Effects of dropping out of my PhD studies

[Dunky]

I'm a recently graduated MS in EE, I'm considering continuing onto a PhD. I'm wondering, what impact would starting a PhD and dropping out have on my career?

Basically I'm considering giving it an honest shot for ~1 year and if I hate the experience leave. One year isn't a huge personal investment and gives me the option of trying it. On the other hand I don't want it to cause a substantial negative impact on my future job prospects.

Thoughts?

 

[berkeman]

I'm a recently graduated MS in EE, I'm considering continuing onto a PhD. I'm wondering, what impact would starting a PhD and dropping out have on my career?

Basically I'm considering giving it an honest shot for ~1 year and if I hate the experience leave. One year isn't a huge personal investment and gives me the option of trying it. On the other hand I don't want it to cause a substantial negative impact on my future job prospects.

Thoughts?

Are you paying for your PhD education, or are you being paid? If you join a research group as part of you PhD work and leave after one year, will that leave them with a hole that will be hard to fill and impact the pace and quality of their work?

Will you be doing this PhD work at your current MS degree university? If so, have you talked about this with your faculty advisor?

Have you picked your PhD advisor already, and have you spoken with them about this?

 

[Dunky]

Are you paying for your PhD education, or are you being paid? If you join a research group as part of you PhD work and leave after one year, will that leave them with a hole that will be hard to fill and impact the pace and quality of their work?

Will you be doing this PhD work at your current MS degree university? If so, have you talked about this with your faculty advisor?

Have you picked your PhD advisor already, and have you spoken with them about this?

It would be at my current university but with a different advisor. The idea is for a project they don't currently have someone for. It's a bit new(I guess).

My current advisor told me to try a PhD and leave if I don't like it, but the PhD is with someone else.

I would only do it if I was being paid. I didn't discuss it with the new advisors but I don't feel a need to. Honestly I wouldn't feel too bad about leaving if it didn't work for me as staying results in a loss of 70k/year which I won't continue if I don't like it.

Basically I'm mainly interested in possible career impacts.

Also I was considering trying to squeak out at least one publishable paper, so I would have gained some benefit from it. If there wasn't a clear path to generating a paper within a years time that would be another reason to exit.

 

[Zap]

The elephant in the room is: what are your career goals?

 

[Dunky]

The elephant in the room is: what are your career goals?

Work in industry, eventually in a more RnD role. Or be a consultant.

 

[gleem]

I do not see how the experience in the Ph.D. program will be significantly different than the MS except that it will be longer and perhaps more intense. One usually doesn't enter a Ph.D. program with an attitude of "trying" it. You may not have the proper disposition for this program if you are thinking about the possibility that you will not continue. If you are not fully committed it would be doing your advisor a disservice since he/she would be expecting you to tough it through if things became difficult which often does happen in research. You cannot doubt yourself. In your mind failure should not be an option.

 

[Dunky]

I do not see how the experience in the Ph.D. program will be significantly different than the MS except that it will be longer and perhaps more intense. One usually doesn't enter a Ph.D. program with an attitude of "trying" it. You may not have the proper disposition for this program if you are thinking about the possibility that you will not continue. If you are not fully committed it would be doing your advisor a disservice since he/she would be expecting you to tough it through if things became difficult which often does happen in research. You cannot doubt yourself. In your mind failure should not be an option.

My perspective is I'm doing my advisor a service by offering to work on a problem for minimum wage over a number of years.

But irrelevant to the question at hand which is, should I decide to terminate what if any career impact will this have?

 

[Zap]

Work in industry, eventually in a more RnD role. Or be a consultant.

I think that is too broad. What does working in industry mean? What would you be consulting? Can you be more specific? You can pursue graduate school and start looking into jobs at the same time. You should work on narrowing down your job search to one or a few specific careers.

If your only other option is to move back in with ma and pa, I would pursue graduate school but write a resume that says otherwise and start your job search. I would exclude your continuation of school in the resume but include your research assistantship as your current job to avoid any potential gaps in employment that may ensue.

If you end up not finding a job and dropping out, I would question your mental state, because if you don't have a job, what would you drop out for?

Something I wish someone had told me prior to enrolling in graduate school is that you can major in anything you want for your master's or PhD. You don't have to continue what you did in your undergrad. It is possible to slingshot directly into computer science or engineering without taking any remedial courses, but you have to talk to people and get a few signatures to do so.

