I am 3 years into a PhD program at a top North American university in STEM. My daily routine includes working on my research and preparing for courses I am assisting. In general, I would say that there is always work to keep me motivated. I have a good relationship with my supervisor. However, I don't feel valued by my department.
Recently an undergrad in one of my class had a chat with me about deciding on pursuing grad school. He asked me about my research and the courses that I took. I felt that he wasn't very impressed, as he was more industry-oriented and failed to see how real analysis can help anyone.
He then asked me couple things which left me even more self-conscious
- I wish to go to graduate school, but I also fear that I will miss out opportunities to make hundreds of thousands of dollar per year working in industry. I also wish to be financially independent and have an early retirement. Can doing a PhD for five years offer this reality?
I had really no answer to this question, as I am in constant doubts myself over the rising opportunity cost of doing a PhD. There is a part of me that beckons me to leave academia immediately. It tells me that I could do so much better, be more free only if I had made the choice after I graduated with my Bachelors. Only if I knew how little I would be paid compared to my peers.
- Programming and software development are highly valued skills in industry. Almost all jobs nowadays requires some form of it. Do you think your degree has prepared you to be competent in these areas?
I cannot say yes to this question either. I do use programming every now and then, but I am in no way comparable to a person who works solely in this field. It does seem that programming skill seems to be the only skill that employers value, a litmus or IQ test for a world of graduate students with questionable credentials. Even newly minted PhDs are directly sent to software developments, albeit more specialized. No, a graduate degree has not prepared me to be a competent coder, the one skill that would make transition from academia to industry so much more smoother.
- Do you believe in the theory and methodology you are developing? How do you know that your model can be used by actual people, like the products people develop in industry?
I cannot answer this question either. All the techniques, theories I developed seemed to only produce more techniques and theories. None of which I can see or use to directly benefit anyone. That is not to say they are bad for publishing paper. In fact I feel that they might be too good for this narrow purpose, and I have lost sight in what excited me about research in the first place: the potential to have real-life impact on real actual people. No, I do not believe in my own research, or that of anyone else who are working in my department, aside from the few people who are doing it along with industry.
- What do you do when you are not working on your research?
I paused for a second. I don't know what I am doing besides research and teaching assistance duties. While my peers on instagram or facebook are traveling all around the world, visiting new places, I am bound to my institution. I cannot leave it for there is always more work. It is like a full-time job except that it is from 9 in the morning to 9 in the evening, occupying weekends, holidays, and all the moments I could have spent with my loved ones. Have I made the wrong decision?
This conversation compounded on a few more I had in the past few weeks with fellow graduate students after the semester started to wind down. Each of them displayed pessimism over the rising cost of living, and missed opportunities. Yet they still have faith in their (however abstract) research, which I feel like act as more of a distraction than anything else.
I wonder if this is the start of a long descent towards regretting my PhD all together. I am really starting to feel that a PhD is a punishment towards my lack of conviction in my studies, or me being unable to develop a passion for something. "If only I was solely interested in anti-jamming self-packing oscillators! maybe I could have been working for the oscillator company and making bank! How do these people get interested in this esoteric thing?"
Am I even better than an undergrad student in any way?
Every day I wake up telling myself that the grass only looks greener on the other side, and I can't really tell if I could have been happier in industry. But there is always the lingering thought of what could have been.
Has anyone ever had these thoughts at some stage of their PhD career?
Is there any way to renew my faith in my PhD degree?
Answer
Oh man, where does one begin...
I am half-way in to my second postdoc at what I consider to be the best research facility in Northern Europe in my field. So take my advice as such, although where you work does not say so much about you, as one might think.
How do I gain back my faith in my PhD degree?
Short answer: you don't, as long as you are in status quo. If something changes by an act of serendipity, maybe you do..
Longer answer: you might regain some faith, by reframing your reference point. In other words, change your expectations and your feelings might change as well.
Regarding the questions the student asked you:
- If optimizing your overall income is a primary concern, don't bother with a PhD. Yes, there are cases where having a phd might pay off by making a high-paid job available, but cumulative work experience, raises as well as the confidence and training you get on job will likely end up as a bigger plus.
... wish to be financially independent and have an early retirement. Can doing a PhD for five years offer this reality?
There is certainly no reason to panic if financial independency is what you are striving towards, though. I have been financially independent from my family/loans the entirety of my graduate studies, and even managed to save enough money to get a mortgage loan to buy myself an apartment (small but more than decent) while I was a PhD student.
That might be more of a statement of which country you live in (e.g. Sweden vs USA) or which city you want to do pursue graduate studies (e.g. San Francisco vs San Diego). The point is that you do make a living, you are not an undergrad anymore.
