I see the ups and downs as the best way to learn, but also how to manage high stakes situations. It sucks while it happens, but it helps you in the long term.

@ aliby: Its impossible to get a real picture of the post-doc world unless you are actually in it. Academia is very good at hiding the dark side, and you only see the winners. The grad students are often keen to paint a brighter picture (to keep themselves going) and the lecturers and researchers you meet, well they are the "winners" that are writing the history. You dont get to meet the failures and drop outs, because their voices are effectively silenced, either by their physical absence or by dissent stopping gossip like "so and so doesnt have what it takes" "They are a whiner/ complainer/ incompetent".

At uni I looked around and saw lots of lecturers, researchers etc, and came to the logical conclusion that jobs WERE around, it was secure, that its not like running off to be an actor or an athlete. I loved my subject (still do) but failed to realise you need more than just that.

"a lot of people at my place don't like to be asked questions of this nature"

I think this is one of the reasons for our plight. Even though our job is basically asking questions, I think we feel that if we probe too much the whole edifice will collapse.

Perhaps this resistance to self analysis is because many of us have internalised the beliefs surrounding us that our PhDs are self indulgent/ too narrow/ of little value? Expertise is all well and good, but it can only exist when other people recognise that expertise. If no one cares that you are an expert in some obscure genetic field, or the worlds authority on myeleination of Scwann cells, is it worth it if only you know about it?

It doesnt help that the onus is now to mass produce PhDs so universities are seen to be active/ keep their stats up, even though we know that most will never do anything related to their course of study. This seems to be an almost willful self destructive pathway.

Also to the idea that nothing bad happens to PhD students what about this?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1175035,00.html

I think it points to several relevant issues.

@Matt: "Is the PhD worth less or just worthless?" The former I think. I would say its been devalued because of the high number of PhD students enrolling (13000 or so graduate a year), and the underfunding of universities, which can't afford to hire PhD graduates at adequate salary levels. There is no way that 13000 graduates a year can hope to find work in academia.

A further problem is the lack of standardisation between PhDs (and universities for that matter). Unlike say vets or solictors, who have to show certain competencies, PhD studies are a law unto themselves.

PhDs arent worthless, because if you are one of the happy few, you DO use what you learn. I would say its similar to acting lessons, that if you are Tom Cruise, they will be very helpful as you film Mission Impossible 12, but for failed actor Norman McNobody they arent going to help him as he sits in a corporate cubicle typing numbers into a spreadsheet.

@Shani: I think your partner (in economics) is representative of a subgroup that are hybrid industry/academic types. Economics is a field where the majority want to go to work within industry (banking etc),as it is so well paid etc. This means there is a relative lack of people willing to do academic work, because its comparatively less well renumerated. In my field it is similar to clinical psychologists (who arent PhDs), who always seem to have the better paid uni jobs and more of them available.

cont'd

3)"No one with a PhD ends up badly".

Unlike me?

I think "Ending Up Badly" needs to be defined. Sure, people with PhDs don't tend to be starving, drug addicts, wasting away from malnutrition. However, compared to most other professional pathways that require intensive postgraduate education (medicine, law, teaching, architecture) we suffer from poor pay, fixed contracts, a savage "publish or perish" system and a lack of respect.

And thats IF you become an academic. If you are one of the 50% that leaves academia, you have the debt of studying longer, re-training to do the job you could have probably done straight out of undergrad

While I accept the above positives to doing a PhD, I would propose the following rebuttals:

1) "Improving as a researcher". You don't need a PhD to do this. You can do a formal taught course (e.g. an MSc) or work as a research assistant to improve your research skills just as well. Hell, you can even use a library and read books about how to do it.

2)"The PhD as a training for lecturing". I dont think doing a PhD is an effective way to teach lecturers. It is by its definition a research focussed qualification, and teaching and lecturing are very different. IMO, there is very little correlation between being good at research and good at teaching.

I agree that working in a pure research institution may result in less politics/ potential for exploitation, because the need to offload undergraduate teaching to PhD students is lessened, and the demands of QAA etc are not there. The whole undergraduate element can be an area of conflict for many university lecturers because unfortunately teaching is never as highly looked upon as gaining grants and publications.

I agree with the idea of taking the PhD as a research training experience in itself. However, it seems quite pointless if you end up in a low level clerical job like me, or other unrelated pathways, as 50% of PhD graduates do (check the figures at UK Grad Program).

I think there is a difference between moaning (which is often general), and specific criticisms and commentary (which is what good PhDs should do). I think the "oh you are just moaning/whining/complaining" is another technique people use to silence dissenters, and maintain the status quo.

Gandhi, Emmaline Pankhurst and those that worked to emancipate slaves were all called moaners, whiners and complainers at some point.

However, I disagree about research being pointless. Good inquiry illuminates what we know, contributes to everyones lives and is never wasted. Contemporary academia on the other hand is pointless. Its a very poor way of researching that rewards politics and backbiting rather than good study or foresight.

I see academia like being a cult, with a pyramid structure. A few at the top make money, have lots of power, status and the ability to do things. A larger number exist below that have a few crumbs of control, but are living on temporary contracts, with poor pay. Below them are the ranks of graduate students and post docs that are exploited, get few benefits and some even have to pay for this dubious honour.

This cult is kept running by selling dreams of "If you make it through, you can become a professor/ academic!", while only 1 in 50 will ever become this. In any other field of employment this much dedication will be rewarded with promotions, improved pay etc, but we seem to put up with almost anything for a few "perks", like having our article in a journal almost no one will ever read or having "Dr" in front of our name.

If I could go back in time, I would slap my undergraduate self into going in the opposite direction, on his way to his first supervisor's meeting

As someone as a PhD graduate that is currently temping in various admin jobs if I could have my time again I would definitely avoid doing my PhD and would have gone into a more vocational route.

The drain on your social life, the intensity of the path, the chronic uncertainty and poor rewards outweigh the passion I had for my subject. If I had taken a more vocational route, I could have done research as a sideline, while still having job security, good pay etc.

I admit I got sucked in by the messages of "once you get your PhD, everything will be okay", but with everything else that has happened since, I wish I had made other choices since my BSc. I don't think I am the only one.

When the guy I mentioned above was thinking of leaving, I too was very "doom and gloom" saying things like how he doesnt want be a quitter, how to stick it out just for a little longer, how no one would employ him without the qualification. But I realised it was my own fear that was doing the talking. I really was scared/ quite jealous that had dared to do what I only day dreamed about to my psycho ex-supervisor.

From reading facebook, the guy seems a lot more happy in his new role (something vaguely sciency) but still jokes about how "His Majesty" (our supervisor) used to play us off against each other/ make us keep ridiculous deadlines/ sneer at people he deeemed unworthy, so he still has gotten something out of his time.

Actually there is a very high drop out rate for PhD candidates, and most go on to do other jobs, with relatively few problems. (In fact the guy that dropped out from my team has a much better job than I have, who graduated this year). This path is way more common than you may think.

However, its upto you how you "market" yourself afterwards. To industry a story about "escaping the ivoery tower of academia" and "being able to bring marketable transferable skills" can be quite attractive for some employers. The knowledge that you were able to obtain funding/ work at a high level is also something you can sell. People also drop out of academia because they are offered jobs that would pay far more than any university ever could.

If you really hate something so badly its upto you to do something about it. There are so many of us in PhD-land that are passive and just go along because we dont know what else to do (I include myself in this).

I think its crazy that there are people like S, and in the next room at university there could be someone in pretty much the same position that spent tens of thousands of pounds to be in a similar position. I can understand it somehow though.