Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Anything to do with the traditional world of get a degree, get a job as well as its alternatives
elkend
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Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by elkend »

Background:
I am 28 with a MS in medical physics. Will likely retire or look for locums work around when I have 1Mil saved (because I'm cautious and make good money). Currently I make around 150k and expect than to increase to 170-200k if I make a job hop within the next 2-4 years (and likely also even if I stay at the same place). Did my MS and residency at the same institution. Live off around 20k and the rest goes into index funds. The field is less about science and more about following published guidelines, solving IT issues, and performing routine quality assurance.

What's Up:
I was contacted by someone at my old institution that they have a position open where I could get paid around 120k working full time while pursuing a part-time PhD (they typically have part-time PhDs, expect it to take 4-6 yrs since I already have my MS, work experience, and some projects I could resume). I liked my classwork and doing research (which resulted in three first-authored papers during MS/residency). I enjoy the city/department better where I'd do the degree (more amenities similiar COL) but I understand it's a pretty big income loss. The work itself is also better and my old institution, since many of the basic tasks such as IT-work, basic troubleshooting, and some aspects of communication would be taken care of by staff that isn't physics and basic physics tasks taken care of by students/residents. They'd very likely let me work on PhD-work during the day during gaps and I could do work largely interrupted unless there is need. One of the big things is at the new institution I feel I'm interrupted every couple of minutes between group texts (where time sensitive info is so needs to be read quickly), emails (culture is to email entire department, and everyone, so I might get 50 emails in a day, but once a week there will be 1 or so of work that needs to be done immediately so they need to be read as they come in), and people coming into the office.

Thoughts:
The PhD would be more for personal fulfillment, I'm not sure many career benefits exist other than being able to research and mentor (teaching individually is something I love to do) in addition to standard clinical work. Right now after taxes it's only about 20k a year pay difference and likely a 20h a week 'working' difference (including work and phd time, would be within same department). Would amount to a couple extra years working, at most but works into web of goals approach. I'd be interested in knowing where it could take me outside of the field (science writing seems to want PhD, teaching at university, industry jobs). I know the field, and feel it's very likely I'd get a faculty position if I did a PhD and wanted one.

While I would get freedom to pursue a research problem, much of the field feels like I'm doing more technician style research. Use a monte carlo system to build this scenario. Grab this data and run t-tests comparing some outcome. I feel similar about some of the classes, but additional PhD coursework is a mix of a few classes from traditional physics, math, engineering, and classes with med students. I do wonder if extra years away from work and the free time would give me more fulfillment in general, but a PhD could keep me well distracted during the accumulation phase and I'd be FI when I'm done and just have some years left to build up my safety margin. Though at the same time, I very much enjoy the academic environment I've been exposed to.

CS
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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by CS »

You sure you want to keep working in a hospital?

Locums are dicey now, and will be until testing in this country gets up to speed, which could be years at the rate it is going. It's not just the hospital - it's the travel (even if driving), the hotels, etc. Things you control can be minimized. You don't control hospital admin though - and that is the worst. Most are poorly run with the number one goal being profit over all else.

It has been getting worse over the years.

If they are hurting for money (and hospitals now are with surgery down - being the other money maker besides rad onc.), they will put you at risk to keep treating patients, no question about it. How much is your health worth to you? They will not test these patients first - and even if they do, the current tests have as high as a 40% false negative rate. 40%!

No treatment room is negative pressure. Do you want to spend hours in those rooms doing your annual and other QA after they were used to treat patients all day?

Another question is why is there an opening for a part-time PhD? Could it have something to do with the above.

My normal advice, in normal times, is to only get the phd if it is fun. As a woman, it helped level the field. For men in medical physics, it is completely unnecessary unless you want a research job. And as you said, the research is not all that exciting. If you have an interest in biology and some of those processes then yes, you could get into cutting edge stuff, but you'd need the background to get into that. By default, med physics doesn't provide it.

Outside of the field, I've found zero benefit to the phd. It was a fun project though so I don't regret it.

