In my three years working before grad school, I spent about a year and a half doing management consulting. Consulting is a very, very strange profession. A month or two into your job, you’ll reach the conclusion that the overwhelming majority of people have absolutely no idea what you do for work. It’s actually hilarious. I feel like being a PhD student is extremely similar. You spend 60 to 80 hours a week (possibly more) reading, studying, and doing research, and yet you’ll find for the full duration of your program (4 to 7 years, depending on your discipline), the overwhelming majority of your friends, family, and the general public have absolutely no idea what it is that you do. Seriously, it’s hilarious. For that reason, I thought it’d be helpful to do a post to clearly capture the ins and outs of a PhD.
I’ll start with a very (very) simplified analogy on the levels of higher education. Depending on your level of familiarity with higher education, this may not resonate with you as much, but I’m hoping the example is helpful as you think about the different degree offerings of a program. I was reading a post on Facebook that stated something along the lines of “in school, you’re given a lesson and then given a test, but in life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson”. In some ways, that’s how I think about the bachelor’s degree. Your professors generate all of the content that drive your education. More specifically, they identify relevant questions, expound on the answers, and then you have tests and exams, where you have to provide the answers to some of the questions they’ve preselected (yes, I know programs can be more project based, writing heavy, clinically focused, etc., but think of this as a broader metaphor for the educational experience, nuances aside). I remember at several points during undergrad, particularly in my first 2 years when I had more time, I would ask questions during class, and the professor would say something along the lines of, “Great question! But that’s beyond the scope of this class.” In other words, it was a great question, but it wasn’t a question I was responsible for answering in that course. For my bachelor’s, the professor was responsible for driving the content of my educational experience. That’s not to minimize the significance of the bachelor’s degree in any way, shape, or form, but education at that level is different than education at the PhD level.
At the master’s level, you’ll find there are some differences. The pace will be faster than it was in undergrad, and topics are usually covered in more depth. There’s generally a higher standard for what it means to be a strong student. Students will be a lot more focused and motivated than in undergrad, so that, in most cases, contributes to a more enhanced learning environment. Still, there’s a lot of consistency between the bachelors and masters. On the master’s level, you’ve expressed interest in building a more specialized and enhanced skill set in a specific discipline. Even so, the Professor still drives a lot of the content for the educational experience (as a caveat, this will vary CONSIDERABLY from program to program and discipline to discipline, but for the sake of the example, bear with me). That’s what the syllabus is for, after all. The Professor will identify more relevant questions, they’ll expound on the answers, and then you have test and exams, where you have to provide the answers to some of the questions they’ve preselected. Truthfully, many (if not most) master’s programs are more writing heavy or project based, but ultimately, the Professor still drives the content because they determine what they believe their masters students should be responsible for learning in their courses. In some ways, you’ll be evaluated on how well you can reproduce the material they include in the curriculum, convincing them you’ve mastered the subject matter of your discipline. The biggest thing to note about bachelors and masters programs as it pertains to this discussion is at these levels in the higher education system, much of the content is driven and produced by the professor (again, I know this varies program to program and discipline to discipline, but bear with me).
On the PhD level, there’s a fundamental shift, and that’s frequently what makes it so difficult for students. Literally, at every stage of education up until this point, your teacher (ie. K-12) or Professor (ie. college and beyond) provides the question, the answer, and a test where you’re required to provide the answer. On the PhD level, the student asks their own question, runs their own test (theoretical, experimental, empirical, etc.), and comes back to the Professor and the rest of the academic community (and the world) with their own answer. I consider myself to be a very inquisitive person. I love learning. It’s one of the reasons I’m on this journey. Even so, on the bachelor’s level (and even the master’s level), inquisitiveness can only go so far. Why? Because on the bachelor’s and master’s level, the professor is still the one telling you the questions you need to answer. On the master’s level, certainly you have the opportunity to ask more questions, and indeed you do, but answering questions “beyond the scope of the course” is difficult without the (advanced) training in research methods that generally only comes in a PhD program. Suffice to say the PhD differs in approach from the bachelor’s and master’s.
