Should you do a PhD? | PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge

This advice applies most for people looking to do a PhD in the UK in physics/ mathematics, although some of it is more general. Please watch other people's videos on this topic as well to get a broader perspective!

0:00 Intro
0:43 Do something else first
3:11 Look for the right things in a supervisor
4:18 Choose a university with a lot happening
7:09 ...maybe don't do a PhD in the US
8:36 Final words of discouragement

[indinaut]

Just to add my 2 cents as a current Ph.D. student in physics. If anyone's reading after watching the complete video and considering a Ph.D. (in any basic science field), know this, this will not be how most Ph.D.'s will go. The scenario presented here is a rather idealistic one where you get a good college/university, a vibrant city to live in, amazing peers/collaborators, and a supportive supervisor. More often than not you'll probably get only one out of the above things if you even get one of it. So, do consider the fact that most Ph.D.'s on youtube are rather amazing high-achieving people. Their perspective is of course, more often than not, a great one, since they've gotten most if not all of the above. Having said that, the mental stress and workload are the same for any Ph.D. student anywhere in the world. So, not getting a good environment with that kinda workload can be very taxing. Plus the pay isn't great and getting funding is a huge issue (U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, anywhere), and all the problems are compounded multiply for international students.

Having said all that, while most people say that you should really have a passion for the subject to pursue a Ph.D. in it, I somewhat disagree. I think it's totally fine to look at a Ph.D. as kind of a job in your selected field. Of course, the pay won't be great, but sometimes it's better than not doing anything. Ph.D.'s can be a great stepping stone for other successes. Good luck!

[DistributedPondPerspective]

As someone with one more year left of a 4-year PhD course I can't recommend enough listening to the advice here regarding looking into the team/supervisor you intend to join. This really really will be a huge factor in determining how the experience goes. Beyond this, expect much of it to be very unstructured and to get stuck doing loads of work in an area for months only to find out your efforts there were entirely in vain. Potentially very interesting job though, as long as you are okay with massive uncertainty.

[wonderfulworldofmarkets]

I dropped out of college 5 years ago because I lost faith in my ability to do well. But watching your video 'From being terrible at math to a quantum physicist - my journey' was one thing that motivated me to try again. Instead of my old liberal arts major, I went for a difficult STEM major and finished my first semester in December with a 4.0 and five A's!!! :) Thank you for everything, you and your channel are a blessing.

I am taking Data Science next semester and going to start watching all your linear algebra videos as prep!

[hamsterproductionsofficial]

Huge congratulations! I finished my physics PhD this year too, and had a pretty great experience, minus the writing up in lockdown haha :D Great video as always.

[vishwanathreddy]

I dropped out of my Ph.D.(computational physics) after publishing a paper because I realized that it's not gonna pay off. I realized that I'm gonna be unemployed so I shifted to an IT career recently. PhDs are more about publishing papers rather than exploring deep into the field of your interest. It also depends on your guide and the funding you receive. I will do the research without anyone's supervision in the topic of my interest after getting a job.

[paulashraf]

Congrats !!! :D I remember watching your videos when I was in high school, now I'm doing my last year in my computer science degree! Time flies I guess..

[paulregan]

There literally couldn't have been a better time for this video to go up because at the moment I am trying to decide whether or not to do a PhD after my Masters. Thanks for the advice.

[veryshuai]

I did a US PhD in Econ (graduated in 2014) and I am now a tenured associate prof. I work in Europe, and the PhD life at my institution is much "cushier" than my experience at a mid-rank US university. We pay our PhD's a lot more, they are often more involved in our research rather than floundering around on their own, and generally the work-life balance is much better here. On the other hand, about 75% of my US graduating class were placed in academic jobs, and a significant number of us are now either tenured or heading for tenure, some at very good universities. Less than 25% of the PhDs at my current institution are placed into academia. I sometimes think the European PhD is trading off current consumption for future consumption. The PhD life is much nicer, but the training is narrower, and there are less academic placements.

[Quarky_]

Congrats on finishing your PhD! Mine (also Physics, in Europe) went wrong after spending 4 yrs (ironically the research was okay :-/), glad yours turned out great :). Talking to other students before starting is great advice, it's not full proof, but probably gets you closest to the truth. Unfortunately that's pretty difficult to do for foreign students, who happen to be the most vulnerable.

EDIT: My follow up "essay" turned out to be more useful than I anticipated, so I'm replicating it at the top of the thread for visibility :-)
---

Let's see, I'll give it a shot, but my perspective is fairly dark, apologies for that :-p.


1. No matter how passionate you are, how good your research is going, treat your PhD as a limited term contract job. And as such, have backup plans, including for the scenario where you do not finish. To that end, try to pickup "skills" that are useful, look at your research from a different perspective of "general utility". E.g. I learned to program, so much so, despite my PhD debacle, I have been in programming centric jobs the last few yrs, with reasonable pay (I have savings, not a broke grad student any more!). Unfortunately this was not a conscious choice on my part, I would have done it somewhat differently if I were to actively cultivate this as a skill; I'm good at programming, but I don't necessarily like it, just parts of it are very exciting which makes it okay.

