In my view, this is a much more accurate and representative take of what a PhD is and what it is not. It’s good that you took the time to address it. I love your concise writing too, by the way.
I think this also highlights the differences in PhD programs between countries (but also within a single University - our lab participates in a couple of schemes that vary significantly). I completed my PhD in the UK and although the program is shorter than the USA (mine was 3 years, and it's unusual to go over 4) we still have these interim checks. If a program doesn't have one, I think it's a bad setup. We had our quals equivalent at the end of year 1 with the option to write up as an MSc if we/the committee felt it was not in our best interests to continue, and then an additional meeting at the end of the 2nd year to outline the plans for completion & submission.
The degree of difficulty in projects and administration is so inconsistent between PhDs and I completely agree that we need to take a more holistic approach to assessing competencies that are relevant to the task required. All PhDs are equal, but some are more equal than others?
Please how can I make sure I still have time and energy for a lot of stuff and a full personal life outside of grad school..surely we are all smart enough to know a PhD is not worth it if itnis overly stressful and not mostly.enjouable, especially now when life is even harder and sadder..Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for this much needed rebuttal! My PhD was one of the harder things I’ve done in my life, and I’ve climbed mountains, performed surgery, and started and sold multiple businesses
Speaking as a UK professor, there are a few relevant differences between the US and the UK. Number one, the selection of students is more haphazard on the UK, as students traditionally are admitted to work with a particular professor rather than as a cohort reviewed by a single panel; particularly if they have external funding. (This is slowly changing.) Second, there is much more pressure to get students finished on a fixed timetable. Third, in my experience there are no qualifying exams. Students come in with more specialised education than is typical in the US, but the presumption is that they have completed their general education in the subject before beginning. They are typically examined on their progress at a couple of points, and they can fail these, but it is not common.
I wouldn't say getting a PhD is easy in itself, though the defense part is probably easier than people think it will be before grad school. Maybe some people get PhDs who don't deserve it, but that's not the same as saying they had an easy time. They probably didn't, either. I think the biggest influence on the difficulty of your PhD experience is your adviser. Some of the biggest complaints about grad school are probably linked to the adviser (at least in my experience). If you get along with your adviser, things will be easier. If your adviser is around regularly and has a vested interest in your research and your professional development, it will be easier but not necessarily "easy." Even if they have all the good qualities, your adviser has to do all this while managing everything from publishing, teaching, funding, and lab space. If you work for an untenured professor, go ahead and throw that stress into the mix. How they handle all of this can affect your experience for better or worse.
But can it be a mostly fun and enjoyabke process and not have to consume your life? And it doesn't hurt your overall physical drive or energy level? And you have a good amount of time for vacation and travel?
Depends on what you are doing and who you work for. There were good moments and fun times, for sure. I loved doing research even though it could be time-consuming. There were also bad moments, though. Your adviser makes a big difference. I worked for an adviser with high expectations. He could be a really nice guy one time and then a jerk the next. There were late nights. You didn't have the full weekend off. If I wanted to go on vacation, I technically needed his permission to do so. Having to be a TA did not get you out of any research expectations, either.
I really agree that a PhD is what you make of it, not just the thesis, but all the teaching, publishing, conferences, public engagement, and intellectual labour that sit around it. What’s striking to me is how quickly PhDs get dismissed as either “easy” or “pointless,” and how closely that mirrors the way reading and BookTok are now trivialised. As soon as these practices become more visibly associated with women, marginalised communities and less represented groups, they start being culturally devalued. It’s less about difficulty and perhaps more about whose labour we decide counts as serious.
Doing research has easily been one of the most time consuming and stressful experiences of my life. Calling it easy is wild. My first thought is wanting to see the works they’ve published.
It seems to me that you and the person you are reaponding to are speaking about different things. Of course anyone for whom evaluating PhD holders is an integral part of their job should be able to do so based on their record, and not just the Dr. in their name. But if we're talking about the broader social status of PhDs, if we want people to "trust science" and show respect when an "expert here" tweets at them, then obviously the minimum requirements for being a PhD matter.
