<p>I've read quite a bit about people that have or are trying to earn multiple PhDs, and the general consensus I'm getting is that earning 2 or more PhDs makes you a laughing stock in the academic community. Why is this?</p>
<p>I always thought getting 3 PhDs (computer science, physics, psychology) throughout my life would be fun, but everyone seems to look down upon getting 3 PhDs. Why is it seen as such a bad thing to get 2 or more PhDs?</p>
<p>People “look down upon” someone with three PhDs? As opposed to thinking that person must be insane? 
Not sure where you are in your studies, but getting a PhD is a very absorbing affair. It takes a lot of work. And time. Many people (most people, probably) think of it as a means to an end, whether that end is a job in a field that requires a terminal degree or an academic position. Other than the “fun” factor (!), what makes you think you’d need three PhDs or have the time to pursue three? At some point, perhaps you’ll want to get a job?</p>
<p>First of all, you’d spend your entire life in graduate school. </p>
<p>Beyond that, you’re look at a PhD wrong. A PhD doesn’t make you a Super CS major or a Super Physics major, it makes you an expert in something*. Just to throw something out for discussion, let’s say your PhD makes you an expert on making the perfect cup of coffee. It doesn’t really matter if you’re PhD comes form a Chemical Engineering department, or a Chemistry department or a Culinary Arts department, you have a PhD in making the perfect cup of coffee. Those groups would look at making coffee differently, so as a PhD student you’d take classes in all three areas and you’d read and study journal publications from all three areas, but at the end of the day, no matter which department awarded your PhD, you’re an expert in the same thing.</p>
<p>It’s not uncommon to see that at all. You see people with PhD’s in architecture working on engineering problems, people with PhD’s in engineering working on biology problems, people with PhD’s in biology working on business problems, etc. That’s why PhD’s are undesignated. If you look at a diploma for a bachelor’s degree it will read “Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering”. If you look at a diploma for a PhD it will read “Doctor of Philosophy” with no mention of major. </p>
<p>There are really only two reasons to get a 2 PhD’s: the first is if you’re a degree chaser. The second is if you want to radically chance your area of focus and the original education no longer applies (e.g. from making the perfect cup of coffee to studying the mating habits of large dinosaurs). Small changes of focus (e.g. from making the perfect cup of coffee to making the prefect cake) are done without another degree (either on your own or through a postdoc).</p>
<ul>
<li>And just to point out the obvious, a degree doesn’t make you an expert in anything, it’s the work required for that degree that makes you an expert.</li>
</ul>
<p>More to the point, you’d have to convince two separate admissions committees to use precious graduate school resources on getting you a second and third Ph.D - and that’s extremely unlikely to happen.</p>
<p>First of all, computer science and physics are close enough fields that it doesn’t really make sense to get a PhD in both.</p>
<p>Second of all, many graduate schools will not admit you with one PhD unless you have a very compelling reason for getting another one. Simply thinking it might be fun will not be enough. With 2 already obtained PhDs, virtually any school would turn you down and view you as a degree chaser. Not to mention that most places fund their PhD students, and nobody wants to fund a PhD student who is just in it for the “fun” and doesn’t actually intend to make a career in that field. Even if you offer to pay for yourself, the overhead would cost money PLUS the time someone would have to take mentoring you when they could be mentoring and advising someone who actually wanted to make a career in the field rather than rack up PhDs. Not to mention getting hired would be a nightmare. Even if you did manage to achieve two PhDs in two of your more disparate fields - say, computer science and psychology - search committees in either field might question your dedication to the field, especially if you are seeking a job using the first PhD (e.g., you get the computer science degree in 2017, and then the psychology degree in 2023, and you are on the market in 2024 looking for computer science jobs).</p>
<p>Third of all, what kind of research questions do you want to answer? There are subfields of those fields that might warrant study in all of them while only getting one PhD. There’s engineering psychology, there’s human-computer interaction/human factors engineering, there’s psychophysics. You could also get a generalist experimental psychology PhD and focus on questions concerning people’s interactions with and understanding of computer science and physics. You could even get a PhD in one of the fields and a master’s in one other to enhance your study, if you wanted, although it’s not necessary.</p>
