Doctoral Degrees - What Your Thesis Really Means

When people talk about PhD in academic settings, this is what they often refer to (note - "Brown" here is just used as a common example and has no relationship to actual person(s) in real life):

Although Mr. Brown and Dr. Brown both teach Biology, only "Dr." Brown is hired at university level because he has a doctoral degree in physiology. "Mr." Brown, on the other hand, takes PRAXIS to become a biology teacher in local high school .

People usually correlate the term "expert" to the individual with PhD. While Mr. Brown may be an excellent teacher, Dr. Brown is an expert in certain areas because he spent anywhere from five/six years to a decade or more to earn his PhD. The doctoral degree is then a culmination of a thesis from years of hard work and a successful defense to the graduate school committee.

There is definitely a social embellishment to the individual who went beyond undergraduate and spent some of their youth to earn additional degree. But, is it always what you dreamed of?

See the Reality

For some people, graduating with Bachelor's degree does not mean that they know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. At age of only 22 or 23, not everyone is ready to jump into the workforce, so the choice to attend graduate school allows the individual to explore details about certain area and have university-level professor as a "back-up" option. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. According to a recent article from The Economist, there were more than 100,000 doctoral degrees produced in America between 2005 and 2009. But, there were only 16,000 new professor positions in that time period.¹

To me, this figure is significant, but not surprising. I have met some excellent professors, who have been teaching for several decades. It's not same as secondary education, where teachers usually retire after hitting a certain age. Furthermore, in undergraduate level, professors with tenure basically can teach as long as they want in that period of tenure, which usually gets approved with new tenure. Back when there weren't many professors, earning a doctoral degree would have opened up many doors, but now, the competition is extremely fierce.

So, what this means is that the pursuit of PhD is a very serious task that may takes years of one's life. It is important to decide thoroughly and contemplate why that the person wants to earn PhD in that area before blindly jumping in and hoping that it would automatically land the person a stable job. It is possible, but not something that is guaranteed by any means.

Professional Thesis vs. Personal Thesis

As that article from The Economist describes, there are undoubtedly a number of people who feel dissatisfied about going to the graduate school, working years with bare minimum salary/stipend, and coming out into the real world to find that job market is still difficult. And I'm sure that there are more statistics out there, indicating how some PhDs do not actually lead to a significantly stable employment.

But, I should stress that there is absolutely nothing wrong about going for a doctoral degree. In fact, I wholly encourage everyone to do so if their heart leads them. From my perspective, a successful completion of doctoral thesis should consist of two components: professional and personal. Professional is what job interviewer of certain companies or universities see when they review your curriculum vitae. In other words, this part directly relates back to the whole "Mr." versus "Dr." Brown discussion earlier in this article. Personal, however, is the satisfaction of realizing that after all that years, you have produced something that is uniquely yours. The idea that people in the future will come to read your work in their research should mean something to you.

It's like quitting your job to grab yourself an MBA because everyone else around you is doing it. Don't. Pursue additional degree if you have a genuine interest. Simply going to graduate school for money is not recommended, as the person would likely have some unhappy times during those years.

Works Cited

¹ "The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time," The Economist, Dec. 16, 2010.