Was My PhD Worth It? Reflecting 3 Years After Graduation 

I will be getting my Ph.D in watching RU-vid videos soon...

So well said! PhD is almost never "worth it" in every single aspect. And it doesn't matter all that much what you learned during your PhD but rather, what you do with it.

I'm just going into my third year of my Ph.D. It's a self-funded Ph.D. and a labour of pure love, so it's just about personal happiness, and it's worth it!

I am (as is another commentator) going into my third year of self-funded Ph.D. studies. I'm almost done with my courses and will soon be taking my comprehensive exam and then getting this dissertation done. The only reason it is worth it to me (regardless of what happens after I complete it) is that I feel that my life wouldn't be complete with out it. i want to learn the most I can about a subject and get the degree that says I did it. I want the title. I know that sounds like a stupid reason to spend sooo much money and study sooooo much (oh goodness soo much studying) but for me it motivates me to put down the video games, stay home from social events and WORK.

Last year I remember asking you for Ph.D. application interview tips. This week I heard positive news. It is exciting. At the same time, I am feeling nervous wondering if I am ready. You have been an inspiration. Thank you for the video.

Thank you Dr. Amina for this great feedback. It is also great to hear that universities are putting in effort to have such a really lecturers position which are lacking. Hopefully, universities will also figure out a better stable system for all these great minds they are thriving to form!

I kind of started my PhD already knowing I won't be an academic one day that has her own lab. But I still enjoy doing research and could imagine myself doing cool experiments for max 5 more years. I saw PhD also as an opportunity to build additional soft skills, as you've mentioned, and I would like to end up in a "random" career that involves either teaching or mentoring, coaching in academia, because my favourite part of studying has always been interacting and helping other students. But let's see. It's far ahead :)

You'd be a wonderful teacher, lecturer. I feel like you do that here, in so many ways. Thank you for sharing these parts of your journey over the years. Wonderful video.

I think it is amazing that you as an actual teacher are engaging in the education policies! This way you can really have an impact on many many students. Since you have mentioned your teaching job many times on this channel and since you seem to be really passionate about it I would love it if you made a (some) video(s) about teaching as a profession (to maybe share some tips, talk about your experience, explain what it means to be a good teacher according to your experience and research). Thank you!

Amina your education journey sounds so exciting, pleased to see all the fruits of your labor

I have my PhD. I'd argue that expanding your mind is always worth it. Focusing on the destination is a dangerous way of framing one's happiness.

as a phd student who struggled with a lot of doubt around academia and my focus and passion around education (policy :)) this was so valuable for me - thank you so very much!

As someone who is only doing honours, this is an eye opener for me. It gives me hope that I don't necessarily have to do further study to get my dream job. So thankful I've found your channel. Your videos are always on point 👌

Thank you for your insightful perspective. I am in the 2nd year of my PhD and its amazing to see how I have transitioned from aspiring for academia positions post PhD to learning about so many other careers for PhD graduates in industry. As to whether it is worth it, for me it is, because upon completion it will help be get an automatic 3year visa to continue staying in the UK and looking for work.

HI My sister! There is no value puts on obtaining education! what you obtained in the program is priceless !

Just keep doing this great job of letting people learn much about Phd life and to do lists and possible avenues to look up to. Thank You for the very honest presentation You deliver. Already subscribed to Your Channel.

That was your best decision and choice at the time you made that decision. But it lead you to a different path. Your experiences shape you to make "better" decision moving forward. There will always be a "what if" with whatever decision we make. So I personally believe you made the right choice given the information and knowledge had at that time.

Dear Dr. Amira thank you for making awesome videos. They help me a lot to prepare my PhD interview. With your guide I finally become a PhD candidate in Germany. Again, thank you.

I've only done my MSc but I can relate since I also work in academia where I teach high school students. I'm not gonna lie trying to get back to the field as an engineer and only fitting the "entry-level" requirements makes me worry and feel as if I wasted my time teaching. yet I remember that teaching allowed me to get my degree and the deep connections that I made with my students who occasionally come back and talk to me about their university choices that were inspired by me is heartwarming. The personal skills I had to learn to become a teacher, dealing with stress, and many different types of teenage students surely shaped my personality and I am so gratefull. It's not always about the subject related or technical skills, there is much more to it and God put you there for a reason.

Watching you for the first time and I could listen to you all day. Beauty and brains.

