Hey guys, I want to try an experiment - a couple of people in the comments have raised the (very good) point that the people I interviewed in this video were mostly doing their PhD at Cambridge. Not exactly representative of all the different PhD experiences people might be having at different places! So I was thinking to make a similar video, but this time telling the story of a much wider group of PhD students from all across the world. 🗺 If you're interested in participating, feel free to fill out this google form here: 👉 forms.gle/y2cn8imVyWcZW2o49 😃 Don't know if this will work, but would be pretty cool if the internet managed to pull it off, and we share the stories from people around the world!
As a PhD student + an international student where I am studying, it can be hard sometimes, especially when my one goal is to work and live here after my thesis. Sometimes it feels overwhelming but I tell myself that I am on the right path. For anyone reading who is in a similar situation as me, I wish us the best of luck and I hope you can also take care of yourself.
My own boss told me “Eight hours must be enough. If you can’t manage to achieve something in 8 hours, you are doing something wrong” and I agree with him.
The PhD students in the Netherlands don't work those long hours, and they publish too, with great results. Example: WiFi was invented here (no Australia, you did NOT invent it, you simply hold the patent, big difference!).
@@annekekramer3835 excuse me but counting countries as here and there is less than ideal. nations are like living beings, but they are also fluid. the inventions inventor matter less than the system that brought them up. that being said, i would kill to live there 😂
@@annekekramer3835 yeah this reallt does not track woth reality, I study physics in Groningen and my lab TA had to have meetings with us once a week ( he was right at the end of his Bsc) about our lab idea. This man would vode his thesis while talking to us and when asked why is he doing this he said I do not have time to sleep otherwise. 3 years later I met him at the end of his masters and when asked about the workload he said it is pretty much the same. So yeah we may get good results, but the workload is insane.
These lovely PhD students have a very different experience than I do in my PhD work. My work is mainly online and alone. I must extend myself to socialize and interact with others in the same situation. I would love the Cambridge experience, but I am also quite excited to continue my PhD journey. Best wishes to everyone embarking on this journey!
4-16 hours on my doctoral work, depending on how long I work at my full time employer. Working full time and pursuing a doctorate level degree can be incredibly intense. My weekends are typically full of research and feeding.
@@HE-KevinH.idk how you do it. How do you deal with the stress? I get so stressed sometimes I can’t think well. And I’m only finishing my sophomore year. How do you keep morale up, and not procrastinate? And not just not procrastinate but actually focus hard on the task at hand for extended periods of time? I would LOVE a response. Thank you and good luck!
Each day 8 hours of honest hard work including study, 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of family, friends, health and wellbeing meaning 8+8+8=24 hours! Perfect!
I'm working full time in automotive engineering while doing my PhD. It's the loneliest road I've ever walked. I have no idea what these people mean by "social life".
I don’t know if you believe in God or not, but I will say this: our lives on this earth are so short and rather than taking the route that says do everything you wanna do because life is short, I would say develop a relationship with God or at least seek the answers to whether or not there is life after death so you can know that God is good and he does love you. Just remember, these accomplishments, however awesome they may be, don’t define you. You are already a marvel as creation being a human being, living on a planet that was literally designed perfectly for your species.
I think this video is really biased. As a former Cambridge graduate and now a PhD student in the US, the experince in Cambridge is, hands down, really unique compared to what I am experincing right now. My hours are long. Experiment are difficult. Plus, 70% of my work is not even research! Its grading and teaching. Hence, the statistical significant of this video for the experience of all PhD students is really not representative. I would recommend the youtuber to interview more PhD students from outside of Cambridge
I've always noticed how quickly people in the UK can finish doctorates compared to the US (especially in humanities degrees). You don't even really specialize in the US until grad school, and when you are in grad school, you are bogged down with teaching and grading, so doing intensive research on a sustained basis is difficult. I haven't had firsthand experience in the UK university system, but it appears that you can "read" a subject in undergrad and start to specialize (the first year in the US is mostly taking all the required courses in subjects you did in high school, barely beginnig to specialize by your fourth year). In the UK, it appears that you can then do a one-year master's and leverage your specialized research into a three-year doctorate. It seems a lot more efficient, but I guess you get a more well-rounded experience in the US overall.
