Hello and welcome back to so you got a lifestyle degree. We're your hosts, Lisa and freedom to lifestyle undergrad students trying to navigate our future careers. This is Episode Six. We're switching it up a bit this week and talking about the case against a PhD. How are you doing Frieda? I'm kind of drowning in work this week. Sad. Yeah, a little bit. Besides that I'm doing pretty good. I think I spent all my free time watching Mark Rover's YouTube videos, which is a highlight. So yeah, that's been really great. We both watched the squirrel obstacle course video, which was amazing. Yeah, it's it's essentially this video where this YouTuber named Mark robear, he constructs this whole obstacle course to see if squirrels can solve it in order to get a huge nut prize from this bird feeder and would definitely recommend Yeah, I feel like his videos are so wholesome. But also just like make me so excited to do things in the world. Like, just explore for the sake of exploring. No, no. That's sweet. Let's see. Yeah, they're very inspirational. How's your week been? It's good. I have some exciting news. So as listeners might know, I have fibromyalgia slash RSI in my hands. And so typing can be painful for me. I usually use dictation when I die. But I found out a few months ago about this thing called laser projection keyboards. And you and I have talked about this book. Yeah, I am so excited about this. It is so cool. It is really cool. It's actually cooler than I thought it was once I opened the manual and found out how it actually works. So picture something that is about the size, basically just picture the future. Yeah, like picture the future. But it's about the size of a Rubik's Cube, but more rectangular. And there's a slit at the top
that
lets out this projection keyboard, and it's red. So it's like a laser and a projector keyboard onto your desk. It's smaller than a regular keyboard, but not extremely tiny. And then at the bottom, there is this other slot that lets out infrared light. And then there's another sensor, I don't remember if it's at the bottom or the top, but it senses where your fingers move, according to how it affects the bouncing or detection of infrared light. I'm not entirely sure, but it's super cool. You can hook it up to your laptop using Bluetooth or using a wired connection. And it's quite glitchy and it's a little slow. And you It seems to prefer when you use chicken typing, which super aggravates me because I hate chicken typing. But it's it's interesting. Yeah. And I'm kind of looking forward to seeing what kinds of things I can do with I think one of the applications is I'll be able to play those computer games or you need to use the arrow keys. That's one thing that works really well. So it's not super relevant to being in school. But yeah, yeah, basically looks like any in any sci fi movie where there's like the hologram projections. That's like what this keyboard is basically. Yeah, it's like any sci fi movie except if the main character was actually using this the ship would crash into the because it's not accurate. So there's work to be done but I'm happy this exists. Nice. So like I mentioned before, we're doing something a little different today. Instead of having a guest on our own lovely Farida is going to present her case against getting a PhD I am but before we get into that a note that this episode was recorded a couple months ago back when we hadn't become the fantastic established professional co host that we are today you might notice a difference in the audio quality as well as in the coherency of our speech patterns. It's like weird to say like the case against doing a PhD because obviously if you want to be like a professor you know like a university you have to do a PhD or like yeah, you know certain types of research like cancer research, you might need one but I guess this is where like the ambiguous cases are in this all in my framework. Oh, all in your framework. Okay. Okay, okay, you got me about me Okay. All right freedom what is the first reason Okay, I don't know how you want to start to this because I do have like a I have a three pronged Are you in case rather, but I also we could talk about like the context in which you might want to consider not getting one. We should start with that just so it's like a more convincing case maybe? Yeah, you can start with that like what what kind what kinds of like cases are you thinking of applying this to? Yeah, so the way you should think about doing a PhD and not just PhDs but grad school in general is like if you have a like a specific job that you're interested in, that is like pretty viable for you to get that requires this degree, then you should get the degree but if you're kind of like not really sure what I'm doing, you should just apply skills like more time any like kind of more ambiguous case, you should not get a Vichy or a grad degree until you have like a very specific role that you like think it's enough Sorry for I can't explain that a little bit more later. But yeah, that's kind of like how you should think about it. So in your case, like, if you're thinking about I know you're interested in like some Cancer Research roles or being a prof that there would be a profit level, because it's very much not a viable option for majority of people out there. Yeah, but let's talk about like your cancer research roles that might be specific, something specific, that is a viable option for you and requires a PhD. And in that case, like, yeah, you might actually want to go for it. But yeah, this will kind of be hopefully by the end of the episode, it'll be like a little more clear. Any questions there. You also want to explain why you know so much about the case against doing Yeah, sure. Okay, so can you give some background now, stories, depending on when this like episode comes out, like listeners might already know this. Also, for our listeners, or majority friends and family, they might already know this, but basically, my undergrad is in biology, I thought I was gonna go the academic research route. And then at some point, I was kind of like, okay, becoming a prof in like, the life sciences is pretty close to impossible and definitely impossible with like, kind of the credentials I have so far. I feel like so yeah, now I'm kind of planning to do do my masters in econ and kind of go that route.