Hi Dr Amina. Just came across your channel and was immediately hooked. I am sure you are providing real value and inspiring others and impacting lives. Keep up the great work.

Excellent Dr. Amina , keep ongoing for the best and thanks for sharing

This is such an insightful video - thank you Dr Amina!

I appreciate your honesty. I've forwarded this link to my nephews who are struggling with the pros and cons of higher education.

Great content. You've touched really good points in the video. I relate a lot, thanks for that!

To add value to oneself is paramount and worth the while. Thank you for this and do more please.

My parents have always wanted me to study medicine. But I opted to follow a research career just because I truly enjoyed my first ever lab experience. I just finished my MSc recently and will begin my PhD this October. To be honest, sometimes I wonder if choosing medicine would have been the best option for me, but at the time, I just could not see myself being stuck studying my ass off. I wanted to do something more exciting, which research provided. In the future, I want to start my own biotech company, and I hope that my PhD would provide the training for this goal :)

Thank you so much Amina. This was really insightful and given me a lot to think about 💙

Thanks for this Amina, it was really helpful. God bless x

Thank you for your input and congratulations on your academic achievements!!! I’m working on my Ph.D as well; however, in my case, I was high school chemistry teacher and my Ph.D is in finance and I am optimistic about the doors I can open with that.

Thank you for promoting the idea of teaching with a PhD. Here in USA there are “teaching professors” where lectures are primary responsibility. Research is also expected but if you aren’t really into teaching then it’d be a bad gig. But if you are lecture oriented, it is great.

Mash'Allah, proud of you Amina

I'm currently doing my Honours degree and hoping to do my Masters next year. The only thing I am scared of is research, even now I am freaking out and don't even know why...But I will go for it t and face my fears, thank you very much Amina! Edit: I submitted my Masters dissertation for examination. Now, I'm waiting for the results and comments from the examiners. I also started a corporate job in the same field as my qualification. I'm planning to pursue a PhD (part time) hopefully from next year.

Entering my 3rd year, after having worked in tech with an MA. I think, even though it has had trying times, I am finally loving the process now exams are over. I love the pace - not moving fast and breaking more things but more mindfulness. Love this, thank you.

I really appreciate what you've shared. I think about going for a phD just as a means to gain skills however, I think to myself are there ways I could gain those skills without having to do a PhD. I'm not in the UK nor a UK citizen and so studying in the UK is a huge opportunity for quality education. Thank you

hope your dreams come true!

Thanks Amina. As an undergraduate student pondering if I should move into an Honours in Science or a Masters in Teaching this has been really interesting and insightful. I'm not really close enough with anybody that has gone into the field or dipped their toes into the field of academia, hearing about the work-life balance and developments in the field have been really informative.

I'm early years practitioner and getting by doctorate in education is something I'm looking into it. I precipitate your honest reflection.

First-year Ph.D. student and blessed by your videos. Blessings, Stephen Moethapo

Thanks for this Amina.

Thanks for the video 🎥💫✅

Very well said!!! I think that it should be the mindset (e.g. look at the skills obtained) for most getting a degree no matter if it's an advance degree, such as a masters or PhD for a bachelors degree,. For instance, I studied microbiology in undergrad but helped to do other things in life, such as regulatory/public health.

Don't ever second guess your efforts and sacrifices. All experiences will lead to who we will be in the end.

Can you do a video talking about the PGCE that you did after you got your PhD as I heard the process is different? Thank you

Elo I just started my PhD and I also purchased the system review document. This video was helpful. I am very passionate about lecturing. Already I can see that the PhD open other doors apart from lecturing, and skills learnt in my MPH has been assisting me in so many other ways. Thanks for the info. It was good to know that you are the one behind the Page Dr. because they sent me some emails and I’m like I want to hear from the author not you. So now I know I will respond to the emails. Cheers

Thank you for your POV, and why I still want to get my PhD.

proud and meaningful of their work,how many people can say that about themselves...at the same time what if you give up on whats ethical to save time.

