PhD or No PhD?

[Sunt-ing]

https://medium.com/open-sourced-thoughts/phd-or-no-phd-d3dc89bc8e57

[Sunt-ing]

To be or not to be a PhD: Since you are young, just pick one path interested to experience, and pivot if you change mind.

A PhD is really like: Prof. Matt Might's illustration.

Skills for PhD:

• Critical thinking. Logical reasoning leads to fearless exploration and in turn, creativity and innovation.
• Problem hunting. It's preferable to solve painkiller-like problems over vitamin-like ones. But finding painkiller-like problems requires curiosity, observation and critical thinking.
• Fearless learning. It takes courage to push beyond the comfort zone and learn the unfamiliar quickly.
• Selling. Sell your works to your advisor, colleagues, conference/journal reviewers and thesis committee members.
• Working independently. The luckiest PhD students meet with their advisors about once a week; the majority sit down with their advisors once a month. So a PhD need to independently take initiative, make plans, manage time, prioritize tasks, map research directions, look for resources, and actively ask for help when you need it.