why should i do phd

Why Do a PhD?

Written by Ben Taylor

One of the key reasons why you might want to do a PhD is to research a niche subject area that you are passionate about and to make a meaningful contribution to your field. The PhD journey will help you to develop many transferable skills that can be applied in your project and help you achieve your future career , whether it is in or outside of academia.

This page will walk you through a selection of the most common reasons for pursuing a doctorate, along with some of the main PhD benefits.

Should I do a PhD to help my employability?

Our guide to PhD employability has more information on career prospects and average salaries for people with PhDs.

1. Passion for research

This is perhaps the most personal motivation for doing a PhD: the enjoyment and sense of fulfilment that you get from researching a subject that you love. And it’s certainly not a bad reason, although you should generally make sure that you have a clear idea of what you’d like to do once you’ve finished your PhD .

If you’re looking for a new challenge to help your individual development, a PhD is a pretty unique prospect. There aren’t many other experiences in education that involve such a high degree of commitment – and reward!

At this point, it’s also important to be completely honest with yourself about why you want to do a PhD, asking yourself “Do I need to study a PhD?” and “ Why do I want to do a PhD?” You need to make sure that you’re not being motivated by the wrong factors.

For example, you shouldn’t let yourself feel pressured by what your peers and family expect of you (or what you think they expect of you). Just because you know plenty of people with PhDs doesn’t necessarily mean a doctorate is the right path for you.

Similarly, wanting a ‘break’ from a job you don’t enjoy can be another bad reason to do a PhD . A PhD involves a lot of hard work and dedication, as well as funding, and is not a commitment to be taken lightly. This means it’s unsuitable for being treated as a stopgap measure for your job dissatisfaction (unless, of course, you have plans for what you want to do with the knowledge and experience you gained during your PhD once you’ve finished).

And it goes without saying that the desire to have ‘Doctor’ on your bank cards and driving licence shouldn’t be the primary reason for doing a PhD (although it can be seen as a nice perk once you’ve finished!).

2. Gaining transferrable skills

There’s a lot more to doing a PhD than simply writing a dissertation and completing your viva . We've looked at why doing a PhD can help equip you with transferrable skills such as:

Presentation and public speaking skills – you might have the opportunity to present your work at academic conferences or at public engagement events, which can be a useful experience whatever your future career plans
Teaching – most PhDs allow research students to teach at an undergraduate level
Time management – successfully juggling the various responsibilities of a PhD is a genuinely impressive achievement that will be recognised by future employers
Networking – over the course of your PhD, you’re likely to meet plenty of experts and professionals, giving you the chance to forge new relationships that could prove useful in the future

These kinds of skills will be valuable and sought-after by employers once you’ve finished your PhD, whether or not you decide to stay in the world in academia.

3. Accomplishing your career goals

A common reason to do a PhD is to improve your employment prospects. You may wonder why doing a PhD will help? As the highest academic qualification, a PhD degree can unlock career opportunities that wouldn’t necessarily be available to candidates with only a Bachelors or Masters.

This is particularly true for jobs that require expertise and experience in research techniques. There are few better ways to prepare for a career in research than with the dedication and knowledge needed to complete a PhD thesis .

If you want to work in academia as a lecturer or university researcher, a PhD is usually one of the main requirements. The degree shows that you have the necessary expertise to thrive in a university department.

Of course, there are plenty of directions outside of academia that a PhD could lead you. PhD holders can be found across all business sectors.

4. Making an original contribution to your subject

One of the most obvious reasons to do a PhD is the desire to make an original contribution to your subject. After all, this is a defining quality of a PhD that sets it apart from other university qualifications. The goal is create something new and significant that will stand alongside the work of previous scholars in your field.

The effect of this contribution could be to open up new avenues of research or to shed light on previously underappreciated topics. Chances are you’ll end up working on a substantial project that may end up becoming a reference point for future academics and students, which is why doing a PhD is worth it!

"Should I do a PhD?"

Ultimately, deciding whether to do a PhD is an incredibly personal decision, and one that can only made by one person – you! Don’t let yourself be swayed by peer pressure (or simply the fact that plenty of your friends have doctorates).

There are a few questions worth asking yourself when considering why you want to do a PhD.

Does a PhD align with your long-term goals?
Are you willing to take on the financial demand of a PhD if your funding applications are unsuccessful?
Are you able to commit the time it takes to complete a PhD?

Are you ready to take on the responsibilities needed to make your PhD a success? Our guide to the PhD journey should shed a light on the kind of challenges you’re likely to face while completing a doctoral degree.

Doing a PhD

Want to find out more about what it's like to do a PhD? Check out our comprehensive guide to the stages of your PhD journey . Or, if you're still searching, head over to our course listings for the latest PhD opportunities .

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The best answers to “Why do you want to do a PhD?”

If you are interviewing for a PhD position, chances are high that you will be asked about your motivation to do a PhD. And sometimes, simple questions are the hardest to answer. Therefore, it is smart to prepare an excellent response to this question in advance.

Creating your unique answer to “Why do you want to do a PhD?”

Reasons to do a PhD are as diverse as PhD topics and PhD programmes: there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

A convincing response during a PhD application interview increases your chance of securing the position: it clarifies your ambition and can leave a memorable impression.

To impress your interviewers with an answer, preparation is key. The first step is to reflect on your personal ‘why’:

The following categories are some of the best to frame your unique answer to the question:

Doing a PhD to satisfy your scientific curiosity

You could also mention previous research that you did (for instance in a bachelor’s or master’s thesis), which aroused your curiosity to dig deeper and find out more.

Doing a PhD because of your societal or environmental ambitions

When you are preparing your unique response, and want to connect it to societal or environmental ambitions, make sure to provide some details and make it personal.

Doing a PhD for self-development

On the contrary, openness and a drive to improve yourself and learn new skills are highly valued by PhD supervisors. Thus, self-development can be another good framework for your answer.

Doing a PhD to improve your (academic) career prospects

If you don’t have ambitions to climb the academic ladder, but still think that doing a PhD will improve your career prospects, please go ahead! Just make sure to sufficiently substantiate your reasons, as your interviewer may not be familiar with, for instance, certain job requirements outside of academia.

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Jul 22, 2022
11 min read

Is a PhD Worth It? The Pros and Cons of Getting a Doctorate

To get a PhD or not to get a PhD? That is the question.

Valerie David

Lifestyle and Career Expert

Reviewed by Hayley Ramsey

Hands holding a PhD doctorate certificate

Entering the job market for the first time can be a stressful experience, especially if you don't feel completely prepared. When deciding how to take those first steps toward your ultimate career , and how to give yourself a chance at the best jobs, you may find yourself asking: “Should I do a PhD?”.

While academics looking forward to a life of learning may consider this a no-brainer, there are important factors for everyone to consider. Finances, job prospects and quality of life issues can greatly affect the success of furthering your education.

To help you decide if the time and effort of a PhD is worth it, here are the major benefits and disadvantages of getting that doctorate.

After four or more years of intellectual pursuits, adding a PhD may seem like overkill. Before you make your choice, let's look at all the benefits that are exclusive to earning the most advanced degree.

1. You can contribute new knowledge to the world

Embarking on a PhD programme means delving into your preferred subject in a much deeper way than you have in any of your previous studies. The beauty of this advanced degree is that it allows you to sail in uncharted waters. Your goal is to find new information, draw new conclusions and, hopefully, make a significant contribution to your field.

Your intensive research, travel, collaboration and study will lead you on an unpredictable path to telling a story that no one has heard before. For some students, this pursuit of knowledge and discovery is enough to make all the hard work of earning a PhD worth it.

2. You'll have access to more prestigious jobs

One of the key benefits of a PhD is that it opens doors to careers at the highest levels. This can include leadership positions in science and engineering, government roles in economics and political science, and prestigious teaching posts for English and arts majors. Even if an advanced degree isn't required for the job you want, that PhD can give you an extra air of authority in your field and an edge over other candidates.

Another obvious upside to continuing your postgraduate studies is that landing these powerful positions can lead to large financial rewards. Some areas of study, like medicine and the law, tend to be more lucrative, but it can also depend on the type of job. For example, a university professor or researcher post can pay well for a wide variety of disciplines. Check out sites like the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Careers Service to investigate potential salaries.

3. Employers look for candidates with your superior writing skills

A study arranged by the National Commission on Writing discovered that blue-chip businesses (long-standing companies with stable stock growth) are spending more than $3 billion a year on remedial writing course for current employees. This includes staff with undergraduate degrees.

So, when a hiring manager peruses your résumé and sees that you've earned a PhD, they'll know immediately that you've spent years honing your skills at compiling research, organizing mountains of data and writing about your results in a cohesive and persuasive way. This will clearly set you apart from your competition, while landing your dream job will prove that pursuing that advanced degree was worth it.

4. You'll improve on all your soft skills

While pursuing your undergraduate degree, you likely noticed that you were learning more than just the subject matter taught in each class. Completing your studies also required time management skills , focus and problem solving .

Getting a doctorate degree requires even more of the soft skills that employers look for in applicants . Your intensive study and finished thesis should lead to improvements in your problem solving, critical thinking , patience and adaptability . These desirable skills won't just help you land a job but also excel in whatever career you choose to pursue .

5. You'll collect an extensive network of professional colleagues

When weighing the pros and cons of earning a PhD, consider all the professional contacts you'll make during the course of your studies. Working closely with professors, department heads, experts in your field, as well as fellow researchers, helps you develop an important resource. This network of colleagues can provide continual assistance with references, job leads, career advice and collaboration.

6. You can wait for a more favorable job market

Job prospects may not look that promising when you've completed your undergraduate degree, or even after you've been in the workforce for a few years. While there's no guarantee things will improve after a delay, some students may appreciate the benefit of a steady graduate assistant salary while they work on enhancing their résumé with a doctorate.

If you couldn't get a good internship during or after your undergrad studies, the PhD work also gives you the time to build that professional network . These contacts could prove to be the key to breaking into a specialized or highly competitive field.

You may still be thinking about all that time and commitment and wondering, “Is a PhD worth it?”. While there are always positive results from improving your education, there are some downsides to getting your doctorate.

1. It's expensive

This is a substantial factor for many students when weighing the merits of pursuing a PhD versus entering the job market right away. If you already have student loans , continuing your education will just increase your burden and add substantial pressure when you eventually begin your job search.

If cost is a concern, investigate graduate assistant jobs that help with expenses. Some programmes offer tuition assistance in return for teaching or research work. For those who already work full time and are hoping a PhD will help them advance in their career, consider keeping that job and pursuing your studies on a part-time basis.

2. Getting a PhD can be a lonely experience

Despite your interactions with professors and other students, pursuing a doctoral degree is ultimately a solitary pursuit. Your thesis topic is unique to you, and you'll spend a lot of time alone doing research and writing. Your social life can suffer, especially if you're also working in addition to your studies.

Career experts often talk about the necessity of work-life balance for physical and mental health, and this is just as important for PhD students as anyone else. It may take you a little longer to complete your degree, but it's worth taking the time to visit family and hang out with your friends. These positive interactions can help you stay motivated through the most tedious parts of your work.

3. You'll experience extreme stress and frustration

Pursuing a PhD may seem like a noble and interesting endeavor, and extended life as a student can appear more attractive than wading into the job market. You must be aware, however, that getting a doctorate can be a very stressful and frustrating experience.

A topic that seemed intriguing at first may not live up to years of scrutiny, causing boredom at best or requiring a complete thesis change at worst. Not all programmes are well-run, either, and you may have a supervisor who is too critical, offers poor advice or is just unavailable and unhelpful.

The difficulties of a PhD programme lead to rather substantial dropout rates. In the US alone, only 57% of PhD students obtained their degree within a decade of enrolling. If you want to be in the successful half of those stats, take extra time to review your choice of supervisor and topic focus. Ask every professor you have for advice on making the right decisions and talk with current graduate students to see what their experience has been.

4. There may be limited job openings

While getting a PhD can qualify you for better and higher-paying jobs , it can also put you in a position where you're competing for an extremely limited number of job openings. This is especially true of university jobs, where the number of advanced degree graduates far outpaces the need for full-time instructors, researchers and administrators.

Earning your PhD with a very obscure thesis in a niche speciality can also limit your options. When there are only a handful of jobs that suit your expertise, and they're already occupied, it can make you feel that your doctorate was a waste of time. Consider the job market before you make decisions about getting another degree. If you're determined to study in a niche area, think ahead of time about related fields or industries where your knowledge and skills will also prove useful to employers.

5. There may be little to no financial reward

While most studies concur that having a PhD increases your income potential substantially over the lifetime of your career, it's not a guarantee of job security or a financial windfall. A study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that 5 years after earning their doctorates , 45% of grads in Germany were still on temporary contracts and 13% ended up in lowly occupations.

Other European countries, including Slovakia, Belgium and Spain, had similar results. In the US, in fields like engineering, the difference in pay scales between employees with a master's degree and a PhD was a mere 7%. When that small bump in salary is weighed against the amount of debt taken on in order to get your degree, you may decide it's not worth it.

6. You could lose out on valuable job experience

New forms of technology continue to change how organizations operate, and those changes can happen fast. If you've already spent several years in school, toiling away in solitary study of obscure subjects can cause you to fall further behind in learning the skills you'll actually need for a future career.

Before you invest in getting a PhD, research your chosen field and learn which type of degree will give you the most value. Many scientific, financial and computing careers rely more on skills acquired on the job, rather than in coursework that can quickly become outdated.

Questions to ask yourself

You’ve listed out the pros and cons, but that still may not be enough to help make your decision. When it comes to a life-altering change like getting a doctorate, it’s okay to take enough time to ask yourself specific questions to ensure you’re making the right move. Consider asking yourself the following:

Why do I want to get a PhD?
Do I have the pre-requisites to move forward to a PhD?
What are my strengths and limitations?
Am I financially prepared?
Am I mentally prepared?
How will this affect my relationship with my family or friends?
Where will I study?
What am I trying to achieve?
What jobs will be available to me after I get my PhD?
Are there other options or avenues to consider?

Unfortunately, you may not have the answer to every one of these questions, because let’s face it, you don’t know what you don’t know. You might not know how it will affect your relationship with family or friends, but why not ask them? Reach out to those closest to you and see how you pursuing this degree could trickle down to them and allow that to play into your decision. Evaluate the answers to these questions and use it to help you make an educated decision on your future moving forward.

The best PhD degrees

If you’ve weighed out the pros and cons, asked all the important questions, and now you’re set on getting your PhD, congratulations! To help you along the way, let’s look at a list of the most valuable PhD programs to start you on your way to this degree.

Criminal Justice
Engineering
Cybersecurity
Business Administration

These fields are rapidly growing and are among the highest-paying doctorate degrees in 2022 , so they might be worth considering as you start your journey.

Key takeaways

Pursuing your PhD requires an incredible amount of commitment, and it's important to take the necessary time to make the decision. As you’re evaluating a doctorate degree, remember the following:

Evaluate the pros and cons list right from the beginning to ensure you’re weighing out both sides of the coin.
Ask yourself the necessary questions. A doctorate degree commitment can affect more than just you, so be sure you’re factoring that into your decision.
Review specifically which PhD would be best for you and your field progression.
Research your chosen field carefully and evaluate the job market before you finalize your degree choice.
Once you’ve selected your degree, stay focused and stay driven. It’s going to be a hard few years, but it will be worth the work!

Who knows, this may prompt you to move on to postgraduate study — never stop achieving!

Have you decided to pursue your PhD, or are you still considering your options? Join us in the comments below and let us know what’s stopping or encouraging you from getting a PhD.

Originally published on July 24, 2019. Updated by Shalie Reich.

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5 Reasons to Study a PhD

21 st February 2020

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A PhD is both financially draining and incredibly challenging. Lasting for 3 – 4 years (depending upon your subject matter) the percentage of students who start their qualification and either fail or drop out is significantly higher than any other postgraduate course.

However, there are plenty of reasons to study a PhD that outweigh those potential downsides. Here's five of them...

1) Make a Contribution Towards Your Chosen Field

Many students who pursue a PhD, do so because they are passionate about a specific subject, and want to use their research time to make important discoveries within that field.

One of the great things about your PhD is that you will be able to conduct your own research. If your thesis and your findings are strong and relevant, other experts within your chosen area of academia will reference your work and your discoveries when teaching future students.

2) Long-term Career Goals

Some students who pursue a PhD, do so in order to pursue their long-term degree goals. For those looking to pursue a career in academia, then a PhD is an essential qualification which will allow them to both continue their research, and to teach University students. Those wishing to pursue a career within this field should try and gain teaching practice throughout their PhD by giving lectures and seminars to first year undergraduates.

Many PhD graduates who are lucky enough to be sponsored to do their course go on to find employment with the companies that funded them. Similarly, the analytical and research skills learnt on a PhD course are highly transferable to other industries.

3) Improving and Challenging Knowledge

Some minds are just curious and for these people, studying for a PhD will feel like a natural next step. Unlike undergraduate and Master’s qualifications, the PhD program will be less structured and so students will be encouraged to research topics that are of specific interest to them.

4) Enjoyment of the Subject Matter

Again, many students study for a PhD simply because they are passionate about the subject and want to explore that passion.

Although contact hours are minimal, the PhD is a very intense course and you will be living and breathing your research and thesis for at least 3 years - so make sure you enjoy it before you commit.

5) Demonstration of Intellectual Potential

One thing a PhD course will do is separate the good academics from the fantastic ones. It not only demonstrates an individual’s ability to conduct independent research, but also showcases their in-depth knowledge in a specific subject area. Within the world of academia this is essential.

NEXT: Search for PhD courses

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Why Would You Want to Do a PhD?

Student perspectives on the value of a graduate degree

May 16, 2018 | Richard Z.

If you are reading this blog post, there is a good chance that you are thinking about a PhD, possibly at MIT. But MIT or not, almost every doctoral program would ask you why you are interested in their program and how it fits into your career goal. A typical answer would be:

I am interested in your PhD program because I want to do research in my area. My career goal is to become a professor at a university or research institute.

Indeed, doctoral degrees are by default the training programs for academics. You would presumably spend five years or so learning how to become a capable researcher in your academic field before applying for postdocs and eventually assistant professorships.

Things may not be so simple. The latest Doctoral Exit Survey by the MIT Career Services reveals that close to 50% of the PhD graduates in 2017 do not work in research institutes or universities immediately after graduation. Instead, they work across private and public sectors.

The “mismatch” between the program’s design to train academics and the non-academic careers pursued by many PhD graduates calls for us to revisit to the question: why on earth would you want to do a PhD? To that end, I interviewed a group of prospective, current, and graduated PhDs. The following themes popped up

Intellectual Curiosity If you are doing a PhD, you probably enjoy the subject of your program so much that you are willing to spend five or six years on it. Indeed, intellectual curiosity is common to most PhD students that I spoke with. Often it comes with little consideration to specific career choices. On this topic, Dr. F. shared his thoughts

“When I was considering my options after undergrad, the idea of getting an advanced degree and learning a topic at a deep level is very attractive to me,” said Dr. F., who got his PhD in atomic physics at MIT.

However, I asked if he had any postgraduate careers in mind when starting his PhD.

“I did not have a clear plan for what I wanted to do after graduation,” Dr. F. admitted, “But I did think that the jobs that I could pursue with an advanced degree were much more interesting than the ones with only a bachelor’s.”

After having worked at the MIT Lincoln Labs for a decade, Dr. F is now a CEO and founder of a company.

“I feel that with my PhD degree, I’ve got not only the technical tools but also enough confidence to analyze and solve the problems and deal with the unknown in my daily job.”

Non-Academic Careers It is a myth that a PhD degree only prepares you to succeed in academia. Since a doctoral program helps you develop a field specialty, it is not hard to imagine people who use their PhD training to sharpen their skills in order to work in industry. Abbas Shikari is no exception. A master’s student in mechanical engineering at MIT, he plans to extend his current program to a PhD. During our interview, he said it loud and clear,

“I would like to be a software architect for autonomous vehicles, and a PhD would help me achieve the depth of knowledge necessary to becoming a strong contributor to the field of robotics and self-driving cars.”

Formerly a supply chain manager at Fitbit, Abbas nonetheless grew unhappy with the business path that the position put him on.

“My daily job involved lots of email exchanges and small managerial tasks, and I found them quite boring,” said Abbas, “after speaking with the Fitbit engineers, I found robotics to be very interesting and technically challenging.”

“Robotics and autonomous vehicles are about to get into every aspect of our lives. I want to ride the next wave of the robotics, maturing the industry and making it more accessible to everyone. To do that I need acquire sufficient technical skills, and a PhD is my best bet.”

Feeling like the Only Choice Sometimes, pursuing a PhD can seem to be the only available choice after undergrad.

Clubs is a current PhD student at Harvard Medical School. Already featured in my previous article , she happily accepted my second interview, this time on why she pursued PhD.

