[splittingTimes]

In total, yes it was. Working for some years in a field, having the time afforded to emerse yourself into a subject and deeply think about it, calculating yourself into frustrating dead ends and also into successes, writing papers, going to conferences presenting your results, have scientific exchanges with peers, write applications for research grants, sit in committees, work as a referee for scientific journals, teaching students, then writing a coherent and compelling thesis and finally defending it against & having a scientific discussion on eye-to-eye level with your supervisors will shape your character... a lot.

You might wanna skip that postdoc thing though if you know you don't wanna stay in academia (and trust me, you don't).