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Perhaps it's not a huge mistake, but I definitely did not think through the pros and cons of getting a PhD. There have certainly been some benefits (e.g. being

Perhaps it's not a huge mistake, but I definitely did not think through the pros and cons of getting a PhD. There have certainly been some benefits (e.g. being able to move from my home country to one I prefer), but the amount of forgone earnings and time working on problems all by myself (where I don't get the advantage of mentorship so much; profs really have checked out on coding since before y2k in the most part) is something I hadn't considered, especially considering how well situated I was having gone to a top school in the bay area for undergrad. The advice I've learned and that I hope someone could use is this: only do a PhD if you can't NOT do a PhD, or if you know some specific job that needs it. Unless your curiosity and desires line up with a great research group, you put yourself in precarious situations, e.g. it's easy to just bounce from one crappy job to another, but trying to go from one advisor to another (especially at a different institution) is incredibly difficult and usually looked upon with suspicion (e.g. whether the original prof is unloading a crappy student). Don't do a PhD for some external recognition, because it probably won't come unless you are near the top end of consistently top-tier publications every year (e.g. those mad men and women who publish multiple papers at OSDI / SOSP in a given year!). Far more likely you'll find yourself toiling on something to appease your advisor, and in those cases the end result is very underwhelming. Some institutions literally just ask you to hand in your office keys when you turn in your thesis to get your diploma and basically say "thanks for the years have a nice life!".

dr_dshiv 5y ago
I disagree with your conclusion but think your advice is good to consider. A PhD lets you be an expert in whatever you want for the rest of your life, if you want. Do it for selfish, ego-satisfying reasons (e.g., loving science, wanting to become a real expert in an area) not for the academic career path. Have fun with it, but don't drop out. Get the damn degree. Get it and get on with your life.
- _huayra_ 5y ago
  > e.g., loving science, wanting to become a real expert in an area This is good advice, and sort of what I meant as a test to see if you want to do a PhD. Sadly, a lot of grad students did not use the time effectively and ended up anxiously trying to appease their advisor as somehow a proxy for getting accolades from their parents. Although I didn't know it, I, too, fell into this camp to a moderate degree. In other words, going to grad school to /prove/ something to the world (e.g. "See, Dad, I am smart I AM A DOCTOR!") is a recipe for misery. Despite not getting into a phd for the right reasons, it was a good lesson in learning how to salvage things. Research not working out? Well, try a different thing (thankfully my advisor was exceptionally great as a manager and adjucator of adequate progress). It was a great way to learn to persevere against a sea of disappointing results and learn to make progress on your own knowledge while being able to ignore the disparities from your own knowledge and the eminent researchers in the field (to whom its unlikely one will ever be comparable to on a research level). Basically it was a kick in the ass to actually get it together mentally that I don't think I ever would have been able to do without those external forces foisting it upon me; I probably would've been miserable in silicon valley trying to buy things to grasp at happiness. Moving to a foreign country, having to learn the language and customs, being an 18 hour flight from my parents, etc, was the final set of straws that kinda forced me to either address my anxiety / depression, but it could have broke me. I consider myself lucky because I saw many other grad students who just couldn't take it anymore (due to absolute asshats of advisors mostly) and quit. Still it's nice to now have the ability to live and work in a place that is nowhere near teetering towards being a failed state than where I grew up, and I certainly wouldn't have been able to get a visa to live and work here had it not been for this phd program.
  - smithsonian112 5y ago
    I can totally relate to the piece about it being a kick in the ass to pull myself together. I also got into the PhD partially to prove that I am smart enough. I think I needed to play that pattern out one way or another, it was something that would have come out in other ways in a different situation. But I did learn something about myself by confronting this issue so directly in the PhD, even though it’s difficult to articulate what exactly I got out of it. Actually I came around to the point of view that most people get into the PhD for “the wrong reasons”, but that the process of being confronted with those wrong reasons helps you grow. Similar to “nobody is ready for marriage, marriage makes you ready for marriage.”
shoto_io 5y ago
Same here. I met some great, great people and had a great time intellectually. But I never needed anything I learned there in my career and basically "lost" 5 years compared to peers.
BrandoElFollito 5y ago
I did a PhD in physics and it was fantastic. I knew I would not stay in academia (and actually moved at the very end of my PhD). Money is not everything, there is also the joy of doing science (and in my case - teaching), many of my best memories are form that time. My PhD did not really helped me (I work in a completely unrelated field), but neither it was a problem.
threetwoone 5y ago
I think you can also partially think of it as a gamble (similar to doing a startup). For example, I did a machine learning related PhD that propelled me into my dream job, earning about 3x more than I would have otherwise. My motivation wasn't money though, and that's probably the mindset you need, but it's not guaranteed to be a bad outcome financially :-)
- smithsonian112 5y ago
  I am also getting a PhD related to Machine Learning. Can I ask what your dream job turned out to be?