2. Certain research skills like, literature review, ability to do a deep dive into difficult topics, these are very useful and not very common, but employable skills. If you manage to get some experience on the side that demonstrate this, that's a great backup prep. Mithuna's advice on doing other things on the side is amazing advice. I bet if she hadn't started her YouTube channel, she wouldn't be going into Sci Com! This is also in alignment with "treat it as a job", you wouldn't want your job to take over your life, would you?

3. For your research, from the very first year, make sure _you_ are guiding your research with inputs from your supervisor, not them. You should be in control as much as possible. At the end of the day, a PhD is a very long term project, so make sure you are the project manager, and are on-board with the most critical decisions. Peripheral things like, which school to go to, which conference is interesting, who should you collaborate with, and so on, are also very important. Often you'll hear excuses like there's no money, that's all bullshit. I was told that throughout my PhD, and yet I saw other (select) students get instant go aheads. Try to find alternate sources of money, like scholarships, bursaries, side job, whatever to have some autonomy. One time I just applied for a school and notified them later, they were mad, but that was the best school I had ever been to. From their comments I'm sure they wouldn't let me go if I had asked for permission. All the other schools I went to were mandated by them, and utter drivel.

4. International students are particularly vulnerable in this setting, you should always look for supportive people in your surroundings, be it mentors, friends, other collaborators. The idea is to have a safety net, e.g. if it doesn't workout it's possible to switch supervisors, or if your supervisor isn't really supervising, you have other people you can rely on for guidance, and most importantly you are not completely reliant on your supervisor for professional success, as in, you have your own network of peers who you can work with, and in the least, finish your PhD. _Finishing your PhD is the most important goal for these few years!_ One of my collaborators was the reason I ended up at a mini conference with 2 of the Nobel laureates who were instrumental to my field (Jim Cronin, and Makoto Kobayashi, the K of CKM), never in a million years would my supervisors send me there. I also survived my PhD thanks to my friends, without them I don't know where I would be. I have looked out the grill-less window of my high rise student apartment a couple of times, that's for sure. My office mate/best friend found out institutional resources that were available to me to resolve the issues I was having (an impartial mediator/counsellor, paid by the funding agency directly, and not by my Institute/University). Unfortunately that also didn't work out, because the final implementation was in the hands of my supervisors, and I wasn't mature enough to follow-up on their promises with tenacity.

5. International students should also be very watchful of racism and other forms of discrimination (religion, language, your developing nation background, etc), same goes for women, even if you are a local. I have seen it too many times. My friend (she) and I (he) used to have a game, in any group activity how many times do I get credited for something that she did. I have faced racism from colleagues (both mild ignorable to pretty intense harassment), institutional racism (some of it was obvious, some of it I realised much later), and just racism on the street or from neighbours. Make sure your friends understand some part of this, otherwise it is very very lonely, and frustrating, and it grinds on you.

6. Save some money. If you are an international student, this is particularly important. You do not have the same resources as the locals, particularly if you are like me, coming from the developing world (I'm from India). That small financial cushion will buy you time so that you can find the right opportunities if it doesn't turn out the way you had hoped. This is a bit ironic given such paltry pay, but a little bit here, a little bit there, makes for a big difference. I wish I had invested a small amount as SIP, I would be in a far better financial situation today (not that it's bad, but if I look at my non-PhD peers, could have been better).

7. I don't think I have anything else to add, other than no one is on "your side", most people you'll encounter in a staff-like position, they don't really care about you. They have seen many students come and go, so will you, regardless of your success or failure. They are not good or bad, they just have no skin in the game, i.e. your PhD. That's how academia is structured, so you have to look out for yourself, be self-reflective (about both personal and professional matters), make great friends (including among work colleagues, but not limited to them), be decisive (e.g. if you think it's going nowhere, don't be afraid to quit, see: sunk cost fallacy), and always, I repeat, always have backup plans, several!

I hope it wasn't too dark :-p.

[KyleKabasares_PhD]

Congratulations on finishing your PhD and going into science communication! I'm currently doing a Physics PhD in the US (as a US citizen), and I'm always surprised to hear how fast PhDs seem in the UK even with a 1-2 year Masters as a requirement (which is not the case in the US). A lot of the advice you gave in terms of the quality of both the PhD advisor and the research group is also very applicable to the US system, and helps with avoiding those groups and advisors that overwork their grad students. I think I honestly just got lucky and randomly walked into the right advisor/group because I didn't do a lot of the recommended steps you suggested (i.e. went straight from undergrad to grad school, didn't have a sense of what kind of research I really wanted to do, etc.), but I'm so thankful it worked out, though I would never recommend my path to others and would much rather recommend your video!