If I could give any advice to a younger individual pursuing a PhD in the Humanities or a field where they might be an instructor is that they do enjoy teaching and interacting with students. I returned to college to finish a Bachelor's late in life and even later went to Grad school and completed a Master's and a PhD. Before then, I had worked with young "at-risk" students in a K-12 setting for many years in a support staff role and raised two sons mainly on my own. So, I had plenty of experience with young people and I had my own experience as a an older student who was also the only or one of a few African-Americans in my Grad program to draw on when developing my courses. I also had teaching Assistantship/Fellowships at each institution where I was earning my Graduate degrees. The positions were helpful in allowing me to work with many types of students with varying degrees of accomplishment. I purposely chose to pursue a position in a Community College setting rather than a 4-year institution because I am past the age of the being very ambitious and did not want to live anywhere else. And, I wanted to teach, rather than research because I didn't want to feel the pressure of representing BF in spaces that were often mostly White, like conferences or even within the institutions themselves. However, I think some of my younger colleagues found after they were in the program that they did not really enjoy teaching. Some may have been too close in age to those they were trying to instruct and others just didn't care for it. And, some have been successful in finding positions outside of academia. I was able to find a position before I finished my PhD, because I took an Adjunct position in Fort Worth which I commuted to twice weekly while I was teaching at UNT and studying for my Comps. A year and a half later a full-time position opened and I was hired for it and gave up my Fellowship. By this time I was working on my dissertation. It slowed the process down a little, but I still finished my diss two years later, and defended in the Fall of my 6th year. I now teach at another Community College where faculty load is 5 courses each semester, but I teach between 7 and 9. This semester I am teaching 9 courses. Four are 12-week in person courses, and one is an 8 week online course. When it ends in October, the other four 8 week courses begin and I will have them as load along with the 4. So, in other words, you must be flexible. For example, I front-load my classes which is helpful when teaching 8-week II courses, because I don't have as much grading in 12-week courses toward the last 7-8 weeks of the semester. Teaching online courses require extra training as well, but my classes are Active Learning and there is defined curriculum that students move through. My PhD enabled me to earn at the higher level and I do make a good salary with the extra courses I teach. However, it was a VERY stressful process, I missed out on some living and I have a lot of student loans. Still at the end of the day, I do truly enjoy teaching and so if I have to work, I guess this was a good choice.

Thank u for sharing your experience

What you get from a PhD in the UK I got from undergrad abd grad school in the US.

Very insightful.

Thanks for sharing!

Great video, Amina. Considering that many PhDs don't stay in academia, what do you think about incorporating PhD training into the undergraduate curriculum? Maybe as an elective? And extending it to MSc curriculum too. That way people get a taste and some training that could help them function at PhD level without actually going through a PhD training

Mashallah.congrats!

Thank you so much, Dr for this. It helped to put a lot of things into perspective.

I totally understand what you are talking about, I am a doctor and I am pretty good at it, but I got into tech and now all I want to do for the rest of my life is build tech driven businesses. The skills I gained in medicine has helped learn coding at an astonishing speed, and that capacity is what really matters, it can be applied in so many ways.

Of course it’s worth it Dr wallahi mashallah

As a person who is in a few different fields, but when I get my PhD I want variability I’m teaching; and other jobs as well. I want other side/great jobs. To me at the end of the day it was worth it, and it really enriches us.

Great notions.

I started my lectureship a month before submission of my PhD. If you want to be lecturer PhD is a must. But not all PhDs get hired unfortunately.

The question of whether a PhD is worth it should be asked before enrolling for such a degree. Having said that it is not easy to get admission and for those who do, the reality is that it does not mean he/she will be able to complete their studies and get a PhD.

The simple fact that there is a question, suggests doubt. Doubt is negative, and so is the word no. So there goes the answer.

I’m in my third year of my PhD and honestly if I were to redo it, I wouldn’t have made the same choice! I would hve waited longer after undergrad before deciding to get my PhD instead of going right after!

I received my PhD in Psychology in 2020. What am I doing now? Working as a traffic engineer.

Ohh. That's so impressive.❤

What does your meta learning style look like?

d, good question. I also wonder if my university education is worth it

I personally think PhD is purely an additional research degree and a title you achieve to your name. I personally having done a Masters truly think all that matters when you you look at jobs is your graduate degree. Rest of the degrees like your masters and PhD are purely addons. Now there may be a 5% chance you may get a jobs purely on your masters. But 95% is your graduate degree. Trust me i have gone through this job scenario after my masters and i thoroughly understood what counts after your studies in regards to a job. Unless your graduate job sponsors your masters and the PhD. Then it really makes sense as you are going back to the company which trusted your skills and is happy to leverage your MSc and PhD knowledge and gain that added boost to their company work profile. Otherwise it is just an addon and the personal exposure your get from these degree. It def helps in personal development.

