How old are you?

How old are you?

  • below 20

    Votes: 1 1.3%
  • 20-25

    Votes: 21 27.3%
  • 25-30

    Votes: 30 39.0%
  • 30-35

    Votes: 9 11.7%
  • 35-40

    Votes: 13 16.9%
  • 40 and above

    Votes: 3 3.9%

  • Total voters
    77
  • Poll closed .

BarcaOG

Banned
With the amount of petty arguments BarcaOG gets in, I would honestly never guess he would be :lol: :lol:

:lol: well, barcaforum is mostly for silly nonsense and absurd claims...not a place to be Very Serious...as you can clearly tell from what i post here :lol:
 

BarcaOG

Banned
for example, its very amusing to me that [MENTION=18429]Morten[/MENTION] seems to think that i actually think gary neville> EV as a manager :lol: :lol:
 

Birdy

Senior Member
in all likelihood i will end up going the route kingleo suggests, pitching my skillset in the corporate/civilian job market. even my friends/colleagues with multiple post-docs, published books and journal articles, stellar teaching records cant find secure employment so... the times are tough!

Yep, it's depressing...

I love what I do, I love research, and it is non-applied.
It sucks to know that you know what you love, and on the other hand to know it will be hard for you to be able to actually earn a living by practicing it
 

El Gato

Villarato!
This is not a knack on any of you, but I never really understood the appeal of a PhD. I am an electrical engineer and I guess it's different for my field and maybe perhaps because I'm in the US. I realize academic prestige is important to some and there are some people who grow up in such households. Everyone I know that pursued a PhD in any engineering field was absolutely miserable. Also you are limiting your career to more academia-related work. Sure, you can work as an R&D engineer at Intel, AMD, Apple, etc. but you are in that position mainly because you are a PhD. Try applying to a low pressure entry engineer job or software engineering job, you'll have a difficult time getting hired because you'd be quite overqualified. It's weird, but anecdotally from everyone I know those who have bachelors or masters have easier time with jobs than those that get a PhD and want to try something outside of the realm of academia.

This is not a tried and tested hypothesis, but I think most people who begin PhDs are actually not fussed whatsoever about research prestige or career.
And most are aware of being overqualified at the end of it.
I don't even really understand the concept fully to comment on it, but I'd love a simple job at the end of it. Looking forward to being done with it.
 

BarcaOG

Banned
This is not a knack on any of you, but I never really understood the appeal of a PhD. I am an electrical engineer and I guess it's different for my field and maybe perhaps because I'm in the US. I realize academic prestige is important to some and there are some people who grow up in such households. Everyone I know that pursued a PhD in any engineering field was absolutely miserable. Also you are limiting your career to more academia-related work. Sure, you can work as an R&D engineer at Intel, AMD, Apple, etc. but you are in that position mainly because you are a PhD. Try applying to a low pressure entry engineer job or software engineering job, you'll have a difficult time getting hired because you'd be quite overqualified. It's weird, but anecdotally from everyone I know those who have bachelors or masters have easier time with jobs than those that get a PhD and want to try something outside of the realm of academia.

my reply is obv limited to me and my experience. itd be interesting to read what others' motivation was/is.

it may well have something to do with the field. as an engineer, you have a decent chance of landing a good job without graduate training. its a very pragmatic profession.

in the social sciences and humanities (with a slight exception for economics) its not about pragmatism (which is not to say that it plays no role) but rather sheer interest. a phd is basically a major research project: you have a puzzle/question that you will devote some 5-7 years of your life to. in the process you become an expert in that field. needless to say, this enterprise requires passion. otherwise you burn out--hence why attrition rates in phd programs (the percentage of doctoral students who drop out) is so high. its solitary work, demanding, and, unless you secure research grants/somehow land a tenure-track job at the end of it, poorly remunerated. as one of my supervisors put it: your chosen subject matter should actively trouble you/keep you up at night. if it doesn't--that's a red flag.

