So, what's your motivation of going for Economics Ph.D

[usavinci]

I recently talked to my professor about the cost and benefit of getting Economics Ph.D.

To my surprise, the professor said going to graduate school for Ph.D is risky: the candidate has to work extremely hard but earned very little salary for 5 years. After that, hopefully he can become a assistant professor at a university. Then, work harder to teach students while do research and publish papers. After about 7-10 years, hopefully you can get tenured. After tenure, life basically becomes easy. While compared to work in industries where people can earn a decent salary in the beginning, tenure cannot come if any stages brake. (For example, if you don't get a good evaluation from college students, you might be kicked out. The research you did before that, say 3-year research, is completely useless. You have to start new researches in order to get tenured in another school)

I am wondering what are your motivation of pursuing Ph.D. in economics. I mean, interest is definitely one of the motivations, but thinking about this, I am kind of scared. What else motivates you?

[TheFez]

1. If you want to go into academia then you must have a PhD

2. If you don't then it's probably not useful.

3. You should have a very strong desire to do research and to be an academic. At many schools that means also teaching.

That's it.

[TheFez]

Oh, and then of course there's the girls.