While doing a PhD: 1. You are very dependent on your supervisor. Not in terms of doing your work, but in terms that s/he can make it impossible for you to get

While doing a PhD: 1. You are very dependent on your supervisor. Not in terms of doing your work, but in terms that s/he can make it impossible for you to get your degree -This opens the door for abuse. If your supervisor asks you do to something, even if unrelated to your phd subject, you'll probably do it. If you supervisor is a decent person this won't happen, however if you decide to do a phd you will be in a position where this can happen. 2. It's a huge vague task and even if you are extremely successful you will have publications about it with many citations. You'll get some pats on the back, and that's it. There's no real reward. The only reward is relief when you finish. 3. If an academic career is your goal, you have to be aware that it is not very rewarding financially. 4. Apart from the personal skills that you will most definitely acquire (being able to learn more quickly and in-depth any new subject), the actual knowledge that you acquire from doing a PhD will probably not be useful outside the inevitably narrow subject your phd targets. And unless that subject has demand in the industry, you will only be able to use it in academia. 5. Writing scientific papers is not fun, the review process is not fun. I don't think I've met anyone that gets genuinely excited when they have to review or write a paper. I could go on, but let me tell you about the positives. If you can publish, you can travel to conferences, get to know new places and meet interesting people. And that's about it. My personal opinion now (after leaving academics) is that if you really like a subject you should pursue it on your own. The effort that you have to put in a PhD is so big that if you used it for something else, you will probably end up with something that you are really proud of. I say this because when you do research, at least in my personal opinion, you don't always feel you are doing it for yourself, you are doing it because you have to publish, because that's the nature of the game in academics, you have to publish. And, again, writing and reviewing papers is not fun. Anyway, a couple of years ago there was an article in the economist named the "The disposable academic" that neatly describes how the system is broken: http://www.economist.com/node/17723223 http://www.economist.com/node/17723223