/lit/ - Literature

Yes, how is this even a question?

>>19545067
Statistics degree work in finance or business 80k starting

>>19545067
You can work as an independent scholar if you want. PhDs don't mean much.

>>19545067
No. My days as a postman are much better for my doctoral work. There are two others and four Masters of Arts at my work.

>>19545067
as others have said, it's useless outside academia

a PhD position is a stepping stone to an academic career, treat it as that

It really depends what you do, where you do it, why you do it. It can be a shitty idea even if you do want to work in academia, because the job market for most fields is notoriously abysmal and getting worse every year. But if you know what you're doing and you're exceptional you could theoretically do fine.

A PhD can also be a door opener or a nice thing to have for transitioning to other fields even if you don't intend to enter academia. But for the cost, especially the time and opportunity cost but also the subtler psychic toll it will probably take on you, it probably isn't worth it if you're just entering the job market normally. There are definitely people who parlayed their PhDs into great positions, like museum curatorships and unique consulting gigs, but there are a lot of people with vanity PhDs too.

There is no one size fits all answer with PhDs. The closest thing to universal advice you can get with them is that if you don't know much about what a PhD entails, you probably shouldn't get one. There are a lot of people who think a PhD is to the professoriate as basic training is to being a soldier, namely, as long as you pass muster, you will be promoted to the real thing eventually.

Some competitive med specialities give weight to PhDs for entry. Fuck that shit though

>>19545067
I don't understand why a Ph.D is necessary to be a college professor? Half of my professors are absolutely terrible teachers and often can't answer basic questions about their subject.

>>19545067
No. You can put doctor in front of your name.

A PhD of course has a lot of intrinsic value, after all you learn a spectacular amount about the world and yourself, the problem is that the cost doesn't outweigh the benefits.

If you want to live a materially good life, starting that life with $200k in debt is a bad idea.

>>19545067
>is getting forklift certification pointless if you don't want to work in logistics?
OP you fucking dense.

>>19545151
>like museum curatorships and unique consulting gigs
That is still academia - just fringe academia.

>>19545484
Wait, in your country one PAYS for a PhD?!

>>19545067
Yes.
Even for academia, it's in decline. There are top figures that decided not to do a PhD.

>>19545484
phd is a job, you get payed

>>19545646
Self funded stuff is normal in Britain. Case in point:
https://youtu.be/yVePmSMmKWg

>>19545454
Complete opposite experience here. I'm doing classics and my teachers all know 5 languages and understand their topics in such detail that I cannot even comprehend.

Comparing myself to them I know that I could never do what they do. My drive simply isn't there.

If you have a way of sustaining yourself and want to work on a PhD as a hobby then I don't see any issues with it.

I'm not good enough at math to get a math, stats or CS PhD, but I'm very interested in macroeconomics, financial institutions and so on. Is getting a PhD in finance worth it?

I'm doing a PhD in engineering and I won't work in academia once I finish, it depends on the field

>>19545067
no, it's good for dunking on intellect-lets
people also respect you more if you're a PhD

>>19545741
>>19545828
Wtf, why would one pay to work. This is indeed some hard work. While many societies don't value it and hence treat it like an office bullshit job (then don't do it, be a free scholar), actually paying to work is something straight sinister.

>>19545067
if you have a PhD in finance/engineering/comp sci, there is plenty of private sector work for you. look at market publications from top banks, they have slides with their team members on them, half of them are PhDs. data analysis is huge right now as well. it's just the faggy liberal arts PhDs that are working at starbucks.

>>19545828
Why indeed I studied in Cambridge for 3 years for my PhD and spent an equivalent of 33 yearly wages at my current University of Kibunga, State of Obongo. How did you know? Was it my posh accent?

>>19545454
you don't get a phd to teach; you get it to do research

>>19546182
But you need it to get tenure and rise up the ranks eventually. Still usually one can teach with an MA already.

I'm doing my PhD in Classics. Utterly impossible to get a job in it... I'm not the best scholar and at an 'okay' university. Fairly lazy, so that's what I deserve

Hoping for some kind of research position in a private or government organization.

