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Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

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Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#411

Post by yodsanklai »

yodsanklai wrote: post #101

As usual, lot of PhD bashing in the comments. My experience was generally positive. The good things 1. I had mostly fun doing it. Being paid to learn things is great. 2. I got to work in different countries, and travel to many places 3. I was able to have more than one career. PhD + academia, before switching to industry. Gave me more perspectives. 4. I did learn a few things and skills (public speaking, I learned a…

A few extra thoughts since I wrote the parent comment

- I did my PhD in Europe where it's only 3 years after master, so the opportunity cost is less

- I noticed a lot of frustration with PhD candidates comes from applying to academic positions. If this is not the end goal, this could also lead to a better experience.

- I said a lot of what I learned is useless, this can be mitigated by carefully choosing a topic, although not easy when you have little perspective, and possibly limited options (lots of candidates pick a topic in their local university for instance). It's also possible to intern in companies during a PhD.

- Having a PhD can open new doors.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#412

Post by StefanBatory »

vishnugupta wrote: post #404
xanderlewis wrote: post #165

From the discussion here, it seems that HN turns out to be a very money-centric place. Somewhat surprising. It doesn’t even seem to occur to people that one might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research . It’s always talked about as if getting a PhD is just another rung in a long ladder towards… earning a lot of money? Not only that — it’s apparently such an obvious…

PhD is a really big investment. You are spending 4-6 years of your prime earning years chasing a dream or in the hope of making a dent in your domain’s problems. All that while your age mates from school/college/town are progressing in their life and career. Also if you get into non-academic job then those early years foregone usually have disproportionately bigger impact on your career progression and your accumulat…

It's why I wouldn't want to pursue PhD. (besides simply knowing I'm not cut out for research).

I don't want to spend even more years in education. I want to still use my youth while I can; going into PhD would make me unable to.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#413

Post by imtringued »

michaelt wrote: post #223
declan_roberts wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only difference between a PhD and a hobby is money, or the presumption of it indirectly (certain jobs, etc) Or else we just call it pursing our natural hobbies and interests. You don't need to go to school for that. If you didn't need more money you wouldn't seek the accreditation.

Sure - it's just a hobby that pays money. That and the library access, and the fact that you don't have to fit it in around a job, obviously. Kinda goes without saying. And you get a supervisor who might point you in the right direction and keep you on track - but I'm sure you barely need that! Of course the equipment access and technician support goes without saying. Not like anyone else is going to be letting you u…

I'm sorry but you must be confusing something. You're talking about a bachelor's degree when everyone else is talking about PhDs. The vast majority of people do not have the qualifications for a PhD at 18.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#414

Post by busterarm »

michaelt wrote: post #350
rpcope1 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't imagine anyone would be drawn to the 50% female working environment, with hundreds of smart, beautiful single women aged 18-22. Who gives a shit about that? Barely even a benefit really. I recall that hitting on undergraduates as an early 20-something graduate student was considered a pretty serious no-no, and barring some tenured professors that feel they're above the rules, it certainly seemed like conseq…

> I recall that hitting on undergraduates as an early 20-something graduate student was considered a pretty serious no-no If you're a 24 year old grad student and they're a 22 year old undergraduate in a different department? No big age gap, no power over them like grading their work, no problem. And as you get towards 27 obviously you won't want to date 18 year olds - but even if the grad students in your department…

You're still not really internalizing the fact that academia is status-economy job, like being a celebrity. There are orders of magnitude more people willing to be there (under worse circumstances than you) than there are available positions.

How you move socially is going to be one of the biggest factors that can kill opportunities for you or spin you out of academic work entirely. Everyone is out for themselves -- knives out.

As such, you're probably living very dangerously trying to navigate intimate relationships anywhere in the orbit of campus. Sure, it happens, but doesn't always end well.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#415

Post by mnky9800n »

RobotToaster wrote: post #387
mnky9800n wrote: post #352

Incidentally if you are interested in doing a PhD the University of oslo has 64 open phd and postdoc positions currently. PhDs will get a competitive salary (typically something like 50-55k USD/year, this is much higher than anything in USA for example), free healthcare, pension, in the first year you qualify for cheap student housing if you have moved from abroad, and tbh, Norway is kind of nice to live in in my opi…

I assume having to learn Norwegian is a small issue?

