Do you regret getting your PhD?

[Elite Engineer]

Do you regret getting your PhD? Has it paid off both financially and personally? Has your research benefited science? Was researching a specialized field really worth the time of the PhD?

 

If you could, would you have gone back in time and worked a 9-5 job making extra money, and have more available free time?

 

I know the old cliche says that if you truly love something you will pursue it, but please avoid the cliches and motivational speeches. I'm looking for dry, upfront costs and benefits.

 

~EE

Edited June 14, 2013 by Elite Engineer

[hypervalent_iodine]

Firstly, science isn't really something you do for the money.

 

As for the question, I don't know anyone who has said they've regretted getting theirs. You might get much more financially than working as a tech or RA in some places, but that is again not why people do science. I think it depends a lot on where you want to go with your work and life in general. It's certainly not for everyone and some people would prefer not to spend the time figuring that out, which is fair enough because it is quite a large investment. It is also a huge learning experience though, both technically and personally, and it puts you in contact with a lot of very talented and interesting people. Even if you don't finish it, I think it's worth it for the personal development alone.

 

I myself recently withdrew from my PhD program after a year (PhD's only go for 3 years where I am) and am, for the time being, working as a research technician at a different university in a completely different discipline to the one I have a degree in. I learned a lot about myself and where I want to go with my work in that time and even though I spent 99% of the last 2 years (I continued my work from honors year into my PhD) utterly miserable, I would do it all over again if given the option (and I will eventually go back to it, albeit in another area).

 

Though this is probably an obvious statement, if you are deciding on whether or not to do one, make sure you are doing it for the right reasons (it should be for you, not for someone else) and if you do end up doing one, you should constantly check that it still holds true. My biggest mistake during the year and a bit I was a PhD student was not knowing when it was time to stop. It eventually got to a point where I realised that the only reason I was still there at all was because I didn't want to disappoint my family and feel like a total failure, and those are not good enough reasons to stay (the last part took me a bit longer to figure out).

[timo]

I know the old cliche says that if you truly love something you will pursue it, but please avoid the cliches and motivational speeches. I'm looking for dry, upfront costs and benefits.

Depending on your estimated career path, a PhD may still pay off financially. However, with a look at your name, at least in Germany it is not too uncommon for engineers to do their PhD "on the job". It's probably a bit more stressful than a proper PhD, and results are not the scientific quality you'd expect from a natural scientist. But you get industry experience at the same time, and can already start advancing on a career ladder. And the title you get afterwards is worth just as much: The main reason a PhD is interesting for industry is because it demonstrates that the person is capable of independently working on a non-trivial/new task and finishing it.

 

You should not expect "more free time" if you are planning to make career in industry.

[ajb]

Do you regret getting your PhD?

No, not at all. It was just natural for me to obtain my PhD.

Has it paid off both financially and personally?

This is had to answer. For sure, I did not expect it to be quite as hard as it was to find a postdoc after. Because of this, both personally and financially it was difficult just after my PhD.

Has your research benefited science?

This is very hard to answer and especially in my field. It can take a while for papers to get cited and people to use your ideas. Ask me at the end of my career.

Was researching a specialized field really worth the time of the PhD?

I would say yes, but one should also think about "general education". That is why seminars and departmental colloquia are important.

 

I would say that the UK style PhD is very focused on one topic and that is not always good. This is probabily a problem for subjects that not many people work ok.

If you could, would you have gone back in time and worked a 9-5 job making extra money, and have more available free time?

What I can tell you is that most of my friends at school who did not go to university at all are further along in their lives than I am. By this I mean they have morgages and children. In science there seems to be less stability in the early stages of ones career.

 

For example, the guy who did not do so well in school, but went into buliding now has a nice house and I dont!

[swansont]

Do you regret getting your PhD?

 

No

 

Has it paid off both financially and personally?

 

Hard to say. I don't know what job I would be doing had I not gone to grad school. I now make a wage that puts me in the upper middle class. But a PhD isn't a guarantee of wealth; it allows you to work on interesting problems. The value is in the potential for job satisfaction.

 

 

Has your research benefited science?

 

Arguably yes. We just published a paper on local position invariance using our atomic clocks, reducing the error bar on the result that GR is correct.

 

If you change it to has my research benefitted people, then also arguably yes. Better timing means better GPS.

 

Was researching a specialized field really worth the time of the PhD?

 

Yes. The work I do now required that background.

 

 

If you could, would you have gone back in time and worked a 9-5 job making extra money, and have more available free time?

 

My current job is a 9-5 job. I work for the government.

