Comment by version_five | Hacker News Reader

Comment by version_five | Hacker News Reader

I did a PhD. It was the most interesting and productive time of my life|*

Aside from actually enjoying the work, I had a salary / scholarship that where I went to school was the same or more than most of my peers who went right to work made (because of tax implications), and when I got a job, I got a better one than I would have otherwise. Plus, many people I started school with had barely finished their undergrad by the time I was done a PhD because of the usual breaks and major changes and failing courses and stuff.

I'm not saying this to brag (I've made all sorts of terrible choices since then), only to say that it's possible to do a PhD, have fun (specifically in the sense of learn cool stuff, although I enjoyed the social life), and not make a "sacrifice" in terms of money or starting a career. It's like any other job. You can make all kinds of early career decisions that help or hinder you later, generalizing a "phd" as some specific thing doesn't work

* (I like to think I'm coming back to another such period 15+ years later, but anyway)

I agree with your general experience, I'm in the middle of my PhD and so far I find it to be some of the most interesting and productive time I've spent thus far.

I'm not really interested in continuing on to academia, but this has been a good transition period for both building confidence and exploring other topics without having to worry about finances (besides of course making sure to keep up with advisor grants).

It has helped me learn and improve a lot about myself without the pressures of a more typical job. I'd say I was still pretty immature after undergrad, I wasn't really independent and didn't really think for myself (to the point that I didn't even realize I ought to be looking for a job until I had graduated and had family asking what my next step would be), which, after a year spent languishing led me to going for a Masters. Then my research work got me recruited for a PhD. Since then over the past 3 years I've been learning to be more independent which I feel works better when still having the freedom a PhD offers compared to a SWE job. If I had gone straight into the workplace I'd probably be in the process of overworking myself into burnout right now.

A side benefit is that having a PhD is very helpful for speeding up the immigration process and opening up possibilities elsewhere in case my current plans don't work out.

Out of curiosity. What was your family like, stable nuclear family? Middle income, did you fully support yourself, on your own during your studies? Did you have any other work or responsibilities? Did you get cash or material gifts and support from family? etc etc.

You described almost a very insta perfect version of the experience which doesn't play out most of the time.

They didn’t claim that their experience represented the average experience, instead describing the personal experience in their program.

I think this sort of response is extremely rude, and I know how dismissive and silly it sounds. It’s also extremely off-putting without adding much value. It feels like you’re looking for a reason to explain away their positive experience. I think the reason your comment has me flustered is that OP seemed to implicitly address many of your questions. Finally, is having a nuclear family really so remarkable and rare as to be a privilege worth sussing out?

Parent is clearly suggesting that the poster is most likely (as you agree) the product of an environment that the overwhelming majority of folks are not. Nothing wrong with someone being set up well by their parents (isn’t that the point?), and nothing wrong with someone pointing out that someone was setup well. And yes, having a stable, well-ish-to-do family that actively encourages the pursuit of a career via higher education is a pretty remarkable thing. #perspective

I don't see where you get any of these assumptions. If anything I'd say a phd is disproportionately attractive to poor students precisely because it pays living expenses, unlike many popular professional degrees which are much more daunting financially (i.e. medicine).

And students literally are killing themselves at universities because of how well they are "set up by their parents" to succeed. This whole line of thinking seems extremely naive when it comes to what people have to sacrifice to succeed in any pursuit in life. Personally I'd say the single most important thing needed to be happy in grad school is friends and a social life. Like everywhere else in life. Liking what you do comes in second.

  “… which doesn’t play out most of the time.”

Do you have any evidence to support that? AFAIK most people I went to grad school with were supporting themselves with the stipend offered by the school, and did not have other work or responsibilities.

I had a great time in grad school and think it was definitely worth it, and you don’t have to be rich to go, but at the same time I wouldn’t recommend it if you have others financially depending on you.

Even people supporting themselves off grad school are usually not making “about the same as peers who went straight to work”

Are you sure you’re not only thinking of CS (and STEM and business) salaries for comparison?

I’m quite sure. Some specific people I’ve known have included grad students in history and physiotherapy, for example.

Not OP, but had a similar graduate school experience.

What was your family like, stable nuclear family?

No - child of divorced parents

Middle income, - yes

did you fully support yourself, on your own during your studies? - my dad chipped in $4k toward the first year of undergraduate, after that I was completely on my own.

Did you have any other work or responsibilities? I did work through school - event setup, grounds crew, working in a computer lab, and eventually working with a group on campus that helped professors put their courses online.

Did you get cash or material gifts and support from family? etc etc. - nothing beyond the $4k mentioned before. But I did get straight As, so I had academic scholarships that helped with tuition. At least during my undergraduate years.

>>>> You described almost a very insta perfect version of the experience which doesn't play out most of the time.

I got a PhD 30 years ago, and had similar advantages: Supportive middle class family (both parents scientists), free ride plus stipend thanks to NSF, met my spouse there, etc.

