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The problem with a vast majority of these Doom and Gloom articles about grad school is that they implicitly lump in all subjects together. The subtitle on this

by rflrob 16y ago

The problem with a vast majority of these Doom and Gloom articles about grad school is that they implicitly lump in all subjects together. The subtitle on this site at least says "its focus is on the humanities and social sciences," but I for one find subtitles easy to overlook. There is a vast difference in employability, debt, and time-to-completion of a Science/Engineering PhD (comparatively High, Low, and Short, respectively) compared to a Social Science/Humanities PhD. I would suspect that most HN readers considering grad school would be pursuing technical degrees anyways (unless they're going after MBAs, which are a totally different class).

danteembermage 16y ago
http://www.aacsb.edu/dataandresearch/reports/08-09-salsurvexecsumexcerpt.pdf http://www.aacsb.edu/dataandresearch/reports/08-09-salsurvex... Mean salary for new hires in (AACSB accredited) finance is $193,300
mechanical_fish 16y ago
Did you just characterize a science/engineering Ph.D.'s time to completion as "Short"? Or am I reading that incorrectly? Maybe if you're a theorist, or if you choose a fortunate field, but at Cornell the average experimental physics Ph.D. used to take 5 or 6 years. 7 was not at all rare, and it was not hard to find someone who had been around for 8. Meanwhile, most of the EE Ph.Ds I know took at least 5 years. And then your postdocs start...
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- rflrob 16y ago
  I meant the "comparatively" to apply to all of those measures. The median time to completion at top-rated humanities programs seems to be in the 7-8 year range, with Columbia Art History as high as 9. The same stat for Physical and Mathematical Science, Engineering, or Biological Science at top rated schools is more typically 5-6 years. Social Science seems to be more spread out, I'd say roughly 5-8 years. While I don't mean to suggest that half a decade is a drop in the bucket, it's certainly faster than in the humanities, and if you believe me that the pay is better, not quite as onerous as the popular culture tends to portray it. [1] http://www.nap.edu/rdp/ http://www.nap.edu/rdp/
- gamble 16y ago
  The average for English is over ten years.

by rflrob 16y ago

danteembermage 16y ago

http://www.aacsb.edu/dataandresearch/reports/08-09-salsurvexecsumexcerpt.pdf http://www.aacsb.edu/dataandresearch/reports/08-09-salsurvex... Mean salary for new hires in (AACSB accredited) finance is $193,300

mechanical_fish 16y ago

Did you just characterize a science/engineering Ph.D.'s time to completion as "Short"? Or am I reading that incorrectly? Maybe if you're a theorist, or if you choose a fortunate field, but at Cornell the average experimental physics Ph.D. used to take 5 or 6 years. 7 was not at all rare, and it was not hard to find someone who had been around for 8. Meanwhile, most of the EE Ph.Ds I know took at least 5 years. And then your postdocs start...

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
rflrob 16y ago
I meant the "comparatively" to apply to all of those measures. The median time to completion at top-rated humanities programs seems to be in the 7-8 year range, with Columbia Art History as high as 9. The same stat for Physical and Mathematical Science, Engineering, or Biological Science at top rated schools is more typically 5-6 years. Social Science seems to be more spread out, I'd say roughly 5-8 years. While I don't mean to suggest that half a decade is a drop in the bucket, it's certainly faster than in the humanities, and if you believe me that the pay is better, not quite as onerous as the popular culture tends to portray it. [1] http://www.nap.edu/rdp/ http://www.nap.edu/rdp/
gamble 16y ago
The average for English is over ten years.