Yes people often feel this way in their first year.
Look, I'm not saying the author shouldn't do it, I'm in a grad program now.
But things usually change and feelings usually get a lot more complicated before they get clearer.
Why I'm Getting a PhD
11–20 of 125 posts
Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD
#12It's totally not worth it unless you want to be a professor. Trust me.
Suppose that I want to do basic research in, say, physics. How would I do so without a PhD?
If you were doing that, you'd likely either be a professor (of some kind), or on that track post-doc, etc... or the national laboratory equivalent. I don't know how many PhD-level "staff" positions there are on the big physics experiments.
It's probably more accurate to say "unless you want to be an academic" as opposed to "unless you want to be a professor", but since becoming a professor is usually the goal of an academic career, it's a fair statement to make.
Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD
#13I wish you the best of luck.
I went into my PhD with totally the wrong reasoning and eventually left after 3 years. All I can say is: the PhD is about the process not the end results; and it's a qualification to conduct research and nothing more
This was my collected rant: http://jamie.ideasasylum.com/2008/07/things-i-learnt-during-...
Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD
#14It's totally not worth it unless you want to be a professor. Trust me.
It's not for everyone, and maybe it's not for you, but my PhD was definitely worth it, and I was never going to be a professor.
I'm sorry that it didn't work out for you, and that you feel you wasted your time, but don't presume to speak for everyone.
You don't speak for me.
Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD
#15For something like an opposite perspective, there's "Why I'm leaving [my job as a CS professor at] Harvard [to join Google]":
http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-im-leaving-harvar...
Shorter version of both posts: "Working at (university/big tech co.) frees me from all the distractions of working at (big tech co./university) so I can spend all my time hacking on the problems I find most interesting."
Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD
#16I know many people have conflicting opinions about PhDs, but I think this is a pretty good explanation of what a PhD is: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
Disclaimer: I don't have a PhD :)
Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD
#17It's totally not worth it unless you want to be a professor. Trust me.
It's not for everyone, and maybe it's not for you, but my PhD was definitely worth it, and I was never going to be a professor. I'm sorry that it didn't work out for you, and that you feel you wasted your time, but don't presume to speak for everyone. You don't speak for me.
> and now I know not to trust you.
Was that part really necessary?
Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD
#18Is anyone else doing their PhD (or did their PhD) just because they thought it was a lot of fun and a great way to learn a lot in a short time period? Not that it's the only way to do any of those things, but I've found the lifestyle of a graduate student in CS to be extremely appealing.
My mentor once suggested that a PhD is only worthwhile if you plan on doing research after you graduate. But as he got to know me better, he noticed that I was actually enjoying the act of obtaining a PhD. Isn't that enough?
Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD
#19Career Path
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Unfortunately, the problems I gravitate towards are not normally assigned to engineers and attempts to marry my interests with my domain of expertise [1,2] have met with understandably tepid responses. ,,, All of that makes perfect sense but it means I can't focus on the problems that I'm interested in.
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What Interests Me
The things that keep me up past midnight working and learning are technical. Problems both large and small that remain unsolved or problems where the solution seems unsatisfactory to me. A short and incomplete list in no particular order:
...
A few of these might align with a job posting somewhere but most don't. More importantly, I'm not as interested in the implementation as I am in conceiving a solution and understanding its value. ...
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I guess you could say I'm taking The Fourth Path™.
While I may be new to the academic environment, I have taken efforts to ensure that my impressions are not naive.
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I think what is Naive here is that even with a phd you will be working for someone. to do something. So, not having a functional goal for your work is Naive. Even if its research it has a "market". There are people who value it or they don't. The trade may be "in kind", be it social favours or prestige/ego polishing, if not in discrete financial incentives (grants, etc).
Its illusory to think your "career" is independent. At best, you are captive to customer if nor directly to your employer.
This all might be formalistic oversights for a blog post, but still...your a mid-career executive...this stuff shouldn't be off the radar entirely.
Good luck.
Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD
#20It's totally not worth it unless you want to be a professor. Trust me.
Suppose that I want to do basic research in, say, physics. How would I do so without a PhD?
How basic, and what qualifies as research?
http://thinkinghard.com/blog/AmateurTheoreticalScience.html
>In recent times, science has become very professionalised. Many of the steps in the list above serve specifically to maintain high professional standards. For example, step 5 – complete a Ph.D. – is a way of measuring an individual's likelihood of making significant contributions to scientific knowledge.