Which fields take longer to do PhD's in?

[testus_2]

I often see people say stuff like "The MD/PhD PhD takes a shorter time to complete than a regular PhD..." etc.

But in fields I am familiar with and probably applying to (bioengineering/BME, biophysics, etc.) it seems that PhD's usually take 5-6 years to complete (2 years of classes, and then 3-4 years of research). For example, on average Harvard's biophysics PhD's get out in 5.4 years. This would be about the same amount of research time as a normal MD/PhD's PhD portion (for research).

I know some chemical engineering PhD's who got out in ~2.5 years if they go in with a master's.

Which fields have the dreaded 8 year PhD's etc.?

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[Reckoner]

I don't think it's fair to say that your PhD will be shorter. At least in my program, time was "saved" by not making us retake grad classes that we had already covered in preclinical medicine, and by having us rotate through labs during the summers. Once I qualified, I was on the same timeline as every other grad student.

Any PhD can last eight years with some bad luck and poor advising. The only people I know who routinely took that long were neuroscientists who did primate work. Training monkeys takes a long, long time. But across departments there were labs that had a reputation for long PhDs. Sometimes it was because the PI held out for Nature-worthy stories. Sometimes they had a cultish thing going on where people "didn't want to leave".

 

[Lucca]

I don't think it's fair to say that your PhD will be shorter. At least in my program, time was "saved" by not making us retake grad classes that we had already covered in preclinical medicine, and by having us rotate through labs during the summers. Once I qualified, I was on the same timeline as every other grad student.

Any PhD can last eight years with some bad luck and poor advising. The only people I know who routinely took that long were neuroscientists who did primate work. Training monkeys takes a long, long time. But across departments there were labs that had a reputation for long PhDs. Sometimes it was because the PI held out for Nature-worthy stories. Sometimes they had a cultish thing going on where people "didn't want to leave".

red flag

the biggest divide I've seen here is that "dry" or computational PhDs tend to be ~1 yr faster than bench on average.