“Graduate school was kind of a choice by default for me,” said Clubs, “I did not really explore different career options in undergrad. So close to graduation, I didn’t know what kind of jobs were out there for me.”

“I also didn’t feel the urge to join the workforce after my bachelor’s study, maybe because I was young and naïve,” said Clubs jokingly. “At the same time, all of my friends were studying for the GRE and applying for US graduate school. So I just followed suit. Later I got into Harvard, which was the best outcome I could have hoped for.”

During her time at Harvard, Clubs actively tried out different careers, including venture capital, biotech, and management consulting. Currently, she is interning in Shanghai at the Boston Consulting Group, one of the world’s premium consultancy firms.

“The flexibility of my PhD program leaves me lots of room for other stuff, and I did take the luxury of time to figure out exactly what I want to do with my life.”

So why do you want to pursue a PhD? I should note that I am not issuing personal judgments on anything or anyone above. After all, everyone has his or her own personal reason to pursue a doctoral degree as well as a unique expectation out of the program experience. What I’d like to mention is: it is one thing to convince the admission committees that you are a good PhD candidate, but it’s another to convince yourself that starting a doctoral program represents your best professional, intellectual, and personal interest.

So why do you want to pursue a PhD?

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Is it a good time to be getting a PhD? We asked those who’ve done it

Researcher, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University

Postdoctoral Research Associate, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University

Disclosure statement

Career Sessions was sponsored by a grant from Inspiring SA ( https://inspiringsa.org.au/ ).

Flinders University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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The number of Australian PhD graduates reached around 10,000 a year in 2019, twice as many as in 2005. However, the number of PhDs has been exceeding the available academic positions since as early as the mid-1990s. In 2020, universities purged around 10% of their workforce due to the pandemic, and many university careers are still vulnerable .

Given these statistics, you might wonder if doing a PhD is still a good idea. Based on our discussions with PhD holders, there are still plenty of very good reasons, which is good news in 2021.

Read more: 2021 is the year Australia's international student crisis really bites

In June 2020 we interviewed 12 PhD holders from multiple disciplines for our podcast Career Sessions to investigate the question: why do a PhD?

Why do a PhD?

The PhD is a mechanism for developing high-level research skills, learning about rigours of science or the development of theory. It sets you up with project management, problem-solving and analytical skills that are meaningful within and beyond academia.

“It just taught me all those transferable skills, project management, and also now starting businesses. I’m amazed at how close starting a business is to doing a science project.” – Dr Andy Stapleton

For our interviewees, the PhD is an opportunity to dive deeply into a topic they are passionate about. They also considered contributing new knowledge to be a privilege. The process taught them to be better thinkers, critical thinkers, and to view the world through new eyes.

“The mental fitness to work at a high level, to be able to think at a high level, to be able to write it […] The topic is less important.” – Dr Gareth Furber

The PhD is a voyage of discovery to a better understanding of how things work. It gives them a credible platform from which their voice can be heard and respected, and they can contribute to change.

“I think it’s definitely like a springboard or something. It launches you into a whole other place and it gives you […] more of a voice. It’s a political act for me. It’s about making change.” – Dr Elizabeth Newnham

The PhD is a tough and sometimes painful journey, but ultimately rewarding. The extraordinary was tempered by frustration, and the experience shaped their lives, increasing self-confidence and leading to new self-awareness.

Read more: PhD completion: an evidence-based guide for students, supervisors and universities

When asked whether they would they do it again, no-one hesitated in saying “yes”.

“You will never stretch your brain in a way that a PhD forces you to.” – Professor Kate Douglas.

The PhD is not necessarily a golden ticket to an academic career, but the experience and skills you develop will be meaningful for your future.

“What I’d done in my PhD gave me a lot broader sense than just my own personal experience. There were a lot of people that have heard me speak and a lot of that’s been informed by the PhD. So it might not be direct, but it’s informed who I am.” – Dr Susan Close

Advice from our guests

Keep both your eyes and your mind open. Pick a topic you are passionate about. Speak to people both within and outside academia to find out where this could lead. Think about whether you actually need a PhD to get to where you want to be.

You’ll have to make some judgement calls about how a PhD can fit into your life.

And find the right supervisor! They are the most important relationship you will have throughout your candidature, and they are a solid reference for what comes next. Finding the right supervisor will always enhance your PhD experience .

Read more: Ten types of PhD supervisor relationships – which is yours?

A PhD isn’t right for everyone. Ask yourself, is it the right time for you and your research interests? Are you resilient? Mental health among PhD students is poor

Our podcast guests have witnessed PhD students’ struggles. The pathway of a PhD candidate is not linear. There are many ups and downs. You will meander in many unplanned directions and often take wrong turns.

When you have completed your PhD, the hard work is really just starting. It is a gateway, but there are a lot of PhDs out there. It is what comes next that really counts.

“It’s a gateway. You’re learning how to do research. But if you really want to be successful afterwards, you need to apply that, and be diligent about that as well, and have a good work ethic.” – Dr Mark Krstic

Read more: 1 in 5 PhD students could drop out. Here are some tips for how to keep going

A PhD in any field is an achievement. Even the most niche topics will contribute knowledge to a field that is important for many people. The reward is intrinsic and only you can identify how doing a PhD will contribute to your life. It gives you a great toolkit to identify the doors that are appropriate for you.

“The first paper was the most exciting thing. […] at that time I thought of papers as like a version of immortality. My name is on something that will last forever. I think this is my legacy.” – Dr Cameron Shearer

Table showing guests of Career Sessions podcast, their PhD thesis titles, and what they are doing now

Higher education
PhD supervisors
PhD students
PhD research
PhD candidates

Technical Research Support - Digital

Laboratory Head - RNA Biology

Head of School, School of Arts & Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia

Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Data Manager

11 Reasons why to Study a PhD?

Studying a PhD is a tough decision for a student but is actually more rewarding. The advantages are more than drawbacks.

But still, you may have confusion about what to do, or what not to!

After the master’s surely a question bothers you, “should I have to go for PhD or not?” It’s pretty fine to have doubts because it takes 5 to 6 years to complete and also is expensive.

Even if you enroll in it, at one point of your PhD tenure you will feel like your decision was wrong. It’s a painful and frustrating process but from my personal experiences, I can say studying for a PhD is the more profitable, helpful and life-changing decision of one’s life.

The present content forces on the reason why doing a PhD is the best decision of your life. I will give you 10 reasons why to study PhD.

Interesting article to read: Is PhD worth it in 2021?

11 reasons why to study PhD:

It’s an honor: .

First of all, if you are in the PhD or willing to go for it, keep in mind that it’s an honor. Not all can get admission in it, and not even everyone completes it. You are doing it means you are special and knowledgeable than others.

Universities give the degree as esteem or prestige, therefore it’s the biggest reason to study. People will see you with respect, after completing it, your opinion will matter for all because after all, you will be an expert, the philosopher in your subject.

Call yourself doctor:

Every parent wants their child to be a doctor or engineer (especially in India), if you miss the chance after the 12th, you will have another. Go for a PhD, complete all the milestones, defend your thesis and be a doctor.

A PhD degree holder can legally use “Dr” above their name. The reason is they have mastered some skills which no one has. Isn’t it fascinating! However, if you are studying for a PhD only get the acknowledgment of a doctor, don’t have your time. PhD is a serious business and a tedious process.

Develop problem-solving capabilities:

Whatever the subjects are, the results or findings of a PhD must be useful to people, society or the world otherwise it’s a waste of time. Analyze your PhD goals whether they are useful to some extent or not!

Doctoral studies are all about providing or giving new knowledge to the world. The finding or knowledge should solve some existing real-world problems, that’s what the PhD is.

The entire tenure of PhD makes you a person having capabilities of solving problems, again it’s a unique characteristic, not many have. For instance, if you have developed some unique water conservation idea or device, it solves the problem. If you have manufactured some device to produce electricity, it solves the world’s problems.

The coursework and syllabus of the PhD are designed in such a way that tailors someone’s problem-solving capabilities.

Learning new things:

Some people want to learn, every day, every time, money doesn’t matter for them. Let me tell you if you are in them, PhD is definitely for you. As I always say, studying a PhD is like swimming in the shoreless sea.

Every day starts with new problems, new challenges and new goals. You have to read things to solve problems and ride your boat ahead, day by day. Maybe you are stuck, sometimes, but your skills to learn new things helps you to cope up with it.

You will definitely learn new things while studying a PhD.

Out of the box analytical thinking

The use of existing information or knowledge to accurately solve any problem or handle any situation is our analytic thinking. Now you know why analytical thinking is top of the chart for a PhD student. They have knowledge, power and sense to solve problems.

Higher positions:

In any system, the higher positions are reserved for the doctors. Deans, heads of the departments, leaders and CEOs of reputed organizations are doctors only- the doctor of philosophy.

If a doctoral degree, you can get higher positions in education or academics, research, private or other sectors. The reason why so, it simply clear- they have skills, potential, knowledge, out of the box analytic thinking and problem-solving capabilities.

More career options:

Now coming to the main point of the present topics, why studying PhD is beneficial? – the answer is more career options.

With the highest level of academic degree, the fellow can choose their career in academics and become a professor or lecturer, industrial leader, organization head, dean of the institute, leader, scientist, researcher, writer, editor or anything they want.

One elevates their earning and career options with the PhD.

More earning:

As you get higher positions in any system you can ask for a higher salary, if your expertise is so restricted, then you can even earn more than others.

The average salary of PhD degree holders in education is ~$70,000; research is ~50,000 to 1,00,000$; IT sector is 1,20,000$ and healthcare is 95,000 to 1,00,00$ per year.

If you wish to learn more on job positions and the expected salary of various PhD degree holders, you can read this article: PhD jobs and expected salary .

Comfortable lifestyle:

10 to 5 jobs, a good weekend, a month’s holiday after every semester is a dream for many but a reality for the doctor. PhD studies prepare candidates for academics as well as research and get jobs as professional, educational experts of the lecturer.

The academic option as a career is more comfortable for anyone. By taking a job at a college, they can live life comfortably.

The responsibilities of an academician are teaching students, guiding research students, doing college stuff and that’s it.

Power to change the world:

A PhD degree in your hand is like a loaded gun, you can use it to change the world with your excellent knowledge and research potentials. Everyone who had changed the world with their innovations were scientists. A PhD degree prepares you to be a good scientist.

You can choose to be a scientist, accept challenges to find something new to change the world. With the knowledge and power of analytical thinking, the philosopher can revolutionize the world.

Develop expertise:

The core value of any PhD or doctoral studies is to develop the expertise of the PhD fellow. Your responsibilities in PhD are to work on a single topic using techniques, theory or methods.

A fellow has to find something new and nourish your skills and expertise. One needs to work continuously using a single skill or technique every day for 5 years.

PhD studies sharpen your present skills or expertise and take it to the next level.

Related article: PhD student- What Skills and Qualities One Should Acquire?

Why study PhD? – some recommendations

After reading this positive intended piece of healthy content you should have to know more about why to study PhD. I have some recommendations cum tips for you if you make up your mind to go for a PhD. here they are:

Don’t go in a hurry: again, think twice, I do not scare you but you have to invest time and money, if you do not have an interest in reading, solving problems, learning new things and get frustrated and demotivated easily, you should think over your decision.

Don’t follow the benefits, go with your natural instinct.

Reading and writing are a must: PhD is all about new things- new knowledge, new findings and new discoveries. You have to read more and more on your topic to even start the work.

Before enrolling, tailor skills of daily reading and writing for at least 4 hours otherwise, you will be in big trouble.

Take a chill pill: you will be soon on the shoreless ocean, don’t get frustrated or panic, just go with the flow, start from somewhere and follow your supervisor’s order. Things will get better soon.

Think about finance: PhD is a huge project, you have to invest huge money. Prepare yourself how you will manage or cope up with the PhD finance problems for at least the next 5 years.

Although you have some option to finance your PhD, read this article for that: what is a funded PhD?

Keep a smile on your face: prepare your mind for 5 to 6 years, you have to face repeated problems with your PhD every day. There is no option to come back. Keep a smile on your face and prepare for everyday challenges.

Why study PhD?- challenges to face

“PhD is not for all”- you may read this sentence in most of our articles, I will never give someone false hopes, the reason is, studying PhD is actually, indeed a hard job! It’s not for all.

One must have dedication, sensiarity, knowledge and patience to do it. If you have all these skills, you may try. Here I am enlisting several challenges to face while study PhD.

Time consuming process: Study PhD takes more time up to 5 or 7 years or even more. So if you are fighting against lack of patience, trust me think twice.

Expensive one: Generally PhD or doctoral degrees are costlier. The fees are too much and one needs to manage expenses for at least 4 to 5 years. But don’t worry there are plenty of funding options available.

The expenses of doing a PhD ranging from 20,000$ to 40,000$ or more (only fees!). Besides students also have to manage other research expenses and accommodation themself.

More failures: Doing a PhD is like swimming in the ocean without a shore. Failures are an everyday process. As I said, one should show patience to get results. As the main objective of doing research is to find new knowledge, it is obvious that you get failures.

Don’t get frustrated with failures, try to figure out the reasons, possibly to overcome the problem. That’s what the PhD is, perhaps.

Demotivation : there are two sides of PhD- passion, enthusiasm and confidence on the positive side whilst frustration, demotivation and depression at the negative side.

You got demotivated by repeated failures, tons of work loads and pending duties. But it’s a process, everyone should follow. Don’t take it too serious, motivate yourself by reading and listening to motivational things.

Tons of workloads: failure! The common thing in PhD and obvious as your target doesn’t achieve it elevates workload. Be prepared to work even after college hours or on weekends.

Anyhow you have to complete your weekly or monthly workloads that’s the only formula to complete the doctorate in time.

Studying PhD in different countries:

Phd studies in the usa: .

USA- The United States of America is one of the most popular destinations for higher educational studies like PhD or doctoral. Highly qualified experts and professors, state of the art instrumentation and lab set ups, more facilities for students and more career options after the degree are the reason why everyone wants to go to the USA for doing the PhD.

In addition to this, the universities across the USA are highly ranked and reputed one and the whole PhD study system is so smooth.

A graduate or master’s degree holder can apply directly to different universities to get admission. Personal interview requires the research proposal showing the possible rough draft of the research.

There are two ways to get into the PhD in the USA either directly through MPhil or through the entrance examination. International students also need to clear the english proficiency test too.

Top universities to study PhD in USA:

Harvard university
Stanford university
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of California, Berkeley
Columbia University
University of California, Los Angeles
Yale University
University of Pennsylvania
Princeton University
Cornell University
New York University
University of CHicago
Duke university
John Hopkins University

If you want to learn more read this article: PhD in USA- Admission, Process, Universities, Salary and Jobs .

Study PhD in India:

Getting a PhD is a tougher job but is more structured in India. Common entrance exams like NET, SLATE or GATE add additional toughness to the degree.

MAster’s degree with a minimum of 55% marks can apply for the PhD, though every student needs to clear the entrance exam before enrolling. Coursework is also compulsory to go head in the degree.

Top universities to study PhD in the India: PhD in India- Fees, Duration, Scholarship and Universities .

Indian Institute of science
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
Delhi university
Allahabad university

Study PhD in UK:

The UK is another famous destination for higher studies. The PhD study system is a bit different than others which gives more weightage to research. Prospective students’ research background is taken into consideration for PhD.

Besides, graduation, post-graduation, MPhil and course work is needed to get the ticket to PhD.

Top universities to study PhD in the UK: How much does a PhD Degree Cost in the USA, UK and India?

University of Oxford
University of Cambridge
University of London
University of Edinburgh
University of Manchester

Conclusion:

I think these reasons are enough to convenience you to study PhD. If you are still in a dilemma, trust me the PhD isn’t for you. Make your mind, put negativity on hold and go for it.

Select the topic you love, choose the technique you like the most and sharpen your knowledge and skills. If you are a newbie and want to learn more about PhD, you can read this article: What is PhD?- for beginners .

Dr. Tushar Chauhan is a Scientist, Blogger and Scientific-writer. He has completed PhD in Genetics. Dr. Chauhan is a PhD coach and tutor.

About The Author

Dr Tushar Chauhan

What is PhD?- History, Definition, Origin, Requirement, Fees, Duration and Process

How to write a PhD thesis?

What is a PhD and Why Should YOU do one?

male and female conducting experiments in lab

In the UK, a PhD stands for ‘Doctor of Philosophy’, sometimes referred to as a ‘doctorate’. It is the highest level of degree that a student can achieve. At some institutions, including Oxford University, a Doctor of Philosophy is known as a DPhil. It is distinct from professional doctorates such as an Engineering Doctorate (EngD).

Entry requirements

An undergraduate degree is a minimum requirement and many will also require a master’s degree (such as an MA, MSc or MRes). Some scholarships will be on a 1+3 basis, which is one year of a master’s plus three years of PhD funding.

How to apply for a PhD

Prospective students are usually expected to submit a research proposal to the department they wish to undertake their study in. Some departments will encourage students to discuss their ideas with an academic working in that field first. The proposal will outline what they intend their research to investigate, how it relates to other research in their field and what methods they intend to use to carry out their research. Some PhD’s however, particularly in the sciences, are advertised as studentships where the research aims are more prescriptive.

How long is the course?

A PhD usually lasts three years (four for a New Route PhD – see below), or rather, any available funding usually lasts for that time. Students may be able to take extra time in order to complete their thesis but this will usually be at their own expense. For part-time, self-funded students, it can take up to seven years.

What’s involved

A PhD usually culminates in a dissertation of around 80,000-100,000 words , based on research carried out over the course of their study. The research must be original and aim to create new knowledge or theories in their specialist area, or build on existing knowledge or theories. Many departments initially accept students on an MPhil basis and then upgrade them to PhD status after the first year or two, subject to satisfactory progress. Students who are not considered to be doing work appropriate for the level can instead submit a shorter thesis and gain an MPhil.

There is little taught element, students are expected to work independently, supported by their department and a supervisor. There may be seminars to attend and/or lab work to complete, depending on the subject. During their study, students will try and get academic papers published and present their work at conferences, which will allow them to get feedback on their ideas for their dissertation.

New Route PhD

Introduced in 2001, the New Route PhD is a four-year programme that combines taught elements, including professional and transferable skills, with the student’s research. There are now hundreds of doctoral students studying a variety of subjects at a consortium of universities across the UK.

Career prospects for PhD Students

PhD graduates who go on to work in academia usually start off by undertaking postdoctoral research and then a fellowship or lectureship. Other career options will depend on what the PhD was in – commercial research is an option for some, and many are able to use their specialist knowledge and research skills in areas of business and finance.

For a real insight into what it’s like to study at PhD level, see our vlog series , where we have invited students at various stages of their PhD and locations to film themselves over a month and share their videos with you.

Why do a PhD?

If you are considering doing one make sure that you do it with a purpose. Do one because you want to and know why you want to do it and have a clear idea of what it could lead to . How is doing a PhD going to help you achieve what you want to in your future?

Reasons to do a PhD.

It’ll be good for your career. No one expects you to have your whole career plan mapped out when you start a PhD, but having some ideas of where you want to get to can be useful. Be aware though that you may not get the career benefits of a PhD straight away.
You want to be an expert in a particular area of your subject. If you complete a PhD you will be. No-one, not your supervisor, not your external examiner at the end of your PhD, no-one, will know more about the subject you researched than you do.
You want to achieve something. You want to work hard and demonstrate a passion for your subject and show how much time and effort you put in and how motivated you are.
Showing your ability to motivate yourself is one of many skills you’ll be able to demonstrate to employers after doing a PhD, which is handy for entering a competitive job market .

Reasons not to do a PhD.

Don’t do it just because your degree research project supervisor asked you if you wanted to do one with them. If you wanted to do one and it’s in an area that interests you then great, go for it. If you hadn’t thought about doing one before they asked, and you’re not sure why you want to do one, make sure you work that out before saying yes to them.
Don’t do it because you don’t know what else to do. Many people do a PhD because they don’t know what else to do and think it will give them time to work that out. Doing a PhD is a huge commitment, at least 3-4 years of your life, and hard work, so before you take one on, make sure you understand why.
And do it because YOU want to, not because your family, or others expect it of you, or because your family or friends are doing one, or have done one. Make it your decision, not someone else’s.

Why Should YOU Do A PhD?

It is your decision to commit to a significant period of time and work and it needs to be something you approach positively and with enthusiasm but also with realism about the pros and cons of undertaking original research.

Who does a PhD?

The idea of the “perpetual student”, i.e. someone who stays on after an undergraduate and/or masters degree, to do a PhD, is perhaps a traditional view of PhDs. Some of you reading this will fall into the category of those who work through the tiers of higher education in this sequential fashion (it does not necessarily make you a “perpetual student” though!). The PhD population today is very diverse and not made up entirely of 21 to 25-year-olds who have stayed in educational settings for the majority of their lives. Others may be considering a return to education in order to change your career or as part of your professional development within an existing career. Some of you may be considering coming to study in the UK independently or with support from an organisation in your home country. Whatever your situation it is very important that you take time to recognise and understand why you are making this commitment and what it entails.

