TL;DR? Just read the emboldened text.

Figure 1, source: Pixabay under Creative Commons CC0.

Similar to the way a child eventually grows to realize that their parents are fallible, and their competence is commensurable with their own, you will come to realize as a PhD student, that the faculty whose ranks you’d like to join one day are more or less just as competent as you. This is a hard fact to swallow because it burdens the responsibility of correct, virtuous action on you, the individual. You can no longer defer the responsibility of virtuous action on the “smart, noble, responsible people.” There’s a good rule of thumb for life: you should carry a load which is commensurate with your ability. Carry no more, no less. Those who carry their full loads are revered and respected in society. As a sub-point, I’d like to point out the comfort that I derive in knowing there are people both more and less capable than myself. I am grateful that there are less capable people than I, for it is here that I can show my true worth to society. I can manage things others can’t, and hopefully be rewarded by society in return. Also, I am grateful that there exist people more capable than I, for insofar as I am insufficient, they exist to pick up the slack — and this allows me to sleep easier at night. You are no longer just a student. Higher academia can be at once an idealistic and contrived place, where extreme competition and perverse incentives can crush even the most headstrong idealist’s dreams (Edwards & Roy, 2016)*. While academia is not the utopia it seemed to be from the outside, that doesn’t mean it is not worth a go at changing it. It’s okay that your opinions differ from your contemporaries. Higher academia should be about fostering discussion and synergy between the whole spectrum of competing viewpoints. If you want a wholesome PhD experience, speak up about the ills you see around you. You are expected now to carry your load, and as such, revivify an age-old culture that takes edification to be among the most sacred and valuable of life’s offerings. You are responsible now to take action when meetings are off course, when the system is askew, when a lie is stated, something is overlooked (no matter how small), or shortcuts are being taken. No matter what your subdiscipline, be it in STEM or the humanities, the simple fact is that in almost every case, you can command more money, right now, in an industry job in your field. So, unless you can rationalize why you are choosing to slave away for less money than you are worth in the interim, don’t choose the PhD path. To be successful with a career in academia, you must be confident in your convictions. If you wish to pursue a professorial career with full tenure, know that full tenure comes later in life than it ever has (early-to-mid-40s) and there is a chance you will not make it.

As Figure 2 above indicates, over 40 percent of all faculty in the U.S. were “part-time” lecturers (also known as “adjuncts”) as of 2015–16. These faculty teach on contracts per term or school year, and their teaching load may vary from one course per term to a “full load” of as many as three courses per quarter, depending on the institution and subject matter. All with little flexibility, little time to commit to research, and little to no job security.

Throughout time, PhD students have been expected to live off of a pittance and take it for the chance to quest for truth, or noteriety, or to push the boundaries of science ever forward. You ought to know what is truly motivating you. Many of your contemporaries are asking themselves this very question. The end result. There seems to be a mass exodus of talent moving out of academia, as the average PhD student is more aware of what his talents can earn him elsewhere — and that the fungibility of money is nothing to snicker about in this economy in which a dollar doesn’t get you as far as it once did.

Your experience, in the end, will be what you make of it. But know this, in a way, these times, when you can stand to fail, when you aren’t afraid to be fired (because you don’t make much anyways), when you can afford to tug at the coat of the large amalgamation that is academia without fear, when you can play around with different personas and find which strikes truest for you… these can be some of the most formative and rewarding times of your life. So in the end.

You are no longer just a student; but you are still a student. Probably for the last time in your life will you be regarded as such.

Enjoy it, if it’s the path for you.

*Edwards, M. A., & Roy, S. (2016). Academic Research in the 21st Century: Maintaining Scientific Integrity in a Climate of Perverse Incentives and Hypercompetition, 00(00), 1–11. http://doi.org/10.1089/ees.2016.0223