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I am a UK student, 23 years old, and started a PhD in theoretical physics last October 2018 at a top 15-20 university (my undergrad Maths degree was at a top 5 uni where I got a First Class Honours 1:1), I have since come to realise that I do not want to pursue a career in academia but want to go into industry - the idea of chasing postdocs around the world and then groping for a permanent position (by which time I would be at least 32 years old!) is simply incompatible with having a stable relationship and establishing a family, unless you want your poor wife (and maybe even kids) to tag along with you, staying in different countries for 1-3 years at a time whilst sacrificing her own career and then finally (if you're lucky!) getting a permanent position in a city you didn't choose to live in - doesn't sound too ideal to me. I would much rather a higher paying and more secure career in a city where my family and friends live.

My question is this: should I start applying for jobs in industry (data scientist, software engineer, consultant, quant, analyst, etc.) right now then leave my PhD once I have a job offer (since it can take quite a few months from application to interview to offer I don't want to leave right now), or finish my PhD to the end (I'll be 26) whilst training skills relevant to industry (learning several programming languages, etc.) and doing placements in industry, and then applying for relevant jobs?

Any advise, especially from STEM PhDs and PhD dropouts who later went into industry, would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much!

You do not want to pursue a career in academia. It is good that you have worked this out early enough to do something about it.

Was "the next step in the career" the only reason for doing your PhD? Or is it a genuine delight to you to be learning and to be looking forward to making a contribution to knowledge?

• If there is no delight then if I were you I'd drop it at once. But I am not you, and that is not advice.




• If there is delight then if I were you I would pursue that wholeheartedly. There is little enough delight in the world as it is and we shouldn't throw away what we have. But I am not you, and that is not advice.




• If you are half way between the two - it is always possible to start a doctorate at 60. A friend of mine did. So bear that in mind.

But here at last is some genuine advice. It comes in two stages.

1. 
   Take a total and irrevocable decision to abandon all your academic pretensions and go straight for business. No second thoughts, no looking back, that is what you are going to do.

Live with that decision for a week. But do it seriously. Remember that you are not trying to decide, you have decided. That is the key.

2. 
   Take a total and irrevocable decision to complete your PhD and only go into business after that. As before: no second thoughts, no looking back.

Live with that decision for a week.

The reason why this exercise in self-deception works so well is that it frees all the important parts of your psyche to engage with a definite and unambiguous future and not some sort of vague undecided limbo. And they are able to tell you what you feel.

At the end of those two weeks, look back on how you felt. When did you have regrets over what you had decided, and what were they? When did the choice feel righter? In which week were you most looking forward to life?

Having interviewed (on both sides of the desk) for most of the positions you list (albeit in the US), I should maybe answer.

A PhD will be useful. Most of these jobs will prefer a PhD, or at least give you credit for years spent pursuing a PhD. Many people start their career and say they will go back to get a PhD, but this rarely happens.

Physics is a good PhD to have. "Physicists and Physicians" are notorious for having very low unemployment rates (compared to biologists or chemists). But, physics is a big place. If you are doing data analysis on the computer, it should be easy to continually learn new skills (even having awesome Python and BASH skills is a good start). Other subfields might be less useful.

So, I would lean toward finishing. But of course, there are several factors that I don't know about:

• whether your advisor is supportive about letting you do your research in ways that develop marketable skills


• whether your advisor is likely to let you graduate on time


• whether you are still interested in your research


• your family and personal situation

First things first, figure out how useful a PhD is going to be. Without knowing this you can't make an informed decision.

Go to your local jobs portal and search for jobs that require a PhD in theoretical physics vs. those that only require an Honors degree. How much more attractive are those jobs? Are they more attractive at all? How much better-paying are they? Can you imagine doing those jobs? It's natural that jobs that require PhDs will have a more difficult job scope. You'll be asked to do things that you wouldn't be tasked with - at least initially - if you only have an Honors degree. That also means you'll be paid more (again, at least initially).

Once you've assessed that, then you can make an informed decision. For example you might get reach a conclusion that if you leave now, you'll earn $X/year, while if you finish, it'll cost you two more years as a PhD student but you can earn $2X/year upon graduating. That's a 100% increase, and likely means that if money is the only thing that matters to you, you should finish. Alternatively, you might find that although you'll only earn $1.1X/year after graduating, the job scope for Honors holders is dull and uninteresting. In that case you might want to finish as well.

One more thing: talk to your former classmates - the people who did undergraduate studies with you but didn't go on to PhD studies. What are they doing now? How much do they earn? Do they work in places that also employ PhD graduates, and if so, what do those PhD graduates do that they don't?

If you have the answers to all these questions, you'll be able to make a decision much more comfortably.