Exactly what is so hard about getting a PhD? You generally don't

Its surprisingly easy to fuck up, otherwise attrition rates wouldn't be so high

Also PhD is tricky because you have an 80% chance to go into industry, and specific parts of industry because you are overqualified for entry level shit.

>>8937936
it's difficult to force yourself to waste the last of your youth that way

>>8937936
Just take a grad course and find out. If you didn't transfer with any credits, you could still take them relatively early as an undergrad.

I don't want a PhD or even a master's desu. I fucking hate college.

>>8937959
This.

Also, keep in mind that even if you do come up with an original idea your job prospects/potential income will not improve, because its not what you know, its who you know.

Additionally, if you come up with something that is potential destructive to "the consumers", you may even be ostracized.

>>8937936
It's a shit load of work.

When you start you have to take classes and learn the material well enough to pass an oral exam. That shit's hard.

Then you become your PI's slave. You cost next to nothing and you're not paid by the hour. Your research consumes every moment of your life because that is what is demanded of you. You work long hours.

You also have a very idealistic view of the PI-PhD candidate relationship.

>>8937940
I'd say attrition rates are more due to people realizing it's a ton of work and not exactly what they want, rather than them fucking up.

>>8937936
Sucking up to the idiots on your thesis committee is soul crushing work

I was going to start a phd but quit because of reasons. I can't speak for the work itself (though I talked with a couple of people who are doing a phd and they are liking it), but a huge hurdle is actually starting. I was "lucky" because my phd would have been building on my master's thesis and the professor I had as doctoral advisor had huge "political" power, he liked what the topic was, and frankly he liked me. A girl I knew, who probably was a better chemist than I was, got fucked over because people didn't like her, and her topic (something in analytical chemistry, I wasn't very close to her) was already filled with people, or at least this was the official reasoning for telling her to go somewhere else.

80% lucky brainlets
20% hardasses
talent/genius plays no role

I'm half of the way through a PhD, so take this with a grain of salt. Who knows how it ends up?

>You generally don't even come up with an original idea, you get one from your advisor.

This isn't totally accurate, but it may vary by advisor. In general, as you work more and more with your advisor and get more experience and what not, you take a more active role pushing ideas, providing intellectual input, planning experiments, etc. It's not fair to say that any intellectual input (read: original idea) comes from the advisor and not the student.

>Then, with guidance from this expert with decades of experience, you develop and carry out an experiment to test it and write and submit a paper. Even if you don't prove the hypothesis, the results are valuable because you proved it wasn't what you thought.

If you have published a paper as first author, you have performed novel research. Whether you prove or disprove the hypothesis, your publication is tangible evidence that you have made your dent in the universe; in other words, you answer some question and, by extension, made some contribution to your field.

>I'm just an undergrad, but please enlighten me. How could someone possible fuck this up?

There are plenty of stumbling blocks. You need to get in to grad school. You need to pass your classes and your quals. You need to find a lab. Then, when that all happens, you need your research to work out. (That's its own rant.)

>>8937936
>>8937940
>>8937959
>>8938115
>>8938127
>>8938172
>>8938295
>>8938309
>>8938310
>>8938860


TLDR: Its basically just luck

Also
>t. pareto distribution

As a general rule though:

>Shit supervisor + you have a shit work ethic = shit PhD

>Shit supervisor + you have an excellent work ethic = High school teacher in training

>Great supervisor + shit work ethic = comfy wagecuck job in industry

>Great supervisor + excellent work ethic = $$$