Just finished a MSc. Should I keep going for a PhD?
I like the idea of doing research but I've seen many people get burnt while doing a PhD.
How many of you are doctors? Maybe you doctors or people that have worked in a research a lab can give me some perspective.
Lincoln Rogers
what's your field?
Isaiah King
Medical imaging and biosignals
John Mitchell
If you can manage your time, stick to plans and schedules, and are ready to travel a lot, then a PhD is not that terrible.
It also depends which kind of PI you have. Some group leaders are more laid back, others demand immediate results.
Hunter Bennett
>and are ready to travel a lot Why?
t not OP
Connor Miller
>and are ready to travel a lot wtf you dont travel shit when doing a phd
John Torres
If you aren't participating in conferences, you're doing it wrong.
William Lopez
At least in some fields you are expected to publish yearly at least a workshop paper and go to either a phd symposium, a summer school or some another networking meeting to at least give a presentation about your work.
It's more common in conference driven fields like CS, I know some pure maths phd students who didn't travel (or publish) at all before their thesis.
Robert Carter
can anyone share their experience as PhD?
Jose Rodriguez
That settles it then.
William Nelson
Which fields have such conferences? Who pays for the travelling?
That sounds pretty terrible.
Juan Robinson
I'm PhD student in neuroscience. There are many conferences around the world. I get travel grants from scientific societies and sometimes prof pays for the whole research group.
Jaxon Turner
Ok, thanks. How hard is it to get money for a trip?
Robert White
if you have a master's, why are you asking people here? don't you have an advisor, or know any other PhD's in your field?
Alexander Rivera
OP, what race are you? If Black or Hispanic, go for it. Your professors will bend over backwards for you and accommodate you every step of the way. If White or Asian, have you considered becoming an accountant?
Liam Gutierrez
You get to go to like 1 or 2 conferences annually, and they're usually the highlight of the whole year. It's hardly Ed Norton in Fight Club.
Charles Hernandez
As a member of my regional physiological society I get my travel grant applications quite easily accepted. I usually get 75-100 % of the sum I ask for depending on country and which conference.
Julian Nelson
>That sounds pretty terrible Why does free travel and discussing your ideas with peers from over the world sound terrible to you?
Caleb Williams
Really depends on your field and research group.
I am at the end of my master's in pure math and my PI literally encourages me to travel to conferences for which he ofc pays.
My PI has secured some huge grants though and is swimming in money and probably doesn't even know where to spend it all considering this is pure math after all.
Chase Sanchez
It just sounds boring and unnecessary, you fucking twat. If I want to discuss my ideas, I'll do it over the Internet, not at some gay ass conference.
Nolan Morales
>If I want to discuss my ideas, I'll do it over the Internet, not at some gay ass conference.
Brody Diaz
Nice!
It requires having presentations, doesn't it? Besides, going abroad makes me anxious.
That sounds like a nice guy.
Julian Rivera
You'll start liking giving them once you gave 10 or so. Also it is in a professinal setting, the worst that may happen is that nobody cares. Not like in university where people are there to judge you.
Jack Cook
That makes it sound slightly less terrible.
Chase Morales
this is the worst post i have seen on Veeky Forums in a while
Dylan Hughes
you should not do a PhD
Gabriel Long
>Also got a PhD question, hope you don't mind me butting in
When I finished my psychology MSc I wasn't interested in doing a PhD (for a while, at least), I just wanted to start paying back some of my debt and actually earning a bit of money for once. After getting rejected without interview from about 25 typical research assistant jobs (despite getting top grades for both my degrees), but somehow stumbled my way into a research job with a company which pays better than any of the university jobs, and fully funds a PhD for me too (which doesn't really take up much extra time either, because the research I'd use is what I do on a day-to-day basis). It's not in psychology though - without getting too specific (potentially doxxable), it's an architecture-related discipline which is starting to do more cross-disciplinary research with social scientists.
My reservation is the fact that lots of this discipline is just crap, even by the standards of psychology. They're essentially a practical discipline playing at science, so what passes for scientific research in their journals is really simple surveys where they just compare a few percentages, without even using the most basic statistical tests. My academic supervisor's research is like this, and all the 'top researchers in the field' he directs me to are pretty similar. The company I work for doesn't give a shit about the quality of the research because it's essentially just a marketing gimmick so they can say their services are evidence-backed (which again lowers the quality of my research, because there are clearly vested interests at play). I'll be doing the research anyway because the job pays well, but if I go through with the PhD, is there a chance that it might harm my future career prospects within academia? I'd like the possibility of being able to lecture in psychology at some point, but I'm concerned that churning out some crap research now will harm my future credibility.
Austin Morris
So don't churn out crap research. They can churn out crap, and you can put out proper research using proper statistics.
Nathan Morgan
Unfortunately academic supervisor has strong input into the design process of the research (and therefore the statistical methods used to analyse results). Also, the company pushes me towards crappy research because they have their agenda to meet. I don't mind being paid good money to do crap research if it's what the corporate world likes, it's just a case of putting my name to it and putting it in academic journals as if I think it's serious science.
Josiah Clark
i dont get your take exactly, psychology is meme tier and you most likely knew that when you joined, but now you're surprised?
Henry Moore
I think this is a case of it being meme tier even by psychology standards.
Daniel Morales
I know Veeky Forums feels that way, but psychology is a serious scientific discipline when done correctly. You probably have a negative perception because of some meme-tier social psychology bullshit you've seen, but that's by no means representative of the whole discipline (although unfortunately it's becoming more prevalent, because of leftism in social science). But yeah, as says, the current discipline doesn't apply the same academic rigour that should be applied in psychology.
Justin Perez
psychology is meme tier garbage, since most of their papers aren't remotely reproducible. psychology should be philosophical in nature to begin with, but this post-modernist abomination that exists today that's neither philosophy nor science is pure garbage
Carson Kelly
Again, that's a valid criticism of social psychology, but the field extends far beyond that.