Why does anyone do a PhD?

[unkleE]

I thought this blog post by Peter Enns on My 10 Thoughts about Getting a PhD. (Maybe You Should Be Sitting Down.) was interesting for several reasons, including the importance of not being a jerk if you want to get a job, and his strong sense that anyone should think really hard before they do it.

I wonder, James, if you agree?

[James Hannam]

Oct 25, 2017 21:41:42 GMT unkleE said:

I wonder, James, if you agree?

Yes absolutely. Especially the first point. I think, to do a PhD you actually have to want to do a PhD and all that entails, not just see it as an obstacle that has to be crossed at the start of your career. So you need to be passionate about your subject and about the idea of spending the next three years devoting yourself to researching a tiny part of it.

A Masters is a good test: if doing the dissertation in your Masters was your favourite part and you want to do it all over again but ten times bigger, then a PhD might be for you. But if the dissertation was a hard slog at the end to get you over the finishing line, a PhD won't be fun.

One motivation that the article didn't mention, but academics usually admit to after a few drinks, is bragging rights. Having a PhD feels like an achievement and is recognised as such. But you have to really want it.

Just for the record: I loved it. My years at Cambridge on my PhD were professionally the best of my life. I got up each morning to do exactly what I wanted to be doing. Nowadays, I spend more time than is healthy plotting how to get back.

Best wishes

James

[jagella]

Oct 26, 2017 9:24:07 GMT James Hannam said:

Yes absolutely. Especially the first point. I think, to do a PhD you actually have to want to do a PhD and all that entails, not just see it as an obstacle that has to be crossed at the start of your career. So you need to be passionate about your subject and about the idea of spending the next three years devoting yourself to researching a tiny part of it.

A Masters is a good test: if doing the dissertation in your Masters was your favourite part and you want to do it all over again but ten times bigger, then a PhD might be for you. But if the dissertation was a hard slog at the end to get you over the finishing line, a PhD won't be fun.

One motivation that the article didn't mention, but academics usually admit to after a few drinks, is bragging rights. Having a PhD feels like an achievement and is recognised as such. But you have to really want it.

Just for the record: I loved it. My years at Cambridge on my PhD were professionally the best of my life. I got up each morning to do exactly what I wanted to be doing. Nowadays, I spend more time than is healthy plotting how to get back.

Best wishes

James

Thanks for these thoughts, James. At this stage of my life I'd love to have a doctorate in a field relevant to the New Testament or anything else. I'm just too old, poor, and tired to go to all the trouble though. So at this point I'm relying on my current formal education and self study. These days so much information is available to everybody allowing us non-specialists to make significant contributions to the progress of human knowledge which I suppose might seem threatening to the traditional educational paradigm.