I
am still not sure if I want to go the academic route or not, because it is a lot more viable and econ But yeah, I just don't know. So basically, all of this came out from me, like doing all that research, kind of getting my like, career heartbroken. We didn't you also like present this to your parents?
Oh, yeah.
So I didn't actually present this to my parents. But yeah, basically, at some point over the summer that I was gonna do Econ, and not biology anymore. Yeah. So during that time, I was outlining a presentation and then like, outline this whole thing to just, did you end up actually making the PowerPoint? Um, well, I made like a version one. Like, I
didn't finish.
Yeah, but then when I told them, I just didn't use the virus. Right? Because like using a PowerPoint is like ridiculous. It's just like, wasn't fitting for the moment. All right. Do you want to get into your three pronged fork? Yeah, freedom, what is the first reason why you should not do a PhD? If you are in a situation where it is seemingly ambiguous? Yeah. So the first reason, Well, okay, even if you are not actually gonna throw money, even if you are, like, have a specific point in mind, you should still, you know, listen and see if this applies to you or not. But anyway, the first reason, so this is roughly an order of least to most convincing. So the first reason is the opportunity costs or why he or she is not actually free. This is the most common argument and probably the one that you've heard already, if you've like, kind of done any research on this. Yeah, so this applies to pretty much every industry. So when I talk about a PhD, I'm not necessarily talking specifically about life science, that is what I know the most. So I will try to talk about that a little within each point. So pretty much whatever degree you have, like instead of getting a PhD, you can probably also make a crap tonne of money, like outside of that role. And yeah, so it's, it's just not worth it like both in terms of money, but also in terms of like peace of mind and contribution to society and years that you could be starting a family and enjoying your life. Uh huh. Yeah, to give some specifics in terms of industries and degrees. So in the life sciences, you could be going into roles that are like pharma, or we talked about with Cara like the M biotech programme at U of T, there's more and more Master's programmes like that, that are coming out to cater towards like industry roles, that still have a lot of impact, and you get to do really cool stuff. And you probably also make more money. Yeah, so there's stuff like that. And then any role that's very quiet focus, like math, or physics, or those kinds of roles, they still have the same thing in life science, where they're like, really infatuated with like the academic route. But if you have good quants skills, like there is so many jobs that will pay you so much money, because those skills are so in demand. So yeah, basically, like the opportunity cost is really high there just because like you can be making so much money. And also with tech, like there's so many cool things you can be working on even in like nonprofit sectors, if that's something you're interested in. And then with anyone who has like a humanities or arts degree, it's the same thing you might not necessarily get to work in like something that's directly related, but you can bring those aspects of your degree to a lot of different jobs. And I've heard a lot of people especially like policy majors who've worked in like kind of the tech industry now mostly because a lot of those like skills are not too hard to like actually pick up just based on free or cheap internet learning. And that's actually really like, it's still seen as pretty credible in the tech industry, as long as you've got some projects where you can show your skills and if you have a degree that's in an arts background, they actually appreciate that more because you can kind of bring your knowledge of like, like, Okay, this is where you're gonna learn that I have no idea what happens. But if you're like a communications major, or you have like some, you know, like, like writing skills or even just like political knowledge, like tech is more like tools that can be applied to different contexts. So if you have under Have those contests here already have like a bit of an upper hand there that things that like people in life sciences, maybe or people with more quite heavy skills don't understand. So they really need those like arts majors to, you know, support them and understanding those kinds of contexts and what's going on there. Yeah. So the opportunity cost is also particularly high with any industry that requires running experiments, or let's say field instead of industry. So this could be like physics, or it could be life science, because you don't really have the option of Okay, ending my workday at five and then going home and hanging out with my family. It's very much based on when your pyramid Yeah, and when your animals feeding schedule is like, yeah, it just takes a lot of time to do your research was like, for example, in Econ, like, you can just run your analyses and then if need be, you can let it run overnight and just come home and like work on it in the morning. Right. So yeah, that's like the opportunity cost argument. Yeah,
