Comment by throwaway_7274 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway_7274 | Hacker News Reader

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Oh hey that’s me! Not literally me. Probably I was a little better off. But I was recently in a similar position, and feel like my PhD was a lost decade in some ways.

The answer, as I’m sure many already know, is idealism and a certain kind of naïvité. It’s not an absolute naïvité, but it is some kind of belief in the value of doing something that isn’t “mere” careerism. You think it’s noble to contribute to science. And you do contribute, a teeny eensy weensy bit. You also find out that it’s not everything you imagined it would be. And then you’re 30 and one day you unblind yourself. You look at the job market, and how much money various jobs actually pay. More importantly, you realize quite suddenly that money can actually make your life better, and that, whatever damage it might have wrought on your soul to pursue it, it would at least have enabled you to own a home one day. Maybe have kids. Shit. And the fresh grads who went straight into tech and finance making $300k (hold on, you can make $300k? Wait a second, that’s not a senior executive salary? That’s a normal-ish bourgeois white-collar HCoL salary that people make fresh out of school? Hold on, that’s basically a starting salary in that world? WHAT?)… just naturally understood.

Then you try to explain this on a message board or something. You don’t want pity (after all, your life is very good in the scheme of things), you just want some connection, or maybe even a, “that’s ok, that’s how we learn, life is a twisty path.” But half the people call you a class traitor. The other half call you a mediocre sucker.

> hold on, you can make $300k? Wait a second, that’s not a senior executive salary? That’s a normal-ish bourgeois white-collar HCoL salary that people make fresh out of school? Hold on, that’s basically a starting salary in that world? WHAT?

Is this world as normal and common as you describe? To me it seems more like a byproduct of a brief era in tech, today only accessible to people already in the system or creme of the crop students going to the right institutions and who have the skills, connections or luck to string together events that lead to them working there. Today, I know loads of people who did the right thing, but my current generation of graduates definitely isn't aiming for $300k starting salary, not even the best people I know can dream of that. Maybe it would be better to use a more grounded example, since many average workers in many careers will still take home considerably more than most PhDs - instead of using what feels like a closing window from a gold rush.

> But half the people call you a class traitor.

That doesn't make sense. You don't even change your class, you go from working for a wage to working for a wage. I only see the other reaction you mention, the "you're done, it's over, you wasted your life".

No, of course $300k is a very high salary even on a US basis, never mind a global one. I’m not confused about that. I went my whole life thinking $100k was like “you’ve made it.” But it turns out that if you have what it takes to get into a top technical degree program, you’re among people who have the opportunity to make that kind of money, and most of them know it. This is a very surprising fact. It did not fully occur to me that this was what so many people were struggling for and fighting over in their Stanford applications. My parents told me it was all about “natural curiosity” or something. I believed them. It offended me a whole lot, at first, when I was disabused of that fairy tale.

And, yes, it certainly is a closing window for a gold rush.

> You don't even change your class, you go from working for a wage to working for a wage.

True, but I’m literally employed as a capital-C Capitalist now. You’re technically right, but…

Yeah, at the end of the day I didn't say you were confused or wrong in your assessment, I just wanted to say that there's a more poignant version of that argument that can be made by using more 'normal' examples of low-6 figure careers that are ever-present and can be reached by more people.

> I’m literally employed as a capital-C Capitalist

What do you mean, is that your job title? Or do you own capital? I thought the class separation was only in whether you were recurrently paid to work for someone else or if derived your wealth from owning something.

> That’s a normal-ish bourgeois white-collar HCoL salary that people make fresh out of school? Hold on, that’s basically a starting salary in that world? WHAT?

Some people. That's very field-specific and won't last forever. Basically FAANG programmers and finance bros.

Yeah, in that world. You realize this, and the next thing you realize is that you’re at the tail end of it and have about a year to escape the permanent yadda yadda yadda…

> it would at least have enabled you to own a home one day. Maybe have kids. Shit.

ding ding ding. This is the real kicker. This is why it’s a waste of time to pursue. Want a PhD? A home? A family? Pick one or two. With the amount of time and effort it takes to achieve those these days, you won’t get to have them all. So you have to pick one. At 17/18 it’s easy to see the coming decade as longer than it really is, and opportunity cost will catch up to you quick.

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