Who has gone on to get a Ph.D. and what are your words of wisdom?

It's a long lonely road. I did my Ed.D and had to give up life for the duration of it. It's not that challenging as it is a huge load and keeping up and not getting behind is the key. My only words of wisdom is to do some soul searching and ask yourself the tough questions. Do I need this to be successful? What is my potential return on this investment? Be sure to take your age at graduation into consideration and what you earning potential is for the remainder of your career and determine if the financial investment including interest in student loans makes sense. Unless what you're trying to achieve actually requires a Doctoral Degtee, a Master Degree will probably suffice.

Thanks for posting this discussion. I ultimately will pursue my PhD with a detour through a professional engineer license. I need this to enter academia. I am having difficulty breaking into academia with two masters degrees.

I have seen in other forums that picking the right dissertation topic, the right advisor, and defending the dissertation successfully is what separates one from the PhD. I had an engineering professor that went up for the jump shot and got stuffed with his dissertation. DND did not dissertate on the transcript, thanks for playing, end of story. That's what haunts me late at night when the demons come.

Time management and remember not to forsake your family during the dissertation phase.