Stay or leave for PhD

Question

I'm a master student at a university in Korea and going to graduate next June. By now, I think about doing PhD and have to make a decision on "stay" or "leave".

Stay:

1. My professor is very nice and quite well known in my university. The working conditions are good, PC, seats, no time restriction... (but everyone working like crazy).

2. The professor really nice to me (actually us - foreign student), I was found a good scholarship for the master course ($1300/month) while the average is $700-600.

3. I don't have to make much effort on searching for a PhD position (don't need to take English test like IELTS, toefl) and the salary is good in comparison with other universities in Korea.

4. It's not really face to face talking but I agree with my professor to continue PhD there before I go to the graduate university. (Which I am most afraid of).

5. My background is not good since we focus on publishing only very narrow field. I'm not very good at programming C/C++ as well, I use Matlab all the time.

Leaves:

1. I'm not quite sure about another place but in my University, they focus on research not the graduate course. My background is quite weak.

2. My professor is very very busy and not really good in my current topic. Almost every member in my team have to find their own way (follow the topic of their project).

3. I feel like this environment is not very good for the PhD. The communication between Professor and student is like a one way communication. We obey what ever we are told. Not really two way communication or discussions.

4. I'm 25, single, and want to do something.

Should I continue my PhD on the current Lab or looking for PhD position in some where else?

Ps: I'm looking for PhD position which related to signal processing and Compressive sensing. My current's topic is image/video compressive sensing.

Updates.

Mar. 2014: Thank for your advice, I decided to stay for my PhD but more for my personal issue. For my current PhD it is little disappointed.

• my support is lower than what I discussed with the professor before starting PhD. We agreed on $1000 but later paid me $800/month due to lab situation (the other PhD salary is still the same $1000 or higher). After asking many times, I now have to do an internship 1 day/week as an solution with $250 salary more.
• The professor is very busy, even for checking my conference paper before sending.

Jul. 2015 Now I'm a little doubtful what to do.

• The professor has no time for us and even for my journal paper
• One PhD student left without a word

Advice for someone considering study in Korea: Master is enough, go somewhere else for PhD!

Answer 1

Since you say you like the research where you are and you are fairly productive there, you can probably successfully get a PhD there. It sounds like your advisor is not perfect (busy, etc) but few advisors are "perfect" from their students' perspectives. And if you stay, you won't have to interrupt your research to apply to other schools and transition to a new group. Staying where you are is a "safe" choice.

If you go somewhere else, some of your weaknesses (which you are able to ignore in your current position) may be exposed, and you'll have to work on improving them. And you will probably meet new collaborators (especially if you go to anther country) and be exposed to new ideas and techniques that will be difficult to learn, but will make you a better and more capable researcher.

So the answer to your question depends on what you want to gain from your PhD: Do you want to get a degree and some nice publications? Then staying where you are sounds like the easiest way. Or do you want to improve yourself and broaden yourself as a researcher? Then you might be better off leaving.

Having said that - of course, even if you stay, you can still challenge yourself and improve yourself and your capabilities. But since you don't have to "prove yourself" in your current position, there's nothing forcing you to do so - you'd have to be exceptionally self-motivated and disciplined.