Good questions Vicky Loras : “Can a PhD be one of the greatest things we have ever done?” Yes. In my situation - getting my PhD while in a full-time faculty position - there wasn’t a lot of social camaraderie. But doing the research was so interesting, I’m still working on the ideas I explored then. As you noted Vicky Loras, Finding that light in the tunnel leads to more tunnels, and more lights! More reasons I’m not interested in outsourcing my knowledge work to AI.