Are PhDs getting harder? [The worrying trends]

I'd like to mention why I've decided to do my PhD in Germany rather than the US. I have a deep admiration and respect for the way Americans do their PhDs. They are discovering new things, making a real life impact, and creating successful businesses from their work. I think all of that is amazing, and I want to do things like that at some point as well. But for the purposes of doing a PhD, I feel like it misses the point of research. I think research is an inherently selfish endeavor, where we seek out how deep we can delve into one thing, how thoroughly I can understand this one thing that I am extremely passionate about, how much I can complete the human understanding of an idea or concept, and innovation is just a by-product of that rather than a goal. American research and academic culture, at least in Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering, seems to prioritize real world impacts for the most part, whereas in the EU, particularly in Germany, the main star of the show is seeing how deep the rabbit holes go. As much as I would love to make a real world impact, my main priority is developing a deep and thorough understanding of my field (organometallic electrochemistry).

I think getting a PhD today is easier because... we have Andy Stapleton's youtube channel! I learn so much from your channel and other online resources regarding scientific reading and writing, presentation skills, handling failure etc. This makes my PhD progress much easier and helps me deliver high quality research. So I'd say PhD's today are easier but also better.

Hi Andy, this is Simone. I'm doing my postdoc in immunology in US. The ultimate goal of PhD students is to get a paper (hopefully a good paper) so they can move on with their career. I've been in the field for almost 10 years and I can say that publishing a good paper today is much harder compared to some years ago. Working hard and producing remarkable results is often not enough. This situation is probably due to the increasing competition among research labs and aggressive editorial policy. The editors' job is to boost the citations of their journal, and only a given number of papers can get accepted every year. Therefore editors became more and more selective, and the probability of being directly rejected from the editorial board is increasing. If your lab doesn't have funding to afford the most advanced technologies on the market, or your PI is not a big name in the field, it will be hard for you to pass the editor's selection, regardless the importance of your scientific question and quality of your data. My answer to you is "yes, definitely". PhDs are becoming harder, and one of the reasons is that the standards for a good publication are increasing, and therefore it is more difficult to publish compared to some years ago.

Thanks for the video! What my supervisor have been telling me all the years of my PhD: people should know you by sight. Give presentations, talk to people at the conferences, help others. When you are writing a letter to ask for a Postdoc or discuss job opportunities and people know you personally is completely different from the case when they get a letter from someone they have never seen before.

Do the PhD if you're passionate about exploring your subject matter. But supplement it with financial management skills. That's if you want to go into industry.

The Likert scale is largely used in in the humanities, social sciences and psychological research

Thank you!

am in love with your jumper! I also adore your channel. am a lecturer at a UK uni, and I send many prospective PhD applicants who are unsure about why they are getting into a PhD to your channel. great content !

In tech, academia is falling more and more behind in research, which is why some of the greatest papers nowadays (in the field of CS at least) are produced by tech giants like Google, Meta, Amazon, etc. As a result, getting a PhD is, in my opinion, the minimum qualification for working in R&D.

Just now I am procrastinating watching your video on my phone when I should be writing my next paper haha

My PhD is just a technical qualification for me. I did a research placement at a biotech company and I NEED a PhD to have any kind of career progression. The company I worked for was 80% PhDs, they use that as a selling point on their website. Everyone I talked to in industry told me to get a PhD, and all the industry jobs say they'd like candidates to have a PhD. If you don't have one then you hit a career ceiling fast. I have no intention on staying in academia, and from my experience working in industry, doing job interviews, and looking through job search websites, they only care about skills, and not about publications. So industry jobs are more abundant, pay more, are more stable, and don't require publications. So why does anyone stay in academia at all? (This is my experience in UK biotech/pharmaceuticals, I don't know about other fields)

I'd be interested in your thoughts on 'Pre-Docs'? I saw one pre-doc opportunity for Economics at the University of Zurich and found it worrying as it basically prolongs the PhD even more.

Could you provide the list of research engines for papers you mentioned in the description? Thanks

Thank you

Andy, it would be useful if you could get a guest to come on to discuss the difference between the PhD experience in the humanities/social science fields versus STEM. I am always intrigued and fascinated by your information, but the experience is so different in many ways that it would be an interesting avenue to explore.

My thesis was like 300 pages and was full of meticulously created colored figures, including 3D figures. My advisor's thesis was like 100 pages and had no color. Then again, his thesis looked like it was made with a typewriter.

Getting a PhD is easy ?? me who’s been rejected two cycles in a row in poli sci starts sweating Lol. Fixed my SoP up a lot better for this year and waiting to get some feedback from a former prof

I applied to 11 marketing/entrepreneurship PhD positions in Germany (10) and Ireland (1) and got 6 admissions, none of which offered me a starting salary of $40,000 or less (which I know is more than I would be making in North America). Pretty much everyone who gave me a first interview after seeing my application materials made me an offer. It's not like I'm outrageously smart (in fact, I've been out of academia for a few years before I came back to get a Master's more recently). There are just very few applicants who meet the minimum requirements professors - who are the direct hiring managers in those systems - are looking for in PhD students, which evidently includes a track record of wanting to pursue a career in research.

I am a 2nd year applied math Ph.D. working on three different projects with a 7-month-old baby at home. It can be challenging to understand theory deeply when I have to switch tasks frequently. But (fortunately and unfortunately) people in the US just love to see real-world applications rather than theory. Sometimes I ask myself what the point of getting a Ph.D. if I cannot understand theory deeply. Why don't I just spend these years in industry. I do feel passionate about what I am doing.

I largely disagree about the statement that PhDs are easier to get into. The distrubution of undergraduate grade awards has never been so negatively skewed with more and more people coming out with 2.i and 1.1 awards, which are typically the requirements for a PhD. This is likely very subject specific but, in my fields of interest (particle physics & cosmology), there are many candidates whom apply and funding is very select and rationed appropriately. I have applied for 5 positions in the last year where I have been in competition for positions with people holding multiple master's degrees, and there was one individual (who got the position) already holding a PhD. There is absolutely nothing incorrect about what has been said by Andy but there are just a lot more factors involved than the interests of the academic heirarchy as well as the overall increase in PhD programmes being available.