Comment by rms | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rms | Hacker News Reader

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It says a lot more about the author's bias than anything about grad school in general.

In the median case, grad school is probably a waste, certainly most PhD's in the humanities are. But with a PhD in economics you can get a job working for all of those interesting sounding NGOs that advertise in the back of The Economist. An MD or PhD in biochemistry/subset is required to do serious medical research.

An MBA from a top tier business school (the more technical the better, personally I'd rather get an MBA from MIT than Penn) dramatically increases salary compared to people without an MBA. Could you have done better laddering up in the corporate world? Maybe, but it's a lot riskier, and the author forgets that pointlessly delaying adulthood is fun! Perhaps the author has forgotten that.

A professional graduate degree also provides you with a risk-free way of transitioning careers. Did you do an undergrad in business? Do you want to program now? Get a master's degree in software engineering.

And the comparison to joining the military is just insulting.

"grad school is probably a waste, certainly most PhD's in the humanities are."

This rests on the assumption that learning is only valuable insofar as it helps the learner attain greater financial reward. You may define knowledge as a commodity which has value defined by national monetary systems, but those who pursue PhDs in the humanities wager the knowledge they gain in their pursuit of the degree has value in relation to their context greater than the value reflected in its commodification.

Meh. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that a humanities PhD might not have practical value, but it has value to some people because they like it and come out of it more worldly. I mean, sure, okay, but there is a qualitatively different type of advantage that comes with a technical PhD.

I don't disagree with you on any particular point. I was only stating that to dismiss a PhD in the humanities "as a waste" says a lot more about the position from which one makes that dismissal than about the humanities PhD itself.

Its not risk or cost free. Graduate school has a severe opportunity cost. If you can make $60K/year and grad school tuition is $20k a year, you have a $60k opportunity cost and a 20k out of pocket cost.

For some reason when I made this post I thought I was on newmogul. So that explains the misplaced tone.

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