Is a science PhD a Waste of Time?

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).

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.

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.

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-... , but we included a section about the anti-science-lifestyle literature.

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?

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

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

disclaimer: a Phd student

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

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.

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.