Without question. Even starting to pursue a graduate degree and working in Universities in any manner at all are the second and third biggest regrets of my life.

>>19547174
Just become a civil servant, an administrator, or a military officer. Your degree doesn’t matter then.

I don't regret getting mine, even though I immediately left academia. I miss doing research, though.

>>19547202
Yah exactly. By virtue of having a "PhD" I'll hopefully be set up, and how awful my actual project or lack of publications won't matter outside the field

>>19547233
To be clear, you don’t need a PhD to be any of those things.

>>19547232
What do you do now?

>>19547252
No, but here in Cuckanada you generally need some kind of specialized Master's degree

>>19545933
Why a PhD? Finance requires connections more than the degree itself.

>>19547260
My degree was applied physics, but I'm a software engineer now.

>>19545067
>Is getting a phd pointless if you don't want to work in academia?
yes & many workplaces will consider you too qualified and not worth hiring. furthermore, the pool of applicants your in changes to be the pool of people with a PHD, so youre competing with other PHDs not against people with masters/bachelors

>>19545067
idk everyone will call me doctor after medschool anyways, but having a phd would be cool

>>19546269
You don't get to professorship by teaching. If you want teaching go to a college; most university lectures don't give a shit about teaching and professors less so. They get paid to do research, but are contractually obliged to do some teaching.

>>19545067
Yes. It's even pointless if you do want to work in academia.

t. moron who was suckered into getting one

>>19547403
i think in germany they call you doctor doctor if you have a phd in medicine

>>19547824
Go on...

If you're asking this question, probably not.

If you're good at what you do, look in to specific departments. A PhD is a job, and working the same job at different companies can be night and day. I know some graduate programs in my field that work you to death for 6 years and leave you about as unemployable as you started at the end of it. On the other hand, my department recognizes that the job market is shit, so our PhD program is more of a way to learn cool shit for 5 years while also getting skills for when you inevitably leave academia. Going to the former institution is probably a bad idea unless you're one of the elect, while going to my institution is a pretty nice way for a bookish person to spend his 20's.

It is used for dick measuring only. But don't write off the benefit of being able to brag that you have a PhD, despite how worthless it is. Look at how much NPC normies hold the claims of "experts" up as dogmatic fact, despite them being partisan retards acting in bad faith.

The question is, are you able to make the time/financial commitments just for some abstract potential social status? Or could those resources be used for something better?

>>19548020
There's nothing else to say. It's not worth anything outside of academia, and there's no jobs in academia, either.

>>19545067
You can put that in your twitter name

A. Non PhD

>>19548219
Having a PhD makes you a prophet on Twitter but it may not give back anything in terms of jobs or finance. If someone else pays for it and you want to take part in Twitter politics then go for it.

>>19548317
imagine being this online

my bachelor's thesis needs to be turned in in 10 days and i haven't started

>>19545126
>it's useless outside academia
It was useful for me as an engineer. Got a few years to learn to do things on my own.

>>19545828
Self funded is NOT normal in Britain. The only people who do it are losers funded by mummy and daddy.

>>19547398
>many workplaces will consider you too qualified and not worth hiring.
This is a cope and it would only possibly be true if you were aiming for brainlet jobs.

Im 29, live with parents rent free, i have 80 thousand leaves (cad) and a house ive paid off due to renting it out (i worked in a high paying sales job since high school and saved every dime). Im finishing up my masters now. Could go right into working or getting a phd. If i got a phd id be able to use rent money (1k leaves a month) to finance my phd, and id have a rent free place to live. Seems like a fun way to spend 4 or 5 years. Talk me out of it.

>>19546093
>engineering/comp sci
My blood boils when people put these two together, as if a)they are mutualy exclusive/separate b) imply that they are on the same level. A good EEE program encapsulates everything.That said your post is correct. If you have an EEE bachelors/masters, a phd in math or fintech will put you ahead of the rest and closer to the managerial positions where the money is.

>>19548666
10,000 words? Very doable but it wont be high quality. What's it about?

