Invisible wrote:
> 1. I am insufficiently intelligent to actually acheive a PhD. (I nearly 
> failed my BSc as it is!)

You think you're failing at what you're doing now anyway, yes? So fail at 
something bigger.  It's like saying you're not going to take a job just 
because some day you might get fired.

Plus, you'll meet girls. :-)

> 2. I have insufficient money. (I'm still paying for my BSc. Very slowly.)

Go where they'll pay for you. They need PhD students to get the grants, so 
the grants usually come with provisions for paying you enough to live on 
while you're doing the research.

> 3. I don't think I can spare the time. (I have a job to do, sucky as it 
> is.)

Go where they'll pay for you.  You can't reasonably do a PhD while you're 
holding down a full-time job, IMO.

> 4. It is *highly* unlikely that having a PhD will make any kind of 
> positive change to my employment situation. Nobody is impressed by a 
> BSc, and I doubt a PhD will be any different. Everybody wants 
> "experience" and/or "people skills".

Experience and people skills is what you get with a PhD. You meet bunches of 
people doing exciting stuff you enjoy while you're doing a PhD. Do you 
think, for example, that if you're doing a PhD having to do with (say) 
optimizing functional languages that you're not going to have dinner with 
the guys at Microsoft Research working on GHC?

All but one job I had since I got my PhD was through knowing people I met 
while I got my PhD. I had a couple of job offers guaranteed by the time I 
finished, because I was doing just what they wanted and they knew I could do 
it.

And yes, people actually do get impressed by PhDs.  Not necessarily the 
technical guys, but the guys making the hiring decision do.  (Hard to say 
about the technical guys, cause all the technical guys I worked for tended 
to have PhDs also, but nobody really made a big stink about it except the 
guy with the millions of dollars to invest.)

> 5. Presumably a PhD is a serious amount of hard work. It's not exactly a 
> pleasure cruise. So I'd need a good reason to do one.

You're not talking about building oil rigs here. It's college like anything 
else. If you get a decent advisor, you're in good shape. Suck it up and do 
the job and write the paper. :-)

> 6. I rather doubt that you can get a PhD in "doing cool stuff". 
> Presumably it must be something rather more specific than that.

You have to pick what you want to do, then find the place that's doing that 
sort of stuff, then go there.

Here's how you do it: decide what kind of thing you want to research. 
Functional languages? OK, find research papers about functional languages. 
Look to see if they're funded by grants (usually mentioned in the ack's on 
the front page). See what university got the grant. Surf that university's 
web site, and look over the professors.  Call them up and ask them what 
their interests are because you want to get a PhD. 4) Profit!

Find people who have written papers in things you're interested in who have 
PhDs. Ask them who they recommend you go to. Note that *where* you go is 
less important than with *whom* you go.

> 7. Where the hell am I going to do a PhD anyway?

Wherever they're doing things you want to do.  First ask what you want to 
do. Then find the place that will pay you to do that.

> I seem to vaguely recall somebody (I forget who) claiming to know who to 
> go to for this kind of thing, and offering to help me arrange it. 

I've done it in the USA. Apparently the UK is much different. But don't 
limit yourself to the UK.  Lots of people travel abroad to do schooling like 
that.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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