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Why I'm Getting a PhD

johnbender.us

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Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#71

Post by freyr »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #41
geebee wrote: post #34

I truly wish you the best of luck, and for an excellent outcome. One thing - you just can't say "why I'm getting a PhD", even from an elite school, the way you'd say "why I'm getting a law, medical, or business degree". Even if you've been admitted to an elite program, you can really only say "why I'm rolling the dice on the possibility of getting a PhD". At elite programs, there is essentially no involuntary attriti…

> Attrition rates for engineering PhD students appear to be about 33%. This (to me, atrocious number) is way better than science or humanities. Perhaps this is because an engineering Ph.D. student is far better positioned to get a high-paying job than their 1L or med school counterparts. The engineering candidate doesn't need to be there to get a job.

Yes, and the med school student will earn substantially more than the PhD student (or the PhD degree holder) after completing med school. So there is significant financial incentive to finish the degree (which has likely put the med school student deep into loan debt already).

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#72

Post by microtonal »

enraged_camel wrote: post #46
glesica wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS student here (maybe PhD in the future). This is exactly why I go to school. I enjoy the learning process. It's not about acquiring skills to make money, it's about learning interesting things in an interesting and creative environment where I'm free to explore to a certain extent. I think a reasonable way to describe it is that Google has 20% time, in school I have roughly 80% time to explore my interests. Sure, I…

>>MS student here (maybe PhD in the future). This is exactly why I go to school. I enjoy the learning process. It's not about acquiring skills to make money, it's about learning interesting things in an interesting and creative environment where I'm free to explore to a certain extent. To me, this process started only after I left the safe and controlled environment that is college. Graduation was like someone liftin…

I'd say the only advantage academia has is being surrounded by other smart people.

I think you are missing one important advantage: in (good) universities, the environment is set up in such a manner that you can think and experiment all day without being bothered.

This is something I noticed profoundly when I started to work for a company after my PhD: in university there are relatively few distractions - the environment is set up so that you can think and experiment. A company is far more hectic, always has pressing deadlines, etc.

Both have their advantages: in a company there is more frequent gratification and you can leave your work at the door. In academia on the other hand, there is much more time to puzzle until things are really 'right'.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#73

Post by freyr »

tensor wrote: post #47
javert wrote: post #23

I feel like he's leaving out something quite important, which is what he plans to do once he has his PhD. Professor (research or teaching?) or industry (big business or startups?)?

This isn't actually very important. At least if you are in STEM. The point of the PhD is to learn. That's valuable to all career paths.

Wrong, it's extremely important.

You're devoting the next 5+ years of your life to a single task. You're forgoing your programmer salary for the next 5+ years, which could easily add up to $300k - $500k in opportunity cost. Your forcing your wife and kids to come along for the ride. You're going to end up a world expert in a tiny niche that, quite possibly, nobody outside of academia cares about. You should have a pretty good idea where you want this all to lead.

There are practical reasons for having a goal in mind:

* If you want to land an academic job, you should be planning for that from day one. Academic positions are extremely competitive, and you need to make yourself an extremely competitive candidate. That means you must present and publish your work aggressively often, networking extensively, and choose a popular topic of research that will garner you many citations, etc.

* You have to make many important decisions right from the start of grad school (who to choose as an advisor, what topic to research, etc.). Choosing poorly will have ramifications for many years to come. Having relevant criteria (such as some long-term goal) can help you with these decisions.

* It's not entirely unusual for candidates to languish for 7+ years in their program, often due to lack of direction or because they expected their advisor to motivate them and keep them on track. You need to motivate yourself. Having some direction from the start can help with this motivation, and also help you from getting swallowed up by all the time-sinks that will eat away at your productivity.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#74

Post by selfpost »

Balgair wrote: post #32
selfpost wrote: post #2

I was planning to apply for a phd, and not so sure. Thanks for such a nice post. Really helpful.

I'm biting the bullet this fall too. Having worked in a lab for the past year, I can see what the good ways to do it are, and the bad ways too. I hope to do it in the good ways.

either good or bad ways, I'm just afraid of being stuck in academia. writing some papers and starting to every sentence with " according xx (1910)" are boring sometimes, you know well, I gyess :)

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#75

Post by microtonal »

betterunix wrote: post #67
blah32497 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US you get paid to do a PhD - either as a research assistant, grants/fellowships, or if you get the shit end of the stick - TA'ing

You do not get paid a lot in a PhD program. Where I am the pay is barely enough for one person to live on. There is also the time commitment -- a lot of programs demand 60 or more hours per week from their students. The combination basically means that starting a family is impossible while you are a PhD student, unless you have a spouse who has a comfortable income / family money.

If you do not mind a small adventure, consider moving to another country or continent. PhD positions in some countries (e.g. The Netherlands) are paid quite ok, with few distractions (usually fully focused on research), and a 40-hour work week.

