Thread 16817690

Why do you not want to get a PhD?
>Higher earning potential
>Produce a novel contribution to your field
>Prove you can do research, problem solve etc which are valuable skills employers are looking for

>>16817690 (OP)
None of those, I just wanted to learn more physics. It was a mistake, but at least it's over now.

>>16817698
You were in a physics PhD program but you quit?

>>16817705
No, I finished it and became a quant.

>>16817707
Why was the Phd a mistake? Quantitative analyst employers like the math skills physics phds have.

>>16817698
meds

>>16817690 (OP)
No PhD would ever make these lofty claims
t. PhD

>>16817690 (OP)
>Higher earning potential
Offset by the 4 to 6 years spent in graduate school. Also overqualified for many positions.
>Produce a novel contribution to your field
You can technically do that in your Bachelor as well, althuogh I admit it has become difficult to contribute meaningfully without industrial funding.
>Prove you can do research, problem solve etc which are valuable skills employers are looking for
Technically, the ability to do just that should be conferred by the time you have your Master's.
>Why do you not want to get a PhD?
Sure, I would like to look into it once you explain to me how you can realistically enter such programs as a Master's students with average grades.

>>16817749
>Sure, I would like to look into it once you explain to me how you can realistically enter such programs as a Master's students with average grades.
NTA but professors are always looking for more OPhD students. And what they want are people that will grind through the time it takes to complete and without quitting.
Demonstrate that and your average grades is not a problem.

>>16817690 (OP)
too much fucking homework from bs to phd nigga imagine doing all that shit just to say you're a dr and my dads a dr hes a fucking stupid ass nigger faggot retarded cunt bitch ass faggot fucker

>>16817690 (OP)
>Why do you not want to get a PhD?
Why do I not want to get a tattoo?
Same, same.

>>16817690 (OP)

I barely completed an undergrad in math. I still have waking dreams where I fear having to do more school or coursework, and as I veer toward consciousness, my brain remembers: "It's over, it all done with. You never have to do that again, as long as you live." This makes me happy as I wake.

>>16817690 (OP)
My first quarter in grad school filtered me and I gave up.

>>16817690 (OP)
i mean what prevents me from just taking graduate courses without actually doing a Phd? Doing a PhD comes with a lot of other shit like teaching stupid people ...

>>16822486
>My first quarter in grad school filtered me and I gave up.
Which part was too much anon? I am curious because I am considering going for a PhD

>>16822579
NTA but probably paperwork. PhD involves a lot more paperwork than it does science work.

PhD in general is not really about autistically sciencing the science, it's about integrating the desocialized autists into the extremely social, insanely bureaucratic collective entity that is the academia. This is why this board generally seethes at grad school - most anons here pursued science specifically in order to escape from the normie bullshit of society and it's intense retardation, and then they discover that starting their scientific career entails diving face-first right into the concentrated normiecore wine&dine gossip workplace relationship report standard money talks procurement form bullshit than they wanted to avoid.

That said, a PhD is legit reliably useful if and only if you are building an actual academic career in a university or some other research institution. If you don't plan on doing that then it most likely will be a plenty of work for no gain whatsoever, and tons of people do change their mind on doing an academic career upon discovering that the actual academia is Normiecore Central and also actually not exactly bathing in cash, so their PhDs end up collecting dust. Like, that's not a rare occurrence and it very much can happen to you, so think a few (hundred) times before you commit.

>>16817690 (OP)
>>Higher earning potential
i don't have a need to earn more
>>Produce a novel contribution to your field
can do this without academia (and more happy while doing it)
>>Prove you can do research, problem solve etc which are valuable skills employers are looking for
i'd rather just do the stuff and let the employers come to me, which has been a good strategy

>>16822614
>PhD involves a lot more paperwork
Nigga what the fuck? There was barely any paperwork in my PhD. Are you autistic?

>>16822622
Well, there was a fuckton in mine, so maybe it's different.

>>16817690 (OP)
>profs are now broadcasting propaganda on /sci/
What a time to be alive

>>16822622
>There was barely any paperwork in my PhD
That's not his point. The point is that most PhD candidates are diddling around, doing work for their superiors and supervisors that is largely irrelevant and only meant to showcast that something is being done worth the investments alloted to them by the department or an industrial grant. Feel free to counter me but considering that barely anything worthy has come out of academia in the last 40 years should tell something.

