

Attitudes about graduate school are changing. - cwan
http://100rsns.blogspot.com/2011/01/43-attitudes-about-graduate-school-are.html

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rflrob
The problem with a vast majority of these Doom and Gloom articles about grad
school is that they implicitly lump in all subjects together. The subtitle on
this site at least says "its focus is on the humanities and social sciences,"
but I for one find subtitles easy to overlook. There is a vast difference in
employability, debt, and time-to-completion of a Science/Engineering PhD
(comparatively High, Low, and Short, respectively) compared to a Social
Science/Humanities PhD. I would suspect that most HN readers considering grad
school would be pursuing technical degrees anyways (unless they're going after
MBAs, which are a totally different class).

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mechanical_fish
Did you just characterize a science/engineering Ph.D.'s time to completion as
"Short"? Or am I reading that incorrectly?

Maybe if you're a theorist, or if you choose a fortunate field, but at Cornell
the average experimental physics Ph.D. used to take 5 or 6 years. 7 was not at
all rare, and it was not hard to find someone who had been around for 8.
Meanwhile, most of the EE Ph.Ds I know took at least 5 years.

And then your postdocs start...

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gamble
The average for English is over ten years.

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T-R
All the linked articles in "further reading" are about graduate school in the
humanities. Does that mean that it doesn't apply to science, engineering, and
business, or that it does, but humanities is just an easier target?

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goalieca
I just got a Master's in engineering and I rejected funding to continue on
into the PhD because I could not see myself continue for 4 to 5 more years of
the same. I'm looking at jobs right now and of course I'd guess that most
places don't really care that I have a Masters since most of the positions
available are unrelated to my specialized field. PhD's are far too specialized
and it seems there is little collaboration with industry. I'm starting to
think that if you don't have a job lined up by the time you graduate your
chances are cut in half.

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mymex1
As an old teacher of mine use to say, "Don't let school get in the way of your
education."

~~~
BornInTheUSSR
Mark Twain probably had the same teacher

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Waldemar
The problems are severe and fairly widespread across academia, although the
liberal arts (including the sciences) may be worse off than professional
programs (with the exception of law, which also suffers from degree
overproduction and a tight job market).

Here is a view from the world of chemistry:

[http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/01/07/the_phd_prob...](http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/01/07/the_phd_problem.php)

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wheaties
Is it me or the adds next to the article purporting "earn masters degree at
home" too ironic?

