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Ask HN: Will getting a PhD lead to a more interesting life?

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21–30 of 258 posts

Re: Ask HN: Will getting a PhD lead to a more interesting life?

#21
Get the PhD (unless you really feel like it is going to mentally destroy you)

In my 20 years career in tech (dotcoms, startups, academia), there have been several times when having a PhD would have come in handy for pay bumps, funding, new jobs, and interesting projects, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Will getting a PhD lead to a more interesting life?

#22
It looks like you're an American expat studying in Germany.

A lot of PhD's there go directly into industry, so much so that's from my observation it's the norm instead of the outlier.

You would likely only surrender the chance for a PhD at your institution - and even then, only with your Chair. Funded PhDs are treated like a job and you more or less apply for them just like any other job opening. If you don't like what you are researching, but you are interested in holding employment that involves research, I would recommend looking for a funded PhD at another institution. Applicants with a technical background are at a premium in other fields, so you wouldn't even necessarily have to worry about sticking with CS.

So, here's my recommendation:

1.) Stick with your current research for the rest of the academic year. It gives you something to do while you're looking for employment.

2.) Start browsing one of the many job boards for EU academic positions. Find something you like.

3.) Start browsing any of the job boards for private employment - EU, US, or otherwise.

4.) Do a couple of interviews. If you find something you like, whether in academia or the private sector, go with it.

5.) If you don't find anything, and if you're offered the PhD position at your university, think hard about whether or not you want to take it. Research as a PhD is different (you're treated more like an employee).

Also think about what you don't like about your current research and where you live. Are you dissatisfied because of cultural reasons - which is definitely an issue in the expat community - or are you dissatisfied because of your line or research or your academic environment?

Re: Ask HN: Will getting a PhD lead to a more interesting life?

#23
You seem to flag a lot of things that you don't like which boil down to you don't like research very much. And that's pretty much what a PhD is. It also tends to be something very specific and narrow. This doesn't preclude you from taking your PhD and branching out into something broader down the road, but the value prop of a PhD, if you will, is that you're a world expert in some specific area.

The other downside of not just getting industry experience is that a lot of PhD research is very, well, academic. Wrote a book recently (something else that involves lots of time in a library and elsewhere reading and writing on your own) and a lot of the papers I used for research were pretty much crap and disconnected from anything in the real world.

Re: Ask HN: Will getting a PhD lead to a more interesting life?

#24
Its a mind blowing thing to me that people study for that long, not really even starting their career until their 30's, to get a Ph.D - That said, if you are that close, and having this serious of thoughts about what is the right decision, and it will only take this extra 8 months to set you on the right path, then just do it. btw what country are you in?

Re: Ask HN: Will getting a PhD lead to a more interesting life?

#25
A PhD will make close to zero difference to the quality of job you get, so if you're thinking that an MSc will get you a boring job but a PhD would get you an interesting job that's absolutely not the case. I speak as someone who has had a long and fulfilling career in software engineering in spite of having a music degree, and knowing people with strong quantitative PhDs doing very boring work. (I would say they aren't "stuck" other than in their own perception however). It's on you to find yourself interesting work though - PhD or no, it's not going to land in your lap.

Secondly, it's definitely not the case that if you don't get a PhD now you'll never get one, however in all likelihood it will be much harder later on. In my experience, people's responsibilities and commitments (personal and work-wise) grow constantly and it only gets more and more difficult to find time for things in future.

It sounds like 9 months doesn't give you a PhD, 9 months gives you potentially the opportunity of a PhD. So it's a theoretical minimum and when you're looking at this, you should calculate on the PhD take longer. Be wary of sunk cost. Having invested time in getting an MSc, it's easy to think "9 months isn't that long given how much I've done so far" without thinking through whether the goal is worth achieving in itself.

tl;dr: Get a PhD because you want a PhD. Probably don't get a PhD thinking it will make some sort of difference to your job prospects.

Re: Ask HN: Will getting a PhD lead to a more interesting life?

#26

Its a mind blowing thing to me that people study for that long, not really even starting their career until their 30's, to get a Ph.D - That said, if you are that close, and having this serious of thoughts about what is the right decision, and it will only take this extra 8 months to set you on the right path, then just do it. btw what country are you in?

In most countries a PhD will graduate around 24. It’s only a marathon in the US, and isn’t such a huge investment in time in other places.

Re: Ask HN: Will getting a PhD lead to a more interesting life?

#28
As someone who has a PhD in informatics, I would say it's only worth it if you (mostly) like doing what is required for getting the actual PhD (research, writing papers, giving presentations - often to an audience that is not really interested in what you have to say but still has to grade you).

Having the PhD is not that useful unless you want to be a professor / academic researcher. In my case I work for a Japanese governmental research institute, which hires both PhDs and "supporting staff". Supporting staff have less freedom and have temporary contracts. No-one really gets paid that well. In terms of work, I'm still coding a lot, but also need to read and write many papers, proposals, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Will getting a PhD lead to a more interesting life?

#29
post #3

Only place in industry that requires a PhD is Data Science. How interesting what you do there is depends on the company. In most cases as a Data Scientist you won't be doing much coding. Otherwise if you want to go in any other software development you don't need PhD, because as you said you don't want to be a researcher. That being said its very likely for your 9-5 programming job to be very boring and not what you…

Few jobs explicitly require a PhD, but realistically for many jobs a PhD is the only way to acquire the experience, reputation, and connections to get the job.

Re: Ask HN: Will getting a PhD lead to a more interesting life?

#30
I would say there are limited number of fields where having PhD is an assumed norm, and would influence your hire-ability. Molecular biology is one of those, from my experience?

Your time is probably better spent interviewing, networking or searching for internships.

Your idea of how PhD works seems quite bleak, from what I heard, it can be a bit more creative/involved version of things you already do for your MSc thesis.

So if you hate MSc, but really like the research you do, and your advisor and research-group, I would consider staying. Especially if they know how to write grant-proposals ;)

If you don't like the research, run.

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