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Comment by Rhapso | Hacker News Reader

I am actually going to get my PhD in the next few days.

Perhaps I am an outlier, but I really think it was the right thing for me. I hit the end of my undergraduate degree and I felt like I had just started learning, so I looked into graduate school and liked what I saw. I've spent the last 4 years working on my PhD and I have learned a lot, I've made real improvements to human knowledge, and I've gotten a job that would have been impossible with a bachelors and 4 years of work experience.

But the biggest reason is simple and terrifying: because it is fun.

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Very much this! I'm about to start my seventh year, and if all goes well, my last. It's been a blast, and I've learned so much: whenever I've thought to myself "gosh, I wish I knew more about ___" I could choose to learn about it from a leading expert, for free.

For people who measure their success in dollars earned a PhD is an idiotic investment. About a year ago I calculated the difference in how much money I have, and how much money I would currently have had I accepted an offer from Google after my first year. Obviously that stung a little. But I wouldn't trade the last six years for anything... not even the above-mentioned amount of money ;)

Experiences are important. Otherwise the days turn into weeks, then months, then years without you noticing.

>I've spent the last 4 years working on my PhD and I have learned a lot, I've made real improvements to human knowledge, and I've gotten a job that would have been impossible with a bachelors and 4 years of work experience.

The real problem with oversupply of PhDs is there are fields of study which aren't remunerative outside academia. If you get a PhD in electrical engineering, say, or something medical, you can get a job.

But if you field of study was sociology or literature and you can't find a job in academia (and you probably can't), you're never going to be able to pay of eight or ten year's worth of student loans.

I am reasonably familiar with how science PhD's get funded, having worked with many of them. Who fund PhDs in literature or sociology (or any subject that is unlikely to pay for a job in the "real world").

A similar argument could be made for not studying any humanities subject. The point is often not what the degree is in but the soft skills you gain. A good undergrad degree is seen by many employers to be enough to get a job (outside of specific technical fields).

If you have a PhD it is important to sell the skills it gave you that an employer wants. A good list of which are found here: https://careercenter.umich.edu/article/phd-transferable-skil...

> But the biggest reason is simple and terrifying: because it is fun.

This is a great reason to do it. For me, I consider it getting my retirement in at the beginning of my career. I did something for several years just because I wanted to.

It was worth it for me, absolutely, but I was also fully-funded with a $15k stipend. I'm not sure I could have ever done it without that.

Surely you couldn't have been living in a large city. $15K stipend a year is really low to me.

It's what I started with too. I've seen a lot of discussion about how CS Grad students are getting underpaid.

I acquired $70k in student loans to afford to live in the city with my partner while working on my degree. Essentially they paid about half of cost of living.

I took $20k in loans out as well for living, ended up using about $15k of that per year and paying the rest back. I had a cheap apartment shared with others, it was enough to live a very fun life for three years.

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