On PhDs

This tweet went viral recently and caused all sorts of people to question the usefulness of PhDs. As a PhD-holder I'll lay out my take.

The last ~5 years brought a wave of anti-academia sentiment. Academia has become politicised and largely associated with the left. Science has become caught up in this and there's equally been an anti-science wave. This makes me sad. Science doesn't need to be politicised but it's been claimed by the left and shunned by the right.

I think people are right to question the usefulness of non-STEM PhDs and academics. BUT, anyone who has spent a reasonable amount of academia will tell you that these disciplines receive 1/10th of the funding relative to STEM fields. The reality of the problem is much smaller than the perceived problem.

Pursuing a PhD is dedicating a period of your life to going very deep into a subject. It is the pursuit of mastery. The aim is to emerge as a world expert in a narrow domain. If you choose to become an expert in a silly domain, that's fine. That's on you. Government and market forces should reward domains that have promising applications. At a very high level, these market and government forces work. STEM fields receive orders of magnitude more grant funding than non-STEM fields.

A PhD is not the only way to go very deep into a subject. Most of the brilliant people that I know would never have considered doing a PhD. Instead, they chose to go deep into a subject on their own. A lot of the negative sentiment towards PhDs comes from seeing subjects that anyone could have learned about in their spare time.

There are thousands of bad reasons to do a PhD. I think there are only three good reasons to do a PhD today:

(1) You need extreme resources to go deep in your field, only available within academia (this is most of experimental STEM)

(2) You need extreme structure in order to successfully go deep into a subject (most people need this)

(3) You want to pursue a career that explicitly requires a PhD (academia, certain research positions)

Most PhDs I know fall into category (2). They're smart, capable people who wanted the structure and accountability of a program to dive deep into something. There's no shame in that - knowing yourself is valuable.

What frustrates me is seeing people pursue PhDs for reasons like "I don't know what else to do" or "It'll make me more employable." These are recipes for a miserable 4-6 years. A PhD is a huge commitment that will test you mentally, emotionally, and isn't worth it financially.

The reality is that academia is changing. The internet has democratized knowledge in unprecedented ways. You can learn from world experts through online courses, engage with cutting-edge research through preprint servers, and contribute to open-source projects from anywhere. The traditional PhD model isn't the only path to expertise anymore.

That said, I don't regret my PhD. It taught me how to think rigorously, how to persist through difficult problems. Above all that, I made some incredible friends in that time and added a ton of incredibly smart and driven people to my network.

The key is to be honest with yourself about why you want a PhD. If it aligns with one of those three good reasons, and you understand the commitment involved, go for it. If not, there are many other ways to pursue mastery and contribute to human knowledge.

The world needs both PhDs and non-PhDs. What it doesn't need is people pursuing PhDs for the wrong reasons or others dismissing their value entirely. Like most things in life, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.