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Comment by beoberha | Hacker News Reader

I only have a Bachelor’s but work at a large tech company where a good portion of the technical leadership have PhDs. I can’t imagine deciding to just go for a PhD right out of undergrad. In the grand scheme of things, you know nothing after a 4 year degree. I could not fathom finding a topic on which you are truly passionate and decide to dedicate the next 5-7 years of your life studying it.

After 6 years in industry, I have a much more solid foundation and idea of what I want to focus on for the rest of my career. But at this point, getting a PhD is not remotely a possibility for numerous reasons.

It’s an interesting conundrum and I see a lot of PhDs who advise against getting one. But I will always have a small pang of jealousy towards those that have one.

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People doing a PhD immediately after their bachelors or masters are used as cheap workers by the PIs to do some subset of their main research, to write papers and TA.

I went back to do my PhD after more than 20 years in industry. Being an independent researcher gave me the freedom to pursue a topic that I saw a need for in industry. Of course, I'm biased by my experiences, but I do think we would make more practical contributions to industry if all PhD candidates had to gain industry experience before enrolling in their research program.

I started my PhD last year and was interested in working with this PI in his lab. My bad maybe but I never contacted anyone in his lab about their experience.

When I got here I realized the members of the lab are almost all petite white women. A common reason why they’re doing their PhD in this lab? The PI saw something in them and thought they were special when they were undergraduates.

To top it off, most of them are doing projects predetermined by the PI for their dissertation.

Goes without saying, I intend to work with another professor but still very disheartening to see.

I did my PhD directly after my bachelors (technically I had a semester between them but close enough), and I was given a huge amount of freedom and independence in crafting my research topic, and my career is, by and large, indistinguishable from my colleagues who had more experience before coming in.

People straight out of a 4-year degree into PhD usually gets a year to decide what they want to work on in their PhD program. So it can be like: (1) One year trying out projects and topics (2) Four year doing a PhD on the topic (3) One year postdoc potentially on a different topic (4) Tenure-track faculty on likely somewhat a different topic

Passion helps, but people's passion does change over time.

Hell, in the current department I'm faculty in, 0 years or 20 years of experience coming in, you're spending a year doing rotations.

There's a huge amount to deciding your topic (and your PhD advisor) that needs to be decided on the ground.

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