PhD at 40 for green card ?
I am on H1B and wife suggested I enroll in a computer science program for PhD so we can get green card earlier than current wait of 125 years. My priority date is oct 2017 and currently working as security engineer. Does this sound like a good idea? I have no idea what getting PhD entails and how difficult it would be. P:S we have son on the spectrum YOE : 12 TC: 140
Ask your wife to do the PhD
She is busy with managing her work plus my sons everything. I have a masters degree but she has her bachelors. She says - you like to study anyways so a PhD won’t be hard for you.
You can also get busy caring for your son. He’s yours too
It may or may not be worth to do PhD. You don’t know how immigration rules will change is 4 years from now. Just earn good paycheck and look for big companies who will continue to do visa processing or will try relocating internationally in case of issues.
PhD has been a direct EB1 since a long time. I assume it will stay this way. I recently had offers from some multinationals, will join one in a few weeks. Deciding on which one.
I would like to point out that PhD is not a direct sure-shot route to EB1. Please know this before you commit to it.
For EB1, you will need high quality research to get the required international citations and recommendations . A part time PHD won’t be enough.
i got mine with an eb2
OP, I presume you are aiming for the EB1 (outstanding reasercher) category with a PhD. Just a word of caution - I have seen many otherwise accomplished PhD graduates not meeting the bar for EB1. So, just having a PhD on your CV does not help. You need to have a certain number of citations for your peer-reviewd articles, among other criteria. The exact number of citations needed isn't specified anywhere but 100 is assumed to be a safe bet for EB1B (employer sponsored, the self sponsored option EB1A has a higher bar). The citations bar can be particularly hard to plan for. Also, if you meet the citations bar, you could file a EB1B with a Masters too. I have seen a case like this.
We were not aware of this. I will research more on this. Please feel free to share more info around masters cases for EB1 or where should I look. Thanks.
The Masters EB1B applicant is a friend of mine. She started out by writing a survey paper on a particularly hot research topic in Machine Learning. Surveys tend to pick up citations faster. If you can find a PhD student or a work colleague who might be interested in collaborating on a survey paper, that might be a good start. For my friend, one survey paper did the trick for citations. She had 5 more papers from earlier - they did not have many citations, but they serve as extra evidence for your research potential. So if you go this route make sure you collaborate on some other ideas on the side as well.
EB1A is not guaranteed with just a PhD. You need to go for post doc, have a lot of papers published in your name and be highly qualified in your field. Try the EB5 route or even EB1C
Don’t do a PhD unless you are strongly interested in a specific research area. Otherwise you will burn out and likely leave. You will need to be happy with it for the next 5-7 years. If you want to do it, make sure to have specific advisors in mind and talk to people in the field to see which advisors are good to their students.
I have no academic contacts in US but will connect to students / professors and look up some forums.
Was going to say this but this person has said it pretty well. I know tons of PhDs from many fields who got into the field because they were truly passionate about research in that field. But almost all of them wish they didn't do it. You need to re-examine your motivations. A PhD is not like regular school where you just study. Be 100% sure of what you will be getting yourself into. All the best.
BAD idea. Going for a PhD when having to ask “what’s PhD like” is like seeing a random girl in a bar and saying I’m marrying her.
Good analogy. I could get a green card that way if I were single. 😛
Why do you want to come to us so much?
He mentioned that his son's therapy is a major factor. Makes sense to me. All the best OP
Also, getting a PhD in ML is really good career investment at this point, green card or not. If you end up joining a PhD program, do it in ML. The industry doesn't have enough of them.
Would you recommend doing a phd in ML to a 21 year old without research experience but a keen interest in CV?
It certainly has benefits in the long run. So from that standpoint, yes. But, I do want to point out that it is going to require commitment for 5-6 years. You will have stressful times, will be underpaid etc. So make sure you have the will to endure it, but it is a good investment, in my opinion.
Why not look into immigration into Canada? Your TC seems fairly easy to replicate there and you won’t have to spend ages getting another degree.
We received Canadian PR a few months ago. My son receives therapy 7 hours a day here. We can not go to Canada because sons therapy wait times are crazy in Canada.
Damn okay. That’s unfortunate.