Why should you do a PhD?

Let me start with the conclusion to make your life easier: No, you should not do a PhD. Why should you? Do something else. You have options, you are not missing anything by not doing a PhD.

I was on LinkedIn, as you do, and I came across this post about 10 reasons why one should do a PhD. Each point is objectively disputable. I was thinking of commenting directly on the post, but it's LinkedIn, so let's keep it cool, unlike Twitter, that's notoriously known as a war ground for any internet dispute 🤣. But I think there is no harm in writing my piece about the issue here on my blog because, seriously, things are not rainbow and butterfly, and it is the pursue of contributing to the body of science or knowledge is not that noble anyway.  

There is a watermark, you can check by yourself in case you're interested.

1. You will get exposure to a new country, culture, learning environment and so on. One just assumes that all PhD is done abroad. First, it is wrong. Second, you can go abroad as well for master's study (with a scholarship or without, it depends). One can also work in a multinational company or take on new activities in a new learning environment.   

2. It will grow your career, especially if you are into academics. Many industries still value hands-on corporate experience (unless you are doing very scientific R&D work) more than a PhD. If you aim for a professor position, sure, you should do PhD, it is the requirement, but the academic job is unbelievably competitive. How many PhD graduates end up having a permanent position at the university? The academic job market won't absorb the huge number of PhD graduates. The story about PhD oversupply is everywhere.

3. You will develop many technical skills in your domain study. That happens in the corporate world and other sectors as long as you are serious about what you are doing and willing to learn.

4. You will also develop many soft skills, such as communication. Sure, there are a lot of soft skills and transferrable skills that you can sharpen throughout your PhD, but then again, you can gain that skill somewhere else. The sad truth, you are so adept in many skills after you finish your PhD because you have to; you have no option. How nice it is to work a corporate job where the research is done by the R&D, the funding part is done by salespeople, communication is done by marketing people, and project management is done by the project manager. In academia, personnel should master all the skills, starting from their PhD. 

5. Your professional network will grow. Like you can't grow your network outside academia.

6. You will contribute to the body of knowledge in your field of study. Yup, agree with this. Although corporate with much money can do this as well, they can do it faster and not be bound to funding. But, yup, academia is really good at this. Although sadly, the argument is sometimes used to pressure people in the lower rank of academia to stay, do more, and take bad deals. "Don't quit academia. Look how much contribution you make," while living underwage, overworked, stressed and about to burst. 

7. At the end of your PhD, you will become more resilient. That will happen if your PhD is challenging (which is supposed to be like that), but it can often be traumatic.  Being yelled at by PI, lack of support, no funding, overworked, restless, alone in a foreign country. There are way too many stories about bad PhD experiences (even I heard it first hand from a few PhD candidates at my uni). 

8. PhD journey will make a problem solver out of you. See point 5. 

9. You will be paid to work on interesting things and learn. This is a general definition of 'employment.' Who says you can't be paid to do interesting things and learn when you work in companies, government, NGOs?  You can learn everywhere. Moreover, it is a very (western) European/Nordic standpoint where you assume the PhD is employment-based. It disregards the fact that many of PhD don't have funding and have to find (part-time) jobs outside uni just to make ends meet and are pressured to perform well and publish. 

10. You will get the title 'Dr' :). So what if you have Dr. Seriously, no one cares, especially in the more egalitarian countries where you are treated equally regardless of your job or education level. No one cares about the title; maybe you and your parents care. Oh, it's not always the case either because if you happen to have immigrant parents, they will be impressed if you are a medical doctor instead of a doctor of philosophy. 

The bottom line, doing PhD is hard. Overglorifying the impacts, contribution to knowledge, nobility, and idealism while brushing off the harsh reality about their struggle, mental health, finances, pressure to publish, the competitive publishing world, and uncertain academic jobs are just not right. I will not stop anyone from doing a PhD, but we should tell the story realistically. Don't sugarcoat or glisten the harsh reality experienced by many PhD out there. And for people at the uni, if you lose your talent, just accept. Good that they realize their worth and take on a better deal for them. 

And seriously, I can't say it enough, you are not missing anything by not doing PhD.