14 ms·

Should I Get a Ph.D.?

216 points by johndcook 12y ago

sonabinu 12y ago
You need to be young, you need to be a dreamer and you need to have resilience ... I know people who have taken over 7 years. You need to have that time!
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bcantrill 12y ago
These are really solid interviews. For those considering a PhD, I would also recommend "Getting What You Came For"[1]. When my mother was considering getting her PhD, I bought it for her -- and also read it myself as someone who aspired to get a PhD. My mom loved the book (and did indeed get her PhD, a requirement in her field), but the book inspired me to consider non-PhD options. Once I started exploring those options, it was clear that they were a better fit for me -- and I have never felt the desire to return for a PhD. (Though given my genetic predisposition to late-in-life PhDs -- my grandfather, mother and aunt all earned their PhDs after the age of 50 -- I suppose I should say only that I haven't felt the desire yet.) [1] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/460669.Getting_What_You_Came_For http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/460669.Getting_What_You_C...
lisper 12y ago
Lisper's second law: the hardest part of getting what you want is figuring out what it is.
- comboy 12y ago
  I'm putting it on my wall.
- noobermin 12y ago
  I'm curious, when does this ever happen? College? After college in an internship? A dream with a flaming pie?
  - lisper 12y ago
    What, figuring out what you want? Yes, of course. Different people figure it out at different times in their lives (and some never figure it out).
marknutter 12y ago
Anyone else surprised the site wasn't just a blank white page with the word "No" in 200px font?
- emplynx 12y ago
  I was hoping to provide something more nuanced with the website. For that, you could see my corresponding Twitter account: https://twitter.com/shouldyougetphd https://twitter.com/shouldyougetphd
- tych0 12y ago
  Yeah, I am. It's sort of like stuff at stores where the price isn't listed: if you have to ask, a Ph. D. isn't for you.
  - rdc12 12y ago
    Nothing wrong with trying to make an informed decision
    - emplynx 12y ago
      Exactly. That's why I put this together.
  - zzleeper 12y ago
    The thing is, what you see while in school and in academia before deciding to do the PhD are the survivors. The ones who like the power play, the grant-writing, and possibly those more prone to Stockholm Effect from their PhD years. When deciding, you don't see the ones who flunked, who killed themselves, who lost years of their life for the PhD and went to the private sector. Even then, most people won't tell you "yes I did the PhD and it sucked".. you can't say that even after years because you will appear weak or unskilled. Instead, people oft say "it was a great learning experience, etc etc".
    - Chronic29 12y ago
      The same thing can be said about industry. All you hear about are the people who work at successful startups and top tech firms. You don't hear about the ones working at low paying fortune 500 companies as developers or IT.
siege_engineer 12y ago
Proxy question: Do you want to be a professor? If "yes!" go for a PhD. If there's any uncertainty, don't. I wish someone had told me that before I started.
- emplynx 12y ago
  I wouldn't be so fast. Lots of people want to be professors, way more people than there are viable jobs. Some of the interviews bring out that point.
harveywi 12y ago
I've been through it all - from qualifying exams, to candidacy, to defense, to postdoc. To me, these sorts of articles are comparable to "join the army and see the world" propaganda. You never hear about legs blown off, brains addled, suicides, shrapnel, shellshock, and other likely outcomes. But the PhD experience is so varied that it's not really the fault of the interviewees/authors! They probably really did have it this good! There is also survivorship bias. And people who have the grit to finish a PhD probably don't want to openly admit weakness on the Internet or, more likely, burn bridges (it's hard to be anonymous about this sort of stuff). Even after they finish the PhD, they still have to worship the ground of their overlords to keep those letters of recommendation flowin'. So we have mostly these rosy happy "learn you a PhD" stories. Not good. I know you are out there: Young, highly motivated, highly intelligent, unbeatable willpower. You need to know just how bad it can be. You're not getting the whole story. I'm not talking about "oh no, I might not finish" or "oh gee, maybe it will take me eight years but I'll try real hard and get through." I'm talking real life risks to your mental and physical health, destruction of relationships, opportunity cost, and (potentially) the vaporization of that awesome scientific career that you spent over a decade building because the one person in charge of you with no oversight decided they didn't like you. I've seen so many amazing, kind, bright, talented, hard-working people exploited for years on end only to be thrown out into the academic garbage can. But the stakes go far beyond academia - what will you do about the panic attacks that continue for years, and years, and years after you finish? How about the insomnia and screaming nightmares? I bet that at least one of your fellow students will wind up in a psychiatric hospital. It could be you. "Oh come on now," you say. "It's just science! What's so scary about a math problem or writing a few paragraphs. You're either a marshmallow, you're overreacting, or maybe you just didn't have what it takes." The science is the easy part. The hard work is the easy part. It's the people who will rule over you, the people who can (and do) ruin you. These articles always talk about a benevolent best-chum advisor/faculty that you have long conversations with and then go have another cup of tea with. But you never hear about that one narcissist/psychopath on your committee that has done everything in his power to get you out of the program, the micromanager, the manipulator, the grotesque exploitation. In PhD land, you are at the complete mercy of a very small collection of merciless people who know that you exist to be exploited, and they know that they have you right where they want you. You better hope that those people are benevolent or neutral. In the case of many people I know, this was not the case. When people write articles about "choosing an advisor" and "how will I know he/she is the one for me," they make it sound like a decision about whether to get a puppy or a kitten. Consider this scenario: You open a dialogue with someone whose work you have studied for years, they offer you a position in their lab, you quit your job and drag your family halfway across the US for this "golden opportunity", and then you find out that this person is by far the biggest jerk that you have ever met and you cannot work with them. What do you do then? Where do you put all of that expertise that you acquired? I've seen this happen over and over again: You start from scratch - time to grind and level up all over again, but now you're not so sure you're good at the thing you're doing - you could be terrible at it. I could go on and on. Maybe I will someday. Well, hopefully this will inspire a little more well-rounded picture of what else it can be like to go through with a PhD.
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
If you have to ask, the answer is 'no'.
danieltillett 12y ago
You should get a Ph.D if you want to change who you are. Doing a Ph.D gave me the strength to take chances that I would never have risked unless I had a Ph.D. It gave me confidence in my ideas and that if I single handly focused on something I can do it. This has proven to be very valuable. I also had some of the best times of my life as Ph.D student (and also some of the worst), but it is not something I have regretted doing for one second since.
chuckcode 12y ago
If you're really unsure, try out a masters. It can actually be helpful in the job market and you get a couple extra years of advanced coursework and projects. In my experience getting a PhD is more about doing something for yourself, comparable to running a marathon for example. Where many can find joy in a simple jog but it can be difficult to explain why it is more "fun" at mile 20 than mile 2. PhDs certainly aren't about making money, or getting famous, or having a rich social life and thus aren't for a lot of people.
- zzleeper 12y ago
  They are quite different in practice, because in the PhD you are really at the mercy of the advisers and have made a huge commitment compared to a 1-2 yr masters).
  - bglazer 12y ago
    Hi zzleeper, you've mentioned here and above in your top level comment that a bad adviser can make a PhD torturous. Perhaps this is a naïve question, but can you switch? Is it possible to just find and study under better advisor? Thanks for providing your perspective on this.
    - zzleeper 12y ago
      It depends. In my case, there is only one prof doing what I do in my school (my advisor), so the answer would be a clear no. In contrast, a friend was doing a more broad topic and after some strong disagreements, was able to switch mid-race. Another friend was finishing his PhD at a top econ school, and his mother died so he flew back and took a couple of months off. Even though he already had job offers and a completed paper, his advisor (a well known asshole in the field) was so pissed off that he stopped all form of comunication, and my friend had to switch advisors and start a new paper because no one else did that specific topic in the school. So yes. Luck matters a lot, and YMMV. Your advisor could die, get a nobel prize, or just have a bad day, and it would change things drastically for you.
