A PhD is a huge waste of time- aibu

[Bluffysummers]

I’d quantify this and say in the humanities.

I did one, worked hard to complete it, stress, time and money. I was totally duped into it, lecturers telling me how good I was and blowing smoke up my arse and implying I’d get a job at the end of it… in my subject there were 3 jobs nationwide when I graduated none full time…and god knows how many candidates.

I left academia and guess what, no one cares if you have a PhD, in fact I think it’s more of a hinderance than an asset. I spent 10 years in education and all it did was delay my industry and career experience, so basically hinder me.

Aibu to say If you’re thinking of doing a humanities PhD don’t.

I thought about it too. Then I decided I would write books instead. It's much more lucrative, and no one argues with you about it crossing over their pet topic.

@TabithaHazel

I get that - I'm talking about when he books a table and when they ask for the name he says "Dr Fred" (not his real name) in a pompous manner.

@Jaxhog

I thought about it too. Then I decided I would write books instead. It's much more lucrative, and no one argues with you about it crossing over their pet topic.

Exactly. Just write the books (I know it's not that easy) but the minute you mix professional writing with academia you need a much thicker skin to deal with the politics, egos, pet topics and unspoken 'rules.'

The jobs market for postdocs is brutal. Utterly brutal.

I would agree with your initial statement if it read
"A PhD is sometimes a huge waste of time"

The anti-intellectualism of this thread is, frankly, shocking and there are some comments that lead me to believe that their writer cannot tell the difference between their ulna and their gluteus maximus.

Marrying an even minor aristo would have given me the title of 'lady' immediately and with no merit, whereas I worked really hard for my Dr. title - which I achieved with a fully funded scholarship, again gained on merit - this title is fully mine and I use it as often as I like :)

Tortabella, I'm with you on avoiding the PhD novel, but I'm also very wary of novels emerging from MFA programmes. On the other hand, I'm up for non-fiction aimed at non-specialists written by someone with a PhD, provided they write well (without being turgidly academic) and are passionate about their subject, once the subject happens to interest me.

I have one friend who was accepted for a PhD and then stepped away because they realised that it was more a vanity thing for them. I have another who started her PhD in her 40s - it will help her to move more into public policy and it's a personal interest. So yes I think you need to know why you are doing it.

@domusaurea - I do broadly agree, but surely, introducing yourself as 'Dr Fred' at a restaurant is wanky?

One of my DD's nursery friends went on to a school where the headteacher has a PhD and gets stroppy with four year olds if they don't know to call her 'Dr Smith'.

Some people are wanky about status and if those people happen to have doctorates, they will use those to be wanky with. Giving the rest of us a bad name.

(I use my title in appropriate day-to-day contexts because I think it's a nice way of fighting back against the 'doctors are men' thing, but that doesn't mean I can't recognise pretentious behaviour when I see it.)

[quote SarahAndQuack]**@domusaurea* - I do broadly agree, but surely, introducing yourself as 'Dr Fred' at a restaurant is* wanky?

One of my DD's nursery friends went on to a school where the headteacher has a PhD and gets stroppy with four year olds if they don't know to call her 'Dr Smith'.

Some people are wanky about status and if those people happen to have doctorates, they will use those to be wanky with. Giving the rest of us a bad name.

(I use my title in appropriate day-to-day contexts because I think it's a nice way of fighting back against the 'doctors are men' thing, but that doesn't mean I can't recognise pretentious behaviour when I see it.)[/quote]
yes I totally agree Sarah - sorry I missed that bit :)

@bibliomania

Tortabella, I'm with you on avoiding the PhD novel, but I'm also very wary of novels emerging from MFA programmes. On the other hand, I'm up for non-fiction aimed at non-specialists written by someone with a PhD, provided they write well (without being turgidly academic) and are passionate about their subject, once the subject happens to interest me.

Yes, agree with you that with non-fiction, the more education/knowledge/PhD's the better - if they can explain things clearly to an interested novice and write beautifully. Harder than it looks but when it works it's wonderful.

And absolutely YES to the fighting that Drs are men :)

Excellent Professor @sarahandquack, (I may have inflated your title, academics secretly love that)

My retirement plan is to travel the world with Dr DH TunaTastic who like Dr @dinkBoo gives great abstract, going to conferences in exciting places. I think of it as the intellectual cruise ship plan.