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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by Sclass »

CS wrote:
Sun May 10, 2020 11:08 am
Outside of the field, I've found zero benefit to the phd. It was a fun project though so I don't regret it.
Same feeling twenty years after my defense.

Think about where you’ll be after your defense. And think about where you want to be by then. Right now. Not in four years. Now. That was the best advice from a guy loading up his car the day I arrived for my PhD.

Of course I didn’t take his advice. Elon Musk was in my incoming class. He quit so fast I never met him. Five days he lasted. Visionary guy. In his words he took one look around and didn’t see anything worthwhile. I had the gut feel back then but I didn’t have any guts.

My career only lasted twelve years. So I spent six of the best years of my life to prepare for a twelve year career that I’d hate so much I’d plan an early retirement. That’s what I get for not thinking it through the day I stepped on to campus.

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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by Alphaville »

i know nothing about your field of studies or profession, but im into meaning and stories—i think stories are a form of cognition in itself. not everything is about numbers and calculations—those are tools, but don’t provide the experience of the agreeable, good, the beautiful or the sublime (to steal some bits from kant’s critique of judgment)

if i understood well, i think you’re saying that you’d be able to retire early one way or another, yes?

so, do you think the pay cut is worth the experience (can it be agreeable or good or beautiful or even sublime)?

ERE is ultimately about having the freedom to live in a way that’s meaningful to you. it’s not really about saving rates.

therefore, the real question is: is this path meaningful to you? not the “after” or the “what for” or the utility afterwards—the experience itself, since you’re bound to be financially independent at the end of it. yes?

additionally: if i were you i’d put the idea through the paces of the WRAP process, because i always find it eye-opening, super useful, and superior to other decision making methods.

the link to the summary pdf sems gone today but the book can be found here: https://heathbrothers.com/books/decisive/

well worth the read. it will help you ask all the right questions. “should i/ shouldn’t i” is just a vessel for confirmation bias.

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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by jacob »

First, there are lots of "should I get a PhD"-threads on the forum, so check out some of those. Results vary by field, temperament, supervisor, and goals.
elkend wrote:
Sun May 10, 2020 10:39 am
While I would get freedom to pursue a research problem, much of the field feels like I'm doing more technician style research. Use a monte carlo system to build this scenario. Grab this data and run t-tests comparing some outcome.
There are two kinds of PhDs and what you're talking about here is the "glorified technician" (or glorified masters) which in my opinion is not worth it because you're trading a higher salary in industry for a piece of paper (degree) that isn't valuable for a research career compared to publication record and recommendations (which would be unimpressive for a "technician"-thesis). These "phds" often come about because a researcher needs a cheap research assistant they can order around which in practice is like doing a second masters degree.

The other track is the "research apprentice". The success very much depends on the right combination of grad student and supervisor in terms of talent, self-motivation, creativity, networking ability, etc. If it works well, graduate school might possibly be life-changing in terms of outlook. It will be the first time where there's no "they" who has the answer and the buck stops with you. This creates both independence and confidence. I'm pretty sure that w/o going to phd school, I would never have written ERE or at least it would have been a relatively shallow effort.

If using the CCCCCC approach, a phd should take you all the way through all six whereas a masters ends around 4 .5 and a bachelors around 3.5. Basically, you should be able to find and solve for unknown-unknowns whereas a glorified technician is simply someone who can solve for known-unknowns a bit faster.

Still, for "unprofessional" reasons, the hoi polloi remain somewhat impressed with the phd and dr labels and so it looks nice on the wall insofar that's required. Different fields vary a lot here. A physicist wouldn't be caught dead with a diploma hanging on the wall. Others frame every single certificate of participation they ever received.

ZAFCorrection
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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by ZAFCorrection »

Unless you are targeting a job which needs that paper, I'd say the primary value of the PhD is getting as much hand-holding as possible to get through the CCCCCC process as Jacob mentioned. When I started I had some vague notion that I wanted to learn to solve more abstract problems, and a PhD was the most obvious way to go about it. That's the only path that makes sense to me.

