Timeline for Earning a Ph.D in Theoretical Particle Physics

[justpassinby]

My dream career would be to research and find new things and write papers in the field of theoretical particle physics. I'm pretty sure to get to that point however, I need a bachelor's, master's, and a Ph.D in Physics. So, how long would all of that combined take (roughly) (bachelor's + master's + Ph.D)?

 

[f95toli]

Depends a bit on where you are in the world. Probably somewhere between 7 to 10 years.
Also, this is in the wrong sub-forum.

 

[justpassinby]

Depends a bit on where you are in the world. Probably somewhere between 7 to 10 years.
Also, this is in the wrong sub-forum.

Oh sorry, didn't know. I'm a noob at this.

 

[Vanadium 50]

So, how long would all of that combined take (roughly) (bachelor's + master's + Ph.D)?

If you typed your message, "How long does a Ph.D take?" into a search engine, you would have gotten your answer even faster. If you're not willing to put even that little effort into this, do you think you are going to be able to put 7-10 years dedicated effort into a PhD?

 

[ZapperZ]

My dream career would be to research and find new things and write papers in the field of theoretical particle physics. I'm pretty sure to get to that point however, I need a bachelor's, master's, and a Ph.D in Physics. So, how long would all of that combined take (roughly) (bachelor's + master's + Ph.D)?

Zz.

 

[jtbell]

how long would all of that combined take (roughly) (bachelor's + master's + Ph.D)?

If you're in the US, and are "ordinary" graduate student material (brighter than the general university-student population because you're able to get into grad school, but not at the Feynman level), figure on 9-10 years total. Four years for the bachelor's, and 5-6 for the Ph.D. which includes the master's level coursework and the option to "pick up" an actual M.S. degree along the way.

I took 11 years myself, four for bachelor's and seven for a Ph.D. in in experimental particle physics. I could have finished a year or so earlier, but I was doing useful programming work for my research group and they weren't in a super hurry to kick me out.

 

[justpassinby]

If you typed your message, "How long does a Ph.D take?" into a search engine, you would have gotten your answer even faster. If you're not willing to put even that little effort into this, do you think you are going to be able to put 7-10 years dedicated effort into a PhD?

Well, I did put that into the search engine and it was giving me varying results. Some told that a Ph.D takes 5 years (didn't tell me that a master's degree would also account for the years) and some told me that it only takes 2 years. Now of course, if I cared about my future at all, I couldn't go off information given to me by a search engine's algorithm so I decided I want some human help and it also helped me find the answer to my personalized question. I didn't want to add up the years for all three (bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D) I wanted to know how many consecutive years it took for someone to do all of them together (including breaks, time off, vacations etc.) so I made my very own question in a website that I thought would have a lot of people that have went through what I was thinking of going through too. So to answer your question... Idk.

 

[Mark44]

Well, I did put that into the search engine and it was giving me varying results. Some told that a Ph.D takes 5 years (didn't tell me that a master's degree would also account for the years) and some told me that it only takes 2 years.

Then it would have been nice if you had told us what you found. I wouldn't put much credence into the response that it would take only two years...