Doing Phd for the sake of getting hired by specific companies/industries later is an extremely bad idea. Phd is for those who want to pursue research career (al

Doing Phd for the sake of getting hired by specific companies/industries later is an extremely bad idea. Phd is for those who want to pursue research career (although it doesn't work out for more than 50% of Phd's). I myself did Phd and transitioned into data science, but I could have gone better way. Some reasons include: - Getting Phd is a long, unpredictable process that can take anywhere 4~8 years. Data Science may be hot right now, but it is not necessarily true by the time you graduate. - You will pay a ton of opportunity cost doing Phd. For the same amount of time, you can earn so much money and learn on the job. - Phd doesn't give you the real world industry experiences. I know a lot of fellow doctors who are trying to transition to data science but struggling. I would say you should polish your programming skills and get hired as a software engineer in big data related field. Then involve in some internal data science projects and transition into data science.