> To complete a PhD, you really have to have to want a research career.
(disclosure: loved my Ph.D., was a professor, now doing a startup)
This is almost true, and I don't mean to quibble, but the slight inaccuracy is an important one: to complete a PhD you have to want to complete a body of research-quality work that is recognized by experts in your field as a meaningful advance over the current state of the art.
Everyone I know who did the Ph.D. wanting to have completed something (improve file systems, discover a new alloy hardening process, etc.) had a great time and reports it as among the best years of their life. But there are lots of people who just see it as the next credential to get, and for them the lack of intrinsic motivation to complete specific independent work can make the process quite depressing and disorienting.
It's an interesting environment because you have a lot of the initiative/innovation challenges faced as an entrepreneur, but that part isn't evident to everyone. It is absolutely not like a job where you will be given responsibilities and expected to fulfill them.
(disclosure: loved my Ph.D., was a professor, now doing a startup)
This is almost true, and I don't mean to quibble, but the slight inaccuracy is an important one: to complete a PhD you have to want to complete a body of research-quality work that is recognized by experts in your field as a meaningful advance over the current state of the art.
Everyone I know who did the Ph.D. wanting to have completed something (improve file systems, discover a new alloy hardening process, etc.) had a great time and reports it as among the best years of their life. But there are lots of people who just see it as the next credential to get, and for them the lack of intrinsic motivation to complete specific independent work can make the process quite depressing and disorienting.
It's an interesting environment because you have a lot of the initiative/innovation challenges faced as an entrepreneur, but that part isn't evident to everyone. It is absolutely not like a job where you will be given responsibilities and expected to fulfill them.