

Is a science PhD a Waste of Time? - jseliger
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/08/what_is_the_value_of_a_science_phd_is_graduate_school_worth_the_effort_.single.html

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stevenbedrick
Without getting into the difficult-if-not-impossible-to-answer question of
whether a PhD is "worth it or not", I would like to point out that the author
of the linked article is at the tail end of a process that is both lengthy and
difficult (both intellectually as well as emotionally). As such, their
perspective on the value (or lack thereof) of their degree is probably not at
its most objective, and they also have not yet had the opportunity to see for
themselves how well (or how badly) their new skills transfer to life outside
of graduate school. From experience, I can say that the six month window on
either side of defending one's PhD is not a good time to try and reflect
rationally about the experience. Call it burnout, call it recency bias, call
it whatever you want, but I found that my perspectives on "what it all meant"
and "whether it was all worth it" changed quite a lot as I went through the
process of writing, defending, and recovering from my dissertation, and then
as I entered the workplace those perspectives changed once again (and continue
to evolve).

I can safely say that I feel much more positively about the value of my PhD
_now_ than I did when I was finishing it; some part of it is increased
emotional distance ("time heals all wounds...", etc.), but I think that a
larger part of it is that I've had more time to reflect on the experience and
am able to more rationally evaluate what I got from it (and what it cost me,
in terms both financial and otherwise).

~~~
deadc0de
In my case the effect of getting a PhD was extremely positive. I felt a huge
difference in attitude at work to doctors (I worked for a couple of top big
american software companies), basically allowing doctors to do whatever they
liked as long as it's related to the product. And that's in the product group,
I'm not even talking about the labs.

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toomuchcoffee
_TL;DR_ \-- of course Ph.D life is sketchy, from numbers-game perspective. But
it's like acting, being a writer, a musician, a star pastry chef, or anything
else that's not merely a vocation, but rather, a _calling_. The only reason to
go into research is if the drive is just in your bones, like a giant rock, and
you just _have to let it out._

~~~
ek
You and I appear to have posted similar sentiments at the exact same time. I
think you hit the nail on the head - having not to pursue a PhD would be
simply awful. When research is something that you daydream about in the
shower, breaking away from it early seems foolhardy.

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scott_s
This paragraph is tail-wagging-the-dog reasoning:

 _Although it’s unknown how these preferences translate into the careers
people actually pursue, the implication is that only about half of doctoral
science students are really gunning for academic positions. NSF data support
this. In 2010, about 50 percent of new science Ph.D.s went on to do
postdoctoral research at a university—the contract job long considered a
necessary step for landing a professorship._

Grad students who are looking for jobs know ahead of time how competitive it
is to get academic positions. We can do the math. When it was time for me and
the others in my group to start thinking about what to do next, we looked at
the Computer Research Association numbers: 1500 new CS PhDs were made the
prior year, and there were 100 academic CS positions open in the country. So
our competition was roughly 1500 people plus more experienced people switching
from industry to academia, or tenured professors changing universities. (In
which case it's possible their old position may not be filled.)

We also had spent many years observing the professor hiring process at two
schools, and knew what it took to be competitive.

I imagine some new PhDs don't try for academic jobs because they've ruled it
out as unrealistic. They may not be trying for an academic job, but for some
of them, they are still on Plan B.

My point: even though 50% of new science PhDs don't go for academic positions,
it's still a problem for them that there are so few academic positions.

I'm pleased to read an essay which distinguishes between technical and liberal
arts PhDs, and I agree with the things that are not related to this point. But
this point is a big one, and I'm afraid the author is misinterpreting the
results of the cited studies.

~~~
bcbrown
It looks to me like the study cited previously addresses your point by asking
students whether or not they'd like to gave an academic position:

"When asked to ignore actual job availability and rate a range of careers,
only about 50 percent gave an academic research career the highest rating;
more than 40 percent gave top marks to research jobs in the private sector,
while about 30 percent thought working for a startup would be pretty great."

~~~
scott_s
I don't think that covers it. When people are forced down a path, they find
ways to rationalize why it's better than the alternatives. That is, you can't
just _ask_ someone to ignore job availability and expect that their view of
the job actually does ignore job availability. Their view of the job probably
has it already baked in. Self-evaluating a cognitive bias is hard.

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jseliger
The really distressing thing about this article is the way it ignores the vast
anti-PhD literature out there; perhaps the best, which I've linked to before
on HN, is Philip Greenspun's "Women in Science":
<http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science> . Lametti nods at
opportunity costs, but he doesn't discuss them in sufficient detail to be
convincing.

