I recently had a very disturbing talk with someone who was trying to discourage me from completing the PhD program. This person had recently dropped out of his own program and I am not sure if he was just discouraged with the entire world of academia or if he just did not want me to finish.

(If you are not reading this post at www.howisavemoney.net it may have been stolen from my site.)

I have no idea what was going on in this guy’s mind but I am determined to finish my Phd. Maybe it is just a case of someone not wanting you to move ahead because they are not moving ahead.

In any case, this person’s decisions will not affect me but I just thought it was strange. He kept saying there are very limited jobs in our field right now and in some cases the pay is low. He claimed that he could make more with his masters degree in the industry than I probably would make with my PhD at a university.

back-to-school-art

I am not sure where he is getting his numbers but that certainly seems strange to me. I do not want to go into industry because I simply do not want to practice. I want to teach and that is my goal. I think this person was just trying to talk me out of the PhD because he is no longer pursuing it and misery loves company!