I mean, I think I think this is also like, the most intuitive like, I've definitely thought, yeah, this, like, I think anyone who's like, Oh, I'm gonna be like doing until I'm, like, 35. Like, it's just, you're all like, your, your brain just goes like, oh, probably like slightly less intuitive. But like, I didn't have to, like Google this to like, think about it, where it's like, when you're doing a PhD, like you get a stipend, but you're not really like making money, you just kind of like breakeven, just like try to get by without accumulating debt kind of thing. Yeah. So it's like, Sure, you can like make more afterwards. But I guess like, for that time period, you're not like, you know, you're not actually like generating income. But like, it is also something to consider that like, if getting a PhD is going to get you positions with like, higher salary. Like in the long term, it probably pays more like, in my case, if I want to do cancer research, if you need like a PhD to get kind of like a lead researcher role, like at a, you know, like company or whatever, then like, for me, I think in the long term, like it results in more income, which is like is a whole other thing, because then for people who can't afford to do a PhD, yeah, then it's like, you know, that's like, that's like a whole Yeah, it is a whole other thing in terms of like the high bar to jump over. But that actually leads perfectly into our second argue our second, okay, my second argument, what is what is our second argument for you to Okay, so I'll see it and then I'll like, explain why it's connected to what you're talking about. So the second argument is a PhD training for a research intensive academic position, and the chances of you getting such a position are practically non existent. So my point I'm kind of trying to make here is that you have to be realistic about like, if you're actually going to get the position that you're training for. And so this argument of like, Oh, yeah, but when I get this position, I'm gonna make a whole lot of money, and therefore it offsets the opportunity cost is related to this question of can you actually get the position though, right, which I'm arguing for academic positions is like, not true. Most people who get PhDs are not going to be getting those positions, and therefore, that they don't actually offset the opportunity costs. This might be different in terms of like, yeah, if you're saying like, the cancer research role in some industries, like higher up, yeah, that might be worth it, it might be totally something you can get and therefore, like, offsets the financial opportunity costs. Yeah. So how likely it is that you're going to get an academic position varies like pretty greatly between fields, but generally, the chances are pretty low everywhere. Okay, wait, before I do this, to go back a step you said obvious to you that a PhD is training for a research intensive academic position? I think so like, it took me a surprising like, I don't think I fully internalised that until like, actually a few weeks ago, but yeah, that makes sense. Like, like, traditionally PhDs have been for like your training to be like a pro, if you're training to do research, but like, lately, there would have been like industry jobs ask for Yeah, so yeah, I think that's pretty good summary. I think also two extra mini points on that is that a big reason that it's training for an academic position is because the people have training you IE like your supervisor, your prof doesn't actually know usually, anything outside of that they've dealt with academia, their whole, like career life. So that's what they're gonna train you for. And then the other thing is a research intensive part. So yeah, there are different types of academic positions with varying degrees of teaching and research responsibilities. So like, the cream of the crop is research intensive. This is like what your profs, your supervisor does, because if it's research intensive, they can hire Yeah, PhD students. So back to the actual point. Yeah, so I was just saying that this, you know, varies greatly between fields still pretty low transfers everywhere. In life sciences, there are notably very few open academic opportunities. I don't exactly know why this is there. Like probably a whole host of things mixing together with life sciences, you do usually have to set up an actual lab, buy lab equipment and get lots of funding. So this is pretty heavily dependent on the funds that are available to you available to the school you're at. Yeah, and weigh in like so. Like how you found out that life psi is like perhaps comparatively worse than other field is like just through like asking people or like through googling. Yeah, so some of it is googling some of it is asking people a lot of what made me rethink pursuing grad school and like all this stuff, is that some of the people who've graduated in programmes that I was initially interested in so for background like I was interested in doing a master's and then PhD in neuroscience and then trying for research base position. Related to that, but a lot of people who I talked to who are alumni from McGill, like from the PhD in neuroscience programme, a lot of them were not working in positions that were related to even their interests, like as researchers or even in research roles. So yeah, lots of like asking people, especially asking people from programmes that you're considering. Yeah. And also like, I think like McGill is pretty top notch when it comes to like life psi, in general, in Canada, at least. So like hearing that from people who are like pretty cream of the crop in Canada, it's like, pretty rough. Right? So like, TLDR, there's like more people who want Professor positions, then there are positions available, especially for lifetime research. And even if you get it, there are even less research intensive positions than there are like, more like teaching base positions, especially now that universities are starting to like split up teaching and research duties.