Yes, having a minimum wage PhD guy working 60 hours a week going through books to tabularize them on an excel sheet will result in a quite impressive excel sheet. That stuff will be printed once or twice, then collect dust in an archive, forever forgotten because the previous grant isn't renewed, instead replaced by another grant which, again, will require the creation of a new data bank in order to justify the costs.

That's the problem of an institution that has previously been able to deliver results but now has stopped doing so. Instead, an academic complex has emerged, not unlike the military industrial complex, which exists for the sake of itself and which aggressively defends the financial contributions guarantueed to them by the state or by the industry by employing an overwhelmingly underfunded PhD force based on the same premise that they lure students in; that their diplomas meaningfully enhance their chances on the private market.

>>16822778
Although I have to say here that I'm largely talking about PhDs in humanities, given my own experience.
Anyway, this is why PhD students fetishize their diplomas so badly because, once the whole ordeal ends, the very same PhD students know perfectly well that their diplomas are effectively worthless except for the one thing that most PhD students will never attain, a tenure position.*

*Ye, sure. Most people will claim; But what about the industry? Well, that's a good counterpoint for STEM graduates but even there, the focus on PhD students is largely driven by the inflation in the number of overall candidates which means that those with a Bachelor are increasingly locked out of positions for which the Bachelor was originally intended in the first place. This doesn't mean a PhD is worth much. It only shows that titulary inflation in academia primarily renders any degree more and more worthless.

Even I have managed in attaining a Master's before dropping out because I genuinely couldn't care less about the stuff. There is absolutely nothing attractive about having to switch your workplace every other year because the already meagre grant isn't renewed, moving states or nations in a vain attempt to finally secure a long-term, not temporary, position.

>>16822785
>largely talking about PhDs in humanities, given my own experience.
This is the science and math board. Your PhD experience is completely irrelevant. Perhaps /lit/ is more your pace. Nobody's stem experience was like yours. You fags shouldn't even label your degrees as PhDs. Call them doctorates in humanities or something.

>>16822778
>going through books to tabularize them on an excel sheet will result in a quite impressive excel sheet
You're not a scientist. Gtfo my board

>>16822795
>>16822792
We can argue over whether or not computational linguistics is more sci or lit. It was definitely a humanities department at my place and I have major doubt that the average STEM experience really differs that much except by switching out books with repetitious lab assignments.

helo dr. help me pls i have a crack in my butt

>>16817690 (OP)
PhDs are basically unemployable in anything other than peanuts-wage postdocs because you are seen as overqualified but simultaneously don't have enough experience. I still did it to get the flex title but it was probably a mistake in hindsight

Can you do a PhD in a year?
Why the fuck is it supposed to take a bunch of years

>>16822842
Because it takes 6 months just to find 2 fuckwits to examine your work and then 3 more months to get them to "read" your thesis and make dumb as fuck corrections which show they actually skipped half of it

PhD is the highest degree you can get. This alone is sufficient to pursue it. It's like climbing a mountain.

I could barely scrape together a master. A PhD would be unthinkable. They should ban people like me, 110 IQ and below, from even attempting a master degree. 110 IQ is barely enough for a bachelor.

Obviously talking about the natural sciences and mathematics. Meme degrees dont count.

>>16822875
There's a study somewhere, also cited on this board, which shows that PhD holders have an average IQ barely above 105.

>>16817690 (OP)
>Higher earning potential
This is true but in practice a PhD is a net loss in expected career earnings.

>>16817690 (OP)
The title is cool but I don't want to be the sucker of some arrogant professor bringing him coffee and whipping his ass. not worth it imo

>>16817690 (OP)
I quit mine because I got completely demoralized.
>everyone treats you like shit the moment you go from paying tuition to being paid a stipend
>most phd students aren't actually autistic spergs like I had expected
>insane amount of DEI in US state colleges (scholarships and cabals exclusively for women and browns, clear gap in enrollment standards)
>95% of professors are disinterested assholes
>most of your "work" consists of juggling teaching drooling DEI retards (20% of students take up 80% of your time) and administrative bullshit like grant proposals
>nobody at conferences cares about the actual talks, it's all just a giant networking circus
>I've seen TWO PhD candidates fail to answer hs-tier questions directly pertaining to their theses at defense, but they still got passed because they were good goys to their PIs
>your "original research" isn't actually original but some trendy crap your PI assigns to you; anything original will get shot down by (((the reviewers))) because it won't get grants or something
>insane levels of segregated even within a particular department. You go from feeling like the entire university is a one big place to being confined to a group of at most 30 people whom you have to tolerate every day
>last but not least, the insane cronyism and nepotism when it comes to postdoc and professorship offers (google "spousal hires", yes that's a thing apparently)

>>16822796
>I have major doubt that the average STEM experience really differs that much except by switching out books with repetitious lab assignments.

