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The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

economist.com

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Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#31

Post by tjr »

amichail wrote: post #21
johnswamps wrote: post #20

If anyone is curious, here are the median starting salaries for graduates from Stanford's CS/EE departments (survey was self selecting so the numbers are probably skewed up, but there were a large number of responses): Undergrad: 80k Masters: 87k PhD: 114k

Money is not everything. A successful career as an indie developer can be a lot more rewarding than one in academia.

Sure. So maybe instead of trying to pattern our lives according to blog after blog and article after article, we should all do what we believe to be best for our own lives, be it spending more time in formal education, or be it dropping out, or be it starting a startup, or be it working for a huge company.

I think that society today needs people to do all of those things, and more. We all need to find our own place, and excel there.

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#33

Post by Loic »

This article only take the money value of PhDs. It forgot the most important stuff in doing a PhD: Networking. Doing PhD is like doing SEO in the real world.

First, you need to pay attention to your supervisor, select a good one, one ready to trust you and give you freedom of action.

Second, grab a university where there is effectively budget for you to travel to conferences and meet people.

Then, work hard and network a lot.

I am French but did my PhD in Denmark (DTU), it was 3 years with a very good salary, with a lot of travels all over the world, with an insane level of networking. Now, after some work in a company, I have setup my small consultancy, the quality of the network I have from my PhD is a gold mine.

If you do your PhD to just enter in a company with a higher salary after some years of feeling like a slave, you are doing it for the wrong reason.

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#34

Post by jforman »

grav1tas wrote: post #10
jmount wrote: post #4

Nice read. Speaking as a PhD I am okay with the PhD certificate having no value (you don't deserve extra earnings for having the certificate). It was my intent to learn some valuable things during the degree process, and I did.

Exactly my sentiments. I'm currently in a PhD program, but not because I intend to be in academia. I love the field I'm studying, and I just felt like doing it instead of joining the workforce. I'll probably learn a cool thing or two. Why not? There are a decent number of ding dongs in PhD programs too. The level of ding dong-ery doesn't seem to change wherever you go.

The answer to "why not?" is pretty simple: opportunity cost.

I spent three years in a computational biology PhD program before getting an e-mail from a college friend looking for people to join a new startup (where I am now a co-founder). I enjoyed the research I was doing, but I asked myself: should I really spend three more years here toiling away at very cool but very obscure science just to purchase a lottery ticket? Where if I lose the lottery (which is the most likely result by far) I will have languished in postdoc roles until I burnt out past my prime?

You have a lot of energy between age 25 and 35. I decided to apply that energy to something where the expected value of total reward (both intellectually and monetarily) is much higher.

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#36

Post by naveensundar »

blackguardx wrote: post #27
naveensundar wrote: post #14

A PhD is all about wealth creation [1]. Also many of the technologies we take for granted were due to "lowly" PhD students toiling away. I can't even imagine how without decades of dedicated academic effort we can have semiconductor based electronics, massively layered software that work seamlessly, etc. Maybe the author can. "The fiercest critics compare research doctorates to Ponzi or pyramid schemes." The "fierces…

Actually most semiconductor technology was developed by industry. Nowadays it is often too expensive for a university to do any cutting edge IC research without industry partnerships.

Yes. Academic research need not be done only at universities. Even industrial labs award PhD degrees and do solid research which is one of the things a PhD trains you for.

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#37

Post by pjscott »

tjr wrote: post #31
amichail wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is not everything. A successful career as an indie developer can be a lot more rewarding than one in academia.

Sure. So maybe instead of trying to pattern our lives according to blog after blog and article after article, we should all do what we believe to be best for our own lives, be it spending more time in formal education, or be it dropping out, or be it starting a startup, or be it working for a huge company. I think that society today needs people to do all of those things, and more. We all need to find our own place,…

Without those articles and blog posts and discussions, how are we supposed to find out what the various options are, and their relative benefits and drawbacks? "Finding out own place" doesn't just happen. (Except when it does. But relying on luck is a chancy proposition.)

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#38

Post by Aloisius »

Not all PhDs are the same. They vary in duration and difficulty from country to country, school to school and field to field.

For instance, you are not guaranteed a PhD in Chemistry from Berkeley even if you go for 8 years. You don't get one until your research pans out.

This is very different from some countries where you're essentially guaranteed one after 2-4 years.

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#39

Post by [deleted] »

pjscott wrote: post #37
tjr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. So maybe instead of trying to pattern our lives according to blog after blog and article after article, we should all do what we believe to be best for our own lives, be it spending more time in formal education, or be it dropping out, or be it starting a startup, or be it working for a huge company. I think that society today needs people to do all of those things, and more. We all need to find our own place,…

Without those articles and blog posts and discussions, how are we supposed to find out what the various options are, and their relative benefits and drawbacks? "Finding out own place" doesn't just happen. (Except when it does. But relying on luck is a chancy proposition.)

[deleted]

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#40

Post by donaldc »

johnswamps wrote: post #20

If anyone is curious, here are the median starting salaries for graduates from Stanford's CS/EE departments (survey was self selecting so the numbers are probably skewed up, but there were a large number of responses): Undergrad: 80k Masters: 87k PhD: 114k

Undergrad: 80k Masters: 87k PhD: 114k

In addition to the fact that the Undergrad may be making more than $114K by the time the PhD student has acquired a PhD, there's also the issue of selection bias. Perhaps, on average, people choosing to get PhDs are more capable than people with Bachelor's degrees. In this case, the extra degree could be absolutely useless, and yet people having a PhD would still earn more.

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