Why I Did a PhD, & You Might (Not) Want To

Adam Grant is Wharton’s top-rated professor and author of two New York Times bestselling books-ORIGINALS: How Non-Conformists Move the World (bit.ly/2aPtafE) and GIVE AND TAKE: A Revolutionary Approach to Success (bit.ly/2aAbmVd).
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[@laura-youtube1453]

Excellent video. I came here after your talk on TED. You are amazing. I made the mistake (in a certain way) of getting a PhD. I love teaching people, I love sharing my knowledge. I thought that doing a PhD will give me more authority and deep knowledge to talk about what I teach. I spent almost 6 years in excruciating pain. But, I was too stubborn to quit. Anyway, it wasn't a complete waste of time. Besides all the technical skills, I learned how to be a (truly) resilient person. It changed my life. But it was like going through a military camp. Besides, I had a family, with a child. I had no time for myself, imagine about my little child. That was the worst part, working 24/7, no weekend, no life, no nothing. No balance AT ALL. I consider myself a survivor. And, after you graduate, you are unemployed if you didn't start looking for a job at least 6 months before you finished. Not trying to be too negative, but just showing to others what you can encounter there. Some people will love the experience and thrive on it. I didn't. I am just happy I am done, lol. But I do love teaching, and I do love learning, the difference is I don't like being under such pressure, menaces and harsh criticism most of the time. Again, thank you so much for all your videos, I love them! :)

[@diegoflores6164]

Nice job expressing those feelings. Jesus, I'm from Peru and here there's very little tendency to support researchers' job... Rather work, have money and a life. But I share that joy of seeing others learn what I think I've mastered (though when you teach you realize it's not at all haha)

[@girishshah8929]

I have two sons. Both of them want to become Professors so they can teach and do research in their chosen fields. But it's a long long way before becoming a Professor. One of them is already 2 years into a PhD. After that there's 2-3 years of post doctoral studies. After that there's no guarantee a Professor position will be available. He says it's very difficult getting a position as a Professor in the US because positions become available when senior Profs retire. There's an uncertain future ahead for him. By the time he is looking for a position he will be 30.

[@scorpiorat25]

This is an extremely valuable session, not just on going for a PhD (or not) but in teaching people how to successfully create a satisfying future. My biggest takeaway, and this is not a small thing, is... pick the question you want to study the rest of your life. Great work, Adam. I am grateful for your generosity.

[@yeeunchoi3770]

I completely absolutely agree with you. Thanks for the inspiring video!

[@AlebachewTadie]

Really helpful advice for decision-making to act accordingly. Thank you so much

[@GodfreySilas]

Adam, wow. The very simplicity of your narrative flow is cinematic and absorbing. This is true organic presentation whose every nuance is replete with imagery saturated with meaning. From a documentary filmmaker's vantage point, this is a talking head rendition with a twist: it invokes the great import of CONTENT. My personal impression is that a doctorate serves as an instrument by which one vivifies one's impulse for intellectual resolution. Any other reason could be doomed with failure. A master's degree is obviously a scholastic ceiling for most people. But a doctorate means simply, that one has a burning impulse to self-absolve, as it were. - Godfrey Silas

[@anastasiapopelnukha1678]

thanks for sharing, I admire your work.

[@alfredoroach8782]

Good insights.

[@xukxhuke3007]

I love how you mentioned we don't have to see basic and applied research as two separate polarities. The detachment from this preconception is in itself going to help shape a world where research is not done for personal reputation but actually to solve contemporary world problems which should be its area of implication.

[@saraandersson2653]

Thank you for this video! It has definitely eased my heart a bit. After seeing this video I actually think that I won't pursue a PhD. I have been offered a PhD position by the professor that I worked with during my master's thesis. At first I just assumed that I had to take the chance now that it was basically freely given to me. But rethinking and watching this video makes me realise that I don't truly have a passion about it, I would probably be burnt out after the first year from stress and lack of motivation. So I think I would do both myself and my professor a favor by declining the offer.

