The experience of doing a PhD varies wildly - between countries, between schools, between departments, between professors, and as time passes.
Even at the same school, one person reported to me that while he was in his second year his supervisor told him he probably had enough material to pass if he wrote it all up - while another person worked long hours and reported to me that his supervisor had shouted at him for not coming in to monitor his experiments on christmas day. One person went on to a research position in the private sector and feel it set them up for a good career; another hoped to enter humanities academia, but wasn't able to find any jobs and ended up doing office admin work that barely needed an undergraduate degree.
Even for the same student, some parts of the process will be enjoyable and fascinating, other parts will be frustrating and tiresome. If you had asked me two years in I'd have told you doing a PhD is pretty great - by the end, having gone through the process of writing up, my opinion pretty inverted. I decided a career in academia wouldn't suit me at all.
If you boil the experience of doing a PhD down to the essentials of the experience, there's very little left because the experience varies so much.
In general, the thumb rule I would like to apply for a PhD is the function of the relationship between the graduate student (employee) and the advisor (manager). Most (not all) graduate student experiences turn bitter due to ethical and professional issues with your advisor. If I were to give any advice to a graduate student, I would write this on the top of my list.
I completely agree; in my time as a PhD student and looking at my friends who did and did not finish, the only ones who made it through had a fantastic relationship with their supervisor; except for one, who was extremely driven to finish despite neglect on the part of her supervisor.
Even at the same school, one person reported to me that while he was in his second year his supervisor told him he probably had enough material to pass if he wrote it all up - while another person worked long hours and reported to me that his supervisor had shouted at him for not coming in to monitor his experiments on christmas day. One person went on to a research position in the private sector and feel it set them up for a good career; another hoped to enter humanities academia, but wasn't able to find any jobs and ended up doing office admin work that barely needed an undergraduate degree.
Even for the same student, some parts of the process will be enjoyable and fascinating, other parts will be frustrating and tiresome. If you had asked me two years in I'd have told you doing a PhD is pretty great - by the end, having gone through the process of writing up, my opinion pretty inverted. I decided a career in academia wouldn't suit me at all.
If you boil the experience of doing a PhD down to the essentials of the experience, there's very little left because the experience varies so much.