There Has Never Been a Better Time to Start a Ph.D. By Ada Palmer
Introduction
This is a dire moment to enter the work force.
It is a perfect moment to spend four to seven years acquiring rare and valuable skills before entering a work force which will not be, in five years, what it is now.
The Ph.D. process teaches broad expertise in research methods. Doctorate holders know how to evaluate evidence, chase down sources, verify claims. They learn methods for finding reliable information, when to be suspicious of data, and how to act upon those suspicions. In addition to learning what we know, a Ph.D. student gains expertise in what we don’t know, learning where the frontiers in a field are, the big questions, incompleteness, and areas a field has not yet tackled. Someone with a Ph.D. can often look at a graph and say, not “that isn’t true,” but “that data doesn’t exist.”
We do not know what jobs will be in demand in five years, or in one year, and undergraduates now choosing majors based on employability face the terrifying likelihood that what is employable today will not be so by the time they graduate. Doctoral study is the inverse of this uncertainty. We absolutely know that expertise, research skills, patience, and understanding how to go about investigating and evaluating truth and falsehood will always be in demand, especially in a society racing to meet new needs in an information revolution. There has never been a better time, from the student’s perspective, to continue studying for a few more years to gain deep skills. Nor has there ever been a better time for institutions to support the production of deeply expert leaders who will be needed in the next stage of this crisis.
By Ada Palmer
Modified on November 03, 2025