What are the pros and cons of a Ph.D?

What are the pros and cons of doing a PhD from Europe?

• I have a MS in computer science. Let me generalize my assumptions a bit mostly considering Computer Science: 1. Europe : 3-4 years US : 5-7 years 2. Post Doc, more or less necessary with Europe. 3. PhD topic is pre-decided in Europe. US you take your time to give the Thesis Topic. 4. Better Job opportunities at US. 5. Coding skill are more important in getting into European Universities, because they want you to be productive soon as the time frame is 3 years.

• Answer:

  Hi there. I'm doing a PhD in the UK at the moment, and in my 3rd and final year. The pros: Its 'only' 3-4 years: I have heard nightmare stories in the US where people have been stretched to doing 7 years on their PhD. In Europe (might just be the UK!) you get approximately 3-4 years funding, which means you will be forced to finish in that stretch of time. As you are approaching your final year, you will panic realizing that 3-4 years of stipend might not be enough, but this is a blessing in disguise! It depends on your supervisor, but rarely does a PhD finish with the results you wanted to finish with (not a bad thing, its just that research isn't a straight road from A to B...its more like a winding, grinding, pain-staking road from A to somewhere..) so while yes, a topic is decided at the start, by no means does that mean you need to stick with that. So this is the same as the US. It might be different with other supervisors, but in general this seems to be the case. From what I hear, PhDs and Postdocs are generally treated quite highly in Europe in general (in UK, its...a bit different). The cons: 'only' 3-4 years: You'd be surprised at how fast this period of time goes. Generally, the format goes: First year: Getting your head around new topic. Second year: Immersing yourself into that topic and then getting                       preliminary results (although ...more often that not can be fruitless. Third year: Generally panic as dissertation deadline comes close and you need 4-5 chapters to write. If you have papers published in this time, this makes life a lot easier regarding writing up.. Even in the time period of 3-4 years, you might not have the level of knowledge required for jobs that PhDs in the US might have. Following from the above point, PhD is all about thinking on the spot, thinking of new, novel ideas that is NOT textbook case scenarios as in undergrad or a masters. And this takes time. What employers desire is your ability to think dynamically and pragmatically as you may have had to do in your PhD, and the impression I get is that PhDs from the US are better at this. Of course, with 5 years under your belt, its not particularly surprising.. Its a tradeoff. And of course, I'm talking generally. A lot depends on the drive and motivation of the individual during the course of the PhD. This is just from the top of my head. In general, a lot of the time goes into doing experiments for PhDs in the physical sciences. For CS, the criteria will be different. For example, a biology PhD has extreme time risks involved due to the fact that doing experiments with living stuff (or assays as they call it) involve so much preparation, jotting down data, waiting..and even then the cell culture or whatever involved might just die off, for absolutely no reason. Whereas, in CS its all about knowing your topic, and the sheer competency of being able to code time-efficiently. I hope this helps.