41–50 of 258 posts
I'd say just go into industry now, if you truly want a PhD later on, do it where you'll have a better chance of mental health and prosperity.
An exercise I find useful when it comes to making hard decisions, is that I flip a coin and if I am disappoint with the outcome then I know it's the wrong decision.
Anyone have any thoughts on doing a PhD in later life? I don't need a career change or salary boost, but I'm very aware I've stumbled into data science (albeit very much on the applied side) without the right fundamental maths knowledge or research mindset. I read dozens of papers each week and even now I find them terribly abstruse. I suppose I'm contrasting this to just continuing on with online courses and books -…
However, if you just want a better understanding of the fundamentals, you certainly don’t need to (and probably shouldn’t) do a PhD.
Also, if you’re reading “dozens of papers each week”, maybe slow down? I wouldn’t pick up much more than abstract-level knowledge at that rate.
You probably won't regret spending the next few years of your life doing something that you think is interesting. There is, however, a chance that you will regret spending the next few years worrying about if your future self will regret those years.
I was a fairly good student and considered doing a PhD during my MA. However, I felt exactly the same way.
In the end, I tried a variety of jobs instead. Looking back, I feel like I've evaded a huge trap. Nowadays, I'd even say that dropping out after the bachelor or doing a more unrelated master might have been best for me. YMMV.
You need to introspect a bit more on what part of this is really true to you. You are already doing an MSc and that shows you are good at studying. May be you do not love pointless-studying. But no matter what degree you have in CS, you will have to study in your career to stay relevant in the industry
> I have no desire to become a professor
Good PhDs are usually good teachers. They do not have to be a professor and many are not. Teaching brings clarity of thought and improves your fundamentals. You could just ask your professors "why you need to be a teaching assistant" and check out if their answers make sense to you.
> I have no desire to become a researcher...and I'm really afraid of getting a boring software engineering gig.
Why pursue a PhD if you do not want to be a researcher? And who says software engineering has to be boring? You can chose what you want to work on and have just not found it. Obviously, a choice is easier for a PhD. But may be you can also look at being an entrepreneur (unless you dislike hard work)
> I'm also absolutely sick of living like a student with little financial freedom.
You have not even started on the financial part of financial freedom.
> Does anyone have any guiding advice?
My personal opinion - I find PhD to be too time consuming if it does not have a good purpose. I declined admission to PhD after working pretty hard towards that. I had been working on a certain topic of research for 3 years before that. My reason for declining was the quality of the faculties/mentors and the quality of research produced from the university. For next 2 years I did have second thoughts about whether I made a wrong decision. But I am happy with how my life turned out to be after that. However, if I had good faculties or good research produced I would have stayed
Look at the quality of the PhDs coming out of your college/university. Also check out if their research is actual research or some kind of documentation. You could even talk to or interview a few people who have spend 2 or 3 years attempting the PhD. Avoid the ones in the first year because they are more likely to be unhappy with their choice in the first year.
From your post, it just looks like you need a break. Couple of weeks off and you should be able to think clearly for yourself.
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 wh…
1. There is no time limit when doing a PhD. I know several colleagues who did a PhD in Germany who took more than 10 years. Those were not pathological cases.
2. It's definitely useful to have the title when getting a job and it helps to get some specific positions. And it opens the doors for interviews in this country. Though, even in Germany: Compared to just starting to work and getting experience that way you are likely to lose money, even in the long run.
Doing a PhD is a job, one that is not very well paid. It can be pretty great if you are okay with the money you earn and if you can enjoy the time. A good PhD program: Not too much work (I recently passed by the university at 14:30 on a Friday, there was one single soul), interesting work, something specific you get in the end. But for that to work positively it has to be something you enjoy doing. If you'd see it as lost time, it will be lost time. It has to be in a city and a country you like where you can be with people you like and work on stuff you enjoy. OP, it sounds as nothing of that would be true for you - and if not, a PhD is the best way to reach a burnout or a clinical depression. Don't do it.
Though these meaningless jobs do pay well these days, thanks to Softbank.
At least then you'll have explored your options fully even if you don't end up going for it with the greatest amount of knowledge about it as you could have - if nothing else you'll have informed regrets!
There's another aspect to this though: There's a big tradeoff between "interesting" work and "good" work in some cases - for instance consider the games industry. That's arguably the peak of creative technical work but because so many people want to do it often the conditions aren't great and the pay is lower than some other fields despite the work being as hard or harder. Consider it an artefact of supply and demand in the labour market I suppose.
I think there are some people who really want to do research more than anything else. They should do PhDs. People without this compulsion are probably better off doing something else. I was joking with a friend the other day about interview questions which pick out the people most likely to succeed at research. The consensus was that this is the best discriminator: "Do you ever wish that all your friends and family w…
If my answer is “Yes, but only temporarily!” does that still count? For real though, this comment confirms all of my intuition. I’m about to start a PhD at the age of 36, with a spouse and child to support, and I know my bank account will never forgive me for this. But... I can’t not do it.