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Experience with international postdoctoral fellowships.NPDF, Humboldt, Marie Curie (91)

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Starting 5 pts 0 followers
Christ (Deemed to be University) · Posted
Physics Chemistry Cybersecurity

The honest answer to 'is a PhD worth it in India in 2025'

I will answer this question honestly because I see a lot of either uncritical enthusiasm or doom-and-gloom on this forum.

A PhD is worth it if:

  • You have a specific intellectual problem you are genuinely obsessed with
  • You want a career in research, academia, or high-end R&D at companies that value PhD credentials
  • You are comfortable with a 4–6 year period of relatively low pay and high uncertainty in exchange for intellectual freedom
  • You have a supervisor who is genuinely good at mentoring (this is the single biggest variable)

A PhD is probably not worth it if:

  • You want it for the credential rather than the research itself
  • You are going into fields (software engineering, finance, many business areas) where a PhD does not provide a salary premium
  • You are relying on it to 'figure out' what you want to do.that is what a master's degree is for

The Indian academic job market is brutal. If you want to be a professor at an IIT or IISC, you will likely need postdoctoral experience and a publication record that takes 8–10 years post-bachelor's to build.

But if research is genuinely what you want to do.it is absolutely worth it.

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6 Replies

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Priya Nair · Accepted answer

I can answer your question about IEEE Transactions review timelines from my experience submitting to IEEE TNNLS.

For Q1 IEEE journals, expect:

  • Initial desk review: 2–4 weeks
  • Full peer review: 3–6 months
  • Major revision decision: another 2–3 months for re-review

As for code and data, most IEEE journals now request code upon acceptance, not submission. Regarding your 2.3% improvement.that is borderline. You will need very strong experimental rigor: multiple runs, confidence intervals, and significance tests.

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Lakshmi Devi Growing 75 pts · Accepted answer

Seconding the recommendation for Zotero. Game changer for managing references across multiple projects.

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Lakshmi Devi Growing 75 pts · Accepted answer

The IEEE TPAMI turnaround in my case was 7 months for the first review. Plan accordingly.

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Disha Malhotra Starting 8 pts · Accepted answer

I am in a very similar situation. Would you be willing to share the outline of your PMRF proposal? Not the content.just the section headings and approximate word allocation.

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Replying to Disha Malhotra
Indira Balan · Accepted answer

This question comes up a lot. The answer really depends on your specific field and what your committee values.

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Replying to Disha Malhotra
Chirag Mehta Starting 15 pts · Accepted answer

Really appreciate you taking the time to write this out in detail. This is going straight into my research notes.