Surely I’m not the only denizen of the Dope who has a doctorate she’s not using – What’s yours in? What are you doing instead? Do you have fantasies (or realistic expectations, either way) of getting back into the biz? Do you regret having gotten the degree? Do you still read in your field? Please share whatever info you like.
Note: I’m asking about unused doctorates only, so phlsophr, quagdorp – sorry, you’re overqualified for this thread.
Me: Sociology of religion, expertise in American cults. Left the biz in '87 when it became clear I wasn’t going to get a tenure-track job. I no longer subscribe to any journals or belong to any academic societies (it was a little weird when I let my membership in the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion lapse, thought I’m delighted that I will never have to attend the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion again – quelle meat market!) Once or twice a year I read something in my field, when it presents itself to me – but since I no longer read the journals, I’m not exactly cutting edge.
Currently working as a puzzle editor, which I love. No regrets – I got to spend 5 years thinking about some extremely interesting stuff.
I don’t have a doctorate but I have a B.S. in History emphasis medieval. Not much to do with it but teach. I worked in a museum for awhile but to make ANY decent money you have to be over educated. And not much call for Medieval European history in Western US.
I also have an associate in Anthropology emphasis archaeology. But I am not tempermental suited to archaeology: I hate working outside in the heat and tedium drives me nuts!
Besides if I was teaching or researching it would get in the way of all the reading I do!
You know that Universal Life Church that makes you a minister for a free will donation of a dollar? Well, for another twenty, they made me a Doctor of Divinity. I’ve spent twenty on dumber stuff.
I probably don’t count, because I’m working in academe. But I have the exact same job I had before I got the sheepskin, and all but one of my colleagues have BAs or MAs only–and they are considered my peers and equals in every way. So I don’t need my PhD to do this job.
Also, I still laugh when anyone calls me “Dr.” That ought to count for something in this thread.
I’m guessing that even on such an erudite board as this one, you aren’t likely to find an overwhelming number of unused doctorates, so I’ll take the liberty of posting even though 1) I didn’t quite finish a PhD–would’ve been ABD if I had stayed another semester; and 2) I am currently using the MA that I did manage to get. I just want to tell my story, okay?
I’m teaching in a department made up of 3 people with PhD’s and one (that’s me) with an MA. The students are all graduates, and the atmosphere has always been pretty casual. We’ve always gone by our first names, among the students and ourselves. This semester, the decision was made that we were to go by our titles instead, at least among students. We could have our students refer to us as “Doctor” or “Professor,” the boss said as he explained at a meeting–and then his eyes landed on me, and he hesitated a little and added, “or ‘Mister.’”
Hey, I’ll admit that these guys finshed the degree and I didn’t; I have no problem at all with using titles. Since I don’t have one, though, every time I’m called “Mister O,” it’s hard for me not to laugh. It always sounds to me like “Mister ‘NOT A DOCTOR’ O.”
Well, it’s good that I don’t take myself too seriously, or I might get depressed. Two of my three cow-orkers have completely ignored the rule. I’m thinking of looking into that Universal Life Church deal. That would be 21 bucks altogether, right?
I suppose I’m underusing mine as I’m working in development rather than research. Didn’t get the academic job so I went to work for a small startup. There’s a research component, but mostly it’s just roll up the sleeves and do what needs to be done. It has its good points and its bad points – I’m pretty much out of touch with current research in my field; on the other hand I’m not spending my days reading mind-bogglingly dull papers.
I am putting my Doctor of Musical Arts to minimal use by teaching private voice lessons at a local college, but I spend most of my time working as an editor/programmer at an internet database and pursuing my freelance singing career.
However, I expect one of these days I’ll pursue a full-time academic job, and then my credentials will come in handy. I do enjoy teaching and would like the freedom of summers off and a more flexible daily schedule. Plus, one of these days I may have something to offer eager young minds besides the things that other people taught me.
Hmmm…my fist attempt to post seems to have evaporated into the “page cannot be displayed” ether… Sorry if this ends up being a dupe.
Anyway, I am making minimal use of my Doctor of Musical Arts by teaching private voice lessons at a local college, but I spend most of my time working as an editor and pursuing my freelance singing career. Niether of these things requires a degree.
However, I will most likely pursue a full-time academic job in the future, and when that time comes I’ll be glad for the credential. I enjoy teaching, and would especially enjoy the more flexible daily schedule and summers off.
I don’t qualify, since I’m using mine, but I’m interested if those who do think that the training and discipline acquired in doing research and a dissertation has helped in whatever you are doing. For me, since I’m in industry, having a doctorate maybe helped land a job and for the first few years, but after that it hasn’t made much of a difference.
I don’t know if I’m exactly “using” mine - I certainly don’t do research any more. I’m a patent attorney, with a PhD in Materials Engineering from MIT. I think they bill me out at a higher rate because I have it, but I don’t see any of that money - I get paid the same as an associate of the same seniority with a BS.
