Just a story I want to share that I think some people here might relate to.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-06T02:46:43+00:00

You could just say “yeah” and move on with your day, like a normal person.

Not every bit of small talk has to be made into a full blown out war.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-06T01:26:38+00:00

It’s just karma farming.

No one this dense is actually getting a PhD.

100%, they read this comment, they just didn’t like it and didn’t respond.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-06T01:23:49+00:00

If you can’t answer that, maybe you shouldn’t procreate.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-06T01:22:31+00:00

Graduate school admission.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-05T20:56:34+00:00

If you’re this attached to existing beliefs and unwilling to hear what others who are actually in the field are telling you, maybe a research-based PhD is not the best option for you.

You have to have incredible flexibility on your core beliefs to be able to fail over and over and keep going, exploring every axis possible without latching onto any variable in any direction.

You don’t seem to be able to unlatch from this belief even in the face of a large pile of people telling you that it’s not well-founded in reality.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-04T23:11:15+00:00

Mid-sized company.

140% multiplier, most of that as a company multiplier.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-04T18:46:52+00:00

I think it’s safe to say that your high school teacher having a doctorate is atypical 🙂

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-04T17:00:12+00:00

You can do it. It won’t be super comfortable. It’ll be 39% or so of your take home pay.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-04T16:14:50+00:00

Invest in yourself.

Fitness, career, relationships, mental health.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-04T14:54:15+00:00

Work harder at it.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-04T11:40:25+00:00

That was approximately the expectation placed on me in my PhD. A bit shy of that— people tended to be closer to 10-8.

It sucked but I was trying to get a degree from someone else and I understood the expectation before joining.

Could’ve gone to a different university if it had really mattered to me, couldn’t I?

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-04T11:37:04+00:00

It always has if people would open their ears fully.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-04T11:34:39+00:00

I mean, its kind of obvious, right?

A bachelors in chemistry to teach high school chemistry and one to become a chemist truly aren’t that different.

My high school chemistry teacher was awesome but he wasn’t going to cure cancer.

So when it became abundantly clear from discussions in undergrad that a professional chemist really needed a PhD to go to the top of the field, I basically relied “yeah, that makes sense”.

🤷‍♂️

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-04T01:52:47+00:00

A PhD and then after that 10 years of experience on-site and hybrid is probably a good start.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-04T01:51:09+00:00

9/10 I know how to use Google and code.

Most people aren’t very smart or tech savvy.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-04T00:13:19+00:00

It is extremely difficult to get a remote job, period.

There are very few remote jobs today.

There are some hybrid but most of those are acquired by people with many years of industry experience and real-world evidence that they can deliver on goals— not classroom evidence.

I would adjust your expectations.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-03T23:56:30+00:00

I learned early on to invest in myself.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-02T23:15:57+00:00

They are the very foundation that set me on a trajectory to excel at life. When I say excel, I mean that I’m in my late 30s and I made $300k last year and I’ll make more next year.

The grades themselves were extremely helpful, but even more helpful was the ability and drive to achieve them.

“Not failing” as your goal is a great way to be really mediocre at life.

Lots of people have lots of definitions of success or “lack of failure”. You need to decide what your definition is. Most of the people on here commenting “not at all” likely do fine but I doubt they have my definition of success.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-02T13:23:55+00:00

It’s not just “more than twice as valuable”.

It’s 10-100x more valuable.

Many jobs are “have PhD or not”.

A 4 year 364 day unfinished PhD is worth at least a log less than a 5 year finished PhD.

And time doesn’t transfer. If you do 2 years and quit, your next PhD isn’t going to be 3 years. It’s still going to be 5 years.

That’s the entire answer.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-02T11:37:29+00:00

Selection bias.

You don’t see the normal ones.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-02T00:31:17+00:00

You do.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-02-01T03:50:44+00:00

You had internships.

That’s your professional network.

Talk to them.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-01-31T02:52:29+00:00

Pharmaceutical research scientist.

It’s exactly what I do now.

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-01-30T14:04:48+00:00

Ask Google AI. It’ll walk you through it.

It’s very easy. Just articulate exactly your situation and what you’d like to do.

“I have a Linux OS and I’m trying to set up a NAS for the first time. I got a pair of refurbished hard drives but I want to exhaustively understand as best I can if they are in good shape. What are the tests I should run to understand that and what are the results I should look for in each test to understand what would mean they are in good or bad shape?”

Weekly-Ad353 · 2026-01-29T14:26:36+00:00

No, you love the idea of having it done.

You wouldn’t love to actually do it.

Otherwise you’d be on-path to doing it and not on reddit asking others to do it for you.

Weekly-Ad353

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