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why do you consider it wasted? spending 6 years learning some cool stuff seems like a good life to me.
by mjfl 4y ago
why do you consider it wasted? spending 6 years learning some cool stuff seems like a good life to me.
- saboot 4y agoIt's not en entire benefit, that six years could have been spent making a salary, saving up retirement, starting a family, etc. It's pretty disheartening watching your peers while in graduate school
- rdtwo 4y agoHe’s probably out a good mil in opportunity cost maybe more over a life time
- mjfl 4y agoand with that mil he could retire early and spend time studying cool stuff, exactly as he was doing in graduate school. To some, phd is skipping the line to doing stuff they want to do.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoI think every high schooler should be taught how to project cash flow and figure out quality of life based on various scenarios. There is so much pay and expense data available now, there is little reason these kinds of opportunity costs should be a surprise.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoThis is half the battle. The other half is getting in front of folks at that age, versus them not learning these lessons, painfully, until midlife. Lots of apathy and intentional malevolence creating friction in this regard. Knowledge is power.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoI meant teaching it to high schoolers in high school as part of class work, hence getting in front of folks. With CA/NYC/CO/WA all requiring job listings to show pay range data, it should be a reasonable project to assign.
- throwamon 4y agoAny recommendations on materials that teach these subjects?
- lotsofpulp 4y agoBogleheads forums. https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Household_budgeting https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Household_budgeting But I just mean making a spreadsheet calculating income/expense/savings by year until you are age 100. Of course, assumptions have to be made about inflation, investment earnings, payrates, and benefits. https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/quickcalc/ https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/quickcalc/
- cyber_kinetist 4y agoThinking about what huge sweeping world events happened from 1922 to 2022 and how it affected people around the world… for an ordinary person there’s really no point in making such a spreadsheet. (Well, unless you’re born in one of those filthy-rich elite families like the Rothschilds, who have all the power they need to plan ahead…) I mean, maybe it’s a good idea to plan a few years ahead to survive in a ruthless capitalist society, but other than that I really don’t see the point. Only a few of us are going to buy an actual damn house at this rate nowadays. I think it’s best to think that (for the majority) our very moment of our life is contingent on the historical forces of the world, and there is no stable-enough historical tendency that we can exploit to calculate out our whole life trajectories.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago>I mean, maybe it’s a good idea to plan a few years ahead to survive in a ruthless capitalist society, but other than that I really don’t see the point The purpose is not to pinpoint whole life trajectories. Obviously predictions decades into the future are a crapshoot. But it does not cost anything to copy paste the formula down that many rows. The purpose is to establish upper and lower bounds and adjust expectations properly. In the context of this thread, it does seem reasonable for a high schooler to be able to predict some spectrum of their quality of life if they were to pursue a PhD in <x> field. Finding a partner, buying a home, having children, etc all happens within 10 to 20 years of high school. They can take their student loans, amortize them, and calculate if $70k/$100k/$120k/$250k per year will buy them the future they want. And they may decide that a PhD in whatever has too low of a probability of allowing them to achieve other goals they have, such as having kids or living in a certain region or owning a certain type of home. And it goes beyond money. Kids should be taught to research or ask people what their day to day, month to month, year to year is like. A 16 year that wants to research medicine should get data from a 25/30/35 year old about what to expect, such as hours worked per week, vacation time, where the jobs are, job security, etc.
- yieldcrv 4y agoits a waste of time if you are not the elite landlords whose children academia was made for out of several hundred or really thousands of years, its only been several short decades where everyone else was unobjectively convinced that academia was relevant for them, and now we are reverting to the mean
- lazyasciiart 4y agoIt’s only been a few more decades that everyone was unobjectively convinced that literacy was for them, are you expecting that to revert as well?
- loeg 4y agoLiteracy is a lot more relevant to most people than academia.
- yieldcrv 4y agono, was there intended to be a moment of introspection introduced by that strawman? it is coincidence that jobs failed to find a way to sort job seekers except by gatekeeping with higher education. higher education did not adapt to this purpose, and doesn't need to and never will need to. the utility of the working class needing higher education will have more diminishing returns, whereas literacy will have less diminishing returns.
- acchow 4y agoThis ignores opportunity cost. If you flourish during the PhD, that's great Or you could struggle, go through tons of stress, have no time to give to friends (and lose touch with friends), no time for a relationship, etc. etc. Not to mention the financial opportunity cost
- cvwright 4y agoOr it could be both. Personally I struggled, had tons of stress, no time for relationships, and all that. But it was also an intense time of personal development. I learned a lot about myself and a lot about how to work hard and get stuff done. I used to tell people that if you don’t regret starting your PhD when you’re halfway through, then you’re not doing it right. I’ve since moderated that stance - a lot - but there’s still something to be said for so-called “character building experiences” even though they suck at the time.
- nostrebored 4y agoBut you can get that in industry, often with serious financial benefit. It’s not like that is a unique situation
- DiggyJohnson 4y agoI think the experiences of a PHD program versus working in industry are sufficiently different enough to say that they are not as easily comparable as you are making it out to be.
- nonethewiser 4y agoHes not broadly comparing them. Hes correctly pointing out that "learning about oneself" and about "how to work hard and get stuff done" isnt unique to getting a PhD. If anything, its shocking that someone does not realize that's just a part of growing up.
- cvwright 4y agoYou definitely can get that in industry. Or the military. Or lots of places. However I think where you go in industry matters a lot. Doing a PhD at a serious program is more like starting a startup than like writing CRUD apps at a megacorp. More like going to the SEAL teams than being a supply clerk.
- chihuahua 4y agoMassive opportunity cost. And you don't learn all that much.
- sys_64738 4y agoYour twenties are some of the best earnings years of your life.
- zmalqp 4y agoWTF, no. In what universe was this ever true? 40 - 60 are the prime earning years, and always have been, except for maybe mercenaries and pirates.