Don't even get started with pension subject, that stuff is too complicated. Practically unless you are making a stupendous salary or some wicked investment decisions there is no guaranteed early and relaxed retirement. As populations get older on average, and indirectly their costs to the society increase, the pension systems will have to undergo a significant restructuring, and I for one am expecting that to create some very heated debates and go down not so easily.
Bottomline: Do a PhD if the subject interests you deeply, or if you think you will be gaining a skill that is highly valued in industry. I am working with bioinformatics, and if I want to get a job in this field, without a PhD you are not really respected. I have some friends that have done PhDs in economics, which were highly valued and allowed them to land jobs they would have otherwise. That may not translate to every field however.
- Doing a PhD is not an education that prepares you for a profession. It's an academic degree not a professional one. You need to keep that in mind. Actually, write it on a post-it, put on your mirror at home and repeat it to yourself everyday. Twice, if you can, in the morning and evening when you brush your teeth...
It's so easy to lose track of that insight. Doing a PhD is education to become an academic, to think critically, to be able to read and teach (to some degree at least). You will get to be a better critique of others' work and your own. You will get training on reading and writing. You will most likely face the boundaries of your intellectual capabilities. But no it does not directly imply you will be better at a job, unless that job is specifically related to the things I mentioned above.
Do you think your degree has prepared you to be competent in these areas?
No, a graduate degree has not prepared me to be a competent coder, the one skill that would make transition from academia to industry so much more smoother.
No, it shouldn't either. That's why there are certificate programs, and bootcamps, Coursera and Khan Academy, and software carpentry etc etc.
However, did you stop to consider that doing a PhD might have you working on an actual problem, to which you get to design a novel algorithm to solve that problem, or to improve the solution? Or maybe a new protocol for networking/encryption etc? Having some specialized experience might make you an indispensable profile for a company looking for expertise in that field. But no by default, graduate studies do not make you a better professional.
- Re: relevance
How do you know that your model can be used by actual people, like the products people develop in industry?
In most cases, you don't! At least not for sure... You can look at citations of your papers, although even that can be misleading as people cite other papers for many different reasons. I actually asked a question somewhat related to this a while back...
In some, rare, cases you might end up doing something that changes the landscape of the field; like writing a software that becomes the de facto gold standard for a particular type of analysis. You might come up with a technique or a protocol that is used by others. Or you might even stumble on some key result, by sheer luck.
More likely, you will provide incremental additions of knowledge into an ocean, most of which will go unnoticed, at least initially. If that bothers you, that is OK. It bothers me too, and I do consider my position in academia as well. But that should not cause you any despair. It only shows that you want to be proud of your work and get the acknowledgement you deserve. Unfortunately we don't always get what we want.
- Re:Comparing yourself to the others especially on social media
While my peers on instagram or facebook are traveling all around the world, visiting new places...
Stop! Social media is literally designed to create that feeling. At the end of the day, you never know who goes home to cry about their day, no matter how amazing their Instagram photos may look, or how much "fun" they are having wherever they may be.
For many people their life online, or at least they portray their life online, has become their identity. There are many people who have analyzed this in great detail. I especially like this article (go ahead and listen to the talk in its entirety). Also read about online influencers (here's a starting point).
Edit: As @FrankHopkins pointed out in the comments, doing a PhD might actually take you to many exciting places for conferences or courses. I have been to a number of really cool places, most of which I would either not bother traveling on my own or would be able to afford at the time :)
Overall my answer(s) might appear very dystopian. But I would rather say realistic, and in any case, they are based on my experience.
I'd like to wrap it up on a positive tone, with hopefully concrete steps to help you find your way around, because ultimately, nobody can tell you if you have taken the right decision.
Here are some concrete steps I can suggest for you to feel a bit better:
Get a mentor! Someone at least 10 years your senior and ideally someone who has a life story that resembles your own. Of course finding a good match might be tricky but check whether or not there is a mentorship program provided by your university/faculty/student council etc.
Listen to that person's story, but make sure you don't fall into tutor-student relationship. How did s/he take the critical decisions in his/her life? What was valuable to them at that time, and how did that turn out later? How does the person define success?
Speaking of success, try to think real hard about what you define success to be. It's great to make lots of money, or have an h-index in the 100s but it's really not the whole picture. You might end up working yourself to the bone and still not be happy/successful enough. As a rule of thumb, I'd recommend avoiding taking anything quantifiable as a measure of success because anything that goes to n also goes to n+1.
Don't let others dictate your mindset, whether they are your peers or seniors. There is a lot of "fake it 'till you make it" out there.
Try to see where you make/made a difference. That could be helping a peer solve their problem, going to a meeting instead of your boss so that he can go take his/her sick kid from daycare. That could be helping a student in a lab, or writing to a fellow academic on the other side of the world, to help him/her sort out the mess that is a life in academia. ;)
Hope it helps!
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