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[o_rats]

Now that you have worked for years to get your PhD do you feel that you did the right thing or was it a waste of time?

[hegemony]

I have a great job and I had a great graduate-school experience, and I graduated with almost zero debt, so my PhD is a plus several times over.  However, Your Mileage May Vary.

[bioteacher]

My PhD was not the ticket to financial security I was promised from a young age. Even in grad school, people outside of academia told me I'd be set for life. HA!  However, I pursued it for other, more personal reasons. Had I only wanted it for a lucrative career, I'd be very disappointed. But since my motives were broader, I have no regrets.

[johnr]

My PhD was not the ticket to financial security I was promised from a young age. Even in grad school, people outside of academia told me I'd be set for life. HA!  However, I pursued it for other, more personal reasons. Had I only wanted it for a lucrative career, I'd be very disappointed. But since my motives were broader, I have no regrets.

I wonder how many started under the premise and promise of financial security.  I ask because I pursued a PhD despite the fact that many warned that it would lead to certain financial ruin, not security; and I'm in a STEM field. And I'm not a young man, so it's not a recent trend with me.  That being said, I don't regret it.  Not so much because of where I am now (which I like very much by the way) but just because the time spent getting my PhD was absolutely wonderful. 

[lasquires]

I am about to exit graduate school and am entering a deplorable job market, but even if I strike out this year, I don't expect to have any regrets. Like hegemony, I will be graduating debt-free, and thanks to my spouse's stable (though not terribly high paying) job, grad school has not meant taking a vow of poverty either. I did have moments of profound depression during grad school, but those bouts were as much about transitioning from college to adult life and negotiating boundaries with my family as they were about my dissertation prospectus.

I suspect that if I had not gone to graduate school right away, I would have become that person who is always just about to go back to school whenever X happens (spouse gets a raise, promotion comes through, kids go to kindergarten, etc.). In other words, I suspect I would always feel a bit unsettled. So, I think of the PhD as sort of the mother of all Bucket List items, and I got it done before the age of 30. I'm going to my high school reunion in a few days, and I'll be holding my head high even though I'm laboring under no delusions about my future employment in academia.

[merinoblue]

The decade I spent doing my PhD was like chewing on Styrofoam.  You chew and you chew, and still there's no flavour, nutrients, or pleasure.  Your chewing becomes meaningless to you, yet you continue doing it, because you're determined to finish, even if it kills you.

Three years out, I'm thrilled I stuck with it.  Life looks so much better.  I know that the difficult circumstances I went through are behind me, and I believe good things lie ahead. 

[aprilmay]

Many people who regret getting their Ph.D. and are not in academia are not going to be on this forum. I do not regret mine.

[totoro]

I had a lot of fun in grad school and now I'm a full professor at a good university so I'm very happy I did mine. If i was doing it again with what I know now about how things work etc. I might have gone to a different school in a different field. I was a too interdisciplinary really and that made it harder to find jobs but somehow I managed to get through. It would have been easier though to have a more disciplinary focus from a top-ranked program. I'm in social/environmental science.

[mdwlark]

I spent much of my time in graduate school not only "chewing on sterofoam" (thanks merinoblue), but feeling anxious and trying to navigate the politics. We won't even talk about what happened to my marriage during that time.  After that, my career and life didn't work out they way I hoped either.

Despite all this, I don't have any regrets.  I like what happened to my mind in graduate school.  I became a different person and I like the new better me.  I even think it is OK for people to get doctorates in English if they want to do it for the mental rewards and can figure out another way to make a living either as a primary objective or as a possibly permanent alternative. 

[mulerooster]

still don't have the PhD but many many times I've regretted going to grad school.  Once I get the PhD in a few months we'll see where it lands me.  Maybe then I'll be able to answer your question.  If it pays off and gets me the job I want then I probably won't regret it.  But it's been a long and windy road.

[walkingtree]

Same here. I don't regret finishing my PhD, but I do really regret having started it. It was truly stupid.

[mended_drum]

No.  But I have the job I want and am happy most of the time.

[kron3007]

No.

[my_crobe]

I sort of backed into getting my PhD. I was definitely older than most when I started my program and it was weird being 15-20 years older than the other students with whom I was taking classes. I think this allowed me to be more directed and more productive, even though I'm married with two small children. I viewed the degree as another door opened to allow me the opportunity to pursue my teaching and research goals. No, I don't regret it in the least!

[punchnpie]

I don't regret the PhD at all. I am finally doing something I love and that apparently loves me back. In fact, I enjoyed my doctoral experience so much, that as I was doing my dissertation, I gave serious thought to doing another dissertation in a topic that came up in my interviews.