I recently met a first year PhD who would be very well "over the hill." Top-tier school. There's motivation for ya.
Of course, it could be an exception, but I'm sure admission was granted without respect to age. As far as I know though, luck was a big determining factor, and as such, I would look at a lot of these things (particularly if you aren't a monstrously strong candidate) very lightly.
"I recently met a first year PhD who would be very well o"ver the hill." Top-tier school. There's motivation for ya."
Hey Thanks!
"particularly if you aren't a monstrously strong candidate"
Good Point.
A "monstrously strong" candidate is what I am trying to be. Hey if we ask startup founders to be monstrously strong developers why not hold ourselves to the same standards as grad students. The journey is very interesting, forcing me to evaluate my deficiencies as a candidate and get better constantly.
A scientist I am working with on some research software said recently, "You'd make a great PhD student at Carnegie Mellon" (where he got his PhD) and has promised to write a reccomendation, so there's some progress. We'll see how it goes.
Mitch Resnick, professor at MIT Media Lab, finished his PhD when he was 36. Fourteen years after his undergraduate degree, meanwhile spending five years as a science/technology journalist for Business Week magazine.
And he has done some great research even while being older than a typical graduate student.
Really? Surely you have figured out a more productive use of your time at 38. Phds are really good if:
- you're young, have found a subject you're fascinated with and are willing to live and breathe every day
or
- you are absolutely sure you want to be a professor and can do top notch research
but otherwise it'll be a long time until you're able to payback the lost opportunity costs of being in grad school (no career advancement, little pay), since other than being a professor, it's unlikely having a PhD will get you any different job than before (if you're in CS).
(I was a PhD student at a top 3 cs program and left for a startup years ago)
". Phds are really good if: - you're young, have found a subject you're fascinated with and are willing to live and breathe every day"
That is exactly true for me, except obviously the "young" part :-). (But hey i feel young!)
I want to do a PhD for the experience of doing/learning to do research with top notch people and (corny as it sounds) advancing the frontiers of human knowledge. I don't really care about becoming a prof.
As for "productive", I've made enough money for me to live on comfortably, if not extravagantly , for the next twenty years. (India is a relatively cheap place to live if you have your own house and a good chunk of money saved). I am single and plan to stay that way so that obviously helps.
Research is just something I want to do (very well) before I die.
I hope this isn't universal. I am planning to apply in 2010 and I'll be 38 when I do. Oh well one more wall to jump over, so what's new? :-)