Is a science PhD a Waste of Time?

Re:Is a science PhD a Waste of Time? by jseliger on Friday August 31, 2012 @02:11PM (#4460925)

The really distressing thing about this article is the way it ignores the vast anti-PhD literature out there; perhaps the best, which I've linked to before on HN, is Philip Greenspun's "Women in Science": http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science . Lametti nods at opportunity costs, but he doesn't discuss them in sufficient detail to be convincing.

EDIT: BTW, a friend and I also wrote a longish essay about how to think about science from the perspective of undergrads trying to get in: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/how-to-think-about-... , but we included a section about the anti-science-lifestyle literature.

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Re:Is a science PhD a Waste of Time? by geebee on Friday August 31, 2012 @03:47PM (#4461366)

The greenspun rant is entertaining. A more sober look at the numbers from the RAND institute arrives at a similar conclusion regarding opportunity costs

http://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241.html

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Re:Is a science PhD a Waste of Time? by jseliger on Friday August 31, 2012 @04:21PM (#4461518)

Glad you like it. The thing most of the too-few-scientist articles ignore is this: "Adjusted for IQ, quantitative skills, and working hours, jobs in science are the lowest paid in the United States" and this: "'Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.' -- Albert Einstein."

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