>>19549584
How did you pay off a house in 10 years with only rental income if it was only 1k a month?
Anyway, I'd say it depends on what you want to study but ultimately it doesn't seem like it would hurt you in any way given your financial position

>>19549688
I worked from hs, thru batchelors, thru most of masters. Parents helped too but it was mostly me.

Would i suffer a black mark if i lost out on 5 yrs of work experience?

>>19549740
>Would i suffer a black mark if i lost out on 5 yrs of work experience?
What's your field?

>>19549584
Talk to PhD students and your professors and ask them what life will be like and what your prospects will be like and you will find out everything you need to know

>>19548666
>Those digits

F

>>19549884
I dont want to say because i know people who come here and however slight the chance might be, dont want to risk it

My people with my mastere degree tend to work in public service

>>19549888

Im socially anxious and its hard for me to put myself out there will they think fuck this guy im not spoon feeding him?

>>19549888
Myrin those repetitious numerals, my guy

>>19549966
>My people with my mastere degree tend to work in public service
PhDs are looked upon quite favourably in public service. I say go for it.
>will they think fuck this guy im not spoon feeding him?
No because it's completely normal to do so. It's also a good way of networking prior to joining the department

I personally got a lot from the whole PhD (English) experience I don't think I could have without, but after got it, I was unemployed for a year and a half, applying to all sorts of jobs all the time, before succumbing to adjunct life where I now live below the poverty line.

>>19545454
>>19545158
>>19545151
>>19545484
>>19545466
>>19545736

I have a a PhD and feel satisfied as a stay-at-home dad.

The PhD was paid for by the universities and Feds and I accumulated no debt, even had a $55k post-doc and opportunities for more. The Fulbright gave me bonus money because I was doing a PhD and married and I had the chance to live overseas. I won about 10 prestigious fellowships and such, so I did better than most of my peers by far. Still a stay-at-home dad.

The PhD program also put money into my retirement, as did my first professor contract.

People definitely treat you differently and ask you to do random things like be a board member and participate in cultural life.

So many idiots were given PhDs from my program after nearly failing/falling out and kept nursed on the teat of the elite program that it made me lose hope in the idea that the PhD means something. We even had people who quit in the middle of the semester and came back a year later. One of them has a semi-permanent possible tenure track position.

The job prospects are beyond abysmal for most professions. For a single person it makes sense to travel to 10 places in a decade doing temporary appointments, but my wife wanted a house and the kids to have a stable life. My colleague has been bouncing around Europe making 30-50k Euros a year, having a great time, but she's not married and childless.

So I did the 1 year contract professor thing twice, it was too much teaching, no leadership, bad students at a college that was interested in sucking up grant money from the state and feds, and they replaced me with all adjuncts when corona hit.

>>19547232
I still do research for friends and mentors and organize papers and essay submissions. >>19547398
This is also true, lots of people didn't want to hire me because they thought I'd get bored.

>>19550178
>>19550167
To be clear, as I was not here, it pleases me greatly to have had the opportunity to get a PhD.

I was faculty at American and European institutions/Universities. My wife and I traveled the world and lived abroad on 3 separate occasions, including a year Europe during our late twenties. We both celebrated our Birthdays in European capitals with local friends.

I've made life-long friends in rural, former Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and have taken road trips with my colleagues across the United States.

I've been helping older academics do research and teaching them the ways of computers for years. My name appears in the acknowledgments of at least 50 books. I'll have a book come out next year with a prominent press, so no regrets.

My PhD also gave my wife a super secure, well-paying job, and the idea we would leave for a professorship made them up her salary a lot.

>>19550205
>>19550178
>19550178
>>19550167

Last entry for my livejournal here:

Learning to learn, take notes, type fast, dedicate time, attention, resources, and thinking has made me incredibly quick-witted, sharp, and able to do much more with my life. For that I am grateful.

The unique process of that education has given me the ability to converse with just about anyone about anything. I would never go back and take another profession or path in life.

