The Best Reasons I Know for NOT Going to Graduate School
As I mentioned in my last post, I am considering going to graduate school to get my doctorate in astronomy. I have been working in the field for fifteen years and while I have been quite satisfied, I am reaching the pinnacle of achievement on my particular career path.
Going for an advanced degree is something I have always wanted to do, but felt that, for a variety of reasons (impatience to get started in science, needing to support my family, really sick of doing problem sets and sitting in a classroom), I decided not to continue on to graduate school after obtaining my B.A.
When considering my decision on whether to get a PhD, I asked many of my mentors for advice. Astronomers who had been working for over 20 years had very important insights into the issue. They were able to tell me the mistakes they made, what they would do differently if given the chance, and what went right. These discussions were invaluable in helping me make up my mind about whether an advanced degree was for me.
I had also had a chance to watch people, newly minted PhD’s, enter their new job either as postdocs or new scientists on a tenure track. I was able to see what they were up against, the stresses they were under, and in many cases I talked with them to ask them if it was worth it.
Based on these observations and discussions, I have compiled a short list of reasons why you should never, ever get an advanced degree.
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Reasons Not to Get a PhD
- Prestige. An advanced degree, on its own, will NOT make you remarkable. Sure, you may get a little extra “wow” from people you meet off the street when you tell them you have a PhD, but that is superficial. I know many excellent people who have contributed greatly to science, particularly astronomy, with nothing more than a bachelor’s degree, or even no degree at all. They’ve written papers, designed instrumentation, and made valuable observations. Remarkable people do remarkable things with the intelligence they were born with, they understand intuitively that it’s what you do that’s important, not what’s hanging on the wall. Alternatively, I know MANY people with PhD’s who do no good science whatsoever, they simply take up space, living one day to the next. and never doing anything once they’ve published their doctoral thesis.
- Money. In the short term, immediately after getting the degree, money is still not going to be pouring in. As for myself, an associate scientist (a non-tenure track, non-phd position) with programming skills, I make way more than a postdoc and even many tenure track professors and scientists just starting out. Over the long haul, and depending on the career of the person, that will change after about ten years or so. Still, in addition to being an associate scientist, I work as a programming consultant and with the addition of that income, I make more than many senior scientists I know. Don’t get a degree for the money.
- Stress. Tenure track scientists are under enormous pressures, pressures that don’t exist for ’support’ or technical people. In addition to the ‘publish or perish’ stuff, they also have to serve on committees, supervise projects, apply for funding and write an obscene number of proposals, peer-review papers, chair conference panels, organize workshops, and then, if there is time, do research.
- Pigeon-holing. I know this one is a little strange, but it’s something I’ve noticed with a few senior scientists who were unhappy. Early in their life, usually as a grad student, many people get started in a line of research by accident. I was astonished to hear how some people picked their area of research. The subject they would ultimately study their whole life, was picked, well… because… that’s what their advisor was working on at the time. WHAT? In a not insignificant number of people I know, they went into their life’s work out of convenience, it was what was going on at the time. I guess that’s ok if you’re happy and interested in the work, but many senior scientists spent their entire careers working on something that bored them or they had lost interest in years ago and they couldn’t change because they had too much invested. So remember, once you embark on a course of study, a lot of momentum is built up. It isn’t trivial to switch courses in mid-stream, science is becoming so specialized and requires years of intense, specialized study just to be able to contribute, you’d better be careful what you pick because you’re likely to be stuck with it for the rest of your life.
The above list is based on my experiences and talking with lots of my friends and colleagues. Please feel free to interject your experiences and opinions in the comments, I’d love to hear them.
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