Deciding against a doctorate
News ·Thursday August 18, 2011 @ 20:38 EDT (link)
I entertained for a while the idea of going on and getting my Ph.D, most likely in Computer Science, but possibly—due to the influence of various articles by Dr. Walter Block—in economics; the math wouldn't be a problem and I could pick up the undergrad econ courses fairly quickly.
I looked into various schools, general admission procedures, and talked to a few kind individuals to gather information, among them DP and AS. I became confident that I could put together a good application with sufficient references (from professors from project courses or those with paper or presentation components primarily, to avoid the damning "did well in class" faint praise), and grades and GRE scores are not a problem (they also apparently don't count for much, to the point that it seems surprising they even bother asking for them).
Ultimately I decided against it for a combination of reasons: the long (5-6) year program with low pay and (potentially) miserable hours; the extremely poor job market for teaching or research (even privately), and I learned about the "postdoc treadmill"; I like reading, but there are limits, and this might push them!; earnings tend to be no higher, or even lower than a Master's degree holder (in science fields); I can learn most items of interest on my own while working a good job (the Internet, and accessible school libraries and online journals, are wonderful things); I can probably teach (adjunct professor?) without a degree if I want to give it a try; I can live without being called "doctor"; and while I would have liked to get some of my tax money back in the form of the paid tuition and stipend, I wasn't looking forward to being perceived as a parasite; basically, I want to move on, find a place and a bit of land to settle down on, not take a long timeout like this. I should note that Honey fully supported me doing a doctorate. But it does not seem like the right thing at this time; I may revisit the possibility at a later date.
Books finished: The Declaration of Independents.