    - stevenbedrick 12y ago
uint32 12y ago
Seems rather narrow in focus, given the general title.
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cossatot 12y ago
Although this isn't the same in all disciplines, in those that have significant fieldwork components, graduate school can offer some amazing experiences for young people that are difficult (though certainly not impossible) to get elsewhere. I did my MS and PhD in geology/geophysics and did a good amount of fieldwork, including 8 international field campaigns in places like the Lesser Antilles and Tibet. It's a cool experience to be 23 and send to Nicaragua with a ton of scientific equipment and run small team for a month or two. There are aspects of it that are like tourism, but you go off the backpacker circuit more and interact with the locals, and actually have inescapable intellectual challenges and responsibilities. It's also a bit less heavy than the Peace Corps. This is pretty common in the earth sciences, although not required. Lots of people in the social sciences have analogous opportunities. In any case, I think that the overall discussion in the article and in the comments here provide a good range of possible experiences and considerations. But I just wanted to add my piece because it hasn't been mentioned, and it was what really tipped the scales on going to grad school for me. And that was, for me, a great decision. I'd also add that anyone with an interest in both earth science and coding will find that if they really learn the 'earth' part of the sciences, there are very many opportunities to use relatively simple computations to make advances that a lot of the field scientists haven't worked through yet, and lots of industry opportunities if you're into that as well.
red_dazzler 12y ago
Friends don't let friends get PhDs
rrtwo 12y ago
Any advice for someone who is about to finish a PhD in CS? Like pro/cons of doing a postdoc vs. going straight to the industry, or best way to migrate to the industry?
- analog31 12y ago
  I studied physics, not CS, but my experience was that it boiled down to weighing the specific job offers that you get in each sector. A possible reason to do a post-doc is if a full blown industry job search would detract from finishing your PhD. Nothing is worth delaying your PhD. On the other hand, at least in my field, a post doc was not a step towards industry.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Postdocs are fun if you like your research. Finding a job that allows you to continue what you like working on is essential and could take awhile.
- freyr 12y ago
  I did a ten month stint as a postdoc while I wrapped up some research and looked for a job. This was common for people in my program at the time, i.e. graduating from a top 20 school (but not top 10) in a weak job market. That was a few years back, but in a recent job interview the interviewer spotted the post-doc on my CV, raised an eyebrow, and asked "What's this all about? Why couldn't you land a job after graduating?" Kind of jerky. I don't know if it was a serious question or she was just looking for a reaction.
robdoherty2 12y ago
They should have more interviews with people who chose not to go for a PhD, and whether they feel they were successful in spite of (or because of) that choice.
blt 12y ago
Someone help me... I am applying for CS Ph.D. programs right now. I've been in industry for a few years and I have become a skilled programmer but I never get to work on really interesting problems. I am sick of wiring up buttons and sitting in UI design meetings. The kind of problems I want to work on require a lot of heavy math/algorithms that I don't know like Control Theory and Machine Learning. I have learned a lot from listening to online courses but I never actually do the projects/homework because my boring day job programming makes me too burnt out on programming to dedicate a lot of time to side projects. I want to get the Ph.D. to become a highly skilled expert R&D engineer so I can go back to industry and do the most interesting jobs instead of the menial ones. Should I do it? (of course I'm going to finish my applications, I can always say no, but seems like people in this thread would have useful input...)
- chriskanan 12y ago
  This is a great time to get a PhD to work on problems in machine learning and machine perception, especially if you want to go into industry. There is a lot of demand. I finished my PhD about two years ago, and I do R&D at NASA in machine learning and computer vision (although I'm leaving to become a professor). Once you are in a PhD program, be upfront with your advisor about this goal and you will likely have an easier time graduating than those students that claim they want to become professors. Typically, to get a PhD you just need to finish your coursework (fairly easy) and produce about three published papers (can be brutally hard or fairly straightforward depending on a ton of factors). The latter's ease also depends on your tolerance for disappointment, because the rewards and successes in research are somewhat sparse. A lot of the problems people have with the PhD is that there aren't enough academic jobs. You aren't seeking one, so you will be fine as long as you focus on your goal and maintain a good work-life balance most of the time throughout school (this can be very challenging to do, in practice).
- albertzeyer 12y ago
  I think it was Yann LeCun who said on a Reddit AMA that if you want to go into Machine Learning, a PhD is very much mandatory. I'm doing a PhD myself right now in Machine Learning / Deep Learning. I started half a year ago. I don't have any bad experience yet. But I haven't heard too much bad things at all in Germany. My chair: http://www-i6.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/ http://www-i6.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/
alexalex 12y ago
I* believe that implicit in the curriculum of a doctoral program is the education on how to take on any question or problem and contribute to it. I'm not a computer scientist but do a lot programming and work with many people with a CS education. Many have an incredible ability to architect a solution to a problem by breaking it down into straightforward operations. A PhD is like that, but for questions and bigger problems. If you want to build something that other people haven't built before, or answer a question that nobody else has answered before, a PhD will give you great confidence and experience in doing that. It is incredibly enabling and will change how you approach problems for the rest of your life. However, you also learn why nobody has done it before: because those things take a lot of time. And in a PhD program time is not a limited resource, money is. You will be doing stuff that is a waste of time by any objective measure. You have to be very mindful of the time cost of tasks, work, and your choices, because nobody else is. If you're not careful, a very meaningful period of time will have gone by without a lot to show for. My advice for people who ask me about getting a PhD is that it is risky entering a PhD program without certainty in what you want to do. You can go to college and figure out what to do. But in a doctoral program, you are too likely to get lost in the system, have a bad experience, waste too much time, and accrue too much opportunity cost. You will regret it if that happens. _______ *PhD in a Physics/Engineering program and research work in neuroscience and medicine. My one reccurring nightmare in life is waking up certain that I'm missing a credit, signature, or form and I'm still in graduate school.
jckt 12y ago
A question for those who got their PhDs -- do you think there is a difference between getting one in a European Uni versus getting one in the USA? I've known a few science PhDs in the UK that seemed to be quite content in their decision, while the people that seem to have a bad time tend to do theirs in the USA (speculation in general, not just from the comments in this thread). Would this be an accurate assessment or does the location of your institution not really matter?
- danieltillett 12y ago
  The big difference is the UK uni's are in a big rush to get you in and out in 3 years. I have seen people from the UK with Ph.Ds that are really just a master thesis. Edit. Australian degrees are about half way in between the UK and US system. Most candidates take around 4 years.
  - jckt 12y ago
    What would be the UK equivalent of a US PhD? A postdoc position? And in that situation would the stress be comparable? Or is the system just totally different?
    - danieltillett 12y ago
      I can't really speak for the level of stress in the UK system since I have never been part of it, but the candidates coming out of the UK system are in general weaker than those out of the USA (of course there is huge variation). I would put then 2 years behind the US graduates as far as research experience.
      - xioxox 12y ago