I don’t think it’s true that faculty will do anything to pull a student over the finish line. In some fields it’s pretty sink or swim.
I don’t even think it’s always the case that no one wants to see the student fail, particularly when they have their own priorities that conflict with the student succeeding.
One famous example: At Columbia in the 1950s, Arthur Burns repeatedly blocked acceptance of Rothbard’s dissertation (later published as The Panic of 1819). Rothbard’s PhD went through only after Burns left for the Council of Economic Advisers. My understanding is that Burns had very strong ideological disagreements with Rothbard and used his influence to override everyone else on the faculty.
This of course strengthens your claim that getting a PhD is not easy!
Only come across this article today, and as someone currently awaiting news of PhD funding it was very enlightening to read. It seems to me that yourself and the original author both have a point, each of which can be synthesised as:
"It may in fact be possible to coast through a PhD and graduate. However, it is far more difficult and challenging to do a PhD well, and to become a competent and original academic."
Given the current funding landscape, the author's article really annoyed me. It would have been far better for everybody involved if the opportunity afforded him was granted to somebody who would have appreciated it more.
As a forner tenured academic, I would like to point out that anyone who has sat down and thought about it realises that the system is fundamentally broken. The simple reason is that if every PhD graduate becomes a tenure academic who supervises n>1 PhD students, this would lead to unsustainable exponential growth. As you say:
- each academic is expected to supervise a high number of PhD students (in your case 20).
- The phd is seen as an apprenticeship for academia, and a prerequisite of becoming a tenure academic.
- High percentage of phds pass, and it is seen as a failure of the system to fail a student.
So there has to be built in drop out later on, and in fact, as the original article you critique pointed out, most PhD graduates leave academia after their PhD and postdoc when they realise that it is virtually impossible to get funding or further postsocs to build a portfolio that will get them tenure. This realisation often comes as a disappointment after a decade of sunk costs.
This is a pyramid scheme where phds are the bottom rung. It would be far kinder and more transparent to be more selective earlier in the pipeline. But the other aspect of the system that makes it hard to change is the incentive structures that give rise to the pyramid in the first place. Especially in the sciences, phds students are often seen as cheap labour for the more menial aspects of running a lab. Phds are willing to carry out this work because one day having completed their indetured labour, they too will have their own lab. But we know from simple math that this is extremely unlikely.
To me PhDs are about class. If you don't have a full scholarship to do one, or if you're not wealthy enough to afford 4 years of full time study, you won't be able to do one. So many great students out there with amazing ideas who’ll never be able to get their PhD because it's simply unaffordable.
I don’t know where you get your information from. Almost all PhD positions are fully paid. For sure this is the case in the sciences. But even in the humanities, PhD students typically work as teaching assistants or are otherwise supported by the university.
In the UK, there is a large funding crisis. Alongside the rise in cost of living, students are finding it difficult if not impossible to manage. I know of students who sleep in cars because they cannot afford rent. There are simply not enough scholarships going around for the amount of interest. And TA salaries are low, and not enough for students to support themselves.
This is true but from my experience in Canada and the US, PhD stipends are poverty wages. Thus, it does select for people whose parents’ can subsidize them, and give them that financial security. Particularly in fields that don’t necessarily easily translate into high earning potential after graduation.
This is such a clear-eyed breakdown of why a PhD is rarely “easy,” even for the strongest students. I especially appreciated your point about the advisor’s responsibility to calibrate challenge. I wonder you think is the single most important sign that a student is being pushed well rather than being left to struggle?
In my view, this is a much more accurate and representative take of what a PhD is and what it is not. It’s good that you took the time to address it. I love your concise writing too, by the way.
Great perspective!
