To Ph.D or not to Ph.D ?

[midlife]

I've got a PhD and spend my time doing clinical dentistry. The thing about a PhD is that you can concentrate in detail about the one thing you might like, even if you don't like the main subject if that makes sense. Mine is on toothwear but got to work on Eurofighter 2000..................go figure.

Something I'm personally proud of even if it makes me no more money.

Shaun

 

[Brandane]

This thread seems like a good excuse to hear this one again..

Or possibly this:

 

[Rasmus]

My background (as you know): PhD in engineering - applied physics. 5 years as a postdoctoral researcher. Recently switched to working in industry.

Fun fact - one of the last projects I worked on as a researcher was related to the interface between the body and hip implants (not from a tribological perspective, though).

A PhD is hard work. Really hard work. I would really not recommend starting one just to get the degree. Your research is basically your life for three years. If you are not all that interested in the topic, it will not be enjoyable.

It is perfectly possible and indeed normal to use a PhD as an approach to a career in industry. Quite rare to start a job and then get a funded PhD later, though.

I'm no expert on tribology, but it's a quite broad field. Certainly applicable quite widely outside bio. Many places will also happily hire engineers with backgrounds slightly outside their application area. Engineers are good at learning quickly.

My suggestion: Delay the decision until your daughter gets some experience with her major interest. This PhD might be gone, but there will be others. And if this supervisor in Luleå is really that good, he'll probably have some new funding available next year.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Yes, a PhD is all-consuming. I'm afraid I have to add my name to the list of those who tried one then quit it before finishing. I also never used what I learned while doing it in any subsequent job, although that may be partly due to my choice of field: Computational Linguistics . I've really only used the Computer Science bit of it since then.

 

[swansonj]

In my industry, I suspect someone with a PhD end-on to a first degree would start on a salary one or two years ahead of a BSc - but not the 4 years ahead it will have delayed their starting. So if you're doing it partly at least for the money, you are banking on the extra training your brain has had putting you in a more competitive position for promotion. That may well be true - but it's difficult to disentangle the effect of specifically having had the extra training, as against the people with PhDs tending to be brighter and they would have got on quicker anyway. Same argument goes for whether a PhD makes you more attractive to recruit in the first place: it won't be the PhD per se that gets you the job, but if the PhD has led to you being a better thinker/analyser/innovator/communicator/team player, then you are definitely more likely to get the job.

 

[vernon]

Mine is on toothwear but got to work on Eurofighter 2000..................go figure.

No-one wants toothless weaponry?

 

[midlife]

God pun .................strangely enough I worked on the fly by light system

Shaun

 

[Yellow Fang]

I finished a PhD, but it took me a heck of a long time, and it took me quite a while to find a job afterwards. It's the sort of job I wanted to do, but from a money point of view, it is not much more than I was on before. You can do EngD's now. If you are sponsored by a company you get a bit more money, but you may be bound by non-disclosure-agreements on what you can publish, which may be a consideration if you want your research to benefit the world.

Something to bear in mind is that studying for a PhD is very different to an MSc. You're working by yourself in a quiet office most of the time. In an MSc you are set assignments with target dates. You go from lecture to lecture in different subjects. You have other students on your course to talk to.