>>19550237
>Last entry for my livejournal here:

At least youre somewhat self aware jesus christ bro

Do you need an undergrad or masters in philosophy to get a phd in philosophy? Im an amateur philosopher and thinking about harvard phd in philosophy. Would that be a waste of money (60k usd for like two years)

>>19550342
Absolutely.

>>19550342
Nope, just apply. They likely wont take you.

>>19550342
Nobody should apply for a PhD in anything unless they know about the process and what it entails. PhD programs get hundreds of applicants every year who shouldn't be applying and are just throwing money away, including people who reapply every cycle.

It's really not some kind of blind meritocratic "scholarly excellence" contest. You shouldn't apply if you're just a smart guy with interesting ideas, that's not what PhDs are for or about. Unless maybe you're in some exceptional field where they are interested in a completely unique savant genius whose writing sample is an unpublished masterpiece proof of a 400 year old unsolved problem in math or some shit like that. But if you had that, you wouldn't be sending it in for random professors to pilfer it.

Everybody considering a PhD should talk to professors about it. You will need letters of recommendation anyway, and extremely good and personalized ones if you're trying to get into a place like Harvard, so it's not like you can have no contact with professors.

>>19547847
Do they ask them to give them the news?

>>19550167
>>19550205
>>19550237
Everyone, I present to you...Nietzsche's last man.

>>19545067
My grandfather was a medical doctor. He died before I was born, I never got to meet him. His younger brother though, my great-uncle, is still alive. I remember when he sat down with me and told me how he had started his own business. He said he wanted to stay in school, so he could have the title of Doctor just like my grandfather. But he had started a family by then, and the real world was calling. So he left, and never went back. I want to get a PhD in honour of that man.

how hard is it to get into a humanities masters at oxford?

>>19545828
Maybe in the Liberal Arts and soft sciences.
Hard sciences and engineering are all paid for.
>t. Doing a mech eng PhD and paid a stipend + scholarship/bursay topping out to 20k a year

>>19551880
Let me restate that, not ALL, but the vast majority to the point you're unlikely to meet someone who paid for one themselves.

>>19551880
stocking shelves at a grocery store nets you more than that

>>19545067
A PhD is something you get because you care about knowledge in one very specific field than you do what "point" there is to that knowledge. I'm so sick of you cold, utile bugmen whose only frame of reference for [thing] is the degree to which that [thing] will allow you to be rewarded by society with funny money and the strictly contemporary social status that accompanies it. Dream bigger, bug man. Try to think about what you actually want to do. You could save yourself potentially decades of suffering.

>>19551746
>how hard is it to get into a humanities masters at oxford?
It's kinda hard because everyone applies. The problem isn't this though, the problem is that masters at oxbridge don't get funding; I (and a few other people i met there) was an exception and managed to get full funding through my college (Trinity)

>>19552083
what are you doing now? assuming you completed your masters

bump

>>19545067

With a Ph. D in almost any subject you can confangle yourself a decent government position.

>>19551903
When years of my life and potentially thousands of dollars are on the line, its rational to be pragmatic and results-oriented my guy

>>19553635
Like what?

>>19545111
Must be an Amerifag

>>19550167
>>19550205
>>19550237
>I'm 19 years old.
>I am handsome, smart, athletic, and virile.

>>19554255
Is it lonely getting a PhD, or is it just lonely? is this place not just simply lonely?

>>19554183
>>19551072

I do have 3 kids...

It's lonely getting a PhD because you begin to see how much chaff exists in the world. Even within your field or the broader field of your discipline. So many idiots, so many times you want to throttle a person.

You see the world as a barren, cold, inhospitable waste and negativity seeps into your bones. I like being able to see the world for what it is, a bunch of tards, cretins, imbeciles watching sportsball and projecting their team dynamics onto the eternal political disputations.

It's all so tiresome.

>>19554295
So you have reached what you think is the top, and now you despise all who you perceive as below you.

>>19554157
Australian cunt. Postman is a great union job. Overworked though. I earn more than a truck driver does.

>>19545067
Short answer: It's pointless outside of academia (professor work) save for a few things.