Yeah, that's like a perfect summary. Yeah. So what that leads to is a lot of people who now stick it out until like, well into their mid 40s. If they're like searching for academic positions, this usually takes the form of multiple postdocs where you're still not paid a lot of money. That's why it really is, yeah, I don't get what a postdoc is like, to be honest, like, I pretend to understand what it is. But it's just like, after you do a PhD, you need to do like, cheap labour before you can. So a postdoc didn't used to be required. And indeed, in a lot of like fields that are not life science, it's still not the norm. The reason that it is the norm in life site is because there's so little opportunity. Yeah, I feel like the thing that confuses me is like, why is it called a postdoc? Like, why does Why isn't it just called a job? You know what I mean? It's just like, really an excuse to not pay, you know, for a job. Because if you are giving a job to someone who has a PhD, you need to pay them like they got a PhD. does not pay me like you have a PhD? Yeah, yeah, it's like pretty much the standard now, like, you pretty much have to do at least one postdoc. Now. It's becoming like multiple postdocs, but that's a really long time to not get paid like a normal amount. Yeah. Like people are always like, oh, like med school is such like a long track. I mean, there is also like, the fees, like is more expensive, and you don't get paid to do it. But like, still, it's like, at least you're like working and making money after you're done. Yeah, I was gonna say, do you want to get the last little golden nugget about the dropout rates?
Yes.
I found this in a book. So this is like, more legit than some of my other Oh, I see. Yeah, I mean, not that it's more legit. It's just like, this number does not come from thin air. But yeah, the PhD dropout rate for most programmes is around 50%. So like, That's rough. Yeah. I mean, hopefully a lot of that is like within the first year. Yeah. I don't actually know when it is. So I can't tell you that I'm hoping it's from like before. So if you don't know and your PhD, like, you have to do this huge test in the middle, like your qualifying exams, and I'm hoping it's like before that exam, because after that exam, you're kind of chilling a lot more. Before that exam. I'm pretty sure it's like pretty rough. So it's probably from that there's usually not too much of a consolation prize, either. Like, what are you going to do with an almost done page two like it is actually give you the like, that a p sheet, like completing a PhD does. The other thing is like, there's lots of reason that people drop out, like your first instinct might be to like, oh, they're not tough enough. Like they didn't finish their PhD or whatever. But there's so much outside of your control with a PhD, like you're so dependent on funding, also kind of on a On a related note, I don't know if you remember, but like, a couple years back, I went to this science event, and I met like this one, like random dude, who was running it. And then he, like, let me like, do like a brief tour of their lab at McMaster. Like he was like a PhD student or a postdoc or something. And he was like, talking with another one of the lab people. And they were talking about, like, this guy who he's like, still not like, finished his PhD. And he's been he's been doing it for like, eight years. Yeah. He talked about how like, sometimes, like supervisors, like they'll, like draw it out on purpose. Yeah, yeah. Cuz, I mean, we'll talk about this more later. But there's a reason that they got out a little teaser. Yeah, there's that there's also like, we actually both talked to like my high school mentor, who was doing her PhD at the time that she was like, mentoring me for a semester in high school. She had the unfortunate like, circumstance of her supervisors switching institutions during her PhD. Like, that's just terrible, like your supervisors, just like okay, bye, like, what are you gonna do? So that's rough. Yeah. So there's just like so much outside of your control, not to like mention also like family things if you're like, any other personal type of thing. Okay. Moving on to the third argument. This for me was the most convincing because it actually made me like take a step back and be like, well, is it actually worth it to get to be a shoe? Because, yeah, the last argument is that you become a less desirable hire after getting your PhD outside of academia. In most cases, you say this is like your most convincing for you, but it is also the hardest to prove. Yeah, I think this argument emphasises the point of like, you need to talk to people who are in your field in your industry and like a few years ahead of you, because this is way more field specific than the other points. So specifically in Econ, like I was talking to a family friend who was kind of give me some candid information. And she was saying that like the position that she's in now, as an economist for the Government of Canada, she, so this is free, like informations freely available on the Government of Canada website, if you do some digging, they have like different classifications and different rankings within those classifications. So I think for economists, and that like group of positions, it's like EC is the code for it. And if you have a master's degree, you basically start at, don't quote me on these numbers, but you can just sum up yourself at EC o three, and then you can work up to EC o seven, which is like kind of the upper limit for that. And then if you have a PhD, you necessarily have to start at EC o five, because your qualifications are more. And so each of those numbers has like a pay structure associated with it. So you have like a specific pay at EC o three and a specific pay at EC o five. And with a PhD, you work also update UCL seven. So you can start with a master's degree and still end up in the same place as someone who got a PhD. But it costs less to hire you. And also she was saying that now that she's like, out of position that she would have gotten with a PhD, it took her three or four years, I can't remember exactly. But if she'd gotten her pay, she would have actually taken longer to do that PhD and then get this job. So it's like not even worth it in the first place. Yeah, but but like, so like, the question that pops into my head, though, like just like logically, is that if I'm like a company, I want to get the best candidate like maybe if I'm really scrapping for money, then I'll you know, I'll sacrifice for like a less qualified candidate, like someone with a Master's, and then I will like train them like up myself. But if I'm a company who has the money to hire people, why would I opt for the less qualified candidate? Because yes, you have to pay them more, but they are also more qualified,
