OTOH not knowing it won't work can help \_(ツ)_/
I really like this, basically sums up my PhD experience so far.
IMO learn to swim in the pool.
A balance of both is perhaps best, which is what industry PhD holders have.
There's a quote I kinda forgot, but it goes something like:
"Did you experience the same thing 10 times, or did you experience 10 years worth?"
And I think this is true for a lot of real world experience, you don't necessarily have 10 year of it even though you've worked 10 years, you have 10 times the same experience.
OTOH, there's not a lot of places where a PoliSci Ph.D. would substitute for industry experience (or, for that matter, vice versa.) If you want to substitute an academic degree in that general space for “industry” experience, you go for public policy and/or public administration (or, arguably, law), not political science.
A PhD in government pretty much guarantees that you'll be retiring after a thirty year career as a GS-15 or SES. A 150k salary plus benefits may not be high for some STEM fields, but it's definitely not something to look down on.
I've found a few programs that are open to considering part-time candidates, but they are few and far between, and most of the ones who consider it still strongly recommend against it.
Went (going?) through it. My wife is doing her PhD. From 2 really good incomes to one stipend. We don’t live in campus housing so it’s more expensive (savings helped here initially), but we do know of others there with their spouses and some even with kids that are doing good. I found a job after getting here which helped.
FYI for others wondering about the same, I wouldn't wait the full 10 years unless you are going to study something very industry adjacent like software engineering methodology. I've had to spend a lot of time relearning anything theoretical.
I bet the sweet spot is 2-5 years.
You're right, no trials on methodology that resemble something like clinical trials. And of course the reason for that is it would be incredibly expensive to even run a reasonable pilot (two small teams head to head implementing a realistic system), and if any organization has actually gathered data, it would be the crown jewel of proprietary knowledge. Not something you would ever open source.
The only thing I can say is that an immature field is one with opportunities left. If you can figure out how to jump the hurdles you can make a huge impact.
PS, an example of a bug study like I mentioned (this isn't even that great but just goes to show how hard any sort of software study is): https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.acolyer.org/2018/06/28/how...
It's a black and white thinking. Why people who don't have PhD are amateurs? Why person having MBA, MD, JD, MA or BS degree isn't professional?
There's no "single PhDless engineer" who engineers a whole spacecraft.
Its not very clear cut, there are some blurry boundaries, but still, would you want people to use that hospital?
What if you have Nurse Practitioners with a Nursing BS, 4 years of nursing experience, a Masters degree in NP, and 4 years of experience diagnosing, managing complex conditions, etc.?
I personally know of several examples of Nurse Practitioners who are a drop-in replacement for an MD and that was achieved through work experience.
But the question was more about, say, should we close now all the MD schools and replace them by the alternative path you describe?
Also with highly complex things (large scale - global problems) often it is possible for an untrained amateur to create a solution that is easy to communicate why it should be good, and it works in the short term. However awhile later, it is found that long term failure occurs
Which produces net better global outcomes I couldn’t say, though I have my own intuitions.
Take the Internet -no one had any models for it. You could come up with new innovations and then disrupt other industries or make entirely new frontiers.
But in denser more studied areas - advances are incremental. People don’t come up with magic hashing functions for example.
Or new engine designs - there’s only so much you can do without breaking emissions norms or fuel efficiency or end up having engines which end up getting damaged.
BUT- the dream is always to find that missing or unthought of idea which changes the world.
It’s just relatively easier with an open frontier.
> We are concerned about untrained amateurs going directly into trying to solve very difficult global problems. They can then cause harm overall, by lowering the average quality of analysis or launching ill-considered projects due to a lack of experience or understanding. A PhD reduces the risk you’ll accidentally do this.
This point is operating off of a different fundamental paradigm than the comments here that are talking about opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is looking at personal benefit, while the above is looking at the effectiveness at solving hard, large-scale problems.
Obviously, money is important, but for many (often those who are fortunate enough to have reached a certain income level), it isn't the only thing or even the primary thing.
I don't have much insight into how true the point actually is, but I found it to be interesting.