15 ms·

I got PhD and I am still not sure how I feel. It took me 6 years, a lot of doubts and putting my life on hold. You never know if you will finish your PhD. In f

by fluxem 4y ago

I got PhD and I am still not sure how I feel. It took me 6 years, a lot of doubts and putting my life on hold. You never know if you will finish your PhD. In fact, 50% drop out. Imagine spending 4 years of your life and then quitting with little to show for it. First of all, PhD is too long (in the US). You spend 1 - 1.5 years taking grad classes that have little relevance to your subfield. If you haven't done research in undergrad, you spend the first year figuring out what is research. IF you did, there's still a lot less hand-holding as a PhD researcher compared to an undergrad researcher. Now let's talk about research. First, you need to come up with a good idea that no one thought of it before. This requires understanding of all the previous research. Then you try to implement the idea. Even if you implemented everything correctly, if your method is not better than the state of the art, you just wasted your time. (Of course, you need to implement the state of the art also) Do you want to become a professor? Forget about. There are so many bright PhDs competing for a few academic openings. Even if you become a professor, it will take 10 years and a lot of work to get tenure. And if you finally become a professor, the pay is terrible compared to the industry. I'm not even talking about PhD in other subfields like Physics, where people become Google's SWE after finishing their PhD. Such a waste.