>he doesn't know

>>16823442
Enlighten me, desu.

>>16817690 (OP)
>Why do you not want to get a PhD?
waste of time if you have to pay for it yourself. I worked with a lot of PhDs were not work the salary. Getting a PhD does not mean you actually know anything, or can do anything, it just allows weak people to feel better about themselves.

>>16822875
It's more about work ethic desu desu
>>16823188
>105
What about for real subjects though?

>>16817690 (OP)
Im about to start one. Got accepted to structured phd programm in engineering and materials science. Next 3 and a half years will be wild.

I've interacted with some people that have PHDs that were exceptionally, impressively competent and smart which is what I would expect, and I've interacted with others that made me question how they even got through an undergraduate. How do you explain incompetent and unintelligent people getting PHDs?

>>16825879
>How do you explain incompetent and unintelligent people getting PHDs?
A PhD is a measure of your ability to navigate normie social situations and your willingness to tolerate bullshit, not a measure of your intelligence or work ethic.

>>16817690 (OP)
I live in Russia, where a person who works in a store earns the same as a PhD candidate (800$-1000$ per month)

>>16825905
how do they even pass difficult technical exams though

>>16825910
Knowing enough to pass an exam isn't the same thing as fully internalizing the subject material. I have known plenty of PhD holders and PhD students who have forgotten basic concepts in their field.

>>16825905
>A PhD is a measure of your ability to navigate normie social situations and your willingness to tolerate bullshit, not a measure of your intelligence or work ethic.
Correct.

>>16825910
There is no such thing as a "difficult exam".

>>16825906
Бpyх

>>16825910
Those don't exist in all programs and the grades are basically made up.

I just want to be called doctor

I have a PhD in chemistry and make $140k/y doing synthesis

>>16823282
What field?

Guys I'm getting burnt out
I am a bioinformatician (code monkey) working as a research intern at the department of medical biochemistry as a PhD student. I love the data sci itself but for whatever fucking reason I havve to take these really hard exams in clinical chemistry. I can't fucking do it. I can't take this shit. How do I jump ship and get a job in industry? I have an internship planned at a company next year so I hope that works out. Academia is hell.

End of my blog

>>16823282
peer review is also busted. when you hear your PI and post-doc accurate guessing who reviewed your papers, and having a quick laugh about it over a beer when it's confirmed... how can you experience any emotion other than disgust?

>>16826742
HEP theory

>>16826788
Have you tried asking /utwg/ over at >>>/g/

>>16826788
>Guys I'm getting burnt out
That is perfectly normal, it was the same for me. You can still pull through. I have done a lot of exams through the years and I hated every single one of them.
I did it, you can do it too. So hang on in there, anon!

>>16826958
bruh

>>16822801
Go to witchdoctor, acquire coconuts

>>16817690 (OP)
> earning potential
kek
>>16822571
not necessarily, in many euro countries you can just work at a research institute while doing your PhD. teaching credits can be rubber stamped if you know the right people, I did just that. maybe 6 hours in total "teaching" (presenting shit at a seminar class)

>>16822614
>think a few (hundred) times before you commit.
what is there to think about? if you die without getting a PhD all the anons in purgatory will say you didn't beat the game

I joined the army instead

>>16822792
>>16822796
>>16823442
not any of the anons in this discussion but I think it's more about where you work and what part of the world you're in than the field itself

I'm about to defend my PhD in a fairly practical CS/engineering subfield, in Europe, and my experience has been a mix of both. A lot of technical work in huge ass EU-funded projects involving dozens of partners, where I was doing the actual conceptualization, experimental design, data collection and code monkeying myself. But also a fair bit of management, because I had to take on some students and engineers to delegate bits and pieces of the work, and we all had to contribute heavily to the boilerplate deliverables, participate in project meetings, etc. A couple years in I also started having to attend all kinds of schmoozing events to start looking for the next rounds of funding, giving buzzword-laden presentations and trying to tard wrangle groups of people from all over Europe to write a project proposal.

