Gabriel Egan . com

What is a PhD, exactly?

What follows is an adaptation of the visual explanation called "The Illustrated Guide to a PhD" produced by Matt Might of University of Utah, showing how a PhD relates to the world's knowledge. The images and ideas are all his: I've just altered the captions a little to suit British usage and tweaked an expression or two.

This circle represents all of human knowledge:

By the time you finish primary school, you know a little:

By the time you finish secondary school, you know a bit more:

With an undergraduate (BA) degree, you gain a speciality:

A Master's degree (MA) deepens that specialty:

Reading research papers takes you to the edge of human knowledge:

Once you're at the boundary, you focus:

You push at the boundary for a few years:

Until one day, the boundary gives way:

And, that dent you've made is called a Ph.D:

Of course, thousands of other people are making their own dents at the same time, so the circle of human knowledge is expanding in all directions at once:

If you continue to research, you continue to expand the circle. The next generation's starting point will be bigger than the last's. Remember learning the structure of the atom in school? That was cutting-edge research 100 years ago . . .

. . . so keep pushing.