Let us move to the positives of why YOU should do a Ph.D. Broadly, the positive reasons can be classified into:

You WANT to or You NEED to

Some academic colleagues were asked to give reasons why someone should do a PhD and all came back with statements that had the word “passion” in them. This is having a real passion for your subject and an area of it that you want to investigate further. My colleagues also offered some interesting comments on the reality of making a decision to do a PhD even when you have this passion. Some commented on the need to consider doing the right PhD for you and not just any PhD, and I think it is important that you take this seriously as it can be dangerous to compromise too far and embark on research that you are not interested in just because it will lead to a PhD.

Academic colleagues also wanted you to look ahead and consider where your PhD may take you. Do you want to continue in an academic career or apply for jobs in industry or other organisations where a PhD is a requirement or will help you to work at a different level? Interestingly, research on the career intentions of students, undertaken by Vitae revealed that less than one-third had firm career ideas even in the latter stages of their Ph.D. This statistic is concerning as it may mean that PhD students miss opportunities to add to their range of experience. You don’t need to have an exact career plan in place at the start of your Ph.D., but doing research on where it may take you is valuable. For those already in a career and undertaking a PhD as part of their professional development, or those who are viewing a PhD as part of a career change into academia, they should also look ahead and ensure that plans for the future are realistic and achievable.

A decision to undertake a PhD involves the same steps as any other career decision, you need to find out as much as possible about what a Ph.D. really involves. Alongside considering where your passions lie and where they might lead to, you need to research such things as:

The working environment and how you will adapt to any differences with your current situation
Working with a supervisor
What funding is available and what it covers, i.e. fees only or fees and living costs?
Most importantly what behaviours, skills and experiences YOU have that will make you a successful and productive researcher

These points and others are covered in more detail in 7 Ph.D Application Tips .

Find your PhD here

For further PhD tips see:

What Can You Do With a PhD?

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Reasons to do a PhD or research degree

Is research right for you?

Discover the benefits of getting a PhD or research degree and how it can boost your career.

Do you love learning, want to keep researching or hit the heights of your field of expertise?

PhDs and research degrees help you start or continue your research in a field you're passionate about. You can decide what you work on, how you work on it and how you get there, with support and guidance from a supervisory team.

Make a world-first discovery, create innovation with lasting impact or shine a new light on important topics.

Whether you've just finished your postgraduate degree, in the workforce or returning to uni after a break, a research degree gives you a lot of options.

Jump to section:

Questions to ask yourself.

Don’t just take our word for it – check out some of our Student Stories to see the great experience our students had at uni.

For me Portsmouth bridged the gap between academia and practical work, from leading my own firm (Alexandrite Decisions) to founding a charity organisation for cancer patients support.

Rania Azmi, Goal Programming Research Doctorate

1. Passion for research

If you simply love learning and have a passion for discovering new things then it's a good sign a research degree is for you.

You'll pick a topic you're interested in and have the freedom to dive deep into the heart of a problem.

Draw on the years of research in your field, forge your own findings or perspective and make your contribution to a body of exceptional research.

2. Become an expert in your field

Build on your knowledge from your Master's degree by engaging with complex topics in a more specialised field of your choice.

You'll be able to learn more about what you're passionate about and give you the tools to make meaningful contributions to specific research fields.

You'll dive into key areas and challenges in your field, developing your theoretical approach and applying it through your research.

Or you could look at conducting interdisciplinary research. Blend theories, approaches and expertise across fields and universities to create brand new, world-leading research.

3. Put your studies into practice

If you want to start applying what you learned in your studies then a research degree is a great way to do it.

You'll work independently in gathering resources and research. You'll develop sharp time management skills, share your findings with your peers and develop your work together.

You'll hone your communication skills so you can discuss complex topics both written and verbally to experts and everyday people alike.

You'll develop your interpersonal skills, working with professional staff, peers, academics and others. Become a master of taking on feedback as you refine your research.

Writing an extended report or essay takes time and skill. Identifying an objective, working in the lab or forging an argument and making your case with evidence takes talent. You'll end up a technical expert and writer no matter what field you're in.

4. Learn with engaged peers

During your research degree, you and your peers are all studying to get better at what you do. You'll learn with motivated researchers bringing their own perspectives and experiences to the same problems.

You'll build a solid study group to push and encourage each other to develop. You'll also gain new insights from your classmates that can help shape your learning.

5. Boost your career

A research degree is a great way to become a subject matter expert or researcher.

A research-based degree is the most direct pathway to an academic job at university. You'll get the skills you need to compete in the university sector. After you graduate you can look at becoming a tutor, researcher or lecturer. Most universities offer post-doctoral research fellowships where you can get paid to hone your skills, carry on researching and get your academic career rolling.

Some jobs require a Master's or PhD and generally pay very well in the private and public sector. You could:

work in the public or private sector in industrial research and development
advise on government policy to make an impact on your local region or country
become a communications expert for your field and share complex research in clear, everyday fashion

6. Networking opportunities

PhDs and research degrees are a great chance to expand your network and meet diverse people with similar interests, knowledge and passion.

You'll have the chance to attend conferences, seminars and workshops in different cities or countries. Gain new insights and build connections with other researchers and experts across borders.

Networking with coursemates, colleagues and other academics helps expand your knowledge base and balance the solitude that can often come with a research life. Having a network is also incredibly helpful in finding and applying for funding and looking for work in the future.

7. New city, new experiences

Studying for a PhD or research degree might mean moving cities or even countries. If you've been wanting a change of setting along with your career path it's a great opportunity to give both a try.

If you're an international student, studying in a different country gives you the chance to graduate with both fantastic life experiences and a great qualification.

Portsmouth is a welcoming, student-friendly city – one where you'll meet people from all around the world, and have the chance to make connections with people in a whole new environment.

See why Portsmouth is a great place to live

Robert in lab coat explaining something and gesturing to whiteboard

Since starting my PhD, I have been lucky enough to publish twice and visit three different conferences, one of which was held at Cornell University. These opportunities will prove invaluable in my career going forwards, in academia.

Robert Lawrence, PhD Molecular Microbiology

Just like any course, the benefits you'll get from a research degree depends on what you want to get out of it. When you're weighing up your options there are some important questions you should ask yourself to make sure it's right for you.

1. Is this subject something I'm passionate about?

Studying a research degree is a multi-year time commitment. If you're excited by the idea of spending a significant period of time dedicated to one subject, that's a good sign you're ready.

Research degrees often involve a lot of independent work, so if you're only partly interested in the subject, you might find yourself losing interest. That can make meeting your own expectations more difficult.

Is learning about and working in this field something that you can see yourself in for the next 5-10 years? And where do you want to be in that timeframe? It's important not to study just so you can put off bigger life decisions.

2. Do I need a research degree to follow my passion?

There are many different jobs or careers in every field. Not all of them require you to have a research Master's or PhD.

If you want to contribute to a specific industry or area, do you already have some skills and knowledge you can apply in it? If not, what skills or knowledge will a research degree give you?

3. Am I ready for more uni?

If you've finished your Bachelor's or Master's degree and are looking at your next options, a research degree is an option that keeps things familiar. For some students, if you've spent the last 3-4 years studying you might want to try something different.

It depends on who you are, what you care about and what you want to do with your life. If you finished your degree and you're mostly relieved it's over then jumping right back into study may not be the best fit for you.

Remember that you can always go to uni again later. Plenty of graduates spend a few years working before coming back to upskill, retrain or dive into their passion. In a lot of cases, what you've learned in your work experience will make you a better student when you go back to it.

4. Have I found the right supervisor?

Every research student has at least one supervisor. They're there to support and guide you as you develop your ideas and compile your research

Having the right supervisor can be the difference between making your research good, great or excellent. If they're running or part of a research centre or group you may have greater access to networks and resources

It's best you explore supervisors you can work with , which might mean checking out multiple universities and reaching out to them directly. Usually, their profile will say if they're taking on new students and they're happy to get back to you by email.

Beatrice Ashton-Lelliott - PhD in English Literature

As it is a PhD I have formed my course myself, but having a supervisor who is well-versed in my subject area is the most unique part of my work here, as no one else is approaching the subjects we look at in a similar way

Beatrice Ashton-Lelliott, PhD English Literature

5. Can I afford it?

Before you decide on a research degree it's important to think about the costs involved.

If you're a UK national applying for an MPhil or MRes course, you might be eligible for a Government Postgraduate Master's Loan which you can use to fund your tuition fees, living costs and other costs for a Master's course.

If you're an international student you'll need to plan out how you can cover your costs and fund yourself while you're studying.

When considering a PhD there are funded and non-funded options:

If you've got an idea that aligns with an academic's field of expertise, you can contact them directly
Look to external funding from the government or an independent research body
Universities will offer funded PhD opportunities but these may be limited
Start a PhD without funding support

If you're currently working you may need to adjust your working hours or potentially look for part-time work. You might have less money to play with if you're studying full-time and working on the side.

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3 . 01 . 20
Leaving Academia

Is a PhD Worth It? I Wish I’d Asked These 6 Questions First.

Posted by: Chris

Updated Nov. 19, 2022

Is a PhD worth it?

Should I get a PhD?

A few people admit to regretting their PhD. Most—myself included — said that they don’t ( I wrote about why in this post ).

But we often say we don’t regret stupid things we’ve done or bad things that happen to us. This means we learned from them, not that we wanted them to happen.

So just because PhDs don’t regret it, doesn’t mean it was worth it.

But if you were to ask, Is a PhD worth it, it’s a different and more complicated question.

When potential PhD students ask me for advice, I hate giving it. I can’t possibly say whether it will be worth it for them. I only know from experience that for some PhDs the answer is no.

In this post, I’ll look at this question from five different directions, five different ways that a PhD could be worth it. Then I give my opinion on each one. You can tell me if I got the right ones of if I’m way off base. So here we go.

This is post contains affiliate links. Thanks for supporting Roostervane!

tl;dr It’s up to you to make it worth it. A PhD can hurt your finances, sink you in debt, and leave you with no clear path to success in some fields. But PhDs statistically earn more than their and have lower unemployment rates. A PhD also gives you a world-class mind, a global network, and a skill set that can go just about anywhere.

Should I Get a PhD?

tl;dr Don’t get a PhD by default. Think it through. Be clear about whether it’s going to help you reach career goals, and don’t expect to be a professor. A few rules of thumb- make sure you know where you want to go and whether a PhD is the ONLY way to get there, make sure it’s FUNDED (trust me), and make sure your program has strong ties into industry and a record of helping its students get there.

1. Is a PhD worth it for your finances?

My guess: Not usually

People waste a lot of their best years living on a grad stipend. To be honest, my money situation was pretty good in grad school. I won a large national grant, I got a ton of extra money in travel grants, and my Canadian province gave me grants for students with dependents. But even with a decent income, I was still in financial limbo–not really building wealth of any sort.

And many students scrape by on very small stipends while they study.

When it comes to entering the marketplace, research from Canada and the United States shows that PhD students eventually out-earn their counterparts with Master’s degrees. It takes PhDs a few years to find their stride, but most of us eventually do fine for earnings if we leave academia. Which is great, and perhaps surprising to many PhDs who think that a barista counter is the only non-academic future they have .

The challenge is not income–it’s time. If you as a PhD grad make marginally more than a Master’s graduate, but they entered the workforce a decade earlier, it takes a long time for even an extra $10,000 a year to catch up. The Master’s grad has had the time to build their net worth and network, perhaps buy a house, pay down debt, invest, and just generally get financially healthy.

While PhDs do fine in earnings in the long run, the opportunity cost of getting the PhD is significant.

The only real way to remedy this—if you’ve done a PhD and accumulating wealth is important to you, is to strategically maximize your earnings and your value in the marketplace to close the wealth gap. This takes education, self-discipline, and creativity, but it is possible.

I tried to calculate the opportunity cost of prolonging entry into the workforce in this post .

2. Is a PhD worth it for your career?

My guess: Impossible to tell

Most of my jobs have given me the perfect opportunity to see exactly where I could be if I’d stopped at a Master’s degree, often working alongside or for those who did and are further ahead. In terms of nuts and bolts of building career experience section on a resume, which is often the most important part, a PhD is rarely worth it. (Some STEM careers do require a PhD.)

However, at the start of my post-graduate educational journey, I was working part-time running teen programs and full time as a landscaper. I had an undergraduate degree. Despite my job and a half, I was still poor. My life had no direction, and had I not begun my Master’s to PhD journey I probably would have stayed there.

The PhD transformed me personally. It did this by developing my skills, or course. But even more so, it taught me that anything is possible. It took a poor kid from a mining town in northern Canada and gave me access to the world. It made my dreams of living abroad come true. I learned that anything is possible. And that will never go away.

It’s changed the course of my life and, subsequently, my career.

It’s impossible for you to know if it’s worth it for your career. But you can build a hell of a career with it.

So it wouldn’t be fair for me to say, “don’t get a PhD.” Because it worked out for me, and for some it does.

But there are a heck of a lot of people who haven’t figured out how to build a career with this thing. Which is one of the reasons Roostervane exists in the first place.

Psst! If you’re looking at doing a PhD because you don’t know where to go next with your career–I see you. Been there. Check out my free PDF guide– How to Build a Great Career with Any Degree.

3. Is a PhD worth it for your personal brand?

My guess: Probably

There’s some debate over whether to put a Dr. or PhD before or after your name. People argue over whether it helps in the non-academic marketplace. Some feel that it just doesn’t translate to whatever their new reality is. Some have been told by some manager somewhere that they’re overqualified and pulled themselves back, sometimes wiping the PhD off their resume altogether.

The truth is, if you have a PhD, the world often won’t know what to do with it. And that’s okay. Well-meaning people won’t understand how you fit into the landscape, and you may have to fight tooth and nail for your place in it. People may tell you they can’t use you, or they might go with what they know—which is someone less qualified and less-educated.

It happens.

But someone with a PhD at the end of their name represents an indomitable leader. So grow your possibilities bigger and keep fighting. And make your personal brand match those three little letters after your name. Do this so that the world around can’t help but see you as a leader. More importantly, do it so that you don’t forget you are.

Should I put “PhD” after my name on LinkedIn?

5 reasons you need to brand yourself

4. Is a PhD worth it for your sense of purpose?

Is getting a PhD worth it? For many people the answer is no.

PhDs are hurting.

If you’ve done one, you know. Remember the sense of meaning and purpose that drew you towards a PhD program? Was it still there at the end? If yours was, you’re lucky. I directed my purpose into getting hired in a tenure-track job, and got very hurt when it didn’t happen.

And people have vastly different experiences within programs.

Some people go through crap. But for them their research is everything and putting up with crap is worth it to feel like they have a sense of purpose. Many PhDs who are drawn into programs chasing a sense of purpose leave deeply wounded and disenchanted, ironically having less purpose when they started.

While new PhDs often talk about the PhD as a path do doing “something meaningful,” those of us who have been through entire programs have often seen too much. We’ve either seen or experienced tremendous loss of self. Some have friends who didn’t make it out the other end of the PhD program.

But there are some PhDs who have a great experience in their programs and feel tremendously fulfilled.

As I reflect on it, I don’t think a sense of purpose is inherently fulfilled or disappointed by a PhD program. There are too many variables.

However, if you’re counting on a PhD program to give you a sense of purpose, I’d be very careful. I’d be even more cautious if purpose for you means “tenure-track professor.” Think broadly about what success means to you and keep an open mind .

5. Is my discipline in demand?

Okay, so you need to know that different disciplines have different experiences. Silicon Valley has fallen in love with some PhDs, and we’re seeing “PhD required” or “PhD preferred” on more and more job postings. So if your PhD is in certain, in-demand subjects… It can be a good decision.

My humanities PhD, on the other hand, was a mistake. I’m 5 years out now, and I’ve learned how to use it and make money with it. That’s the great news. But I’d never recommend that anyone get a PhD in the humanities. Sorry. I really wish I could. It’s usually a waste of years of your life, and you’ll need to figure out how to get a totally unrelated job after anyway.

TBH, most of the skills I make money with these days I taught myself on Skillshare .

6. Is a PhD worth it for your potential?

My guess: Absolutely

Every human being has unlimited potential, of course. But here’s the thing that really can make your PhD worth it. The PhD can amplify your potential. It gives you a global reach, it gives you a recognizable brand, and it gives you a mind like no other.

One of my heroes is Brené Brown. She’s taken research and transformed the world with it, speaking to everyone from Wall-Street leaders to blue-collar workers about vulnerability, shame, and purpose. She took her PhD and did amazing things with it.

Your potential at the end of your PhD is greater than it has ever been.

The question is, what will you do with that potential?

Many PhD students are held back, not by their potential, but by the fact that they’ve learned to believe that they’re worthless. Your potential is unlimited, but when you are beaten and exhausted, dragging out of a PhD program with barely any self-worth left, it’s very hard to reach your potential. You first need to repair your confidence.

But if you can do that, if you can nurture your confidence and your greatness every day until you begin to believe in yourself again, you can take your potential and do anything you want with it.

So why get a PhD?

Because it symbolizes your limitless potential. If you think strategically about how to put it to work.

PhD Graduates Don’t Need Resumes. They Need a Freaking Vision

By the way… Did you know I wrote a book about building a career with a PhD? You can read the first chapter for free on Amazon.

So if you’re asking me, “should I do a PhD,” I hope this post helps you. Try your best to check your emotion, and weigh the pros and cons.

And at the end of the day, I don’t think that whether a PhD is worth it or not is some fixed-in-stone thing. In fact, it depends on what you do with it.

So why not make it worth it? Work hard on yourself to transform into a leader worthy of the letters after your name, and don’t be afraid to learn how to leverage every asset the PhD gave you.

One of the reasons I took my PhD and launched my own company is that I saw how much more impact I could have and money I could be making as a consultant (perhaps eventually with a few employees). As long as I worked for someone else, I could see that my income would likely be capped. Working for myself was a good way to maximize my output and take control of my income.

It’s up to you to make it worth it. Pick what’s important to you and how the degree helps you get there, and chase it. Keep an open mind about where life will take you, but always be asking yourself how you can make more of it.

Check out the related post- 15 Good, Bad, and Awful Reasons People Go to Grad School. — I Answer the Question, “Should I Go to Grad School?” )

Consulting Secrets 3 – Landing Clients

Photo by Christian Sterk on Unsplash There’s a new type of post buzzing around LinkedIn. I confess, I’ve even made a few. The post is

You’re Not Good Enough… Yet

Last year, I spent $7k on a business coach. She was fantastic. She helped me through sessions of crafting my ideas to become a “thought

$200/hr Expert? Here’s the Secret!

Photo by David Monje on Unsplash I was listening to Tony Robbins this week. He was talking about being the best. Tony asks the audience,

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Graduate School

How to Answer, “Why Do You Want to Do a PhD?”

When applying for graduate school, your “why do you want to do a PhD?” answer to this common question will be something you want to prepare in advance: doctorate admissions can be pretty competitive, which is why acing your interview is key to securing that acceptance. If you are wondering how to get into grad school , preparing yourself early can allow for enough time to perfect all aspects of your application.

This article includes helpful samples of answers to this notorious interview question, explores why it is asked, and provides some tips for planning out your future response. We also cover the benefits of graduate school interview preparation for improving your chances of getting into your dream PhD program and achieving your goals.

>> Want us to help you get accepted? Schedule a free strategy call here . <<

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Article Contents 10 min read

“why do you want to do a phd” sample answers.

Sample Answer 1 (academic/career/literary research focus)

I am interested in a PhD at your institution because I wish to further my literary research and become a professor at the university level. My plan is to be a top scholar of 19th-century and Victorian literature. I first became acquainted with the period during my bachelor’s degree when one of my favorite professors encouraged me to study the portrayal of gender and sexuality in works of that period, specifically through the writings of the Brontë sisters. I became fascinated with how concepts of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny interact in their writing and how they subvert conventions of the gothic genre to represent female rage against oppression by men. That interest led to the completion of my master’s degree at McGill University, where I wrote a major research paper on the subject. Something I want to further discuss in my published work is how this concept transforms as it appears in novels of the 20 th -century and contemporary literature. The ultimate goal is to further ingratiate myself within current scholarship in the field. I also know the value of a good teacher, and I want to be able to inspire a future generation of students, just as my professors inspired me.

Want to learn top tips for your grad school interview? Watch this video:

Sample Answer 2 (personal growth/curiosity focus)

Planning out my future was not always easy for me. Growing up, I did not have a clue where to start. I was a few semesters into my undergraduate degree before I figured out what I actually wanted to study. I then left my economics and finance majors behind and started a psychology program, which is when I originally became interested in the impact of social media on mental health, whether it be positive or negative. Social media was steadily growing in popularity at the time and is now a staple in our personal and professional lives. It has been an interesting experience to watch this shift occur right in front of my eyes as I completed my bachelor’s and eventually my master’s degree. I never had to look very hard to find what to focus my attention on because there were always new studies coming out about the effects of smartphones and social media apps. This is a field that is frequently changing and presenting new developments. For me, there is something really fascinating about that aspect of our digital world. I want to do this doctorate degree as a culmination of my education in this area now that it feels like I have finally found my calling.

