[2o3jriw3jril]

The majority of the people I know who have PhDs have families with children by 30-35.

My experience in grad school is that there are two different classes of people pursuing PhDs:

- people whose parents have MSs or PhDs, who had guidance from a very early age, who have been advised the entire way through and are able to complete their PhDs by age 25-28

- people whose parents don't have advanced degrees, who are at a pretty severe disadvantage, who don't know how to start preparing for grad school applications during sophomore year of undergrad, who don't know how to pick a decent advisor, who don't know how to organize their own funding which provides some level of research independence and the ability to focus on completing their degree instead of worshipping their advisor, and these people are much more likely to take 6,7,8+ years to complete their PhD if they complete it at all

But that's not really relevant to this story. This is an article about a woman who dropped out of her PhD program to have kids, and was given an honorary degree decades later because the work she did complete was groundbreaking.

[BeFlatXIII]

> who don't know how to start preparing for grad school applications during sophomore year of undergrad

That was me. I always assumed I'd go to grad school because that's just what was done; I never realized that my parents' meeting in grad school meant they worked normal people jobs for the better part of a decade before continuing their educations.