 

I know the old cliche says that if you truly love something you will pursue it, but please avoid the cliches and motivational speeches. I'm looking for dry, upfront costs and benefits.

 

If you're looking for a career path that pays a lot, a PhD is probably not going to be on it, nor is a 9-5 job. But I personally can't imagine doing something 40-80 hours a week that I hated, just because it paid a lot.

[CaptainPanic]

Allow me to answer the opposite (since I decided against getting a PhD, but still stayed in research).

Do you regret NOT getting your PhD?

No. I think it prevented quite some stress, because I did not have the stress to publish and to write a thesis. My work typically stopped after communicating the work to the relevant colleagues and external parties.

Has it paid off both financially and personally?

As the others said so far: this is hard to say. I guess if you stay in research the payment won't be really high anyway.

Has your research benefited science?

Probably, although with engineers it's more the applications than the hardcore science that benefited.

Was researching a specialized field really worth the time of the PhD?

Funny that you ask. I never wanted to specialize for 3-4 years. But looking back, I actually stayed in the same field much longer now.

If you could, would you have gone back in time and worked a 9-5 job do a PhD making extra money, and have more available free time?

I probably would have done the same. There is no financial benefit, I think. And there is little career benefit either (unless you stay at university, and want to become a professor, then a PhD is highly recommended).

I know the old cliche says that if you truly love something you will pursue it, but please avoid the cliches and motivational speeches. I'm looking for dry, upfront costs and benefits.

The main benefit is that you get a 3-4 year contract from a university, or a company, instead of a much shorter contract that ordinary employees get when they start. Also, you get your own research funds, which (hopefully) you can spend yourself on your own research. You will be more independent as a PhD then as an employee.

 

Financially, it's all pretty much the same. But I think that you just get a few more guarantees upfront that you can do science on a particular topic for 3-4 years.

[CharonY]

Posted Yesterday, 08:54 PM

Do you regret getting your PhD?

 

No. But that is because I secured a position that requires a PhD (in academia). The answer is will depend a lot on what the goals of the respective person is and in what position he/she ends up in. E.g. if you do not manage to get a tenured position in academia (over 80% of PhDs) you may still get a job in the market that requires one. I would think you would mostly regret it only if a) you hate the job you end up with or b) end up in a job that has no PhD requirement to begin with

 

Has it paid off both financially and personally?

 

Relative to what? The PhD time itself was certainly not monetarily rewarding. The subsequent post-doc time was tough (a lot of moving that ate into money). Also up to the point where you are tenured you do not have a lot of stability (most postdoc positions are terms of 1-2 years). It is going to be tough if you have a family or intend to do have one.

 

 

Has your research benefited science?

Potentially. I got decent citations on a number of my publications, including from my PhD time. But from that time there was nothing truly groundbreaking (nor did I expect it to be).

 

 

Was researching a specialized field really worth the time of the PhD?

 

Actually I was probably less specialized than my peers, I branched out fairly wide during my PhD and continued what could be considered multidisciplinary work throughout my postdoc time. And for what it is worth, it was fun. Being less specialized made it very easy for me to find postdoc positions, but made it hard to find a faculty position. Whether it was worth it depends highly on what you want to get out of it. If the question is something that intrigues you, it may be worth it on a personal level. If the area is something that scores you a job and that is your goal, it may be too. If it is an obscure topic that you do not like and does not open doors, probably not. For me personally I would have said a few years ago that I should have specialized. But now I got one of the rare jobs where it was finally an advantage. So my personal answer would have changed over time.

 

 

If you could, would you have gone back in time and worked a 9-5 job making extra money, and have more available free time?

 

Unless the job is something that has similar intellectual challenges to what I am doing today, probably not. Also, I am not good with using free time.

 

 

 

 

 

The main benefit is that you get a 3-4 year contract from a university, or a company, instead of a much shorter contract that ordinary employees get when they start. Also, you get your own research funds, which (hopefully) you can spend yourself on your own research. You will be more independent as a PhD then as an employees get when they start.

 

 

This is actually not necessarily true. It may depend on university but most people I know/knew were on yearly contracts Moreover, depending on funding situation many faculty do not have the money for 4 years per student banked. Rather, they may have funding for two years for a student and then have to get funding for more after that. In the German and I believe also the Dutch system professors often have negotiated permanent positions in their group that they can allocate to students. But most have more students and rely on soft money, too. Whether you will have independence will depend a lot on your supervisor. Though I would agree that in a company you will have more restrictions.

Edited June 14, 2013 by CharonY