[@GodfreySilas]

Sara, I wish we could trade places. I am dying for the curiosity-resolution that a doctorate would entrain. In other words, a path to discovery entrains the requisite output, the intellectual experience and some final goal. But the lack of opportunity to engage the effort entrains nothing, at least for me. - Godfrey Silas

[@Bradley_Pitt]

First I'm so, very, sorry to request an answer to this question which is not related to this video. I am teaching English in a high school in South Korea and came to meet your excerpt, which has some ambiguous grammar in some sentences. However, I cannot help but ask you that question; that is, from your book, Originals, a paragraph of the book was used in the national practice exam(I hope you must have been contacted by the EBS), the part is here-(I know some more original sentences were not here, the test maker must have cut them.) If creators knew when they were on their way to fashioning a masterpiece, their work would progress only forward: they would halt their idea­ generation efforts as they struck gold. But they backtrack, returning to versions that they had earlier discarded as inadequate. In Beethoven’s most celebrated work, the Fifth Symphony, he scrapped the conclusion of the first movement because it felt too short, only to come back to it later. Had Beethoven been able to distinguish an extraordinary from an ordinary work, he would have accepted his composition immediately as a hit. When Picasso was painting his famous Guernica in protest of fascism, he produced 79 different drawings. Many of the images in the painting were based on his early sketches, not the later variations. If Picasso could judge his creations as he produced them, he would get consistently “warmer” and use the later drawings. But in reality, it was just as common that he got “colder.” What I'm wondering about is 3 sentences. The first sentence looks like it is a 2nd conditional, that is counterfactual. As you know, 2nd conditional is used for imaginary or false situation to the present and(or) future(if you say it isn't 2nd conditional, please tell me what it is.). But 2nd conditional is used in the present or future, but "when they were on their way to fashioning a masterpiece" is the past, we English learner fall in chaos, which seems ungrammatical. So I thought like this, ok, if when clause is the time of supposing, though that time is the surely the past, you take us on the "Time Machine" to that past moment, and you and we are watching creators 'are' making masterpieces. So that moment is the present(though seen as the past from now), so you wrote the first sentence using "at that past time " 2nd conditional. And this logic also is also applied to this sentence; if Picasso could judge his creations as he produced them, he would get consistently “warmer” and use the later drawings. He is dead. What he did is always the past bygone. So all his deed should be always used in sentences using 3rd conditional if you suppose the past events as counterfactually. But you used 2nd conditional in that sentence. So I think you take us on the time machine to the past time. Last, in "But they backtrack, returning to versions that they had earlier discarded as inadequate.", you used past perfective instead of using simple past. I suppose that all the masterpieces are past things, that is, they were made already in the past. So you used past perfective to note that all the versions had been discarded before a masterpiece was made. In addition to those above, I think you suppose all the creator are only human beings, who don't have an ability to forecast what will happen in the future. So this trait is the same throughout the timeline. So I guess you used "backtrack" instead of "backtracked". If you had used "backtracked", that wouldn' have meant that the creators backtracked in the past, which is contrary to the supposition you have about human beings who can't forecast the future. Well, I don't know whether I can get answers from you. But It's really serious to me. Please tell me whether my opinion is right or wrong.

[@wanlingjiang8270]

I wish a saw your video before I get my PhD, I'm very easily influenced by people around me, if somebody can inspire me more to get me more interested in a certain field, that would be great. And another problem is you can only get into a research that the professor is currently working on, and that is not necessarily what I'm interested in. And it is difficult to get into a field that you are interested in.

[@lorenzmateo9004]

You mentioned people analytics, how you feel about pairing a Masters in IO with Data Analytics?

[@hol-upLIL-bit]

Status. Not in a shallow way.

[@PeterParker-xo1xz]

Hi Dr.Mustaneer M.B.B.S here .. Adam Grant you are god for me .

[@diegoflores6164]

Reasons start at 10:04

[@deviant7100]

Your voice sounds nice

[@Javier-kw9yw]

Is hard to find deep information of the role of the organizational psychologist.

[@herbpalmerjr5562]

fear vs faith

[@uhhyousee]

you should be a lot more famous...you're awesome.

[@2ndIntegral]

In my 40's, wondering about a career change through a PhD, I was looking for material that would talk me out of it. It seems I've come to the wrong place

[@eliguaso22]

2nd Moment you finally started your PhD? I’m finishing my master and idk if I should keep going. It’s been hard working full time and doing my Ms, that i don’t know what to do or if it’s going to be worth it

[@codacreator6162]

I would suggest you watch the video, again. If you aren't thinking of teaching, don't bother.

[@oh72911]

What gold!!

[@mingcui2426]

Very practical. By the way, Adam, the colors of your eyes are slightly different?

[@codacreator6162]

This video is a game changer. Ignore the nay-sayers. They just don't get it.

[@herbpalmerjr5562]

no

[@user-hy7ei1bk1h]

OMG he blinks every 20 seconds

[@zaidquadri4316]

Chinese too strong.....

[@tota8064]

Sorry .. too much talking .. and still your point is not clear.

[@nickbyrd1027]

If that's your reply to this video, I think you have your answer.

[@uhhyousee]

I wish you made shorter videos..