7 ms·

Good luck getting honest reviews. Graduates and recent post-docs are dependent upon good letters of recommendation from their advisors for perhaps a decade aft

by ISL 6y ago

Good luck getting honest reviews. Graduates and recent post-docs are dependent upon good letters of recommendation from their advisors for perhaps a decade after leaving their research groups. The truly disillusioned won't mind complaining, but those with even constructive criticism will feel constrained in their ability to speak out and be specific. The graduate-student experience is deeply advisor-specific. Professor A may be exploitative, while Professor B may fight tooth-and-nail for student success. The statistics are low, too. Most professors will only graduate a few students per decade.

musicale 6y ago
This is a good point. Anonymous reviews are not possible with such a small and easily identifiable set of reviewers.
dopu 6y ago
Completely agree. I've become increasingly convinced that we'll need a fundamental restructuring of the academy if we want to fix any of these issues. The fact that places like MIT or Stanford will hire professors simply because they output Nature papers every year, regardless of the fact that they are totally abusive to their trainees, is a perfect demonstration of it.
- lumost 6y ago
  Doesn't this explicitly favor the high-output at any cost professor? A professor who had a high nature output could attract more PhD students and structure their program such that they take more of the credit than you would expect. This wouldn't work in all fields, but there are quite a few disciplines where the biggest barrier to research is having funding and someone to do the work.
jseliger 6y ago
In many disciplines, too, the answer is "don't go to any program." Most humanities fields, for example, have numerous essays written about why doing grad school in them is a poor life choice, like my contribution: https://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-before-you-start-grad-school-in-english-literature-the-economic-financial-and-opportunity-costs/ https://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-befo.... One could say the same of most social sciences.
- MaximumYComb 6y ago
  I feel that a significant majority people don't weigh up the value of courses for both undergraduate and graduate. Having a read through your contribution seems like you made the same conclusion, albiet slightly late for your own benefit.
- AndyMcConachie 6y ago
  It's not really any better outside of the humanities. Maybe the prospects are slightly better, but grad school is still a crappy choice. I got a bachelors in Computer Science and then worked for 15 years before going back and getting a masters. While there I was asked to work for free on numerous occasions, we can call if different things, but that's how I saw it. Already knowing the value of my labour I finished my masters and then left. I definitely had the option to continue with a PhD, and I'm almost certain that had I applied I would have been accepted. But I just wasn't interested in being exploited. I remember one class which I dropped in which the entire class was project based, and we were to work on projects that aligned with the research of the professor. On the first day there was no syllabus given, so I asked what the readings were and received a grumpy response basically saying, "Readings, yeah there will be some readings." Or something similar. It was incredibly clear the instructor just wanted grad slaves to advance their stuff. I dropped that class, but I could cite numerous other examples. I paid for the privilege of working for free and learned some stuff along the way. Maybe I should have spent the two years and money on travelling and seeing the world instead. I likely would have learned more, but I wouldn't have this fancy grad degree.
  - toxik 6y ago
    Counter anecdata: I am taking a CS doctorate degree, and have never been asked to work for free, and never been cheated out of course time to work on what the professor thinks is interesting.
    - abnry 6y ago
      I think the lab-heavy (i.e. non-digital) programs have this problem more. When I was in grad school, I knew plenty of chemistry students who were expected to work 6 days a week.
C1sc0cat 6y ago
Yelp has its own problems with gaming reviews not sure applying that to PHD programs is a good idea.
astroH 6y ago
Couldn't agree more. Moreover, given that a huge part of the value of the degree is related to the prestige of the University, bad-mouthing your own institution only serves to reduce the value of your own degree. Who cares if I write an honest and bad review about a restaurant that I have no stake in. I just can't envision a scenario where people try to devalue their own diploma.
subrat_rout 6y ago
To add on top of it, majority of graduate students are from countries like India and China and their life/career is tied to F1 visa status which make students even more vulnerable to disclose any sincere/legit info. about the program they are in.
- etattva 6y ago
  Only 5% of graduate stduenst in US are International. In engineering, computer sciene and MBA they constitute 25% of population. In phd, less than 5%.

by ISL 6y ago

musicale 6y ago

This is a good point. Anonymous reviews are not possible with such a small and easily identifiable set of reviewers.

dopu 6y ago

Completely agree. I've become increasingly convinced that we'll need a fundamental restructuring of the academy if we want to fix any of these issues. The fact that places like MIT or Stanford will hire professors simply because they output Nature papers every year, regardless of the fact that they are totally abusive to their trainees, is a perfect demonstration of it.

lumost 6y ago
Doesn't this explicitly favor the high-output at any cost professor? A professor who had a high nature output could attract more PhD students and structure their program such that they take more of the credit than you would expect. This wouldn't work in all fields, but there are quite a few disciplines where the biggest barrier to research is having funding and someone to do the work.

jseliger 6y ago

In many disciplines, too, the answer is "don't go to any program." Most humanities fields, for example, have numerous essays written about why doing grad school in them is a poor life choice, like my contribution: https://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-before-you-start-grad-school-in-english-literature-the-economic-financial-and-opportunity-costs/ https://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-befo.... One could say the same of most social sciences.

MaximumYComb 6y ago
I feel that a significant majority people don't weigh up the value of courses for both undergraduate and graduate. Having a read through your contribution seems like you made the same conclusion, albiet slightly late for your own benefit.
AndyMcConachie 6y ago
It's not really any better outside of the humanities. Maybe the prospects are slightly better, but grad school is still a crappy choice. I got a bachelors in Computer Science and then worked for 15 years before going back and getting a masters. While there I was asked to work for free on numerous occasions, we can call if different things, but that's how I saw it. Already knowing the value of my labour I finished my masters and then left. I definitely had the option to continue with a PhD, and I'm almost certain that had I applied I would have been accepted. But I just wasn't interested in being exploited. I remember one class which I dropped in which the entire class was project based, and we were to work on projects that aligned with the research of the professor. On the first day there was no syllabus given, so I asked what the readings were and received a grumpy response basically saying, "Readings, yeah there will be some readings." Or something similar. It was incredibly clear the instructor just wanted grad slaves to advance their stuff. I dropped that class, but I could cite numerous other examples. I paid for the privilege of working for free and learned some stuff along the way. Maybe I should have spent the two years and money on travelling and seeing the world instead. I likely would have learned more, but I wouldn't have this fancy grad degree.
- toxik 6y ago
  Counter anecdata: I am taking a CS doctorate degree, and have never been asked to work for free, and never been cheated out of course time to work on what the professor thinks is interesting.
  - abnry 6y ago
    I think the lab-heavy (i.e. non-digital) programs have this problem more. When I was in grad school, I knew plenty of chemistry students who were expected to work 6 days a week.

C1sc0cat 6y ago

Yelp has its own problems with gaming reviews not sure applying that to PHD programs is a good idea.

astroH 6y ago

Couldn't agree more. Moreover, given that a huge part of the value of the degree is related to the prestige of the University, bad-mouthing your own institution only serves to reduce the value of your own degree. Who cares if I write an honest and bad review about a restaurant that I have no stake in. I just can't envision a scenario where people try to devalue their own diploma.

subrat_rout 6y ago

To add on top of it, majority of graduate students are from countries like India and China and their life/career is tied to F1 visa status which make students even more vulnerable to disclose any sincere/legit info. about the program they are in.

etattva 6y ago
Only 5% of graduate stduenst in US are International. In engineering, computer sciene and MBA they constitute 25% of population. In phd, less than 5%.