I recommend not attending the same school you did your undergrad in for your graduate education. This is not a good idea, because you are probably sick and tired of that place. You should apply to another school in another state. This will look better on your resume and will be a much more exciting experience for you.

I have also heard it is better to enroll as a PhD student than a master's student, because the PhD students are first choice for TA and RA funding and internships.

 

[Dunky]

I think that is too broad. What does working in industry mean? What would you be consulting? Can you be more specific? You can pursue graduate school and start looking into jobs at the same time. You should work on narrowing down your job search to one or a few specific careers.

If your only other option is to move back in with ma and pa, I would pursue graduate school but write a resume that says otherwise and start your job search. I would exclude your continuation of school in the resume but include your research assistantship as your current job to avoid any potential gaps in employment that may ensue.

If you end up not finding a job and dropping out, I would question your mental state, because if you don't have a job, what would you drop out for?

Something I wish someone had told me prior to enrolling in graduate school is that you can major in anything you want for your master's or PhD. You don't have to continue what you did in your undergrad. It is possible to slingshot directly into computer science or engineering without taking any remedial courses, but you have to talk to people and get a few signatures to do so.

However, I recommend not attending the same school you did your undergrad in for your graduate education. This is not a good idea, because you are probably sick and tired of that place. You should apply to another school in another state. This will look better on your resume and will be a much more exciting experience for you.

I'm not interested in switching degrees?

I think you combined my post with someone elses.

By RnD I'm interested in either developing remote sensing, robotics, or guidance systems.

In my MS I covered a fairly broad range of courses and I suspect I could probably get hired by a big name defense contractor fairly easily(though it seems degree requirement creep is ever increasing).

But, I have an opportunity to try a PhD so obviously the question is what risks does this pose?

 

[Zap]

I'm not interested in switching degrees?

I think you combined my post with someone elses.

By RnD I'm interested in either developing remote sensing, robotics, or guidance systems.

In my MS I covered a fairly broad range of courses and I suspect I could probably get hired by a big name defense contractor fairly easily(though it seems degree requirement creep is ever increasing).

But, I have an opportunity to try a PhD so obviously the question is what risks does this pose?

I indeed confused your thread with another. I should have reread the entire thing before responding again.

I thought you were going into grad school after completing undergrad for some reason.

I don't know if it will adversely affect your job prospects or not. I only suspect it wouldn't, as long as your research aligns with the careers you're after, and your advisor is okay with it. It's probably not a big deal to talk to your new advisor about this.

 

[Päällikkö]

I think the risk is very small. If you drop out, you're not going to have a gap in your resume as you can stay enrolled until finding a job and if ever asked, you could say you found an opportunity in the industry that was just too good to pass on even if that weren't exactly the case. Doubt anyone will ever even ask. Some of my colleagues dropped out of a PhD and I don't feel like there's much of a stigma associated with it.

I also absolutely agree with you in that you don't owe an employer, academic advisor or otherwise, the explanation that you have doubts as to whether you intend to go through the entire PhD. Also, whether or not you leave an employer in a jam should you quit, should never be at the top of your list of considerations.

 

[madness]

I do not see how the experience in the Ph.D. program will be significantly different than the MS except that it will be longer and perhaps more intense. One usually doesn't enter a Ph.D. program with an attitude of "trying" it. You may not have the proper disposition for this program if you are thinking about the possibility that you will not continue. If you are not fully committed it would be doing your advisor a disservice since he/she would be expecting you to tough it through if things became difficult which often does happen in research. You cannot doubt yourself. In your mind failure should not be an option.

I disagree with this from personal experience. I entered my PhD with the idea of trying it out to see if I liked it. I enjoyed it and eventually managed to make a career in academia out of it. My case may be a little different as I switched fields from physics to neuroscience and didn't know any neuroscience starting out my PhD. In my mind "failure" was always an option, and I think that's a healthy attitude to have (except that leaving a PhD shouldn't be called failure). PhDs are full of self-doubt, and some people naturally self-doubt more than others. You have a point about the impact of dropping out on the advisor, but I don't think that's the biggest consideration for a student thinking whether to enrol in a PhD.