[chadash]

> I always imagined a Ph.D. was about having a good idea and demonstrating your ability to develop it, defend it, and publish. What does a 14 hour day accomplish over 8? You're not pumping out widgets, right?

My wife is currently doing a Ph.D., and yeah, maybe you go in thinking "I'm interested in this area, let me spend 5 years really exploring and developing it". Then reality hits. You are beholden to your advisor and switching advisors is very hard if not impossible depending on your situation. If your advisor has the funding for you to spend 5 years working on your interests and has the time to help you with it, great. But in reality, your job is to do whatever your advisor wants and this may or may not align with your own interests. On top of this, in addition to research, you've got classes, teaching duties and all sorts of other stuff that may or may not interest you, but has nothing to do with your primary research, yet still takes up much of your time.

Imagine you were to apply to a job in industry where you will have one boss for the next 5 years, get paid scraps, can't switch teams and if you quit the job two or three years in, you give up all of your progress. This is what a Ph.D. is. If you have a great advisor, it can be amazing. But a bad advisor can make it hell. And even in the best of circumstances, you have to deal with a lot of BS.