I discounted the remainder of the piece after reading this:

  Personal freedom. As a PhD student you’re your own boss. Want to sleep in today? Sure. Want to skip a day and go on a vacation? Sure. All that matters is your final output and no one will force you to clock in from 9am to 5pm. Of course, some advisers might be more or less flexible about it. . .

For some programs, this is untrue. Your advisor, your experiments, or your conference deadlines govern your schedule.

▲ bonoboTP 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

He is obviously talking about computer science. Yes, I know in biology or medicine you can often only access the experimental devices during set hours and the lab may not be accessible 24/7 etc. But in computer science the schedule is mostly free, except for meetings and teaching duties but those are specific time slots not a regular clock-in clock-out job like a cashier or bus driver.

▲ coffee_coffee 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In my part of the world (central Europe), the vast majority of PhD-students is actually employed by the university they aim to obtain the PhD from. So in addition to working on your thesis you most likely have to support other research projects as well as do a lot of teaching. The model of a free PhD student certainly exists, but it is rare.

	▲	whiplash451 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It's pretty common in ivy-leave US universities (which is what the article is biased towards). There, you only have to TA a bit and you certainly don't work for the uni or the dept.