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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by jacob »

ZAFCorrection wrote:
Sun May 10, 2020 9:40 pm
[...] the primary value of the PhD is getting as much hand-holding as possible to get through the CCCCCC process as Jacob mentioned.
This is where the temperaments, expectations, and working habits of the student/supervisor becomes important. It's crucial that they match in strengths, weaknesses, and goals. As a simple example, some might desire a 9-5 schedule touching base 2-3 times a day, a list of milestones, and weekly progress updates. Others want to work from 11 am to early in the morning with minimal interaction---maybe once a month---and only do presentations when they have results to present.

(For me the primary value was getting the time (4 years and ~$100k total in stipends) to pursue almost whatever creative lead I could find in whatever way I wanted within the subject and the technical support in the form of [super]computers, journals, codes, data, and connections to people to do so.)

From the student's perspective, it's important that the supervisor can support and build up the weak spots (in my case it's networking since I do not tend to naturally do that) and give the strengths room to run. Otherwise, it will be a miserable experience. In that way, it's not very different from other kinds of jobs.

IlliniDave
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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by IlliniDave »

From a different perspective: I didn't get one, and if I did it would have been anything involving medical or physics studies. At the time it probably would have been in the realm of neural networks, which were starting to be explored for application in learning/control systems.

By the time I was finishing my Masters I was already married w/kids. My advisor called me in to his office one day and spent four hours trying to talk me into leaving work and going back to Illinois (where I did undergrad, but not grad). He'd even arranged with one of his buddies from before they immigrated fro Taiwan, a professor I had two undergrad courses from interestingly enough, to get me a research assistant gig. Because of my family situation I couldn't afford the pay cut nor with kids what I imagined the hours required would be. It meant a lot to me that he went out of his way to do so much, and with many apologies I declined.

At the time I had no real specific thoughts/plans regarding early retirement. It was the hit to ongoing lifestyle that dissuaded me. Ironically, if I'd decided to go for it, it might have accelerated my ER journey despite the likelihood of lower pay (assuming I wound up in academia), as I probably would have wound up single-again 12-15 years sooner than I did. It really took having only myself to be day-to-day responsible for before I explored the option.

In some ways, yeah, I regret not having taken the chance. I think it's an accomplishment I would have felt good about--personal fulfillment as you put it. But it's a fleeting regret, not like a "one of the top three decisions that ruined my life" sort of thing. I never felt that not having a PhD limited what I could pursue intellectually (yes, many here may differ, ha). So for myself, in hindsight, I made the right call, or at least one equally as good as going back to school would have been.

I'm not sure how different it is today, but I was also drawn to the academic environment I was exposed to back in the 80s and early 90s. If you have good reason to believe you'll enjoy it, and it still supports your life, financial, and FI goals, then why not go for it? Having a work environment that falls on the positive side of the continuum shouldn't be discounted.
Last edited by IlliniDave on Tue May 12, 2020 5:42 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Sclass
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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by Sclass »

jacob wrote:
Sun May 10, 2020 1:13 pm
Basically, you should be able to find and solve for unknown-unknowns whereas a glorified technician is simply someone who can solve for known-unknowns a bit faster.
This is the ideal. Kind of like thinking there are two kinds of PhDs. In my experience as an industrial scientist the education has had very mixed results for my colleagues. Good and bad. It’s really hard to separate bad intellect, bad intellectual training, bad intellectual indoctrination etc. all of which I found at Stanford University. At the end of the day I’ve learned to exclusively value effectiveness which I gauge by looking at my fellow classmates’ track records of success. We have about twenty years now.

Our dirty little secret is we have a lot of unsuccessful graduates. Unsuccessful, ineffective, whatever you want to call it...sucky. Was the schooling good or bad? Were they just stupid? I’m not sure sometimes. Stanford indoctrinated us with a lot of myopia which some of my colleagues have never really unlearned. Somewhat analogous to being a Vatican astronomer back in the day. It’s referred to as Stanford Disease in the Valley.

