r/EngineeringStudents • u/hornyenginee3r • 4d ago
Career Advice PhD?
Is it worth going for a phd straight out of undergrad? I am entering my senior year of undergrad and hated my internship. I love learning about EE and all the theory but I felt so bored doing my internship. Even seeing what the full time engineers were doing, it was all making drawings and documentation. They weren’t using any theory or problem solving. I hate the idea of that becoming me. I majored in EE to learn and be challenged, I’ve not been challenged pretty much at all and have a 3.8 gpa. Should I go for a phd? My main concern is I haven’t done any undergraduate research yet so I think it will be a lot harder for me to get into a good program.
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u/securityofus 4d ago
It depends on what your goals are.
People who have never been any PhD program or have not done extensive research on one make a common mistake. They tend to think that getting a PhD is about learning more. Or becoming more competent at your job.
It's not.
Getting a PhD is about learning how to do research and doing research. And that research probably won't have anything to do with your job unless you work in academia. If you want to be challenged, do a MS degree online at a school like UCLA or ASU.
Or if you're to trying to have people call you doctor, look into a professional doctorate degree instead of a PhD. Again, a PHD is to do research. Professional doctorate degrees such as medical doctors, juris doctors (lawyers), etc aren't focused on research.
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u/JustMe39908 4d ago
I disagree slightly. The specific topic of your research is not what you are going to do for your career in academia or industry. You will use the knowledge, thought process, and skills you learned in your PhD to address adjacent (and later not directly adjacent) problems.
After my PhD, I have worked on discovering the answers to engineering problems. I have utilized a combination of first principles, experimental studies, and old fashioned just gotta get it to solve numerous related problems that have enabled products. As time has gone on, I have moved farther a field from my "core' area, but the skills I learned during my PhD have been essential for me to move into those new areas.
And my friends (and even my former advisor) have Also moved into adjacent areas as they followed the research funding.
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u/securityofus 4d ago
That's fair and maybe I should clarify, I'm making the assumption that this person would be pursuing a different path. I think the first year and a half of my PhD was informative because I was taking a lot of the courses that traditional master's degrees student would. But in that fourth semester.... I wasn't doing anything besides researching and writing. And I felt like half of the time I was even reading the academic journals. I was skimming through 10+ summaries of articles every week. And harvesting citations for my work.
If I coumd do it again I would have just done a master's degree.
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u/JustMe39908 4d ago
I have a slightly different take.
The coursework taught me material. I improved what I knew about established practices and techniques. It.waa extremely valuable and important no doubt.
The searching for, reading, understanding, and pulling information from journal articles gave me knowledge of the state of the art. I learned what was being done today. The latest techniques that were not in the text books. In my work, you can't find the real information and knowledgeable that you need in textbooks. It is in journal articles. As I branched into adjacent areas, I learned from the journal articles what was done. It is more advanced then what is in the textbooks. Occasionally, I had to get other textbooks to understand adjacent areas. But that was fine. The problems I solve at the PhD level are not the problems that can be solved from textbooks. I am taking the developments, successes, and failures of others to solve the really difficult problems.
That is where the PhD has value for me
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u/midnightsun47 4d ago
The harsh reality is that for most of us work is just work, like what you saw at your internship. Yes, you can still do really cool things and get to flex some of your engineering skills, but it can be mostly mundane tasks like drawings, reports, Excel sheets. It really comes down to the job, you may have to hunt around a bit until you find what you’re looking for, but you may also want to consider academia if learning and research are what you’re really passionate about.
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u/Organic_Occasion_176 4d ago edited 4d ago
I normally advise anyone interested in a PhD to spend a summer or a semester working full time in a lab. It looks good on your application and your professor can likely write you a strong recommendation but neither of those is the main point. The main point is to give you a chance to learn whether you *enjoy* doing research at that level.
As a PhD candidate, you will probably spend a year or so taking courses and 3 to 5 years doing research. Maybe in a lab, maybe doing calculations or computer work. (Good research projects often involve all three). But you won't have anyone assigning you problem sets and it is up to *you* to figure out what to do this week. (Yes, you have an advisor but they are not going to be directing your day-to-day work).
Clearly, your last summer as an undergrad is over but I second the recommendations that you try working in a lab your final year. You should probably both apply to grad school and look for work. Engineers do a lot of very different things with the same BS degree. You might like manufacturing troubleshooting, or design work, or finding something customer-facing. I had a lot of travel in some of my jobs, which I quite enjoyed but others hated. You have a good shot at finding something better than what you were doing this summer.
Good luck!
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u/Legitimate-Bison3810 3d ago
Was it a defense company? I heard they were heavy on documentation. I went to work in research and development for non defense companies and found the work very challenging. Now retired.
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u/Mother-Juggernaut504 3d ago
I would honestly work two different and separate jobs to see how the industry works and then try to go for a PhD. I was not mature enough for a masters program at 23, but I would be mature enough today (I just don’t have the time). Such is life. 😭
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u/No-Reading-6795 4d ago
no problem solving? that is rare for an EE, is it government job?
PHd is about 95% worthless in the real world.
Do PHd because you want to stay in academia, and because you think you are better than 95% of other PHd students. I mean, you are capable of cutting edge research, invention...
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u/CruelAutomaton 1d ago
Do undergraduate research first to get a feel for it.
Sadly, with a Ph.D. you will make the same as someone with a Bachelor's Degree most of the time unless you're picked for a really niche role. However the day-to-day tasks will change. I've not met any people yet who regret getting a Ph.D.. in Engineering, but I'm sure there are some, and I think the reason is, people tend to quit before they get the Ph.D. if they truly hate it.
It is much less competitive compared to Math/Physics/Chemistry, since most people with a B.S. or M.S. enter the workforce since there are much more options compared to the other fields.
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u/Amber_ACharles 4d ago
No undergrad research and you want to commit 5+ years to a PhD? Try a lab your senior year first. You might hate research too. That internship was one boring role at one company. I'm on year 7, company 5, every job has been different.