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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Among the people i know with phds:

- they range from "above average" intelligence (not particularly bright, but not morons) to very bright
- they all have some family financial support.  Yes, they got funding and a small stipend (say, $15k). But the family money was what allowed them to not worry about not saving for retirement for those 10 years, or family bought them a cheap studio apartment when they were 23 so they already had a toe in the real estate market by the time they graduated, family money paid for periodic vacations during the tons of down time they had as an academic.  
- the liberal arts phds had an inflated sense of self.  While the stem phds were interested in their topic and spending a career in research, the liberal arts phds just wanted to be a plush teaching schedule and thought their obscure phd topic was a lot more important to the world than it really was. 
- they were all persistent, but that persistence was driven as much by the desire to not have to work in the real world (aided by their lack of financial stress) than anything else.  [/quote]

I only agree with the first bullet.  I'm from a modest background and did not have much financial support from my family at all during my Ph.D. program.  I can only think of one classmate who had parents pay entirely for a posh apt. in addition to other liberal financial support (she also never finished, incidentally).  Most lived frugally and did not take fancy vacations during grad school.  The last two bullets, frankly, are spoken like someone who doesn't have a Ph.D., but has spent a lot of time thinking about those that do.

I think for those of us who didn’t come from UMC families, getting a PhD represented upward mobility and it didn’t feel like a huge sacrifice to live like a grad student when you were getting paid to do something you loved and when you had a lot of control over your schedule.  I could cook and think at the same time and my favorite form of entertainment is still having people over for dinner and talking late into the night.  Not an expensive proposition.

I didn’t feel important (or deprived) — just lucky to find a place (in a world just as real as the corporate sector) where I enjoyed my work and found simpatico colleagues.  It wasn’t perfect — academia has its own set of problems and some real a-holes, but it was worth it, and that was true even with no financial support from family.

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