Great video

I am in the second year of my PhD and since I started this journey I changed my mind about staying in a full-time academic role, I am now considering taking up roles in Higher Education Management, more like University Management kind of job. The PhD from my experience has been an eye-opener, I feel we gain more skills that the cooperate world requires more than we can imagine.

What did you take on your PhD?

I'm close to finishing my first year and I honestly regret choosing the project I did. It was with supervisors I knew were good or who I had worked with well before, and in an area I am deeply interested in, but this whole first year has been plagued with so many issues stemming from really poor planning initially by said supervisors, from what I can see. It's a shame as I could have accomplished more than twice as much and got some decent data if that planning had been done before

I’m a first year PhD student in international relations… sincerely tired n exhausted. I’m thinking of changing to a second masters but in clinical psychology 😊

I have M. A in philosophy and hoping to begin my PhD soon. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Discouraging but not discouraged

I'm thinking of doing my PhD (in Computer Science) but I've been asking myself if I really need it. I turned 36 this year and got my MSc(in Computing when I was 27 - Almost 10 years back). I've been in industry since when I was 25, in 2010.

Hi Dr. Yonis, I have started my Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) which is equivalent to a Ph.D., I have elected to do foreign research with multiple foreign governments as the source for my research material in the administration of infectious disease clinical research and development so I hope to make contacts in my chosen field so that at the end of my dissertation I have the opportunity to develop or participate in the development of clinical research administration in the field I have chosen to research for my DBA

I'm in my first year of PhD and I still want to be in an organization doing scientific and industrial research when I complete my studies...maybe come back in academia after five years or so

Do you think having a PhD is worth it if your aim is the industry mainly pharmaceutical... Great video and effort

Dr. Amina, the spiritual benefit of PhD aside, what impact it has on the salary? Does a PhD make more than an MSc or a BSc graduate?

Maam how can I get help while doing PhD.. please help me out

I might have missed it, what did you get your PhD in? I’m wanting to do it to become a licensed therapist. Trying to see if that’s worth it or not

In the UK (except Scotland) undergrad only takes 3 years, a master's takes 1 year, and a PhD 3 years (exceptions do apply). In my country (Cyprus) it takes even longer, which is a big drawback. More specifically, if studying full time, it takes 4 years for undergrad, 2 years for a master's, and 4 years for a PhD. This means that u get a PhD at 28 instead of at 25. Would you still recommend getting a PhD in this case as well? Keep in mind that university education in my country is completely free and that at the postgraduate level the fees are 5k maximum, except for MBAs and HRMs, which means that you have zero student dept by the time you graduate.

m'A you would be a great lecturer

Thanks for sharing you're information with us, I have been using you're formative information at university now, and I can say my grades are looking very good.

This is through the lens of a 20 something PhD student, some of us are older when we do our PhD's. We may have already established careers and already be working in Academia, in order for us to progress up the ranks in Academia you need a PhD. Furthermore too many students become products of Universities, meaning they go through the whole academic journey of undergrad, masters and PhD and have no real world/working experience, which presents a challenge. You are far better spacing these things out, to get real world experience.

I wanted to do simultaneously phd and PGHE What do you need for PGHE?

Great one. Please i need your mentorship; i want to do my PhD in entrepreneurship in the U.S. Thanks

CORRECT!!!!

Sizt good for yu , if yu have phD but like I said before it's good for you 👍 enjoy remember one thing life is more than PHD ,

What I’ve learnt from people asking me “was it worth it?” For my PhD I noticed it just stemmed from jealousy and their own lack of accomplishments

God bless you

I took more than 9 years and I would say that it was a total waste of time, energy and money. Start you career asap. PhD is grossly overrated!

I wish I had the opportunity...MashaAllah anyway

I would like to get mental health tips from you.

that is the goal of it,

I would strongly recommend that you watch Kevin Samuel, and listen to his view on women with PhD.

PhD is a good achievement But I wouldnt call you doctor not a chance... Looking forward to being awarded mine after this video

Every past is worth it to get u where you are Now😂it all makes sense in the end

This is me watching all the video’s about PhD to be sure it worth spending 3 to 5 years 😂