A PhD can give you an opportunity to work on what you call a &quot;real&quot; problem, but it could also force you to work on &quot;fake&quot; problems.  In many fields, the research we academics must do to get hired&#x2F;promoted&#x2F;tenured is somewhat artificial and unrelated to the problems we&#x27;re in the classroom teaching our students to solve.  On the other hand there are great stories of PhD candidates starting businesses.  I think Google got its start as somebody&#x27;s dissertation.<p>When considering a PhD, the best thing to do is look at the advisor(s) you&#x27;d be working for and their repertoire of projects.  Looking at the &quot;discipline&quot; isn&#x27;t precise enough; there&#x27;s a wide range of stuff happening within fields like information systems or computer science, everything from very theoretical to very practical.