What is a PhD? - Page 14

On August 09 2011 22:15 GreEny K wrote:


wow, just wow... where, might I ask, did you get this stagering information?

On August 07 2011 15:52 0mar wrote:


Still, saying the money doesn't matter is simply doe-eyed idealism. Money does matter because your expenses go up as you mature. Living in a dingy apartment when you are 35 or 40 is a lot different than when you are 22. If you ever get married or enter a long-term relationship, you need to have stability. In the research sciences, you are a wandering scientist with no real ties until you secure that first job. You are on contract until the project ends or the grant money dries up.

My brother did a PhD in Chemistry and he absolutely regrets it to this day. His only options right now are dead-end post docs at MIT. Yes, you read that right. Even in chemistry, there's a huge glut of PhDs. You need to put out absolutely outstanding work which is all luck anyways, it's all dependent on what's hot in the field and what project you actually get.

I was in your position. I said to myself, money doesn't matter, as long as I get enough to live on, I'll be happy. Well, that was an extremely immature attitude because now my car is breaking down, my apartment rent has gone up twice in two years, gas, food and all these other things are increasing in price and our stipend didn't go up this year again due to budget problems. The best I could hope for by finishing my PhD was a dead-end postdoc slaving away for 60+ hours a week. Then in 4+ years, I could try my hand at jobs in industry (lol 200 applicants per job, yea fucking right) or professorships. You can go adjunct faculty, which basically means you teach 5-7 classes and get paid about 6k per class for the entire year. You won't hear this from any of your professors, you have to find this out yourself. Spend a day on google to look at your career choices after the PhD. That's why I quit my PhD because furthering knowledge doesn't mean shit if you can't even earn a middle class wage. It won't hurt right now, but in 3 years, when you are slaving away for the 3rd night in a row, at 12am, you'll realize that a fucking bus driver makes twice as much as you do, works half as much and can actually take a vacation now and then.

Leaving the PhD was the best decision I ever made. Medicine is far more rewarding, relevant and is well-compensated.



Doctors are very well compensated for the work they do. Your earning potential is only limited by the time you put in. You get paid by the patient/procedure, if you know the system. For example, charging for a 10 system check vs a 3 system check is a difference in about 5 minutes of work, but pays about triple depending on the insurance plan. You get paid a very nice salary as a doctor plus you have massive earning potential on top of that through clinic hours/procedure documentation/consulting.

Before anyone talks about the healthcare system and how it's so broken, doctors' compensation is a very small part of a very massive pie. If you don't make the career lucrative, then no one would want to be a doctor. You are talking about 4 years undergraduate, 4 years medical school, and at least 3 years as a resident. That's 11 years of training devoted solely to becoming a physician. Then, you are responsible for patient outcomes while any other profession is merely responsible for a small portion of a project (eg web designer, MBA, accounting). The responsibility that a physician has is in another galaxy by comparison. If anything, doctors should be compensated more. Your average doctor works 60 hours a week plus time to write notes, file paperwork and continuing his/her medical education as required by state boards in order to continue practicing.

On August 10 2011 02:15 DetriusXii wrote:I agree with you completely. I quit my PhD one year into the PhD. When I quit, the one medical physicist with a Bachelors who had a job, told me that I was recognizing the physicist job plight early and congratulated me. I would advise your brother to suck it up and retrain. I'm happy now that I'm not in academia. My after work hours aren't also for work.

On August 10 2011 02:29 KSMB wrote:

What did you go into after you quit?

On topic: I think the lesson is that you should only go for a PhD if you are really certain that is what you want to do after you have researched what the job market looks like in your particular field.

On August 09 2011 15:10 n.DieJokes wrote:

Why would they be able to do actuarial work? From what I can tell its not pure math by any stretch of the imagination, there's a lot of econ/stat/mgmt type stuff. Plus they'd have to start taking the tests just like everyone else without of the focused preparation of someone with an actuarial science degree

That is what we all think, yes.

On August 09 2011 21:58 Kambing wrote:
I don't think anyone would doubt that a math phd has the capability to become an actuary. But their phd work, most likely, did not prepare them to be an actuary. They'll still have to study like a fresh undergraduate (perhaps less so as you mention, but they will need to put in some effort). And at the end of the day, they'll start at roughly the same place as the undergraduate that started being an actuary from the beginning.

