Is a Ph.D. Worth the time and effort?

BamaPokerplayer

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In Finance - yes. And (for BPP), Alabama's finance Ph.D is not discounted that much at all by the market/university community. It is widely respected and if you work with the right people, in terms of publishing in specialized areas (such as quantitative finance for example), you will get a large return on your investment. Finance is one of the best (number one at this time) fields right now wherein becoming a specialist (risk management, financial engineering...), and a Ph.D carries a lot of weight. However - expect at least a 5-6 yr. commitment...Not sure about other fields, but accounting is similar. Business schools across the country are running into real problems finding Ph.D's in these areas because of the time commitment, rigor and opportunity costs...and the salaries continue to rise.
The way my advisor put it to me was go to Alabama get Ph.D. get paid lots of money. It would be a dream come true but then he hit me with go to top ten school get Ph.D. get paid lots of money and teach/do research at Alabama. Biggest dream ever for me career wise.
 

Bama Reb

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Yes. Worth every penny and then some.
It's a different world with a piece of paper in your hand.
I know a lot of people who think like that. I don't agree with them, but I know them. :wink:

IMO that piece of paper is no more valuable than your local help wanted ads if you don't have any experience to go with it.
FWIW, as a business owner I'd rather hire 1 person with a high school education and a couple of years of actual hands-on experience than 10 with PHD's and no experience. JMHO
 

RVTIDER

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I know a lot of people who think like that. I don't agree with them, but I know them. :wink:

IMO that piece of paper is no more valuable than your local help wanted ads if you don't have any experience to go with it.
FWIW, as a business owner I'd rather hire 1 person with a high school education and a couple of years of actual hands-on experience than 10 with PHD's and no experience. JMHO
May have been sarcasm in his post, not sure.
 

dayhiker

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I know a lot of people who think like that. I don't agree with them, but I know them. :wink:

IMO that piece of paper is no more valuable than your local help wanted ads if you don't have any experience to go with it.
FWIW, as a business owner I'd rather hire 1 person with a high school education and a couple of years of actual hands-on experience than 10 with PHD's and no experience. JMHO
The type of work he's considering has a PhD as an entrance requirement.
 

92tide

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I know a lot of people who think like that. I don't agree with them, but I know them. :wink:

IMO that piece of paper is no more valuable than your local help wanted ads if you don't have any experience to go with it.
FWIW, as a business owner I'd rather hire 1 person with a high school education and a couple of years of actual hands-on experience than 10 with PHD's and no experience. JMHO
well, of course, almost everyone I've ever met with a PhD in arcade game studies has been a complete loser ;)
 

Bamabuzzard

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Yes. Worth every penny and then some.
It's a different world with a piece of paper in your hand.
You got that right, and in more ways than one. It is amazing how much smarter and more respected one becomes in the eyes of other people with a piece of paper. It also seems others make the assumption that these paper holders are also smarter and more intellectual in all facets of life simply because they have this piece of paper in hand. LOL!

My wife has several medical doctors on her side of the family and I stand in amazement at times as to the idiotic things that come out of their mouths. They know everything about everything. My brother in law and I like to get them to talking about something we both know they know nothing about and listen to them talk about it like they are an authority on the subject. It is also funny (and sickening at the same time) to watch others sit there and take the BS they're saying hook, line and sinker. They accept it as true because their line of thinking is "Well, they are doctors so they must be smart and have the same level of expertise in everything just as they do in medicine." When in reality their field of expertise, the one in which they have the Phd is about the only thing they know a dang thing about. But since they have those letters behind their name they are afforded and given a higher level of respect across the board.
 

BamaPokerplayer

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I agree buzzard the one thing that bothers me the most is when a company makes having a degree a requirement when it's not relevant. I saw this at Target when the best supervisor I ever had in retail couldn't move up the ladder because he didn't have a degree; the person who got the job knew nothing about retail and had a degree in music or something like that. Really crushed my supervisor he was never the same.
 

Bamabuzzard

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I agree buzzard the one thing that bothers me the most is when a company makes having a degree a requirement when it's not relevant. I saw this at Target when the best supervisor I ever had in retail couldn't move up the ladder because he didn't have a degree; the person who got the job knew nothing about retail and had a degree in music or something like that. Really crushed my supervisor he was never the same.
Oh I've watched it throughout my career. When I was at Harrah's they hired a dude from the outside (no Casino gaming experience EVER) over promoting a guy from within, as Director of Marketing simply because he had a Masters Degree in Marketing from UNLV (or it may have been Arizona). The guy could obviously pass the academic side of Marketing but when he got into the not as controlled and structured real world. His application of it, mixed with dealing with people, managing employees etc. He failed miserably.
 

Bamabuzzard

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in my field it is pointless unless i feel like teaching or being the head of the architecture department for a school one day and i don't.
Yeah, it does my wife no good to get hers because she doesn't want to teach college or be in administration. If she stays in the position she's in and gets it the "juice" ain't worth the "squeeze".
 

Tide1986

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It apparently is if one becomes president of a junior college:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog...tesquely_livin_large_at_taxpayer_expense.html

Dr. Pollard’s current contract shows that she receives a $281,000 salary with a possible five percent annual bonus. In addition, she has a $3,000 housing allowance each month for her home. All of her work-related travel plus her wife’s travel costs are covered.
Why are taxpayers paying for a spouse’s travel? And not just the backpacking sort of travel:

NBC reported on her questionable expense of spending $1,792 for a five-day hotel room at the Marriott Wardman in northwest D.C. The hotel is only about 30 minutes from her house.
Records show that she averages 13 trips per year and has traveled to cities like Napa, California; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Honolulu, Hawaii; Austin, Texas and other cities. Since 2013, she spent $70,000 in her travel expenses.

She spent more than $6,000 on upgrading plane seats for both herself and her wife. In addition, they spent $3,700 for extra and overweight baggage. During the summer of 2015, she spent more than $3,400 on airfare and upgrades to Honolulu and Austin for conferences.

While in Honolulu, Dr. Pollard spent $2,776 for a hotel room. While in Austin, she racked up $2,753 for her hotel plus spent $80 for breakfast and bought two dinners on the same night — one for $80 and another for $127.

Despite the college’s payments on her leased Infiniti Q70, she reportedly uses a pricey car service and in one instance, spent $292 to travel 15 miles for a radio interview about “how to make community college more affordable.”


The NBC I-Team reports that the “college is now paying about $10,000 per month to rent yet another vehicle, this time an SUV, and pay for an off-duty police officer to pick Dr. Pollard up at home and drive her to work each day… starting in February, the college began paying $52 per hour for this armed driver to work between 10-to-15 hours a day.”
 
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GrayTide

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I tried it at age 33 but did not last very long. We adopted our son at about the same time and the time and financial commitment was too much to overcome. Moral of the story start young and before children. Not saying it can't be done but it is a tough row to hoe.

OTOH Sheldon Cooper's girlfriend on The Big Bang Theory is a real life PhD.
Mayim Bialik earned a BS from UCLA in 2000 in Neuroscience and Hebrew & Jewish Studies, and went on to the Ph.D. program in Neuroscience, also at UCLA. She completed her doctorate in the Fall of 2007, which examined the role of oxytocin and vasopressin in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in adolescents with Prader-Willi syndrome.
 
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