This question, like the “tell me about yourself” PhD interview question , may be frustrating to encounter, as it can be considered broad or redundant. However, when a graduate program director asks this question, they want to get down to the nitty-gritty of who you are and why you are here in front of them. Another way of wording this question would be: What is your motivation for applying to graduate school? Not many people wake up one day and randomly apply to a PhD program on a whim. Therefore, the department you are applying to wants to find out more aspects of your personality and reasoning beyond the contents of your graduate school resume or grad school career goals statement . They want to see what kind of student, instructor, professor, scholar, or colleague you will be. Graduate programs are usually not very large, so they want a sense of who they will be working with for the next few years.

Of course, you can touch upon your past experiences studying or otherwise if it is relevant to what you are currently pursuing, but the overall purpose of your interview is to give them more information about you than what they already know. Answering this question illustrates how concise you can be and how you speak about yourself or your interests. It tests your self-awareness as you are planning to take on an advanced degree at the doctorate level. Your response will also depend on whatever program or field you are applying to. Someone applying for a doctoral program in the sciences may have different components to bring up in their answer than a psychology or humanities applicant.

Even after applying to graduate school, you may still be wondering should you pursue a master’s or PhD , but this could be because you have not yet narrowed down your reasons for doing one. When constructing your response, you will need to reflect on your personal reasons for going forward with a PhD. You want your answers in your interview to be genuine and truly reflective of your interests in their program. It is possible that your reasoning stems from a combination of multiple different places. Here are some of the more common reasons that PhD applicants pursue further education that may resonate with your story:

1. Boosting Academic and Career Prospects

You may have an interest in further developing your career opportunities, whether they are inside or outside of academia. To become a lecturer or a professor at the university level, a doctoral degree is usually required for most disciplines. Many people want to take that extra step to build upon their master’s degree and become a notable expert in their field. Completing a PhD can be the catalyst for learning how to find a job in academia . Feeling the desire to explore that possibility or strive toward that path is a perfectly acceptable reason for completing a PhD. Even if you do not have aspirations to become a professor, a PhD could lead to viable options outside of academia. A doctorate degree could simply be about opening as many doors as possible, which is necessary to succeed in any job market.

2. Achieving Personal Development

Many potential PhD applicants want to fulfill a personal goal when completing their degree. It is your degree after all, so it is normal for your reasons to lead back to you and your wishes. Nobody is expecting you to be completing this degree for anyone else. It may be a life-changing experience for you as a whole, even if it is not directly linked to your studies. There are other aspects to going to school that are not immediately apparent. A PhD program is also a way to learn new skills, meet new people, and move to a new place, perhaps. You will have the opportunity to expand your network and give yourself every opportunity to succeed. Ask yourself: what can you accomplish personally with this PhD that you cannot without it? Your eventual response in an interview could mention specific resolutions that come with acquiring your doctorate degree. A PhD can act as validation for the years of study you have behind you or can give you a greater sense of pride in your academic abilities.

3. Fulfilling Curiosity

When you apply to a doctoral program, you have probably thought about specific subjects you want to consider. While you can wait to figure out exactly how to find a PhD topic until after you get accepted, you should already have a basic idea of what you want to pursue and be ready to discuss it when asked about it in an interview. When you apply to an advanced degree, you are not expected to know everything, even though it may seem so. Where you find inspiration to learn is key to your motivations as you embark on this new journey. Each individual applicant comes in the door with their own story and rationale for pursuing a PhD. You could be inspired by a particular scholar, era, or world issue. Give your interviewer the larger picture as to why a PhD is necessary for you. Whatever you are curious about will make you stand out from other applicants who have similar backgrounds. Making sure to explain that these objectives require a PhD is also very important to proving your candidacy to a program director.

4. Advancing Research

Springboarding off of curiosity, research is how scientific innovation is published to the masses. It is the physical manifestation of your curiosity and transforms an idea into reality. Students often use graduate education as a means to publicize their work. Many ground-breaking studies begin within university walls. A PhD could be the vehicle that helps you pursue worthwhile research that can ultimately have a greater impact on your field of study as well as the world at large. Before you apply, you should ideally jot down some research questions or objectives you plan to explore, either during or after completing your PhD. Writing a research interest statement could also help in this regard. These interests could wholly motivate you to pursue a PhD first and foremost. For instance, if your wish is to positively effect the environment and develop research that could combat climate change, the resources of an academic institution can help further develop that goal.

5. Training Before Further Education

In certain cases, a PhD could add layers to a student’s training before attempting another educational pursuit, such as medical school. For instance, prospective medical students often ask themselves, “Do I need a graduate degree to gain admission to medical school?” because they want to strengthen their application with a doctorate degree in the sciences or another relevant field. A PhD before medical school could also result in an impressive research resume for the applicant and provide them further motivation for becoming a doctor. There are also programs that combine both degrees, such as MD-PhD programs , that focus primarily on research and scientific innovation rather than clinical work. Many prospective medical students apply to PhD programs to explore every option at their disposal and create a solid foundation of research before officially applying to medical school.

Interview questions may need the most thought in terms of how you respond to them. Some of the most common and difficult graduate school interview questions are often the simplest in scope. Here are a few tips for how to structure and create a proper answer as to why you want to do a PhD:

1. Research, Research, Research

Research is not only what your PhD will lead to but also a crucial portion of preparing for it. Learn everything you can about the programs you are applying to, what academic opportunities they might lead to, and what careers they lend themselves to. It is also never too early to look into some thesis writing services for when you may eventually need them. Researching programs will give you a better grasp on why you are applying to a specific school when you are eventually asked the question. With less information about the school or its program, there is less of a chance you will be able to fully articulate why you should further your studies there.

2. Brainstorm Your Response

The first thing to do is to brainstorm all the reasons you want to complete a doctorate degree. Get a piece of paper or blank document and start to take note of everything that comes to mind. These can be specific reasons, potential research topics, programs you are interested in, the city you will move to, or anything else that could motivate you to complete your PhD. You could also use what you may have already written for a PhD motivation letter as a base for what you want to touch upon. Once complete, parse through what is most important for your response and discard the rest.

3. Have a Beginning, Middle, and End

In terms of structure, you will want to create a mini narrative that captures the interviewer’s interest. It should be detailed and unique to you without being overblown. Make sure that your answer flows, is concise, and does not go over two minutes, as you could risk losing the interviewer’s attention. You might want to mention your prior studies or academic research first, then what sparked your interest in doing a PhD, and then perhaps end with a little tidbit as to why you are attracted to that school’s program specifically.

4. Use Bullet Points

While you should always be thinking about how to structure your response to achieve the best result, it is important to avoid memorizing a script or simply listing the items on your CV for graduate school . This could wind up making you sound robotic and rehearsed, which may leave a lukewarm impression on an admissions officer or interviewer. It is a little tedious to consider, but you want the response to flow logically without seeming too prepared. Planning out your answer in bullet points will allow you to stick to what information you want to convey while still answering the question in a natural way.

Self-reflection is important when applying to any academic program. A question that requires you to dig deep, such as “Why do you want to do a PhD?” may cause anxiety. PhD interviews in particular can be intimidating if you are not ready or feel lost about where to start preparing. Thankfully, there are resources for you to receive aid should you need it. Reading tips for applying to graduate school will get you into the right mindset to begin preparing for your PhD. It could also inspire you to put more effort into perfecting your application.

Meanwhile, seeking graduate school application help from a professional is a sure-fire way to alleviate the stress associated with pursuing a doctoral degree. There is no shame in asking for a helping hand as you make important decisions about your academic future. You can only succeed if you give yourself the room to do so.

Interviewers tend to ask this question to get to know more about your personality and motivations when applying to their program. It is also a way to further explore what your interests are and how you express yourself when talking about them.

One of the most important things to remember when answering this question is to be genuine and focus on accurately articulating what your true motivations are. Surely, you applied to the PhD program for multiple reasons, so try and relay those to the interviewer as clearly as you can.

Yes and no. Your response to this question will be similar to what is already in your statement of purpose. Your statement is also an assessment of your writing skills, especially depending on the program you are applying to. Do not differentiate too much until it is a completely different answer. This could make your response come off as disingenuous.

The answer to this question should ideally be about a minute or 90 seconds long. A response under a minute is probably a little too short. Two minutes is the absolute maximum length. You could risk losing the attention of the interviewer if it surpasses that timeframe. Moreover, this will not be the only question you will have to answer, so show respect for the interviewer’s time by keeping your responses brief and to the point.

Be careful not to neglect your particular motivation for applying by going off topic. You also do not have to touch on every single accomplishment on your CV unless they are relevant. Mentioning your master’s degree or other larger accomplishments could be worthwhile, but be sure to think about the future and why specifically you want to complete a PhD.

PhD interview and postdoc interview questions can touch on many different topics. You will surely encounter both personal questions as well as field-related ones. These will make up a large chunk of what will be discussed during the interview.

You can, but unless they are well-versed in graduate school admissions, their feedback might not be as useful to you. To truly see an improvement in your interview skills, you should receive feedback that is tailored and personalized to you from someone who is aware of what graduate school interviewers are looking for, such as a grad school advisor .

Your best bet is a grad school advisor who is an admissions expert specifically trained to help students navigate the complex process of applying to graduate school programs. Advisors who are especially knowledgeable about doctorate programs can also be called PhD consultants . These individuals can help you with all aspects of graduate school applications, including interview preparation, editing application documents, and more.

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9 things you should consider before embarking on a PhD

June 23, 2021 | 15 min read

By Andy Greenspon

The ideal research program you envision is not what it appears to be

Editor's Note: When Andy Greenspon wrote this article, he was a first-year student in Applied Physics at Harvard. Now he has completed his PhD. — Alison Bert, June 23, 2021

If you are planning to apply for a PhD program, you're probably getting advice from dozens of students, professors, administrators your parents and the Internet. Sometimes it's hard to know which advice to focus on and what will make the biggest difference in the long-run. So before you go back to daydreaming about the day you accept that Nobel Prize, here are nine things you should give serious thought to. One or more of these tips may save you from anguish and help you make better decisions as you embark on that path to a PhD.

1. Actively seek out information about PhD programs.

Depending on your undergraduate institution, there may be more or less support to guide you in selecting a PhD program – but there is generally much less than when you applied to college.

On the website of my physics department, I found a page written by one of my professors, which listed graduate school options in physics and engineering along with resources to consult. As far as I know, my career center did not send out much information about PhD programs. Only after applying to programs did I find out that my undergraduate website had a link providing general information applicable to most PhD programs. This is the kind of information that is available all over the Internet.

So don't wait for your career center or department to lay out a plan for you. Actively seek it out from your career center counselors, your professors, the Internet — and especially from alumni from your department who are in or graduated from your desired PhD program. First-hand experiences will almost always trump the knowledge you get second-hand.

2. A PhD program is not simply a continuation of your undergraduate program.

Many students don't internalize this idea until they have jumped head-first into a PhD program. The goal is not to complete an assigned set of courses as in an undergraduate program, but to develop significant and original research in your area of expertise. You will have required courses to take, especially if you do not have a master's degree yet, but these are designed merely to compliment your research and provide a broad and deep knowledge base to support you in your research endeavors.

At the end of your PhD program, you will be judged on your research, not on how well you did in your courses. Grades are not critical as long as you maintain the minimum GPA requirement, and you should not spend too much time on courses at the expense of research projects. Graduate courses tend to be designed to allow you to take away what you will find useful to your research more than to drill a rigid set of facts and techniques into your brain.

3. Take a break between your undergraduate education and a PhD program.

You are beginning your senior year of college, and your classmates are asking you if you are applying to graduate school. You think to yourself, "Well, I like studying this topic and the associated research, and I am going to need a PhD if I want to be a professor or do independent research, so I might as well get it done as soon as possible." But are you certain about the type of research you want to do? Do you know where you want to live for the next five years? Are you prepared to stay in an academic environment for nine years straight?

Many people burn out or end up trudging through their PhD program without a thought about what lies outside of or beyond it. A break of a year or two or even more may be necessary to gain perspective. If all you know is an academic environment, how can you compare it to anything else? Many people take a job for five or more years before going back to get their PhD. It is true though that the longer you stay out of school, the harder it is to go back to an academic environment with lower pay and a lack of set work hours. A one-year break will give you six months or so after graduation before PhD applications are due. A two-year gap might be ideal to provide time to identify your priorities in life and explore different areas of research without having school work or a thesis competing for your attention.

Getting research experience outside of a degree program can help focus your interests and give you a leg up on the competition when you finally decide to apply. It can also help you determine whether you will enjoy full-time research or if you might prefer an alternative career path that still incorporates science, for example, in policy, consulting or business — or a hybrid research job that combines scientific and non-scientific skills.

I will be forever grateful that I chose to do research in a non-academic environment for a year between my undergraduate and PhD programs. It gave me the chance to get a feel for doing nothing but research for a full year. Working at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in the Space Division, I was the manager of an optics lab, performing spectroscopic experiments on rocks and minerals placed in a vacuum chamber. While my boss determined the overall experimental design, I was able to make my own suggestions for experiments and use my own discretion in how to perform them. I presented this research at two national conferences as well — a first for me. I was also able to learn about other research being performed there, determine which projects excited me the most, and thus narrow down my criteria for a PhD program.

4. Your current area of study does not dictate what you have to study in graduate school.

You might be studying the function and regulation of membrane proteins or doing a computational analysis of the conductivity of different battery designs, but that doesn't mean your PhD project must revolve around similar projects. The transition between college or another research job to a PhD program is one of the main transitions in your life when it is perfectly acceptable to completely change research areas.

If you are doing computation, you may want to switch to lab-based work or vice versa. If you are working in biology but have always had an interest in photonics research, now is the time to try it out. You may find that you love the alternative research and devote your PhD to it, you might hate it and fall back on your previous area of study — or you may even discover a unique topic that incorporates both subjects.

One of the best aspects of the PhD program is that you can make the research your own. Remember, the answer to the question "Why are you doing this research?" should not be "Well, because it's what I've been working on for the past few years already."While my undergraduate research was in atomic physics, I easily transitioned into applied physics and materials science for my PhD program and was able to apply much of what I learned as an undergraduate to my current research. If you are moving from the sciences to a non-STEM field such as social sciences or humanities, this advice can still apply, though the transition is a bit more difficult and more of a permanent commitment.

5. Make sure the PhD program has a variety of research options, and learn about as many research groups as possible in your first year.

Even if you believe you are committed to one research area, you may find that five years of such work is not quite what you expected. As such, you should find a PhD program where the professors are not all working in the same narrowly focused research area. Make sure there are at least three professors working on an array of topics you could imagine yourself working on.

In many graduate programs, you are supposed to pick a research advisor before even starting. But such arrangements often do not work out, and you may be seeking a new advisor before you know it. That's why many programs give students one or two semesters to explore different research areas before choosing a permanent research advisor.

In your first year, you should explore the research of a diverse set of groups. After touring their labs, talking to the students, or sitting in on group meetings, you may find that this group is the right one for you.

In addition, consider the importance of who your research advisor will be. This will be the person you interact with regularly for five straight years and who will have a crucial influence on your research. Do you like their advising style? Does their personality mesh with yours? Can you get along? Of course, the research your advisor works on is critical, but if you have large disagreements at every meeting or do not get helpful advice on how to proceed with your research, you may not be able to succeed. At the very least, you must be able to handle your advisor's management of the lab and advising style if you are going to be productive in your work. The Harvard program I enrolled in has professors working on research spanning from nanophotonics to energy materials and biophysics, covering my wide range of interests. By spending time in labs and offices informally chatting with graduate students, I found an advisor whose personality and research interests meshed very well with me. Their genuine enthusiasm for this advisor and their excitement when talking about their research was the best input I could have received.

6. Location is more important than you think — but name recognition is not.

The first consideration in choosing a PhD program should be, "Is there research at this university that I am passionate about?" After all, you will have to study this topic in detail for four or more years. But when considering the location of a university, your first thought should not be, "I'm going to be in the lab all the time, so what does it matter if I'm by the beach, in a city, or in the middle of nowhere." Contrary to popular belief, you will have a life outside of the lab, and you will have to be able to live with it for four or more years. Unlike when you were an undergraduate, your social and extracurricular life will revolve less around the university community, so the environment of the surrounding area is important. Do you need a city atmosphere to be productive? Or is your ideal location surrounded by forests and mountains or by a beach? Is being close to your family important? Imagine what it will be like living in the area during the times you are not doing research; consider what activities will you do and how often will you want to visit family.

While many of the PhD programs that accepted me had research that truly excited me, the only place I could envision living for five or more years was Boston, as the city I grew up near and whose environment and culture I love, and to be close to my family.

While location is more important than you think, the reputation and prestige of the university is not. In graduate school, the reputation of the individual department you are joining — and sometimes even the specific research group you work in — are more important. There, you will develop research collaborations and professional connections that will be crucial during your program and beyond. When searching for a job after graduation, other scientists will look at your specific department, the people you have worked with and the research you have done.

At the Asgard Irish Pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Andy Greenspon talks with fellow graduate students from Harvard and MIT at an Ask for Evidence workshop organized by Sense About Science. He grew up near Boston and chose to go to graduate school there.

7. Those time management skills you developed in college? Develop them further.

After surviving college, you may think you have mastered the ability to squeeze in your coursework, extracurricular activities and even some sleep. In a PhD program, time management reaches a whole new level. You will not only have lectures to attend and homework to do. You will have to make time for your research, which will include spending extended periods of time in the lab, analyzing data, and scheduling time with other students to collaborate on research.

Also, you will most likely have to teach for a number of semesters, and you will want to attend any seminar that may be related to your research or that just peaks your interest. To top it all off, you will still want to do many of those extracurricular activities you did as an undergraduate. While in the abstract, it may seem simple enough to put this all into your calendar and stay organized, you will find quickly enough that the one hour you scheduled for a task might take two or three hours, putting you behind on everything else for the rest of the day or forcing you to cut other planned events. Be prepared for schedules to go awry, and be willing to sacrifice certain activities. For some, this might be sleep; for others, it might be an extracurricular activity or a few seminars they were hoping to attend. In short, don't panic when things don't go according to plan; anticipate possible delays and be ready to adapt.

8. Expect to learn research skills on the fly – or take advantage of the training your department or career center offers.

This may be the first time you will have to write fellowship or grant proposals, write scientific papers, attend conferences, present your research to others, or even peer-review scientific manuscripts. From my experience, very few college students or even PhD students receive formal training on how to perform any of these tasks. Usually people follow by example. But this is not always easy and can be quite aggravating sometimes. So seek out talks or interactive programs offered by your department or career center. The effort will be well worth it when you realize you've become quite adept at quickly and clearly explaining your research to others and at outlining scientific papers and grant proposals. Alternatively, ask a more experienced graduate student or your advisor for advice on these topics. In addition, be prepared for a learning curve when learning all the procedures and processes of the group you end up working in. There may be many new protocols to master, whether they involve synthesizing chemicals, growing bacterial cells, or aligning mirrors on an optical table. In addition, the group may use programming languages or data analysis software you are unfamiliar with. Don't get discouraged but plan to spend extra effort getting used to these procedures and systems. After working with them regularly, they will soon become second nature. When I first started my job at Johns Hopkins, I felt overwhelmed by all the intricacies of the experiment and definitely made a few mistakes, including breaking a number of optical elements. But by the end of my year there, I had written an updated protocol manual for the modifications I had made to the experimental procedures and was the "master" passing on my knowledge to the next person taking the job.

9. There are no real breaks.

In a stereotypical "9-to-5" job, when the workday is over or the weekend arrives, you can generally forget about your work. And a vacation provides an even longer respite. But in a PhD program, your schedule becomes "whenever you find time to get your work done." You might be in the lab during regular work hours or you might be working until 10 p.m. or later to finish an experiment. And the only time you might have available to analyze data might be at 1 a.m. Expect to work during part of the weekend, too. Graduate students do go on vacations but might still have to do some data analysis or a literature search while away.

As a PhD student, it might be hard to stop thinking about the next step in an experiment or that data sitting on your computer or that paper you were meaning to start. While I imagine some students can bifurcate their mind between graduate school life and everything else, that's quite hard for many of us to do. No matter what, my research lies somewhere in the back of my head. In short, your schedule is much more flexible as a PhD student, but as a result, you never truly take a break from your work.

