Getting a PhD is hard, and it certainly does take a mental toll. Students are trying to push up against the boundaries of human knowledge to expand humanity's k

Getting a PhD is hard, and it certainly does take a mental toll. Students are trying to push up against the boundaries of human knowledge to expand humanity's knowledge. That isn't easy, and because we train them to be independent researchers, much of that time is spent working on solo projects with their mentor supervising. That said, once one has a PhD, it really opens up many exciting careers that are otherwise not attainable. If one wants to be a scientist and do research, you almost certainly need a PhD. It also gives you so much more autonomy in terms of the projects you work on rather than just being a coder working on someone else's projects. I only have one life, and we spend much of our lives working. I'd rather have the ability to control what I work on and wake up excited to get to work every day.