This is one of the few times I am not going to quote any part of the original article... you should really read it in its entirety, "Doctoral degrees - The disposable academic" from The Economist..... true the article is biased towards the financial aspects of life, and not really towards the pure pursuit of one's ideal world and dreams... but then again, in this finite world... opportunities are lacking... especially in Singapore.. in the civil service, we have too many scholars.. and too little positions... should the system be more rigid? or are we looking at it all wrong?

Sadly, in the Science field, I doubt it will change for any better in the near future... with the current in-flux of foreign talents with both a M.D. and a Ph.D... even a masters is no longer sufficient.