>>16829493
>where I was doing the actual conceptualization, experimental design, data collection and code monkeying myself
*in a single task or demonstrator. On paper the PI would be in charge but in practice I had to do all the technical work and write all the publications.

>>16829490
I am thinking about joining the army after getting my PhD

>>16829493
>deliverables
If you use corpospeak like that, your phd program was a glorified industry internship that has nothing to do with academia.

>>16829555
>fairly practical CS/engineering
you didn't need to read further to conclude he's a pseud. i stopped reading at this point and didn't even encounter the cancerous language like deliverable lmao

>>16829561
>>16829555
you do what your funders tell you to do.
>pseud
maybe, but then my field has funding and yours does not so win some lose some

>>16817749
Define "Contribute meaningfully"........I struggle to do so within the PhD realm (as well as many others) because technology can be used for good or evil......so the question before "contribute" is "Contribute to what exactly?"

>>16829555
NTA but if you are involved with these pan-European projects you also get sucked into the lingo. And the hilarious thing is that they talk big about deliverables but very little is delivered in the end. Or, when all is said and done, too much is said and little is done.

I applied to 100 PhDs and didn't hear back
>>16829869

>>16823282
Sort of similar to myself. I was also highly demoralized. This was back in 2015. I went to a state school for a PhD in physics and quit after one year. The first incident had to do with the physics GRE.
Not sure if it’s different now but back then the general wisdom was that you had to score above the fiftieth percentile to even go to grad school to in physics. I wasn’t a prodigy of anything and I definitely didn’t hit the 90th percentile benchmark needed for the big dogs like MIT, Caltech, etc. but I managed a 64th percentile. So imagine my surprise when halfway through my first semester a group of us are talking and three first year students admit that the scored in the <40th percentile.
The second thing that killed all of my drive was the difference in treatment between the domestic students and international students. Once again, not sure if it’s like this everywhere but all of the first year international students basically already had a master’s degree equivalent from their home country (in this case they were all Indian). The chair of our dept was also Indian and being a domestic student was basically like being a second class citizen. I distinctly recall being in Stat mech, which was being taught by the chair, and the preferential treatment was insane. I made the decision there to quit. The only thing I regret is not formally withdrawing. I just stopped showing up to class ( I did fulfill the rest of my TA duties).

>>16830274
If you're wealthy enough to apply to that many PhD programs then you're not the type to succeed in one

>>16830540
Do better man. I scored 20th percentile in my physics gre, went to a big state school where over half our PhD students were international and cheaters. Most of our faculty, including chair, were also foreign. I ended up with multiple scholarships and am one of the lucky 5% to end up as a professor at an R2. In case it's not clear, I'm white. Admittedly Jewish, but nobody would know that from my name.

>>16830544
My advisor was European and treated me like royalty, likely because he saw the corruption as well. Hooked me up with collaborators. Also tore his Chinese masters students new assholes until they quit the program.

>>16830544
Congrats on making it. I still have dreams to finish a PhD in mathematics but it’s not realistic.

>>16830544
You won because you are jewish and white.

>>16830544
Employ me as a PhD student maybe?

>>16830962
Kek I actually got hired at the peak of DEI against a brown candidate and a woman. To this day I wonder if the Jewish prof on the committee clocked me as one of his own.

>>16830989
DEI benefits Ashkenazis and white women the most. You were no victim in this story.

>>16830989
you will employ me.

Hint, I'm jewish.

>>16817690 (OP)
>not want to
A colleague of mine was offered a PhD study while in industry a a joint project with the local university but dropped it since she feared it would been seen as limiting her future choices. She was poorly adviced and this is a country without traditions for doing a PhD.

>>16830540
>I managed a 64th percentile
The real secret is that perseverance is more important than sheer brilliance.

I worked with a lot of PhDs in all kinds of fields. They were the most unproductive of anyone, including doing work related to their field of study. Its clear univerisities are just diploma mills selling degrees for student loans.

>>16834544
Why lie?

>>16833502
I was also offered a PhD and then rejected it. Now I can't get back to it.

>>16833502
Tell me you're living in Germany without telling me so.