samspenc 4y ago
The thing that bugs me most about the PhD is how much of the final years are controlled by your advisor and the committee. You have a bit of leeway in your first few years to do some "blue sky" research, scoped by the grants your advisor has of course, but the last 1-3 years can be a nightmare since you're expected to produce work that is funded by and within the scope of your grant BUT also be innovative and something that your advisor and committee approve and let you graduate with.
- huijzer 4y ago
  > but the last 1-3 years can be a nightmare since you're expected to produce work that is funded by and within the scope of your grant BUT also be innovative and something that your advisor and committee approve and let you graduate with. Great summary! This is exactly how it feels at 3 years in. Every sentence in a paper is a careful balance between adhering to science, the funding agency, the supervisors, and myself.
senectus1 4y ago
I did 1 year pre-apprenticeship, then 4 years apprenticeship (Baker). Then shortly after that I left the industry and got into IT. shrug I think that life is a process of navigating obstacles while acquiring skills. Its not a RPG with you choosing a character that you have to stick with until the end. Branch out... you'll be surprised at where your PHD learned skills will lead you.
ModernMech 4y ago
> Do you want to become a professor? Forget about. Unless you want to be a professor of computer science. There, everyone is hiring.
- pc86 4y ago
  Because who wants to be an assistant professor making $60k/yr or god forbid an adjunct making $30k/yr when you can work for a startup making $150k or FAANG making $400k or more?
  - sangel 4y ago
    From my experience your first number is off by 3X and sometimes more depending on the university. But yes, you make less as a professor than you do in industry.
    - godelski 4y ago
      For reference, at my uni (public) full tenured profs are making about $120k-$150k. Adjuncts are about $90k. Lecturers are around $70k. But that's in the CS department. Still, all of these people could be making at least double that in industry (some do double dip though).
    - gs17 4y ago
      That definitely depends on the school. At my undergrad, tenure track CS faculty only got around 70k, going up to 90k over time. Lecturers got 55k. Adjuncts got paid more in exposure and good feelings than money. My grad school is a much bigger research school instead of a teaching school and the pay is surprisingly not much better (better, but not 180k until full professorship if ever from what I've found) from what I've heard.
  - marttt 4y ago
    I'm frugal by nature, and from Eastern Europe. How comfortable a life can one afford with $60k/yr or $30k/yr in the US? With this level of income, would you actually find any essential things or services lacking in life? In other words, what's the actual, practical need for a person (or a smaller nuclear family) in the US to actually earn $400k a year? Similar to the US, university-employed PhDs definitely tend to make less than many industry professionals in my country as well. Then again, it is nonetheless a very acceptable standard of living. As civil servants, life is very stable (as compared to e.g. one-person companies), and they are by no means poor. Most importantly, though, a doctorate program will very probably train you into a better, more analytical thinker (I've seen very few examples of the contrary). For that reason, I've always found it questionable when PhD vs no PhD is debated solely on the basis of expected income. Maybe I should remove my pink glasses, but there is, still, a little more to it, isn't it?
lightbendover 4y ago
Isn't working towards the top of any field going to have just as many chances of failure at every step? My wife was the very top candidate for her surgical sub-specialty in the year she completed her fellowship and she still barely got an attending position due to how few openings were available. I am nowhere near as talented as she is, but I still had a tremendous battle to get where I am in tech and I watch brilliant engineers tap out before hitting even PE routinely. Working hard for 4 years and having nothing to show for it is de rigueur. Most effort spent in the world is spent in vain, but you have no chance of winning if you don't play the game.
- klipt 4y ago
  The difference with software engineering is even if you "fail" you usually have a nice pile of money to show for it. If you drop out of a PhD all you have is some cool stories and obscure knowledge.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ZephyrBlu 4y ago
    Definitely this. You're still very comfortable if you only end up as a Senior SWE.
  - nnoitra 4y ago
    Nope. You can go ahead and make a startup which can fail and then you're left with burnout and an empty bank account. Wasting time is an integral part of life.
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    > all you have is some cool stories and obscure knowledge As if obscure knowledge is worthless. Trading the opportunity to make money for obscure knowledge is the whole value proposition of a Ph.D.! If one doesn’t value obscure knowledge, yeah, a Ph.D. Might be a bad value proposition for that individual.
- vkou 4y ago
lrem 4y ago
A trick that made my PhD a great experience: getting married right at the start. My life wasn’t on hold, I enjoyed a very long honeymoon :)
- tnzk 4y ago
  Sounds cool, how did you finance the honeymoon? :)
  - mellavora 4y ago
    there is more than one way to honeymoon; they aren't all trips to the Maldives. Most important part is quality, low-stress time with your beloved. I have friends who recently lost most of their physical possessions (including house) to a volcano, and they don't have high income or good insurance. They are rebuilding from a low place. The wife is an absolute gem. Keeps talking about the flow and accepting the moment. She radiates optimism and joy.
- _hzw 4y ago
  I did that too, then I got a divorce at my third year. :)
sweezyjeezy 4y ago
For comparison - UK/mathematics, I went into research on day one, my supervisor set me an 'easy' problem straight off the bat, and I learned on the job. A couple of extra research problems came up naturally during my PhD. Had a paper submitted by end of year 1, was ready to write-up my thesis by end of year 3. I had some teaching responsibilities, but nothing heavy like running a course. Not saying it always goes this smoothly, but I rarely felt like I wasn't moving towards the end goal. +1 to 'forget about becoming a professor though/pay is terrible' though!