Long answer: You don't have a choice about working in academia if you get a PhD. You're going to be doing assistant professor work very quickly as part of your program. That aside, you can leverage a PhD into getting published fairly easily if you're interested in writing nonfiction. Outside of writing, I'm not familiar with jobs that haven't already been posted requiring a PhD or benefitting specifically from a PhD.

>>19545090
TPBP

>>19550167
This guy is based and his answer is based.

>>19550136
This guy speaks truth.
>>19551896
Can confirm. I am the manager of a dairy department in a Kroger chain. I make between 45 and 50 thousand dollars a year considering overtime.

>>19551903
Based

>>19554295
This is also true. A lot of PhD students are autists who can't hold a real job and will make shitty professors.

Going back to what an anon said earlier about professors being shitty teachers, this is also a fact. My mentor who got me through my Bachelor's and encouraged me to get a PhD has never written a lesson plan in his life.

I juked left and shot for a teaching credential, but I work for the guy so I still see a lot of these wannabe English PhD types around, and they're all retarded. They're fake deep and I hate them all. The thought of being crammed into a room with people like them for six straight years far outweighed the thought of getting to work with one or two of the brilliant, cool people like my mentor/boss. I now do my own research and am perfectly happy about it.

>>19554392
This guy knows. In fairness, you have 5 to 6 years, two years of coursework. So after that you only see them at voluntary functions

>>19554363
Not at all, I have high school diploma types, readies, mechanics, and retired neighbor's and bs science people as close friends.
My best buds are a couple of retired dentists, and I spend lots of time with a landscaper who has parents behind my property.

I don't like academic types. They all have their heads up their asses and can't turn a wrench or fix a leak without paying a "contractor" or mechanic 500 bucks

I build shelves from wood I milled.

>>19554421
Right now I live in the woods, volunteer at my kids school, do some local gov stuff, and maintain my property.

>>19554440
And that means building.

>>19554421
Based and Thoreau-pilled. And it brings up a good point: most people who get a PhD (in English, from what I see) only see their work in terms of an abstraction. There's no practical value. Most of the people from my friend group that read philosophy, the classics, and so on are not English majors. Only one of them was, and he's now bombing sandniggers with drones in the Air Force.

My point is, the reason you read should be to apply. For example, I no longer own a smartphone. I attribute this decision to reading Thoreau and a few books on minimalism. That's just one example. Meanwhile one of the midwits I've mentored on campus read Thoreau and decided he wanted to use it to write about "post-colonial ecocriticism", because he believes ecocriticism is the hot new literary theory that'll get him published.

These people are like biologists who know how to dissect frogs but have never heard one croak or seen it eat a fly.

>>19554442
That sounds like a good life, anon.

>>19553679
This guy's right, but only about the time part. Not about the money part. People keep debating it in the thread, but most universities in America DO IN FACT PAY YOU to be a PhD Student, and you get gigs as an assistant professor on the side. Then, if you're not a midwit, you can apply for special fellowships and grants to get even more money. If you're a single person without kids it's a sweet setup.

>>19554421
I can relate, anon. I actually am 19, and I'm feeling quite lost. I am currently trying to decide whether to go into an English/Classics program, or become a carpenter.

I am so fatigued; the academies are full of half-wits who care about nothing, love nothing. The courses are for the most part diseased and rotten with queer ideology, the only Shakespeare paper in the entire degree reads him "with a focus on gender and queerness." We all know what that means.

We have no community, I have no friends anymore, our culture is all but dissipated into...? into what? the world is so grey. my only relief is in Christ.

idgaf that im fagposting in some random 4chan thread. im so lost

>>19554295
Never talk to me or my thread again. Youre irritating.

>>19554576
>my only relief is in Christ.