Knowns can become unknowns if people keep answers to themselves. Tends to happen when information has value. I’m not too sure of the distinction IRL though I understand the concept.
IlliniDave wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 9:05 am
. I never felt that not having a PhD limited what I could pursue intellectually (yes, many here may differ, ha).
This is really good. Because believing you are limited can be limiting. Like I said above, I’m not sure the degree guarantees anything.

Stahlmann
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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by Stahlmann »

what kinf of problems can have people who earned ticket to easy, elite white collar job in one most prosperous countries in the world with stark division between poor and rich?
it's like they're too toxic/selfentitled? failing into materialism trap in the longterm?

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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by Sclass »

Getting the wrong answer to the question the person paying for their elite white collar prosperous job asked.

And not knowing they’re wrong.

And not knowing the question is the wrong question in the first place.

It goes on and on.

I wonder if a PhD employee of the CDC is hard at work making an inexpensive, easy to manufacture, efficiently deployed, adoptable standard, robust and accurate test for the corona virus as we mull this over. Or is there an ineffective person in there holding up the contact tracing chore the nation is about to take on?

This may or may not have any relevance to the OP. I actually had to look up Locum. That’s how far removed I am from making any intelligent comment to this post.

Gotten a little sidetracked here. “Gotta think about the future Carlito.”

ZAFCorrection
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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by ZAFCorrection »

Sclass wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 10:46 am
I wonder if the Stanford situation might be a curse of prosperity. Super smart advisors throwing out amazing ideas, fancy, well-maintained equipment, tons of knowledgeable permanent staff. With that and a little luck, a mediocre candidate has a pretty good chance of getting through the program with a beautiful resume if their committee is not getting too philosophical about the distinction of a PhD. It seems the fuckups and lack of support are often where the most development is happening.

I get the impression the OP was similarly blessed if they knocked out three first-author papers in the duration of an MS. Though, the publishing expectations are probably a lot different in that area. But I would be a little concerned about the chances for personal development if joining a program where scientific productivity has been fully optimized.

IlliniDave
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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by IlliniDave »

Sclass wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 10:46 am
This is the ideal. Kind of like thinking there are two kinds of PhDs. In my experience as an industrial scientist the education has had very mixed results for my colleagues. Good and bad. It’s really hard to separate bad intellect, bad intellectual training, bad intellectual indoctrination etc. all of which I found at Stanford University. At the end of the day I’ve learned to exclusively value effectiveness which I gauge by looking at my fellow classmates’ track records of success. We have about twenty years now.
I've worked with a few Masters-level Stanford grads and they were really sharp. No Stanford PhDs though.

In general PhDs don't seem to fare well in my business (technical, but not "Tech"). Of the five I can recall we hired into my little niche of a nondescript megacorp, we ultimately laid four of them off, and the fifth quit after about a year. If I had to boil it down to one thing it was that their egos weren't compatible with teamwork of the type required to do what we do. They weren't bad people, but industry wasn't going to treat them the way they saw their their professors treated during their candidacy--at least not until they proved themselves.

I get the sense PhDs sometimes aren't really groomed for life in the mundane world. Even getting my bachelor's at Illinois back in the 80s it was clear the prevailing creed was that research was the vastly superior calling when compared with pursuits in "industry". Getting hired into what amounts to a engineering labor pool numbering in the low tens of thousands is probably a culture shock.

On the other hand I have worked for nearly 20 years with a PhD who is very successful in the business (by his own standards). He works for a company that mine has been partnered with on a long-term project. He's about 80 years old now, likely older (we know one of his sons is a 63-year-old CEO of a well-known US corporation), and he is one of those relatively rare people with almost zero ego. In his case he found a niche via an obscure topic that interests him, and doesn't waste a lot of time comparing his position/degree of deference received to others in the corporate technical hierarchies.

Also, my employer's "Site Executive" for the location I work out of is a PhD. I haven't met her, but she was hired for that role rather than hired into the company at lower technical ranks fresh from school. Obviously she was successful elsewhere.

Ultimately, after a lot of words, I suppose my point is that it all comes down to personality and aptitude. Irrespective of educational level, I think only a minority of people have natural big-picture vision. No degree no matter how lofty and prestigious will give you that (nor stamp it out for that matter).