        Well, it does take 2 years less! Most people hiring PhDs in academia are aware that UK/European PhDs are going to have fewer publications, etc, than their US counterparts. It may be a bit harder to jump straight to a prize fellowship from a European PhD, but it happens quite a bit. In the UK at my institution, there was only optional teaching load for PhDs, you knew you had funding for 3 years before you started and there weren't many taught courses, so you can dive straight into research.
graycat 12y ago
Yes, I got a Ph.D. in applied math from a famous research university and for a while, for reasons having to do with my wife, was a prof in a well known MBA program. Yup, I've seen Ph.D. programs destroy a lot of really good people. People crushed for life, suicide, etc. I got through okay, but some of the politics was grim. I got into a fight, had to take a year off, and, net, a department Chair and three profs got fired. How'd I get through? Mostly just did the work on my own. Entered the program very well prepared. Brought my own Ph.D. dissertation research problem, with a good intuitive understanding of how to get a solution, with me to the program and did the real research part independently in my first summer. Along the way I polished my halo: One way was in a course, supposed to be really hard. The course was carefully graded, and the intention was that the class be competitive. But before the course, I'd studied the material, in part in courses but mostly independently, over and over from a stack of the best books, elementary, intermediate, and advanced, applied the material, understood quite a lot about the corresponding numerical analysis, had written software for the material, etc. I could have given all but a few of the lectures on the first day of the class. So, on graded homework, tests, mid-term, and final. I blew away all the other students by wide margins, and I wasn't even trying to be competitive. In a course there was a question but no answer. So, I asked for reading course as a chance to find an answer. Two weeks later, from working sitting by my wife on our bed as she watched TV, I had a nice, clean answer, with more than I'd hoped to get. Two weeks, course over. Work publishable -- did publish it later. So, I suggest: (1) Be very well prepared, from undergraduate school, a Masters from another school, on the job learning, independent study, whatever. (2) Get an applied Ph.D., say, in engineering or "applied science* or some such. Then for the research, start with a problem from outside academics. Get at least a good intuitive solution before entering the Ph.D. program. If the lectures, seminars, etc. of the program can give you some tools, ideas, etc. to help you with your research, fine. (3) Do not ask for a research problem or research direction from a professor. Instead, just do the work independently. If there is any question about the quality of the work, then publish it or at least get it accepted for publication. The big question, though, is why bother? One point: Usually a person without a Ph.D. doesn't want to work with a person with a Ph.D. The person without can feel intimidated and threatened, and that one might guess that a Ph.D. might be relevant to his work he can take as an insult. People without have a lot of ways to denigrate people with. Some of the challenge of a Ph.D. is summarized by D. Knuth in a remark in his The TeXBook: "The traditional way is to put off all creative aspects until the last part of graduate school. For seventeen or more years, a student is taught examsmanship, then suddenly after passing enough exams in graduate school he's told to do something original." That "suddenly ... told" can be a big shock. Here are two common problems: (1) Good Students. Ph.D. programs tend to want only good students as in PBK, Summa Cum Laude, Woodrow Wilson, NSF Fellowships, etc. Well, one of the more common ways to be such a good student is, in addition to being bright, liking the material, being highly determined, and working hard, is to be terribly afraid, of criticism, failure, failing to come up to what parents wanted, what high school teachers expected, of some relative saying that they "expect great things", etc. So, such a student can be a case of anxiety disease, have done well in K-12 and in college just by making A grades and otherwise not thinking much about anything else. Then the "suddenly ... told" can be a severe challenge, a risk of failure, of the first criticism in life, a threat to self image as a great student, etc. There can be anxiety, stress, depression, failure, more stress, clinical depression, and suicide. It can help to have (a) a thick skin and (b) good grounding academically, etc. before entering a Ph.D. program. I got a thick skin in grades 1-8 -- the teachers treated me like dirt. With my success in math in grades 9-12, I got a little better treatment. But the big day was when the SAT scores came back and the teacher who'd had me in the sixth grade read the Math score and, gulp, "There, uh, there, uh, must be some mistake." Yup, there had been, hers and that of the rest of the teachers, for 12 long, painful, largely wasteful years where I'd been treated like dirt. But someone up there liked me: I got sent to an NSF summer program in math and physics. I'd learned that there was no direct way I could ever hope to please the teachers, but with math I could do work that neither they nor anyone else could fault. So, math it was. And physics. (2) Opaque Criteria. Mostly students are not told just what the criteria are for the work, the social aspects of the field, the department politics, for research, for publication, for a dissertation, etc. So, students can do too little in some respects and get into trouble or do too much in other respects, go too slowly, and again get into trouble. My solution: Largely avoid the opaque stuff. For the learning, do that largely independently. For the research, do that independently and well enough to be publishable, e.g., "new, correct, and significant" and, in case there is any doubt, just submit the work for objective, blind, expert peer-review and, then, publication. I haven't been at all interested in an academic career or much interested in publishing, but all the papers I've written as sole author or co-author have been accepted for publication right away; so, it's possible to follow the work style I've explained and get published. Getting published in academics is much like making money in business -- lots of other potential problems melt away. For efforts, work style, such as I have described here, independently and/or in a grad program, is there any benefit? Well, all the best work I've done in my career has been from just that work style. Currently I'm doing a start-up, and the crucial, core secret sauce is from just such work, with some of the grad school work a big source of the prerequisites. So, if my start-up is successful, then the work style I explained above will have been successful.
reality_czech 12y ago
I was expecting this to be a static website that said "no." Disappointing.
jvdh 12y ago
The most important advice I tell people who are thinking about getting a PhD is that they have to be really really motivated. 100% of the PhD students have at least one moment during their PhD work that they are seriously considering quitting. And this can happen at any point during the period, ranging from after one year, until year four. If you are motivated, it is one hell of an experience that you are very unlikely to get anywhere else. This of course depends highly on the group you are joining and the research field that you are going to be in. It is very likely that you get to travel the world and meet interesting new people. But it is no picknick, and I can confirm some of the other horror stories that you read here. Then again, these made me a better, more focused person.
mdup 12y ago
I'm honestly surprised to all the comments in here. This is not my experience at all. I thought I may share my perspective. I'm currently pursuing a PhD program here in France. This is a special kind of PhD, called "CIFRE" which roughly means "PhD in a company". You're employed for 3 years by both an academic lab/uni and a company. The goal is to solve an industrial research problem that benefits both the lab and the company. Personally I'm very happy to be doing this kind of thesis. I'm not in a major lab, so I'm pretty sure I won't be able to fight much against Ivy League PhDs but I'm still getting the degree and I'm okay with it. In the future I don't seek to teach a lot but to do mostly research. Besides having a good relationship with my advisors I'm also super happy that I don't have a student debt (French education is mostly free -- even for top engineering schools). The pay is good, not as much as an engineer but plenty of people with lower degrees would already be happy with it, so no reason to complain. With this company-linked PhD I also get to study 100% while being officially employed as an engineer, it's on my contract. If I ever want to hide the PhD from my resume (I'm sure I never will), I can basically write "I've been a research engineer for three years" and this would be the truth. I also get to see how it works in the industrial world and to be more aware when, after the degree, I have to choose between going back to the engineer path or getting further into the academic road.
- tfgg 12y ago
