So, after much consternation and navel-gazing I decided to go back to school and get another degree. No Blast, I decided against a doctorate. I do not have the literature background to skip along in those academic fields. There were no programs that truly grabbed my interest which would have worked out to pursue another degree at the Master's level. The bachelor's: ditto. Therefore, I regressed to the junior college for a computer information systems AAS. It was the least offensive of the options available. The upside is that I do not have to do the freshman nonsense. I can just take the program coursework at a leisurely three class load for the next three years. Nothing like cramming a two-year degree into three. All this while I wait for another college to pick me up as an adjunct in their Teaching English as a Second Language program. Anyway, that is the update.

Sounds like a good plan.
Sidenote: probably the dumbest thing I ever did was get my Ph.D.
-Blast

Is that because it can actually end up closing off career pathways?

Partially, but the main reason is my overall earning potential suffered. The extra five years I spent in school after the masters were five years without a paycheck or the wonderful effects compound interest has when started early. The difference in salary between an M.S. and a Ph.D. never made up for the loss.

One the plus side, I can actually use the line "Trust me, I'm a doctor."

-Blast

Surely there must be some sense of accomplishment and satisfaction with yourself for attaining a doctorate, isn't there? It seems to me not all rewards are monetary.

Early on, yes. But one soon realizes there's not a lot of respect for education and there's actually a pretty strong social stigma attached to having a Ph.D.

If I could do it over I would have been a pharmacist.

-Blast

Sorry to hear that. This stigma is absolutely not universal. In my world (both professional and private), a PhD is held in high reward. Or maybe that is just because I don't have one...

Any education and any efforts to improve your skills and knowledge is worthy of respect. Go for it, MoBob

As far as I can tell, a PhD is most useful if you want to teach in higher education or be some kind of academic administrator. Having worked in the higher ed industry for the first part of my career, I have been convinced that it's not for me.

In my wife's field, PhD's tend to earn the same, or LESS than someone with a MS - in her field, you are MUCH MUCH better off getting your MS, and spend the extra time getting an MBA

I would've become an investment banker until I could start up my own hedge fund or private equity fund. And then I'd eventually die and go straight to you-know-where.

I long had the dream of getting a PhD, too, but I stopped with a terminal Masters. To my disappointment, I just didn't see the benefits outweighing the risks/trade-offs. I agree that in many fields, a PhD doesn't mean as much as it used to. We're so profit-driven these days that a PhD just has a big price tag hanging around their neck in the eyes of employers compared to some fresh-faced kid that they can train on-the-job or some offshore outsourced worker.

And the value of basic research is way down, too. Nowadays, every endeavor has to have some sort of financial payoff, which basic research rarely does. I feel the same way about our appreciation of the arts.

I think it's so sad that the cream of the crop, say a graduating class from nearby CalTech, is going to get scooped up by Wall St. firms to help them essentially figure out ways to gamble with other people's money to generate more money, instead of actually advancing our knowledge, developing better things, etc. What a waste of our youth.