I know a fair number of people with PhDs and none earn anything close to me and only one stayed in academia. Two of them are on minimum wage jobs in administration.
I nearly started one after my Masters.
So glad I didn't now.

@Fruitbatdancer

YANBU, it’s the same as a masters, outside of academia no one gives a shiny shite. Experience, drive, ambition, a subject that points to a job focus (business, economics, medical, teaching, finance etc etc) might hold some sway but beyond ‘a degree’ no employer cares! If only they taught that at Uni! But it would be like turkeys voting for Xmas!

I would disagree with this insofar as I've don't lots of graduate recruitment and Bachelors degrees are ten a penny now so most employers look for Masters degrees. Mine was worth its weight in gold.

A PhD has the rare quality of being the only qualification which is detrimental to your earnings.

@TeachesOfPeaches

A PhD has the rare quality of being the only qualification which is detrimental to your earnings.

I suspect my Vice Chancellor would disagree

Dh hasn't really used his since he finished.

However I'll tell you that a fair number of you will have benefited from his doctorate if you have had certain medical procedures.

So not really a waste of time.

Pass with none, pass with minor, pass with major are NOT grades - they're viva results. If you pass with none, you're done. If you pass with minor/major you have to do the corrections, THEN you get awarded. At no point will your award ever say 'PhD which was passed with no/minor/major corrections'.

Agreed. You've either got a PhD or you haven't. There is no grading!

It will depend on the system too - it can work very differently outside the UK. I did my PhD in Stanford and there was no such thing as corrections. The viva (known as an "oral examination") takes place when you are about two thirds through the research and before you go on the job market. At that point, you essentially agree with the committee what you will need to do in order to complete the degree. You then have a "reading committee" (your main supervisor plus two others) who sign off on the final thing when they are happy, but with no further examination as such. I think it is a much better system as it means you get really useful feedback from a panel of experts at a stage when it is still useful!

@MargaretThursday

Dh hasn't really used his since he finished.

However I'll tell you that a fair number of you will have benefited from his doctorate if you have had certain medical procedures.

So not really a waste of time.

You didn’t read the Op, I specifically said in the humanities. Medicine isn’t the humanities, then it has a clear and tangible impact in terms of career progression

@JaninaDuszejko

See I thought the STEM subjects had significantly more employment prospects than humanities.

They do but there's still snobbery about 'selling out' and going into industry. Conversely a purely academic career can be seen as a hindrance when recruiting into industry, a PhD is attractive but a string of postdocs can be problematic depending on what transferable skills were picked up. I know people who have ended up trapped in academia because they aren't seen to have commercial experience so couldn't leave.

This is me! I'm stuck in a shitty dead end graduate role with my technical science skills atrophying because no one will hire a woman in her thirties with no corporate experience who looks mega flakey on paper due to a lot of short term international contracts. Which is exactly why I was trying to get out...

I'd agree, don't do it!

I have one, which I did alongside my job as a university researcher, so I was earning at the same time and it was useful once I'd finished, as it was kind of expected for university staff to have PhDs, so not too bad.

DH also has one, which took 5 years full time (unsalaried), and when he finished he had some debt. He could have spent that 5 years earning. His subsequent jobs haven't required a PhD. On the other hand, we met due to both being at the same uni, which is obviously priceless .

The main thing I learnt by doing a PhD was never to do anything like that ever again!

I should say don't regret the phd though! It was great, I learnt a lot and I moved to the country I now live in which has a massively better quality of life than the UK. I wouldn't have done that without the PhD. I do massively resent the post-doc years, even though they taught me a lot.

I really really resent that I'm viewed as flakey and inexperienced. If a recruiter wants someone committed and engaged, why do they automatically reject someone who's proved they're prepared to learn multiple new languages, put their life on hold and move half way across the world for their job for a terrible salary? I can't help feeling that the only reason is that we've got pretty highly tuned bullshit detectors after reviewing so many dodgy papers, which doesn't go down well in the corporate world.

@TeachesOfPeaches

A PhD has the rare quality of being the only qualification which is detrimental to your earnings.

It's really not, though.

@Bluffysummers - TBF, although it's not that common, Humanities PhDs could result in improvements to medical procedures. (I used to work partly in medical humanities; I do know).

Did you look at consulting? Management consultancies love people with PhDs.

Also, do you consider economics to be a humanity? I've seen a reasonable number of jobs requiring an econ PhD.