Should you do a STEM PhD? An honest introduction
I’m writing this from a week-long academic workshop with two dozen other professors from around the world. Every morning we hear talks, interspersed with discussion, and continue informal conversations into the afternoon or retreat into private work in our offices. The other visitors here have made exciting, textbook-worthy discoveries on my favorite subject, including rapid progress since I last saw many of them a year or two ago. Some of this research is already having an impact, the kind a member of the public might know about. I can see new collaborations forming and have dreamed up several new projects myself. I’m excited for what’s ahead.
It also wasn’t until the third year of my PhD that I stopped seriously thinking about quitting and leaving academia. The remaining years of my training weren’t easy either. I spent more time than I care to admit during my postdoc preparing for another career, expecting academia not to work out. Now I don’t want to pretend that everything is bliss as a professor: I still face management challenges, I worry about funding, and I’m constantly juggling priorities and wondering if I’m doing it right.
I’m nonetheless grateful every day I stuck with it.
Most everyone who embarks on a PhD has some dreamy vision of science. You might imagine hours of intense focus or hackathon-like sessions at a startup, or perhaps the generous resources that support large-scale, rapid experimentation at a bigger company. Perhaps you’re eager to take the scientific expertise you acquire from the PhD and use it to direct research priorities at a government or foundation, develop scientifically sensible policies, provide inspiring instruction to college students, or do something we can’t imagine yet. But I’m guessing on some level you are excited to advance knowledge and share that expertise with others. Getting a PhD is one of the surest ways to develop a career in which you can do just that.
A PhD is also, as you undoubtedly know, not for the faint of heart. It’s hard partly because doing anything new is hard, and you’ll be attempting to do something that’s new not only to you but also (no exaggeration) to the rest of humanity. You’ll become acquainted with confusion and failure, and you’ll come to make them your allies. But a PhD is especially—and I’d argue unnecessarily—hard because there can be so little guidance along the way. Most graduate students know the “joke” that professors are not selected for their mentoring or management skills, but the situation can be even worse than that. Many professors, PhD students, and other academic researchers don’t even know or agree on what good management of a research group looks like, although they’ll often wish the people around them did things differently.
I believe the unnecessary hardship often starts at the application stage, as potential applicants navigate conflicting advice and rumors as they sort through opportunities. Often they’re not receiving much guidance at all, and they unwittingly approach a PhD application as though it were an application for law school, medical school, or even a masters program. Rather than carefully assessing the fit of a potential program or advisor, they might assume they should accept whichever offer would put them in the top-ranked program according to some shady algorithm at U.S. News & World Report. Others might wonder if they have what it takes to do a PhD, and this uncertainty might cause them not to apply, to sell themselves short during interviews, or to join the program that feels “safest.” These decisions have enduring consequences, often sad ones.
This guide is an effort to make the PhD more rewarding from the start. My goal is for readers to make better decisions at every step, leading to more success (in their terms), and to have more fun along the way. I will give you a helpful framework for deciding whether to apply for a PhD at all, or at least whether you should apply now, and for narrowing down programs and research groups, for making a good impression, for gathering critical information to assess fit, and for choosing among your offers. I want to help make the period before the start of your PhD inspiring too, so you can begin your PhD with confidence, including the confidence to know it’s okay not to feel confident all the time. I fully believe that your care and preparation at the application stage can catapult you past many of the unnecessary hardships that can overshadow a PhD.
Most of what follows comes from the other side of the table. I am a tenured full professor in a top program in the U.S., and I have been involved in hundreds of doctoral admissions decisions in the biological and physical sciences. I am successful by the usual measures: my lab has received millions in funding from the federal government and private foundations, I lead several international research projects, and I regularly publish in so-called high-impact journals. I am also not so old that I don’t remember what it was like to apply, and there are many things I wish I had done differently. After a decade of advising doctoral students and talking with colleagues about their professional trajectories, I have learned about others’ regrets as well as their wisdom. My goal is to give you this insider’s view, to directly relay to you the information that my colleagues and I wish had been shared with us. My only agenda is to help you have a happy and productive PhD. If you can’t afford this guide, write to me and I’ll send it to you.
With this frank talk comes the need for anonymity. I will tell you things that go beyond the official programmatic statements about how your application will be judged. I’ll discuss some red flags and anecdotes that my colleagues, if they knew my identity, might recognize. I also don’t want to give the appearance of selling access to a competitive program or capitalizing on my professional affiliations. For all of these reasons, I’ll redact identifying information and change minor details in stories.
I will also be up front with you about what I don’t know. This book is better suited for applicants to science and engineering doctoral programs in the U.S. and Canada. Although I have regular collaborators on other continents and have worked closely with doctoral students in Asia, Oceania, and Europe, the programs and norms are different. For instance, in Europe, PhDs are often obtained in three years rather than four or five, students are typically assigned extant projects rather than expected to develop their own, and industry partnerships are more common. I think the information here could still be extremely valuable for people applying to programs in these regions, since many of these guidelines about fit and research are universal, but readers should do additional research. Similarly, this book can be useful for people considering joint PhD programs (e.g., MD/PhD), although you’ll need to look elsewhere for considerations about the other component.
The 2026-2027 application cycle will be tough. Cuts to U.S. federal funding jeopardize research not only in the U.S. but throughout the world, since the U.S. is a major funder of scientific research occurring beyond its shores. The research groups and PhD programs to which you apply will be facing more uncertainty than they have perhaps ever faced before. I will provide the best advice I can about how to accommodate this uncertainty into your application strategy. For updated advice as the situation evolves, you might want to follow me on social media (@stemphdmentor on Bluesky and Reddit) and check this site.
Think of this as the frank and heartfelt advice I would give you over a beer or coffee, but also with some handy guides to help you follow through. This is the second edition. Much of what’s new here answers questions readers sent me after the first, and I encourage you to get in touch if you think the book is still missing something. I’ll provide more information on how to do this at the end. So let’s get started—I’m excited you’re considering a PhD!
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That is the opening of the 2027 PhD Admissions Guide. The rest of the guide runs 81 pages and covers choosing where to apply, what reviewers are actually looking for, assembling your application, contacting potential advisors, interviews and campus visits, weighing offers, and what to do in the months before you start.