- marcosfelt 4y ago
  I left the US to do a UK PhD for this reason. No teaching responsibilities and you can just do the PhD. And they really try to kick you out after four years (at least in Cambridge).
Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
I think people from the US who consider a PhD should really look outside the US too, as many (not all, of course) of the disadvantages don't apply globally. For example, in Spain: - Typical PhD duration: 4 years. It's not even possible to go beyond 5 years (there is a hard cap) and if you want to do it fast, typically 3.5 years or so is enough in most fields if you do it full time. - Tuition is a symbolic amount (something like 100 €/year or so). - Most students do their PhD either with a grant or a contract. So it's basically a normal job. Not a high-paying one, mind you, but a job. You typically get something in the range of 1200-1600 €/month and social security. Enough to live reasonably well (not luxuriously, but comfortably) in almost any city that is not Madrid or Barcelona (in those two you'd need to share a flat and it wouldn't be very good, but in most of the rest of the country, a typical rent is around 600 €). - I don't have figures on drop out but I don't think it's anywhere near 50%, if I had to give a pessimistic estimate I would say 20% at most. Of course, the bit about becoming a professor is still true (although the competition is somewhat different, less about brilliance and more about sweat... very roughly speaking, churning out more papers than your competitors even if the papers aren't that great. But there are still much fewer professor jobs than PhD candidates).
- occamrazor 4y ago
  All true, but in Europe you need a 5-year degree to start a PhD.
  - Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
    Yes, this is true. You cannot start directly with a US 4-year Bachelor's, you would need a 1-year Master's. I suppose this can be a deterrent for many, but I still see many people with MSc degrees that complain (understandably) about all the hurdles of US PhDs and could benefit from considering Europe.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    Don’t you normally need an undergrad to start a PhD in the US as well? In the UK an undergrad is 3 years in most cases, then 3 years for a PhD, so 6 years total. Some institutions will technically admit you for a PhD with no prior degree at all, but nobody does this in practice.
yodsanklai 4y ago
I tend to agree with you, but I don't think it's that black though. > Even if you implemented everything correctly, if your method is not better than the state of the art, you just wasted your time. You didn't waste your time as you know now the state of the art, and also why your method isn't better. > Do you want to become a professor? Forget about. There are so many bright PhDs competing for a few academic openings. The world is a big place. There's more to academia than Ivy League in the US. And don't believe all professors are geniuses! I think it's possible to somewhat assess your odds to get an academic position when you start a PhD. On the downside, academia is very competitive and being a second rank professor drowning in teaching and administrative duties isn't the most rewarding thing to do. > Even if you become a professor, it will take 10 years and a lot of work to get tenure. And if you finally become a professor, the pay is terrible compared to the industry. This also depends in which industry you want to work. Not all fields/companies pay as a well as Google. And having a PhD can also open doors in industry.
comfypotato 4y ago
An important caveat I think: your mentor is critical. I’m a PhD student, and I have an incredibly lucky mix of subject matter and mentorship (my mentor has actually gotten some awards in the past for being a good one). (Also, he’s funny.) Every day my research is a blast. My mentor is truly an expert in his field (he’s actually mentioned in Norvig’s AI textbook introduction) and has the answers to my questions. I get just enough steering to make sure I’m on track to producing something novel, but I’m totally free to explore. This is all bolstered by me being truly extremely intrinsically interested in my sub field. It’s really a very pleasant experience. I’m not terribly worried about the prospects afterwards as furthering humanity’s knowledge is rewarding enough to me. Heading to industry as a code monkey afterwards wouldn't upset me as I’m really just having fun as a PhD student, and it’s all because my mentor is incredible. It’s important to try working with multiple mentors if you can. I actually started with a different person, and he probably would have been considered by most to be ideal. I was basically totally funded to do whatever I wanted with very little mentor interaction. Interestingly, this wasn’t great for me. In part I wasn’t interested in the subject, but more than that I greatly benefit from weekly mentor interaction to check in with my direction. Now I don’t have funding (working to support myself while doing research), but I’m happy as a pig in mud.
antegamisou 4y ago
> I'm not even talking about PhD in other subfields like Physics, where people become Google's SWE after finishing their PhD. Such a waste. There are senior high - paying FAANG roles outside webdev where quantitative skills like the ones acquired in subjects like Math/Physics/Theor. CS are imperative, in which you can get straight into after graduation without even having to go through the absurd LeetCode hiring process (it's significantly easier if your advisor recommends you to an old friend on the industry). > Do you want to become a professor? Forget about. There are so many bright PhDs competing for a few academic openings. Even if you become a professor, it will take 10 years and a lot of work to get tenure. And if you finally become a professor, the pay is terrible compared to the industry. This is very accurate, especially in the US where tenure seems to be largely reserved for people that come from financially strong families who effectively support them from undergrad to tenure track.

