Graduate School in a nutshell

>>8696261

>Put away my pride and got a good blue-collar job right out of highschool.

>Never have money problems. Can actually live my life instead of slaving away like you.

You sound miserable. You were lied to anon.

>>8696283
I live for the work that I do. There's more to life than money. I've never had much money so it's not like I'll be missing it.

>>8696297
yup, as a paleontologist in the making I may be broke as hell for much of my life but nothing short of working for NASA is better than studying dinosaur bones and shit

>>8696261
i couldn't get a job in the industry with my engineering bachelors, but got into a phd program fairly easily.

big regret. the pay is a third of what i would be making at this point, and i'm expected to work harder than i would in the industry. i have also developed an intense dislike for academia due to the people that are in it.

>>8696261
Yeah, you don't go to grad school for money.

You go to grad school because you're obsessed about a topic and/or -really- want your name attached to results.

>>8696361
you go to grad school for a masters for money if you are an engineer or business man because you'll need it after like 7-10 years to advance in your job

The point of graduate school is not to secure a higher salary. People do things for reasons other than making money.

I was a well paid software engineer, and decided to go back to school for a PhD.

Software became a mind numbing job. The initial sprint of building out a system can be quite interesting and fun, but the bullshit begins to pile up very quick. The "real life" factors, like managing a team, dealing with managers, managing expectations becomes your job, and you end up doing barely any programming.

>>8696283
>work a good paying blue collar job right out of high school.
>im unskilled labor, so getting paid $1780 a week is pretty fucking nice.
>quit eventually
>could of stayed and worked my way up the ladder
>would of had a job in my 30s that pays 6 figures for 6 months of work
>tired of slaving away for 12-16 hours a day. want a career that advances humanity and age my body at 4x the normal rate
>eventually work my way into grad school just so i can work 12-16 days for poverty wages on the hope that i'll work in a good lab one day.
>chances are ill be doing fucking grunt work like streaking agar plates for poverty wage when im 30.


fucking hate life.

>>8698435
Jesus fucking Christ what job were you working that pays like that for only 6 months out of the year

I'm boutta drop out of grad for that shit lol

>get that research position of your dreams

This is how I know you aren't a grad student. Faculty positions are incredibly competitive and extremely rare. You are better off just chasing after your plan B unless and opportunity at a uni arises.

>friends all in engineering already getting paid well
True it hurts, but they do boring shit while I do the most baller research ever.

>>8698493
it was a fishing job in the bering sea. Good pay, but you work 7 days a week, 12-16 hour days with back breaking work in one of the roughest seas our little blue ball has. On top of that, during offloading periods, you work 12-16 hour shifts every 5 hours so instead of being say 12am- 12pm, your shift repeats, start at a new time for about 2-3 days.

So yeah good money but you have to be ok with living at sea and doing nothing but work for a good portion out of the year.

The captain of the ship I most frequently worked on was a jeffery dean Morgan lookalike. He would work 6 months for $200,000, then spend the next 6 months on a beach somewhere tropical in a drunken sex crazed stupor until he was broke or his off season was up.