While this may seem like a downer, remember that you should have passion for the research you work on (most of the time), so you should be excited to think up new experiments or different ways to consider that data you have collected. Even when I'm lying in bed about to fall asleep, I am sometimes ruminating about aspects of my experiment I could modify or what information I could do a literature search on to gain new insights. A PhD program is quite the commitment and rarely lives up to expectations – but it is well worth the time and effort you will spend for something that truly excites you.

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Andy greenspon.

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Is a PhD worth it?

Careers Published 8 Feb, 2024 · 9-minute read

Studying a higher degree by research isn’t something you choose to do overnight – well, not for most people. So, to help you make this decision, we’ve reached out to some alumni and compiled some data to help you work out if a Doctor of Philosophy would be worthwhile for you.

When you’re considering such a big academic step, it’s normal to wonder: is a PhD worth it?

Anecdotal evidence and statistics both tell us the benefits of PhD study do indeed outweigh the time and effort required. Let’s explore:

why a PhD is worth it (personal and professional benefits)
worthwhile reasons to pursue a PhD
the average salary of a PhD graduate (financial value of a PhD).

Is it worth doing a PhD? (Personal and professional benefits)

For UQ PhD alumni Angie Knaggs, Benjamin Jones and Brigid Lynch, answering this question in hindsight is easy – and the answer is a resounding yes . Their stories may help you make this choice without that advantage of hindsight.

My PhD is as much a part of my identity as the colour of my hair.

Angie’s PhD was a natural continuation of the theses she wrote during her honours and master’s programs, focusing on popular culture representations of masculinity in crisis. In short, she studied the connections in language, culture and communication in shows like Prison Break – rather than watching them for the drama like most of us do.

“I’ve always connected strongly with work in gender and performativity,” says Angie.

“I found the deep dive into thinking and analysis rewarding and engaging. My final thesis remains the piece of work I’m most proud of – even after a decade!”

Her career after completing her PhD was rocky at first. But, as is often the case, the hurdles in the journey ended up emphasising the successes.

“I was very focused on applying for an early-career academic role with the aim of becoming a full-time academic,” says Angie.

“I had experienced a good deal of academic success, and I had publications in top journals. I felt certain I was in a good position to achieve my dreams.

“I went to interview after interview, and it was disheartening to hear how I was almost it or not quite it . What it was, I could never quite work out, but it became increasingly clear to me that I didn’t have it .”

After tutoring and course convening at multiple universities for a while (and quickly growing bored of the constant commuting between campuses), Angie decided to apply for some roles that looked fun and interesting, even if they weren’t at traditional universities. This is how she accidentally fell into – and fell in love with – a whole new world: teaching film studies .

Angie’s new path eventually led to her current role as Senior Learning Specialist – Employability with UQ’s School of Languages and Cultures . Here, she uses her intercultural competencies and higher order thinking skills to great use, as well as publishing about her work in international journals.

“I don’t think I would have been open to following a new pathway if I hadn’t let go of the assumption that my doctorate automatically meant I would have a traditional academic career,” she says.

“Letting that go involved some deep self-work, but it was worth it.”

Now, with over a decade to reflect, Angie sees her PhD as an essential part of how she got to where she is today as well as a vital factor in all her successful career steps along the way.

“I like to think of my PhD as the ultimate employability bootcamp,” she says.

“My PhD gave me an edge – a way of thinking about problems in different ways. It taught me resilience, the ability to pivot and the ability to give and receive feedback. It has also helped get my CV to the top of the pile.”

My PhD equipped me well to move in and out of different roles until I found the one which was best for me.

Ben's career has evolved quite a lot since completing his PhD, in which he investigated the rehabilitation and revegetation of bauxite tailings.

"I chose this topic as I'm interested in environmental science," he says.

"I thought that mine rehabilitation was an important and in-demand area which I could contribute to."

And he has indeed been contributing to this field – most recently in his role with the Queensland Department of Environment and Science, which has allowed him to do satisfying and technical work behind the scenes on high-profile projects. His journey since graduating has been filled with rewarding stepping stones across various positions.

"I've worked in academia and within the private and public sector," says Ben.

"My PhD equipped me well to move in and out of different roles until I found the one which was best for me."

The benefits of a PhD have been obvious and numerous to Ben, both in terms of the career opportunities and lifestyle advantages available. But these benefits aren't necessarily things you have to wait for – you may experience some of them while studying.

"From a remuneration perspective alone, some industry PhD scholarships are quite attractive," says Ben.

"They also offer flexible working hours, and this offers time for other commitments."

"Workplaces are becoming more competitive, especially for recent graduates. Attaining a PhD provides graduates with valuable work experience and specialist knowledge within their chosen field."

Ben recognises a higher degree by research isn't for everyone, but he also sees multiple reasons why a PhD is worth it for candidates.

"Obtaining a PhD is only one of many options, and having a PhD isn't a prerequisite for success," he says.

"However, a PhD is a requirement for many positions within academia or research, so for people embarking on this career path, a PhD is likely essential."

He also believes the PhD path can provide:

a great opportunity for graduates to ease into working life while still enjoying the familiarity of university life
a fantastic environment filled with talented and hardworking people, where graduates who haven't landed their dream job can gain work experience and improve their career prospects .

Ultimately, Ben believes the decision of whether to pursue a PhD comes down to personal circumstances and goals.

"I think people need to weigh up their different options and decide what’s best for them."

I now get to work with some of the world's most talented and inspiring epidemiologists. I couldn't think of a better job.

Brigid completed a PhD in population health, looking specifically at how physical activity could impact quality of life for colorectal cancer patients. Her motivation and drive came from combining her previous study areas with a personal passion for the topic.

“The project brought together my undergraduate training (Human Movement Studies and Psychology at UQ) with my interest in epidemiology,” says Brigid.

“So, it was something I could really commit to for the long haul.”

Not long after finishing her PhD, Brigid received a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council, funding her for 2 years of international work followed by 2 years back in Australia.

“Having a PhD is a passport to live and work around the globe,” she says.

“As a postdoctoral fellow, I moved to Alberta, Canada, to work with one of the world’s leading researchers in the physical activity and cancer field. After 2 years of snow and Chinook winds, I returned to Australia.

“One of my career highlights was being funded to spend 3 months working at the University of Bristol. Being able to work and study abroad has opened up a lot of opportunities for research collaboration.”

Brigid is now Deputy Head of the Cancer Epidemiology Division at Cancer Council Victoria.

As someone who continues to work in research, Brigid says the benefits of having a PhD are still obvious to her every day. However, she also recognises how a higher degree by research can help those who follow other paths – just like Angie.

“Even for people who want to work in industry or for government, I think there are very clear benefits of a PhD,” says Brigid.

“So many of the skills you develop when doing a PhD are transferrable, such as project management, critical thinking and strong communication.”

An unexpected benefit of a PhD

While Angie and Brigid’s thesis topics and PhD journeys were quite different, there’s one thing they have in common: the first thing that came to mind when asked for the highlights of studying their PhD at UQ. They both went straight to talking about the people.

“The colleagues and friends I met along the journey are a highlight,” says Angie.

“My supervisor remains one of my closest friends and a long-time mentor.”

Brigid whole-heartedly agrees.

“I met some great people along the way, many of whom I still work with in one way or another,” she says.

“I really enjoy dropping into the School of Public Health when I’m in town.”

Building a supportive network was a key benefit for Ben, too.

"My research organisation placed a high value on networking and provided opportunities to grow," he says.

"I've remained in contact with my PhD supervisor and some of my colleagues, and this has given me a network of old friends at UQ."

Doing your PhD at UQ means you'll get to create connections with some of the most influential and highly cited researchers in the country . And yes, some of these researchers might just become your lifelong friends.

Reasons to pursue a PhD

A good way to determine whether a PhD is worth it for you is to consider your motivations – what are your reasons to do a PhD?

For Angie, this boils down to asking yourself 2 key questions:

Why do you want to do a PhD?
What do you want to get out of it ?

Hint from Angie: “If the answer to either question involves any person other than yourself, that’s a red flag. You should only ever do a PhD for yourself. It will be the toughest challenge you ever set for yourself – and it’s only worth doing if you’re doing it for yourself.”

Brigid suggests adding these 2 questions to your decision-making process:

Are you passionate about your field and topic?
Can you make a difference to the community or contribute new knowledge that could make change happen?

If your reasons to do a PhD are genuine and you have a strong vision of what you’ll study and why, this may make your decision clearer.

The financial value of a PhD

The median salary of full-time research postgraduates is $96000. 91.9% of research postgraduates are employed within 4-6 months after graduating.

Reading Angie and Brigid’s stories may lead you to think that most candidates are driven solely by their passion for research and that the PhD starting salary is irrelevant. But this is a valid and common consideration for many people. After all, knowing what to expect from a PhD graduate salary can help you justify pursuing your doctorate and plan appropriately for your future career.

The median salary of a PhD graduate is around $96,000pa , though it’s important to note this figure can vary significantly depending on your field.

Wondering if you'll get a PhD income while you study? Find out more about living stipend scholarships .

While making decent money is an enticing perk, perhaps the more important financial benefit of having a PhD is the higher chance of getting (and staying) employed in the first place. According to QILT's Graduate Outcomes Survey , in 2022, the overall employment rate for postgraduate research students in Australia was 91.9%, with 84.7% of graduates in full-time employment.

A comprehensive report from Ribit.net and the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute shows there is increasing demand for PhD graduates across many industries in Australia. Some of the nation’s most competitive firms are recruiting higher degree by research students from a wide range of disciplines. This further proves Angie and Brigid’s point about PhD research equipping graduates with transferrable and highly employable skills – skills that are recognised beyond the realm of academia.

So, what makes PhD graduates so employable? Well, at UQ, we expect our Career Development Framework plays a large part. This gives all our researchers access to workshops and other opportunities to capitalise on their research skills and turn them into industry practice.

UQ is also home to UniQuest , leaders in research commercialisation. Our researchers can work with UniQuest to translate their academic discoveries into commercial products, effectively taking their research to market.

Whether you’re driven by personal passions, academic ambitions, financial goals or a combination of all these reasons to pursue a PhD, the evidence is strong: a PhD is worth it.

Start your journey today

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How long does a PhD take?

3-minute read

Why do a PhD at UQ?

7-minute read

How to get a PhD scholarship or funding

student in safety glasses conducts science experiment for PhD

Can you do a PhD without a master’s degree?

6-minute read

Should I do a PhD? 4 things I wish I knew before starting my PhD

Editor’s Note: This post is by Alon Loeffler, co-founder of Find My Pathway, who is completing a PhD in Physics at The University of Sydney after an undergraduate degree and honours in Psychology .

So you’ve finally finished 3-5 years of an undergraduate degree . Maybe an honours year too. Perhaps you’ve even taken a year off to travel and find yourself.

What now? Should you take on another 3-5 years of study, and take on the daunting task of doing a PhD?

Here are 4 things I wish I knew before ultimately making the decision to pursue my PhD.

“A night out with PhD colleagues at a bar, you might meet the next Nobel prize winner”

1. A PhD will give you so much more than just a career pathway

During my first year as a PhD student, I learned a lot about my new field. Neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence and Nanotechnology were not areas I had much experience in from a Psychology background. Pursuing a PhD in the school of Physics opened me up to a huge range of new topics, technologies and people, which I never would have been exposed to previously. Choosing to move cities from Melbourne to Sydney to undertake my studies also impacted my life drastically: a new house, new friends, and new experiences.

I learned more about myself in the past year than I did in the entirety of my undergraduate degree. Before my PhD, I never thought I could gain complex skills and adapt to a new discipline so quickly. I had to throw myself into uncomfortable, sometimes awkward social and professional situations. From all of this, I came out a better person – and much closer to the real me than I was before.

So many people I know opt to travel to find themselves, which is great. But for me, one year of a PhD did more than a lifetime of travel ever could (although travel is also a huge part of a PhD).

Pursuing a PhD will help you understand your limitations, both good and bad. You will learn how much better at learning new things you are than you believe, and you will face and overcome challenges that you didn’t even think possible. You will hone cutting-edge skills while meeting incredible people who have powerful, and deep-reaching connections.

At a night out with friends at a bar before your PhD, you might meet some fun, interesting people. But at a night out with PhD colleagues at a bar, you might meet the next Nobel prize winner .

How will a PhD help you in your career?

Visualise your career pathway and get personalised career guidance, opportunities and insights.

2. There are many different paths into a PhD

I’ve been asked many times about the requirements for pursuing a Doctorate degree. Are there qualifying exams for a PhD? Do you need to complete a masters degree to start a PhD? Can I do a PhD while working full time?

The answers to all of these questions will depend on which institution you apply to, and your personal circumstances. In Australia, there are no qualifying exams for PhD degrees. Having a masters degree might help you receive a scholarship for your PhD, but is not necessarily a requirement. Many Doctoral programs in Australia only require a year of honours as part of your undergraduate studies.

However, there are many exceptions to this as well. Most universities should allow you to start a Masters degree, and then switch to a PhD after one year. If you’re working full-time or part-time you can also pursue a PhD on a part-time basis, where the workload is much more manageable, but the duration of the program is increased. You might also be able to undertake an industry PhD program, where your company partners with a university to sponsor your doctoral candidature.

Interested in finding your pathway into a PhD? Take a look at the Pathways page and select your field.

3. What you plan to do is not always as great as what you accidentally do

Before you even start your PhD, you will be required to write plans about what your research will cover. Planning is a crucial component of completing a PhD within the time you are allocated. Without to-do lists, or general ideas about what you will be working, or search for during your doctorate, you will certainly be lost.

I use a really great note-taking and to-do list app called Typora which offers a markdown editor with support for LaTeX styling.

Plans and to-do lists will help you keep track of your goals and research. But things don’t always go according to plan. There will be times where you get sidetracked and go off on a reading tangent about topics that seem unrelated; or situations where an unexpected result might push your research in a completely unexpected way.

When these serendipitous events occur, don’t be afraid to chuck out your plans and follow the unexpected. Some of the most important inventions to date happened completely by accident, many times during research on a completely separate topic (Penicillin, microwave ovens and Cornflakes are a few examples of this).

However, abandoning all your plans and pursuing an entirely accidental discovery could also be very costly. Plans can and should be broken when it is important to do so, but new plans should take their place, and help shape the altered course of your research as soon as possible. Make sure you meet regularly with your supervisor to track and update your plans, so that when something accidental and lucky does happen, you will feel comfortable enough to test it without losing all your hard work.

4. Everyone feels like they are inadequate sometimes

Imposter syndrome – my old friend. Imposter syndrome is the niggling feeling in your mind that you just can’t seem to get rid of, like an itch at the back of your throat. It’s a sensation of dissatisfaction and inadequacy in everything you do.

Imposter syndrome can be the hardest part of a PhD.

Sometimes you try and read a research paper, or a book, and the words all seem to blur together, none of it sinking in. Other times you might accidentally delete important data, or have a conversation with another student or professor who seems to know so much more . You might feel like you will never be as good as that person, or that you are so far out of your depth and you’ve forgotten how to swim.

On the brighter side, imposter syndrome is incredibly common, and not just in PhD students, but even CEOs of major companies.

It took me over a year to realise this and come to terms with this feeling. I wish I had known to expect it before starting my PhD, and how to deal with it.

How do you deal with this feeling?

A lot of practice. Determination. Hard-word and self-kindness.

It doesn’t matter if your experiment didn’t work the first time, or if a guest speaker seems so much more knowledgeable than you. I guarantee two things: 1) They too have felt this way once, or still feel this way, and 2) You will one day be looked at by other people in the same light – an expert in your field.

Be kind to yourself. Believe in your process. Open up to your friends and supervisors regularly, and work to fix what you don’t like. If you do these things, imposter syndrome will become the easiest part of your PhD, and that means you’re in a really good place!

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10 things you need to know before starting a PhD degree

So you want to do a PhD degree, huh? Here we've got everything you need to know about getting started.

So you want to do a PhD degree, huh? Are you sure about that? It’s not going to be an easy decision, so I’ve put together a list of 10 things you need to know before starting a PhD degree. Oh, and don’t panic!

I have recently graduated from the University of Manchester with a PhD in Plant Sciences after four difficult, but enjoyable, years. During those four years, I often felt slightly lost – and there was more than one occasion on which I didn’t even want to imagine writing up my thesis in fear of delving into fits of panic.

On reflection, I realise that – to quote a colleague – commencing my PhD was like “jumping in the deep end with your eyes closed.” If only I’d known to take a deep breath.

1. Are you sure you want to do a PhD degree?

Let’s be under no false impressions, completing a PhD isn’t easy. There will be times when you feel like Wile E Coyote chasing after the Roadrunner – a little bit out of your depth a lot of the time. It’s four years of your life, so make sure it is what you really want to do.

If you want to pursue a career in science, a PhD isn’t always necessary.

It is possible to make great inroads into industry without a doctoral degree. That said, a PhD can also be a very useful qualification with many transferable skills to add to your CV.

By the time you’ll have finished, you can include essentials such as time management, organisational skills, prioritising workloads, attention to detail, writing skills, presenting to an audience – and most importantly – resilience, to name but a few.

2. Choose your project, and supervisor, wisely.

This is very important.

Time after time, our experienced scientists at EI, including Erik Van-Den-Bergh (and I agree) say, “ make sure you’re extremely passionate about exactly that subject. ” When I saw the PhD opening that I eventually was offered, I remember being demonstrably ecstatic about the project before I’d even started it.

I was always interested in calcium signalling and organised a meeting with my potential supervisor immediately, which (to quote Billy Connolly) I leapt into in a mood of gay abandon.

Not only does this help you to keep engaged with your project even through the painstakingly slow times, it also greatly enhances your ability to sell yourself in an interview. If you can show passion and enthusiasm about the project and the science then you’ll be that one step ahead of other candidates – which is all the more important now that many studentships are competitive.

You have to be the best out of many, often exceptional candidates.

However, as important as it is to be passionate about your project, make sure that the person who will be supervising you is worthy.

Does your potential supervisor have a prolific track record of publishing work? What is the community of scientists like in the lab you may be working in? Are there experienced post-doctoral scientists working in the lab? Who will your advisor be? Is your supervisor an expert in the field you are interested in? Is the work you will be doing ground-breaking and novel, or is it quite niche?

There is nothing more frustrating – and I know many PhD degree students with this problem – than having a supervisor who is rarely there to talk to, shows little interest in your work, and cannot help when you are struggling in the third year of your project and some guidance would be much appreciated.

Personally, and I was very lucky to have this, I think it’s incredibly useful to have two supervisors. My PhD degree was split between the University of Manchester and the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth. Between my supervisors, I had two people with expertise in different fields, who could give me some fantastic advice from different perspectives. This also meant that I had two people to check through my thesis chapters and provide useful comments on my drafts.

PhD students networking during the last Student Symposium

Make sure you are passionate about your subject before taking it to PhD level. And by passionate I mean really passionate.

For a start, you will most likely have to write a literature review in your first three months, which if done well will form the main bulk of your thesis introduction and will save you a lot of stress and strain when it comes to writing up.

At the end of your first year, you will have to write a continuation report, which is your proof that you deserve to carry on to the end of your three or four years. This doesn’t leave much time for lab work, which means time management is incredibly important. If you think you’ll be able to swan in at 11 and leave at 3, think again.

Fundamentally, never, ever rest on your laurels! As tempting as it may be to slack-off slightly in the second year of your four year PhD, don’t.

4. Be organised.

This is a no-brainer but still, it’s worth a mention. Take an hour on a Monday morning to come up with a list of short-term and long-term goals. You’ll probably have to present your work at regular lab meetings, so it’s always worth knowing what has to be done (lest you look a pillock in front of the lab when there’s nothing to show for your last two weeks.)

It’s always good to have a timeline of what will be done when. If you have a PCR, maybe you can squeeze in another experiment, read a few papers, start writing the introduction to your thesis, or even start collecting the data you already have into figures.

The more good use you make of your time, the easier it’ll be to finish your PhD in the long run. Plus, it’s lovely to sit back and look at actual graphs, rather than worry about having enough to put into a paper. Once you’ve typed up your data, you’ll realise you’ve done far more than you had anticipated and the next step forward will be entirely more apparent.

5. Embrace change – don’t get bogged down in the details.

Felix Shaw – one of our bioinformatics researchers at EI – put it best when he said, “ it felt like I was running into brick walls all the way through [my PhD]… you’d run into a brick wall, surmount it, only to run straight into another. ”

You’ll find that, often, experiments don’t work. What might seem like a great idea could turn out to be as bad as choosing to bat first on a fresh wicket on the first day of the third Ashes test at Edgbaston. (Yeah, we don't know what that means either - Ed).

Resilience is key while completing your PhD. Be open to change and embrace the chance to experiment in different ways. You might even end up with a thesis chapter including all of your failures, which at the very least is something interesting to discuss during your viva voce .

6. Learn how to build, and use, your network.

As a PhD student, you are a complete novice in the world of science and most things in the lab will be – if not new to you – not exquisitely familiar. This matters not, if you take advantage of the people around you.

