Thinking about getting a PhD? Here are some good resources.

Part of my job is to help students figure out if grad school is for them. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a few great resources for students thinking about a PhD. Here are some of my favorites.

Here is a link to the first of a series of ten blog posts by Jean Yang, who decided to leave Google to attend grad school in CS at MIT.

Philip Guo released an e-book on the PhD experience called The PhD Grind and has a 45 minute lecture on why to consider a PhD in CS. He has a bunch of other good posts about academic life as both a student and an assistant professor. He has a post specifically on applying to grad school.

Tim Hopper has a great series about whether one should consider a PhD in a technical field. I like this series because a broad range of people participated and not everyone encourages a PhD.

Chris Chamber’s blog post called “Tough Love: an insensitive guide to thriving in your PhD” has a lot of frank advice for determining whether a PhD is for you.

Below is a slideshare presentation I put together for the VCU math club a few years ago, since several seniors were planning to apply to graduate programs.

This is a woefully incomplete list, but I don’t want to delay posting it any longer. What other useful resources are out there?