  Most of the comments seem to be referring to US programmes. I chose to do my PhD in the UK and not bother with US programmes, which seem to have a toxic culture (similar to interns in banks working ridiculous hours for no reason). I accept that I'll probably have to do a postdoc before being considered equal to a US PhD, but that's a low cost for not being abused as free labour and having the opportunity to get out with something. I also wonder if in the US not having to have a masters first, four year undergrad masters courses are the norm here for hard sciences, makes it harder for people to make informed decisions. Ultimately, does the UK, or other countries with different systems such as France, produce less good science? No.
  - sporkenfang 12y ago
    How difficult do you think it would be for a U.S. master's student with published research to get into a PhD programme in the UK, France, or just somewhere !US?
TimJRobinson 12y ago
Being a startup forum I'm surprised no one has compared doing a PhD to starting a startup. Has anyone done both and if so are they similar in stress levels, willpower needed etc? What are the similarities and differences?
- return0 12y ago
  Startup is more rewarding, you steer it where you want, and reap the rewards. In science, even if you make the big discovery you have a shit ton of politics to go through yet. (source: after building an indie business, i took up a pHd in a (very interesting) field). I love what i learned and will run away from academia as soon as i get the PhD. I don't understand how super smart people allow themselves to be treated the way they are treated there sometimes.
- sbardle 12y ago
  Startups and PhDs do tend to attract intellectually curious people. The startup scene seems to be benefiting from the brain-drain away from academia due to push and pull factors. But there are some differences: A startup involves working in a team; for a PhD, you're mostly on your own. A startup has no guarantee of success; for a PhD, there is an institutional bias in getting you through.
- arethuza 12y ago
  I spent 6 years working on a PhD before dropping it and going off and co-founding a start-up - from '89 to '95. I wasn't terribly highly motivated about the PhD work towards the end - the main thing I learned during the process was that I did not want to work in academia. I didn't see much point in a PhD as a general purpose credential and basically used my time for the last 18 months or so getting our company sorted out. Having said that, academia - particularly post-grads, is a great place to meet people. I met my co-founder through a research project and a couple of other people I knew from there came on-board as early stage employees and worked out really well.
return0 12y ago
You should get a PhD if you want, and you should see it for what it is: a job, with an end date and a certification. Many of you here act as if the PhD was a life-forming experience that defines your life. It's just one of the many things that can define your life. In my experience the academic world is a closed society of people with similar, often pointless anxieties, an interesting, but quite uniform culture, and often a vague connection with the rest of the universe. I mean, things like publishing, impact factors, tenures and ego-bashing, are things that do not matter in the end, only the science matters, yet many academics' life incessantly revolves around it. Another place where i have seen a similar "closed world" is the army. People there obsess over mindless pointless things all the time. I think you should get a PhD because the world is getting richer and you can afford to do this, but make it about learning rather than anything else. If you dont build huge bridges in academia, who cares, you can always join a day job or start your own business. These are exciting times.
- danieltillett 12y ago
  If a Ph.D is not a life-forming experience then you have not done a Ph.D. You might have been enrolled in a course and handed in a thesis, but unless you are changed by it you have missed the point.
  - deleted 12y ago
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  - return0 12y ago
    I went there because i wanted to learn and i did. I also did pretty well and came out wiser, that was the whole point for me. What point did i miss?
    - danieltillett 12y ago
      A PhD is more than x numbers of years of research. If it wasn't we would not have them at all. It is supposed to change who you are and how you approach the world. It certainly did for me. It is actually this part that made doing a PhD worthwhile as the domain knowledge I gained has long since become worthless.
reuven 12y ago
I finished my PhD about 6 months ago, at the age of 44, married and with three children. It took me 11 years, and cost an enormous amount of money. Before I started, I was an independent consultant. After finishing, I'm an independent consultant. I never planned to go into academia. So, why did I do a PhD? I was told that I would learn lots of new things, and meet lots of new people -- and escape, to some degree, the frustration that I was experiencing with my consulting business. It's true that I met lots new people. And it's true that I learned a ton. And I'm very proud of the research that I did, resulting in a Web site that is used by thousands of researchers and students every week. (The Modeling Commons -- http://modelingcommons.org/ http://modelingcommons.org/, if you're curious.) And I also go to experience a different sort of frustration than I have had when consulting. And yet, was it worthwhile? I continue to wrestle with that question. My family and I were hugely stressed for more than a decade. Our finances are improving (thanks to my consulting work), but it'll be another year or so before we're back to where we were. I'm frustrated that I didn't create lots of products and businesses during those 11 years. And the incredible frustration of the PhD process, and of having an advisor who drove me completely and utterly batty, cannot be ignored. If you want to do research, then you should do a PhD -- but you should know what you're getting into beforehand, and be really sure that you want to do research. If you don't want to do research, but want to boost your creds, and if you're single and young, then it might be worthwhile. If you're like me, in your mid-30s, married, with children, and the primary breadwinner, then you should think long and hard about whether you want the PhD. Several of the others who did PhDs mid-career in my program had spouses earning good incomes, didn't have children, or both. I do believe that having the PhD has already helped to boost my career a bit, helping me to find newer and bigger clients who somehow think that having a PhD makes you smarter or better than the rest of the population. But would I recommend it to someone else in my position? Not without a lot of thought and consideration. And an understanding that what you think will take 5 years or so might take much longer than that.
edem 12y ago
So is it a yes or a no?
pfortuny 12y ago
If you are asking that question, you most probably should not get a PhD. You either want to or need to but never should.
wyclif 12y ago
Is this site new? Or simply new to HN? I had not seen it before, so thanks to @johndcook.
- emplynx 12y ago
  The interviews have been on my blog for a year: http://stiglerdiet.com http://stiglerdiet.com. I put up the dedicate site yesterday.
DSingularity 12y ago
My my. Just try it and if you dont like it leave after the masters. I dont think every question needs to be answered based on others experiences. Sometimes, you have to find the answer yourself.
billpg 12y ago
Answer: See Betteridge's law of headlines.
silverlake 12y ago
If you go to a top 10 school: Yes. If you have full funding and want to do R&D in industry: Yes. If you have full funding and just want to work on cool stuff for a while: Yes. Otherwise, No.
geebee 12y ago
Lots of interesting comments here. My biggest bit of advice to someone asking if he or she should get a PhD is to phrase it differently. If that person got into an elite Medical, Law, or Business School, they should ask "should I get an MD, JD, or MBA". The reason it's ok to phrase it this way is that attrition rates are typically below one half of one percent in those degree programs at the elite (top 10) level. Science PhD programs, even elite ones, often have attrition rates at 50%. Engineering is a bit better, at around 35% attrition rates, though this varies by program. So you should be saying "should I take a 50% shot at getting a PhD" - or, if not, take a very objective look at why the 50% doesn't apply to you. I know, if you got into the PhD program at Berkeley, you justifiably think you're really good at this sort of thing, but really, everyone's good. The 50% who drop or fail out aren't slackers or unintelligent. They're often exceptionally smart and motivated people. These degrees are very different from professional degrees at the elite level. They are extraordinarily difficult to complete. On a personal note, I was a PhD student in Industrial Engineering at Berkeley, and I felt there was far too much failure and attrition for such a bright and accomplished group of people. Nobody I knew ended up in an insane asylum (as mentioned in other posts), but it was an emotionally rough experience for many of them, and I could see it getting there. I felt the system did border on being cruel at times.

