Re:As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for cha...
by arethuza on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @12:57PM
(#31755841)
Technically the PhD was part time although most people in my position took 4 to 5 years. This was also the early 90s so times may have changed..
I was lucky enough to get involved in the web very early (1992) and present papers at the first few web conferences - though that wasn’t my day job.
Edit: I worked on a couple of EU Esprit 2 projects.
From a personal perspective I don't regret my PhD, though it was charity funded so it was topped up to be around £20 000 instead of the usual £14000ish per year. It was an opportunity to engage with a small group of experts in research that was engaging and of use to the wider world, and present it internationally. I also tried to start a start-up during this time, but the underlying idea failed to pass preliminary trials (I work in healthcare). So the two are not mutually exclusive.
People's experience tends to vary. I think a lot depends on how much you research the group and supervisors you will be working with beforehand, and how much you engage them in the research you do.