Need Advice - Should I get a PhD? 6

[Zalech13]

I'm a 34 year old mechanical engineer currently working in industry and I'm considering pursuing a PhD, but I'm unsure whether it is the right decision for me. I wanted to share my situation and see if anyone can offer some insight as to whether pursuing this path would make sense.

I have been working in industry since graduating with my BSME in 2012. I earned a Master of Science in Engineering a few years ago going part-time on my previous employer's dime. I also earned a PE license, for whatever that's worth. I really like my current employer as a company, they pay and treat me well, but I'm looking at the paths I have available to me going forward in my career and I don't like any of the options. I'm doing a lot of project management in my current role and I'm just bored by it; I feel like I have more to offer on the technical side of things. But I also know that there are less opportunities for advancement if I go technical, so I don't really like where that ends either. Where the PhD comes into it is that I really like the idea of being a University Professor, teaching and doing research. I could see myself being really happy in that type of role. So I've been looking into PhD programs and trying to decide if this is the right move or not. The good news is, with my masters under my belt, I would just need to do 5-6 classes and then work on my research/dissertation, so it wouldn't be a huge lift relatively speaking. Here are my hesitations:

1. I would need to stay in my current job full time while I'm doing my PhD part time, likely paying out of pocket since my current employer won't want to pay for a degree that really won't benefit them at all. The work we do at my company does not lend itself to PhD level research, unfortunately. I have a mortgage and a 2-year old who goes to daycare, so money is tight as it is, even with my wife and I both working.

2. Along those same lines, I get the sense that starting over as an entry-level Professor would be a big pay cut from where I am now, and I probably wouldn't recover back to where I am for at least 5-7 years, if ever.

3. I honestly have no clue what I would want to research. There isn't a particular topic that I feel super passionate about as of yet.

I'd appreciate any advice on my situation, as I feel a bit lost. Are my concerns valid? Are there other factors I'm not even considering? Am I overthinking this and I should just go for it? Any thoughts would be appreciated, especially from anyone who's been through a PhD or hit the same career wall that I have.

 

[271828]

Greg, I'm sure those guys succeed sometimes. I've just never seen it, and saw several failures.

BTW, I think the preferred term is Dr.*
LOL

 

[271828]

...funding-hungry faculty will not take a "part-time PhD student" seriously enough to invest in developing your future

I'll go a step farther. I wouldn't take on a part-time PhD student, period, at this point. My closest colleagues are the same.

Even if they're paying their own way, advising them takes a huge time investment, most likely for nothing. I haven't gotten one journal paper out of a part-time PhD student.

It all comes down to urgent vs important. Consulting tasks are urgent. Wife telling them to pick the kid up from school is urgent. Sick kid while the wife has to go to work is urgent.

Research isn't urgent. It could theoretically be done later, but there's always another urgent task coming down the pike. To have a high chance of winning, the student needs to have little, if anything else going on.

Go full time, all in, or forget it. Just my opinion, and I know there are exceptions to everything.

 

[GregLocock]

Sorry, I should have emphasised, he had all the research already, it was 2 years of all of his non working spare time to just write the thesis.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[271828]

Sorry, I should have emphasised, he had all the research already, it was 2 years of all of his non working spare time to just write the thesis.

That makes sense. I had one PhD student who left before completing everything, and gave it the finishing blow while working full time. I don't remember how long it took. Maybe 6 months. I told him to get a decent draft of each chapter to me before he left campus. He did that.

That approach has a pretty good chance of success.

 

[CWB1]

Some schools stateside have moved away from the traditional Phd thesis/dissertation/research in favor of group "reviews" of others' white papers that are essentially just another term paper - read a paper, read other literature on the subject, work with 2-4 others to write a few dozen page review over the course of the final semester. Personally, I dont care for it bc it requires less effort than undergrad capstones but given that university research is generally antiquated and kneecapped by funding and other resources, I dont object to having an alternative.