What is a PhD? (Or) Why in the world should I do a PhD?

A common question that most people- friends, family and acquaintances - shoot at PhD students is  “ How long would you keep studying?” How one responds back depends on how quick-witted and thick-skinned one is.

One could reply “ Well, technically I am not studying- I am a scholar and I just do research which is no way different from a regular job” . Of course, one would be laughing within  oneself, though keeping a straight face, while saying this! Else, one could earn some bits of sympathy by lamenting back how PhD seems to be an endless journey, how you uncertain or clueless he/she is as to when it will, eventually, end. Worse, one might even confess that you are more uncertain on the job prospects once it ends, than about getting PhD itself!

A PhD looks tantalizingly promising for many aspirants- at least for the fact that they would get a cool new prefix to their names and get public rights to brag their (presumed) expertise in their field. Other way around, it also daunts aspirants who get to know about it from those have crossed, or rather still crossing, the PhD hurdle to a settled, lucrative academic career.

What exactly a PhD is? And what it takes to do PhD?

A short, crisp, yet completely true answer to this would be that PhD is not yet another degree. It is certainly not like your Bachelor of Whatnot degree into which you enter with scarcely any idea about it and mostly leave with a worse state of mind. It is certainly not even like a Master of so and so degree, which is more of than not a misnomer- with the degree holder being just a glorified novice in the field and not a ‘master’ in the real sense. Or at least PhD is not meant to be like these degrees! While other degrees are about obtaining knowledge that is documented already, PhD is about creating new bits of knowledge and documenting (the jargon for that is ‘publishing’) it. This has been the norm, at least for a century or more!

 

Rather than being a structured training towards a degree of expertise in the field, PhD is simply a recognition for some, hopefully original, achievement in the field. There is no quantifiable requirement for a PhD thesis to be accepted. And well, there is no ‘pass’ mark defined for it too! There is not even a common panel of examiners, unlike other degrees, for evaluating a candidate. To put it short, PhD is not a certification that you are qualified to do something. Rather, it is just an acceptance from an expert community that you belong to their league. That leaves it open ended and subjective, and it is upto you, your supervisor and the experts to decide what you should do, and to what extent, during your period of study.

That leads us to question as to who needs such an amorphous, ill-defined degree. A PhD, in general, might be of use to anybody who intends to do a job involving creation of new ideas, improvement of existing state-of-the-art techniques and problem solving. An engineer working in a high-tech industry towards developing new products might benefit from it. An economist or sociologist working with some thinktank or govt/non-govt agency trying to solve a problem society faces might also need it. And it might benefit somebody who wants to extensively specialize in a small sub-field of his/her field of expertise. For others, it might be a luxury addition, but definitely not a necessity!

Expert musicians/artistes usually don’t have PhDs. They have their repertoire to speak for them. One chart-topping music album, one best-selling book or one well appreciated performance is all they need for people to accept their capabilities. In science too, this has been the case in the past. Michael Faradays, Edisons, Teslas, Ramanujans- none of them needed a PhD to showcase their talent. But they didn’t hold a regular job throughout. If you want to have a settled career in research, and/or in teaching, you need a PhD. If you are wild enough to be a vagabond and do research with whatever means you have, you have little need of a PhD. A PhD is like an artiste getting applause for his/her first performance, from a small section of experts- who, often, are the only people who can appreciate it fully. As they appreciate, rest of the world trusts them – and consequentially, trusts you. The more niche your field of study is, the more you need such an appreciation for the general public to accept your abilities. And mind you, even a Ramanujan needed such an appreciation from a Hardy to be able to pursue his dream. A PhD degree makes that as easy as it can practically be, rather than slug it out in the open like Ramanujan. And, of course, you get a job and license to teach and/or research.

The debut match for a sportsperson, the first exhibition of a painter- in general, any first time achievement- would be an outcome of extensive effort, pain, frustration and tenacity. A PhD is no different. But, does one debut success ensure a remarkable career for a sportsperson? Definitely not! He /she has to keep themselves performing day in and day out, as long as they keep playing. Quite similarly, a PhD may not always be a license to a carefree yet rewarding career. Instead, it might be your ticket to take on more challenging problems in research and obtain a higher and higher degree of expertise in the field of your choice. Understanding this can help one to clear assess whether he/she would want a PhD. And well, if they choose to go for it, it would also give them the right frame of mind to survive and even thrive during their PhD! While all this paints PhD as a tough nut to crack, it actually needs only as much effort as in a tough competitive industry job! If you know what it takes, you can make a choice if you want it or not. And if choose for it, you will also know what skills to obtain to confidently take PhD by its horns!

As to why a plain college teacher, just seeking to help students to graduate, needs a PhD- we would defer the question to another post!