u/Main-Lake-1590

I spent my last year of my PhD in a total identity crisis, hating myself, feeling like. A complete loser for my lack of industry relevant skills or whatever. I was so full of regret, why oh why didn’t I join go into industry straight after graduating with my bachelors and climb the corporate ladder. What a terrible mistake I made getting a PhD!

Fuck everyone who made me feel that way! You only get one life to live and a PhD was such an incredibly fantastic way to earn a living. I was a PhD student in the social sciences so no back breaking lab work. Sure, I felt very stressed about my experiments succeeding. But I never made a PTO request, I went on vacation like 5-6 weeks a year. I collected data when I wanted, no one told me what to do. My PI gave me incredible autonomy to do whatever the f I wanted. Sure sometimes I wanted more guidance, and he didn’t prepare me super well to enter academia, but fuck it!

I also had an internship during my the last two years of grad school. I was clearing $5k/mo! And my internship was also incredibly laid back….virtually no work but guaranteed 20 hours per week of pay. Fucking lit! Also, not ONCE during my PhD did I worry about a lay off or not getting a paycheck. Job stability is not something to take for granted!

I entered industry hoping for something more real and tangible than the social sciences but lmao was I wrong. Academia has its problems but I wish I just focused on transitioning to a better research topic rather than throwing away the last 9 years of my life because surely the industry pay made it soooo worth it. To be fair, I’m not a genius, I’m working for the fed gov, not like Anthropic or some super cool company doing AI shit. For comp sci PhDs I’m sure the calculus is different….

My point is be grateful for what you have and also know that you’re earning a living in a more chilled out way than like 99% of the human population. You are not a loser for getting a PhD you’re a fucking baller and you will find some way to earn money after your PhD. I wish someone told me this because I spent the last year of my PhD so depressed about what a loser I was for not having industry experience or whatever. The people who make you feel this way are just jealous!!

You are amazing, also yeah, I’m sort of drunk (it was my friend’s birthday). Have a great week everyone.

Hi all.

So I moved to a pretty major Jewish hub in the US recently. I connected with my ethnicity/religion later in life. I’m 29, and at this point I am primarily looking for Jewish friends because my fiance and I are somewhat religious. Plus, at least when you make Jewish friends you can invite them for Shabbos, holidays, etc. I feel at a loss with what to invite other women to go do, and I also feel like I’m hiding or avoiding talking about a huge aspect of my life and identity.

I’m getting married soon, a year or so, and I was really hoping to make like 3-4 good Jewish friends to join me at the bedeken or be bridesmaids. Or to even just help me through the process, do a small bachelorette brunch, something.

I go to public Shabbats with olami and chabad pretty regularly. But idk…it’s usually 75% guys, and though I have talked to some girls, the community here is so large that I rarely see them again. It’s like every week I just meet new people.

Anyways, I guess I’m just looking for advice. What has worked for you? I play a couple of sports but have never been able to find like a Jewish team to play on. I’ve tried going to synagogues on Saturday mornings but I’ve tried out like 5 different ones and they all have a similar profile of families and individuals over the age of 50. I get that maybe people my age just have more of a life/better things to do? Idk. Basically I’m just looking for advice outside of “go to the chabad young professional events!”, because again those tend to be loud, noisy, crowded, and just not great ways to actually build a friendship.

Thanks… :)

Hey all.

I have a PhD in social psychology and work for a contractor. I hate my job. It’s so slow and the works feels nebulous and pointless. I make $115k though so it’s been very difficult to find a role that pays the same amount. I don’t have a business degree, both my degrees are essentially in psychology.

I feel like my soul is slowly dying at work. I need/want a job that is more fast paced, profit driven, where my tasks actually seem to have a point to them. If this job was remote that would be one thing, but forcing me to commute and do pretty much nothing all day is just torture.

