Thank you for this post.
It’s time to get objective outside advice. See a career counselor.
They will evaluate your interests, your career goals and help you decide not just what field to go into but what degree (PhD, Doctorate, Masters etc). I known many people personally who found seeing a career counselor absolutely invaluable and has helped them not only choose a career path, but find a path they didn’t even think of!
I do know what that’s like. I did it for a year before I found my current job (which I love.) It is hell, no doubt. I actually almost killed myself in March of this year, because unemployment sucks that much.
But I also know what it’s like for my husband to go through his Ph.D. He’s midway through his fifth year and he’s been miserable every second. It has been a complete disruption to our lives. We’ve moved three times in four years. We’re bitter and broke. We live 14 hours from the nearest family member. We have no idea what state we’re going to be living in next year, or the year after that. We have 2 friends we see on a regular basis. We’re pushing 30 and watching everyone around us settle down, buy a home, have children and start their lives while we mark time by the academic calendar and go further into debt.
If you have a partner, it will affect your relationship and probably your SO’s career. I haven’t seen my husband for any significant length of time over the past month. He has gotten home at 9pm almost every day the last two weeks for a 9:30pm bedtime. I have no idea how all of this moving is going to affect my ability to advance professionally, but I’m sure moving to a new state every goddamn year doesn’t look good on a resume. We are holding on to hope that it will be worth it once he finally has a job he loves, but I guarantee you this is not at all what we thought it was going to be, and right now we basically feel like it was a tragic mistake.
Thanks for understanding my predicament.
I do have a girlfriend, and she is anxious to get her life started. That’s actually another reason I’ve been stressed about the situation. If I go back to school, it will undoubtedly affect her relationship with me. I was upset that she wasn’t supporting my decision, but I can see why now.
The job situation looks pretty grim at the moment; however, other graduates are in a similar situation. I haven’t really taken a good look around me in a while, and it’s starting to make sense now.
I have a PhD in one of the liberal arts in a subject with absolutely no practical value. I intended to be a university professor in the field, but at the time I graduated, there were no jobs available. I spent a few years teaching a course here and there, with next to no nibbles for a full-time professorship.
But even with all that, I am extremely happy that I did my doctorate. It gave me skills that I use to this day. And the time I spent getting the degree was extraordinarily rewarding.
Regarding your nervousness about being able to cut it - going from a Masters to doctorate was more of an incremental step that a huge leap. The biggest change is that you have to make the original contribution to knowledge, but you’ve shown that you are ready for the next step.
So, you want a PhD, get a PhD. Afterwards, life will be what you make it. Your reasons are your reasons, and I’d suggest you ignore anyone who takes issue with your motivations.
I do want to emphasize my own experience is really a worst case scenario kind of thing and I don’t think it must necessarily be that way for everyone. But my husband is incredibly passionate and gifted in his field and has nevertheless suffered a great deal. I’ve never met a clinical psychologist who had anything positive to say about grad school.
Also, I see you are interested in Public Administration. What kind of job do you think you’ll get with a Ph.D. in Public Administration? I have friends with MPAs who see no reason to proceed. I guess it depends on what you want to do. There are very few academic jobs out there, even fewer are tenured, so if you want to teach you could easily expect to make $30k when you start your career, which is less than you’d probably make with a Master’s degree. You would also probably be in the position of taking whatever you can find, regardless of where it’s located, and until you received tenure you would have no job security. I don’t know, however, if there are other professional options in your field that pay more. One thing to keep in mind is that employers are more likely to hire a Masters than a Ph.D. if they can get away with paying less. One particular issue in my husband’s field is that clinical social workers are often given hiring preference over psychologists because they are cheaper.
D18, that’s kind of what I view it as right now. It seems like an incremental step rather than a huge leap. Thanks for understanding. There’s no guarantee that I’ll be accepted. If I’m accepted, I will definitely consider getting into the PhD program.
Olives, I’m interested in working for the federal government. During my internships with the federal government, I met a lot of people with PhD’s, and they actually require that candidates have PhD’s for some of the positions. Again, I’ll probably think more about it when and if I actually get accepted into the program.
Hi, humblebumble, I am going to weight in with my own advice. I completed my PhD this past May. My degree is in physical chemistry, so our situations are a bit different.
As mozchron mentioned, DO NOT PAY FOR YOUR PHD. Do not even consider entering a program that will not pay for your tuition, provide a stipend to live on, and pay your medical benefits. Find out how long they will guarantee funding. This hurdle is the largest to clear. Once you are past this black/white issue, everything else will be a shade of gray for you to sort out.