right? But what if a lot of the master's students can show that they're reasonably as qualified on these specific skills, right? Because with a PhD, if you're trying to go into something that's not academia, your main argument is that I have transfer skills, hmm, my skills apply to your industry in your line of work. But if this transfer isn't 100%, or you're not working specifically in a research position, and you were trained for a research position, then your skills are still a little bit offset with what that industry is looking for. Right? So in that case, the master student might be just as qualified, they can be like, hey, look at these side projects I did or look at this work I did during my master's that's like very much aligned with what your industry does. And like this PhD student, or this PhD, like graduate doesn't actually have that much more offer, and you're paying them more during training. Right. Okay. Okay. Right. I do understand that like in anything that's not as clear cut as like the econ example, it's a little bit harder. Also, with the econ example, if you decide to go for like academia, you still can't do that without a PhD. So So yeah, the general advice here is that in any position where the educational requirements are, PhD or something else, the hiring unit will probably prefer that something else assuming that they're reasonably qualified. So you should do something else and do it? Well. I think the mistake there is like don't get a PhD if you're trying later on to get a job that a PhD is not necessarily required for.
Yeah, okay. Yeah. So
that's a good point. So I think that is like what I'm talking about. But the argument, I guess, precedes that is that you will most likely be in that position of trying to get a job that he or she is not required for just by nature, how many opportunities are actually available?
Okay, okay,
so you're saying you're like screwing yourself over? Because Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Alright. So Frieda, now that you have given us your three pronged for, yeah. Why is it the case that if these three very compelling reasons that were thought up by a near undergrad students who's trying to figure out her life? Why isn't this talked about more often? Yeah, so a big part of this, particularly in the life sciences is that PhDs are basically cheap labour for professors to conduct research. And the same thing with undergraduates actually, like me go we get a lot of propaganda that's like, We're an r1. University researchers are saying, like, you got to do research degree, there's so many ways to do research, are you doing research you better be doing. And part of this is just like institutions, like we go make money from research output, like that is their primary currency. So they need undergrad students, and they need grad students to kind of do a lot of that legwork. And so that's a big reason that case against a few issues and talked about more often. Yeah, yeah, like I get it. Yeah, I totally get that with like, the postdoc thing. Yeah, my brain just doesn't comprehend what a postdoc is, I guess, because the whole concept shouldn't exist in the first place. Yeah, it's kind of like this made up role. Okay, now I feel like we're getting into like how to evaluate whether you should get a PhD or not. So yeah, like we said before, first and foremost, you should only consider pursuing a PhD if you have a specific job in mind that absolutely requires a PhD. And we kind of hinted at this earlier in the episode, but do not pursue a PhD to quote unquote, buy time, that one I feel really deeply when people are like, Oh, I don't really know what to do. So I'm just going to go to grad school like that is something I think I personally, like I'm very conscientious to not do which is like why I want to take a year off undergrad to like work and just see what it's like.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. Like I don't understand because it's like if you just work even you Like I work as a lab tech, I know I'm not making much, you know, like maybe 30 grand, like at most 40 grand a year, but like, at least I'm not losing money. Yeah. And it's like, it's not like you don't gain anything from working. Yeah. 100% also, like with tech, there's like so many things you could just do like, you can make so much money just sitting in your like house. There's like this podcast that I've listened to a few episodes of called indie hackers. It's just people who like have these like businesses, basically. And some of them make a lot of money and like happen. Like, they basically just learn tech schools. So yeah, lots of cool inspiration on there. If you're looking for anything. Yeah. So one thing that I found helpful for me is to make a litmus test kind of how this came about is that I'm still very much infatuated with trying to do the academic route. I haven't failed hard enough, in econ to be very candid for it to be inconceivable for me to do that. But I also don't want to fall into this trap of like, Oh, yeah, I'm gonna get my PhD level, right. So the idea to do a litmus test is basically to have a handful of kind of checkboxes that you need to be able to check them off before accepting a PhD position. And what this criteria is, can be very personal, and you need to come up with a based on, like, what you value and what's important to you. So it can be drastically different. And also, it's dependent on what field and industry you're in, right? And the earlier you make this list, probably the more objective view you have of how well your chances are in this career, just because like, you're not going to be enamoured by Oh, yeah, even though like I haven't done so well, in this place. Like I can still make a comeback like, Well, alright, so the earlier in your career, you do this, the better, right? And I think like this idea is still pretty vague right now. So I'm going to kind of give my own checklist as like an example. And then we can talk about that. So for me, one thing is that if I do a Ph D programme, it has to be a top 25 programme, top 45 in terms of ranking of departments slash programme slash University in world rankings, and that's a little bit harsh. And the reason being is that, again, very few academic positions, and almost all of them are from like, top six institutions, right. And this number, like top 25, for example, is going to vary between fields. Yeah. And also like, depending on which rating system you're using,