I think that while it's correct to point out the benefits of such advantages, the same advantages apply to success in almost every realm, from K-12 through college, in business, even in the arts and professional sports.

Fields where a poor person has a chance at overcoming the obstacles and getting a lucrative job are few and far between, and computer programming is the only one that I can think of.

Note: I chose the word "chance" carefully, not "certainty."

The only colleague I’ve ever had who was supporting herself via work during her PhD was an international student. Everyone else was close to the experience you call “insta perfect”

I know a number of first generation grad students who get really mad at the "unlivable poverty wages" rhetoric when they're making more than anyone in their family does.

I didn’t know there were programs that payed that well. What field did you study?

To give one data point, at Stanford CS this year we're paying PhD students $64,110 a year plus fully funded health insurance and tuition, but that figure comes with some caveats:

- A chunk of your money will go towards a Stanford-subsidized dorm room or apartment

- Even beyond housing, the cost of living around here is not cheap

- You may not love Stanford's student health plan, in which case if you're over 26 (and can't be on a parent's plan), you're looking at paying for your own health insurance via the ACA market or otherwise

- To be making the full $64,110, you need to have advanced to candidacy (generally this is 3rd-year students and later) and stay for the summer with a "full-time" [90%] RAship. Many students do summer internships in the industry instead, in which case you're probably making way more money.

- Even with recent economic pressures, this is still much less than you can probably make in the industry, and for some subareas of CS, much much less.

I think the summary would be that if you're in a place where you have the luxury of mostly just needing to support yourself, and your health needs are well-met by a student health plan, you can afford to get a PhD here and focus 100% on it and enjoy a reasonable "student+" lifestyle for the 6ish years that will take. (Or a better lifestyle if you take summers to intern in the industry.) There's still a huge opportunity cost. The people for whom this doesn't work are often people with families to support (e.g. children and/or a partner without their own source of income) or other demands on their time or finances.

(I took two tries to get a PhD, but the second time was great!)

> To give one data point, at Stanford CS this year we're paying PhD students $64,110 a year plus fully funded health insurance and tuition

Tuition is fake so it shouldn’t be included as a benefit. If you can get into Stanford CS PhD you can get a job at a FAANG. They pay a lot better than $70K a year

Tuition is not fake. It's not like that's monopoly money or something. That's real money that is actually paid for real resources that are consumed by the student on the campus that need to be paid for (instructor time, instruction space, etc).

It is fake.. it's just a plot to siphon grant money.

It is fake after your first year usually. You arent taking any classes but you are signed up for a few credit hours of some fake grad student class with 300 people you don't know and a professor you never heard of teaching it in a classroom that says TBD for the entire semester, because the class doesn't exist and only serves to check a box for the administration that you are in fact a student and eligible for the student health insurance plan.

Tuition is not just used to fund classes, it supports all kinds of campus resources for the student. Tuition dollars are used to pay salaries, it couldn’t be any more real.

I mean usually those external resources are paid for by the student activity fee, a line item that grad students usually cover out of their own pocket. The other stuff I mean I guess you can get pedantic and say money is fungible, this gets used to keep the lights on at some building or whatever, but its important to know that these salaries are not making or breaking any department. A department might only have a few dozen grad students, these aren't significant amounts of money for a university. Keep in mind you have to pay this fake tuition for your student after the department takes half your research grant already. Some times its cheaper for a professor to hire a post doc than a grad student even with the salary differences given the tuition requirement.

$64k, unreal.. For me I made a dismal $18k stipend.

Mine was similar, closer to $13k but along with tuition reimbursement through my MA and then a slight bump to the stipend during the PHD.

64k a year is a lot better than I imagined. That makes me feel a little better about considering grad school in the near future!

This might be the case for CS PhDs, but it certainly isn't for the vast majority of Stanford PhD students in other departments - many of whom are earning less than half the amount you cited. A large percentage of Stanford PhD students work at least one additional job, so the reality is that outside of a select few departments you cannot "focus on it 100%."

I'm much less familiar with the financial model in the humanities, but I don't think your information is correct. (What's your source?) Across the whole university, Stanford's minimum salary for graduate research assistants this year is $12,054 per quarter (four quarters per year), and $12,522 per quarter when serving as a teaching assistant. (https://gfs.stanford.edu/salary/salary23/salary_tables.pdf, and here's what the financial package looks like for a PhD student in, e.g., education: https://ed.stanford.edu/admissions/financing/doctoral)

I'm definitely not telling you to go get a PhD in English/history/education/theater for the money, but if you did, my understanding is that the salary you could expect here is around $48k-$49k a year (+ health plan). I don't think any PhD student is earning less than half the amount I cited.

When you say "A large percentage of Stanford PhD students work at least one additional job," if you mean TAing, then yes, that's true -- I think every PhD student has to TA at least a few times, and more depending on how well-funded their program or advisor are and whether they have their own fellowship. (Regular faculty also have to teach on top of our research responsibilities.) But if you mean some outside-Stanford job, I don't think this is common.

Your story gives me hope. What country are you in?

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