Speaking as someone who has been seduced into academia on multiple occasions by my friends who are professors: They are hopeless optimists. This is not their fault. Indeed, it is a precondition for their existence: just as you would not be surprised to find that most of the creatures sitting on top of a high crag have wings and can fly, you should not be surprised that most professors, and especially most tenured professors, are completely besotted with their lifestyle and can barely conceive of anything else. Darwin has seen to this. The academic environment is all about selection pressure.

For example, this essay is by a particularly self-aware and wry professor, so he's able to joke that "getting a PhD costs you a house". But self-critics don't last long if they go for the jugular, so he doesn't point out that, if you wish to continue doing research after your PhD, it's going to cost you another house, and another: Postdocs pay better than graduate fellowships, but still only half what industry pays, if that, and even less if you calculate the hourly rate. And then to go any further you will need to start writing grants, and administering students, none of which is exactly research. Then you probably won't get to keep your job writing grants because it's hard to get the grants, and hard to get tenure... [1]

So, take this fellow's advice to heart, but be sure to also have a beer with a real cynic before spending fifteen years in pursuit of academic nirvana.

---

[1] I never studied CS, so maybe the grass is greener over there and CS is some kind of abundant academic paradise where grants flow like water. But I kind of doubt it.

Re: your footnote, the exact comparison would depend on what field you're looking over from, but no, grants don't flow like water in CS.

In fact, there's been some discussion lately that CS reviewers are overly critical of each others' articles and grant proposals, compared to other fields. For example, in a recent editor's note[1], Moshe Vardi coined the term "Hypercriticality" to describe the harshness of CS reviews. There's a great quote from Ed Lazowska, who called it "Circling the wagons and shooting inwards".

[1] http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2010/7/95070-hypercriticality/...

Can't stress this enough. A lot of people do grad school just because they didn't like a string of jobs they had, think they need more training to switch to a certain specialty, or even just because they're still basically searching for what they want to do in life. Those are all excellent questions to ask yourself before taking another job, and also excellent ways to go into grad school with exactly the wrong attitude and become a huge dropout risk.

I got lucky and learned all this without having to go to grad school. My first job out of college was at my college because I turned my undergrad job into a fulltime role and the grad students were the only other people on that part of campus that were close to my age. The biggest difference between the ones that enjoyed the experience and those that didn't even make it to the end was that the dropouts still didn't know exactly what they wanted to do in life, so they thought they'd try research only to get chewed up and spat out by tenure-starved associate professors.

One of them is more interested in teaching, and he wants to have the relaxed atmosphere of a lower university so that he can spend his free time (including whole summers) on his music, which is his true passion. The other one is a pretty involved family man, and he wants a laid back, relaxed job with some academic freedom to do interesting things and the ability to spend a lot more time with his family than a normal job would offer.

They're both midwestern folk, and are happy living in relatively rural areas in states that I suspect most HN users wouldn't dream of living in.

For some reason, the high powered paper-excreting types tend to look down on this approach or at the very least completely overlook it. I don't quite understand why.

While "regular" universities are mostly research oriented, "universities of applied sciences" have only a small bit of a professor's time allocated to research. Most of their time is spent giving lectures, preparing material, managing student projects and talking to people from the industry about possible collaborations.

Both universities have bachelors + masters degrees. PhDs are usually only available at the "regular" universities, not the "applied science" ones.

I actually think that being a professor at one of the universities of applied sciences must be a fun job. You get to read about new stuff, play with it and teach students. From time to time, there is a small research project or a conference you can go to...

Something interesting, at least at my university (an applied sciences one) is, that one of the prerequisites for being a Professor are at least ?6? years in the industry. I was part (the student rep) of a commission that selected a new professor. They're basically looking for a Senior Project Manager from a research and development department that is fed up with the way the industry works and loves his craft (this was in CS)

So yes being "just" a great teacher is a worthy goal on its own.

Even if you don't discover anything new.

I had other reasons for dropping out and have sometimes considered the above to be just a bad justification for a bad decision, but more and more I think that whatever my true reasons, it was a valid reason and a good decision. It would have weighed me down knowing that I was actually pretty bad at my primary productive role in society.

In fact just the other day HN linked an article by Matt Might who cited "aiming low" as one of the reasons PhD students fail.

He might be referring to more work for an MS Comps, which is the non-thesis Master's. Instead of writing a thesis (which counts as 6 credit hours) you have to take 30 credit hours worth of classes, and half of those classes must be "MS Comps," where at least 50% of your grade in a class (at least here at UMD) must come from exams. I am doing a thesis-based Master's, so I guess you could say I am able to take all my classes just as a PhD student would - in that in most classes there is a research project due at the end of the semester on a topic of your choosing. This allows you to shape the course to your liking and interests.

For me, being a Master's student has afforded me just as many research opportunities as a PhD student; I just won't be here as long.

For the universities I applied to, you are still required to take classes in the PhD program. Even if you already have your Master's and decide to go for a PhD at another university, your class credits may not transfer (in fact, I was told at a graduate visit day at UMD that they don't accept credit from MS programs other than their own), so you might even have to do the required coursework all over again while going for your PhD.

Personally, I was able to find a graduate research assistantship my first semester here at UMD, whereas most of the incoming PhD students are in teaching assistantships. I feel like I'm getting a good taste of how research/the PhD program.

  >> I was told at a graduate visit day at UMD that they don't accept credit from MS programs other than their own

I know lots of people (probably most) that get their Master's at a different place than their BS, but don't know any that got a PhD at a different place than their Master's - maybe because as you say the barriers to moving are too high. People that aren't happy where they got their Master's don't get a PhD at all.

