Grad school is free. At most good PhD programs in the US, if you get in then they will offer you funding which covers tuition and pays you a stipend on the order of $25K per year. In return, you may have to do some work as a TA or in a professor’s lab.
I don’t think lurking around campus is going to lead to the same results as being immersed in a research environment full-time (especially if you’re not doing research yourself). I generally think that a large amount of useful knowledge is tacit and that it’s hard to absorb without being pretty directly involved.
Also as others have noted, a PhD is free / paid for so (economic) cost isn’t that much of a consideration.
Is there any way to do these things without paying a large pricetag? Could you just lurk around campus or something? Only half-joking here.
Planning fallacy is going to eat you alive if you use this technique.
Grad school is free. At most good PhD programs in the US, if you get in then they will offer you funding which covers tuition and pays you a stipend on the order of $25K per year. In return, you may have to do some work as a TA or in a professor’s lab.
The real cost is the ~5 years of your life.
This is most assuredly the case in the biological sciences. And you DO have to do work with your mentor, and sometimes also TA.
I don’t think lurking around campus is going to lead to the same results as being immersed in a research environment full-time (especially if you’re not doing research yourself). I generally think that a large amount of useful knowledge is tacit and that it’s hard to absorb without being pretty directly involved.
Also as others have noted, a PhD is free / paid for so (economic) cost isn’t that much of a consideration.
Moving to europe, and (maybe) not exactly GB, should for the most part allow you to do that.