It can be, and the end is certainly very stressful. But the amount of things you can learn during a PhD, and the pleasure of working/meeting very smart people i

It can be, and the end is certainly very stressful. But the amount of things you can learn during a PhD, and the pleasure of working/meeting very smart people is rewarding. Your mileage may vary, obviously. Also, in my case, even though I left academia afterwards, the PhD's freedom enabled me to become involved in several open source communities which have opened a lot of opportunities. If you like freedom, and you like research, I think PhD are a good experience, even if you don't end up in academia - after all, most PhD graduates do no become tenured professors.