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Reason 1: Loss of dignity through not being able to financially support oneself throughout your PhD candidature. Hence eventually you will become financially reliant upon either your partner or parents or not finish your PhD. Work in the end of the candidature is a catch 22 situation as you need to be spending that time working on your PhD thesis, not working for hard cold cash which is needed for survival. Even if you are lucky enough to receive a scholarship this will not last long enough. Nor was I told by anyone that I was entitled to take 3 months of holiday leave and 3 months of sick leave during my scholarship, which I would have taken after my mother died. So no-one will tell you what you are entitled to either while doing a PhD.
Reason 2: Loss of at least 3 years to 6 years of your life to a project that does not increase your chances of employment. During this time you will have to put off things like buying a house, having kids and doing any other creative projects.
Reason 3: Dim job prospects. Doing a PhD will not increase your chances of employment in either the broader 'labour market' or at the university. In regards to the broader 'labour market' employers will see you as 'overqualified' or wonder why you took so long to get a bit of paper. In terms of the university the phrase 'it is not what you know, but who you know' is relevant here.
Reason 4: Social isolation. The task of doing a PhD is fundamentally isolating. For instance only you will really understand your research project so only people with very similar research interests will get what you are doing, hence you cannot really talk about what you are doing to many people even friends or close loved ones (who at first feign interest and then eventually don't want to know about it). You also have to spend a lot of time alone researching, reading and writing, which is not conducive to maintaining friendships and relationships. Friendships will fall by the wayside as you do a PhD.
Reason 5: Alienation. While I used to believe that there was something called an 'academic community', sometimes referred to as 'collegiality' by some academics, this does not really exist at university. So if you are looking for intellectual engagement look elsewhere. There is a good chance that you may actually become 'dumber' at the university due to a combination of overspecialization, and lack of regular rigorous argument or theoretical engagement throughout your candidature. Many candidates have been forced to the web and blogging for intellectual engagement. In a way the first statement about alienation is accurate in only a limited sense. Of course there is an "in group" and an "out group" within any school at any university or any workplace for that matter. But perhaps I feel I have become even more alienated after being dumped by the "in group".
Reason 6: You are forced into competition against all. Perhaps this is a tad Hobbesian of me, but what the hell, I'll continue because I'm in that kind of mood today. Every one of your fellow PhD students is, at the end of the day, future competition against you for either full-time jobs or post-doctoral positions. And during your candidature your fellow PhD students are the ones that you have to compete against for casual work. Hence there is no real reason to collaborate with fellow PhD students, which is something that has been quite noticeable during my experience.
Reason 7: Casual work and the accompanying exploitation. While all work is exploitative in a Marxist sense, casual academic work is exploitative in a 'do not get paid for the actual hours that you do' sense. Or another way of looking at it, if you do casual academic work you end up working for free. Sure the figure looks like a lot per hour, but that figure is actually for 6 hours work which reduces what you earn to below the minimum wage. So either you don't do the job properly or you end up working for the university for nothing.
Reason 8: Poor health and bad posture. The life of the mind is unfortunately not necessarily the life of the body. You will spend a lot of time sitting at a computer or reading. Anyone wonder why so many academics are overweight or have fat arses? It is because being an academic is a sedentary activity. In terms of other health concerns, even if you do regular exercise every day the amount of sitting at computer is bad for your back, neck and shoulders, which is where I am getting increasing pain.
Reason 9: Becoming angry. Not too much to say here. Other than my anger at the moment stems from my disappointment at the university and the people there. I want to get off this ride now. I want my life back.
Reason 10: Becoming bitter. Self explanatory really.
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