I think this also highlights the differences in PhD programs between countries (but also within a single University - our lab participates in a couple of schemes that vary significantly). I completed my PhD in the UK and although the program is shorter than the USA (mine was 3 years, and it's unusual to go over 4) we still have these interim checks. If a program doesn't have one, I think it's a bad setup. We had our quals equivalent at the end of year 1 with the option to write up as an MSc if we/the committee felt it was not in our best interests to continue, and then an additional meeting at the end of the 2nd year to outline the plans for completion & submission.
The degree of difficulty in projects and administration is so inconsistent between PhDs and I completely agree that we need to take a more holistic approach to assessing competencies that are relevant to the task required. All PhDs are equal, but some are more equal than others?
Please how can I make sure I still have time and energy for a lot of stuff and a full personal life outside of grad school..surely we are all smart enough to know a PhD is not worth it if itnis overly stressful and not mostly.enjouable, especially now when life is even harder and sadder..Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for this much needed rebuttal! My PhD was one of the harder things I’ve done in my life, and I’ve climbed mountains, performed surgery, and started and sold multiple businesses
Speaking as a UK professor, there are a few relevant differences between the US and the UK. Number one, the selection of students is more haphazard on the UK, as students traditionally are admitted to work with a particular professor rather than as a cohort reviewed by a single panel; particularly if they have external funding. (This is slowly changing.) Second, there is much more pressure to get students finished on a fixed timetable. Third, in my experience there are no qualifying exams. Students come in with more specialised education than is typical in the US, but the presumption is that they have completed their general education in the subject before beginning. They are typically examined on their progress at a couple of points, and they can fail these, but it is not common.
I should say that, those differences aside, I fundamentally agree with this essay, and also find it engagingly written.
I wouldn't say getting a PhD is easy in itself, though the defense part is probably easier than people think it will be before grad school. Maybe some people get PhDs who don't deserve it, but that's not the same as saying they had an easy time. They probably didn't, either. I think the biggest influence on the difficulty of your PhD experience is your adviser. Some of the biggest complaints about grad school are probably linked to the adviser (at least in my experience). If you get along with your adviser, things will be easier. If your adviser is around regularly and has a vested interest in your research and your professional development, it will be easier but not necessarily "easy." Even if they have all the good qualities, your adviser has to do all this while managing everything from publishing, teaching, funding, and lab space. If you work for an untenured professor, go ahead and throw that stress into the mix. How they handle all of this can affect your experience for better or worse.
But can it be a mostly fun and enjoyabke process and not have to consume your life? And it doesn't hurt your overall physical drive or energy level? And you have a good amount of time for vacation and travel?
Depends on what you are doing and who you work for. There were good moments and fun times, for sure. I loved doing research even though it could be time-consuming. There were also bad moments, though. Your adviser makes a big difference. I worked for an adviser with high expectations. He could be a really nice guy one time and then a jerk the next. There were late nights. You didn't have the full weekend off. If I wanted to go on vacation, I technically needed his permission to do so. Having to be a TA did not get you out of any research expectations, either.
I'm at my low point right now so I really needed to read this. I'm so worried my experiment won't go right 😔
Very well-written. I am making it a must-read for my students.
I really agree that a PhD is what you make of it, not just the thesis, but all the teaching, publishing, conferences, public engagement, and intellectual labour that sit around it. What’s striking to me is how quickly PhDs get dismissed as either “easy” or “pointless,” and how closely that mirrors the way reading and BookTok are now trivialised. As soon as these practices become more visibly associated with women, marginalised communities and less represented groups, they start being culturally devalued. It’s less about difficulty and perhaps more about whose labour we decide counts as serious.
Very smooth writing and great points!
Doing research has easily been one of the most time consuming and stressful experiences of my life. Calling it easy is wild. My first thought is wanting to see the works they’ve published.
It seems to me that you and the person you are reaponding to are speaking about different things. Of course anyone for whom evaluating PhD holders is an integral part of their job should be able to do so based on their record, and not just the Dr. in their name. But if we're talking about the broader social status of PhDs, if we want people to "trust science" and show respect when an "expert here" tweets at them, then obviously the minimum requirements for being a PhD matter.
