I have considered just going and seeing how it turns out (some people have given me the advice to go .... no better way to find out if I'll like it than to try)

I have considered just going and seeing how it turns out (some people have given me the advice to go .... no better way to find out if I'll like it than to try). I think you're right about the stuff coming up on the horizon. From what I know, some of the HCI stuff is problematic (I just talked to an EEG guy that was lamenting how problematic his machine learning/EEG research has been, given the noisiness of the data), but people are really starting to think about this stuff. There are also individuals using fMRI as a neurofeedback device (Chris DeCharms of Omneuron has started down that path: http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_decharms_scans_the_brain_in_real_time.html http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_decharms_scans_the_brai...). Relatedly, some researchers have started to throw in classifiers such that one can focus on distributed brain states, as opposed to specific regions (which is what DeCharms does). I read about this stuff and I'm fairly convinced that eventually the HCI, neurotraining, neurotech industries will take off, but for me it's a question of when. Will the growth of those industries happen in 5 years or 25 years? If it happens in 5 or 6 years, I'd be golden. If 25, then I'd be looking for a job when I come out. As for the startup idea, I really have thought about that. The issue would be age again .... I'd be 37 with limited funds trying to crawl through the startup "Valley of Death." It wouldn't totally be off the table, but a lot would depend on the state of the industry. So, all in all, I look at this PhD opportunity and think that there's definitely exciting work to be done, and the potential for really interesting jobs in the future. But it seems very high risk considering that I'd need to get the timing just right.