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Showing posts from November 11, 2012

Life after the diploma thesis, or: my case against a PhD

I'm 34 pages into my diploma thesis (target is around 100 pages, including everything), and the deadline for handing it in is Decembre 28th. Time to think about life after the thesis. I've been toying with the idea of going for a PhD, since I really, really want to do science. And if you want to do science, getting a PhD is the way to go, right? But after mulling this over for quite a while, I've almost arrived at the conclusion that, no, for me, a PhD is not the right way to go. I'd like to lay out my reasoning and my plan here; who knows, maybe I'll get some useful input before making a final decision? Or maybe I'll make my decision anyway, and leave this as input to others who are in a similar situation. One of the points that came up when talking about the issue with my parents was: making a living. Really. Me and my three siblings were raised by a single dad at the low-income end of the spectrum. Much as my older siblings, I started earning my l