[foldr]

The thing to bear in mind is that PhD programs aren't geared towards people who just want to work on interesting questions, get the PhD, and then leave and do something else. You'll be immersed in a culture where all of your peers see a tenure track position as the only job worth having. No-one will take any aspirations you may have outside academia at all seriously. Unless you are very tough and independent-minded, you will have your perception of your own goals shifted by this.

(There may be some exceptions to this generalization for fields that have very close connections to industry, e.g. CS.)

[rsfern]

I feel like the odd one out considering an academic career in my engineering PhD program. I don't think the attitude you're describing is all that common in many technical fields these days.

I'm sure it depends on the field, the university, and the department culture, but isn't that what admissions interviews and open house are for?