There are no language requirements to be a phd or postdoc at the university of oslo except in the cases where you may need to speak a scandinavian language to study it such as if you are working at the center for nordic linguistics. So no, you do not need to consider this an issue at all.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#416

Post by lizknope »

adastra22 wrote: post #311
lizknope wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of masters students are also research / teaching assistants and end up finishing with little debt.

You can also just not get a masters.

It depends on what you want to do. I think 90% of the people here are computer science / programmers / IT people. There are people who don't even have a college degree and are self taught.

I'm in integrated circuit / semiconductor design. I only have a bachelors degree but that was 30 years ago. These days the vast majority of new graduates that we hire have a masters degree. IT's really hard to stand out with only a bachelors in my industry.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#417

Post by oneplane »

WalterBright wrote: post #277
oneplane wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading a biography mostly informed me about the lack of general empathy, remorse, sympathy. Only regret came forward a little (and only once). > be crazy enough to bet it all Anyone who doesn't suffer any real consequences. Having parents with a lot of money makes it not matter all that much. As for the other bad decisions; it doesn't really show much positive except maybe persistence, but persistence in a vacuum is…

> Anyone who doesn't suffer any real consequences. Having parents with a lot of money makes it not matter all that much. You're not going to starve in America if you lose all your money. Besides, Elon's dad at one point invested in Elon's company. Elon was already a success in business by then. From $20,000, he became the richest man in the world. All by luck! Pretty amazing! Me, I could scrape up $20,000. Could I tu…

You can either not be hoarding, or you can be richest man in the world. You can't have it both ways.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#418

Post by globalnode »

trw55 wrote: post #315
globalnode wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats a depressing outlook. I feel the lower levels of uni have been co-opted as you say, but once you're passed the undergrad level I think it would become more about interest in the subject and less about a job, don't you think? (Sadly I may be wrong)

This is interesting. How do you support yourself if it’s not about the money? Are you in the US? If you are have you noticed you will be paying $10 for a dozen of eggs? In what world does getting a PhD for curiosity make sense in 2025? It’s not even about money, it’s about literal survival. The people here in this thread talking about getting a PhD to satisfy an interest in a subject must have never gone to bed for d…

I think if you have to deal with financial survival issues then study is going to be the last thing on your mind. Where are you going to study? Is it too hot? too cold? too noisy? Are you distracted by hunger? Psychological problems? Family issues? Neighbours doing dumb things? etc. Assuming none of those things are your problems, then what do you do? Do you study to get a job? or because you like the subject matter? Here in Australia, if you want money, you're much better off learning a trade. Plumbers charge upwards of $100 p/h where the minimum wage is about $20 p/h. No way is a software dev going to earn $100 p/h. Oh and we dont have a startup culture like over in America. We're a failed banana republic. So I study because I like the subject matter. I'm certainly not going to be adequately financially rewarded for my knowledge and effort so I'd rather do it for personal satisfaction. Gosh, now I've gone and made myself depressed.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#420

Post by Balgair »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #288
robotelvis wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your advisor is one of the stars of their field, then probably more than one of their grad students will be professors. If not, then probably none of them will. Otherwise this point is indeed correct.

This is more accurate. The productive fraction of professors still follow the Pareto principle or 80/20 rule. And even then, these professors aggregate into the elite institutions making it even more skewed. To get an academic position, you need to have a star advisor either for your degree or postdoc.

I think it was The Atlantic a few years back that ran the numbers on professors and their PhD alma maters. But I can't find the article, so please accept my bad recollection.

Essentially, in nearly all of the humanities, if you did not go to a top 10 PhD program, you had a 0% chance of getting tenure. Not 'like' a 0% chance, an actual 0%. There are no professors at all, anywhere in the US, in nearly all the humanities departments that did not go to a top 10 school. The distribution followed a power law, of course.

However, most universities have PhD programs that will accept students.

The hubris (?) is just amazing to me. Both on the students and the advisors sides. Like, guys, what are we doing here? This isn't STEM, there's like no difference in the job market between a humanities PhD and a BA.

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