I live in Colorado. I am willing to work for very low, seriously even just $25/hr, if the role would be in federal accounts or sales or proposal writing or proposal analysis or literally anything on the business side of GovCon. I have a clearance. Please help, I’m ambitious, I’m hard working, I want to have a career! Thanks.

Hi everyone.

Recently I have been experiencing very severe regret over pursuing an experimental psych PhD rather than a clinical one. I actually had a lot of clinical experience during undergrad, my thesis was on an intervention for kids with autism. But IDK, I was so intimidated by how competitive clinical psych was. I also loved designing experiments and was pretty good at it, and I liked the idea of being a professor. I got into a fantastic program with a pretty famous PI, so I figured I’d succeed in academia. Plus, I started around 2021, when UX was booming and every psych PhD I knew was landing great jobs at FAANG.

The PhD was awful, terrible! I also realized how screwed the job market was for my focus area, and I didn’t want to drag my fiance all over the country for postdocs and then whatever professor job I got. I realized being a professor was no longer a realistic goal for me or compatible with the life I wanted to live.

I did end up getting a job in research with the federal government, but it sort of sucks and I’m living somewhere I’d rather not. I feel like o can’t forgive myself for this awful decision I made. I could be a high earner with great job security, and instead I spent 4 years pursuing a passion project essentially.

I can’t live with this regret for the rest of my life, but I’m obviously not going to get another PhD. I’m considering law school, but it’s so expensive, and I can’t not make $ for three years. I know respecialization programs exist but they are also very expensive. Has anyone been able to respecialize through a postdoc or even multiple postdocs? Thank you for the advice.

Hi everyone.

Recently I have been experiencing very severe regret over pursuing an experimental psych PhD rather than a clinical one. I actually had a lot of clinical experience during undergrad, my thesis was on an intervention for kids with autism. But IDK, I was so intimidated by how competitive clinical psych was. I also loved designing experiments and was pretty good at it, and I liked the idea of being a professor. I got into a fantastic program with a pretty famous PI, so I figured I’d succeed in academia. Plus, I started around 2021, when UX was booming and every psych PhD I knew was landing great jobs at FAANG.

The PhD was awful, terrible! I also realized how screwed the job market was for my focus area, and I didn’t want to drag my fiance all over the country for postdocs and then whatever professor job I got. I realized being a professor was no longer a realistic goal for me or compatible with the life I wanted to live.

I did end up getting a job in research with the federal government, but it sort of sucks and I’m living somewhere I’d rather not. I feel like o can’t forgive myself for this awful decision I made. I could be a high earner with great job security, and instead I spent 4 years pursuing a passion project essentially.

I can’t live with this regret for the rest of my life, but I’m obviously not going to get another PhD. I’m considering law school, but it’s so expensive, and I can’t not make $ for three years. I know respecialization programs exist but they are also very expensive. Has anyone been able to respecialize through a postdoc or even multiple postdocs? Thank you for the advice.

Hey everyone.

Lately, I have been struggling in my job. Honestly it’s been a little rough since the beginning. I was hired by this company at a low six figure salary right after finishing my PhD. I moved across the country for this role with my fiance, who then also found a job here. I had been an intern with the company for a while, they paid for my clearance, and I figured I should give gov contracting a try.

But I was very skeptical and worried about the role because no one could really tell me what I’d be doing every day. I’m pretty bored most of the time, and you definitely do not need a PhD to do my job. My boss is very happy I’m there, but I think that’s just because he thinks my PhD raises the prestige of our unit. However, I also recognize that it’s an easy job with very low stress that pays pretty well. The main downside is that I work in a SCIF so no phones or laptops. Im getting married soon and want to start a family shortly after. I don’t want to keep running out of my car, and it’s a far walk to where I park, in order to check on texts from daycare or my husband or whatever. Idk I’m feeling like it’s not worth it.

Any other kind here worked in a SCIF with a clearance? Do you think it’s worth it? Sometimes I just want a remote job, but I know these are hard to come by in the clearance world. My basic question is whether you think the value of a clearance is overrated. Will I regret leaving?