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There are countless pragmatic reasons to avoid a PhD, and no doubt both the article and other commenters will bring them up. The most constructive thing I can d

There are countless pragmatic reasons to avoid a PhD, and no doubt both the article and other commenters will bring them up. The most constructive thing I can do is share a personal perspective. I am 30 years old. I am working through my last few months as a computer engineering PhD student. Eventually, it went good. Not great (the world gives zero f*cks about my work, nobody has offered me a job yet), but not hellish either (didn't quit, still mostly sane, learned a ton of stuff that I never had the guts or prudence to delve into as an undergraduate, and most importantly, I decided I like computers). Now my background is anything but academic: none of my parents finished high school, people from my village consider me either batshit crazy or a genius. I mean, I was thrown into the PhD archipelago by life itself, rather unconsciously. I just knew that "corporate IT" wasn't my thing, and as for the cool computing jobs, I wasn't their thing. Again, I spent my years as an ECE undergraduate burying my insecurities instead of building my future. To understand the degree of mental fragmentation I was under, I had never made the connection between my digital design courses and my operating systems courses (all of this is the story of the computer, stupid, it's in the title of your degree for God's sake!).... Anyways. It took me six years to get to today. I am another person now. The PhD (well, and the pandemic, and all that followed) crushed all of my assumptions about the world, myself, the meaning of life. There's no way to put it in the condensed form that an HN comment requires without sounding naive, but I'm telling you the truth. Being forced to survive an alien landscape can make you whole again. It made me. At the end of the day, talking sh*t about hard stuff is sooo easy. You could replace any polemic against a PhD with one against starting a family, or a company, or in any way rejecting "safety" for the potential of leaving your own mark on the world. Being you. Like that poem by Robert Frost, these things make all the difference.

daft_pink 2y ago
Another great thing about PhD programs is you generally don’t end them with 6 figures in college debt from the degree. As long as you get the PhD in something that gives you a marketable skill, it’s not going to hurt too much vs all the MBAs and Lawyers I know with a ton of debt and just marginally increased career choices.
- DanielHB 2y ago
  You are discarding opportunity cost in your assessment.
  - drawkward 2y ago
    Their assessment seems to be talking about the debt load, in which case, the opportunity cost isnt especially relevant.
  - fhars 2y ago
    The counter party to your opportunity costs doesn't send collection agencies, though.
    - zitterbewegung 2y ago
      $250k in savings in six years is doable with a salary of $125k after undergrad.
      - jltsiren 2y ago
        But can you still get $125k directly after undergrad? How many employers are willing to pay 2x the median wage to someone with no experience and no demonstrated skills, simply because they went to a school? To someone who is likely to make a net negative contribution until they learn how things work and require less guidance? To someone who is at a high risk of taking another job after a couple of years? It's more common that entry-level jobs in highly paid fields start at close to the median wage. Salaries can rise rapidly once you have demonstrated your worth. But unless there is a talent shortage in your field, it doesn't make sense to pay much for an unknown quantity.
        garciasn 2y ago
        FAANG or some company in a high-rent area where you could most definitely not save that kind of money, as far as I know. And, I love how making $125K is some sort of great salary. I live in MN and while it’s above the median HHI for the state, it’s by no means a comfortable enough wage to save that kind of money unless your housing is covered by family or something. Here in the MSP metro, you’re looking at $2500/mo for rent + utils or $3500/mo for mortgage + utils for what’s a pretty average living arrangement. Unless you’re making $200K+ you’re definitely not saving shit.
jvanderbot 2y ago
Poetic. I can't do anything else but say you could have passed this off as my experience as well. It changed my life so much for the better.
ckrapu 2y ago
> Being forced to survive an alien landscape can make you whole again. I can't agree more. My sister died at the hardest point of my PhD and I buried myself in my work for nearly every waking second for years, confident that at least I was doing it for myself. I couldn't have done that if I were working a normal job.

daft_pink 2y ago

Another great thing about PhD programs is you generally don’t end them with 6 figures in college debt from the degree. As long as you get the PhD in something that gives you a marketable skill, it’s not going to hurt too much vs all the MBAs and Lawyers I know with a ton of debt and just marginally increased career choices.

DanielHB 2y ago
You are discarding opportunity cost in your assessment.
- drawkward 2y ago
  Their assessment seems to be talking about the debt load, in which case, the opportunity cost isnt especially relevant.
- fhars 2y ago
  The counter party to your opportunity costs doesn't send collection agencies, though.
  - zitterbewegung 2y ago
    $250k in savings in six years is doable with a salary of $125k after undergrad.
    - jltsiren 2y ago
      But can you still get $125k directly after undergrad? How many employers are willing to pay 2x the median wage to someone with no experience and no demonstrated skills, simply because they went to a school? To someone who is likely to make a net negative contribution until they learn how things work and require less guidance? To someone who is at a high risk of taking another job after a couple of years? It's more common that entry-level jobs in highly paid fields start at close to the median wage. Salaries can rise rapidly once you have demonstrated your worth. But unless there is a talent shortage in your field, it doesn't make sense to pay much for an unknown quantity.
      - garciasn 2y ago
        FAANG or some company in a high-rent area where you could most definitely not save that kind of money, as far as I know. And, I love how making $125K is some sort of great salary. I live in MN and while it’s above the median HHI for the state, it’s by no means a comfortable enough wage to save that kind of money unless your housing is covered by family or something. Here in the MSP metro, you’re looking at $2500/mo for rent + utils or $3500/mo for mortgage + utils for what’s a pretty average living arrangement. Unless you’re making $200K+ you’re definitely not saving shit.

jvanderbot 2y ago

Poetic. I can't do anything else but say you could have passed this off as my experience as well. It changed my life so much for the better.

ckrapu 2y ago

> Being forced to survive an alien landscape can make you whole again. I can't agree more. My sister died at the hardest point of my PhD and I buried myself in my work for nearly every waking second for years, confident that at least I was doing it for myself. I couldn't have done that if I were working a normal job.