At this point, one would wonder if it the phd was "worth it" from a career standpoint. In other words, is it better to be placed higher in the company as a fresh phd vs. having the 5-7 years of career experience and advancement by starting after undergrad? In most cases like this where the job you land can be achieved by someone with a lesser degree, it makes more sense to pursue the latter rather than the former.

On August 10 2011 14:36 blah_blah wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +

I mentioned that being an actuary is kind of a worst-case situation for a math Ph.D from a good school. Obviously it makes more sense to get a degree in actuarial science if you want to be an actuary, but it's still a high-paying job.

On the other hand, quantitative finance jobs pay better and look explicitly for math/physics Ph.Ds or mathematical finance masters degrees. There is no bachelor's degree that will prepare you for a career in this, although you may have a chance out of undergrad if you have extremely strong quantitative skills and go to a school like Harvard, Princeton, or MIT.

If you know 100% that you want to be an actuary from the moment you begin university, you should major in actuarial science. If you know 100% that you want to do quantitative finance, you should be certain that you have 99+th percentile quantitative skills, and then do an M.Sc in quantitative finance (or get hired out of undergrad if you are really good/lucky). But most people do not have this degree of certainty. A Ph.D in math qualifies you for all of these jobs and many more (especially assuming that you make some effort to pick up a bit of probability, statistics, numerical analysis, and programming ability), as well as academic and teaching jobs. Obviously the Ph.D has a higher opportunity cost but it is much more flexible and more impressive.

On August 10 2011 03:39 abominare wrote:


Because the math is the important part of being an actuary. If you can get a degree in math, especially applied math you've already done the math for being an actuary, everything else on the exam is cake. Now a phd in math, and lololol you should absolutely destroy the exam. Even a bachelors in applied math will absolutely destroy the earning potential of a phd in economics. Outside of academia and book writing economics degrees don't impress in the business world its the degree you get because XYZ certs required a degree so you took an easy one.

(only have my economics degree because it was literally 3 extra classes to grab from my other degree plans)

On August 08 2011 00:09 Gnosis wrote:


A PhD in STEM fields is a very different experience from a PhD in non-STEM fields (i.e. humanities). It is, apparently, quite a miserable experience.

On August 10 2011 23:02 Kambing wrote:I would argue that by the time you finish your undergraduate degree, you should have an idea of what you're doing with it. I don't disagree that a phd gives you strictly more opportunities than a bachelor's in the equivalent field. However at the same time, I stress to anyone considering a phd that it isn't for people who are still trying to find what they want to do in life. Even though you get a phd at a university, it isn't "more school". It really is an apprenticeship training you for a specific career (specifically, a teaching or research-focused career), and you should enter any phd program with that mindset.

On August 11 2011 01:09 Lebesgue wrote:=And lol if you think any PhD in math regardless of their research can get a job. I wonder how can someone specializing in Group Theory get a job in finance, or Algebraic Topology? It seems you just have no clue what phd is about, never been in a program and don't understand how it works. All you do is to repeat stereotypes made by as clueless people as you.

On August 08 2011 02:18 Lebesgue wrote:


And what makes you think this is not true in STEM fields? My friend is graduating this year with PhD in maths at Oxford. And he is damn worried about getting a job. Add to this lack of scholarship for the last year and you get a nice picture. All the points raised in the links you provided are true in smaller or larger extent regardless of PhD program. Even more so than for me doing PhD in econ. Job market for maths is tiny compared to Economics.

Yes, when I graduated from college being ranked top1 in my department and among few top students among my whole class I had those grand expectations. But life had really changed my perspective. The points raised by 0mar are all relevant. I wouldn't be as negative as him but maybe because we are more lucky in Economics regarding job/salary perspective. That is of course if you are good enough.

Regarding amount of work ph.d requires see points 61 and 62 in that blog. They are really really true.

On August 13 2011 01:24 DetriusXii wrote:
@Slaughter: The issue with the PhD is that the beginning of academic career doesn't matter if the PhD doesn't translate to an income. Postdocs are terrible positions to attain for and they're a symptom that the money is stretching thin. And while there may be a direct value to the PhD, most employers don't know what to do with it and they aren't advertising for abstract value in their job search. Concrete skills matter much more when you're starting off in a career. They get your foot in the door. Soft skills are picked up later in life and contrary to academia, they can be picked up anywhere, and while working in groups with your manager.