<p>Lastly, getting 3 PhDs will NOT be fun. Getting ONE PhD is not “fun”. It’s five to seven years of hard work and dedication. There are parts of it that are enjoyable, but none of it is ever fun.</p>
<p>Why do you want 3 anyway?</p>
<p>Look, a Ph.D shows that you are an independent/original thinker: a problem solver. Getting multiple Ph.Ds is almost redundant. In almost EVERY case, once you have 1 Ph.D, you are in a position to figure things out in other areas because you can THINK.</p>
<p>Case in point. My brother is a scientist with a Ph.D in molecular and cell biology. But he could most likely get a job in the business or computer/software sectors too because problem solving is problem solving, no matter the system. His knowledge of programming and Linux/Unix administration is self-taught and extensive. He also makes good money trading stocks/options on the side. Why? because he can think.</p>
<p>So I would suggest that you get 1 Ph.D in a field that you want to work in…and not waste your time, money and resources on multiple Ph.Ds. Besides, you will have the ability to self-learn everything else. </p>
<p>BUT with all that said, one may need to get a second Ph.D (later) if one decides to make a career change and the new position requires a Ph.D for its specialty. For example, if a scientist decides he/she wants to teach English at the collegiate level, a Ph.D in English will most likely be required.</p>
<p>So the 3 PhD thing is pretty much a dead plan now haha. -_-’’</p>
<p>However, why would it be considered “degree chasing” to get one PhD in computer science and another in physics if you want to work on something that combines the two fields? Why must you try to learn in the second field independently, or else you’ll be deemed a “degree chaser”? Going to school again seems like a much easier process than trying to learn more on your own, even if you have the skills to do so.</p>
<p>Sorry if someone already addressed this earlier, but why not do a post-doc that emphasizes physics but is computer science based? Or a post doc that involves computer science and is physics based? I bet someone does something in those areas. That way, you can get your PhD in the discipline you want to focus on, then have a unique emphasis in your post-doc.</p>
<p>I’ll give you one example I know of. My current PI has a degree in Environmental Chemistry but somehow he ended up studying Eco-Toxicology (I assume at UCD, the disciplines were close to each other and allowed for greater research cross-over). For his post-doc, he ended up in Cell Physiology and Pharmacology laboratory. He now uses a lot of the techniques in pharmacology to study toxicology of arsenic - this allows for a unique application of the techniques and thus his research ranges from algae biology to vascular toxicology. </p>
<p>VOILA! :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>“Learning” in a doctoral setting is nothing like learning in high school or as an undergraduate. You don’t need a second PhD to learn something, you can pick up journals and start reading to learn it. Maybe you pursue a postdoc. But there’s no reason to pursue a second doctoral degree unless you’re making a radical change in field. </p>
<p>I get that you don’t understand this, but once you start grad school, you’ll see.</p>
<p>Maybe the thing to do now, explodingtoenail, is start figuring out what it is you want to know and to explore in these three areas. I gather you’re a ways away from pursuing even one PhD, so you’ve got time before you need to refine your focus. Are you in college yet? If/when you are, you could take some time to talk with professors about how they focused their research, about some of the dissertation topics of their graduate students and in general about the process (coursework, teaching/research assistant work, etc.) of getting a PhD.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Part of the point of getting a PhD is to show you have the capability of teaching yourself a field. If you have to get three PhDs then what does it say about what you’ve actually gotten out of the programs?</p>
<p>However, why would it be considered “degree chasing” to get one PhD in computer science and another in physics if you want to work on something that combines the two fields?</p>
<p>Because you can get one PhD that combines the work in both fields (like computational physics), or you can do a PhD in one field and collaborate with advisors and colleagues in the other field, or you can do a postdoc in the other field, or in extreme cases you can get a master’s in the other field. Basically, getting two PhDs eats up time that you could be doing more productive things. In the 5 years you spend getting the second one, you could be getting a postdoc and publishing and writing and networking. Instead, you are taking new classes all over again and puttering around with comprehensive exams.</p>