My Ph. D. dissertation was on a topic in General Relativity. Since we was having children by the bushel, I did not even look for an academic position. Instead, I took a job that required a Ph. D, but not the training specific to my field. (Not much demand for Relativists on the free market!) Of course, I left that job and now am the only Ph. D. “producing” stuff at my current locale. (One of my bosses has one.)
I guess I would say that the specifics of my field have provided no more than conversational material. However, my general physics background has been used. Currently, it just helps people to think I am smart. It also got me my first job, and provided me with the confidence to make a living solving problems.
The only other time I use my degree is when I’m not getting proper service. Waiters, city engineers, salespeople, etc., all suddenly seek to serve when you are a “Dr.”. The fact that I’m not the kind that does anybody any good is not brought up. (Well, I do like to reply to “What are you, some kind of rocket scientist?” with “Well, … yes.” ).
Turns out my B.Sc. in Physiology is useless when it comes to actually getting a job anywhere. So now i’m going to do a medical laboratory technology program and hopefully get a job that way. At least after I’m done with THIS program, the B.Sc. I already have will be a plus when I’m looking for work… right?? RIGHT??? Please tell me it’s worth SOMETHING!!!
Certainly the research skills have helped me. Not the discipline, ha, as I’ve always had too little of that and barely managed to get the PhD because of it. It didn’t improve that problem.
The PhD is useful to me somewhat in that it raises my credibility with key people on campus. I don’t feel I am doing my work any differently, but for some professors and others in academe, the fact that it comes from someone who went through that credentialing process makes a difference.
Not me, but my boyfriend’s dad has a PhD in astrophysics but works as an actuary. On the plus side for me, I can ask all my pesky questions about black holes and on the plus side for him, he can make his business card look very impressive.
I have a PhD in Biochemistry that I do not use at all - I became a computer programmer (my degrees included no classes in any form of computing), then into project management and now run a small software development company.
I stopped Biochemistry as I didn’t like research - too much tedium, not made up for by the “excitement” of the results (very understandable, given the results I was getting). There’s not a whole lot left in Biochemistry if you don’t like research.
I still read quite a lot of popular science, particularly evolutionary biology, which isn’t really very close to Biochemistry. I suppose the closest thing I’ve read to my original subject was Darwin’s Black Box, but that’s a whole other thread.
I do not regret getting the degree. I did write up my thesis even though I was already out of Biochemistry by the time I put pen to paper. It is better to try something you think you want to do, and discover you don’t like it, than not to try at all. If you don’t try, you may regret that the rest of your life. In fact, if I interview undergraduates who are unsure whether to take a job or do a second degree, I advise them to do the degree - it is much easier to enter the job market a little later than to start work with an idea you might go back to college.
My wife has a PhD in Biochemistry and became a nurse. My best man got a PhD in Biochemistry then went to medical school and became a doctor (this is rarer in the UK than American dopers might think as in the UK the vast majority of doctors go straight into studying medicine - there is no pre-med degree).
Well, I’ve got a Juris Doctorate that I’m not using – does that count?
I graduated law school right at the height of the last big recession in the early 90s when jobs were scarce. On top of that, three days before graduation I was in a major car wreck that fractured my pelvis in three places and left me unable to do much in the way of job searching anyway.
I did take (and pass) the bar exam, but have never actually practiced law. During the recuperation process I started working part-time (later full-time) for a consulting company that designed cusomized legal software for various law and insurance firms, and after three years of that I went to work for a medium-sized downtown law firm designing legal software in house.
After four years with that firm I got laid off and decided it was time to re-examine my career goals. Having been out of law school for seven years without ever having practiced law, I figured that finding a legal job would be a bit difficult. Since I enjoyed technology and writing, I thought that maybe I should consider a career as a technical writer. Unfortunately, entry level tech writers get paid diddly-squat, and I had no desire to go back to school and start all over again. Surely, I thought, there was some company out there that would value my legal training and background and be willing to see it as “equivalent” experience.
Well, it turns out I was right. It only took me a couple of months before I landed a position as a Senior Technical Writer for a start-up medical software company. The manager who hired me had just fired his second tech writer and was convinced that they were all idiots. What he really wanted was somebody with good writing skills and a familiarity with technology, but who wasn’t so narrowly focused as most tech writers seem to be.
That was three years ago, and it really seems to be a match made in heaven. I’m told by my co-workers that my documents read like “best-selling novels” and the customers have repeatedly said that our company has the best technical manuals of any software company they have seen before.
Yeah, I sometimes regret the fact that I’m never going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year as a lawyer in a big firm, but I’m happy with what I’m doing.
Mine is worse than unused, it’s an actual liability. It was hard enough to get a job with a PhD in Computer Science when things were booming. Automatic kiss of death now. (They, used to, hire my students gladly as their knowledge was current. But mine was stale. Uh, folks, who taught these people???)
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