thoth's Journal: Great Advice

Many users have noted that for its flaws, Slashdot does have a great userbase that produces some excellent advice.

I was catching up on recent (ok, a day or two old) posts and came across this one: http://ask.slashdot.org/story/13/03/06/2318220/ask-slashdot-advice-for-summer-before-phd-program

There are some gems in the responses!

I'm gonna try to highlight posts like that - ones that contain really good discussion. That will exclude the OS/Politics flame wars that sometimes erupt ;) but I think if you read selectively you can learn a lot here.

As for me, I was enrolled in a PhD program once, in electrical engineering. Along the way I found that I enjoyed the CS side of things more, and before finishing my Masters in EE, I switched to CS and earned it there. By the time I finished all this, I was a bit burned out on grad school so continuing for a PhD was never the plan. Sometimes I think it would have been nice, but on the other hand, I did achieve a personal goal (Masters) and didn't really have the motivation to keep going. And I know that a PhD student in any field really needs to have a massive amount of internal motivation and drive to get that PhD.

What's also a consideration is that we, and I mean EE and CS types, are very lucky in that there are some great, interesting, well paying jobs available for all levels, including Bachelors and Masters. You don't NEED a PhD to get a pretty decent job (in the field), unlike many other areas of study.