@@maryamk3977 I mean for me it’s been just constant unrelenting stress! I feel like I’m under immense pressure to perform 100% of the time. Additionally, unless your family also went to college, you kind of lose touch with them as you begin to realize their limited thinking capacities. I’m very alone struggling to perform experiments that repeatedly fail, all while subjected to the nasty and cruel environment that is academia. Not very conducive of failure. I’m overworked, underpaid, and more depressed than I’ve ever been. This is just my experience, but I would checkout r/PhD and r/labrats to get a taste of our daily frustrations. Some people love their PhD. Anything STEM has a greater chance of driving you mad
So. This is my short story. I completed my PhD in Switzerland in April 2019 and I`m still unemployed. I applied for more than 2100 positions in academia, NGOs, private sector, institutions, adminsitration without any sucess or even in-person interview. I have four degrees and I`m fluent in four languages, a lot of certificates and connections and I`m still unemployed. I have enough resources to have pleasent life but I`m a little bit suprised that I can`t find any normal and adequate work.
@@sofianatasha7889 I don't generally recommend starting a business if you've never worked a full time job. You can be incredibly smart and good at your subject matter, but that doesn't mean you'll like or be good at product development, marketing, business and finances, etc.
After my MBA, I did a lot of vocational training followed by a whole bunch of certifications like the PMP, RMP, ACP and about 25 others, all while working full time. I switched majors multiple times so that I had 270 semester hours by the time I finished it. That gave me a Plan B, C, all the way through Z. It was one of my last certs that got me my last job.
Depends on the PhD - I'm enrolled full-time in an in-person program at a school of medicine, but also work a full-time job in hospital management (WFH). We're all on a different pathway but ready to become researchers!
Meh. Just more cool, attractive people describing their casually perfect lives. More social media torture for the 99.99% who think these existences are normal or even real.
I haven't watched the whole video, but the segments I saw reminded me of my overseas PhD days in the US. I can't begin to thank my friends enough for everything. The only thing I regret was not visiting Latin America beyond that one trip to Mexico.
@shannont8169 As morning person and PhD candidate I start 5am and leave at 5pm. There are like 3 of us in the department the others are more night people lol.
Excellent video! I could really relate to many points, even though for sure this is not a representative sample. Sometimes you simply wonder how people have courage to continue. Everyone has a unique experience, but for me it is totally worth it.
As PI/professor in a PhD program I would like to hear the same questions asked to people in my position. Also, for those considering it: If you have good self discipline, can deal with stress, and work hard you do great on a PhD. It's not about how smart you are. Being really smart helps a little, but isn't required. It's kind of like military boot camp. You aren't going to get kicked out, but you are definitely going to want to quit 100 or more times.
I worked a lot of hours as a graduate student, thinking that it would eventually bring me to the point that I could be in a management position and relax a bit. Instead, as a professor (in the US) I’m basically working every waking moment of every day, especially if you count sitting at home writing proposals at 6 am on a Sunday morning. However, the difference in enjoyment is huge. As a graduate student, the work didn’t really feel like mine, because I knew I’d be moving on in a few years and wouldn’t be taking the work product with me. Instead I just wanted papers so I could get ahead. In contrast, as a PI, I care deeply about the work product because it’s actually going to stick with me for the rest of my life.
I'm just about to start my PhD and the content of this video was really good and relatable, so yeah, kudos and I hope you make more content like this soon! I just subscribed to your channel as well! :)
For the first time I am seeing some positive responses for PhD. Otherwise nowadays everyone is busying to portray PhD as end of life and it's one of the worst decisions you take in your life.
When they say they work 12-20 hours. Just know that they mean most times, the number of hours they had to stay in the school environment not necessarily the time of productive work.
For a solid minute I could not help but think that they are actors. 😂 They look too jolly being PhD scholars. Now I want to go and do my PhD from the same place.😮
I did my PhD second time, but I only hold one PhD diploma. Even though I could able to get my first PhD, I prefered to quit from the program with just a MSc degree. In my 2nd PhD, I was working 80 hours per week with almost all the weekends and vacations since the university was demanding from PhD students 3 papers and finish the selective and compulsary courses within 3 years. In my field, it is not easy to publish three papers in a short time, even one is so difficult within three years. Thus, I had to work quite hard to complete my PhD on time. Otherwise, as an international student, I would end up with financial and practical problems like residance permit, if it was extended. PhD is not easy, especially if you are an international student in a foreign country.
im currently only in year 12 but it looks like i have a decent shot at getting into cambridge or imperial and hope to one day go onto doing a PhD for nuclear engineering, so its nice to see that everyone seems happy at that point in their lives. However i would love to see you speak to people who dont currently attend so that you can find out if their opinion changed now its done.