216 points by johndcook 12y ago

You need to be young, you need to be a dreamer and you need to have resilience ... I know people who have taken over 7 years. You need to have that time!

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bcantrill 12y ago

These are really solid interviews. For those considering a PhD, I would also recommend "Getting What You Came For"[1]. When my mother was considering getting her PhD, I bought it for her -- and also read it myself as someone who aspired to get a PhD. My mom loved the book (and did indeed get her PhD, a requirement in her field), but the book inspired me to consider non-PhD options. Once I started exploring those options, it was clear that they were a better fit for me -- and I have never felt the desire to return for a PhD. (Though given my genetic predisposition to late-in-life PhDs -- my grandfather, mother and aunt all earned their PhDs after the age of 50 -- I suppose I should say only that I haven't felt the desire yet.) [1] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/460669.Getting_What_You_Came_For http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/460669.Getting_What_You_C...

lisper 12y ago

Lisper's second law: the hardest part of getting what you want is figuring out what it is.

comboy 12y ago
I'm putting it on my wall.
noobermin 12y ago
I'm curious, when does this ever happen? College? After college in an internship? A dream with a flaming pie?
- lisper 12y ago
  What, figuring out what you want? Yes, of course. Different people figure it out at different times in their lives (and some never figure it out).

marknutter 12y ago

Anyone else surprised the site wasn't just a blank white page with the word "No" in 200px font?

emplynx 12y ago
I was hoping to provide something more nuanced with the website. For that, you could see my corresponding Twitter account: https://twitter.com/shouldyougetphd https://twitter.com/shouldyougetphd
tych0 12y ago
Yeah, I am. It's sort of like stuff at stores where the price isn't listed: if you have to ask, a Ph. D. isn't for you.
- rdc12 12y ago
  Nothing wrong with trying to make an informed decision
  - emplynx 12y ago
    Exactly. That's why I put this together.
- zzleeper 12y ago
  The thing is, what you see while in school and in academia before deciding to do the PhD are the survivors. The ones who like the power play, the grant-writing, and possibly those more prone to Stockholm Effect from their PhD years. When deciding, you don't see the ones who flunked, who killed themselves, who lost years of their life for the PhD and went to the private sector. Even then, most people won't tell you "yes I did the PhD and it sucked".. you can't say that even after years because you will appear weak or unskilled. Instead, people oft say "it was a great learning experience, etc etc".
  - Chronic29 12y ago
    The same thing can be said about industry. All you hear about are the people who work at successful startups and top tech firms. You don't hear about the ones working at low paying fortune 500 companies as developers or IT.

siege_engineer 12y ago

Proxy question: Do you want to be a professor? If "yes!" go for a PhD. If there's any uncertainty, don't. I wish someone had told me that before I started.

emplynx 12y ago
I wouldn't be so fast. Lots of people want to be professors, way more people than there are viable jobs. Some of the interviews bring out that point.

harveywi 12y ago

I've been through it all - from qualifying exams, to candidacy, to defense, to postdoc. To me, these sorts of articles are comparable to "join the army and see the world" propaganda. You never hear about legs blown off, brains addled, suicides, shrapnel, shellshock, and other likely outcomes. But the PhD experience is so varied that it's not really the fault of the interviewees/authors! They probably really did have it this good! There is also survivorship bias. And people who have the grit to finish a PhD probably don't want to openly admit weakness on the Internet or, more likely, burn bridges (it's hard to be anonymous about this sort of stuff). Even after they finish the PhD, they still have to worship the ground of their overlords to keep those letters of recommendation flowin'. So we have mostly these rosy happy "learn you a PhD" stories. Not good. I know you are out there: Young, highly motivated, highly intelligent, unbeatable willpower. You need to know just how bad it can be. You're not getting the whole story. I'm not talking about "oh no, I might not finish" or "oh gee, maybe it will take me eight years but I'll try real hard and get through." I'm talking real life risks to your mental and physical health, destruction of relationships, opportunity cost, and (potentially) the vaporization of that awesome scientific career that you spent over a decade building because the one person in charge of you with no oversight decided they didn't like you. I've seen so many amazing, kind, bright, talented, hard-working people exploited for years on end only to be thrown out into the academic garbage can. But the stakes go far beyond academia - what will you do about the panic attacks that continue for years, and years, and years after you finish? How about the insomnia and screaming nightmares? I bet that at least one of your fellow students will wind up in a psychiatric hospital. It could be you. "Oh come on now," you say. "It's just science! What's so scary about a math problem or writing a few paragraphs. You're either a marshmallow, you're overreacting, or maybe you just didn't have what it takes." The science is the easy part. The hard work is the easy part. It's the people who will rule over you, the people who can (and do) ruin you. These articles always talk about a benevolent best-chum advisor/faculty that you have long conversations with and then go have another cup of tea with. But you never hear about that one narcissist/psychopath on your committee that has done everything in his power to get you out of the program, the micromanager, the manipulator, the grotesque exploitation. In PhD land, you are at the complete mercy of a very small collection of merciless people who know that you exist to be exploited, and they know that they have you right where they want you. You better hope that those people are benevolent or neutral. In the case of many people I know, this was not the case. When people write articles about "choosing an advisor" and "how will I know he/she is the one for me," they make it sound like a decision about whether to get a puppy or a kitten. Consider this scenario: You open a dialogue with someone whose work you have studied for years, they offer you a position in their lab, you quit your job and drag your family halfway across the US for this "golden opportunity", and then you find out that this person is by far the biggest jerk that you have ever met and you cannot work with them. What do you do then? Where do you put all of that expertise that you acquired? I've seen this happen over and over again: You start from scratch - time to grind and level up all over again, but now you're not so sure you're good at the thing you're doing - you could be terrible at it. I could go on and on. Maybe I will someday. Well, hopefully this will inspire a little more well-rounded picture of what else it can be like to go through with a PhD.

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago

If you have to ask, the answer is 'no'.

danieltillett 12y ago

You should get a Ph.D if you want to change who you are. Doing a Ph.D gave me the strength to take chances that I would never have risked unless I had a Ph.D. It gave me confidence in my ideas and that if I single handly focused on something I can do it. This has proven to be very valuable. I also had some of the best times of my life as Ph.D student (and also some of the worst), but it is not something I have regretted doing for one second since.

chuckcode 12y ago

If you're really unsure, try out a masters. It can actually be helpful in the job market and you get a couple extra years of advanced coursework and projects. In my experience getting a PhD is more about doing something for yourself, comparable to running a marathon for example. Where many can find joy in a simple jog but it can be difficult to explain why it is more "fun" at mile 20 than mile 2. PhDs certainly aren't about making money, or getting famous, or having a rich social life and thus aren't for a lot of people.

