to embrace these ideas. In fact, one of my profs suggested that I study whatever I want until I reach 30, when the concrete begins to settle. That was really good advice for me.
• kwhitefoot 11y ago
  Because a lot of employers of researchers demand it.