>>16817690 (OP)
>>Higher earning potential
citation needed
>>Produce a novel contribution to your field
citation needed
>>Prove you can do research, problem solve etc which are valuable skills employers are looking for
citation needed

>>16817690 (OP)
I am, but i have been preocupied with doing actual research. Right now i'm a research fellow but with just an MSc. Apparently if you have papers and all you can get a PhD just by passing an exam, writing a dissertation and publishing some papers that get a set ammount of citations. So i'll get my PhD this way.

I quit cs for economics and I make 180k, stem is a joke, use math for real shit

>>16836175
You regret that

>>16835003
Did you have a stroke? I wrote
>and this is a country without traditions for doing a PhD
and Germany has long, long traditions for extensive academic studies including PhD (or dr.rer.nat etc.)
Obviously, I am far from Germany.

>>16817690 (OP)
Honestly, if I really want to do another five to six years of schooling, I'll just apply to med school instead. Otherwise I'm happy with a Masters.

I have heavy considerations for Systems Engineering or CS PhD but at the moment it would not serve my career all that much to get it. Plus like everyone else has said a PhD is 4-8 years and a Doctorate is 2-3 years. I might got with a Doctorate but i need to find a company who would pay for it.

>>16836901
I want curry with that.

>>16830540
Wait what the fuck, do Americans enroll in phd programmes without having a master's degree?

>>16837398
Technically yes. After your four-year bachelor program where you usually learn how to read and count to 10, you enter an often self-funded "PhD program" which is basically Master's + PhD but not offered separately because of certain legal caveats that enables colleges, universities etc. to suppress wages for postgraduate lab assistants since they count as having the technical capacity of an undergraudate as opposed to post-graduates which Master's already is. So if you're somewhat smart, you will either have a funded PhD program or you will get funds by the second or third year in your program so you won't have to borrow cash from the federal banks with interest rates around 7 or 8 %.

>>16837398
Its not required generally also you can get research jobs or professor jobs with just a Masters Degree but generally its skewed to PhD holders.

>>16837403
Self-funded STEM PhDs are a complete scam and not a thing in reputable schools in the US.

>>16837398
Our first two years of a PhD are equivalent to a master's via course load. High attrition rate and students often "master out" after three years. All it takes is filling out a form and you get your masters. Basically, we do masters as part of our PhD but don't usually get the degree.
>America: 5 year PhD
>Europe: 2 year master + 3 year PhD
It's the same

>>16837429
>an not a thing in reputable schools in the US.
I've been told otherwise but It's common enough for acuckemians to deny and normalize grave and systemic problems in acuckemia like freely making up data, industrial funding, pay-to-publish journals, nepotism, academic DEI crap which, in the USA, basically functions as a way to keep jews in, latinos/blacks down and whites out. Don't mind me saying that the wholy ivy league shit is basically just a big hedgefund with a massively overhyped academic apparatus next to it where you basically pay for connections and not for the standard education there.

>>16837451
>told otherwise
By whom? I've been in academia for decades. First I'm hearing about this. Know why? You're making it up. Or parroting shit someone else made up to you.

>>16837463
>making up data
Is an issue
>industrial funding
Is a thing. Not necessarily bad.
>pay to publish journals
Well, you can claim they don't exist but that's wrong.
>Nepotism
Nuh uh. Can't be true cuzz.. uh I'm in academia (and probably profiting of it.)
>academic DEI crap
You... you're... a nazi!

>>16837476
You said you've been told something. I asked you by whom. Not one of your lines of text answer this question.

The most likely outcome (if you're American) is that you slave away for a prof for 5 years and get shit out the other end loaded with debt and career prospects which are only slightly better than with a bachelors. Again, this is the most likely outcome.

>>16837579
I'm sorry, anon.
I won't simply dox people. Needless to say, I'm talking about a couple of docs and postdocs.

>Molecular Biologist
>Very good at theory and data analysis
>suck at the lab
No PhD for me

>>16839818
Apply to the worst university you can, even if you have to move to do it.

>>16839826
I don't really feel like doing a shitty PhD in something i'm not really good at just to get those three letters after my name.
My former internship supervisors won't write a letter of recommendation for me anyway since my lab work was too shit (though they were very impressed with my literature studies and the theoretical parts of the internships)

>>16839831
And that is why no one will remember your name.

>>16839843
True
but let's be honest, most people with PhD's won't be remembered either

>>16839845
at least they'd remember the three letters after your name if you did it.

>>16817690 (OP)
>valuable skills employers are looking for
lol