zzleeper 12y ago
They are quite different in practice, because in the PhD you are really at the mercy of the advisers and have made a huge commitment compared to a 1-2 yr masters).
- bglazer 12y ago
  Hi zzleeper, you've mentioned here and above in your top level comment that a bad adviser can make a PhD torturous. Perhaps this is a naïve question, but can you switch? Is it possible to just find and study under better advisor? Thanks for providing your perspective on this.
  - zzleeper 12y ago
    It depends. In my case, there is only one prof doing what I do in my school (my advisor), so the answer would be a clear no. In contrast, a friend was doing a more broad topic and after some strong disagreements, was able to switch mid-race. Another friend was finishing his PhD at a top econ school, and his mother died so he flew back and took a couple of months off. Even though he already had job offers and a completed paper, his advisor (a well known asshole in the field) was so pissed off that he stopped all form of comunication, and my friend had to switch advisors and start a new paper because no one else did that specific topic in the school. So yes. Luck matters a lot, and YMMV. Your advisor could die, get a nobel prize, or just have a bad day, and it would change things drastically for you.
  - stevenbedrick 12y ago

uint32 12y ago

Seems rather narrow in focus, given the general title.

deleted 12y ago

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cossatot 12y ago

Although this isn't the same in all disciplines, in those that have significant fieldwork components, graduate school can offer some amazing experiences for young people that are difficult (though certainly not impossible) to get elsewhere. I did my MS and PhD in geology/geophysics and did a good amount of fieldwork, including 8 international field campaigns in places like the Lesser Antilles and Tibet. It's a cool experience to be 23 and send to Nicaragua with a ton of scientific equipment and run small team for a month or two. There are aspects of it that are like tourism, but you go off the backpacker circuit more and interact with the locals, and actually have inescapable intellectual challenges and responsibilities. It's also a bit less heavy than the Peace Corps. This is pretty common in the earth sciences, although not required. Lots of people in the social sciences have analogous opportunities. In any case, I think that the overall discussion in the article and in the comments here provide a good range of possible experiences and considerations. But I just wanted to add my piece because it hasn't been mentioned, and it was what really tipped the scales on going to grad school for me. And that was, for me, a great decision. I'd also add that anyone with an interest in both earth science and coding will find that if they really learn the 'earth' part of the sciences, there are very many opportunities to use relatively simple computations to make advances that a lot of the field scientists haven't worked through yet, and lots of industry opportunities if you're into that as well.

red_dazzler 12y ago

Friends don't let friends get PhDs

rrtwo 12y ago

Any advice for someone who is about to finish a PhD in CS? Like pro/cons of doing a postdoc vs. going straight to the industry, or best way to migrate to the industry?

analog31 12y ago
I studied physics, not CS, but my experience was that it boiled down to weighing the specific job offers that you get in each sector. A possible reason to do a post-doc is if a full blown industry job search would detract from finishing your PhD. Nothing is worth delaying your PhD. On the other hand, at least in my field, a post doc was not a step towards industry.
seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Postdocs are fun if you like your research. Finding a job that allows you to continue what you like working on is essential and could take awhile.
freyr 12y ago
I did a ten month stint as a postdoc while I wrapped up some research and looked for a job. This was common for people in my program at the time, i.e. graduating from a top 20 school (but not top 10) in a weak job market. That was a few years back, but in a recent job interview the interviewer spotted the post-doc on my CV, raised an eyebrow, and asked "What's this all about? Why couldn't you land a job after graduating?" Kind of jerky. I don't know if it was a serious question or she was just looking for a reaction.

robdoherty2 12y ago

They should have more interviews with people who chose not to go for a PhD, and whether they feel they were successful in spite of (or because of) that choice.

blt 12y ago

Someone help me... I am applying for CS Ph.D. programs right now. I've been in industry for a few years and I have become a skilled programmer but I never get to work on really interesting problems. I am sick of wiring up buttons and sitting in UI design meetings. The kind of problems I want to work on require a lot of heavy math/algorithms that I don't know like Control Theory and Machine Learning. I have learned a lot from listening to online courses but I never actually do the projects/homework because my boring day job programming makes me too burnt out on programming to dedicate a lot of time to side projects. I want to get the Ph.D. to become a highly skilled expert R&D engineer so I can go back to industry and do the most interesting jobs instead of the menial ones. Should I do it? (of course I'm going to finish my applications, I can always say no, but seems like people in this thread would have useful input...)

chriskanan 12y ago
This is a great time to get a PhD to work on problems in machine learning and machine perception, especially if you want to go into industry. There is a lot of demand. I finished my PhD about two years ago, and I do R&D at NASA in machine learning and computer vision (although I'm leaving to become a professor). Once you are in a PhD program, be upfront with your advisor about this goal and you will likely have an easier time graduating than those students that claim they want to become professors. Typically, to get a PhD you just need to finish your coursework (fairly easy) and produce about three published papers (can be brutally hard or fairly straightforward depending on a ton of factors). The latter's ease also depends on your tolerance for disappointment, because the rewards and successes in research are somewhat sparse. A lot of the problems people have with the PhD is that there aren't enough academic jobs. You aren't seeking one, so you will be fine as long as you focus on your goal and maintain a good work-life balance most of the time throughout school (this can be very challenging to do, in practice).
albertzeyer 12y ago
I think it was Yann LeCun who said on a Reddit AMA that if you want to go into Machine Learning, a PhD is very much mandatory. I'm doing a PhD myself right now in Machine Learning / Deep Learning. I started half a year ago. I don't have any bad experience yet. But I haven't heard too much bad things at all in Germany. My chair: http://www-i6.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/ http://www-i6.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/

alexalex 12y ago

I* believe that implicit in the curriculum of a doctoral program is the education on how to take on any question or problem and contribute to it. I'm not a computer scientist but do a lot programming and work with many people with a CS education. Many have an incredible ability to architect a solution to a problem by breaking it down into straightforward operations. A PhD is like that, but for questions and bigger problems. If you want to build something that other people haven't built before, or answer a question that nobody else has answered before, a PhD will give you great confidence and experience in doing that. It is incredibly enabling and will change how you approach problems for the rest of your life. However, you also learn why nobody has done it before: because those things take a lot of time. And in a PhD program time is not a limited resource, money is. You will be doing stuff that is a waste of time by any objective measure. You have to be very mindful of the time cost of tasks, work, and your choices, because nobody else is. If you're not careful, a very meaningful period of time will have gone by without a lot to show for. My advice for people who ask me about getting a PhD is that it is risky entering a PhD program without certainty in what you want to do. You can go to college and figure out what to do. But in a doctoral program, you are too likely to get lost in the system, have a bad experience, waste too much time, and accrue too much opportunity cost. You will regret it if that happens. _______ *PhD in a Physics/Engineering program and research work in neuroscience and medicine. My one reccurring nightmare in life is waking up certain that I'm missing a credit, signature, or form and I'm still in graduate school.

jckt 12y ago

A question for those who got their PhDs -- do you think there is a difference between getting one in a European Uni versus getting one in the USA? I've known a few science PhDs in the UK that seemed to be quite content in their decision, while the people that seem to have a bad time tend to do theirs in the USA (speculation in general, not just from the comments in this thread). Would this be an accurate assessment or does the location of your institution not really matter?

danieltillett 12y ago
The big difference is the UK uni's are in a big rush to get you in and out in 3 years. I have seen people from the UK with Ph.Ds that are really just a master thesis. Edit. Australian degrees are about half way in between the UK and US system. Most candidates take around 4 years.
- jckt 12y ago
  What would be the UK equivalent of a US PhD? A postdoc position? And in that situation would the stress be comparable? Or is the system just totally different?
  - danieltillett 12y ago
    I can't really speak for the level of stress in the UK system since I have never been part of it, but the candidates coming out of the UK system are in general weaker than those out of the USA (of course there is huge variation). I would put then 2 years behind the US graduates as far as research experience.
    - xioxox 12y ago
      Well, it does take 2 years less! Most people hiring PhDs in academia are aware that UK/European PhDs are going to have fewer publications, etc, than their US counterparts. It may be a bit harder to jump straight to a prize fellowship from a European PhD, but it happens quite a bit. In the UK at my institution, there was only optional teaching load for PhDs, you knew you had funding for 3 years before you started and there weren't many taught courses, so you can dive straight into research.