Kek. Become a carpenter bro youll make way more money and youll have an actual skill people need

It depends, but you'll be in academia for at least 4 years so if you don't enjoy that it might not be a good idea. PhDs in applied sciences will be used outside of academia, but for others you'll have to do some convincing

>>19554576
Dude become a carpenter and read on the side. Literally a chad life. That's the epitome of "sexy guy who reads" not "shitty carhart mustache fuckboy who read chaucer once and is writing about it"

>>19545151
Most PhDs pay you, not the other way around. Taking a non-funded PhD is super dumb. You'll be teaching classes for them for free.

Catch is pay is like $30k a year so you'll probably take on debt just to live.

>>19554599
This is mostly true but econ you can get other jobs. Polsci, etc. have uses in various think tanks and DoD contractors too.

Plenty of types make bank. A friend did a mathematics PhD for 6 years but then got recruited by a big tech firm for legit pro athlete money.

>>19554453
This is an excellent description of the first year or two when people still haven't been crushed by the grinding conservatism of the groupthink academic culture. They eventually become reflexive effigies of their advisors and the broader culture at that moment.

>>19554576
The care about nothing, love nothing part isn't altogether accurate. They seek advancement and place, and will step on anyone and cancel any figures, even their own advisors to this end. I've seen people sitting around shitting on their eminent advisors to get brownie points with strangers. It's disheartening and shows their lack of loyalty. The mercenary types that succeed in academic culture belong to corporate bodies interested in quarterly returns more than education.

I would go for the carpenter route so long as you don't kill yourself with 2x12x24 joists. Let some packanimal felon do that work, you should focus on trim.

>>19554579
I've never heard anyone say that ever. You occupy a unique space in your contribution. Bravo.

>>19554636
DoD and thinktanks do recruit PhDs, any of them, but they don't make that much, like 45K starting and you have to live among the upwardly mobile youth of DC.

>>19554824
I've worked at two different terrorism focused shops that did academic work paired with DoD, DHS, etc. contracts. The full time researchers didn't make amazing money, but it was like $80k minimum, more like 90-105.

$45k is what the lucky undergrad makes as a junior tech while waiting to see if they want to do a PhD.

>>19554609
I kind of do that, 90% of the time I'm just driving around a lawnmower or trimming hedgerows while listening to music or audiobooks and growing stomach by packing meals just in case the boss orders me to some actual physical labour in the morning. And since the lawn and the hedgerows won't follow me home, I can do whatever I want and have the energy to read whatever I want. The contrast to university where I read so much I have never read so little is immense. Not that anything I do requires skills the average person can't learn in a week.

But still. The thoughts of PhD won't leave me alone and while I grabbed my Masters' and ran to clear my head with unskilled manual labour, slowly an idea for a doctoral thesis has been forming in my head. When I went to talk about it, I actually got a warm welcome, promises of letters of recommendation, and they said my niche interests would actually fit in their programme for various reasons including there actually being some clause about keeping dying subfields alive. Plus there is a retired professor who worked on the exact same topic I did who had messaged them about being bored and wanting a project or a doctoral student.

Of course, I want to do research, not teach, and I'm not really sure if I truly like doing research inasmuch the idea of being a researcher given how I never did take the free scholar route with all that spare time I have had these past years. Or actually finishing the draft of the application letter I have on my hard drive. Then again, I have really been doing my /lit/ reps which I do think is very valuable for building perspective etc. and not something I could do to the same extent if I get swamped in academic literature again. But I also really don't want to find out in 20 years my "skills" have been rendered obsolete by robot lawnmowers. Especially since the shittiest jobs in my current line of work are the ones that are the most difficult to automatize.

>>19554902
Lawnmowing and landscaping is a human art. You can't quantify it. It can be automatized to the extend that they can make a lawnmower rhoomba, but even that's a maybe. Point is, even if they do, there will always be a need for human input. Your job is very stable.

I was in the same boat. I got the offers, got the promises of letters, was told the same thing. I wanted to study the phenomenology of violence and I had (have) a pretty good dissertation plan I wanted to shoot for. So I understand your conflict. The red carpet has been rolled out, and even though you know it's a grind and don't want to teach, you know it's a free ride to study and write about what you love.

But you can study and write about what you love either way. What you're actually worried about is having a platform, which is what the PhD gives you.

