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Is PhD Worth It? Should You do PhD? By Dr. Navin Kabra

4,454 views Wait, is this logic right? • Oct 28, 2023
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Why you should get a PhD degree? A PhD holder will be able to answer this question. Guess what? Navin has a PhD or doctorate in computer science that he got from Wisconsin in 1999. Let's hear what are his insights about the positives and negatives of holding a PhD degree and whether is it worth the effort and time it takes to obtain the Doctor of Philosophy in the title these days.

Episodes mentioned in the video:
The Dip: https://youtu.be/NFqC7mlZlQw
Choosing an engineering college: https://youtu.be/kUgFekrvHrg

More videos for you:
Should you go abroad for studies: https://youtu.be/rL74DXfvYJY
Importance of liberal arts: https://youtu.be/pBoaeIdpEaU

Hope you enjoyed FutureIQ by Navin Kabra and Shrikant Joshi. Do hit us up on Twitter:
@ngkabra http://twitter.com/ngkabra
@shrikant https://twitter.com/shrikant

Listen it on the podcast provider of your choice: https://tapthe.link/FutureIQRSS
Watch other episodes of The FutureIQ podcast: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAppTB0r5_TaYueZ0adD42Wiw5X-wTE4v

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:49 Addressing misconceptions
04:50 Benefit 1
05:10 Benefit 2
06:40 The Dip
08:50 Reputational value
09:10 Can anyone PhD? Alternative
14:00 Job prospects
16:00 When to quit?