Of course, there is good competition, so it might be harder to get such a position.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#76

Post by vrnm »

hayksaakian wrote: post #40
glesica wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS student here (maybe PhD in the future). This is exactly why I go to school. I enjoy the learning process. It's not about acquiring skills to make money, it's about learning interesting things in an interesting and creative environment where I'm free to explore to a certain extent. I think a reasonable way to describe it is that Google has 20% time, in school I have roughly 80% time to explore my interests. Sure, I…

> I may need money someday, but right now I don't, so I might as well take advantage of the situation. That's partly why many people see a Phd as a luxury or as something not entirely useful or necessary. Many people NEED to make money RIGHT NOW.

In Germany you get around 2000-2500 netto per month for doing a PhD. Its like an entry level engineering salary, but instead of working for someone else, you are working for your self (on your own PhD, which is a lot of fun). Furthermore, you are still a student, so you get all the student benefits available (really cheap transportation, cheaper food, cheaper sports, travels...).

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#77

Post by tmarthal »

cli wrote: post #9
priley wrote: post #4

It'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?

You can definitely get a job as a staff researcher at a national lab or small applied-science company (there are a ton of companies doing DARPA research). Note that due to the way the world is, you may not be able to be the prime scientist on a contract, but that does not stop you from doing basic research via collaboration.

If your contributions become noteworthy in the field, then along with the relationships that you've generated with your DARPA/NSF/? partner, you will eventually be able to be a prime.

To reiterate some of the other comments here, you may not be able to pick the 'basic research' that you want to work on in the above scenarios... usually the grant sponsors decide that.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#78

Post by tensor »

freyr wrote: post #73
tensor wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't actually very important. At least if you are in STEM. The point of the PhD is to learn. That's valuable to all career paths.

Wrong, it's extremely important. You're devoting the next 5+ years of your life to a single task. You're forgoing your programmer salary for the next 5+ years, which could easily add up to $300k - $500k in opportunity cost. Your forcing your wife and kids to come along for the ride. You're going to end up a world expert in a tiny niche that, quite possibly, nobody outside of academia cares about. You should have a pr…

This sounds a lot like you are telling us what you value in life. There are no rules in life and it's not a requirement to have your whole life planned out at every moment in time. Most people don't, including highly successful people. That's ok. What's important is taking advantage of opportunity when it is presented.

If a goal of yours is to learn, then a PhD is a great opportunity for this. The value of the PhD is not even gaining expert knowledge in a small area. It's learning how to learn. It's learning how to focus so hard on one thing so as to surpass or build on what the best of those who've come before you have done. It teaches you do deal with the fear of not knowing and having nobody to tell you the answer.

On the other hand, even if you end up coming to be concerned about money, it's still not a big deal. Sure, you don't go into a PhD for money. But wether you go into industry or succeed in academia afterwards, you won't be wanting for money. Hell, you can even leave part way through and get a well paying job!

Besides, your counterparts who ran the corporate treadmill will only be incrementally richer than you anyways. If you really want to be rich, you need to take on big risks such as starting a company or the like. Talking about putting your wife and kids in a tough spot! That said, I hope you put something in life above money.

Edit:

Regarding your edits, those are concerns that you do need to consider. Though it's really not the end of the world if you don't. Simply always trying hard goes a long way to doing alright in most scenarios and there are always great fallback options.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#79

Post by PeterisP »

cossatot wrote: post #56
PeterisP wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big point in academia is that you can research whatever direction and niche you want, but you'll get paid only to research directions and niches chosen by others.. If those directions happen to overlap at the right time and place, you can have a great time getting a PhD; if they stop overlapping (possibly suddenly), then the choices aren't that nice.

Successful research strategies typically involve working on what is funded, and simultaneously bootstrapping what isn't until the early results are sufficient to get funding or at least collaborators on board. It's maybe tougher overall, but it's the only way to have interesting work longer term. It's also nice when you're mind is blown-out and you're stuck and sick of your current project to do something shiny and n…

Yep, the funding requirements typically meant a process somewhat like - if you've got result A done or nearly done; then you apply for funding to do "A", but in fact do B for all that time. Then you apply for funding "to do B" while working on C for that funding... repeat ad nauseam for decades. Amazingly, it results in a process where each individual step is technically fraudulent but the total result is the intended one.

But this is not how most businesses operate, academic funding is a very different mindset. Well, perhaps defense contractor companies need to plan about their funding in similar terms.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#80

Post by GuiA »

blah32497 wrote: post #45
hayksaakian wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I may need money someday, but right now I don't, so I might as well take advantage of the situation. That's partly why many people see a Phd as a luxury or as something not entirely useful or necessary. Many people NEED to make money RIGHT NOW.

In the US you get paid to do a PhD - either as a research assistant, grants/fellowships, or if you get the shit end of the stick - TA'ing

I was a PhD student (I stopped to move to SF and work on startups- although now after 2 years I'm thinking of going back), and fwiw I enjoyed TA'ing. Grading papers was the worst part (but with a glass of beer and some motivating music it's not that bad), but I found everything else to be fairly rewarding.
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