Firstly, there are lab technicians and research assistants, who have probably been using the technique you are learning for years and years. They are incredibly experienced at a number of techniques and are often very happy to help show you how things are done.

There are postdocs and other PhD students, too. Not only can they help you with day-to-day experiments, they can offer a unique perspective on how something is done and will probably have a handy back-catalogue of fancy new techniques to try.

There are also a bunch of PIs, not limited to your own, who are great to talk to. These people run labs of their own, have different ideas, and might even give you a job once you’ve completed your PhD.

Don’t limit yourself to the labs directly around you, however. There are a massive number of science conferences going on all around the world. Some of them, such as the Society of Biology Conference, take place every year at a similar time in different locations, attracting many of the leaders in their respective fields.

If you are terrified by the prospect of speaking at a full-blown science conference and having your work questioned by genuine skeptics, there are also many student-led conferences which will help you dangle your fresh toes in the murky waters of presenting your work.

One such conference, the Second Student Bioinformatics Symposium, which took place at Earlham Institute in October 2016, was a great place for candidates to share their projects with peers, who are often much more friendly than veteran researchers with 30 year careers to their name when it comes to the questions at the end of your talk.

Another great reason to attend conferences, of course, is the social-side too – make the most of this. You never know who you might meet and connect with over a few drinks once the talks are over and the party commences.

7. Keep your options open.

You should be aware that for every 200 PhD students, only 7 will get a permanent academic post , so it’s incredibly unlikely that you’ll become a Professor – and even if you make PI, it probably won’t be until your mid-forties.

You may also, despite having commenced along the academic path, decide that actually, working in a lab environment isn’t for you. Most PhD graduates, eventually, will not pursue an academic career, but move on to a wide range of other vocations.

It might be that Science Communication is more up your street. This was certainly the case for me – and I made sure that I took part in as many public engagement events as possible while completing my PhD. Most Universities have an active public engagement profile, while organisations such as STEM can provide you with ample opportunities to interact with schools and the general public.

You might also consider entrepreneurship as a route away from academia, which might still allow you to use your expert scientific knowledge. There are a variety of competitions and workshops available to those with a business mind, a strong example being Biotechnology YES.

I, for example, took part in the Thought for Food Challenge, through which I have been able to attend events around the world and meet a vast array of like-minded individuals. Many of the participants from the challenge have gone on to set up successful businesses and have even found jobs as a result of the competition.

8. Balance.

Remember that you still have a life outside of your PhD degree – and that this can be one of the greatest opportunities to make amazing friends from around the world.

A science institute is usually home to the brightest students from a variety of countries and can provide a chance to experience a delightful range of different people and cultures. Don’t just stick to the people in your lab, go to events for postgraduate students and meet people from all over campus.

There are usually academic happy hours happening on Fridays after work where you can buy cheap beer, or some lucky institutions even have their own bar. At Norwich Research Park, we not only have the Rec Centre, along with bar, swimming pool, calcetto, samba classes, archery, and a range of other activities, but there are also biweekly “Postdoc pub clubs” which are very fun to join on a Tuesday evening.

Maintain your hobbies and keep up with friends outside of your PhD and you’ll probably find it’s not that gruelling a process after all.

Plus, the people you meet and become friends with might be able to help you out – or at least be able to offer a sympathetic shoulder.

9. Practical advice.

If, after reading all of this, you’re still going to march forth and claim your doctorhood, then this section should be rather useful.

Firstly, make sure your data is backed up. It’s amazing how many people don’t do this and you’d be bonkers not to. Keep your work saved on a shared drive, so that if your computer decides to spontaneously combust upon pressing the return key, you won’t have lost all of your precious work – or have to go through every one of your lab books and type it all up again.

Secondly, don’t leave your bag in the pub with your half-written thesis in it. I did this, the bag was fine, I was in a state of terror for at least half an hour before the kind person at Weatherspoons located said bag.

Thirdly, read. Read broadly, read anything and everything that’s closely related to your project – or completely unrelated. It’s sometimes amazing where you might find a stroke of inspiration, a new technique you hadn’t thought of … or even in idea of where you might like to go next.

Finally, ask questions – all of the time. No matter how stupid it might sound in your head, everyone’s probably been asked it before, and if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

You’ll probably look far less stupid if you just ask the person standing next to you how the gradient PCR function works on your thermal cycler rather than standing there randomly prodding buttons and looking flustered, anyway.

10. Savour the positives.

At the end of all of this, it has to be said that doing a PhD is absolutely brilliant. There’s no other time in your life that you’ll be this free to pursue your very own project and work almost completely independently. By the time you come to the end of your PhD, you will be the leading expert in the world on something. A real expert! Until the next PhD student comes along …

A PhD, is it worth it? Just ask our students

The realities of doing a PhD

My advice for PhD students? See what bites

COVID and my PhD: to lockdown and back

How does a PhD work and how to find the right one

Becky Shaw, PhD student at Earlham Institute

Building the confidence to take on a PhD

PhD life, 10 things we learned in our first six months

What’s the third year of a PhD like? Tips for navigating your PhD

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Master’s vs PhD | A Complete Guide to the Differences

Master's vs PhD | A Complete Guide to the Differences

Published on November 27, 2020 by Lauren Thomas . Revised on May 10, 2024.

The two most common types of graduate degrees are master’s and doctoral degrees:

A master’s is a 1–2 year degree that can prepare you for a multitude of careers.
A PhD, or doctoral degree, takes 3–7 years to complete (depending on the country) and prepares you for a career in academic research.

A master’s is also the necessary first step to a PhD. In the US, the master’s is built into PhD programs, while in most other countries, a separate master’s degree is required before applying for PhDs.

Master’s are far more common than PhDs. In the US, 24 million people have master’s or professional degrees, whereas only 4.5 million have doctorates.

Master’s vs phd at a glance, which is right for you, length of time required, career prospects, costs and salaries, application process, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about master's and phd degrees.

The table below shows the key differences between the two.

	Master’s	PhD
Career prospects	Usually intended for a career outside of academia.	Prepares for a research career, ideally as a university professor.
Length of time	1–2 years	5–7 in the US (master’s degree included); 3–5 outside the US (after a separate master’s degree)
Structure	Mostly coursework, often with a semester-long or capstone project at the end.	2 years of coursework (in the US), followed by 3–5 years of preparing a dissertation, which should make a significant original contribution to current knowledge.
Cost	Varies by country, university and program; usually higher upfront cost with limited financial aid available.	Tuition fees are usually waived and a living stipend provided in exchange for being a teaching or research assistant.
Graduate salaries	Wage premium (compared to earnings with a high school education) is 23% on average.	Wage premium is 26% on average.

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A PhD is right for you if:

Your goal is to become a professor at a university or some other type of professional researcher.
You love research and are passionate about discovering the answer to a particular question.
You are willing to spend years pursuing your research even if you have to put up with a lot of dead ends and roadblocks.

A master’s degree is the better choice if any of the following apply:

You want to continue studies in your field, but you’re not committed to a career as a professional researcher.
You want to develop professional skills for a specific career.
You are willing to pay a higher upfront cost if it means finishing with your degree (and thus being able to work) much faster.
You want the option to study part-time while working.

The length of time required to complete a PhD or master’s degree varies. Unsurprisingly, PhDs take much longer, usually between 3–7 years. Master’s degrees are usually only 1–2 years.

Length of a master’s

Master’s degrees are usually 2 years, although 1-year master’s degrees also exist, mainly in the UK.

Most of the degree consists of classes and coursework, although many master’s programs include an intensive, semester-long master’s thesis or capstone project in which students bring together all they’ve learned to produce an original piece of work.

Length of a PhD

In the US, a PhD usually takes between 5 and 7 years to complete. The first 2 years are spent on coursework. Students, even those who choose to leave without finishing the program, usually receive a master’s degree at this point.

The next 3–5 years are spent preparing a dissertation —a lengthy piece of writing based on independent research, which aims to make a significant original contribution to one’s field.

Master’s degrees tend to prepare you for a career outside of academia, while PhDs are designed to lead to a career in research.

Careers for master’s graduates

There are two types of master’s degrees: terminal and research-intensive. The career prospects are different for each.

Terminal master’s degrees are intended to prepare students for careers outside of academia. Some degrees, known as professional degrees, specifically prepare students for particular professions; these include the Master of Public Policy (MPP), Master of Business Administration (MBA), Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT), Master of Fine Arts (MFA), and Master of Public Health (MPH) degrees.

Other master’s degrees, usually Master of Arts (MA) or Master of Sciences (MS or MSc) degrees, do not necessarily lead to a specific career, but are intended to be a final degree. Examples include an MS in Communications or MS in Data Analytics.

In research-intensive master’s programs, students take coursework intended to prepare them for writing an original piece of research known as the master’s thesis . Such programs are usually intended to prepare for further study in a doctoral program.

Careers for PhD graduates

As research degrees, PhDs are usually intended to lead to an academic career. A PhD can be thought of like an apprenticeship, where students learn from professional researchers (academics) how to produce their own research.

Most students aspire to become a university professor upon the completion of their degree. However, careers in academia are highly competitive, and the skills learned in a doctoral program often lend themselves well to other types of careers.

Some graduates who find they prefer teaching to producing research go on to be teachers at liberal arts colleges or even secondary schools. Others work in research-intensive careers in the government, private sector, or at think tanks.

Below are a few examples of specific fields and non-academic careers that are common destinations of graduates of those fields.

Computer Science
Lab Sciences

Many government jobs, including economists at a country’s central bank, are research-intensive and require a PhD. Think tanks also hire economists to carry out independent research.

In the private sector, economic consulting and technology firms frequently hire PhDs to solve real-world problems that require complex mathematical modeling.

Graduate students from the humanities are sometimes hired by museums, who can make use of their research and writing skills to curate exhibits and run public outreach.

Humanities PhDs are often well-suited to research and grant-writing roles at nonprofits. Since so much of research is funded by grants, PhD students often gain a lot of experience applying for them, which is a useful skill in the nonprofit sector.

There are a wide range of non-academic research jobs for lab scientists with doctorates in subjects like chemistry, biology, ecology and physics.

Many PhD graduates are hired by pharmaceutical companies that need to perform research to create and test their products. Government agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), also hire lab scientists to work on research projects.

Job prospects after graduation vary widely based on the field. In fields like management, computer science, statistics, and economics, there’s little underemployment—even graduates from less well-known programs can easily find jobs that pay well and use the skills they’ve gained from the PhD.

However, in other fields, particularly in the humanities, many PhD graduates have difficulty in the job market. Unfortunately, there are far more PhD graduates than assistant professor roles, so many instead take on part-time and low-paid roles as adjunct instructors. Even non-academic careers can sometimes be difficult for PhDs to move into, as they may be seen as “overqualified” or as lacking in relevant professional experience.

Because career options post-PhD vary so much, you should take the time to figure out what the career prospects are in your field. Doctoral programs often have detailed “placement” records online in which they list the career outcomes of their graduates immediately upon leaving the program. If you can’t find these records, contact the program and ask for them—placement information should play an important role in your choice of PhD program.

Although PhDs take far longer to complete, students often receive a living stipend in exchange for being a teaching or research assistant. Master’s degrees are shorter but less likely to be funded.

Both master’s degrees and PhDs lead to increased salaries upon graduation. While PhDs usually earn a bit more than those with a master’s degree, in some fields, the wages are identical, meaning that no financial benefit is gained from going on to a PhD.

Cost of a master’s

The upfront cost of a master’s degree is usually higher than a doctoral degree due to the lower amount of financial aid available. However, increased salaries also arrive faster than with a doctoral degree, because people graduate much earlier from a master’s program.

Some master’s students do receive stipends for their degrees, usually as compensation for being a teaching or research assistant. In addition, many people complete master’s degrees part time while working full-time, which allows them to fund their living costs as well as tuition.

The cost varies significantly by school and program. Public schools are usually cheaper than private ones. Some master’s degrees, such as MBAs, are notoriously expensive, but also result in much higher wages afterwards that make up for the high cost.

The master’s wage premium , or the extra amount that someone with a master’s degree makes than someone with just a high school diploma, is 23% on average. Many universities provide detailed statistics on the career and salary outcomes of their students. If they do not have this online, you should feel free to contact an administrator of the program and ask.

Cost of a PhD

PhDs, particularly outside the humanities, are usually (though not always) funded, meaning that tuition fees are fully waived and students receive a small living stipend. During the last 3–5 years of a PhD, after finishing their coursework (and sometimes before), students are usually expected to work as graduate instructors or research assistants in exchange for the stipend.

Sometimes students can apply for a fellowship (such as the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Program in the United States) that relieves them of any obligations to be a teaching or research assistant. Doctoral programs in the US tend to be better funded than in the rest of the world.

Sometimes, PhD degrees can be completed part-time, but this is rare. Students are usually expected to devote at least 40 hours a week to their research and work as teaching or research assistants.

The main cost of doctoral programs comes in the form of opportunity cost—all the years that students could be working a regular, full-time job, which usually pays much better than a graduate school stipend.

The average wage premium for PhDs is 26%, which is not much higher than the master’s degree premium.

In the US, the application process is similar for master’s and PhD programs. Both will generally ask for:

At least one application essay, often called a personal statement or statement of purpose .
Letters of recommendation .
A resume or CV .
Transcripts.
Writing samples.

Applications for both types of programs also often require a standardized test. PhDs usually require the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), which tries to measure verbal reasoning, quantitative, critical thinking , and analytical writing skills. Many master’s programs require this test as well.

Applying for a master’s

Master’s degrees programs will often ask you to respond to specific essay prompts that may ask you to reflect upon not just your academic background, but also your personal character and future career ambitions.

Northwestern University’s Kellogg Business School requires Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) applicants write two essays, one about a recent time they demonstrated leadership and the second about their personal values.

Who you should ask for your letters of recommendation varies by program. If you are applying to a research-intensive master’s program, then you should choose former professors or research supervisors. For other programs, particularly business school, current work supervisors may be a better choice.

Some professional master’s programs require a specific test. For example, to apply to law school, you must take the Law School Admissions Test, or LSAT. For business school, you must take either the GRE or the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT).

Applying for a PhD

When applying for a PhD, your resume should focus more on your research background—you should especially emphasize any publications you’ve authored or presentations that you’ve given.

Similarly, your statement of purpose should discuss research that you’ve participated in, whether as an assistant or the lead author. You should detail what exactly you did in projects you’ve contributed to, whether that’s conducting a literature review, coding regressions, or writing an entire article.

Your letters of recommendations should be from former professors or supervisors who can speak to your abilities and potential as a researcher. A good rule of thumb is to avoid asking for recommendations from anyone who does not themselves have a PhD.

If you want to know more about college essays , academic writing , and AI tools , make sure to check out some of our other language articles with explanations, examples, and quizzes.

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A master’s is a 1- or 2-year graduate degree that can prepare you for a variety of careers.

All master’s involve graduate-level coursework. Some are research-intensive and intend to prepare students for further study in a PhD; these usually require their students to write a master’s thesis . Others focus on professional training for a specific career.

A PhD, which is short for philosophiae doctor (doctor of philosophy in Latin), is the highest university degree that can be obtained. In a PhD, students spend 3–5 years writing a dissertation , which aims to make a significant, original contribution to current knowledge.

A PhD is intended to prepare students for a career as a researcher, whether that be in academia, the public sector, or the private sector.

This depends on the country. In the United States, you can generally go directly to a PhD with only a bachelor’s degree, as a master’s program is included as part of the doctoral program.

Elsewhere, you generally need to graduate from a research-intensive master’s degree before continuing to the PhD.

This varies by country. In the United States, PhDs usually take between 5–7 years: 2 years of coursework followed by 3–5 years of independent research work to produce a dissertation.

In the rest of the world, students normally have a master’s degree before beginning the PhD, so they proceed directly to the research stage and complete a PhD in 3–5 years.

A master’s degree usually has a higher upfront cost, but it also allows you to start earning a higher salary more quickly. The exact cost depends on the country and the school: private universities usually cost more than public ones, and European degrees usually cost less than North American ones. There are limited possibilities for financial aid.

PhDs often waive tuition fees and offer a living stipend in exchange for a teaching or research assistantship. However, they take many years to complete, during which time you earn very little.

In the US, the graduate school application process is similar whether you’re applying for a master’s or a PhD . Both require letters of recommendation , a statement of purpose or personal statement , a resume or CV , and transcripts. Programs in the US and Canada usually also require a certain type of standardized test—often the GRE.

Outside the US, PhD programs usually also require applicants to write a research proposal , because students are expected to begin dissertation research in the first year of their PhD.

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Why You Shouldn’t Get a PhD

The road to a doctorate is long, arduous, and paved with abandoned scholarship. Don't start the PhD process before you consider all the obstacles (and rewards). Here's what you need to reflect on before making the leap.

1. What is your motive for getting a PhD?

Examine your true motivation for wanting to earn a PhD and how the degree makes sense within your larger plan. Despite the obstacles, people stay in doctorate programs because they enjoy learning for learning's sake. They relish the opportunity to tackle intellectual problems and explore new areas of knowledge. For some there is the added appeal of taking time out from the traditional job market as you pursue what you love. But if it's your ambition to become a professor you should be aware that the PhD track is no guarantee of a life in academia .

2. Have you thought realistically about your job prospects?

Many PhD students hope to find a tenure-track position at a good college or research university after graduating (although others do pursue satisfying careers outside of academia). The reality is that academic positions are increasingly difficult to come by. Many PhDs have to settle for temporary or non tenure-track teaching positions, which can be just as demanding as full-time work but without the salary. Be prepared to follow jobs to colleges on the other side of the country or to adjust your career expectations.

Read More: Graduate School Application Timeline

3. Can you live frugally?

Getting a doctorate is intellectually rewarding. Unfortunately, it doesn't tend to be financially rewarding, at least not in the short term. Most PhD students live on their earnings from teaching and research assistantships or other low-paying employment. So, your starving student days may not be behind you.

4. Are you ready for the workload?

Graduate courses are far more rigorous than those you took as an undergrad, and first-year PhD students usually take around three classes. Many grad students also serve as teaching assistants (TAs) and must learn how to juggle their needs along with their students. And of course, in the final three years of the PhD program, you'll mainly focus on writing the dissertation and preparing for oral exams.

5. How do you handle pressure?

Each year, some PhD candidates do not meet the requirements of their graduate programs and are asked to leave. Others choose to leave because they are burnt out, or their interests have changed. Some students who don't complete the PhD leave with a master's degree; others leave with no degree at all. You should be prepared for these scenarios by making a back-up plan.

Successful PhD students thrive in a highly intellectual environment, are willing to work very hard with only a possible payoff, love their field of study, and don't mind forgoing impressive paychecks. If this sounds like you, forge ahead!

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Why Pursue a PhD in Biomedical Science?

New section.

Information about what one can do with a PhD in Biomedical Science.

Biomedical Research: What is it?

Biomedical research is the exploration of processes that govern the functioning of molecules, cells, and organisms in health and disease.

Biomedical Scientists: Who are they?

Biomedical scientists bridge the gap between the basic sciences and medicine. The PhD degree is the gateway to a career in biomedical research.

Biomedical scientists:

Think outside the box and are innovators.
Are critical and analytical thinkers.
Get excited by discovering new things.
Look at biology and see previously unrecognized patterns.
Enjoy the freedom to pursue interesting questions.
Have the persistence to a see a project through from small beginnings to great discoveries.
Want to improve the human condition through their work.
See the power of biomedical research to change the world.

About This Site

The content on this site was developed by the Aspiring Biomedical Scientists Committee of the AAMC Graduate Research, Education and Training (GREAT) Group . The GREAT Group serves as a national forum to help PhD, MD-PhD, and postdoctoral training programs educate successful biomedical researchers.

Helpful tools for those applying to medical PhD programs.

Upcoming short presentations will describe features of PhD training, alumni careers, and detailed logistics of the application process.

Learn about PhD Programs from program leaders.

Graduate schools in the biomedical sciences will generally provide a comprehensive funding package to their students.

PhD Programs by School

List of Postdoctoral Programs by School

Postbaccalaureate programs begin after an undergraduate degree and are designed to support the transition to professional school.

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Straight Up

FIVE points you absolutely MUST KNOW before starting your PhD journey

Want to start your PhD? Here's what you should know

Keep your checklists ready! Here are some of the things that one should not miss before applying for PhD

1. Background check of supervisor and research group. How to do it?

To ensure that your interest aligns with the potential supervisors you have shortlisted, look into their previous works and other contributions to the field. Look into the lab/group they are heading and their current projects. Ensure that you are working in a productive and supportive environment.

2. Gained admission into a reputed institution but forgot to look into your supervisor? This might not be a wise move

Well, relying solely on your institution's reputation would lead you nowhere. Examine your supervisor's Google Scholar profile, research articles and their publications. Understand the relevance of their project with yours and their ability to provide fruitful guidance.