I thought the scholars would curse like anything and I'll achieve catharsis. However, this video has profoundly demotivated me and cultivated heightened doubts about my PhD.
I too tend to set myself goals for which I lack either talent or other prerequisites. The pursuit of such goals can be a frustrating grind. Luckily, my PhD thesis was not one of them but instead was a lot of fun. Edit: no, I'm not a medical doctor, I actually did legitimate research ^^
Great video editing! I’d be curious to see what these students had to say in a few years about how they’re using their PhD and how it helped them transition further into academia or into the industry of their choosing.
My PhD in the US during the pandemic surly was very different from what these folk experienced. My colleagues and I had to rotate day and night shift for the sake of social distancing. Plus I had to work alone in a small lab in the basement the whole time, often around 60 hours a week. There was no social life on campus for more than two years. I had a good advisor who gave me good research advice and funding. BUT I would never ever do it again.
Now i realized it is depending where actually you doinh your phd. If you dont have a support group and facilities needed and expertise help, phd will be very very hard.
Wonderful movie! The only problem is that, your guests will not openly talk about the dark sides of academia to the camera, so this movie might be unbalanced and overoptimistic.
It's not "work" when you are having fun! If you are not having fun doing a PhD, just quit! Seriously, a phd means nothing in the industry and it's a heck of a lot of "work" if you are not having fun. But if you are having fun, you will even "work" on it during your sleep and can't wait to wake up to continue! :D
PhD is not that hard. They work fairly normal hours. Medical degree (MD/DO) is way harder and way more rigorous/intense. Putting in 120+ hours per week with 0-4 hours sleep days / all nighters isn’t uncommon at all. I’ve done both so can attest to it.
Hi Alexander - a great video! If you are ever thinking of interviewing Australian PhDs I would be very interested! I am a 3rd year in intervention-based research ☺
I earned my PhD and luckily my field isn’t science (biology, chemistry, physics, and all their children), because they work a lot more than the rest of us.
@@JassyWassySquared I’m sure you’re doing the best you can. That means something, and it’s significant. Keep moving forward! Remember: you stand on the shoulders of those who came before you, whether it’s your ancestors or previous PhDs.
Too many people getting PhDs in this day and age. It should be acquired for the right reasons, which is normally to gain deep knowledge in a particular field.
Hi, I don't know if you activated this or if it's RU-vid's doing. Anyway, the fact that I'm getting the title and subtitles automatically translated into German is extremly annoying by itself and even worse because the German translation of the title is nonsensical. If you translate it back to English, the title says "20 phd-students reveal, how a PhD Title is REALLY like" ("20 Doktoranden verraten, wie ein Doktortitel WIRKLICH ist"). I'm pretty sure, that this isn't some sort of absurdist video that interviews humans on how it is like to BE a PHD-TITLE. Anyway, this is annoying and unprofesional and I hope the allseeing algorithm sees my rage and learns that automatic translations are awful. Give me the option to make them go away. Please.
I thought this was a joke video saying the opposite of what a phd is. Haha, if this is meant to he legit its insanely biased and untrue. Go interview the same people in 10 years after they've finished and aren't being paid by the same institutions, and see what they say then ;)
can you create a vedio on 4th dimension conscious singularity world there we come from i mean soul there is no time no space no matter somthing build with nothingness element less element end of the zooming point its the baseless base of the universe beyound the creation action and reaction and out of reach of mind origin of the gravity
This habit of working longer hours does not lead to more productivity. 40 hours a week without wasting time is enough. Those who stay for long hours at office are often gossiping, loitering or going for coffee and snacks during the day
@@JJ-fb2lp I've looked into doing one after a masters degree and on a universities website it says it takes 3-4 years to complete. Where are you getting 8 years from? Is a professor a teacher? What else can a professor do?
Calling a PhD the most advanced degree sounds ignorant. What about a доктора наук? My Russian “bachelor’s degree” is treated as a Master’s degree all around the world. Furthermore, I’m supposed to have a dissertation completed to finish a Master’s degree in computer science.
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