Comparing PhD from Europe and PhD from USA

For PhD aspirants, it usually gets confusing whether to pursue the course from US or a European country. Since the top schools at US and Europe produce equally brilliant researchers, this decision is the hardest for any student to make. However there are a few differences between pursuing a PhD from US and pursuing PhD from Europe.

Most schools in Europe require less time than PhD programs in the US. This means that the students who receive a PhD from Europe are less prepared for research post their graduation than their US counterparts. Typically a PhD in Italy is three to four years long. It often takes three years to just learn the basics of how to research.  So the model is quite different where post-doctorates are the expectation. In contrast, students in the US programs start being productive around their third year. So doing a five to six year PhD means there is more continuity and more students go directly from graduation to research jobs without a post-doctorate.

In many European institutions, there are firm guidelines on how long a PhD takes, and often those are more powerful than individual decisions by students’ advisor.  This is not the case in most US schools. You can finish PhD in three years if you produce tremendous impact, and other students can slowly slog through eight to ten years of a PhD because they are slow in producing research output. In US, a faculty member would never sign off on a student's thesis unless the contribution and publications were significant enough to justify the thesis. Conversely, they are not opposed to graduating a student in two to three years if they can satisfy the requirements and produce an impactful research.

Masters Degree - Typically in Europe, you would join a PhD program after completing your Masters degree. Whereas in the US this is not always the norm and you would spend a few years taking courses, alongside research, which get you a Masters degree along the way. Entering with a Masters degree can give you course waivers, which could potentially decrease the six year long course duration.

Classes and MS degrees - While many commenters point out that European PhD programs generally require a Masters, it is important to note that many US based PhD students also get their MS before joining the PhD. This generally makes little difference, unless the MS degree is from a department that works similarly to the PhD lab. But that is not the case for international students, and thus students with MS benefit little from their extra years, and most take the same number of years to finish.

Exceptions - There are a growing number of exceptions to the statements above. An increasing number of European schools have moved towards the US model in terms of depth and length, including EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), ETH, MPI. As a result, US schools consider these departments with the same metrics as their own.

Thesis Topic and Funding - Funding for a PhD student in Europe is typically for a period of three years. This means that you have relatively less freedom in choosing your thesis topic. When you apply to a European college for a PhD you are expected to talk to an advisor and propose a thesis topic along with an outline with your application. This is not the case in the US, where your thesis and research direction typically evolves for a year or two.

Pay - A PhD student in Europe earns more than the same student doing a postdoc at an American university. Although it is a generalization, the pay scale for graduate students tends to be higher in Europe.

Job opportunities – Typically you do not see a large number of European PhD graduates getting academic jobs. There are definitely exceptions and often those with a job offer have done post-doctorate at a US program, with strong reference letters from that group.

Taking everything into account, we would suggest you focus on the quality of the research group rather than the school. If the reputation of the professor or the group is good enough, it doesn’t matters whether it's a European school or American. Take a look at the best conferences in your area of interest and note where the most papers come from. That is the best hint as to which schools have the best research departments in your area, and which schools should you aim at.