As a result of the structure of the PhD program, incentives are very different as well. On the bachelor’s level, I didn’t have nearly as strong an incentive to be curious. In my first two years in undergrad, I was very inquisitive and frequently found myself asking questions that were outside the scope of my courses. My junior and senior year I was considerably busier, so when I heard my question was outside the scope of the course, in some ways, I lost interest in the question. After all, the only thing I needed to perform well in the course was to learn the material the Professor decided to include in the syllabus. I didn’t get any bonus points for my curiosity. Why make my life unnecessarily complicated? On the PhD level, it’s quite different. Your inquisitiveness is what will make you a GREAT doctoral student. Indeed, the best PhD students will ask the best questions, be great at figuring out how to answer those questions, and come back with a really interesting and well thought out answer. A lot of that is a product of curiosity. On the PhD level, the student asks the question, they do test (research) to determine the answer to the question, and they share that answer with their professors. It more or less inverts the system that we usually use in education.
The sequence of the system is a bit misleading though. K-12 you’re responsible for devouring information. For your bachelor’s and master’s, you’re responsible for devouring information. It’s easy to fall into that pattern and say, “Wow, I’m really good at devouring information. I’ll go for my PhD, because I’m pretty good at this school thing.” That logic is faulty, for several reasons. For your PhD, the primary goal isn’t to consume more information (although you will, obviously). Technically, you’re responsible for producing it. That is, up until this point, you’ve been primarily responsible for learning what’s in the textbook. For your PhD, you need to ask questions and find answers, so we can actually write the textbook. Don’t misinterpret my simplified analogies; one isn’t better or more important than the other. They’re different degree programs that require different interests, different skills, and different approaches to thinking. I say that to say success on the bachelors and masters levels doesn’t mean a PhD program will suit you well. Again, there’s a different approach to education.
Probably the most important thing to keep in mind about the PhD is that, by definition, it’s a research based degree. There are exceptions and nuances for people who may be interested in doing something with the government or specialized roles in tech, but in probably 85% of cases, if you’re not interested in research on some level, this degree isn’t for you. Just go with a masters (or a 2nd masters) instead. In the higher education community, a PhD certifies you as an expert in your field, with the school you graduated from endorsing you as an expert. You can have perfect scores in all of your coursework, but you will not graduate with a PhD without satisfying certain research expectations, as it’s a research based degree. The reason why is because the academic community doesn’t necessarily look to grades in coursework to see your expertise. As far as the higher education community is concerned, if you’re an expert in your field, you have to be able to move your field forward by (1) critiquing existing theory and/or (2). developing new theories to help us understand the world around us. Indeed, that’s the academic value of being an expert: creating knowledge for the world at large. If your skillset stops at learning other people’s theories but you can’t critique existing theory or develop any theories of your own to move your field forward, from an academic perspective, that type of expertise isn’t all that helpful (outside the academic community, obviously it’s very different. Indeed, there are plenty of subject matter experts, most of whom do NOT have a PhD.). That’s not to say you can’t be excellent at your job or extremely versed in subject matter unless you have a PhD. Completely false. But in the academic community, experts move the field forward, and part of that is critiquing existing theory and coming up with new ones.
For inquisitive people, their minds are cluttered with “I wonder if _____.” statements. The attraction then of doing a PhD would be getting trained on how to ask a good question and being trained on how to pursue research to answer those questions. If spending 4 to 7 years doing that sounds less than flattering, as I mentioned, a masters (or 2nd or 3rd) is probably better for you than a PhD. On the other hand, if it sounds like something you may be interested in, you may find yourself in a PhD program sooner rather than later.
Let me know if this was helpful. Part 2 of 2 is coming in a few weeks!
Nnamdi