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I am surprised that so many people are relating PhD's to the money you'll make. I hear (very frequently) that "the amount of time you spend doing your PhD will

I am surprised that so many people are relating PhD's to the money you'll make. I hear (very frequently) that "the amount of time you spend doing your PhD will put you far behind the 4 years of having a job" or "if you want to get rich, go into ...", or "management is where all the money is; you need an MBA for that". Uh... I'm doing a PhD because I like scientific research and can't stand the thought of being a process engineer. If I'm going to spend 8 hours a day working on something for the rest of my life, it better be something I enjoy! While it is possible to do R&D with a bachelor's degree, your chances of being able to do exactly the kind of research you want goes up significantly with a PhD, plus you've already had the experience of doing it for 4 years. Also, I'm not sure where this "not much money" concept comes from anyway. I'll start at an engineering salary, right out of grad school. I guess that's not "Hacker News wealthy", but that's plenty more than I need to even live comfortably!

untangle 14y ago
Good for you. You'll be in good company. These folks aren't HN-rich either: fighter pilot, fireman, teacher, social worker...
- Xcelerate 14y ago
  [Retracted; I was conveying my point incorrectly.]
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    I don't see that. I think that someone who complained about $250k would be laughed at, and even mocked openly. Especially keep in mind that we have international readers. The relative compensation in many companies between engineers and useless managers is another issue... but anyone who complains about poverty at $250,000 can eat it.
javert 14y ago
your chances of being able to do exactly the kind of research you want goes up significantly with a PhD, plus you've already had the experience of doing it for 4 years. I'm not so sure that's a valid generalization. I'm getting a PhD in computer science, but any corporate R&D department I know of that would hire a fresh graduate would only let you do R in service of their particular D needs, i.e., you have too little autonomy. I definitely think I can find jobs that I love and that are lucrative (I have some in mind), but I won't be doing research as, say, a tenured professor would define it.
- aheilbut 14y ago
  I'm not even sure that all tenured professors are doing research as they would define it.
  - lutorm 14y ago
    Absolutely not. Look at the publication record of any tenured professor at a non R1 university and you'll typically find that it's dropped to almost nil.
    - javert 14y ago
      True, I really just meant "at R1 universities." Which isn't fair to all those other tenured professors at non-R1 universities (and I may possibly even be one, someday). Of course, I have heard of R1 tenured professors who claim to spend 50% of their effort procuring funding (though I think 10% is a much more representative estimate).
      - PeterisP 14y ago
        I've heard believable claims that "here professors don't write research papers, professors write grant proposals" - quite a few of them advance research and get paper authorship by leading a lab and procuring funding for the team that does the actual research and writes the papers. And I'm not dissing them in any way - getting a grant requires the senior/experienced guys working on it. Getting the funding is a must-have (since without it researchers and students would be dismissed and the research would not exist); but spending your own time researching is a nice-to-have thing that you can do if there's any spare time left after teaching and bureaucracy.
lutorm 14y ago
As long as you don't do a Ph.D. with the assumption that you will get a permanent academic job, i.e., faculty at a university. I don't really think it's the salary of a permanent academic job that people complain about, it's the fact that in most fields, the number of such jobs is far surpassed by the number of Ph.D.'s produced. When you realize that "not that much money" means "postdoc kind of not-that-much-money", then the outlook changes.
aheilbut 14y ago
4 years?
- Xcelerate 14y ago
  For mine (chemical engineering in an American university). I hear it varies quite a bit depending on where you are and what you're doing it in.
yukoncornelius 14y ago
Do like writing grant proposals? Because in the biological sciences that is what you will be doing, and you will be competing against other smart folks which results in a 6% chance of a successful proposal. Then you can do some research while drafting journal articles, teaching undergraduates, and working for tenure by serving on a bunch of committees. In short, there is very little research in the above Ph.D. in academia career.
dishank 14y ago
You make a good point with people relating PhD's with the amount of money you will make. PhD's not only have a cost of paying for university but also opportunity cost is also existent. Also I completely agree with your comment on the idea that you can live comfortably, not rich on a PhD.

untangle 14y ago

Good for you. You'll be in good company. These folks aren't HN-rich either: fighter pilot, fireman, teacher, social worker...

Xcelerate 14y ago
[Retracted; I was conveying my point incorrectly.]
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  I don't see that. I think that someone who complained about $250k would be laughed at, and even mocked openly. Especially keep in mind that we have international readers. The relative compensation in many companies between engineers and useless managers is another issue... but anyone who complains about poverty at $250,000 can eat it.

javert 14y ago

your chances of being able to do exactly the kind of research you want goes up significantly with a PhD, plus you've already had the experience of doing it for 4 years. I'm not so sure that's a valid generalization. I'm getting a PhD in computer science, but any corporate R&D department I know of that would hire a fresh graduate would only let you do R in service of their particular D needs, i.e., you have too little autonomy. I definitely think I can find jobs that I love and that are lucrative (I have some in mind), but I won't be doing research as, say, a tenured professor would define it.

aheilbut 14y ago
I'm not even sure that all tenured professors are doing research as they would define it.
- lutorm 14y ago
  Absolutely not. Look at the publication record of any tenured professor at a non R1 university and you'll typically find that it's dropped to almost nil.
  - javert 14y ago
    True, I really just meant "at R1 universities." Which isn't fair to all those other tenured professors at non-R1 universities (and I may possibly even be one, someday). Of course, I have heard of R1 tenured professors who claim to spend 50% of their effort procuring funding (though I think 10% is a much more representative estimate).
    - PeterisP 14y ago
      I've heard believable claims that "here professors don't write research papers, professors write grant proposals" - quite a few of them advance research and get paper authorship by leading a lab and procuring funding for the team that does the actual research and writes the papers. And I'm not dissing them in any way - getting a grant requires the senior/experienced guys working on it. Getting the funding is a must-have (since without it researchers and students would be dismissed and the research would not exist); but spending your own time researching is a nice-to-have thing that you can do if there's any spare time left after teaching and bureaucracy.

lutorm 14y ago

As long as you don't do a Ph.D. with the assumption that you will get a permanent academic job, i.e., faculty at a university. I don't really think it's the salary of a permanent academic job that people complain about, it's the fact that in most fields, the number of such jobs is far surpassed by the number of Ph.D.'s produced. When you realize that "not that much money" means "postdoc kind of not-that-much-money", then the outlook changes.

aheilbut 14y ago

4 years?

Xcelerate 14y ago
For mine (chemical engineering in an American university). I hear it varies quite a bit depending on where you are and what you're doing it in.

yukoncornelius 14y ago

Do like writing grant proposals? Because in the biological sciences that is what you will be doing, and you will be competing against other smart folks which results in a 6% chance of a successful proposal. Then you can do some research while drafting journal articles, teaching undergraduates, and working for tenure by serving on a bunch of committees. In short, there is very little research in the above Ph.D. in academia career.

dishank 14y ago

You make a good point with people relating PhD's with the amount of money you will make. PhD's not only have a cost of paying for university but also opportunity cost is also existent. Also I completely agree with your comment on the idea that you can live comfortably, not rich on a PhD.