Going to grad school to get a PhD? We’ve been there, and there are things that we wish we had known back when we were right where you are now. Things that you don’t often find in the offices of advisors tasked with helping you get accepted. Things that universities don’t advertise. 

And what all that advice comes down to risk management. Right at the beginning, when you make the decision to go and where to go, you have a whole risk management project you need to work through, but you will not be told everything you need to assess and manage those risks. Your professors and university leaders will not warn you about all the problems with the work and learning environment. They will not warn you about the statistics – that 40 to 50% of the people that start a PhD never finish it. They will not warn you that the problems those people faced were often outside their control. They certainly won’t warn you how unclear the actual requirements to finish a PhD can be or how much singular control your advisor may have over the process. 

As former doctoral students and long-term advocates for graduate student well-being, here’s what folks on the FAARM team wish we had known before starting our own programs: 

#1 – You need to have multiple specific project ideas in a specific research area that you’re really motivated about.  

Having multiple project ideas reduces your likelihood of getting stuck in a narrow niche or dead end. Between shifting committee preferences, changing priorities at funding organizations, and new research that may disprove your idea, a lot of things can happen that throw a wrench in your first (and second, and third) project idea. You should have several feasible projects that you could turn to, just in case. And they should be different enough from each other that they could stand alone – if all of your ideas depend on the same assumption or funding source, you could end up in trouble. 

Plus, having specific project ideas will help you have more productive conversations with faculty and potential advisors, as this will give you more ways for their ideas and advice to integrate with yours. This will bolster their interest and investment in your research.

#2 – You need to know the program or department you’re applying to has at least 2 faculty that would be ready, willing, and able to advise your project. 

Your advisor has inordinate control over your degree, and you will not be able to graduate without an advisor who will sign off on your work. So you should have an idea of what you’ll do if something disrupts your relationship with your advisor: if they move to another university or their position at the university changes, or if they end up being toxic and difficult to work with, or even abusive to you or someone else (the stats on faculty-to-grad student sexual assault are still frighteningly bad, even after years of the Me Too movement). In short, you need to be in a position where you have the genuine practical ability to switch advisors and finish your work, just in case. 

#3 – You need to know where the funding, data, and other essential inputs to your project are coming from in very clear and specific terms. 

Many students start their PhDs without knowing enough about the logistics of research funding and resources, and this often comes back to haunt them. It’s important for you to be aware that, throughout your PhD project, your funding situation – for both your research and your livelihood – can change rapidly and that the details of these sources (e.g., who can access them and why) matter. 

If you happen have all of those inputs in hand at the time you apply (like, you have already been awarded the money and are ready to do this), you are coming into grad school at a major advantage. For most potential PhD students, though, this is completely impossible, especially the funding part, since that’s often tied to a specific faculty member. In general, PhD students do not control any research funding. 

As you interview with faculty or rotate through labs during the first year of your program, you should be proactive: ask lots of detailed questions about where the funding, data, software, hardware, and other essentials come from in their current projects so that you can get an idea of how solid those sources are. Tying yourself to an unstable financial source isn’t wise.

#4 – Despite the academic job market, you need to have “Tenured Professor” among your Top 3 career options. It doesn’t have to be your #1, but it should be on the list. 

Being a tenured professor is a lot more about teaching, administration, and trying to get grant funding than it is about actually doing research. As students progress through their degrees, they often find themselves looking at career paths outside of academia where they can focus more on research and less on the needs of a university. 

But unfortunately, there is just not a lot of institutional support for those who are interested in those paths. Even though the demand for PhDs outside of academia continues to rise, there is still a very strong cultural expectation that most PhDs in most fields will become professors. While this has not actually applied in any practical way in 20+ years, most current faculty were raised and trained in an environment that very strongly held this expectation, and it still shapes a lot of their thinking and behavior. As a result, you will learn a lot about tenure-track academic hiring just by being in academia – about openings, recruitment, interviewing, hiring, and the tenure process. In contrast, you will learn a lot less about private sector opportunities, and faculty will be less helpful in finding and pursuing them. And unless you very actively seek it out, you will be told almost nothing about government and non-profit jobs. 

What this boils down to is this: Most of the career advice you will be exposed to will only be applicable if academia is in your cards. If you want to even consider other paths, you will have to spend a lot of time and energy learning about those markets yourself, and you’ll be dipping into your already cramped time and energy budget. So while you may not want to go into academia, the path to it will be clearer (albeit harder) than others, and you should keep it open, just in case. If you would rather do anything else than be an academic, you should strongly reconsider this whole venture.

Plus, this can help you get accepted into a PhD program to begin with. A lot of the senior people in academia still like the idea of working with a PhD student who’s eager to “follow in their footsteps.” Remember, this whole thing is basically an apprenticeship, and a weirdly old-fashioned one. You should expect this to affect the way you get evaluated in applications and interviews, and it may even affect the amount of support you get in practical day-to-day work on your PhD project. 

When it comes to deciding to get a PhD, we recommend being very pragmatic about the risk of failure. Even if you do everything right, you might still not finish your PhD. This is doubly true for anyone who has external demands: those with health problems or disabilities, or those with a partner, children, or other caregiving responsibilities. When you consider applying to a PhD program, make sure you have a backup plan for how you will make a living and handle those responsibilities if your PhD falls through. Do not go into this counting on a PhD to be your ticket to financial security. 

If you do end up among the 50-60% of doctoral students that find the right program, project, advisor, and path through the doctoral training process, you can have an incredibly satisfying career, whether it be in academia, industry, government, or a range of nonprofits. Even if it’s in a tiny corner of most obscure research area, you never know when your specialty might become a hot, high-demand topic or produce a key new insight or technology that helps a lot of people. For plenty of people that follow this path, dealing with all the risks, pitfalls, and weird cultural expectations of academia ends up being completely worth it. 

But to get to that point, you have to find your way through it. So, remember: consider all your options, know what you’re getting into, be prepared, and take care of yourself along the way. 

Daniel Curtis
FAARM Co-Founder

Current or former PhD students, what would you add here?
Let us know at faarmteam@gmail .com.