#futureiq #phd

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Transcript

why do a PhD you are probably not thinking of a PhD but in this episode I'm hoping to convince a few of you that maybe you should do a PhD PhD yes um so too much too much it is no it is not too much it is no it is not so that is what we will talk about right so your reaction is one of the common reactions right I think that comes from a significant misunderstanding of what really a PhD involves why people what are the benefits uh and drawbacks of doing a PhD right so let's talk about that yeah benefits of doing a PhD I don't I don't know you spend seven years
doing a PhD and then you end up becoming a professor in some college or you end up becoming an expert on KBC that you sometimes get called and sometime and most often don't get called or I don't know what what even are the benefits I okay let me let me actually sit down and Rec out you are considered an expert in whatever field you do your PhD in or you become a lecturer professor in some college or what could be another advantage of doing a PhD you don't get to go into industry because PhD means academics you become right a lecturer lecturers don't get paid enough they don't all of these are misconceptions okay or maybe you just want to show that
you can do a PhD hey de yeah so uh I say all of these are misconceptions okay uh although in this episode I am primarily talking about PhD in a stem field science technology uh I'm not talking about a Humanities PhD primarily because I don't that's not my area I don't understand I do I have a PhD in computer science uh so let me talk about that right so um first of all just because you have done a PhD doesn't mean that you have to become a professor or a lecturer and doesn't mean that you have to work only in Academia okay it doesn't doesn't mean you have to do research a lot of phds do end up going to uh
industry you are an exception in that case n no that is not true the number of academic jobs and the number of phds if you compute you know that most phds are not ending up in Academia because there aren't that many academic jobs yeah but way they probably end up somewhere where let me put it this way right if the only purpose of doing a PhD was for you to become a Prof who will teach other students to become a PhD then it would be a Ponzi scheme right I the very fact that it is not a Ponzi scheme means that there are other reasons to do a PhD you still haven't proved that part so I'm holding you to
it he said it I didn't but yeah on scheme remember the phrase industry does hire phds right so I mean of course I'm not denying industry a whole bunch of uh uh people who did their PHD with me are in Industry some of them directly joined large companies some of them joined small companies some of them started their own companies became successful those got acquired by Google and all kinds of things right so uh industry does want phds I mean and this is not true just of computer science or chemical engineering and all of that even economics psychology phds are being hired by say Facebook and Amazon and Netflix okay yeah uh okay fine I I
concede that right so um and the other misconception is that oh once you do a PhD then you have to do research that's not true either right then why do a PhD ah so let me talk about what I see as the primary benefits of doing a PhD okay it is not the research although the research helps and it is not becoming an expert in that field okay uh for the simple reason that the world moves so fast especially in stem Fields is that whatever you did your PhD in might not even be a very hot area 10 years later right my ad PhD adviser had done his PhD in vsi m and he advised me
on a PhD in databases right I mean very little connection between vsi and databases yeah right so uh the thing is that if it was just about expertise in the field most phds would be useless right not you're not helping your own case here no so the important but still all of these people do have a lot of value all of them have great jobs great job satisfaction a lot of respect why why right one is that PhD teaches you to learn how to learn right okay and that is yeah pick up any new area quickly and more deeply than someone else okay so learn how to learn that's number one learn how to learn deeply learn how to
learn deeply okay fine okay second is that it teaches you to become good at communicating complex things okay because you don't get a PhD unless you manage to publish a bunch of papers you do some research which nobody else has done before and hopefully I mean if you're doing a PhD you will get deep into some complex topic H but it get needs to get published huh and understood by people who are not deep and into that same complex area right so you have to write the paper in a way that others can understand really I always thought you were allowed to get away with a lot of jargon and whatnot see that is bad phds are like that right
bad academics is like that but if you do it in a good place with a good advice right they all know that the person reading your paper is not going to be an expert in the field that you are in because you technically are becoming the expert you are the expert right so um and usually uh I mean especially if I mean uh after a PhD you are trying to become a professor right the committee that is evaluating you are going to be from a completely different area right they are hiring you because they want to bring in your expertise so in general a lot of the PHD is about explaining a complex topic that only you
and a few other people understand and explaining it to people who are not experts in that area but it takes such a long time naen it takes 6 7 8 10 years I don't even know about this shant we talked about this as an entire episode called the dip okay which basically says that if it was easy it wouldn't give value right yes in fact a lot of the value that comes from the PHD is because it is difficult right in fact I would put it this way right the dip in that episode we pointed out that this is uh anything substantial you do in life is going to be difficult and long and around the 2 three year mark you are
going to feel that this is completely pointless I'm wasting my time and this is uh you know I am never going to get past this and nobody cares and things like that a PhD a PhD teaches you to go through the dip in a safe environment right otherwise you go through the dip in your career or in like trying to do a business or something what safe environment are you talking about PhD how is it safe environment you are in a college you are getting a stipend right and you are not like being uh assessed every 6 months uh and going to get fired if you didn't make progress right he does have a point so PhD one it teaches
you to go through the dip while you're going through the dip you are surrounded by other people who have themselves gone through the dip and know what you're going through and they are there to support you and for the rest of your life it marks you as a person who has gone through the dip right most people don't realize it that is actually a medal of that's an achievement and I I agree with that part yes I mean people don't realize it but there is a uh you know reputation that goes with being a PhD when they call you doctor so and so uh there like there's like a little Aura around you and the reason is because you
have gone through the dip in you should actually be calling him Dr naen in all episodes I I don't because it's naen for me you want to call him Dr naen please feel free H you are absolutely welcome to do so yeah so um that those are the most important reasons of course there is one more which is that if you have done a PhD from a good University then that is a stamp on your forehead and in your resume which sticks with you for the rest of your life it does open doors there is reputational value in it it is a credential which matters you're making me think of doing a PhD and I don't like it very much
