Choosing Between a PhD and Industry for New Computer Science Graduates | Shreya Shankar

Many people ask me why I chose not to pursue a PhD directly after college. I figured I might as well centralize my thoughts in one place. This essay is for…

Shreya Shankar Shreya Shankar shreyashankar@cmu.edu Twitter GitHub Scholar CV Current mentees Andrew Cheng (undergrad) Sasha Singh (undergrad) Past mentees Parth Asawa (undergrad → PhD student @ UC Berkeley; CRA Undergraduate Award Honorable Mention) Ruiqi Chen (MS → PhD student @ University of Michigan CSE) Ankush Garg (MS → Senior Data Scientist @ Clarkson Consulting) Rachel Lin (undergrad, MS → Software Engineer @ Opto) Aditi Mahajan (undergrad → Google) Nikhil & Vinay Rao (high school → undergrads @ UC Berkeley EECS) Quentin Romero Lauro (undergrad → CEO @ Inspector, YC 2025; CRA Undergrad

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