Which is the utility of a PhD in USA?

[Nylex]

Thanks for that, ZapperZ. I'll have a look at the other thread .

 

[mathwonk]

2 more cents:

In my experience a PhD can disqualify you for some jobs, like buildings and grounds work. Also not having a PhD can disqualify you for all university tenure track teaching jobs.

Some jobs are not picky about degrees, just ability to do the work, like unloading trucks, and construction. they never held it against me at my job unloading beef carcasses that I knew Zariski's main theorem.

Before i had a degree, I also had a temporary untenured job at a state college teaching math, and most people there agreed i knew more math than anyone else. Not having a PhD however worked against me there, and i was terminated for the lack of it, inspite of the high regard they had for my ability and knowledge.

I found it highly embarrassing as a self professed academic, to find that merit mattered less in university teaching than in meat unloading.

So I gave in and got a PhD, to survive in academia. Then I got a suprize. The people teaching me at graduate school really did know a heck of a lot more than I did and were also smarter than me mostly. They also held me to a very high academic standard and expected me to produce more than I had thought would suffice for a degree. So I grew intellectually and professionally, and became very proud of the experience they forced on me.

Now I am college prof and I have realized that teaching is physically a lot easier way to earn a living than unloading meat. I am now to old to unload meat, or to do construction work, but am allowed to dodder on in class about calculus and other matters.

Of course mahy of my peers earn more money than I for work which is intellecxtually easier and less challenging, and getting a PhD was the hardest thing i have ever tried to do, but I am not sorry I have one.

A piece of advice: getting a PhD is so hard that you need to sustain yourself by the love you have of your work. So pick an area you really are enamored of. I tried otherwise, and had to switch back to my real love to survive.