3. Do not forget to ask for help. But how does one go about seeking help from former and current PhD students?

To make a more informed decision, do not hesitate to pose questions to alumni and current students about the lab facilities, the work culture, and the collective approach towards the research projects. Gain a deeper insight into their journey so far and make notes to give your journey a headstart.

4. You think finances don't matter while pursuing PhD? You are wrong.

Ensuring financial stability throughout your time is crucial as you will be dedicating a duration of your time solely to research. Look for fellowships available before starting your PhD, and other TA (training assistant) programmes offered by your institution. If your PhD programme exceeds five years, inquire about the additional support available.

5. Why hesitate while choosing the best for yourself?

Landed at a good university? Great. Helpful supervisor? Even better. What about other facilities aiding your research such as advanced equipment, the best library facilities and other adequate resources? Look out for them. Check if your institute has collaborations with other universities, and if there are opportunities for you to present at international conferences, and publish in prestigious journals.

For more information look into a recent post by The All-India Research Scholars Association ( AIRSA ) here

Before joining any institute for a PhD program, it's crucial to remember several points many students overlook. @AIRSAIndia advises prospective @PMOIndia @dpradhanbjp @DrJitendraSingh @AjaySoodIISc @PrinSciAdvGoI @TimesNow @timesofindia @the_hindu @TheLallantop @ThePrintIndia … pic.twitter.com/L3n9YjCEtg — All India Research Scholars Association (@AIRSAIndia) May 30, 2024

How to write a research proposal

What is a research proposal.

A research proposal should present your idea or question and expected outcomes with clarity and definition – the what.

It should also make a case for why your question is significant and what value it will bring to your discipline – the why.

What it shouldn't do is answer the question – that's what your research will do.

Why is it important?

Research proposals are significant because Another reason why it formally outlines your intended research. Which means you need to provide details on how you will go about your research, including:

your approach and methodology
timeline and feasibility
all other considerations needed to progress your research, such as resources.

Think of it as a tool that will help you clarify your idea and make conducting your research easier.

How long should it be?

Usually no more than 2000 words, but check the requirements of your degree, and your supervisor or research coordinator.

Presenting your idea clearly and concisely demonstrates that you can write this way – an attribute of a potential research candidate that is valued by assessors.

What should it include?

Project title.

Your title should clearly indicate what your proposed research is about.

Research supervisor

State the name, department and faculty or school of the academic who has agreed to supervise you. Rest assured, your research supervisor will work with you to refine your research proposal ahead of submission to ensure it meets the needs of your discipline.

Proposed mode of research

Describe your proposed mode of research. Which may be closely linked to your discipline, and is where you will describe the style or format of your research, e.g. data, field research, composition, written work, social performance and mixed media etc.

This is not required for research in the sciences, but your research supervisor will be able to guide you on discipline-specific requirements.

Aims and objectives

What are you trying to achieve with your research? What is the purpose? This section should reference why you're applying for a research degree. Are you addressing a gap in the current research? Do you want to look at a theory more closely and test it out? Is there something you're trying to prove or disprove? To help you clarify this, think about the potential outcome of your research if you were successful – that is your aim. Make sure that this is a focused statement.

Your objectives will be your aim broken down – the steps to achieving the intended outcome. They are the smaller proof points that will underpin your research's purpose. Be logical in the order of how you present these so that each succeeds the previous, i.e. if you need to achieve 'a' before 'b' before 'c', then make sure you order your objectives a, b, c.

A concise summary of what your research is about. It outlines the key aspects of what you will investigate as well as the expected outcomes. It briefly covers the what, why and how of your research.

A good way to evaluate if you have written a strong synopsis, is to get somebody to read it without reading the rest of your research proposal. Would they know what your research is about?

Now that you have your question clarified, it is time to explain the why. Here, you need to demonstrate an understanding of the current research climate in your area of interest.

Providing context around your research topic through a literature review will show the assessor that you understand current dialogue around your research, and what is published.

Demonstrate you have a strong understanding of the key topics, significant studies and notable researchers in your area of research and how these have contributed to the current landscape.

Expected research contribution

In this section, you should consider the following:

Why is your research question or hypothesis worth asking?
How is the current research lacking or falling short?
What impact will your research have on the discipline?
Will you be extending an area of knowledge, applying it to new contexts, solving a problem, testing a theory, or challenging an existing one?
Establish why your research is important by convincing your audience there is a gap.
What will be the outcome of your research contribution?
Demonstrate both your current level of knowledge and how the pursuit of your question or hypothesis will create a new understanding and generate new information.
Show how your research is innovative and original.

Draw links between your research and the faculty or school you are applying at, and explain why you have chosen your supervisor, and what research have they or their school done to reinforce and support your own work. Cite these reasons to demonstrate how your research will benefit and contribute to the current body of knowledge.

Proposed methodology

Provide an overview of the methodology and techniques you will use to conduct your research. Cover what materials and equipment you will use, what theoretical frameworks will you draw on, and how will you collect data.

Highlight why you have chosen this particular methodology, but also why others may not have been as suitable. You need to demonstrate that you have put thought into your approach and why it's the most appropriate way to carry out your research.

It should also highlight potential limitations you anticipate, feasibility within time and other constraints, ethical considerations and how you will address these, as well as general resources.

A work plan is a critical component of your research proposal because it indicates the feasibility of completion within the timeframe and supports you in achieving your objectives throughout your degree.

Consider the milestones you aim to achieve at each stage of your research. A PhD or master's degree by research can take two to four years of full-time study to complete. It might be helpful to offer year one in detail and the following years in broader terms. Ultimately you have to show that your research is likely to be both original and finished – and that you understand the time involved.

Provide details of the resources you will need to carry out your research project. Consider equipment, fieldwork expenses, travel and a proposed budget, to indicate how realistic your research proposal is in terms of financial requirements and whether any adjustments are needed.

Bibliography

Provide a list of references that you've made throughout your research proposal.

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How to write a PhD thesis: a step-by-step guide

A draft isn’t a perfect, finished product; it is your opportunity to start getting words down on paper, writes Kelly Louise Preece

Kelly Louise Preece

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Congratulations; you’ve finished your research! Time to write your PhD thesis. This resource will take you through an eight-step plan for drafting your chapters and your thesis as a whole.

Infographic with steps on how to draft your PhD thesis

Organise your material

Before you start, it’s important to get organised. Take a step back and look at the data you have, then reorganise your research. Which parts of it are central to your thesis and which bits need putting to one side? Label and organise everything using logical folders – make it easy for yourself! Academic and blogger Pat Thomson calls this “Clean up to get clearer” . Thomson suggests these questions to ask yourself before you start writing:

What data do you have? You might find it useful to write out a list of types of data (your supervisor will find this list useful too.) This list is also an audit document that can go in your thesis. Do you have any for the “cutting room floor”? Take a deep breath and put it in a separate non-thesis file. You can easily retrieve it if it turns out you need it.
What do you have already written? What chunks of material have you written so far that could form the basis of pieces of the thesis text? They will most likely need to be revised but they are useful starting points. Do you have any holding text? That is material you already know has to be rewritten but contains information that will be the basis of a new piece of text.
What have you read and what do you still need to read? Are there new texts that you need to consult now after your analysis? What readings can you now put to one side, knowing that they aren’t useful for this thesis – although they might be useful at another time?
What goes with what? Can you create chunks or themes of materials that are going to form the basis of some chunks of your text, perhaps even chapters?

Once you have assessed and sorted what you have collected and generated you will be in much better shape to approach the big task of composing the dissertation.

Decide on a key message

A key message is a summary of new information communicated in your thesis. You should have started to map this out already in the section on argument and contribution – an overarching argument with building blocks that you will flesh out in individual chapters.

You have already mapped your argument visually, now you need to begin writing it in prose. Following another of Pat Thomson’s exercises, write a “tiny text” thesis abstract. This doesn’t have to be elegant, or indeed the finished product, but it will help you articulate the argument you want your thesis to make. You create a tiny text using a five-paragraph structure:

The first sentence addresses the broad context. This locates the study in a policy, practice or research field.
The second sentence establishes a problem related to the broad context you have set out. It often starts with “But”, “Yet” or “However”.
The third sentence says what specific research has been done. This often starts with “This research” or “I report…”
The fourth sentence reports the results. Don’t try to be too tricky here, just start with something like: “This study shows,” or “Analysis of the data suggests that…”
The fifth and final sentence addresses the “So What?” question and makes clear the claim to contribution.

Here’s an example that Thomson provides:

Secondary school arts are in trouble, as the fall in enrolments in arts subjects dramatically attests. However, there is patchy evidence about the benefits of studying arts subjects at school and this makes it hard to argue why the drop in arts enrolments matters. This thesis reports on research which attempts to provide some answers to this problem – a longitudinal study which followed two groups of senior secondary students, one group enrolled in arts subjects and the other not, for three years. The results of the study demonstrate the benefits of young people’s engagement in arts activities, both in and out of school, as well as the connections between the two. The study not only adds to what is known about the benefits of both formal and informal arts education but also provides robust evidence for policymakers and practitioners arguing for the benefits of the arts. You can find out more about tiny texts and thesis abstracts on Thomson’s blog.

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Write a plan

You might not be a planner when it comes to writing. You might prefer to sit, type and think through ideas as you go. That’s OK. Everybody works differently. But one of the benefits of planning your writing is that your plan can help you when you get stuck. It can help with writer’s block (more on this shortly!) but also maintain clarity of intention and purpose in your writing.

You can do this by creating a thesis skeleton or storyboard , planning the order of your chapters, thinking of potential titles (which may change at a later stage), noting down what each chapter/section will cover and considering how many words you will dedicate to each chapter (make sure the total doesn’t exceed the maximum word limit allowed).

Use your plan to help prompt your writing when you get stuck and to develop clarity in your writing.

Some starting points include:

This chapter will argue that…
This section illustrates that…
This paragraph provides evidence that…

Of course, we wish it werethat easy. But you need to approach your first draft as exactly that: a draft. It isn’t a perfect, finished product; it is your opportunity to start getting words down on paper. Start with whichever chapter you feel you want to write first; you don’t necessarily have to write the introduction first. Depending on your research, you may find it easier to begin with your empirical/data chapters.

Vitae advocates for the “three draft approach” to help with this and to stop you from focusing on finding exactly the right word or transition as part of your first draft.

This resource originally appeared on Researcher Development .

Kelly Louse Preece is head of educator development at the University of Exeter.

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week, sign up for the Campus newsletter .

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Thinking of Pursuing a PhD in Economics? Info on Graduate School and Beyond

Kasey Chatterji-Len and Anna Kovner

Photo of three young students writing a formula on a green blackboard with white chalk.

Becoming a PhD economist can provide a fulfilling and financially secure career path. However, getting started in the field can be daunting if you don’t know much about the preparation you’ll need and the available job opportunities. If you’re wondering what it means to be an economics researcher or how to become one, please read on. We’ll review how to prepare for a career in economics research, what an economics PhD program entails, and what types of opportunities it might bring. Economic education is a core component of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s mission to serve the community. To empower would-be economists, this post provides information for students who seek a career in economics research. We hope this information will be helpful to students interested in economics, regardless of their background and economic situation.  This information is most applicable to students applying to programs in the United States.

The Breadth of Economics Research

Academic disciplines conduct research in different ways, so it’s important to have a basic understanding of the types of questions economists ask and how they approach answering them. There are many definitions of economics, but a broadly useful one is the study of how people, organizations, and governments make decisions under different constraints, and how those decisions may affect their outcomes.

When answering these questions, economists seek to ground their analyses in models and to be quantitatively precise about the effects they assign to any given cause. The range of topics economists can study is wide, but the accepted approaches to answering questions are stricter. Some examples of what economists might ask:

How do different public housing programs affect the children who live there?
Does a certain type of law encourage businesses to innovate?
How will a change in the interest rate affect inflation and unemployment rates?
How much does affordable health insurance improve people’s health?
How can poor countries eradicate poverty?

There are many different subfields within economics, including, but not limited to behavioral, econometrics, energy/environmental, development, financial, international, monetary, public, and urban economics. You can familiarize yourself with the latest work in economics by subscribing to working paper series, such as NBER’s New This Week or the New York Fed’s Staff Reports . To get an idea of the breadth of questions economists can answer, you could listen to Stephen Dubner’s “ Freakonomics Radio ” podcast. You may also want to explore the Journal of Economic Perspectives , the New York Fed’s Liberty Street Economics blog, VoxDev , or VoxEU .

What Is a PhD Program Like?

Economics PhD programs typically last five to seven years. Unlike masters programs, they are often fully funded with a stipend, though most require students to complete teaching assistant and/or research assistant (RA) work as part of their funding package. In the first two years, students take classes, many of which are mathematically demanding. The rest of the program can include additional classes but is primarily devoted to original research with the aim of producing publishable papers that will constitute the dissertation.

Faculty advisors are a central part of PhD programs, as students look to them for guidance during the research process. Economics PhD programs are offered within university economics departments, but there are similar programs in public policy and business schools. You can look at their websites to understand any differences in coursework and subsequent job placements.

What Can You Do with an Economics PhD?

Upon graduation, students can obtain jobs in a variety of industries. Many PhD students hope to become university professors. Governments and public policy-related institutions such as the Federal Reserve System, the U.S. federal government, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also hire economists to work on policy, lead programs, and conduct research. Finally, economics PhD graduates can also find employment at a variety of private sector companies, including banks, economic consulting firms, and big tech companies. The pay for these different positions can vary. According to the American Economics Association (AEA), the average starting salary for economics assistant professors in 2022-23 was approximately $140,000 at PhD granting institutions and $98,000 at BA granting institutions.

Programs often publish the placements of their PhD graduates, so you can look online to see specific employment outcomes. See, for example, the University of Maryland’s placements . Ultimately, economists are highly regarded as authorities on a variety of topics. Governments, nonprofits, philanthropic foundations, financial institutions, and non-financial businesses all look to economists to answer important questions about how to best achieve their goals. Thus, earning an economics Ph.D. can potentially help you to influence issues that are important to you.

Preparing for an Economics PhD Program

There are several components to an economics PhD program application: college transcripts, GRE scores, letters of recommendation, and personal statements. Please download the Appendix linked below to learn more about transcripts and letters of recommendation. The Appendix details ways in which you can select coursework, obtain research experience, and develop relationships to position yourself for success as a PhD applicant.

If you feel that you are too far along in your academic career to take enough of the classes described in the Appendix, this does not necessarily preclude you from pursuing an economics PhD. For example, it’s possible to take some of these classes through a master’s program, or through a pre-doctoral RA job. Some pre-doctoral RA jobs, such as the one here at the New York Fed , may enable you to take classes in preparation for graduate school. If you are concerned about your transcript, reach out to an economist at your university for advice; program standards for coursework and grades vary, and it’s a good idea to get more personalized advice.

Research Experience

If you’re interested in becoming an economics researcher and applying to PhD programs, it’s best to get research experience as soon as possible. Working as an RA is a great way to learn how to conduct research and get a better idea of whether it’s the right career path for you. Additionally, it can help you obtain a letter of recommendation for graduate school applications and improve your qualifications.

All types of academic research can be enriching, but it’s beneficial to gain experience working directly with an economist. To find a position, you can reach out to professors whose work you find interesting or find an RA program at your school. Typical RA tasks may involve data collection and cleaning, as well as running analyses and creating charts to represent results. This is where coding skills become crucial; having taken math, statistics, and econometrics courses will also enable you to take on more responsibilities.

You may also have the opportunity to conduct your own research, possibly under the supervision of a professor at your university. This research could be self-initiated or part of a course such as a thesis workshop. Self-directed research is a great opportunity to learn about all stages of the research process. It’s also an excellent opportunity to create a writing sample for graduate school applications. Ultimately, though, your motivation for conducting your own research project should be that you want to answer a question. One thing economists have in common is a love of answering questions using data and theory.

Research experience is also often obtained after completing an undergraduate or master’s degree. Taking on a full-time RA position before applying to PhD programs is very common and can make you a more competitive applicant. You may either get an RA job working for a professor or participate in a pre-doctoral RA program.

Research assistant programs are more structured than positions with individual professors or projects, which could be helpful. Universities, parts of the government, think tanks, research organizations, and the Federal Reserve System are all good places to look for research assistant programs. To help you decide which opportunities are most desirable, you may want to ask potential employers : Where do people in this program tend to go afterward? Will I be working directly with an economist? How much of my time will be spent on academic research work? Will I be able to take classes as part of this program? Considering whether an economist will be able to evaluate your performance is an important factor for recommendation letters. The ability to take classes, either through tuition reimbursement or waivers, can also be an important benefit.

The Research Analyst program here at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is one example of these programs and you should check it out here . The Federal Reserve Board of Governors also has a large program, and many other regional Federal Reserve Banks have similar programs. In addition, the PREDOC website and the NBER post listings of RA opportunities. J-PAL and IPA also tend to recruit RAs for economic development projects. Another source of RA opportunities is the @econ_ra account on X.

Who Should Get a PhD in Economics?

A PhD may not be for everyone, but it is for anyone—people of all genders, religions, ethnicities, races, and national origins have PhDs in economics. Many economists majored in economics, but others majored in math, physics, or chemistry. Because economics is such an integral part of policymaking, it is important that economists come from a wide range of backgrounds so policy can be stronger and more effective. The inclusion of differing perspectives helps ensure that the contribution of economists to work in public policy, academia, and beyond effectively serves the broadest range of society.

Coursework Appendix

Kasey Chatterji-Len is a research analyst in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Research and Statistics Group.

Anna Kovner is the director of Financial Stability Policy Research in the Bank’s Research and Statistics Group.

How to cite this post: Kasey Chatterji-Len and Anna Kovner, “Thinking of Pursuing a PhD in Economics? Info on Graduate School and Beyond,” Federal Reserve Bank of New York Liberty Street Economics , May 31, 2024, https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2024/05/thinking-of-pursuing-a-phd-in-economics-info-on-graduate-school-and-beyond/.

You may also be interested in: AEA: Resources for Students

PREDOC: Guidance for Undergraduates

RA Positions-Not at the NBER

Disclaimer The views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the author(s).

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The Authentic Illusions team is full of PhD researchers in the field of Artificial Intelligence. So the studio has no lack of programmer talent. But that doesn’t mean that they love coding their games from scratch and they’d like to share the reasons why.

Alejandro Garza thinks that indies often believe that they have unlimited time, but forget to factor in their own living costs. “What’s worth it in the end is finishing your game. If you’re completely out of money, you won’t finish it”. He sees many crowdfunding campaigns that are setting themselves to fail by asking for too little money.

He suggests that when you decide to add a new functionality, you should always first consider your own skills. Can you code it yourself? Do you have something in your old work you can base this on?

Then you need to consider the value of your own time and how much of it is going to be taken by the development of the plug in. “If it’s going to take a week and a week of your work is worth 300 dollars, you should see the project in that perspective. But experienced project managers know that it’s hard to put together an accurate estimate, it’s necessary to include a buffer for unexpected delays,” warns Alejandro.

If you decided that buying a plugin is more cost effective, do some research before buying. Consider how well documented the different options are and how much time will you spend integrating them. Read comments and reviews and make sure to take other people’s experiences into account.

“I have not yet stumbled across badly documented assets, but I know it can happen. You just need to do a little research before paying. Of course, even very good assets take a little time to integrate, but so do assets that you develop yourself,” he points out.

When the budget of your project is zero, the equation might look very different. “If you don’t have any money at all and need the assets right now, there’s really nothing else to do but get cracking. But when you have a budget, even a small one, you should really remember to take your own wages into account”.

In the beginning, it’s good to learn by developing from scratch and not think too much about the time spent on the project. But to have this attitude throughout the whole development process of a commercial game is extremely risky. “It might be sheer arrogance that will end up costing you your game,” warns Alejandro. For example, you can lose some valuable promotion opportunities by not being able to put something together to a deadline.

Authentic Illusions are happy to show they prototypes externally, because they feel it’s important to get feedback from people as soon as possible. With the Asset Store, they saved a lot of time and effort programming, but they also use 3D models for prototyping. “Being able to have the prototype up and running is really great. Even just internally, showing the artist what you had in mind can be extremely valuable. But externally, having something up and running that looks good, that’s indispensable”.

Even though the placeholder art has helped the team a lot, editor extensions are still their favorite category. “Obviously the first one would be NGUI, it is great. But seeing the new tools, maybe it will be redundant, let’s see!”

Another favorite is Editor Console Pro , which is a great way to customize your scripting workflow. “For example, if you want to print out the steps that each class is performing, it shows them all, in different colors as you want them. It’s super useful for debugging”.

Advanced PlayerPrefs Window is an example of a game functionality that they decided to buy on the Asset Store instead of developing themselves. It’s a little console with all the player preferences that you can modify on the go. It saves quite a bit of time, which is extremely valuable, especially considering it only costs $10.

