[jdthedisciple]

I never understand why phd students who are going through mental torture don't just quit their phd program. I mean ... noone can force you to finish a shi*y phd right? Why not just drop out and pursue sth that actually fulfills you? With your Masters degree / diploma in your pocket and the vast theoretical knowledge you have all doors standjng eide open for you, don't you?

[ojnabieoot]

As someone who quit a graduate program:

- it looks really really really bad on your CV to not finish a graduate degree. I dropped out for health reasons with an A+ GPA and still have to delicately explain what happened to interviewers. It looks worse than just having a masters degree.

- “just one more year of misery and then your career prospects will increase dramatically” is a very powerful argument and not just a sunk-cost fallacy.

- young people in PhD programs tend to have a lot of identity and psychological investment in getting their PhD and working as a researcher. For most PhD students, the occupation that most fulfills them is their research. It strikes me as very strange that you think PhD students have some secret marketable passion that they would pursue but instead they somehow got stuck in graduate school. Speaking for myself: a PhD program was the only feasible part for me to do something fulfilling. My current work as a software developer is tedious and boring by comparison and, frankly, not at all what I wanted to do with my life.

- PhD students rarely have any savings and their meager stipends are the only income they have. So “pursue [something] that actually fulfills you” is most likely impossible, since that ‘something’ is probably not a routine office/engineering job.

[k33n]

> it looks really really really bad on your CV to not finish a graduate degree.

That's something people who have no real world experience say. For one thing, nobody is forcing you to put any information on your CV. Lastly, only the lowest of the low judge such things so harshly that they won't even interview you.

[xfer]

> For one thing, nobody is forcing you to put any information on your CV.

And put what for the career gap? It's easier to just put the truth than to make something up for the gap years.

[ojnabieoot]

> That's something people who have no real world experience say.

I was speaking to my real-world experience!

[nharada]

This is one of those things that's hard to see until you're out though. Combined with the fact that inside academia there definitely is a bias against those who don't finish the program ("they couldn't hack it") this perspective is relatively rare for those who are in it, especially those without prior industry experience.

[ojnabieoot]

I am kind of frustrated that I am reporting my real-world experience after having been “out” of academia for 10 years and yet you and another person are assuming that I don’t have any real world experience and am just lacking perspective! Please read the comment! And that “bias” you mention 100% exists outside of academia.

[nharada]

You're right and I apologize, I did not mean to imply that just because your experience was different than mine meant it was invalid or not true.

My intent was to point out that the parent's perspective is not necessarily a common one inside of academia, and even though that unfortunately isn't the experience you had, it's regardless one that would mostly come about after grad school anyway.

[dbcurtis]

In computer science, though, I have several “ABD” (all but dissertation) acquaintances that have had fine and lucrative industrial careers. I don’t see it as such a black mark.

[ojnabieoot]

My point was that PhD dropouts can land on their feet but it’s not a question of “following their passions and do something that makes you happy.” It’s really a question of “give up your passions and do something pragmatic.”

My career in software is also “fine” and even somewhat “lucrative” given that I don’t work at for-profit companies. But it’s not how I pictured my life going and it was a difficult adjustment.

[iainmerrick]

It’s tough to make the jump. Part of the trouble is that pure science and research is what interests and fulfills you -- in principle. It just doesn’t pay enough, and only a tiny fraction of researchers see real success. To make the jump into industry, you have to admit to yourself that a) the academic life isn’t what you hoped for and never will be; and b) you, personally, will never make the kind of scientific breakthrough you still dream about.

For all that you may be able to go from a tiny salary to a six-figure salary, you still need to admit failure at some level, and that’s hard.

[izgzhen]

Similar to the reason why someone is married the wrong one but just can't get himself/herself to divorce. Certain types of people tend to be very averse of sunk cost even if they are well-aware that they will lose more if keep going. This is very unfortunate though.

I found that academically excellent people are especially easy to get in this type of trap -- maybe because that "never give up" and "overcome the difficulties" rather than giving up is engrained by the process.

[tlringer]

This student was an international student. If he quit, he would have lost his visa and had to leave the country.