yeah, so
that's the tricky part is that not all rating systems are the same. So there's a little bit of ambiguity for sure. But I think that's more of a minor problem, figuring out this number for your field. And to be clear, like top 25 is like top 25 of the world, in the world, like, Are you willing to travel to like Australia? I feel like I am. Yeah, the farther away from me the better. Yeah, so far, it's different for different fields, for sure. So in Econ, it, there's a lot of opportunity, therefore, I'm willing to go to 25. But for other industries, you might have to really lower that number. Again, it's like a harsh criteria, but you need to be able to check that off to like have a more objective measure. The second thing is to have one article published before getting into my PhD, this might not be on everyone's list, but for like the life sciences, I feel like this is becoming more and more common. And indeed, people who get actual academic positions like this is almost becoming standard. Yeah, like you're saying for like for the people who actually succeed at getting, like tenure track positions before they get into their PhD. They've already had articles published. Yeah, journals. Exactly. Okay. Oh, I see. Oh, that. Yeah, I guess that kind of makes sense. So like, my question, though, is like if you haven't even done your PhD, though, in what context? Are you publishing the article? Like, is it during your mastery question? So there's a few different ways that this can take so one thing is that like, generally people who are like going to get academic positions are have started early have like, done lots of research very early on. So one of my friends who I'm like, almost certain is actually very likely to get an academic position is like started publishing in high school, you know, her prom, she did research for all her high school summers, you know, she really worked on getting published. So she's got lots of papers on her belt now. And she's like, the same age as us, which is to say, fourth year, okay, and I've met some other people on my go to who are like that, who've gotten like, I told you like this last semester, I met someone who had like six papers and like frontiers in neuroscience. And again, he's like, one year older than us. But yeah, other even if you're not that insane, like prepared from the beginning, there's still like, ways you can do that through maybe your masters is a good opportunity, also for you specifically, like because I'm coming to econ Lee, I know that I won't be able to get into a top 25 PhD programme without doing some like taking a year or two to just do research at like a research intensive institution. Like, like you're saying, like, not as part of a Master's like just as part of a job. Yeah, just. Yeah. So they have these programmes that are like pre doctoral programmes. That is essentially just you doing research for like a year, but in life science, like you can pretty much go to any lab and be like, hey, like, Can you just employ me for like, two years and like, I love as well during when I was doing undergrad research? They were also like, yeah, like, we just had like one or two people who just worked in the lab, but weren't necessarily like part of a degree programme. Yeah. and life sciences, you can just go to a prof and be like, Hey, can I just work for you for a year or two, and I want a publication by the end of this and they'll be pretty on board because they get like a full time research technician, essentially. So yeah, and then the third thing on my list for me, this is like probably the most personal one and might not apply to your situation whatsoever. But I just want to like show that you You can kind of personalise this to like suit your values and things that you want. So for me, I also want to have a certain amount of passive income, what is passive income? I was getting to that. In case you don't know what passive income is, it's just like money that you're not necessarily actively working for. So when you work a job, you get paid maybe like a certain wage, hourly wage, whereas like passive income is like rent money. For example, if you own a property and you get paid rent, it's not like you're actively working for that property, that rent just comes in, like month after month, or like investment income, I guess, yeah, investment income, anything like that. That's passive income. So yeah, this is really important for me, because I feel strongly about wanting to support my parents, when they're a little bit older. Also, like, I know, I'm someone who like really wants to just like, also enjoy life and not have to, like be super worried about money at that age, you know, probably late in my 20s. So I just like having that buffer and not kind of reducing the opportunity costs a little bit. Yeah. Any questions about my little checklist? And also, like, definitely will be revised? And like, probably changed a little bit. But yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that works, like making a set of criteria and sticking to it. I mean, I suppose like, you know, it's not hard set, like some of the stuff if you realise, like, maybe you set like, you know, I don't know, five grand a year as your passive income, but then you realise that actually should be like, increased or decreased, like, you know, maybe like a little bit, but try to, like, stick to it, for the most part. Yeah, I mean, I do want to emphasise that, like, these things are not going to be necessarily easy. And they might take a long time to achieve, right. But that's like, kind of the point is like, you want an accurate test. You don't want to be too soft. But again, like yeah, you don't want to be like too, too rigid. But also, this list sounds really easy, like three things right now. But it's like, it took a lot of research to actually make the list in the first place. So don't like underestimate how much research you're actually gonna have to do to figure out what matters in your field or industry. Yeah, maybe look at like the resumes or like the LinkedIn, I don't know, like, whatever, like people who tend to get PhDs or source who tend to get tenure track positions now and then be like, okay, I should be doing these kinds of things like By this time, yeah, that's like, like, amazing strategy. And that's like, probably a solid 80% of what I do.