I'm still set on the academic path for now, but I think grad students should go into the job market with realistic expectations and to have alternative career options in mind besides the ivory tower. There are really many interesting jobs outside of academia and I think channels like yours help dispel the myth that PhDs are ONLY meant to become academics. Congrats again on finishing yours! :)

[pranavagarwal]

Congratulations on completing the PhD.

This video made my day. I wasn't sure and depressed if I was making the right decision to pursue my postgraduate education from the UK as everyone here in India favours the US system. But I believe time plays a very important factor and every student should take this into account before blindly moving to the states.

[DrRusty]

While doing my undergraduate degree, I just (wrongly) thought a Ph.D. was solely for an academic career (well certainly within Sciences). However, whilst out doing an industrial placement I met people with PhDs (who gave me some interesting advice as to how they see a Ph.D. in the industry) but I had my sights set on possibly doing an MSc and never thought I was ever going to be in the running for a PhD. At the end of my degree the MSc was not going to work out and (by chance, not the intention) I was offered the opportunity to do a Ph.D. (effectively starting an MSc but transferring after a year). The words of those I had met in the industry were ringing clear in my head. There is little doubt it was not easy and I almost didn't make it. But in the end, I got a Ph.D. I will always tell people to go into a Ph.D. with eyes wide open - three/four years is not that long in the scheme of things and if the research isn't working out it can be very demoralising. Too late, I found a book "How to Get a Ph.D." I could see the mistakes I had made at the start. My other advice is from day one choose and use a Bibliographic Database for references, it will pay off, when writing up. One last crucial piece of advice when writing up, always save the new version (never just overwrite the working version) as a new file (eg dated) then keep the old versions backed up in multiple locations. In the end, if something goes wrong you will only lose a day or two of work, you can also recover any deleted sections.

[iteerrex]

My favorite professor always said: Everyone should at least get an undergrad in physics, then go on to what ever they want to study. It intellectually develops you in so many ways including maths, and everything else becomes a piece of cake. I agree with him completely, but not everyone would wana do that. As far as a PhD in physics goes, you gotta love it, and do it for the love of it I would say.
Again congrats on your PhD.

[stephenbradshaw]

I have a great deal of experience in both the UK and US systems. My Ph.D. is from the UK (same university/department as the owner of this channel, as it happens) and I am a tenured full professor at one of the top-ranked US universities. The major reason for the extended duration of a US Ph.D. is that graduate students spend their first couple of years taking graduate classes in their chosen subject area, which typically cover material that is part of the undergraduate degree elsewhere (e.g. UK and Europe), and working as teaching assistants, which severely reduces time available for research. Undergraduate degrees in the US have a "major" focus, where students learn the core material of their subject (e.g. physics, mathematics, computer science, etc.), but they also have to take courses in subjects not directly related to their major to earn sufficient "credits" to graduate. E.g. if 120 credits are required to graduate then roughly half to three quarters might be in the "major" (it varies between majors) and the remainder in other subjects. I suppose the idea is to produce broadly knowledgeable and well-rounded citizens to engage with society. Undergraduate degrees in the UK (and Europe, I presume) focus exclusively on relevant material, such that more can be covered to greater depth during the 3 or 4 year degree, which obviates the need for graduate classes. I should make it clear that one undergraduate system is not inherently better than the other; each has its advantages and disadvantages, and suit different people differently. Once Ph.D. students in the US are able to focus exclusively on research, after successfully completing classes, passing qualifying examinations, and satisfying teaching obligations then they typically finish in another 3 or 4 years, a duration not dissimilar to their counterparts elsewhere.

[louislesch]

That was a great video. I got my masters a decade and a half ago and although it was hard work, it was a great experience. I would have continued on and some of my professors were a little disappointed that I didn't, but exiting at 27, I just wanted to get on with life, you know. The one main thing that I remember though is finally being able to read and digest papers from my field. At that point, you can then join a much larger community all working at the frontier of human knowledge. It is that feeling of discovery that can make it all worth it. And that feeling is something you remember for a lifetime.

[daniellassander]

That is awesome, im not working on a PHD nor will i probably ever, its awesome that you found out what you are burning for and have a clearer path forward. Thank you for the video!

[josev]

I feel glad to hear this advice while still being an undergrad, congrats, and wish you the best

[salmanshafiek]

I'm currently almost a full semester into my chemical engineering PhD. I was in that situation right after completing my bachelor's degree where I had no idea what I wanted to do or what I even enjoyed doing so when one of the lecturers I was close to offered to be my supervisor for my PhD, I just went with it.

I still don't know what I wanna do in the future, but I think I got lucky getting a supervisor I work really well with and is in a field I find incredibly interesting. I genuinely believe that these past couple months have been way more enjoyable than my 4 years in my bachelor's degree and I hope it stays that way :D

[chamelious]

Would love to see a/some videos taking us through your PhD in detail.

[quahntasy]

*Congratulations on completion. I just started my PhD. Hopefully this turns out to be a good choice*