&gt;  if there are more opportunities and better pay?<p>Frequently there aren&#x27;t. The subject of this article is an artist, so cue your STEM lord &quot;do you want fries with that&quot; jokes now.<p>However, this can occur even in fields like math and computer science. You graduate with a PhD in math and a specialization in topology. Who will hire you to do that? No-one. Plenty of people will hire you to do something you can do, but what if you really want to continue research in your specialty?<p>I&#x27;m working on a PhD in CS with a specialization in programming languages. Google came to do a PhD recruitment day and essentially asked &quot;so what kind of PhD are you getting, machine learning or systems?&quot; and we said &quot;programming languages&quot; and the reply was &quot;wow what is that?&quot;<p>So if you want to work in your own specialty, you might need to work in academia.