Hello. I'd like to share one slightly tangential anecdote and observation regarding this.
I have a friend who was in a PhD in Physics program at CalTech. Absolute genius of a kid, and was surrounded by other people who are incredibly smart. My friend was always a very ambitious person, and wanted to join Wall Street as a quant after completing his PhD because he was interested in maximizing his income, and found the problems presented in finance/markets more compelling than those found in academia.
When he intimated this to people in the Department, they looked at him as if he had suddenly grown tentacles, because it's unbelievable to them that anyone would want to do something other than academia. This is a stark contrast to friends I have at places like Stanford, where no one quite frankly cares.
This doesn't touch on any alleged bad behavior or stress or pressures or experiences that people have while in grad school, but I believe that the cultural forces at institutions govern how people feel pretty strongly. That isn't a profound observation or even revealing, but I just thought that people would like to see a quick human anecdote to maybe relate to people going through this.
I have a friend who was in a PhD in Physics program at CalTech. Absolute genius of a kid, and was surrounded by other people who are incredibly smart. My friend was always a very ambitious person, and wanted to join Wall Street as a quant after completing his PhD because he was interested in maximizing his income, and found the problems presented in finance/markets more compelling than those found in academia.
When he intimated this to people in the Department, they looked at him as if he had suddenly grown tentacles, because it's unbelievable to them that anyone would want to do something other than academia. This is a stark contrast to friends I have at places like Stanford, where no one quite frankly cares.
This doesn't touch on any alleged bad behavior or stress or pressures or experiences that people have while in grad school, but I believe that the cultural forces at institutions govern how people feel pretty strongly. That isn't a profound observation or even revealing, but I just thought that people would like to see a quick human anecdote to maybe relate to people going through this.