Re:need the membership card (Score 2, Insightful)

You got it, goldsmith.

I've already done a Master's while working full-time (in order to be a competitive applicant for a Ph.D. program) and I will be going to a full-time, graduate-assistant-type Ph.D. program in about a month.

I'm going for the doctorate for three very important reasons:

1. I decided I want to spend my life working as a psychologist. That requires a doctorate in every jurisdiction in the States. There is a "professional degree" called the Psy.D. nowadays, but your options for work are limited to practice, or, if you are very lucky, sometimes teaching. The Ph.D. allows you to get hired to research, teach, OR practice. This leaves my future options fairly wide open.

2. I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing what other people tell me to do. In 2002, I had an epiphany. I was literally fetching coffee, for a research meeting on a laser device project (I work in a major engineering school), and I realized I was getting coffee for people who were no smarter than me --- only possessed of skills I don't have and don't want.

3. I want the experience of graduate school, more or less as goldsmith has outlined. Or, as a psychologist I know from a mailing list said, I want to (and if you are gonna be a grad student, you HAVE to) "learn to love the smell of the wax".

I am personally very much looking forward to my Ph.D. program -- seems to be full of very nice people doing very interesting and worthwhile work.

Love this thread BTW. Can't recall the last time I commented on a Slashdot thread.