Alejandro’s radiating with optimism about the future of the team as well as the Unity ecosystem. The team is developing a 2D tool for the Asset Store, but they’re also thinking about how to use Unity for their research. “In the end, if you work on AI, you don’t want to use many different systems to build and test your project. Unity is an awesome platform to bring everything together and run it right away,” he says.

The Authentic Illusions team is collaborating with Arbor Sheep, an art studio, on a 2D side scrolling puzzle adventure called REalM .

838 episodes

A master-class in personal and professional development, ultra-athlete, wellness evangelist and bestselling author Rich Roll delves deep with the world's brightest and most thought provoking thought leaders to educate, inspire and empower you to unleash your best, most authentic self. More at: https://richroll.com

The Rich Roll Podcast Rich Roll

4.7 • 10.8K Ratings
JUN 10, 2024

Sam Harris On Consciousness, Meditation, Misinformation, AI, & What Ails The Modern World

Sam Harris is a renowned neuroscientist, philosopher, bestselling author, and host of the wildly popular Making Sense podcast. This conversation explores the crisis of misinformation and the erosion of critical thinking in society. Sam shares his journey of understanding consciousness through meditation and psychedelics, and how recognizing the illusion of the self can lead to profound inner freedom. We discuss the importance of reason, science, AI, and open conversations to navigate the challenges of our time and build a more rational, cooperative future. Sam's insights are thought-provoking and timely. This is a conversation not to be missed. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: LMNT: get a FREE Sample Pack with any drink mix purchase 👉drinkLMNT.com/RICHROLL ROKA: Unlock 20% OFF your order with code RICHROLL 👉ROKA.com/RICHROLL Go Brewing: Use the code Rich Roll for 15% OFF 👉gobrewing.com Momentous: Save up to 36% OFF your first subscription order of Protein or Creatine + 20% OFF 👉livemomentous.com/richroll Whoop: Unlock the best version of yourself 👉join.whoop.com/roll Waking Up: Get a FREE month, plus $30 OFF 👉wakingup.com/RICHROLL Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange

2 hr 49 min
JUN 6, 2024

Roll ON: Journaling, Creativity & Process—Plus Transformative Books, Thoughts on Regenerative Agriculture & Remembering Swimming's Greatest Coach

Mr. Adam Skolnick and I are back in the saddle for Roll On—ready to unpack all that’s transpired in our worlds and beyond! Specific topics include the creative anxieties of book publishing (Adam finished his novel!), a recent podcast kerfuffle (i.e., Ozempic), my trip to India and meeting with the Dalai Lama, heading to Paris for the Olympics, paying respect to legends lost, book recommendations, and wading into the Sage Bistro regenerative farming debate. Let’s make up for lost time, shall we? Put us in your earholes! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Peak Design: Get 20% OFF my favorite products 👉 PeakDesign.com/RICHROLL Inside Tracker: Enjoy 10% OFF the InsideTracker Subscription and any plan 👉 insidetracker.com/richroll On: Enter RichRoll10 at the checkout to get 10% OFF your first order 👉on.com/richroll Eight Sleep: Use code RICHROLL to get $350 OFF Pod 4 Ultra 👉eightsleep.com/richroll Squarespace: Use code RichRoll for a FREE trial + 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain 👉BetterHelp.com/RICHROLL AG1: REE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs 👉drinkAG1.com/richroll Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange

JUN 3, 2024

Psychiatrist Phil Stutz Knows What’s Wrong With You & Has The Tools To Fix It

Phil Stutz is a renowned psychiatrist, author, and the protagonist in the Netflix documentary “Stutz”. This conversation explores the intersection of spirituality and Phil’s iconoclastic perspective on personal growth, which emphasizes actionable tools over traditional talk therapy. We discuss Phil’s backstory, his therapeutic philosophy, the drivers of happiness, the importance of embracing reality and uncertainty, the role of faith, finding purpose through service and action, and many other topics. Along the way, Phil expertly psychoanalyzes me. Phil is a treasure. And this conversation is a gift. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Momentous: Save up to 36% OFF your first subscription order of Protein or Creatine + 20% OFF my favorite products 👉 livemomentous.com/richroll Bon Charge: Use code RICHROLL to save 15% OFF 👉 boncharge.com Waking Up: Get a FREE month, plus $30 OFF 👉wakingup.com/RICHROLL Brain.fm: Get 30 days FREE of science-backed sound 👉brain.fm/richroll This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp: Get 10% off your first month by visiting 👉BetterHelp.com/RICHROLL SriMu: Get 22% OFF artisanally crafted plant-rich cheeses w/ code RRP 👉SriMu.com Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange

1 hr 37 min
MAY 27, 2024

Navigate Modern Dating & Create A Healthy Love Life: Relationship Coach Matthew Hussey on Breaking Destructive Cycles, Attracting Authentic Connections & More

This week, I’m joined by Matthew Hussey, the celebrated relationship expert and bestselling author, to discuss the intricacies of modern dating and to raise standards for authentic connections. With honest truths, he addresses embracing self-worth, setting boundaries, and cultivating a mindset that attracts an equal partnership based on decency, kindness, and respect. Exploring internal fears, anxieties, and the allure of chaotic relationship dynamics, Matthew discusses unreliable instincts and recognizing red, amber, and green lights. He provides a practical roadmap for breaking destructive cycles, navigating vulnerabilities, and nurturing healthy interdependence. Additionally, we examine gender differences in dating insecurities and societal pressures. Matthew emphasizes the importance of open communication, productive arguments, and empowering your partner’s growth. Please enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Bon Charge: Use code RICHROLL to save 15% OFF 👉 boncharge.com Waking Up: Get a FREE month, plus $30 OFF 👉wakingup.com/RICHROLL Roka: Unlock 20% OFF your order with code RICHROLL 👉ROKA.com/RICHROLL Go Brewing: Use code Rich Roll for 15% OFF your first purchase 👉gobrewing.com AG1: Get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs 👉drinkAG1.com/richroll SriMu: Get 22% OFF artisanally crafted plant-rich cheeses w/ code RRP 👉SriMu.com Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange

2 hr 20 min
MAY 23, 2024

Ozempic: Weight Loss Miracle Drug or Something Darker? Johann Hari on The Benefits & Risks

This week, I’m joined by Johann Hari, New York Times bestselling author, journalist, and speaker, to explore his journey into the world of the new weight loss drug phenomenon: Ozempic. Johann shares his surprising firsthand experience injecting himself weekly with the drug for over a year, leading to dramatic weight loss but also complex side effects. We discuss the staggering potential of these “magic pills” to curb the global obesity epidemic, but also the alarming risks like thyroid cancer, pancreatitis, and muscle wasting. Johann provides a nuanced look at the bigger picture—examining the role of pharmaceutical profit, societal pressures around body image, and whether medicalizing thinness addresses root causes. His investigation stretches from the science labs of Iceland to the food culture of Japan. This discussion ultimately confronts sobering philosophical questions about the ethics of pharmaceutical shortcuts versus growth through struggle. Please enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: InsideTracker: Use code RICHROLL at checkout and enjoy 10% OFF the InsideTracker Subscription and any plan 👉insidetracker.com/richroll Seed: Use code RICHROLL25 for 25% OFF your first order 👉seed.com/RichRoll On: 10% OFF your first order of high-performance shoes and apparel w/ code RICHROLL10 👉on.com/richroll Momentous: Save up to 36% OFF your first subscription order of Protein or Creatine, along with 20% OFF all of my favorite products 👉livemomentous.com/richroll Squarespace: Use the offer code RichRoll to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain 👉Squarespace.com/RichRoll Peak Design: 20% OFF thoughtfully designed carry solutions 👉PeakDesign.com/RICHROLL SriMu: Get 22% OFF artisanally crafted plant-rich cheeses w/ code RRP 👉SriMu.com Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange

2 hr 11 min
MAY 20, 2024

Eat Like A Legend: Chef Dan Churchill On Fueling Your Body For Peak Performance

This week, I’m joined by Dan Churchill, a performance chef redefining what it means to thrive in the culinary world. With a Master’s in Exercise Science, Dan is fueling plates and human performance. As executive chef of Osprey in Brooklyn’s 1 Hotel, a former restaurant owner, coach on Chris Hemsworth’s Centr app, and cookbook author—Dan is at the intersection of cuisine, fitness, and content creation. We talk about his unique background growing up in Sydney, how a passion for food connected his family, and his journey from appearing on MasterChef Australia to self-publishing cookbooks that launched his career in New York City. Dan shares insights from building respected brands like Charley Street, the harsh realities of the restaurant world, the importance of authentic relationships over transactional partnerships, and finding balance as an entrepreneur, athlete, and chef. We discuss his latest projects, eating with intention, properly fueling training, recovery, digestion, and more. We explore performance nutrition facts and myths, managing energy levels, and working with elite athletes like Chris Hemsworth and Lindsey Vonn. Please enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Eight Sleep: Use code RICHROLL to get $350 OFF Pod 4 Ultra 👉eightsleep.com/richroll On: 10% OFF your first order of high-performance shoes and apparel w/ code RICHROLL10 👉on.com/richroll AG1: get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase 👉 drinkAG1.com/richroll. Whoop: Unlock the best version of yourself👉join.whoop.com/roll Brain.fm: Listeners of the show can get 30 days FREE 👉brain.fm/richroll SriMu: Get 22% OFF artisanally crafted plant-rich cheeses w/ code RRP 👉SriMu.com This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp: Listeners get 10% off their first month 👉BetterHelp.com/RICHROLL Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange.

1 hr 55 min

Customer Reviews

10.8K Ratings

More ROLL ON

In the name of all things glorious, please, more Roll On shows. Once a month would be a treat and standout in the landscape of noise.

My absolute favorite podcast

Listening to Rich feels like hanging out with a good friend, who has really interesting friends. His voice puts me at ease like the Calm app. I count on Rich to deliver relevant info and I trust his opinion about the products that sponsor his show. Most notable is Rich’s vocabulary- he uses diverse and articulate language, its a real treat to learn from him.

Drifted off course…

This podcast was a great source of information years ago, but this will be the last time I listen. Rich has always interrupted female guests repeatedly…or talked over them…but it has become ridiculous. The guy needs to learn how to use a period at the end of a sentence. In the ozempic episode he talks over the guy with lived experience and decries Big Pharma…and then cuts right to a plug for supplements. The hypocrisy is tangible.

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COMMENTS

Why Do a PhD?
Written by Ben Taylor. One of the key reasons why you might want to do a PhD is to research a niche subject area that you are passionate about and to make a meaningful contribution to your field. The PhD journey will help you to develop many transferable skills that can be applied in your project and help you achieve your future career, whether ...
The best answers to "Why do you want to do a PhD?"
Hence, answers to "Why do you want to do a PhD?" that centre around ambitions to satisfy your scientific curiosity are usually appreciated during PhD interviews. There are different ways to emphasise your scientific curiosity. For instance, you could explain how a specific topic caught your interest.
Why a PhD is Worth it!
Completing a PhD is all about creating fresh knowledge, discovering new things and developing new skills. It is a degree meant for those who seek greater depth of knowledge in a specific area. With a PhD, 'one can make a difference', says Professor Paul KH Tam, Pro Vice Chancellor and Vice President (Research), University of Hong Kong.
Is a PhD Worth It? The Pros and Cons of Getting a Doctorate
3. You'll experience extreme stress and frustration. Pursuing a PhD may seem like a noble and interesting endeavor, and extended life as a student can appear more attractive than wading into the job market. You must be aware, however, that getting a doctorate can be a very stressful and frustrating experience.
5 Reasons to Study a PhD
1) Make a Contribution Towards Your Chosen Field. Many students who pursue a PhD, do so because they are passionate about a specific subject, and want to use their research time to make important discoveries within that field. One of the great things about your PhD is that you will be able to conduct your own research.
Why Would You Want to Do a PhD?
A typical answer would be: I am interested in your PhD program because I want to do research in my area. My career goal is to become a professor at a university or research institute. Indeed, doctoral degrees are by default the training programs for academics. You would presumably spend five years or so learning how to become a capable ...
Is it a good time to be getting a PhD? We asked those who've done it
Published: June 1, 2021 12:40am EDT. The number of Australian PhD graduates reached around 10,000 a year in 2019, twice as many as in 2005. However, the number of PhDs has been exceeding the ...
11 Reasons why to Study a PhD?
Time consuming process: Study PhD takes more time up to 5 or 7 years or even more. So if you are fighting against lack of patience, trust me think twice. Expensive one: Generally PhD or doctoral degrees are costlier. The fees are too much and one needs to manage expenses for at least 4 to 5 years.
What is a PhD? Advice for PhD students
Why should you do a PhD? For many people, acquiring a doctorate degree is the pinnacle of academic achievement, the culmination of years of commitment to higher education. However, the act of pursuing a PhD can be a complex, frustrating, expensive and time-consuming exercise. But with the right preparation, some sound advice and a thorough ...
What is a PhD and Why Should YOU do one?
Doing a PhD is a huge commitment, at least 3-4 years of your life, and hard work, so before you take one on, make sure you understand why. And do it because YOU want to, not because your family, or others expect it of you, or because your family or friends are doing one, or have done one. Make it your decision, not someone else's.
Reasons To Do A PhD or Research Degree
Reasons to do a PhD or research degree. 1. Passion for research. If you simply love learning and have a passion for discovering new things then it's a good sign a research degree is for you. You'll pick a topic you're interested in and have the freedom to dive deep into the heart of a problem. Draw on the years of research in your field, forge ...
Why Complete a PhD?
PhD graduates can also act as a bridge between universities and industry, helping to promote technology transfer and a knowledge flow in both directions." Whatever your academic area of interest, studying for a PhD degree is regarded as the very top of your field. The effort required studying for three, four or sometimes five years is enormous ...
Is a PhD Worth It? I Wish I'd Asked These 6 Questions First
In terms of nuts and bolts of building career experience section on a resume, which is often the most important part, a PhD is rarely worth it. (Some STEM careers do require a PhD.) However, at the start of my post-graduate educational journey, I was working part-time running teen programs and full time as a landscaper.
How to Answer, "Why Do You Want to Do a PhD?"
Here are a few tips for how to structure and create a proper answer as to why you want to do a PhD: 1. Research, Research, Research. Research is not only what your PhD will lead to but also a crucial portion of preparing for it. Learn everything you can about the programs you are applying to, what academic opportunities they might lead to, and ...
9 things you should consider before embarking on a PhD
9. There are no real breaks. In a stereotypical "9-to-5" job, when the workday is over or the weekend arrives, you can generally forget about your work. And a vacation provides an even longer respite. But in a PhD program, your schedule becomes "whenever you find time to get your work done."
Is a PhD worth it?
For UQ PhD alumni Angie Knaggs, Benjamin Jones and Brigid Lynch, answering this question in hindsight is easy - and the answer is a resounding yes. Their stories may help you make this choice without that advantage of hindsight. My PhD is as much a part of my identity as the colour of my hair.
5 Reasons to Pursue a PhD in Education
There are many reasons why someone would earn a PhD in Education, but in this article, we will cover the top five. 1. Achieve Your Personal Goals. For some, earning a PhD degree represents a personal goal or something that was on their bucket list. Completing a doctoral degree program is a significant achievement.
Should I do a PhD? 4 things I wish I knew before starting my PhD
1. A PhD will give you so much more than just a career pathway. During my first year as a PhD student, I learned a lot about my new field. Neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence and Nanotechnology were not areas I had much experience in from a Psychology background. Pursuing a PhD in the school of Physics opened me up to a huge range of new ...
To ace your Ph.D. program interviews, prepare to answer—and ...
Why are you applying now? A Ph.D. program is not a simple continuation of your previous studies. It is a serious commitment—often 5 to 7 years—to a specific training path. Demonstrate to faculty members that you have carefully considered all possible options and concluded that now is the ideal time to begin a serious commitment to graduate ...
10 things you need to know before starting a PhD degree
5. Embrace change - don't get bogged down in the details. Felix Shaw - one of our bioinformatics researchers at EI - put it best when he said, " it felt like I was running into brick walls all the way through [my PhD]… you'd run into a brick wall, surmount it, only to run straight into another. It's true.
Master's vs PhD
The two most common types of graduate degrees are master's and doctoral degrees: A master's is a 1-2 year degree that can prepare you for a multitude of careers. A PhD, or doctoral degree, takes 3-7 years to complete (depending on the country) and prepares you for a career in academic research. A master's is also the necessary first ...
Why You Shouldn't Get a PhD
Some students who don't complete the PhD leave with a master's degree; others leave with no degree at all. You should be prepared for these scenarios by making a back-up plan. Successful PhD students thrive in a highly intellectual environment, are willing to work very hard with only a possible payoff, love their field of study, and don't mind ...
Why Pursue a PhD in Biomedical Science?
The PhD degree is the gateway to a career in biomedical research. Biomedical scientists: Think outside the box and are innovators. Are critical and analytical thinkers. Get excited by discovering new things. Look at biology and see previously unrecognized patterns. Enjoy the freedom to pursue interesting questions.
Essential Tips for Starting Your PhD Journey: 5 Must-Know Points
Gain a deeper insight into their journey so far and make notes to give your journey a headstart. 4. You think finances don't matter while pursuing PhD? You are wrong. Ensuring financial stability throughout your time is crucial as you will be dedicating a duration of your time solely to research.
How to write a research proposal for a strong PhD application
A research proposal should present your idea or question and expected outcomes with clarity and definition - the what. It should also make a case for why your question is significant and what value it will bring to your discipline - the why. What it shouldn't do is answer the question - that's what your research will do.
How to write a PhD thesis: a step-by-step guide
It often starts with "But", "Yet" or "However". The third sentence says what specific research has been done. This often starts with "This research" or "I report…". The fourth sentence reports the results. Don't try to be too tricky here, just start with something like: "This study shows," or "Analysis of the data ...
Thinking of Pursuing a PhD in Economics? Info on Graduate School and
Becoming a PhD economist can provide a fulfilling and financially secure career path. However, getting started in the field can be daunting if you don't know much about the preparation you'll need and the available job opportunities. If you're wondering what it means to be an economics researcher or how to become one, please read on. We'll review how to prepare for a career in ...
What Is a Business Analyst? 2024 Career Guide
Business analysts use data to form business insights and recommend changes in businesses and other organizations. Business analysts can identify issues in virtually any part of an organization, including IT processes, organizational structures, or staff development. As businesses seek to increase efficiency and reduce costs, business analytics ...
Should I do it myself, or use the Asset Store?
The Authentic Illusions team is full of PhD researchers in the field of Artificial Intelligence. So the studio has no lack of programmer talent. But that doesn't mean that they love coding their games from scratch and they'd like to share the reasons why.
‎The Rich Roll Podcast on Apple Podcasts
Mr. Adam Skolnick and I are back in the saddle for Roll On—ready to unpack all that's transpired in our worlds and beyond! Specific topics include the creative anxieties of book publishing (Adam finished his novel!), a recent podcast kerfuffle (i.e., Ozempic), my trip to India and meeting with the Dalai Lama, heading to Paris for the Olympics, paying respect to legends lost, book ...

Should I do a PhD to help my employability?

1. Passion for research

2. Gaining transferrable skills

3. Accomplishing your career goals

4. Making an original contribution to your subject

"Should I do a PhD?"

Doing a PhD

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The best answers to “Why do you want to do a PhD?”

Creating your unique answer to “Why do you want to do a PhD?”

Doing a PhD to satisfy your scientific curiosity

Doing a PhD because of your societal or environmental ambitions

Doing a PhD for self-development

Doing a PhD to improve your (academic) career prospects

Master Academia

Is a PhD Worth It? The Pros and Cons of Getting a Doctorate

1. You can contribute new knowledge to the world

2. You'll have access to more prestigious jobs

3. Employers look for candidates with your superior writing skills

4. You'll improve on all your soft skills

5. You'll collect an extensive network of professional colleagues

6. You can wait for a more favorable job market

1. It's expensive

2. Getting a PhD can be a lonely experience

3. You'll experience extreme stress and frustration

4. There may be limited job openings

5. There may be little to no financial reward

6. You could lose out on valuable job experience

Questions to ask yourself

The best PhD degrees

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5 Reasons to Study a PhD

1) Make a Contribution Towards Your Chosen Field

2) Long-term Career Goals

3) Improving and Challenging Knowledge

4) Enjoyment of the Subject Matter

5) Demonstration of Intellectual Potential

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11 Reasons why to Study a PhD?

11 reasons why to study PhD:

Call yourself doctor:

Develop problem-solving capabilities:

Learning new things:

Out of the box analytical thinking

Higher positions:

More career options:

More earning:

Comfortable lifestyle:

Power to change the world:

Develop expertise:

Why study PhD? – some recommendations

Why study PhD?- challenges to face

Studying PhD in different countries:

Study PhD in India:

Study PhD in UK:

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About The Author

Dr Tushar Chauhan

What is PhD?- History, Definition, Origin, Requirement, Fees, Duration and Process