Except for those who got their PhDs in Data Science or Computer Science, everyone else with a PhD (that I know) seems to be struggling financially. Recently, I heard that it's common for folks in biology to do a postdoc for more than 5 years (40k$ yearly salary, no benefits). They also seem to be all stuck in a cycle of poverty and being too specialized. Increasingly, PhD students are foreigners as Americans dont want to waste away their lives. So, is it a waste of time to do a PhD in a non-CS field?
A friend of mine has a PhD in math. She is one of the smartest people I know (in her field). She can barely afford food.
Depends on what you want to do. If you want to have a research career, a PhD is a must in academia and highly preferred in the industry.
In the industry I have witnessed candidates with PhD rejected as overqualified... PS not at G
G likes PhD
My group is ~85% non-CS PhDs
We invent chat and gossip tools and are considered more valuable than any other professionals.
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Education can never be a waste of time. Stop tagging $ amount with everything.. collecting food stamps after defending..seriously dude!!!!
I’m sorry you find this incredible. Doesn’t make it any less true. Look on the web for articles about adjunct faculty living out of their cars and hooking to survive. While I agree we “should” value education the sad fact is we don’t in practice.
No, it is not a waste of time. If your only goal in life is to maximize your TC by the time you die, it might be though
Fuck this people. What’s wrong with you? Education is never a waste of time. You can’t measure everything by money. Tech is the new Wall Street, the only difference is that people in tech is more ugly and nerdy
I appreciate the sentiment, but someone thinking of going into a phd does need to at the least acknowledge the hard reality (see below).
1. Phd has “intrinsic value”, in terms of dedication and focused work on a specialised topic, potential benefit to humanity, and the furthering of the Search for Truth. 2. Phd has little economic value in terms of earnings potential, in fact it may have negative value in terms of lost earnings, lock-in into an economically unviable specialization, and exclusion from many jobs aka “overqualified”. 3. The cost we ask people to pay in exchange for wanting to follow their dreams is unreasonably unacceptably high, and yes there are thousands of phds in hard sciences living in penury hoping for a permanent position that they may likely never get, and thousands of people in soft sciences/arts in teaching positions that barely feed them, homeless, etc. These three statements are simultaneously factually true (well the first one is more of an opinion), and belief in one of them does not make the others go away. Source: I have a phd and over a decade of experience interacting extensively with phds of all stripes.
To put the third point more bluntly, people are following dreams that do not exist. Tenure track jobs are few and far between. Academia will happily exploit you till you die or quit. There is a production glut far beyond current sustainability. Fields outside of computer science rarely get money, and humanities almost never. The earlier potential students understand this and step out of denial the better for their own sanity and happiness.
Yes these days Data Science aka the Great Savior is an umbrella under which noncs phds are being rehabilitated—Silicon Valley is littered with institutions and companies explicitly selling this rehab. It does bring in a great deal of intellectual and experiential diversity into the workplace, but that workplace is a far sad ashen cry away from what those folks originally set out to do or were trained for, and from an individual perspective it seems like an overly complicated and expensive way of reaching that workplace. Also good luck becoming a data scientist with a degree in history or comparative literature.
I recommend checking a movie called "Piled high and deeper" (PhD)
If your passion is academia, then a PhD is mandatory