Every person I know with a PhD now in their 40s and 50s (7 people) doesn’t have a family and wished they did and didn’t have a PhD. I’d love to see a study on that.
I’m never bothered because it looked like too much effort for little money.
I’m never bothered because it looked like too much effort for little money.
It reads as they're great and there's not a lot of people as great as they are when in reality it's probably more like the overlap between the set of people they desire and the set of people that desires them is impossibly narrow. This sounds like a tough personal problem that they can 100% work through by looking in the mirror and working on themselves.
I'm too great to ever find someone as great as me is frankly a piss poor attitude and outlook on life and I feel really bad for them to be stuck like that.
You could also simply have bad luck compounding the issue. Stuff any amount of effort or masquerade won't fix, like being a short man (inb4 "I know this small guy that...").
Your own story is also a dangerous anecdote. Without the context, it's pointless to talk about how amazing your Ph.D. experience was. Study engineering or quantitative marketing? Most likely miserable. Study humanities? Probably happier.
I don’t think the person you’re replying to is implying their anecdotes are more valid, but that all anecdotes can be contradicted by opposing anecdotes and thus aren’t enough to make sweeping statements.
Regarding happiness or a Ph.D. being an amazing experience, I didn't say a word about any of that. Those seem to be some very strong assumptions around marriage/kids = happiness or engineering/marketing = misery that you're making.
Seems like the relevant quote here.
I'm not sure your own single point anecdote is enough to counter their own experience and indeed comes with all the same "danger" that you warn about.
That does not sound very bright. Valuing equivalence over other attributes makes the math work against success.
IIRC, that's even worse in the humanities in both regards.
I'd kind of think doing a career change would be easier for a Phd physicist, because they could benefit from stereotypes especially if they switch into some kind of quantitative or math-y field.
The challenge is probably in finding pure physics research positions in a specific specialization.
You see similar patterns with Physics Phds in AI teams. You are likely to encounter one over your career, but it's not typical.
There are certainly challenges to having a family while pursing a PhD, but they're not prohibitive, and there are advantages as well (flexible work schedule, Universities often have a lot of programs for employees with children).
She traveled the world during that time and we live a pretty chill life. Met lots of friends during that time too. Don’t purely listen to anecdotes.
If those people had not gotten their PhDs, but families instead, they very well might today desire PhDs.
Having a PhD or a family? Because I could see that applied to either. Money and effort are not the only metrics that matter.
Its hard to see how people who switch to industry relatively soon can be penalized so much (and there are a lot of people like that).
Married, 3 kids, good position In a fund, same focus as his phd.
He was very, very lucky, without even realising it to this day. His wife took most of the hit, with him permanently working, or teaching, or something, and her taking care of thr rest of their life, kids included.
On the specialisation side. He never went the "pursue a dream even with no money" way. It was more about picking things he was good at, and also making sure the choice included sellable skills.
The "absent-minded professor backed by his down-to-earth wife" is a trope but a common one (and, to be fair, it's not always a man who's absent minded!).
My experience in grad school is that there are two different classes of people pursuing PhDs:
- people whose parents have MSs or PhDs, who had guidance from a very early age, who have been advised the entire way through and are able to complete their PhDs by age 25-28
- people whose parents don't have advanced degrees, who are at a pretty severe disadvantage, who don't know how to start preparing for grad school applications during sophomore year of undergrad, who don't know how to pick a decent advisor, who don't know how to organize their own funding which provides some level of research independence and the ability to focus on completing their degree instead of worshipping their advisor, and these people are much more likely to take 6,7,8+ years to complete their PhD if they complete it at all
But that's not really relevant to this story. This is an article about a woman who dropped out of her PhD program to have kids, and was given an honorary degree decades later because the work she did complete was groundbreaking.
That was me. I always assumed I'd go to grad school because that's just what was done; I never realized that my parents' meeting in grad school meant they worked normal people jobs for the better part of a decade before continuing their educations.
The early 30s postdocs seem to mostly be single though, so maybe they'll face that in their 40s and 50s.
Towards the end of her program, she decided she didn't want a research career.
Sure one could earn more money for less work in the industry, but being a PhD student is still a rather cushy job earning decent money compared to a lot of physical jobs out there. Also nobody cares at which time of the day/week you do your work, which is nice in times where other jobs might prefer to have your ass in an office.
Only one way to find out! It limits your family/friends/sex/fun life because the work load is a lot, there are no official "work hours" (so you end up working on weekends, at nights, when others are sleeping, when others go to parties, etc.), you get paid less than people who work in industry even though your work is as difficult (if not more) than theirs (think about the ML stuff Ph.D.s do vs. engineers in companies), you still have to deal with shitty politics in the department, etc.
Having supporting parents around to help with childcare (no kids yet, but 4 years is a long time) and financials is a big plus. Also being in Europe where the job market looks dire and industry only pay like 20% more is a major draw towards the PhD.
That said, several of them joke with me that the fact that they have a PhD and I have a Masters is an indication I am smarter than they are.