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In STEM, if you don't get a financial offer along with your PhD program acceptance letter, then you've probably just been politely rejected. The financial offe
by beambot 11y ago
In STEM, if you don't get a financial offer along with your PhD program acceptance letter, then you've probably just been politely rejected. The financial offer will usually cover your living costs (a few $k per month), so it won't cover any lost opportunity costs... but you shouldn't need to take on debt to do your PhD in STEM. I'm guessing journalism is a different story!
For STEM, it's also true that certain job opportunities (eg. elite R&D facilities) more-or-less require a PhD or equivalent levels of mastery. It's possible to obtain those jobs after a long period of field work (without PhD), but it's a lot more difficult. Plus, you will always be butting up against credentialing norms during those jobs' recruiting processes. (Whether that's equitable or not is another story.)
Just my $0.02.
- archgoon 11y ago> In STEM, if you don't get a financial offer along with your acceptance letter, then you've actually been politely rejected. This is important. I thought at the time that I accepted that it was due to the massive budget cuts happening in California, and the UC's were undergoing furloughs. Oops.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- selimthegrim 11y agoWhich UC was this, if I may ask? I heard isolated rumors of this happening at Santa Barbara, for one...
- Joof 11y agoThey don't make this clear. The culture is very insular.
- daodedickinson 11y agoA prof I know at Berkeley won't let anyone in the Ph.D. program unless he can secure funding for them. He's in a humanities major, though. Maybe in STEM profs think they can land a job to pay it off.
- thaumasiotes 11y agoWait, so what happened? What do they do if you take them up on their acceptance?