Ask HN: Will getting a PhD lead to a more interesting life?
I left my PhD program in CS (specifically, compilers).<p>I began working after graduation with a job at a (very) small Chicago start-up. I was the first engineer. I enjoyed a lot of freedom, and I was paid OK. The job had many ups and downs. The opportunity arose to pursue a PhD when my advisor-to-be recruited me at a weeklong PL research retreat over the summer. I thought: &quot;well, I will regret it if I don&#x27;t at least try and see.&quot; Not to mention: how could I have a better opportunity, than for my advisor to recruit <i>me</i>?<p>I was part-time for a little while. (My advisor was very flexible.) Work got worse, mostly for unrelated reasons, and it was time to quit the job. I was spending 3 days a week on research for the PhD, and not enjoying it. However, I was very much enjoying my compilers research seminar course (read a paper and discuss every week). So, I quit the job. I figured: &quot;maybe I am not enjoying research because I haven&#x27;t been able to focus on it.&quot;<p>It turned out I really didn&#x27;t enjoy the work I was doing. I wanted to do research, but this wasn&#x27;t it.<p>My advisor and I discussed my dissatisfaction with the PhD at length. I felt like I came to the program with a lot of excitement for compilers research, but I was spending all my time on tedious engineering work (writing a `#pragma`-parsing extension in Clang). I wanted a promise that there was a plan to switch gears, to get creative, to do (what I believed) I had signed up to do: to write a totally new kind of compiler!<p>My advisor was flummoxed. &quot;This is it,&quot; they said. I was confused, and a little angry.<p>It&#x27;s a common story to start a PhD on the promise that you&#x27;ll get to do a certain interesting piece of research, but spend 2 years (in some cases, more!) doing other work for your advisor (possibly due to funding). I knew a PhD candidate in this very position, who one day finally became so frustrated they said aloud: &quot;I&#x27;m sick and f*cking tired of this! This is not what I signed up for.&quot; They had been there 2 years, and still weren&#x27;t working on the research they began the PhD out of an interest in pursuing.<p>Finally, my advisor issued an ultimatum: decide whether to stay at least 2 years through quals, or quit.<p>I told my advisor I couldn&#x27;t commit to 2 more years. Not when I was unhappy with the work, and when they were openly promising me more of the same.<p>My advisor was angry. They started to say some unflattering things: sometimes things like, &quot;since you&#x27;re an engineer, you should understand that the foundation work comes first.&quot; Other times, they were just openly rude, and non-constructive: &quot;in my opinion, you are a bad presenter.&quot; They prided theirself on radical honesty, but failed to value empathy. Eventually, I just stopped listening to them.<p>I told my advisor I was going to explore my options and look for work. At first, they were encouraging: &quot;I expect nothing less.&quot; In retrospect, I think they were confident at the time that I would stay. After it became clear I was planning to find a job instead of continuing in the program, however, my advisor began to make arguments to me like:<p>&quot;Nothing in industry is interesting. Only people with PhDs get to do the interesting work.&quot;<p>&quot;You will get paid more with the PhD.&quot;<p>&quot;You will never become a self-directed learner if you quit.&quot;<p>All of these points are blatantly false. (The last one in particular was really weird to hear.) But, finally, I was hearing it said: I was hearing my advisor spread the fear. All along I picked up on the trepidation my peers in the research lab felt toward &quot;industry work,&quot; which they all seemed to imagine as a form of cubicle hell in the bowels of Oracle&#x27;s terrifying UFO office complex in California. My advisor finally gave a voice to that fear. They tried to spread that fear to me.<p>I am extremely glad I had already worked in industry. I knew my advisor was wrong. I think, however, that they believed their own arguments. They&#x27;ve never worked in industry, after all. And maybe they needed to believe it was worse, in order to justify the stress and overwork of academia.<p>For my part, I ended up with an excellent job in New York City working for better.com. I have no regrets. I still have a fascination with compilers, and I occasionally read papers for fun. I work on my own self-directed projects in my free time, which I enjoy far more than I enjoyed working for my advisor. I also get paid very well, and my work peers are some of the smartest and most talented people I&#x27;ve ever met - PhDs included. The best thing my advisor ever did for me was fire me. I got a raise (even over my first job); I got to move to New York City; I got to work with incredible new people (and lots of them); and I now know exactly what I&#x27;m missing out on, having left the program.<p>By the way: we&#x27;re hiring at better.com. :)