Hi everyone. I’m a third-year Ph.D. student doing ML-related research and have no publications so far. I do have a couple of ongoing projects that will lead to first-author papers in the next few months. I’m also at a point where I think mastering out and getting a job might be a better option. But I also worry that I might regret not getting a Ph.D. I love research but I feel the academic environment is not a good fit for me. I just want to hear from people who were in a similar position as me. Did you stick through your PhD or did you master out? How has the life been after that?
I started my PhD straight out of my undergrad so I didn’t get any industry experience. So I’ve been thinking that getting a job with my master’s and spending some time in the industry could be a good option. Then I can return back to grad school if I still have that urge. Or I can simply brave through my current situation and just get a PhD and then work in the industry. Any opinions are welcome!
Most PhDs are useless and offer no additional knowledge over a Masters , unless you want a career in the Academia. There are a few exceptions to this, a PhD in ML/DL/RL is one of the big ones. I would suggest to stick with it even if you were in your 1st year, let alone few months from publications.
The lack of an internship is no ideal but your are still the prime candidate for the FANG (or MANA those days) + Microsoft. Not to mention financial/banking/investment people. There are a lot of interesting stuff happing in the startup world in AI. Mainly US, but there are opportunities in UK, EU and China as well.
Hold on, you almost there.