because it involves a lot of effort and I'm a lazy person but can anybody do a PhD can I what I'm basically trying to ask is can I do a PhD but can anybody do a PhD so there are two different questions there can and should okay oh okay so for can I think the most important thing about the PHD is that you should be doing it with a really good adviser okay which means that the adviser should be a known expert in that area who is well familiar with research in whatever area that you have picked right okay you cannot for PhD during the PHD you have to do research right I said that after you have done a PhD doesn't
necessarily mean that you have to continue doing research but during the PHD you have to do research and you cannot do research without a good guide somebody who knows the ropes otherwise you will end up wasting time on a problem that nobody cares about right so you need a really good guide and preferably it should be in a really good college right a college with a brand name otherwise I would say a PhD is not worth doing right don't do a PhD from like the local University just because it happens to be convenient it's not worth it this entire set of examples SL arguments is sounding very similar to that episode we did on uh uh how to
choose a college after 12th yes yes and that the fundamental truth there right is that if you putting in a lot of effort into something it better be something difficult right if it is easy it has no value right because it's easy come easy go so that's true that's true so that is one right if so whether you can get in right if you are a student who's finished undergraduate recently the last few years then it primarily boils down to whether you can get admitted to a PhD program in a well-known College uh right uh and that that decides whether you can or not corre if you are somebody further uh along in your career I think it
primarily boils down to convincing a guide guide right because once a guide is convinced the rest of it will fall into place but that they will move Heaven Earth and administration together to make that happen for you right but that brings me to the second question which is should you for people who are in the middle of their career possibly struggling with the midlife crisis right um I regularly run into people who say you know they want to do a PhD because they felt like their career was too shallow and they haven't gone deep into something and I completely uh agree with the sentiment but I don't think a PhD is the best way to do that right in a PhD you will end
up fighting the bureaucracy of the college and the process and the system and so on and writing research papers whereas what you really want to do is do something deep go through a dip right and be known as an expert in an area having done some substantial work right correct I think it is much better to write a book okay no I didn't I was not supposed to be a joke okay but the way put it like PhD and writing the well actually when you think about it both are actually the same amount of effort you do go through the dip you end up coming out at the other side of the dip as an expert and yeah it takes a long
time and the reputational this is also similar right this is Dr shrikant versus this is shrikant who's written a book on this topic right they have similar levels of uh reputational yeah so and the reason to write a book writing a book is going to force you to go deep into a topic learn things that you haven't learned uh to uh I mean pick an area whatever area you thought you wanted to do a PhD in instead decide to write a book uh in that area and again you can take a guide right somebody who can guide you both on the subject matter of it subject matter and on the writing ASP but basically in terms of time it
will probably take you that much uh time and the effort will be there the dip will be there I can guarantee you that un like you know when you are one third of the way through the book you will decide that oh my God this is a complete waste of time and nobody cares about this book and why am I doing this and you have the whole reason for doing it is that you have to get through this right if it wasn't difficult everybody would be writing a book and you know it wouldn't have any value so fascinating that comparison between WR doing a PhD and writing a book but here is the the ultimate question that I think will will
will decide decide whether or not to do a PhD for a lot of people which is scope see like what is what can I what are my job prospects after doing the PHD how will they will they improve will they stay the same will they change so again I can answer only for stem uh areas I don't know about other areas but in stem uh yes job prospects do increase primarily if you uh listen to the first advice I give which is pick a good college and a good guide right in that case a job almost uh takes care of itself but it's a long-term investment right because your job and this and that are 2E threee Horizon things that keeps
changing but a PhD will stick with you for the next 30 years correct uh okay let me put you on the spot and ask you who should not do a PhD you already gave one example of somebody mid career who want wants to gain some kind of an expertise or some kind of a stamp about being an expert in some something but are there any other categories of people that you would the thing is again talking about a stem PhD right if you do not like stem right if you do not like maths or physics or whatever the subject then you shouldn't be doing a PhD in it obviously right and there is a lot of people who
are right who gotten to do that because you know that was the best option after 12th standard and the parents push them towards it uh so basically you want to do a PhD in an area that you're going to find interesting that you're going to enjoy right you cannot get through the dip unless it is something you like right so make sure that you do that okay one final question suppose I start doing a PhD uh I hit the dip but I can't come out of the dip for some reason it's not working out so see that is one of the more difficult questions in general about the DI not just a PhD which is
knowing whether to quit or not uh the two pieces of advice I will give you is one know that the dip exists and it hits everybody so that almost everybody goes through this feeling of maybe I should quit so definitely the time to quit is not right now right you should stick around for longer than what you think you should be doing second is that advantage of doing a PhD is that there is going to be an adviser there are going to be other people who have gone through this right uh take their advice right if your adviser uh thinks you should continue you should continue right because your adviser knows better than you what makes sense H that makes
sense that makes sense and it's only if things are not working out with the adviser at all you cannot get along with him or her then maybe you consider quitting yeah that or finding a different adviser that of course makes even more sense na na has made a lot of sense today I said one last question but I have one more question yes monies finances so uh payments fees yeah usually if you're doing a PhD uh you should get funding of some sort you should be getting a stipend of some sort right uh so in that sense the pH should be self-funding right the bigger question that people have about the money is that for those 5 years 6 years
you are letting go of a fat salary and your classmates are already earning in multiples yes of you right and the simple answer I have for you is that this is taking to short term of a view right a PhD is 5 years your career is 35 years right this 5 years doesn't doesn't make that much of a difference because most of your earning is anyway in the last 10 years of your career right so the earnings in the first five years are not that important to your long-term career the second thing is that the whole point of doing a PhD is that it puts you in a different orbit at the end of it uh
right yeah so at the end of the PHD the slope of your Curve will be different from the slope of everybody else's curve H see the thing about doing a PhD is you get to sit on that chair and not this one there you go shrikant naen on that chair this is future IQ thank you thank you for watching till the end if you like this episode check out these others you might like them also and please share with your friends I'm sure they will also like these thank you