Quelques conseils sur doctorat pour un étudiant étranger

[invitef52f9884]

Bonjour à tous,
Je suis désolé d'écrire en anglais, mais je ne suis pas très bon à l'écriture en français.

I'm an Italian student and I'm going to take a master's degree in energy engineering during next year.
This year I've been in France for an internship, and now I have to consider the opportunity to come back to do a PhD in the field of combustion (fuels and bio-fuels characterization, flame speed measurement, flammability limits determination and so on).

However, it's really difficult for me make a decision, also because I really have no idea about the opportunities you can have (or not!) in France if you have a PhD.
In Italy, for example, a PhD is a must if you want to do an academic or research career, but it's often not well considered if you want to work in the industry.

What about France? What are future prospects in your country after a PhD? Do you think it could be a plus to find better opportunities for a job in the industry?
I know there are no unique answers to these questions, but I'm just interested in knowing what is the common feeling in France about this argument.

Merci d'avance.

ps. You can answer me in French if you prefer
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[inviteede7e2b6]

mais tu es sur un forum FRANCOPHONE la maitrise de cette langue
te sera nécessaire pour y poursuivre des études

[invite7e4eb9f3]

However, it's really difficult for me make a decision, also because I really have no idea about the opportunities you can have (or not!) in France if you have a PhD.
In Italy, for example, a PhD is a must if you want to do an academic or research career, but it's often not well considered if you want to work in the industry.

What about France?
Merci d'avance.

This problem is the same in France...

[invitef52f9884]

mais tu es sur un forum FRANCOPHONE la maitrise de cette langue
te sera nécessaire pour y poursuivre des études

I know this is a francophone forum and I'm really sorry I'm writing in English. I'm studying French, but it's still too difficult for me to explain well what I want to say in your language.
Anyway, I'm not forcing anyone to answer me (and I've also written that answers in French are ok for me), I'm just asking some advices and any answer will be appreciated.
Sorry again, hoping in your understanding.

This problem is the same in France...

Thank you very much for your answer.

When I was in France I had different opinions about PhD: some people were quite pessimist about better opportunities if you have a PhD, others told me that after a PhD you really have better chances to find a good job. I asked here exactly because I am a bit confused.

For sure, I can suppose that it depends also on what you do and where you do your PhD. In my case, I can tell that my experience in that lab was really good, I saw they really work well, they have good experimental facilities with which to work and good contacts with industries. I don't know if this could help.

Thank you again, any other opinion will be really appreciated.

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[Antoane]

Hej,

I believe that there is not much to add to Nickname-Winner's answer. Becoming a college teacher will not be possible unless you have a PhD. But should you be willing to work in the industry, you would most probably not need one.
It is quite a shame, but doctors are not well-considered by many French recruiters, who believe that those people have lived away from the industry, away from the real world, for far too long. According to too many of them, doctors are unable to work in team or according to a specified, tight schedule.

No wonder then that so few French young engineers have a PhD (~10% if my memory serves me well).

Note however that the interest of a PhD does depend on both your field of expertise and the career path you intend to follow.

Should you be interested in research whilst working by the industry, you could apply for a CIFRE Thesis.

[invitef52f9884]

Hej,

I believe that there is not much to add to Nickname-Winner's answer. Becoming a college teacher will not be possible unless you have a PhD. But should you be willing to work in the industry, you would most probably not need one.
It is quite a shame, but doctors are not well-considered by many French recruiters, who believe that those people have lived away from the industry, away from the real world, for far too long. According to too many of them, doctors are unable to work in team or according to a specified, tight schedule.

No wonder then that so few French young engineers have a PhD (~10% if my memory serves me well).

Note however that the interest of a PhD does depend on both your field of expertise and the career path you intend to follow.

Should you be interested in research whilst working by the industry, you could apply for a CIFRE Thesis.

Thank you very much for your answer.
Quite sad to read this, but of course it helps me a lot.

As I told before, the field of expertise would be combustion. I cannot say anything precisely, as I just had a talk with the lab director about this opportunity and I have to tell him what I want to do in the next months. For sure I know that one of the available thesis wuold be funded by a big petroleum company, and I would be interested in that in case I decide to start a PhD.

About my career path, for sure I'm not really interested in becoming a professor. I like research, but I'm worried about how my future career could be in this field.
Anyway, I'm really open to any possibilities (and of course I'm ready to start from the bottom, I know I still have a lot of things to learn), in this moment I'm just trying to understand what would be better to do to have good opporunities in my future professional life.

I will take a look about CIFRE Thesis (I really don't know what it is), but, being honest, I'm considering now this PhD opportunity only because I have to decide in a short term, otherwise I would prefer take my degree, try to apply for some jobs (in Italy and abroad) and see if something good would happen, and only after consider the possibilty to continue my studies with a PhD.
I know that maybe this is not the best way to approach, but as I'm not strictly interested in academic and pure research careers, I would consider PhD as an opportunity to improve my skills and make me a better candidate in jobs applications. I'm sure PhD would be a great experience (the past months in the lab were really great for me), but if business world thinks that a PhD is useless, maybe it would be better for me to try a different way.

Thanks again to all, read you and write my thoughts really helped me in trying to clarify what I want to do.

[Antoane]

Hej,

1. I actually have not finished my thought about CIFRE PhD: such theses are (partly) funded by firms and the job is more applied, closer to that of an engineer. This is often more valuable to an industrial recruter though a priori quite less to the academic world.

2. Having a PhD is quite mandatory to work in R&D out of France, where an engineering degree is enough (apparently excluding Italy).

3. It is often said that should one want to have a PhD, they should do it right efter their master för it is considered rather difficult to leave a job to go back to "study".