No offense taken and upvoted. I think the article oversimplifies things to a degree, so it's also a reflection of the author's viewpoint and in that sense almo

No offense taken and upvoted. I think the article oversimplifies things to a degree, so it's also a reflection of the author's viewpoint and in that sense almost comes across as rationalization. But that doesn't mean the points aren't correct - I had a unique job right out of college that gave me a lot of firsthand experience with a top notch phd program and allowed me to witness the grad student lifestyle w/o having to go myself. I was a web developer for the biology department of my college and worked out of a research building, separate from all the other admin staff, which was great because I got to hang out with people my own age, all the grad students (and even some of the younger associate profs) near my office. And seeing them go through the phd program definitely gave me the strong impression that the ones that survived (at least in a mentally stable way) were the ones that loved research and academia, or at least could make themselves love it over long periods of time. It's not to say you're locked into academia as a career if you get a phd - one of my good friends went on to join a bio startup, there's a lot of those in San Diego - it's just that it's the default path and most of the above bullet points are still true, especially the pyramid scheme part. They're basically slave labor for whichever prof heads up their lab. It's worth noting that you can and should apply #7 - Most jobs are better than they seem: You can learn from any job - to grad school as well and treat it as a job with a long term contract, one that you need to mine for all kinds of interesting things that you didn't think you'd learn. For example, I bet a lot of people (understandably) go into a top neuroscience or cell biology program thinking they'll learn a lot about biology and research, and they do, but the ones that did really well learned things like how to manage your time well, motivate yourself on an independent schedule, network in a loose non-corporate environment and blow off steam with non-contact sports.