A lot of the people who do PhDs do them because they are foreigners who want to settle in another country. That is also true for postdocs. And yeah, the reason is mostly because no one wants to do both PhDs and postdocs. Therefore institutes are somewhat desperate to find people and they look abroad. I know people who were born in poor countries and through a PhD they could migrate to the USA legally and stay there, get a good job, buy a house and settle. Stuff like that is pretty much impossible for most people from poor countries. I like your honest approach in this videos BTW, it's better than the clickbaity approach I see elsewhere.
Thanks for watching and for your comment! I also came to the U.S. through the common international student route, and I agree that many international students pursue the traditional degree path because they want a second chance at life in another country.
Can I ask a basic question? Isn't the core purpose of a PhD to contribute/add to the body of knowledge in the world. If that motivates you, great, but if it's something else... My personal perspective is growing up I thought I wanted to be an MD. Life didn't work out that way but over the years I've never felt bad or motivated to try again. Because the honest truth is I wanted the money and status but to actually heal people? Nah. Hell, I don't even like science and I have a career in the healthcare field.
Advancing knowledge is the core of a PhD, but I don't know how many people actually enter the field primarily for that reason anymore... 😬I believe that in all fields, there are millions of reasons for people to enter and millions of reasons for people to step away.
One counterpoint is that if you end up in biotech without a PhD, at least as a coder, you'll be treated like a second class citizen. Your scientific ideas will be outright dismissed and any technical insights (like how their statistical methods were invented 100 years ago for tiny data set, and how there are much more modern methods) will be quickly extinguished. Also you'll be paid like garbage. Btw congratulations on the sponsorship.
That’s a tough reality about biotech and pharmaceuticals. Compared to tech companies, biotech and pharma definitely still place much more emphasis on degrees rather than skills. I appreciate that most tech companies hire based on skills rather than degrees, but I’m not sure if the bio field will ever shift its focus to skills over qualifications... And, thanks!
@@FailingThirty I think it might be because without qualifications it would be hard to get those skills in pharma. While in tech you can learn online and practice those skills using a computer and from anywhere in the world. So tech is much more open to raw talent and hard work. Pharma will rely far more heavily on whether you had the opportunity to be picked up by a large university to get the training.
@@acampoverdeify Regarding the traditional pharma/biotech culture, it seems unfair to me that, in most cases, PhDs have a much higher chance of being promoted to management positions, even though graduate school (for science majors) doesn’t teach much about management. Management is a skill that most people can learn outside of the traditional education system. Also, based on my personal experience, many PIs in academia lack management skills. I’m not sure if the pharma/biotech culture will ever change to give people without terminal degrees more opportunities to climb the corporate ladder.
A lot of the people who do PhDs do them because they are foreigners who want to settle in another country. That is also true for postdocs. And yeah, the reason is mostly because no one wants to do both PhDs and postdocs. Therefore institutes are somewhat desperate to find people and they look abroad. I know people who were born in poor countries and through a PhD they could migrate to the USA legally and stay there, get a good job, buy a house and settle. Stuff like that is pretty much impossible for most people from poor countries. I like your honest approach in this videos BTW, it's better than the clickbaity approach I see elsewhere.
Thanks for watching and for your comment! I also came to the U.S. through the common international student route, and I agree that many international students pursue the traditional degree path because they want a second chance at life in another country.
Can I ask a basic question? Isn't the core purpose of a PhD to contribute/add to the body of knowledge in the world. If that motivates you, great, but if it's something else...
My personal perspective is growing up I thought I wanted to be an MD. Life didn't work out that way but over the years I've never felt bad or motivated to try again. Because the honest truth is I wanted the money and status but to actually heal people? Nah. Hell, I don't even like science and I have a career in the healthcare field.
Advancing knowledge is the core of a PhD, but I don't know how many people actually enter the field primarily for that reason anymore... 😬I believe that in all fields, there are millions of reasons for people to enter and millions of reasons for people to step away.
One counterpoint is that if you end up in biotech without a PhD, at least as a coder, you'll be treated like a second class citizen. Your scientific ideas will be outright dismissed and any technical insights (like how their statistical methods were invented 100 years ago for tiny data set, and how there are much more modern methods) will be quickly extinguished. Also you'll be paid like garbage.
Btw congratulations on the sponsorship.
That’s a tough reality about biotech and pharmaceuticals. Compared to tech companies, biotech and pharma definitely still place much more emphasis on degrees rather than skills. I appreciate that most tech companies hire based on skills rather than degrees, but I’m not sure if the bio field will ever shift its focus to skills over qualifications...
And, thanks!
@@FailingThirty I think it might be because without qualifications it would be hard to get those skills in pharma. While in tech you can learn online and practice those skills using a computer and from anywhere in the world. So tech is much more open to raw talent and hard work. Pharma will rely far more heavily on whether you had the opportunity to be picked up by a large university to get the training.
@@acampoverdeify
Regarding the traditional pharma/biotech culture, it seems unfair to me that, in most cases, PhDs have a much higher chance of being promoted to management positions, even though graduate school (for science majors) doesn’t teach much about management. Management is a skill that most people can learn outside of the traditional education system. Also, based on my personal experience, many PIs in academia lack management skills. I’m not sure if the pharma/biotech culture will ever change to give people without terminal degrees more opportunities to climb the corporate ladder.