> I think most PhD students identify with "I want to think deeply and learn a lot about one thing" much more than they identify with "I am a self-starter who loves to work in an unstructured environment."
Chiming in as a counter-example! Having an unstructured environment with few constraints is incredibly rewarding. If you pressed me, it might actually be my favorite part about being in academia.
(My experience with other PhD students agrees with your generalization, though.)
I completely agree with you. The few-constraints-and-unstructured-environment is one of the main reason I'm doing a PhD. I wrote about it two years ago [1] while I was questioning myself about PhD vs. startup.
I think it depends on what PhD program you are looking at... the people you have to deal with in say a Psychology program are a bit different than what you would see in a CS program. The culture can be very different, and the expectations of conformity can be even more so.
Chiming in as a counter-example! Having an unstructured environment with few constraints is incredibly rewarding. If you pressed me, it might actually be my favorite part about being in academia.
(My experience with other PhD students agrees with your generalization, though.)