dr_dshiv 5y ago

I disagree with your conclusion but think your advice is good to consider. A PhD lets you be an expert in whatever you want for the rest of your life, if you want. Do it for selfish, ego-satisfying reasons (e.g., loving science, wanting to become a real expert in an area) not for the academic career path. Have fun with it, but don't drop out. Get the damn degree. Get it and get on with your life.

_huayra_ 5y ago
> e.g., loving science, wanting to become a real expert in an area This is good advice, and sort of what I meant as a test to see if you want to do a PhD. Sadly, a lot of grad students did not use the time effectively and ended up anxiously trying to appease their advisor as somehow a proxy for getting accolades from their parents. Although I didn't know it, I, too, fell into this camp to a moderate degree. In other words, going to grad school to /prove/ something to the world (e.g. "See, Dad, I am smart I AM A DOCTOR!") is a recipe for misery. Despite not getting into a phd for the right reasons, it was a good lesson in learning how to salvage things. Research not working out? Well, try a different thing (thankfully my advisor was exceptionally great as a manager and adjucator of adequate progress). It was a great way to learn to persevere against a sea of disappointing results and learn to make progress on your own knowledge while being able to ignore the disparities from your own knowledge and the eminent researchers in the field (to whom its unlikely one will ever be comparable to on a research level). Basically it was a kick in the ass to actually get it together mentally that I don't think I ever would have been able to do without those external forces foisting it upon me; I probably would've been miserable in silicon valley trying to buy things to grasp at happiness. Moving to a foreign country, having to learn the language and customs, being an 18 hour flight from my parents, etc, was the final set of straws that kinda forced me to either address my anxiety / depression, but it could have broke me. I consider myself lucky because I saw many other grad students who just couldn't take it anymore (due to absolute asshats of advisors mostly) and quit. Still it's nice to now have the ability to live and work in a place that is nowhere near teetering towards being a failed state than where I grew up, and I certainly wouldn't have been able to get a visa to live and work here had it not been for this phd program.
- smithsonian112 5y ago
  I can totally relate to the piece about it being a kick in the ass to pull myself together. I also got into the PhD partially to prove that I am smart enough. I think I needed to play that pattern out one way or another, it was something that would have come out in other ways in a different situation. But I did learn something about myself by confronting this issue so directly in the PhD, even though it’s difficult to articulate what exactly I got out of it. Actually I came around to the point of view that most people get into the PhD for “the wrong reasons”, but that the process of being confronted with those wrong reasons helps you grow. Similar to “nobody is ready for marriage, marriage makes you ready for marriage.”

shoto_io 5y ago

Same here. I met some great, great people and had a great time intellectually. But I never needed anything I learned there in my career and basically "lost" 5 years compared to peers.

BrandoElFollito 5y ago

I did a PhD in physics and it was fantastic. I knew I would not stay in academia (and actually moved at the very end of my PhD). Money is not everything, there is also the joy of doing science (and in my case - teaching), many of my best memories are form that time. My PhD did not really helped me (I work in a completely unrelated field), but neither it was a problem.

threetwoone 5y ago

I think you can also partially think of it as a gamble (similar to doing a startup). For example, I did a machine learning related PhD that propelled me into my dream job, earning about 3x more than I would have otherwise. My motivation wasn't money though, and that's probably the mindset you need, but it's not guaranteed to be a bad outcome financially :-)

smithsonian112 5y ago
I am also getting a PhD related to Machine Learning. Can I ask what your dream job turned out to be?