Taking a longer time to graduate to become the “world expert” in their field is fine if grad students weren’t paid next to nothing for the 60+ hours a week that they are expected to work. As it is now it’s better to finish as quickly as possible so they can have a real life.

I agree that completing a PhD under the time originally agreed may not be good, as you lose some of the learning opportunities that come with the apprenticeship (yes, it is) program.

However, taking more time than the standard length, whatever it is depending on the university or country where you are pursuing the title, is also something universities and specially PIs should be actively avoiding.

Maybe I have this view because I got mine in NL, where a PhD is a job with a defined length (4 years) and if you go over it, you don't get paid. So yes, it is an apprenticeship, but you should not be doing work for free in any case. Becoming an expert and the (relative) independence on how to do your research are of course selling points of the PhD, but a job is a job.

>but it's not really good for your career

Can you define that with more specificity? I find that academics have a major blind spot where good career means "the path I took" to the exclusion of all other paths.

>Speaking as someone who has graduated over a dozen PhD students in computer science

And your CV says another 6 dropped out. What was good for their careers?

In France STEM PhD are expected to last 3 year and the funding is sized like that. It is also considered as a job. It is only done if salary is funded in most cases.

Often it spill over a bit and I guess France travail (French job agency managing insurance for people losing their job) should often be cited /thanked in Phd student thesis for funding the final steps of their manuscript.

There are limited internship culture during the phd itself Afaik.

However phd is never started at Bachelor level, only after Msc that last two years and requires an internship or research projet.

I heard a person saying a bit like you that it is not enough to grow a Real expert though compared to US phd. But Oftentimes postdoc always follow for Longer and longer

Are those PhDs being paid with a decent salary? If not, I can’t agree with your statement. PS. I did my PhD in an EU country where it’s treated as another researcher job with salary and benefits

A very US-centric perspective. Whereas the folks in Europe do it in 3-4 years, come to the US and do a 2-3 year postdoc (with higher pay than a PhD student), and are ahead of their American peers.

Also, depending on where you do it in Europe, the pay as a PhD student is higher. At the extreme end, I knew students getting paid $60K/year in one country, while I was getting $24K/year in the US.

I agree with all those things, but we should be starting that training in middle school. Deconstructing arguments, making reports, giving presentations, solving open ended questions. Many of these things involve a modest amount of critical thinking, prediction and self-reflection.

It’s also a set of credentials, which might be immediately useful for one reason or other. All those other things you can do outside of a program, especially if you’ve already got the network or career trajectory to support it.

I am one of those guys. I left for a big tech job even though doing research to push the boundaries of human knowledge was my dream. I know, a cliche, but I was a 20 something year old at the time.

The straw that broke the camel back was being treated like shit by my avisor for the nth time. I still remember it. He was like let's meet tomorrow at 8.30. I woke up at 6.30 to be there in time. He shows up at 10.37. Mind you, this happened like a 10s times over the 2 years I was doing my doctorate. And that was just one of the things he would do to undermine you and have the feeling he hold you by the balls. And he sort of did. Not being able to do anything because of potential repercussions was dreadful.

Anyway, after that day I decided it was enough. I slashed his car tires in the evening, still showed up for a couple of weeks to avoid suspicions, and only then formally quit.

R. F. Kuang’s Katabasis was a fun look at the hell that is graduate school told through a fantasy lens. That paired with the McSweeney’s snake fight article should be essential reading for all would-be grad students.

Which is why you should shop for the advisor and then tailor yourself to the labs you want to apply to. Interview current and former students. Go to conferences where that lab is presenting papers, etc. Have some solid blue collar academic skills like cleaning data, doing instrumentation, hell even making bad ass slide decks will get you noticed. Getting a PhD is similar to landing the job you want. Also showing up with a problem you want to solve that aligns with the lab AND the skills to pull it off, boom!

During undergrad a bunch of us got good enough at electronics and the machine shop that we had grad students asking US for help. We didn't realize it at the time, but just the instrumentation work could have landed us many a phd program, we were just having fun.

Not much to expose. Go to any top department in the US, and there will be a handful of them. It's not exactly a secret.

People like what? Bosses whose methods you disagree with?