[named-user]

It's not though is it. It's a piece of paper to say for 2 years or so you worked as a researcher employed by the university, at least that's my experience in the UK.

Much better off just going in to industry. People praise PhDs too much. No one at work knows of mine. It's not on my CV either.

What is awful is when someone with a PhD in, say, biology uses this as leverage in a completely unrelated field (data science). Malicious ambiguity...

You're not an authority on something just because you have a PhD, certainly not an authority on everything. This is, damagingly, how many behave... You're barely scratching the surface at that level. It warrants a lifetime of work to get anywhere near the level of respect some put up on them. I guess that speaks volumes to the general level of insight into education by most..

[whatever1]

In UK the PhD is mostly an extended masters degree. In the US it is 5+ years of effort.

Even if you have a masters in the US, the only benefit you get as a PhD student, is having less core courses in the first two semesters of your program.

[chrisseaton]

> In the US it is 5+ years of effort.

In the US a PhD is 2 years of unrelated taught classes and teaching work, and 3 years of actual research.

In the UK you only do the research part. So they’re the same in terms of the actual research part.

[whatever1]

Not really. In most of the departments in the US you are expected to start research in parallel to your classes at the end of the first semester. The latest I know of, is the end of the second semester after the course-based qualifier exam that many departments still have.

Within 12 months you are expected to do full time research regardless of what other obligations / selective classes you have.

So more like 4+ years of full research. Many schools have avg PhD program durations way over 6 years.

In UK post doc is almost a must for those who really want to dive deep.

[chrisseaton]

How can you do 'full time research' as well as being an instructor for taught classes? Does not compute.

Day one of my UK PhD I was shown to my desk, told to start researching, and that was it. I didn't waste any time with any classes or teaching (I did actually teach for a couple of hours as a favour.)

As long as you can produce top-tier papers during your PhD then you're meeting the international standard.

[whatever1]

>How can you do 'full time research' as well as being an instructor for taught classes? Does not compute.

Yep this is where the gruesome part of the American PhD comes. And that is why in the first two years of the program the attrition is huge. In my class 50% had dropped by the end of year 2.

[analog31]

Oddly enough, early on when "data science" was becoming a thing, I thought that being a scientist would give me an edge in data science. I no longer believe that.

[named-user]

In many situations it's much more an art than a science. Oftentimes you see "we multiplied independent variable X by independent variable Y and that is what we attribute this increase in Z to"...

But it's wrapped up in such complicated rhetoric that no one questions it (perhaps less cares...)

I shouldn't berate it though. It pays the bills..