graycat 12y ago

Yes, I got a Ph.D. in applied math from a famous research university and for a while, for reasons having to do with my wife, was a prof in a well known MBA program. Yup, I've seen Ph.D. programs destroy a lot of really good people. People crushed for life, suicide, etc. I got through okay, but some of the politics was grim. I got into a fight, had to take a year off, and, net, a department Chair and three profs got fired. How'd I get through? Mostly just did the work on my own. Entered the program very well prepared. Brought my own Ph.D. dissertation research problem, with a good intuitive understanding of how to get a solution, with me to the program and did the real research part independently in my first summer. Along the way I polished my halo: One way was in a course, supposed to be really hard. The course was carefully graded, and the intention was that the class be competitive. But before the course, I'd studied the material, in part in courses but mostly independently, over and over from a stack of the best books, elementary, intermediate, and advanced, applied the material, understood quite a lot about the corresponding numerical analysis, had written software for the material, etc. I could have given all but a few of the lectures on the first day of the class. So, on graded homework, tests, mid-term, and final. I blew away all the other students by wide margins, and I wasn't even trying to be competitive. In a course there was a question but no answer. So, I asked for reading course as a chance to find an answer. Two weeks later, from working sitting by my wife on our bed as she watched TV, I had a nice, clean answer, with more than I'd hoped to get. Two weeks, course over. Work publishable -- did publish it later. So, I suggest: (1) Be very well prepared, from undergraduate school, a Masters from another school, on the job learning, independent study, whatever. (2) Get an applied Ph.D., say, in engineering or "applied science* or some such. Then for the research, start with a problem from outside academics. Get at least a good intuitive solution before entering the Ph.D. program. If the lectures, seminars, etc. of the program can give you some tools, ideas, etc. to help you with your research, fine. (3) Do not ask for a research problem or research direction from a professor. Instead, just do the work independently. If there is any question about the quality of the work, then publish it or at least get it accepted for publication. The big question, though, is why bother? One point: Usually a person without a Ph.D. doesn't want to work with a person with a Ph.D. The person without can feel intimidated and threatened, and that one might guess that a Ph.D. might be relevant to his work he can take as an insult. People without have a lot of ways to denigrate people with. Some of the challenge of a Ph.D. is summarized by D. Knuth in a remark in his The TeXBook: "The traditional way is to put off all creative aspects until the last part of graduate school. For seventeen or more years, a student is taught examsmanship, then suddenly after passing enough exams in graduate school he's told to do something original." That "suddenly ... told" can be a big shock. Here are two common problems: (1) Good Students. Ph.D. programs tend to want only good students as in PBK, Summa Cum Laude, Woodrow Wilson, NSF Fellowships, etc. Well, one of the more common ways to be such a good student is, in addition to being bright, liking the material, being highly determined, and working hard, is to be terribly afraid, of criticism, failure, failing to come up to what parents wanted, what high school teachers expected, of some relative saying that they "expect great things", etc. So, such a student can be a case of anxiety disease, have done well in K-12 and in college just by making A grades and otherwise not thinking much about anything else. Then the "suddenly ... told" can be a severe challenge, a risk of failure, of the first criticism in life, a threat to self image as a great student, etc. There can be anxiety, stress, depression, failure, more stress, clinical depression, and suicide. It can help to have (a) a thick skin and (b) good grounding academically, etc. before entering a Ph.D. program. I got a thick skin in grades 1-8 -- the teachers treated me like dirt. With my success in math in grades 9-12, I got a little better treatment. But the big day was when the SAT scores came back and the teacher who'd had me in the sixth grade read the Math score and, gulp, "There, uh, there, uh, must be some mistake." Yup, there had been, hers and that of the rest of the teachers, for 12 long, painful, largely wasteful years where I'd been treated like dirt. But someone up there liked me: I got sent to an NSF summer program in math and physics. I'd learned that there was no direct way I could ever hope to please the teachers, but with math I could do work that neither they nor anyone else could fault. So, math it was. And physics. (2) Opaque Criteria. Mostly students are not told just what the criteria are for the work, the social aspects of the field, the department politics, for research, for publication, for a dissertation, etc. So, students can do too little in some respects and get into trouble or do too much in other respects, go too slowly, and again get into trouble. My solution: Largely avoid the opaque stuff. For the learning, do that largely independently. For the research, do that independently and well enough to be publishable, e.g., "new, correct, and significant" and, in case there is any doubt, just submit the work for objective, blind, expert peer-review and, then, publication. I haven't been at all interested in an academic career or much interested in publishing, but all the papers I've written as sole author or co-author have been accepted for publication right away; so, it's possible to follow the work style I've explained and get published. Getting published in academics is much like making money in business -- lots of other potential problems melt away. For efforts, work style, such as I have described here, independently and/or in a grad program, is there any benefit? Well, all the best work I've done in my career has been from just that work style. Currently I'm doing a start-up, and the crucial, core secret sauce is from just such work, with some of the grad school work a big source of the prerequisites. So, if my start-up is successful, then the work style I explained above will have been successful.

reality_czech 12y ago

I was expecting this to be a static website that said "no." Disappointing.

jvdh 12y ago

The most important advice I tell people who are thinking about getting a PhD is that they have to be really really motivated. 100% of the PhD students have at least one moment during their PhD work that they are seriously considering quitting. And this can happen at any point during the period, ranging from after one year, until year four. If you are motivated, it is one hell of an experience that you are very unlikely to get anywhere else. This of course depends highly on the group you are joining and the research field that you are going to be in. It is very likely that you get to travel the world and meet interesting new people. But it is no picknick, and I can confirm some of the other horror stories that you read here. Then again, these made me a better, more focused person.

mdup 12y ago

I'm honestly surprised to all the comments in here. This is not my experience at all. I thought I may share my perspective. I'm currently pursuing a PhD program here in France. This is a special kind of PhD, called "CIFRE" which roughly means "PhD in a company". You're employed for 3 years by both an academic lab/uni and a company. The goal is to solve an industrial research problem that benefits both the lab and the company. Personally I'm very happy to be doing this kind of thesis. I'm not in a major lab, so I'm pretty sure I won't be able to fight much against Ivy League PhDs but I'm still getting the degree and I'm okay with it. In the future I don't seek to teach a lot but to do mostly research. Besides having a good relationship with my advisors I'm also super happy that I don't have a student debt (French education is mostly free -- even for top engineering schools). The pay is good, not as much as an engineer but plenty of people with lower degrees would already be happy with it, so no reason to complain. With this company-linked PhD I also get to study 100% while being officially employed as an engineer, it's on my contract. If I ever want to hide the PhD from my resume (I'm sure I never will), I can basically write "I've been a research engineer for three years" and this would be the truth. I also get to see how it works in the industrial world and to be more aware when, after the degree, I have to choose between going back to the engineer path or getting further into the academic road.

tfgg 12y ago
Most of the comments seem to be referring to US programmes. I chose to do my PhD in the UK and not bother with US programmes, which seem to have a toxic culture (similar to interns in banks working ridiculous hours for no reason). I accept that I'll probably have to do a postdoc before being considered equal to a US PhD, but that's a low cost for not being abused as free labour and having the opportunity to get out with something. I also wonder if in the US not having to have a masters first, four year undergrad masters courses are the norm here for hard sciences, makes it harder for people to make informed decisions. Ultimately, does the UK, or other countries with different systems such as France, produce less good science? No.
- sporkenfang 12y ago
  How difficult do you think it would be for a U.S. master's student with published research to get into a PhD programme in the UK, France, or just somewhere !US?

