Why you shouldn't apply for a PhD

This video is sponsored by Squarespace Whether you need a domain website or online store make it with Squarespace I think it'd be fair to say that I am known on YouTube as the guy who? Makes videos about how he got his PhD and I feel like my videos may have disproportionately Encouraged and motivated people to want to do phd's I'm not sure how I feel about that so as an addendum to my PhD vlog series. I wanted to make this Honest video outlining precisely why you prospective student at home? should not apply for a PhD firstly money if you look at the average career earnings for graduates who have PhDs and compare them to Graduates who just have undergraduate degrees those with PhDs earn 26% more in total across their careers Which sounds pretty good, right? You know it's more money But if you compare the average career earnings for graduates who have master's degrees with those who just have undergraduate degrees those with master's own 23% more on average than someone with just an undergraduate degree so PhD graduates do earn more than those with master's degrees and with undergraduate degrees but not much more than people who just did a Masters and they spent three or four more years in education further to this PhD graduates who leave academia and move into Industry face an awful lot of misconceptions about what having a PhD? Means they get pigeonholed they get accused of being over specialized get questions like if you have a PhD Why aren't you applying to be a professor if you have a PhD you ask me some kind of urban nerd I'm not going to Employ you you must not be able to talk to people and then during a PhD you earn Extremely little certainly compared to people that you graduated on your same uni course with and you weren't extremely little for an awful lot of work in my Final year of my PhD I was doing 12-hour days all the time during the last few months. I wouldn't take a day off for Months at a time how about social factors during a PhD you often work completely alone? You can spend day after a day just working on your own never talk to anyone Just writing and writing and writing on a laptop And if you're unfortunate enough to have an inattentive Supervisor you can be left completely adrift by them and not have any clue what you're supposed to be doing you have a much higher probability of Developing mental health problems during a PhD good luck trying to maintain a healthy social life a healthy relationship A healthy work-life balance a healthy sleeping schedule health during my PhD I developed Psychosomatic breathing problems meaning my mental health had deteriorated to the point where I couldn't Physically breathe and those PhD students that do make it through all of that and stay in academia then face years and years of low pay long hours and Changing city every couple of years to chase new jobs the early stages of an academic career are a constant grind of teaching and research and relocation what I'm saying is you shouldn't apply for a PhD if you value money or Prestige or power or a comfortable life. Why on earth would anyone willingly sign up to do a PhD Because they're passionate about something There are plenty of negatives about doing a PhD and there are lots of reasons why you shouldn't do one But really this video should be called why you should do the PhD but that will get way fewer views despite having identical information in it so Got a play on those psychological factors to answer the question of why you should do a PhD you have to ask What is a PhD a PhD is an opportunity to? Push the envelope of human knowledge a tiny bit and learn stuff That nobody else has ever learned before it's an opportunity funded to a certain minimum amount Enough money to make sure that you can live and you can learn these new things but no more than that and then in exchange for that funding the only thing you need to do is when you do learn something new and you do push the boundaries of human knowledge you Publish it in such a way that other people can benefit from what you've learned too in this sense a PhD is like a contract Society invests in you and you then provide a return on that investment in the form of a better understanding of something so you should apply for a PhD if you're passionate about something and You think that spending three or four years of your life at this stage in your life doing nothing? But that thing is the best use of your time on earth It's that simple don't apply for a PhD if you want to earn lots of money Because you're not gonna earn much more money than if you just did a masters Don't apply for a PhD if you want some swanky job That's what you're shooting for because yes, I should mention that some jobs do ask for a PhD That's a fair point but for an awful lot of jobs it sometimes seems that having a PhD is a disadvantage Apply to do a PhD if you are passionate about something academic because you need that passion Otherwise you won't survive you have to be able to Happily, see yourself doing the thing you're passionate about Every day for three or four years and then even those people that go into a PhD with that conviction Still hate their PhD by the end of it and a lot of those people who go in with that conviction still Drop out halfway through the PhD because the difficulties like I mentioned earlier are immense Every single person I've spoken to at the end