Ph.D

"The next time you get the opportunity to talk to someone who has run the Ph.D. gauntlet, or even better, someone who started but dropped out, ask him about his experience. Did he find it fair, challenging? Did he think he was treated well, with respect? There is no better way to understand what is involved than to listen to the pain and anguish of one who has experienced it.

"Perhaps the most startling finding of this work In Pursuit of the PhD is that fewer than half of all students who enter Ph.D. programs ever get the degree- more than half drop out along the way. They don't drop out casually, but more likely 'after pursuing degrees for anywhere from six to twelve years.

This terrible waste and abuse of some of America's finest talents has been going on silently, virtually unnoticed, for decades...The traumas associated with the pursuit of the Ph.D. may even have discouraged many scholars from returning to such a personally painful subject.."

"What we see are 33,000 middle-aged men and women groggily grasping the Ph.D. degree every year. What we don't see are the ten of thousands of brilliant minds who would not tolerate the abuse, the students who would not submit to the humiliation and exploitation. Tragically, this probably includes many of the best minds in America."

This is what Martin said.