TimJRobinson 12y ago

Being a startup forum I'm surprised no one has compared doing a PhD to starting a startup. Has anyone done both and if so are they similar in stress levels, willpower needed etc? What are the similarities and differences?

return0 12y ago
Startup is more rewarding, you steer it where you want, and reap the rewards. In science, even if you make the big discovery you have a shit ton of politics to go through yet. (source: after building an indie business, i took up a pHd in a (very interesting) field). I love what i learned and will run away from academia as soon as i get the PhD. I don't understand how super smart people allow themselves to be treated the way they are treated there sometimes.
sbardle 12y ago
Startups and PhDs do tend to attract intellectually curious people. The startup scene seems to be benefiting from the brain-drain away from academia due to push and pull factors. But there are some differences: A startup involves working in a team; for a PhD, you're mostly on your own. A startup has no guarantee of success; for a PhD, there is an institutional bias in getting you through.
arethuza 12y ago
I spent 6 years working on a PhD before dropping it and going off and co-founding a start-up - from '89 to '95. I wasn't terribly highly motivated about the PhD work towards the end - the main thing I learned during the process was that I did not want to work in academia. I didn't see much point in a PhD as a general purpose credential and basically used my time for the last 18 months or so getting our company sorted out. Having said that, academia - particularly post-grads, is a great place to meet people. I met my co-founder through a research project and a couple of other people I knew from there came on-board as early stage employees and worked out really well.

return0 12y ago

You should get a PhD if you want, and you should see it for what it is: a job, with an end date and a certification. Many of you here act as if the PhD was a life-forming experience that defines your life. It's just one of the many things that can define your life. In my experience the academic world is a closed society of people with similar, often pointless anxieties, an interesting, but quite uniform culture, and often a vague connection with the rest of the universe. I mean, things like publishing, impact factors, tenures and ego-bashing, are things that do not matter in the end, only the science matters, yet many academics' life incessantly revolves around it. Another place where i have seen a similar "closed world" is the army. People there obsess over mindless pointless things all the time. I think you should get a PhD because the world is getting richer and you can afford to do this, but make it about learning rather than anything else. If you dont build huge bridges in academia, who cares, you can always join a day job or start your own business. These are exciting times.

danieltillett 12y ago
If a Ph.D is not a life-forming experience then you have not done a Ph.D. You might have been enrolled in a course and handed in a thesis, but unless you are changed by it you have missed the point.
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- return0 12y ago
  I went there because i wanted to learn and i did. I also did pretty well and came out wiser, that was the whole point for me. What point did i miss?
  - danieltillett 12y ago
    A PhD is more than x numbers of years of research. If it wasn't we would not have them at all. It is supposed to change who you are and how you approach the world. It certainly did for me. It is actually this part that made doing a PhD worthwhile as the domain knowledge I gained has long since become worthless.

reuven 12y ago

I finished my PhD about 6 months ago, at the age of 44, married and with three children. It took me 11 years, and cost an enormous amount of money. Before I started, I was an independent consultant. After finishing, I'm an independent consultant. I never planned to go into academia. So, why did I do a PhD? I was told that I would learn lots of new things, and meet lots of new people -- and escape, to some degree, the frustration that I was experiencing with my consulting business. It's true that I met lots new people. And it's true that I learned a ton. And I'm very proud of the research that I did, resulting in a Web site that is used by thousands of researchers and students every week. (The Modeling Commons -- http://modelingcommons.org/ http://modelingcommons.org/, if you're curious.) And I also go to experience a different sort of frustration than I have had when consulting. And yet, was it worthwhile? I continue to wrestle with that question. My family and I were hugely stressed for more than a decade. Our finances are improving (thanks to my consulting work), but it'll be another year or so before we're back to where we were. I'm frustrated that I didn't create lots of products and businesses during those 11 years. And the incredible frustration of the PhD process, and of having an advisor who drove me completely and utterly batty, cannot be ignored. If you want to do research, then you should do a PhD -- but you should know what you're getting into beforehand, and be really sure that you want to do research. If you don't want to do research, but want to boost your creds, and if you're single and young, then it might be worthwhile. If you're like me, in your mid-30s, married, with children, and the primary breadwinner, then you should think long and hard about whether you want the PhD. Several of the others who did PhDs mid-career in my program had spouses earning good incomes, didn't have children, or both. I do believe that having the PhD has already helped to boost my career a bit, helping me to find newer and bigger clients who somehow think that having a PhD makes you smarter or better than the rest of the population. But would I recommend it to someone else in my position? Not without a lot of thought and consideration. And an understanding that what you think will take 5 years or so might take much longer than that.

edem 12y ago

So is it a yes or a no?

pfortuny 12y ago

If you are asking that question, you most probably should not get a PhD. You either want to or need to but never should.

wyclif 12y ago

Is this site new? Or simply new to HN? I had not seen it before, so thanks to @johndcook.

emplynx 12y ago
The interviews have been on my blog for a year: http://stiglerdiet.com http://stiglerdiet.com. I put up the dedicate site yesterday.

DSingularity 12y ago

My my. Just try it and if you dont like it leave after the masters. I dont think every question needs to be answered based on others experiences. Sometimes, you have to find the answer yourself.

billpg 12y ago

Answer: See Betteridge's law of headlines.

silverlake 12y ago

If you go to a top 10 school: Yes. If you have full funding and want to do R&D in industry: Yes. If you have full funding and just want to work on cool stuff for a while: Yes. Otherwise, No.

geebee 12y ago

Lots of interesting comments here. My biggest bit of advice to someone asking if he or she should get a PhD is to phrase it differently. If that person got into an elite Medical, Law, or Business School, they should ask "should I get an MD, JD, or MBA". The reason it's ok to phrase it this way is that attrition rates are typically below one half of one percent in those degree programs at the elite (top 10) level. Science PhD programs, even elite ones, often have attrition rates at 50%. Engineering is a bit better, at around 35% attrition rates, though this varies by program. So you should be saying "should I take a 50% shot at getting a PhD" - or, if not, take a very objective look at why the 50% doesn't apply to you. I know, if you got into the PhD program at Berkeley, you justifiably think you're really good at this sort of thing, but really, everyone's good. The 50% who drop or fail out aren't slackers or unintelligent. They're often exceptionally smart and motivated people. These degrees are very different from professional degrees at the elite level. They are extraordinarily difficult to complete. On a personal note, I was a PhD student in Industrial Engineering at Berkeley, and I felt there was far too much failure and attrition for such a bright and accomplished group of people. Nobody I knew ended up in an insane asylum (as mentioned in other posts), but it was an emotionally rough experience for many of them, and I could see it getting there. I felt the system did border on being cruel at times.