PhD (also Ph.D., PhD. etc.), or *doctor of philosophy*, written after the name, is the highest academic degree that can be earned by being a student in [University](university.md), the basic title required for working as a scientist. It is earned through many years of study and especially active publishing of original research that pushed the boundary of current human knowledge in a specific field. Despite being called doctor of *philosophy*, the title is awarded generally to scientists in basically any field such as [mathematics](math.md), [physics](physics.md), [psychology](psychology.md), [chemistry](chemistry.md) etc., NOT just to those studying [philosophy](philosophy.md). PhD is yet above [master's degree](masters_degree.md). It is a doctorate degree, so a holder of PhD is called a *doctor* (Dr.), just as those with other forms of doctorates such as medical doctorate or honorary doctorate; however PhD is the *big doctorate*, the kind of highest, most prestigious one. People with a PhD degree are considered the foremost experts, the smartest, most educated elite, as only about 1 to 2 % of population hold a PhD, though PhD is also often considered an overkill and an overqualitfication (there are many cases of people with PhD not mentioning it on their CVs because such a high education can actually be a disadvantage), and of course, as with everything under [capitalism](capitalism.md), PhDs became a thing of business and conformance, subject to corruption and degradation (there now even exist PhDs in [astrology](astrology.md), [gender studies](gender_studies.md) etc.), at times even a [meme](meme.md). Yes, one has to be quite smart and talented to obtain a PhD, but nowadays it's probably more about pouring an extreme amount of energy, slavery and conformance to the corrupt academic cults, so the prestige of the title comes for a pretty high price, one often not worth paying.
**Should you get a PhD?** Probably not -- as said the sacrifice required is enormous, to make it you should have a REAL GOOD reason, of which there aren't many -- perhaps if you REALLY want to be teacher at University or if for some twisted reason you want to spend your whole life in the corrupt toxic [soyence](soyence.md) environment trying to prove [women](woman.md) are better than men and sucking capitalist dicks so that they throw you a bit of money so that you can buy a microscope, then maybe. Otherwise [masters_degree](masters_degree.md) is enough to give you all you need for a rich intellectual life and being able to do good things, and it won't suck the soul out of your body.
