I don& #39;t know. Spending several years in a funded PhD program was a far better option than anything I had available to me. It was the first time I had health insurance, for instance. I won& #39;t regret it, even if it doesn& #39;t work. https://twitter.com/JakeAnbinder/status/1264250042476609536">https://twitter.com/JakeAnbin...

I think some people view it as 7ish years wasted, time you could have been climbing the career ladder? But I& #39;m almost certain I would still be washing dishes or working tech support without it.

I feel like I have a completely different attitude to all of this. Being PhD student was a pretty good job for me, and I thought it was worth fighting to make it better, and to make it more open to people like me.

I& #39;m not entirely sure what it would be, but I& #39;m much better positioned to get a decent job now. Not an insignificant thing if you had no family connections and no real idea of how to be "a professional."

"Just don& #39;t go" advice always seems like it was calibrated for a very specific audience, people who might otherwise become lawyers or whatever, people who already have a decent array of options.

If your job sucks, if you feel like you have no future, and if you can find a funded program, you should absolutely consider a PhD. It& #39;s going to be much less miserable that what you were doing, especially if you& #39;re going to be doing it in the middle of a depression.

I& #39;m too much of a coward to go back and listen to it, but I& #39;m pretty sure I talked about this on here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueguiwSgsS0">https://www.youtube.com/watch...