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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by Sclass »

IlliniDave wrote:
Tue May 12, 2020 6:30 am
I've worked with a few Masters-level Stanford grads and they were really sharp. No Stanford PhDs though.

...
Ultimately, after a lot of words, I suppose my point is that it all comes down to personality and aptitude. Irrespective of educational level, I think only a minority of people have natural big-picture vision. No degree no matter how lofty and prestigious will give you that (nor stamp it out for that matter).
That’s funny you say that. I had a classmate who quit the program and took a masters. He was smarter than all of us put together. He said just this when he quit. “I’ve never known an smart PhD”. He was an arrogant bastard but it flew because he was effing smart. It became really clear really fast he was more intelligent and more importantly a better thinker than our teachers. He went on to make a few million in stocks from his apartment in Palo Alto while still hanging around us and telling us how dumb we were. I think he only hung around for the coed action and to tease us about our thesis choices. Then he got bored and went back to electronics and designed some of the architecture for the processors are using now. A real mvp. In this case it was the person, and not the school. Last I heard he is living in the Santa Cruz mountains in a cabin all by himself and he is depressed. :lol: go figure.

And I’ve finally had some time to look back and ask myself was it the individual or the institution. I knew this guy since undergrad. Unmatched. Here it was clearly the individual. School alone didn’t do that.

But the question you allude to is can the institution make the person. Kind of like a marine camp makes a warrior out of an ordinary eighteen year old. And I agree with @IDave that it is hit and miss. A lot of the PhD losers I know may have just sucked from the womb. They’re sucking was demonstrated as they slogged out a death march to their defense. Big name school labels didn’t help much aside from opening gates to kingdoms they’d flail in or find protection.

I’m kind of concluding that it won’t necessarily make you a better player. But it could depending on the people and circumstances.

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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by CS »

I think it's the design of the system in part.

It is hard to get out of the handicap the system instills in the brain. It's like being trained like Pavlov's dog to look for help/approval/assistance. Yes, the best PhD is where you come up with independent research (and technically that is what a PhD is) but the reality is that most of them are incremental improvements on previous work. Really incremental. For students it teaches the hoops of paper writing and grant proposals and beats down any resistance to institutional pressures for committees. :lol: :lol: :lol: The OP seems to have the paper writing down. From what I've heard, the high is post-docs and it just goes downhill after that. Even if you like your research, good luck doing much more of it.

I got further in the process just doing in other areas (band creation/original music/marketing/photography). Or maybe that's just me.

I love, love, love classes but now have to be recognizant that the money/time is better spent on the costs of doing than tuition for someone to tell me how to do, because now I have less of both. The first is more entertainment to me, the second is true learning and progress.

Once trained how to behave in a system, I think it's really hard to change that behavior. I, a single person, act differently based on which system I'm in. Seeing it from the outside is sobering. I don't like it.

An aside that but maybe related, I think it's important to emphasize to younger people to be careful where they spend their time. Like the butterfly's wings analogy in time travel, it can have huge consequences down the road. Far different from the advice I'd have given as a younger person, I now say spend the time on what you want to do - and only that if possible. It's easy for your whole life to get pulled somewhere else and before you know it you have gray hair and never reached any of the goals you wanted to when younger.

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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by elkend »

Thank you all, this is some great advice. CS’s last post hit me ——— even at 28 I’m feeling old and like I never really got to accomplish what I want to accomplish by 30. I also knew I didn’t particularly like my would-be career a few weeks into grad school. I’ve been thinking advice I would’ve given myself is to find a job around home so to not leave friends behind, but also getting away from family and friends and making new ones promoted a lot of personal growth. Everything is a trade off.

There are so many things I could dedicate 20-30h a week to other than creating and taking data. While I highly look up to my undergrad professors and their lifestyles, I very much like working with my graduate professors (department head/advisor gave me my own desk in his office, direct access to him definitely helped grow my ability) but I don’t necessarily see them as my role models.