In terms of like figuring out if you're working in industry, yeah, to search up like LinkedIn is a great way to do that. You can also just straight up reach out to people and like, ask them what their journey was. But if you're looking for more academic positions, one thing you can do is a lot of PhD programmes, they'll at least an econ they publish like their recent PhDs and where they got hired, and you can go to different departments and see like, how many of these PhD graduates are actually getting hired by universities? Or what kind of positions do they end up in? Because if you go to that programme, then you can assume that you're going to get like a position that's very similar to the ones that current PhD graduates are getting. That's a very good idea. Yeah, great resource, you should definitely go check them out. And also, if you just look at your recently hired academic stuff, you can also see what their qualifications are and what to actually take. Yeah, some great methods to go. Cool. Cool. Cool. Yeah. So I have some, like, just general random other points that don't actually fit into this framework that I want to talk about. So one thing to keep in mind, is that a PHP Well, this is not firsthand experience. But PHP is a walk in the park compared to working as a frog. So you should never really have that mindset of like, if I can survive my PhD things will get easier because it most certainly will not. It only gets harder from there. So one thing that I've been trying to do in my life right now is not seeing it as like, Oh yeah, I'm just gonna survive University, and then I'll get a real job and life will be easy. Yeah, same, same. So yeah. So like, your life right now should be very enjoyable. And like, you should be able to create it in a way that like, for sure you enjoy the day to day and not just like, the longer future. Like, I think one of the things that really kind of like changed my mind, just like thinking about like, education in general, is that like, try to make it about the journey and not look just like the endpoint, which like, sounds like really cheesy. It does. But like, Don't think like, Oh, I'm gonna do my masters. And then I'll start like, living my life. Yeah, like start like now. Yeah. Because like, it is possible. Yeah. 100 Yeah, there's definitely people who have done their PhD and like, love their lives in the meantime. So yeah, you should definitely be one of those people.
And like, also, just
like being a prophet is hard. Like, there's so many things prof have to do. Like you have to like write grants. You have to like supervise, like dozens of students like undergrads, Masters, PhDs, postdocs, you have to like, just like, yeah, like, running a lab is like running a business. And then you have to grade you have to like have meetings, like profs work so many hours a week. So it's like you think they make like six figures. But if you actually like look at it, like hourly in terms of like, how many hours they work, it works out to something like 80k a year if you compare it to someone who works like a flick 40 hours a week instead of 60. Yeah, the other thing, if you are going down this academic path, or you are trying to do well in research and stuff like that, do well on your PhD, primary research, output is what matters. That's all that matters, really, it trumps everything else in terms of qualifications for an academic position. This really can't be overstated. As a grad student, your primary focus is research. It's not service work. It's not teaching I think you have to have good teaching reviews, but you shouldn't be spending all your time doing like research output is what matters. Now that output might be different in different fields. So in life sciences, this is journal articles and most field is probably journal articles in math and comm sites, conference papers in humanities fields. In some of them, it might be books, you know, humanities people write papers to write like, they write Press two, but their primary currency might be books like it might be like they're not evaluated specifically on articles are evaluated more on books, questions, concerns, thoughts. being wrong on the internet is my primary concern. Yeah, I mean, well, that's also it's from books. So I can just point to my sources and be like if I'm wrong, I call my incorrect knowledge from a source therefore it is okay. Well, that's how it works if the source is incorrect, yeah. But yeah, huge caveat. You know, we are people on the internet This is more the point of this episode is to put like a questioning pseudo doubt in your brain so that you do I think that's what it does. Yeah. Yeah. I think I definitely like opens me to, like think a bit more about like, think more concretely about it. Yeah. Because it's very hard to like actually think, should I do a PhD or not, and just not have just like a blob of like a question mark in your head. But to be able to point out like specific reasons and like avenues of thought, I think that is like useful. Yeah, that's exactly what I want. I don't want you to be like, Oh, yeah, based on this, like one episode. This is my entire decision, like do some actual research. So yeah, that's the goal for me here. I was gonna go into like some different resources that I think are great to check out. My like, career idol, that person that I get, like all my fundamental ideas about how to like navigate careers and stuff like that. It's just Cal Newport. He's amazing. Who is Cal Newport? Is he like a YouTuber writer? I don't know exactly what