Board 8 > Doctorate holders, how difficult is the coursework and creating a dissertation?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I hold a masters degree. For petty, petty reasons I'm considering pursuing a doctorate.

Doctorate holders, how difficult did you find it to pursue your degree? Is the coursework more difficult than with a masters? More importantly, how difficult did you find it to research and create your dissertation?

I do not have a doctorate, and the summer I spent working in a lab (paid, mind you!) is the primary reason why.

The answer depends largely on your field of study.
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You might be better off looking at Reddit for this.

https://old.reddit.com/r/GradSchool/

I'm extremely close to getting my Master's (literally just one paper submission away), but I can tell you from just going on that sub, you have to be REALLY into your field to go for a PhD. I see a lot of dispirited people in that sub.

I would say for most cases, the amount of work people do for a Master's does not compare to a Doctorate.

For me, I'm done with academia, I have no plans to go for a PhD after this.

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I have my PhD in chemistry, so your mileage will vary depending on your study.

For me, there was no additional coursework. I did all my coursework as part of my masters, and after that it was entirely research focused for the next four years. It was a ton of work, but I do not imagine it was that different from any other strenuous job you might take on. I wound up working 5.5 days a week most weeks with more or less depending on the specific experiments I was conducting.

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I did a masters only and I grandpa Simpson noped out of there so fast

Imposter syndrome isnt real when I'm a real imposter

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Coursework was fine (and in fact was basically the same as for the masters; the requirements were very slightly different as one was some number of credits and the other was some number of courses, but it was like 9 courses over two years).

Motivating yourself to put in enough work to be successful at research, however, is very hard if you aren't passionate about it. Do not pursue a PhD unless you have a compelling reason to get one; it's not something you get just for the hell of it.

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