EDIT: BTW, a friend and I also wrote a longish essay about how to think about
science from the perspective of undergrads trying to get in:
[http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/how-to-think-
about-...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/how-to-think-about-
science-and-becoming-a-scientist) , but we included a section about the anti-
science-lifestyle literature.

~~~
geebee
The greenspun rant is entertaining. A more sober look at the numbers from the
RAND institute arrives at a similar conclusion regarding opportunity costs

<http://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241.html>

~~~
jseliger
Glad you like it. The thing most of the too-few-scientist articles ignore is
this: "Adjusted for IQ, quantitative skills, and working hours, jobs in
science are the lowest paid in the United States" and this: "'Science is a
wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.' -- Albert
Einstein."

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DocSavage
Article argues that % that land academic jobs is artificially decreased
because maybe 50% prefer commercial positions. The main salvo is this:
"According to a 2008 survey by the NSF (a summary is available here), there
were about 662,600 work-ready science Ph.D.s in the United States, and only
11,400 of those people were unemployed. That’s an unemployment rate of 1.7
percent."

A proper study of the question would take equally smart and motivated people
and see what their salary and unemployment rate would be after the same time
period if they skipped the PhD.

Who cares what the unemployment rate is if you are ignoring whether the job is
related to the training and the skill level of your test population?

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bbgm
I never wanted an academic job, even before I started my PhD, and I know more
than a few other people in the same boat. My options were always to go into
industry or join a pure research organization (e.g. a national lab). Ended up
at a startup 15 days after defending my thesis. Many of my friends and peers
at the time did postdocs but never took up academic positions, landing up in
startups or industry.

I've never understood why science PhD = academia. Learning to think
analytically through problems, set up hypotheses and test them and communicate
those findings has helped me in the things I've done since.

edit: Added some additional content

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ek
This article spends a ton of time talking about the bottom line and then a
scant few lines at the end discussing the idea that there may be something
more than just money to all this, and even then the treatment is rather
surface-level.

Perhaps it's foolish, but at least some part of my desire to pursue a PhD is
that I believe deeply in the academy and in what it is capable of with regards
to solving problems of great worth to humanity. Even at this time, the academy
has done so much to further my development intellectually and otherwise, and
to me, pursuing a PhD is simply the next step in this cycle of development.
Doing research feels very good, even when it's "unsuccessful".

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bishnu
Any analysis of this issue that does NOT go into the number of science PhDs
trapped in a protracted postdoc cycle or dead-end "adjunct" position is
completely missing the problem science PhDs are facing. Yes, the percentage of
unemployed is low. That has never been the issue.

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MaysonL
Actually, there are _plenty_ of academic positions available for science
Ph.D.s, just not university posts. The country is aching for quality high
school science and math teachers, also for quality subject education of
science and math teachers.

~~~
thirsteh
I doubt anyone gets a Ph.D. to become a high school teacher.

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teeja
You can always leave a degree unlisted on your resume. But you may feel like a
fool doing it, and an even bigger fool for having to do it. Because
"overqualified" is the loneliest number.

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lifeisstillgood
Speaking as someone who realised a long time agao a Phd was out of reach, I
would characterise all "hard" science training (mostly the phd track) as the
opposite of herd immunity for the human species - we need a tiny few of the
species to be well trained enough, intelligent enough, renumerated enough that
the innovations to sustain 7bn people at material levels I think of as bare
minimum (ironically the level of subsistence of a phd student)

frankly if it's not looking worth it to you, the rest of the herd should
remeber to vote for candidates willing to put the cash into science at all
levels. Maybe I will ask Mitt Romney when I see him on Reddit.

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FrojoS
If the title is a question, the answer is usually NO. Unless its a scientific
article ...

disclaimer: a Phd student

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aretiste
Depends what you're aiming to get out of it.

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taw9
This is a silly reductionist article.

For me, pursuing an engineering PhD has facilitated an early career pivot away
from trading (which after 2008, is so f'in boring and has zero growth).

As someone with an entrepreneurial bent used to working 90 hour weeks, I have
certain skills that jive well with many talented researchers who, contrary to
the ivory tower window dressing, _like_ money very much. Personally, I h8 MBAs
and would much rather be surrounded by entrepreneurial PhDs.

Like anything, you get out what you put in. After two short years, business
ventures are starting to pan out and I'm far more optimistic about my career
now than I ever was in finance (including those salad days of HFT during the
collapse).

If you're straight outta school and want a PhD because you plan on becoming an
academic, well, good luck with that (the pension system is argument enough
against this for me). If you want more education to better take advantage of
the wealth of technology in the pipeline, welcome to the party.

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ucee054
The problem is the idea that _more science is good_.

People interpret the word _science_ as _a Star Trek future with flying cars_.

But what the professors think that _science_ (of the PhD kind) is, is
_citations for conference papers full of greek squiggles_.

I believe that the professors care not at all about the relevance of research
beyond lip service, and that whatever advances we make towards the flying cars
are _despite_ academic "science", not because of it.