(My experience is with the U.S. system)

Any university is going to require you to get credit for, e.g., some introductory computer science sequence (CS1, CS2) to get a bachelors in CS. However, universities vary a great deal in whether they (a) require a particular AP score, (b) require you to take a local test to prove your knowledge, or (c) whether you can just talk to someone and convince them you know the material.

The difference at the PhD level is that in many cases, incoming students have the equivalent of ten undergraduate and graduate courses in the sub-area, rather than one or two. This means that students at less curriculum-oriented universities can largely avoid taking classes, even though classes are "required." People are mostly fine with this because the thesis is usually a much higher bar than core curriculum competency anyway.

A few things I should point out: 1) You can finish in 4 years. I did. You just have to be organized and not allow your advisor define your pace. I finished ahead of some of my undergrad peers who went straight through. They waited for their advisors to tell them when they were ready. 2) I did my PhD mainly because I wanted the challenge. Life isn't just about money. I had fun doing it, I learned a lot about myself and my field, and I'd do it again. 3) The payoff isn't just the credential. Having done it, I am no longer intimidated by things I don't know how to do. 4) This quote is silly: "Once you have a PhD -- and even during the process of getting one -- you are able to be your own boss. Rather than working on someone else's vision, you are the one to define the vision" You don't need a PhD to be your own boss, and getting a PhD is not a ticket to being your own boss. That quote leads me to think the author doesn't have much of a clue about the world outside academia.

This suprised me. It is what I did, as well as several other people in my year. The difference in maturity and competency between the people who have worked in industry and those who haven't is night and day. In my experience, people who have spent time in industry are much stronger PhD candidates.

I suspect PhD -> work is better, since the 2 years of industry experience will probably be at a higher level.

Secondly a PhD is really an apprenticeship to be an academic. A PhD who is not on that track needs to have a good story as to why.

Starting in industry after a PhD doesn't put you any higher on the ladder than a fresh BSc graduate.

Where you enter the industrial career ladder depends mostly on the kind of experience you would get in industry, but you can get that kind of experience in a PhD program, too, possibly much faster. If you work on a large software project, collaborate with other people on software projects, plan and execute programming tasks, make presentations, and teach undergrads, you'll be hired well above the level a good fresh graduate would. Your initial position will reflect some conservative doubt about the quality of your experience and how well you will adapt to the "real world," as we rather unfairly like to put it ;-) but it will still be a significantly higher and better-paid position than a fresh grad would get, and you'll be prepared to move up quickly to a senior position. Of course, the depth of knowledge you obtained in your specialty will mean nothing, and your research skills will mean nothing to the people who hire you, but your ability to organize yourself, think methodically, and execute long-term projects will separate you from your competition and make you an obvious candidate for quick promotion.

On the other hand, if all you learn about in grad school is your research topic, and you manage to get by without developing any of the skills I mentioned above, you will indeed be starting from square one, in the same position as a 22-year-old except with less energy and less time before you die.

This isn't really true, at least in my experience. A quantitative PhD means you have skills - not necessarily practical programming skills, but useful skill nonetheless. A PhD can be viewed as a statistics/ML/numerics expert from day 1 - a BSc needs to be promoted to it. Additionally, spending 5 years working on hard problems means you will be a smarter person. You will interview better, you'll know more, you'll be capable of doing more.

But lets suppose PhD == BS. Which is a better place to be right now? Work experience 2003-2005, PhD 2005-2010? Or PhD 2003-2008, work experience 2008-2010? I suspect that even if the PhD is pointless, current work experience > past work experience.

But all the bad things happen to someone, often one of your friends. For a Ph.D. holder reading PhD Comics is an exercise in nodding with recognition.

And I haven't read all that much PhD Comics so I don't know if it plumbs the real depths. Do characters in the comic become suicidally depressed? Do professors drive talented eighth-year students to drop out by making crazy demands on their time? Do students find themselves drafted as poorly paid, no-equity employees at their adviser's startup company? I saw all of that happen to one friend or another in the real world.

This is a pretty rare occurrence. The talented eighth year student, I mean, not the professor making crazy demands on time.

Another very common occurrence, mostly absent from PhD Comics, is a professor failing to kick out an untalented/unmotivated student in their second or third year. The result is that the student wastes 5 more years in the fruitless pursuit of a PhD, eventually dropping out due to neglect by their adviser.

Getting to a tenured professorship is a tournament. Many apply, but only a select few will win. The problem is that very often, no one tells you when you were eliminated. They just let you carry on as if you still have a chance.

whoa whoa where do you do research only 5 days a week??? most PhD students i know average 6 to 6.5

Also, in my case, even though I left academia afterwards, the PhD's freedom enabled me to become involved in several open source communities which have opened a lot of opportunities. If you like freedom, and you like research, I think PhD are a good experience, even if you don't end up in academia - after all, most PhD graduates do no become tenured professors.

The "joke" in the US is that if someone says they are six months from finishing it is really a year, if they say a year from finishing it is 2+ years, if they say more than a year they have no idea how much longer.

I have always had on my someday list to do a PHD in developing a quantitative model for information security risk using power laws because I believe it is something that is badly needed and something I am passionate about. I started to explore the problem here: http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2010/07/security-return-on-invest...

Could I do this online while doing my full time job? What are some universities that are quite cost effective and would support this type of online / distance learning model for a PHD?

Think its going to stay on my someday list for now, who knows if by software as a service business does well I can focus on a PHD full time while the money still keeps coming in