before the 1990s, the process led to a cushy life-long job in the university system. i maintain that there is no better job whatsoever than a tenured academic position. basically unassailable job security, complete autonomy over your own work, usually high pay, status and prestige.

the situation today is bleak, since academic jobs have been dwindling for decades (as the book The Professor is In details). nevertheless, there are enough people out there like me and birdy who enroll regardless. i am enticed by the challenge of mastering a subject matter and publishing a book on it (the end goal of a dissertation). i will be 31-2 when i finish and, like i said above, well see after that.

that said, whenever one of my students asks me about grad school, i always give them a very stern warning to stay away :lol:
 

KingLeo10

Senior Member
[MENTION=4178]Richard.H[/MENTION] For engineering/computer science, there's a difference in outcomes depending on the reputation/ranking of the PhD program. Generally, PhDs from top 25-30 institutions in the US in those fields get placed at advanced levels (level 4 onwards at Google for instance compared to level 3 starting for BS and generally even MS). Also, mid career they have much better leverage to continue climbing into more executive positions in those companies that is harder with a BS/MS.

But you're right about the vast majority of PhDs in those fields (i.e. outside top 25-30 programs). BS/MS will not only pay better early on but throughout their career as well as those people will always have more experience than the PhDs (who will be considered "inferior" to the PhDs from the top 25-30 programs).

In the life sciences/basic sciences, it's a different story though, but that's because the industry (well outside of big pharma) isn't on the scale/hierarchy as big tech.
 

Richard.H

Senior Member
[MENTION=4178]Richard.H[/MENTION] For engineering/computer science, there's a difference in outcomes depending on the reputation/ranking of the PhD program. Generally, PhDs from top 25-30 institutions in the US in those fields get placed at advanced levels (level 4 onwards at Google for instance compared to level 3 starting for BS and generally even MS). Also, mid career they have much better leverage to continue climbing into more executive positions in those companies that is harder with a BS/MS.

But you're right about the vast majority of PhDs in those fields (i.e. outside top 25-30 programs). BS/MS will not only pay better early on but throughout their career as well as those people will always have more experience than the PhDs (who will be considered "inferior" to the PhDs from the top 25-30 programs).

In the life sciences/basic sciences, it's a different story though, but that's because the industry (well outside of big pharma) isn't on the scale/hierarchy as big tech.

I work for a mid-sized tech company and most of the managers have MS or MBA's. We have only two positions (in my department) that are PhD's and they are the Chief Engineers who are in charge of any technical deep-dive questions that are asked by our customers or any very technical inquiries. These PhD's are paid more than the engineering managers, but not by a large amount.

I still keep in touch with my computer science TA back from undergrad and he told me he just quit academia and finally got hired by Google. He told me the pay from being a professor (he went from being a TA to an associate professor for OOP CS class a few years after I graduated) was not comparable to Google pay. There is also some advantage to applying there as a PhD since you can immediately apply to L4 (one higher or two higher than entry level positions, can't remember).
 

Birdy

Senior Member
in the social sciences and humanities (with a slight exception for economics) its not about pragmatism (which is not to say that it plays no role) but rather sheer interest. a phd is basically a major research project: you have a puzzle/question that you will devote some 5-7 years of your life to. in the process you become an expert in that field. needless to say, this enterprise requires passion. otherwise you burn out--hence why attrition rates in phd programs (the percentage of doctoral students who drop out) is so high. its solitary work, demanding, and, unless you secure research grants/somehow land a tenure-track job at the end of it, poorly remunerated. as one of my supervisors put it: your chosen subject matter should actively trouble you/keep you up at night. if it doesn't--that's a red flag.

This basically.

Humanities especially are children of a lesser God when it comes to employment.
 

BarcaOG

Banned
This basically.

Humanities especially are children of a lesser God when it comes to employment.

social sciences now, too (again with some exceptions for economics). for example (and this is truly horrifying) there were only 5 tenure-track jobs in political theory (my field) in north america (canada+US) in the 2020-2021 hiring cycle

christ almighty
 

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