You need to keep in mind that a PhD is a research degree. It is not like attending dental or medical school, where one can take out loans confident that future earnings will make it worth it. Consider the well-publicized plight of law and business school grads who now have six figures worth of debt and are unable to find the high paying jobs they’d been dreaming of. Your MPA is the degree that qualifies you to work in the field; your PhD will qualify you to do research in the field. There is a big difference.
The advice everyone gives you basically boils down to your love for the subject. Are you ready to make it the centerpiece of your life? Do you love it that much? I hate this advice. Quite frankly, you will not know the answers to these questions until you have already started. Even then your answer is going to vacillate based on how well you are progressing!
My advice is to make a list of which doors will open for you and compare that to the list of doors that will close. What new jobs will you be qualified to do? If you don’t end up working as an academic or for the Feds, then what new skills will you have acquired that will open new doors? Think about this long enough to make a good list. Then do your best to put some sort of monetary value onto each of those doors that will be opened to you.
Here are the doors that will be closed if you go on: 1) 4-10 years of the salary you would be making 2) the ability to plant roots and settle down right away. Like I said, a PhD is a research degree, not a ticket to a high paying job. Not only are you likely already qualified for every well-paying job in your field, you may find yourself hiding your PhD on resumes when you apply to jobs that want a Masters–they might discriminate against you based on the assumption you’d want to be paid higher for your degree. Even if you qualify for $10k more a year in salary, you might have cost yourself $30k a year for those 10 years that you were living on a stipend instead of a real salary.
Now then, think long and hard using the line Adam Carolla says are the two acceptable reasons to do something major: “Does it make you money or does it make you happy?” In the long run will the money be worth it? Even if it is not, will the new doors available to you be worth it in terms of your happiness? Keep in mind over those 4-10 years you will watch your friends make real salaries, buy homes, and start careers. Are the rewards behind those doors still worth it?
So I guess maybe all of that seemed a little negative. It is not meant to be. I’m glad that I earned my PhD. I am glad I want to the university that I did and that I worked for the professor that I did. I had an absolute blast in graduate school. I borrowed sunscreen from a Nobel prize winner and had several conversations with the husband of the Chancellor of Germany. I traveled all over the US and Europe on someone else’s dime. I attended a 3-month long workshop where the the housing stipend was generous enough for me to live right on the beach in Venice Beach. I learned an incredible amount. My technical writing vastly improved. I learned how to think and solve problems like a scientist. My career goals are in reach, and I have many backup plans that also would never have been available otherwise. I can’t say for sure if I will make enough money over my career to make up for 5 years of living on a small-but-not-awful stipend, but I am happy with my choices and the doors that are opened for me.
Getting a PhD is going to be both intensely rewarding and intensely frustrating–guaranteed. You need to figure out how rewarding it is going to be for you and if that will balance out the awful frustration.
Oh and one more note: nobody calls me “doctor,” and I don’t really expect anyone to. The only time is usually when someone is saying something along the lines of “you have a PhD and you can’t even figure out how to program your car radio???” or “your fly is down… DOCTOR”.
That is enough rambling for now. You really need to sit down and assess whether or not this degree is worth the cost of the years of your life that you will spend on it. The suggestion of a career counselor is not a bad one.
TL;DR version: do not pay for a PhD
Professor/doctorate holder here. It’s an Ed.D., from a school that only grants Ed.D.s - yes, I am a researcher, at a flagship, research-intensive university. I think UTejas and I might have been on the same campus. 
I wouldn’t impugn many reasons for seeking a doctorate; as long as it’s a burning desire, that will get you through. But it shouldn’t be for some expected payoff like respect from others or a lovely faculty job. Neither is guaranteed. The professoriate is shrinking, universities are looking more and more to adjunct faculty, and tensions between policymakers and faculty are quite high.
But I loved being a doctoral student, and I love being a professor. My doctoral years are were pretty full and there was stress, but I wasn’t miserable. I was treated well by my advisor and the faculty I worked with, I enjoyed learning, and I was at an incredible institution, where there was a world leader or Nobel Laureate lecturing more or less every evening on campus.
I was generously funded, but I did take out some loans - education is a field in which there isn’t a lot of funding available, even at the best schools. I also worked as a grad research assistant, teaching fellow, consultant… pretty much every semester.
I think the realization that I was learning things that I could use to make colleges and universities better was the hook for me. I care deeply about doing this, and I saw it start as a doctoral student.
Anyway. I think you owe it to yourself to learn as much as you can about your desired area of focus. I don’t necessarily think you have to have it completely paid for to make it worthwhile. Some things are worth paying for. Personally, the self-reflection, opportunity to be in a community of esteemed scholars, and ability to create knowledge are things I thought were well worth the pecuniary, emotional, and physiological cost.
Knowledge is power. Know what you’re getting into first. It’s certainly not wise to make any life decision on a whim, unless you’re willing to deal with the consequences of doing so.