My answer to this is that I still plan to study violence and write about it. I argue (to myself) that if my ideas are sound enough and if my writing is clear enough, I will get published without needing a PhD.

>>19545067
I have a degree in computer engineering, recently graduated. I'm strongly considering getting a job as a software engineer to pay the bills and then doing a post grad diploma in Philosophy part time, with the aim of moving into a masters program afterwards (I have zero prior philosophical training). Then possibly a PhD if I am particularly good at it. However the main motivation is purely love of the subject and a strong interest. Is this stupid? Should I just read in my own time without getting formal training / qualifications?

>>19548666
You're done, dude.

>>19548666
JUST

DO NOT get a phd if you need to pay for it like in cucknada or amerika

>>19554968
This is more true than you know, if you have a PhD it opens the doors at publishers so that they'll at least read the proposal.

People write on all kinds of fucking nonsense, some of which I actually like, such as the umbrella and Flaneurs, or the art of walking in a city without a destination and "gazing".

>>19545067
>>19545069
my wife is in biotech and some positions there require a PHD. She's in the R&D department. So the answer to OP's question is that it isn't completely pointless.

>>19545067
It really depends. If nothing else it'll likely guarantee you a better pay.

>>19555362
You don't need to pay for it in America, and I doubt you need to pay for it in Canada either.

>>19553679
There's more to life than having a good job and then waiting to die while providing the output of your labor in exchange for currency.

>>19556196
>There's more to life than having a good job and then waiting to die while providing the output of your labor in exchange for currency.
Thank fuck you've finally become a communist. Now you need to read Engels and Alexander Berkman

Remember to thermite the water and sewer lines before striking.

>>19554295
you sound like a massive faggot lmao

>>19545067
I only have a bachelors degree and I'd say it's mostly a waste of time if your goal is to make money. A masters degree is worth it though. My wife gets far more opportunities with just having that on her resume. Pretty sure that academia has lost most of its luster in recent years with employers realizing that a degree doesn't necessarily equal competence. I have actually been pretty disappointed with the PhD's I have met. I fell for the media meme and thought they were all highly intelligent individuals omnipotent in their field. Turns out they follow the same distribution as any other group of people.

I dated a girl once whose ambition was to become a PhD in psychology or some bullshit. Not because of her interest in the field but because she wanted to be called "doctor". My guess is that academia is filled with this personality type especially now since it's acceptable for women to join.

I plan on getting a PhD to do research, not for the social status. If I could do research with only a bachelor degree I would do it.

Which makes me ask, why is it so hard to work doing research? Specially considering that research is one of the pillars of civilization and progress. Less resources are being invested in scientific research. It seems to me only a small group of people is meant to do research while the rest wage cuck all their lives. Fuck this world.

>>19558155
so failing out of my STEM program actually means im tfw to smart
thanks chomsky

>>19558155
>Which makes me ask, why is it so hard to work doing research? Specially considering that research is one of the pillars of civilization and progress.

For every professor working on the cutting edge, society needs a thousand engineers and codemonkeys to implement the results of that research in the real world. Society might be worse off in the long term if academia disappeared overnight but we'd survive. On the other hand, society would be fucked if there was no one around to maintain all the technology we already have. Research is expensive and progress is secondary to maintenence and continued survival. Understandably, most STEM grads would prefer to work as a scientist discovering new things than an engineer achieving a 0.001% efficiency increase in some piece of data analysis software. Therefore, we have a situation where there a far more qualified people than there are research positions and every position becomes hyper-competetive. It's not like this is anything new. Look at any list of famous scientists from the past two hundred years and you'll see that most of them came from solidly middle-class families (also remember that Einstein himself couldn't get an academic job). Research has always been the domain of the rich or otherwise fortunate.

There is also the possibility that the technological progress of the 20th century was a historical anomaly. Maybe all the 'easy' problems have been solved and science will now consist of a few researchers throwing machine learning algorithms at huge data sets for the next few hundred years. Progress will not be measured by great discoveries but minor increases in efficiency.