assignation is, but he's a professor at Georgetown University in computer science. Ooh, big boy. Yeah, he's a big boy. He's also an author. And his books are really good. As early books were on like doing well in high school doing well and university good studying habits. But his career books are what I want to recommend here. So so good, they can't ignore you is a really good one, in terms of just like thinking about how you should do well in your career. And then deep work is a great one. Those two are like probably pretty fundamental. He does a new one coming out, I think next year. So pretty excited for that. And all the resources that we're talking about right now. We're going to link them in the show notes. Yes. So yeah, definitely go check out his stuff. He's super influential. He also just opened a podcast Anyway, enough plugin, Cal Newport, another great resource is 80,000 hours. They have a it's a book, but I think they have like a PDF version. And then also, they have a good site where you know, is that that thing where it's like to become an expert at something and you do 1000 hours on it? No, that's 10,000 hours. That's like the ogen, Anders Ericsson, who recently passed away, but anyway, no 80,000 hours. So their main thing is that if you, you know, work full time and work until retirement, you're gonna end up working about 80,000 hours over the course of your career, right. That's a lot of your life and a lot of hours. So you should probably put a little bit more thought into it, then like, Oh, yeah, this is probably like what I enjoyed in high school. And so that's their whole schpeel. They're also like very much part of the whole effective altruism
community.
But yeah, they'd kind of approach career decisions in a similar way that we have now where it's a little bit more based on frameworks and like more objective lens that I've seen in other Career Resources. Yeah. So I really like that. I think that's a really good resource. So check it out. Side cavea. Like all this being said, like, I don't think everyone needs to derive their primary purpose in life from their job, like some people do just work to get money, and then they have other things that may not make them happy. Yeah, that's totally fine. And I actually think you should diversify like your main purposes in life, not to be like one thing. But it's still a long time to be working right. Like you still should put some thought into Yeah, like you want something that you're at least like neutral about, you don't want to hate your job.
Yeah.
So that's kind of their perspective. And I think regardless, they have really good, like frameworks for understanding how to make these kinds of decisions. So definitely worth checking out. The book that I was talking about that has a lot of information on the the issue decision is called Good work, if you can get it. I don't remember the subtitle. But that's the main title is, and it's by Jason Brennan, who co co he's a professor as well, at Georgetown. Georgetown seems to just like be picking up really great people as professors, apparently.
And he's in I believe, political philosophy or something with like, economics, politics and philosophy. Yeah. And so that's a really great guy. That's where a lot of this information comes from. So that's really worth checking out. And he also goes a lot more into advice of like, how to actually do well on your PhD and get an academic job. So yeah, that's a really good one. Check it as well. Cool, huh? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, like, I feel like for me a lot of the time I think about this stuff, but then I'm just like, yeah, also go with the flow, you know? Yeah. It's definitely a delicate balance. This is like, like a point of contention between me and my mom, where she's like, Oh, you millennials overthink everything. I'm just like, No, we need to feel it. We're gonna survive. So yeah, I mean, I think you also plan your whole life more than most. Yeah, it's kind of talked to you about this before but like I'm trying to do more like ABS Ed planning. You have names for the ways you plan your life. No, this is a framework from 80,000 hours I think is like super helpful, especially for people like me who are like I would overthink the next like 15 years of my life. And the primary like, I've definitely introduced this to you before, but it's basically like, having a plan a plan B and then having like a plan for if nothing else works. It just seemed like a very temporary Okay, I like need some money to survive, and eventually I'm gonna get back on my feet. And that is interesting. Yeah. So it's like you're you become more willing to take bigger risks and like kind of go for that a plan because you have like the set plan to fall back on. And you also have a B plan in case like, a plan doesn't go well. So yeah, that's kind of helpful to like, think about so like the Zed plan might literally be like, move back in with your parents, unlike work retail for like a little bit. But just having that backup means like, you can really go for it. All right. Good to wrap up. Yeah, this has been another episode of so you got a lifestyle degree about the case against a PhD. We want to give special thanks to our crew of lovely patrons, including our little leaf patrons named Neil Shafiq, and shimmy. If you would like to become a supporter of this podcast, you can visit our patreon@patreon.com slash so you got a website degree. The music you're hearing is no regrets from audio hub.com Thanks for listening and see you next time.