I don’t think it’s true that faculty will do anything to pull a student over the finish line. In some fields it’s pretty sink or swim.
I don’t even think it’s always the case that no one wants to see the student fail, particularly when they have their own priorities that conflict with the student succeeding.
One famous example: At Columbia in the 1950s, Arthur Burns repeatedly blocked acceptance of Rothbard’s dissertation (later published as The Panic of 1819). Rothbard’s PhD went through only after Burns left for the Council of Economic Advisers. My understanding is that Burns had very strong ideological disagreements with Rothbard and used his influence to override everyone else on the faculty.
This of course strengthens your claim that getting a PhD is not easy!
Only come across this article today, and as someone currently awaiting news of PhD funding it was very enlightening to read. It seems to me that yourself and the original author both have a point, each of which can be synthesised as:
"It may in fact be possible to coast through a PhD and graduate. However, it is far more difficult and challenging to do a PhD well, and to become a competent and original academic."
Given the current funding landscape, the author's article really annoyed me. It would have been far better for everybody involved if the opportunity afforded him was granted to somebody who would have appreciated it more.
As a forner tenured academic, I would like to point out that anyone who has sat down and thought about it realises that the system is fundamentally broken. The simple reason is that if every PhD graduate becomes a tenure academic who supervises n>1 PhD students, this would lead to unsustainable exponential growth. As you say:
- each academic is expected to supervise a high number of PhD students (in your case 20).
- The phd is seen as an apprenticeship for academia, and a prerequisite of becoming a tenure academic.
- High percentage of phds pass, and it is seen as a failure of the system to fail a student.
So there has to be built in drop out later on, and in fact, as the original article you critique pointed out, most PhD graduates leave academia after their PhD and postdoc when they realise that it is virtually impossible to get funding or further postsocs to build a portfolio that will get them tenure. This realisation often comes as a disappointment after a decade of sunk costs.
This is a pyramid scheme where phds are the bottom rung. It would be far kinder and more transparent to be more selective earlier in the pipeline. But the other aspect of the system that makes it hard to change is the incentive structures that give rise to the pyramid in the first place. Especially in the sciences, phds students are often seen as cheap labour for the more menial aspects of running a lab. Phds are willing to carry out this work because one day having completed their indetured labour, they too will have their own lab. But we know from simple math that this is extremely unlikely.
To me PhDs are about class. If you don't have a full scholarship to do one, or if you're not wealthy enough to afford 4 years of full time study, you won't be able to do one. So many great students out there with amazing ideas who’ll never be able to get their PhD because it's simply unaffordable.
I don’t know where you get your information from. Almost all PhD positions are fully paid. For sure this is the case in the sciences. But even in the humanities, PhD students typically work as teaching assistants or are otherwise supported by the university.
In the UK, there is a large funding crisis. Alongside the rise in cost of living, students are finding it difficult if not impossible to manage. I know of students who sleep in cars because they cannot afford rent. There are simply not enough scholarships going around for the amount of interest. And TA salaries are low, and not enough for students to support themselves.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/sep/12/uk-universities-cut-back-on-crucial-research-because-of-reduced-funding
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/student-led-ahrc-phd-places-fall-least-60-cent
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2026/01/19/why-are-uk-universities-failing/
https://open.substack.com/pub/olivehigham/p/the-death-of-uk-humanities-phd-funding?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=72uiq3
https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-europe-views-of-europe-2026-1-phd-cuts-threaten-systemic-fallout/
This is true but from my experience in Canada and the US, PhD stipends are poverty wages. Thus, it does select for people whose parents’ can subsidize them, and give them that financial security. Particularly in fields that don’t necessarily easily translate into high earning potential after graduation.
This is such a clear-eyed breakdown of why a PhD is rarely “easy,” even for the strongest students. I especially appreciated your point about the advisor’s responsibility to calibrate challenge. I wonder you think is the single most important sign that a student is being pushed well rather than being left to struggle?
Your post was a few posts below this one 😭