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What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

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Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#181

Post by bobmarley1 »

icelancer wrote: post #178
bobmarley1 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like an Adjunct position which I hate to break it to you is no where near Professor. You will likely make less than minimum wage, I have seen salaries of $3,000 per class taught, and have essentially no room for advancement.This is a common end point for PhDs that didn't get a Tenure track position and have no other choice.

They weren't. But nice assumptions.

If you aren't a professor and you are teaching classes you are an Adjunct/Lecturer which is a dead end career-wise. Maybe nice as a side gig or when you retire but a horrible position to be in otherwise.

Edit: I actually don't know what you are arguing, I think the point is that you won't get a job as a Professor without a PhD, getting teaching offers is completely different and happen to people in industry without PhDs all the time.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#182

Post by graycat »

ddnb wrote: post #108
graycat wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part II. My wife was fatally injured in her Ph.D. program. The OP outlines a lot of just what happened to her. To have time to try to help her, for a while I took a slot as a B-school prof. It didn't work -- lost her anyway. I never for even a milli, micro, nano, pico, femto second wanted to be a prof. Instead, I wanted to be solving problems in business, the money making kind. (5) Non-Academic Career. Then I tried t…

TLDR: Not every boss appreciates an employee with a Ph.D. If you want to go your own way, start your own business, otherwise you are expected to follow the lead of your boss.

To be more clear and blunt, if your boss gets fired or leaves or if the whole group is fired, you can be on the street, with an advanced education and some recent, specialized experience (that likely didn't make big bucks for all concerned), and 40+ and with a tough time ever again holding a job relevant to your education, experience, interests, capabilities, or potential -- EVER.

My guess is that there are a lot of Ph.D. electronics engineers over 40 who are essentially unemployable at anything close to their past who want an electrician's license so they can install AC wiring in houses.

Maybe the best job they can get is to be a clerk in the electronics department at Wal-Mart.

Imagine, two guys just out of high school. They both mowed lawns as teenagers. Joe wants to continue that as a business, at first still living at home. Tom goes to college, continues, gets an electronics Ph.D., and gets a job in an electronics company.

Then they are both 35: Joe now has five lawn and garden crews, each with a late model, crew cab truck, a $5000 trailer with 4 riding mowers each worth $15,000. He has clients in upper class residential areas and small to medium commercial lots. He does weeding, soil testing, fertilizer applications, mowing, edging, shrubbery trimming, landscaping, etc. Tom's employer has a policy: By age 35, promoted into management or fired. Tom gets fired.

Joe is now much better off than Tom. Tom would do well to look for a job with Joe and rise to managing one of the crews, planning and marketing for higher end parts of the business, etc.

This is not a joke. Besides, it's not funny.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#183

Post by PAClearner »

bobmarley1 wrote: post #164
sytelus wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You obviously haven’t seen the other side :). If you are working as engineer/management/sales in software products, PhD rarely have advantage. However if you walk in to the places like FAIR, Google Brain, DeepMind, you will quickly find that your background as engineer/management/sales has little value compared to having a PhD in relevant area. These places are buzzing with innovations and creativity advancing the st…

Several of the examples in the article of people without PhDs work at Google Brain so you are literally wrong in this case. They are obviously outliers but either way you aren't right.

freeman dyson doesn't have a PhD either jajaja

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#184

Post by PAClearner »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #161
GuiA wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in a PhD program, I dropped out. I have been working in R&D at a large company for a while now; many of my best colleagues have PhDs, many others do not. As far as my personal experience is concerned, a PhD has no bearing whatsoever on your capacity to do solid research. That said, I am seriously considering going back on the PhD route, because I think I’d like to spend more time teaching down the line. Kind of…

As far as my personal experience is concerned, a PhD has no bearing whatsoever on your capacity to do solid research. That is all well and good, but I can't name a single person in my research field who has a decent publication record without a PhD (finished or in progress).

you must do theory right? tcs? based on the name edit: AI and ML are close enough :)

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#185

Post by pbhat »

PhD in Computational Biology here. Currently in industry and loving it.

Love the experiences shared here. I see a lot of them are centred around pay (PhD vs. non-PhD). I think it is important to remind ourselves that seeing earnings as a race against others and against time rules us out from doing anything interesting in life.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#186

Post by collyw »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #162
collyw wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked in a few academic institutes (and still know many friends in the same places). 5 years seems to be the norm, with some people taking up to 7.

I didn't know this was a Europe-wide rule, but as a professor in Spain I can attest that the 3 years + 1 year extension rule is now enforced and met. If your time elapses and you haven't completed your thesis, you're out.

I am in Spain. Maybe it has changed but a few years back it was the norm. The institute I worked for had a 5 year rule and you got kicked out (if you were doing research), but a few people managed to get extensions around that.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#187

Post by dagw »

icelancer wrote: post #177
dagw wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a professor also involves doing original research, leading and managing larger research projects, advising and mentoring grad students and publishing original work. Teaching undergraduate classes is just one small part of being a professor, and in many cases the part many professors find the least interesting.

I happen to have more than a handful of peer-reviewed papers under my belt, including some first authorship credits. That's pretty much how I got the offers.

Oh indeed. If your main reason to want to be professor is that you want to teach some classes and publish some papers then there are definitely options to do that via working in industry (depending of course a lot on your field). However if you actually want to be a professor and work full time within the university world, with all the pros and cons that brings, then it's very hard to do without a doctorate.

But I absolutely agree if you 'just' want to be involved with some research projects, publish a bit on the side and perhaps teach a few courses then there are many ways to reach that goal that don't involve becoming a professor.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#188

Post by biotechjones »

peterlk wrote: post #109

I was once told by a professor who I respected very much how he gives advice to prospective PhDs. When someone asks "should I get my PhD?" the answer is always "no". Because the only people who will enjoy grad school are the ones who will do it anyways. I have found this to be good advice for people who are thinking of starting companies too.

(PhD here) An ex-colleague in grad school caught me once on a bad day and I told her she shouldn't do a PhD, stick to a Master's. To this day she credits me with convincing her to graduate at the Master's level - and she is grateful and thanks me for it. None-the-less, I have always felt guilty because my PhD experience was great and that sort of responsibility on someone else's life is kinda heavy.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#189

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

PAClearner wrote: post #184
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as my personal experience is concerned, a PhD has no bearing whatsoever on your capacity to do solid research. That is all well and good, but I can't name a single person in my research field who has a decent publication record without a PhD (finished or in progress).

you must do theory right? tcs? based on the name edit: AI and ML are close enough :)

Yep, mainly NLP (including the theoretical parts).

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#190

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

collyw wrote: post #186
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know this was a Europe-wide rule, but as a professor in Spain I can attest that the 3 years + 1 year extension rule is now enforced and met. If your time elapses and you haven't completed your thesis, you're out.

I am in Spain. Maybe it has changed but a few years back it was the norm. The institute I worked for had a 5 year rule and you got kicked out (if you were doing research), but a few people managed to get extensions around that.

It has changed, I think around 3 or 4 years ago.
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