While I feel I could likely grow my life how I want to with a full-time PhD, I feel I’m likely to stagnate on a lot of the things I want to do if I did both part-time PhD with a job. I could potentially take the job at a salary cut and not do the part-time PhD to live in a much more preferred city and be in an academic environment...I miss having students around and also colleagues that talked about things other than kids, popular news, and house remodeling.

I feel like I only have about 3-5 years worth of goals as of now between becoming more proficient at guitar, the books I want to read, getting into the shape I want, the places I want to see. I do worry what’ll happen once I hit everything. It was a huge shock getting into residency (goal for the last decade achieved) and all of a sudden feeling empty from not having something I really desire to work towards that had meaning (it seems academics could keep you perpetually in that state with tenure, students, and research grants). FI is able to be a new goal, but it’s kinda on rails at this point.

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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Another factor to consider would be that it might add some cache to your dating profile. Of course, this might mostly be limited to those of a certain type who are currently at Wheaton Level 7 = Polyamorous relationships with 3 PhD equivalents, prior to achieving Wheaton Level 8= Marriage to illiterate woodsman.

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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by Alphaville »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Wed May 13, 2020 10:53 am
Another factor to consider would be that it might add some cache to your dating profile. Of course, this might mostly be limited to those of a certain type who are currently at Wheaton Level 7 = Polyamorous relationships with 3 PhD equivalents, prior to achieving Wheaton Level 8= Marriage to illiterate woodsman.
:lol: :lol: :lol:

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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by nomadscientist »

I have a STEM PhD. In my opinion "PhD program" is just another word for a "job." That is not meant to sound jaded. I performed self-directed research in my PhD, and it was fun. On the other hand, my father, who worked for an engineering company at the same age, also had fun performing self-directed research. My guess is that by the standards of the time he was paid rather more than I was for doing more or less the same work. The award of the certificate and title "Doctor of Philosophy" is a trivial detail that people even (especially) inside academia care about least except to the extent it's required to allow HR to hire you.

Like jobs, PhDs are different. And like corporate research jobs there are PhDs where you do self-directed, mentally stimulating research and there are PhDs where you don't do those things*, as jacob had explained in detail The second type should be treated with skepticism but given you are being offered a significant salary the regular job caveats to that apply: do you prefer the location, people, specific work enough compared to your present job to take a pay cut?

The only thing the award of a PhD gives you that a job doing equivalent work does not is the ability to apply for certain positions in academia; it's an entry ticket that lets you compete to become a prof or at least a postdoc. Is that interesting to you? Is it something you are willing to stomach given your age (long road to tenure with a good chance of failure)? My impression is that a PhD also makes you less employable in most other fields, at least in English-speaking countries.


*Frankly below the top tiers there seem to be a lot of PhDs where you don't even do original research, which is the nominal requirement, and outside the hard sciences there are PhDs where you don't do research at all.

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Re: Having some issues deciding on whether or not to pursue a PhD.

Post by elkend »

So got offered a job that's 195k and only 40h a week (+1h unpaid lunch so 9h days), but with the drawback that it only has 10 days vacation + 10 holiday a year. I don't think that will allow me to feel free. Starting to think a lot of the better paying places I could get while still young in the field are that way because they have very little vacation. Close to 60k passive income at 40 or 30k at 35 using 3% SWR from index funds.

Though I could stay here where I get 27 days (33 days in two years) PTO a year. I do absolutely love my apartment complex and also its proximity to walking trails, quality parks, and amenities. It is more stressful here. Days 8-12h coming in around 9 on average. Can’t take a vacation of more than a week. End up with about 50k passive income at 40 with 30k at 36.

Back at the place with the PhD, it's upped to 130k and also has a 401a, which I believe is a university funded pension plan where they add 8% of salary a year in addition to the 403b and 457b. I'd be able to work on the PhD during work hours when it's slow (which is common). It also gives 38 days PTO a year and upped to 43 days after a PhD. The boss would be awesome to work for, very hands off and laid back. Guessing days would be about 8-9 hours. Nice free meals at lunch...I'd probably actually get all my fruits and veggies ate I otherwise wouldn't. Estimate 43k passive income at 40 years old and 30k at 37.

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