by fluxem 4y ago

samspenc 4y ago

The thing that bugs me most about the PhD is how much of the final years are controlled by your advisor and the committee. You have a bit of leeway in your first few years to do some "blue sky" research, scoped by the grants your advisor has of course, but the last 1-3 years can be a nightmare since you're expected to produce work that is funded by and within the scope of your grant BUT also be innovative and something that your advisor and committee approve and let you graduate with.

huijzer 4y ago
> but the last 1-3 years can be a nightmare since you're expected to produce work that is funded by and within the scope of your grant BUT also be innovative and something that your advisor and committee approve and let you graduate with. Great summary! This is exactly how it feels at 3 years in. Every sentence in a paper is a careful balance between adhering to science, the funding agency, the supervisors, and myself.

senectus1 4y ago

I did 1 year pre-apprenticeship, then 4 years apprenticeship (Baker). Then shortly after that I left the industry and got into IT. shrug I think that life is a process of navigating obstacles while acquiring skills. Its not a RPG with you choosing a character that you have to stick with until the end. Branch out... you'll be surprised at where your PHD learned skills will lead you.

ModernMech 4y ago

> Do you want to become a professor? Forget about. Unless you want to be a professor of computer science. There, everyone is hiring.

pc86 4y ago
Because who wants to be an assistant professor making $60k/yr or god forbid an adjunct making $30k/yr when you can work for a startup making $150k or FAANG making $400k or more?
- sangel 4y ago
  From my experience your first number is off by 3X and sometimes more depending on the university. But yes, you make less as a professor than you do in industry.
  - godelski 4y ago
    For reference, at my uni (public) full tenured profs are making about $120k-$150k. Adjuncts are about $90k. Lecturers are around $70k. But that's in the CS department. Still, all of these people could be making at least double that in industry (some do double dip though).
  - gs17 4y ago
    That definitely depends on the school. At my undergrad, tenure track CS faculty only got around 70k, going up to 90k over time. Lecturers got 55k. Adjuncts got paid more in exposure and good feelings than money. My grad school is a much bigger research school instead of a teaching school and the pay is surprisingly not much better (better, but not 180k until full professorship if ever from what I've found) from what I've heard.
- marttt 4y ago
  I'm frugal by nature, and from Eastern Europe. How comfortable a life can one afford with $60k/yr or $30k/yr in the US? With this level of income, would you actually find any essential things or services lacking in life? In other words, what's the actual, practical need for a person (or a smaller nuclear family) in the US to actually earn $400k a year? Similar to the US, university-employed PhDs definitely tend to make less than many industry professionals in my country as well. Then again, it is nonetheless a very acceptable standard of living. As civil servants, life is very stable (as compared to e.g. one-person companies), and they are by no means poor. Most importantly, though, a doctorate program will very probably train you into a better, more analytical thinker (I've seen very few examples of the contrary). For that reason, I've always found it questionable when PhD vs no PhD is debated solely on the basis of expected income. Maybe I should remove my pink glasses, but there is, still, a little more to it, isn't it?

lightbendover 4y ago

Isn't working towards the top of any field going to have just as many chances of failure at every step? My wife was the very top candidate for her surgical sub-specialty in the year she completed her fellowship and she still barely got an attending position due to how few openings were available. I am nowhere near as talented as she is, but I still had a tremendous battle to get where I am in tech and I watch brilliant engineers tap out before hitting even PE routinely. Working hard for 4 years and having nothing to show for it is de rigueur. Most effort spent in the world is spent in vain, but you have no chance of winning if you don't play the game.

klipt 4y ago
The difference with software engineering is even if you "fail" you usually have a nice pile of money to show for it. If you drop out of a PhD all you have is some cool stories and obscure knowledge.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ZephyrBlu 4y ago
  Definitely this. You're still very comfortable if you only end up as a Senior SWE.
- nnoitra 4y ago
  Nope. You can go ahead and make a startup which can fail and then you're left with burnout and an empty bank account. Wasting time is an integral part of life.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  > all you have is some cool stories and obscure knowledge As if obscure knowledge is worthless. Trading the opportunity to make money for obscure knowledge is the whole value proposition of a Ph.D.! If one doesn’t value obscure knowledge, yeah, a Ph.D. Might be a bad value proposition for that individual.
vkou 4y ago

lrem 4y ago

A trick that made my PhD a great experience: getting married right at the start. My life wasn’t on hold, I enjoyed a very long honeymoon :)

tnzk 4y ago
Sounds cool, how did you finance the honeymoon? :)
- mellavora 4y ago
  there is more than one way to honeymoon; they aren't all trips to the Maldives. Most important part is quality, low-stress time with your beloved. I have friends who recently lost most of their physical possessions (including house) to a volcano, and they don't have high income or good insurance. They are rebuilding from a low place. The wife is an absolute gem. Keeps talking about the flow and accepting the moment. She radiates optimism and joy.
_hzw 4y ago
I did that too, then I got a divorce at my third year. :)

sweezyjeezy 4y ago

For comparison - UK/mathematics, I went into research on day one, my supervisor set me an 'easy' problem straight off the bat, and I learned on the job. A couple of extra research problems came up naturally during my PhD. Had a paper submitted by end of year 1, was ready to write-up my thesis by end of year 3. I had some teaching responsibilities, but nothing heavy like running a course. Not saying it always goes this smoothly, but I rarely felt like I wasn't moving towards the end goal. +1 to 'forget about becoming a professor though/pay is terrible' though!

marcosfelt 4y ago
I left the US to do a UK PhD for this reason. No teaching responsibilities and you can just do the PhD. And they really try to kick you out after four years (at least in Cambridge).

Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago

I think people from the US who consider a PhD should really look outside the US too, as many (not all, of course) of the disadvantages don't apply globally. For example, in Spain: - Typical PhD duration: 4 years. It's not even possible to go beyond 5 years (there is a hard cap) and if you want to do it fast, typically 3.5 years or so is enough in most fields if you do it full time. - Tuition is a symbolic amount (something like 100 €/year or so). - Most students do their PhD either with a grant or a contract. So it's basically a normal job. Not a high-paying one, mind you, but a job. You typically get something in the range of 1200-1600 €/month and social security. Enough to live reasonably well (not luxuriously, but comfortably) in almost any city that is not Madrid or Barcelona (in those two you'd need to share a flat and it wouldn't be very good, but in most of the rest of the country, a typical rent is around 600 €). - I don't have figures on drop out but I don't think it's anywhere near 50%, if I had to give a pessimistic estimate I would say 20% at most. Of course, the bit about becoming a professor is still true (although the competition is somewhat different, less about brilliance and more about sweat... very roughly speaking, churning out more papers than your competitors even if the papers aren't that great. But there are still much fewer professor jobs than PhD candidates).

occamrazor 4y ago
All true, but in Europe you need a 5-year degree to start a PhD.
- Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
  Yes, this is true. You cannot start directly with a US 4-year Bachelor's, you would need a 1-year Master's. I suppose this can be a deterrent for many, but I still see many people with MSc degrees that complain (understandably) about all the hurdles of US PhDs and could benefit from considering Europe.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  Don’t you normally need an undergrad to start a PhD in the US as well? In the UK an undergrad is 3 years in most cases, then 3 years for a PhD, so 6 years total. Some institutions will technically admit you for a PhD with no prior degree at all, but nobody does this in practice.

yodsanklai 4y ago

I tend to agree with you, but I don't think it's that black though. > Even if you implemented everything correctly, if your method is not better than the state of the art, you just wasted your time. You didn't waste your time as you know now the state of the art, and also why your method isn't better. > Do you want to become a professor? Forget about. There are so many bright PhDs competing for a few academic openings. The world is a big place. There's more to academia than Ivy League in the US. And don't believe all professors are geniuses! I think it's possible to somewhat assess your odds to get an academic position when you start a PhD. On the downside, academia is very competitive and being a second rank professor drowning in teaching and administrative duties isn't the most rewarding thing to do. > Even if you become a professor, it will take 10 years and a lot of work to get tenure. And if you finally become a professor, the pay is terrible compared to the industry. This also depends in which industry you want to work. Not all fields/companies pay as a well as Google. And having a PhD can also open doors in industry.

comfypotato 4y ago

An important caveat I think: your mentor is critical. I’m a PhD student, and I have an incredibly lucky mix of subject matter and mentorship (my mentor has actually gotten some awards in the past for being a good one). (Also, he’s funny.) Every day my research is a blast. My mentor is truly an expert in his field (he’s actually mentioned in Norvig’s AI textbook introduction) and has the answers to my questions. I get just enough steering to make sure I’m on track to producing something novel, but I’m totally free to explore. This is all bolstered by me being truly extremely intrinsically interested in my sub field. It’s really a very pleasant experience. I’m not terribly worried about the prospects afterwards as furthering humanity’s knowledge is rewarding enough to me. Heading to industry as a code monkey afterwards wouldn't upset me as I’m really just having fun as a PhD student, and it’s all because my mentor is incredible. It’s important to try working with multiple mentors if you can. I actually started with a different person, and he probably would have been considered by most to be ideal. I was basically totally funded to do whatever I wanted with very little mentor interaction. Interestingly, this wasn’t great for me. In part I wasn’t interested in the subject, but more than that I greatly benefit from weekly mentor interaction to check in with my direction. Now I don’t have funding (working to support myself while doing research), but I’m happy as a pig in mud.

antegamisou 4y ago

> I'm not even talking about PhD in other subfields like Physics, where people become Google's SWE after finishing their PhD. Such a waste. There are senior high - paying FAANG roles outside webdev where quantitative skills like the ones acquired in subjects like Math/Physics/Theor. CS are imperative, in which you can get straight into after graduation without even having to go through the absurd LeetCode hiring process (it's significantly easier if your advisor recommends you to an old friend on the industry). > Do you want to become a professor? Forget about. There are so many bright PhDs competing for a few academic openings. Even if you become a professor, it will take 10 years and a lot of work to get tenure. And if you finally become a professor, the pay is terrible compared to the industry. This is very accurate, especially in the US where tenure seems to be largely reserved for people that come from financially strong families who effectively support them from undergrad to tenure track.