I like doing pre-task research, it is fun busy-work that gives me the illusion of being productive 😉
So, for the past while I’ve been prepping for PhDness with google searches, reading other blogs and personal admin like clearing off the archivable undergrad stuff from my machine and setting up my bibliography software.
I’m covering some of the results of my searches here. And my word, some of them are just mightily depressing.
Should I go to graduate school?
Short answer: no.
Long answer: maybe, but only if you have some glimmering of what you are about to do to yourself.
So sayith http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/tburke1/gradschool.html
Or how about:
I started to feel that I was never going to be able to produce work that I was going to be happy with – that I was never going to find the answers that I was looking for. Then followed a few months of highly self-destructive behaviour when I felt that I was starting to fail, followed by a few months of anti-depressants and then the final realisation that if I was going to complete my work it would take me years of penury and misery and that I was likely to have problems finding any kind of employment afterwards. And then the realisation that I no longer had faith that the work I was producing would have any kind of impact or be taken in any way seriously. And that’s when I decided to quit.
from http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2004/07/what_you_should_know_before_starting_a_doctorate/
Or indeed:
Why? Completing a Ph.D. is a long, hard road with many potholes and washed out bridges along the way. You may run over some land mines and have to stop and turn around and explore other routes. If the goal is important enough to you, then these obstacles will not prevent you from completing your journey. But if you don’t know why you are on this road, then you will get discouraged and will probably leave without finishing, having wasted years of your life.
which is quoted from http://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/hitch4.html which ends pro-PhD and any new PhD students should go read it. Now. But come back afterwards.
Wasting years of life for nothing. Hating the job you get up to do each morning. Losing touch with friends and neglecting your family. Loneliness. Complete loss of motivation. Isolation. Loneliness. Feeling left behind your peers as they spend their parallel years climbing ladders, earning wages or setting up their own businesses. Graduating and then being overqualified for jobs.
Ugh, the list goes on, and it is a doleful selection. But I think it is really important to know the downsides of a PhD before starting, so you can mitigate and/or accept them. The ones I am particularly struggling with:
- A PhD is unlikely to get me much more money long term than a Masters. The three years of stipend compared to peers’ wages sets me back a long way at the start, and I’m unlikely to ever really catch up. If Russell does the PhDÂ too, then neither of us are going to be earning much anytime soon. I envisage us starting a family after PhDs, so that will then knockout my earning power for a while too.
- A PhD is not a toolbox degree like a BSc or a MSc, i.e. one you use to get on in life and get “any” job. A PhD is a career choice. Starting a PhD is saying “I want a career in academia”. A BSc will open doors, a PhD open a few obscure, interesting doors but will close most of the ones opened by B/MSc.
- I am comforted by the fact that I can stop after my mini thesis and graduate with a MPhil. I would not enter a PhD programme if the MPhil was not an option I could take.
- Isolation and Loneliness scare me, and if I were to predict the main challenge that I am going to face, loneliness will be it. I don’t know how to deal with it yet and that terrifies me. I hope to learn and share ideas in the future.
So, there are lots of downsides to be aware of, but being aware of them is the first step to dealing with them. Knowing your own answer to the Big Question, “Why do you want to do a PhD?” will help.
What are, or, have been, your biggest challenges in your PhD? How did you cope? What other downsides should people be aware of? Let me know in the comments.