I’m turning 26. Thinking of a PhD in CS in a non-ML field (systems/networks/security). Assuming I can get into a top 10 school (not guaranteed, but I have a masters from a top 4 school in this field - may help). Primary drivers:
1. Personal growth: not working on small features, but big problems. Research is more fun than industry in general. These may be the sharpest years of my life - so better to do it now. Although I don’t want to go into academia.
2. Career growth: Increasingly I see very top level positions in technical leadership to have PhDs. I understand it’s not a requirement.
3. Entrepreneurship - obviously a PhD is not needed for this, but I see this increasingly as a trend in this domain. I think I’m more likely to engage in this in a PhD program than working on a visa in bay area at a large company 🙃
4. Immigration: PhD doesn’t guarantee immigration, but it can help, especially if I do it from a good place and do well. (because of my nationality, I have no realistic chance of getting a green card in my life time) — this is a minor reason, but it is there.
Looking for some advice or constructive feedback from people who did and didn’t go down this path
Potential cons I see are:
1. Lost tc short term
2. Mental health (PhD can be frustrating, uncertain)
3. Possible no impact on career - I already work this folks who have PhDs lol
4. Age: If start when I’m 27, I’ll be 32-33 when I finish.
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comments
If you don't want to go into academia (not even have an ambition to), PhD is the worst thing to do. You really need to introspect hard why you want a PhD.
@asshole! Given how things turned out, would you do it again?
As I said my biggest reason is how one have more freedom to pursue rather large and creative problems, rather than work on smallish enhancements to an existing code base at a large co.
But that’s also because I started with a lot of personal issues that required a lot of independent thinking and free time to make sense of. If I had directly worked in a corporate, I would grow old very quickly completely starved of any sense of clarity about myself and my capabilities that comes from deep introspection and free thinking.
But now I feel bad because many people who didn’t do PhD are 1-2 levels higher than me at the same or even younger age.
So it’s a mixed bag. But overall, answer is yes. As Steve Jobs said you can’t connect the dots going forward, you have to let your intuition be the guiding force. I hope there will be a point in future where I will see very clear material benefits as well that will come from all the meta learnings that I had in PhD.
But then again Steve Jobs never finished a degree.. so whatever 🤷♂️
But oracle here is a sore loser with nothing going on in his life. He is one of those people with such IQ levels that believe that Eiffel Tower doesn’t exist because they have never seen it lol 😂
Here is my take on it:
1. Money/yoe/promo etc - you will lose a lot of time if you come back to SWE. If you go to research such as academia or research scientist positions, you will still lose time, but it wouldn’t feel that way because you couldn’t get there anyway without a PhD.
But if you become a SWE after that, you will definitely feel the burn. Especially if you compare against people who are doing well, as they will be most likely younger than you and 1-2 levels higher. In established companies, no matter What you do you can’t catch up very quickly, and comparatively may never be able to catch up as some of them will keep growing as well.
2. Unless you go into a clearly marked research field/position, the only benefits of PhD are basically your meta level learnings. You will learn traits like resilience, independence, starting on a problem from first principles, critical thinking, creativity, ingenuity, technical writing, presenting and selling ideas.
All these are assumptions based on a good PhD ( my PhD won university level award ).
Now the catch is that you will see many people in industry have learnt the same but in much less time, like 1-2 years and now they are ahead of you 🤷♂️
But then some people got stuck in the industry and didn’t learn anything.
So in short, PhD from a good school is very likely to teach you these very useful skills. But when you come out and join the industry, you will be behind many people who got the same skills in industry while also making money and getting promoted. But you will be ahead of people who got stuck or never developed these skills.
It’s upto you if you see glass half full or glass half empty.