PSA: Don't get a PhD, kids.

[Dauphin]

Instead of a PhD I got a professional qualification.

I turned down a second degree (opportunity) I was offered. Whilst it only required a single written paper to gain it, I decided I didn't want a degree in accountancy from Oxford to sully my otherwise perfect academic record.

[Cort Haus]

Did they not offer degrees in lion-taming then?

[Provost Harrison]

...you cant buy a house with society's 'respect'.

I think this sums it up. It is a great pity that being in research pays sh*t because it will just make people leave. In the end it seemed like too much crap for something I could not see myself doing for the rest of my life...and wouldn't even afford me a decent standard of living for enduring it. Kudos to those who can stick with it, but I went with the tactical withdrawal. It may sound like quitting...but what is the point in struggling on when there is no real reward for doing so but more endless crap?

[Provost Harrison]

...I decided I didn't want a degree in accountancy from Oxford to sully my otherwise perfect academic record.

Laying a trap for me? Well, I'll give you 2/10...not 1/10 mind you...I don't want to go down the route of that joke...

[Zoetstofzoetje]

there's not too many PhD's out there, there's too many low-quality theses, written by people who scrape through and then can't get tenure except at Community College in Chicoutimi.

+1 for jokes along the Oxbridge corridor

[Provost Harrison]

He's always winding me up, unpronouncable one Next he'll mention how he turned down Oxford. He does that you know

[Dauphin]

Of course I did. I got a better offer.

[Japher]

The only reason most of the people I know with PhDs (and there are plenty) only did so because they couldn't get a degree in grant writing... or they could but it was too hard.

[Hauldren Collider]

An unfortunately large number of my friends dream of getting PhDs and say things like "undergrad isn't important, grad school is everything."

[MRT144]

An unfortunately large number of my friends dream of getting PhDs and say things like "undergrad isn't important, grad school is everything."

Seems you already got a PhD

[Hauldren Collider]

Oh? In what?

[dannubis]

You "loose" some time doing the PhD. Afterwards my experience shows that increased career opportunities make up for that lost time - in engineering anyways.

[Provost Harrison]

Actually engineering seems to be one of the few disciplines where such research actually pays off...I know several friends who are engineers and did PhDs and it seems to have worked out pretty well for them. Not the same for the scientists who all ended up leaving the sector and going elsewhere...

[dannubis]

Then again, engineering is the ONLY real science *wink wink* *tongue in cheek*

[Provost Harrison]

Yeah, whatever