MUST READ: Whatever you do, do NOT go to graduate school!!!!!!!!!!!!

[NickNaylor]

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[docelh]

Hello,
I applied for 1 cycle after undergrad, got waitlisted, then went to do my masters, applied again after masters, again got waitlisted. Finally I was convinced by my PI to do a Ph.D in which I could have a "fruitful research career that is high-paying and rewarding." Since I had a good experience with my masters, I committed to doing a Ph.D, thinking that if I become a MD afterwards, this Ph.D will help me get into a specialist field in medicine.

There are NO good jobs anywhere period. After debt servicing, malpractice, and taxes, do you think doctors still make anything decent?

Can I just say that I think pursuing a PhD is a great alternative for someone who just doesn't want to put up with the bull**** associated with the working world for many years?

Grass is brown everywhere you look.

 

[docelh]

Do we need this government mediated clusterf**k at all? Does it make sense to make sense to do all of our research through universities, and to make a PhD the union card you need to apply? Espically when the PhD 'training' forces scientists to do scutwork for what is generally considered to be their most create period? Is it a healthy system when the standard reward for success is a written guarentee that you will never be fired, no matter how incompetent you become? Do we really need our scientists to have doctorates at all?

Why not just scrap the PhD entirely and move the science out of the university sytem. Let people with masters bid on research proposals through private foundations that may or may not be attached to a school. You could get the same work done with less cost and misery for everyone involved.

Whoa! A revolutionary. Those aren't allowed in America anymore.

 

[VikingLegacy]

I agree with this post. I used to love the concept of working in academia until I spent a year in a lab and learned that while the doctors are getting sent to all-expenses-paid trips to Hawaii by the pharmaceutical companies, the vast majority of the scientists in the country are scrounging for NIH table scraps while eating top ramen.

It isn't that I don't respect research, it's just that academic research does not seem to reward people proportionally to their effort. I highly respect what they do, but it's not the career for me - at least not in this country.

 

[Parts Unknown]

There are NO good jobs anywhere period. After debt servicing, malpractice, and taxes, do you think doctors still make anything decent?

What do you consider decent?