of their PhD was desperate for it to be done They were just done with the whole thing and that even includes Professors when I asked them about their PhDs They were desperate to be finished by the end of it I interviewed a bunch of PhD Supervisors at my union couple of years ago and asked them what they looked for in a PhD students here are a few of their answers a PhD student has to have the technical background to in the area of study Which which is a given if they're up if they're applying, but what I like to see is PhD students? Who are enthusiastic about the topic that? That they're gonna be studying and are ready to get going on it and genuinely want to push the frontiers of knowledge And they want to go out and share it, okay, if you if you're thinking of applying for a PhD Ask yourself a question why you would Like to do that and if the answer is because you're really interested in the topic and you're really interested in doing research on that topic then do a PhD Don't do it because you think it's a good. You know these days. I look for people that are Quite focused but also have a going to drive To understand things they kind of get research it excites them No, everyone does mean some people do research because they think this is sort of what we do I'm a club I did a good degree we come to do a PhD and they just think They never really get it and there was no light goes on a no point do they either think this is really frustrating which is Okay, it should be frustrating or this is really exciting they just think boring this and they're not cared for research that bright people don't kind of reserved so ask yourself if You've been inspired by my videos, or if you're thinking about doing a PhD Seriously, ask yourself Why do you want to do this? What do you value? Do you think that spending the next three or four years of your life? Following what you're passionate about doing what you really enjoy doing It's the best use of your time at this point in your life or Do you value money more or power or prestige or a comfortable life more if you do? That's absolutely fine But you shouldn't apply for a PhD Whoa everything got a little bit real there I felt like I had to make this video in order to think of myself as a responsible Educational youtuber I think it's great that people watch my videos and they want to do a PhD But I think it's super important that people understand what they're letting themselves in for which I think they probably do get from the vlogs but also what having a PhD does for you what it means because I've definitely been seeing a lot of comments recently from people that really misunderstand. What a PhD is before so everything got very real here much much more so than on my channel normally, but I Think this is important And I hope that it that it's useful to some people if you've watched a whole bunch of educational content on YouTube Which if you're watching my channel you almost certainly have then you know what comes next Next we have me recommending use some products or service Giving you a link of some kind and then moving on to a final video summary or evaluation in this case though This is super easy for me because I've been sponsored by a company that I've been personally using For ages and they're Squarespace I've been using Squarespace to host my website simonoxfphys.com for Months and it's a hub for everything I do so it you know my podcast my videos and in the future I'm going to be putting my PhD thesis on there once I've finished my Corrections and when I do put my thesis online. I know it's going to be incredibly easy It's probably gonna Take me all of 30 Seconds to upload my thesis and put it on my website as a matter of fact when I set up my website early this month to start handling merchandise I genuinely Couldn't believe how easy it was I personally recommend it to anyone who wants to sell merchandise online or just have your own website It's it's honestly that good if you have a project that you're passionate about and you want to build a website for it That's gonna Look great and be super easy to run Then go to Squarespace.com for a free trial and then when you're ready to launch go to Squarespace.com/Simon Clark to get 10% off your first website or domain Thank You Squarespace for sponsoring me it's super easy to recommend your product because I use it and I think it's great and Thank you for watching this video. I would say that I hope it doesn't put you off applying for a PhD but I Kind of do for some people I think it's important that you understand what having a PhD Means for you and what you're letting yourself in for by applying for one actually on that subject if you haven't seen them already definitely check out my PhD Vlogs up there somewhere and Thank you again for watching the video if you enjoyed it, too Please give it a like and if you're not subscribed to the channel consider subscribing I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Simon Clark

Views: 873,251

Rating: 4.7481198 out of 5

Keywords: Student, vlog, PhD, grad school, DPhil, professor, supervisor, supervision, thesis, PhD thesis, masters, earnings, research, research career, academic, simonoxfphys, getting a phd, simon clark phd, how to get a phd, why you shouldn't apply for a phd, should i do a phd

Id: D92-LbNN77M

Length: 10min 48sec (648 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 19 2018