5 ms·

> "(And for that matter, if students in my Ph.D. program want to enroll in courses in business, writing, or anything else, they can.)" Do they have the time?

> "(And for that matter, if students in my Ph.D. program want to enroll in courses in business, writing, or anything else, they can.)" Do they have the time? My undergrad program was extremely... focused (a word the administration would no doubt use to describe it). In my entire 4.5 years I had exactly two non-engineering electives, the rest of the schedule was a full stack of "core" courses. This was not atypical at my school. The result of which is that you create a bunch of people who are very narrowly educated. I dodged that bullet with a combination of suicidal course loads (e.g., taking a 7th course in a 6-core-course semester) and class-skipping. Neither were good solutions and I only made it out by the skin of my teeth. The problem here is that the definition of a Ph.D. for you is extremely different from the definition of Ph.D. for most of your students. I think there's next to no one whose primary objective with a Ph.D. is to produce a piece of original research - it is always a means to another end: usually career-oriented. There is a dramatic misalignment of what you think you're doing there and what your students think they're doing there.

Fomite 13y ago
"Do they have the time?" People in my program take Spanish. I knew one person who did creative writing. We actually have a class on consulting in a closely related department that you could manage to sell as an elective. I took some only faintly related classes in another department. It's not easy, and it will add time (that's the true problem with a PhD, balancing 'Things I want To Do' and 'I want to finish') but it's doable. PhDs are also often much less "locked in" to coursework than undergraduates, especially after their first few years. "The problem here is that the definition of a Ph.D. for you is extremely different from the definition of Ph.D. for most of your students. I think there's next to no one whose primary objective with a Ph.D. is to produce a piece of original research - it is always a means to another end: usually career-oriented." I can't think of a single person in my program who wasn't fully aware that a PhD is about producing original research. They might struggle with doing that, but it's a known and understood requirement. There's a career-oriented degree. It's a Masters.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  Oh, I do believe your students are aware that they must produce original research, but I'm willing to bet that none of them see it as a primary objective, but rather a means to the real objective: a career in academia. The Ph.D. program, in our times at least, is pitched as a quid pro quo: you produce some original research, something worthwhile and of substance, to add to the sum of human knowledge, and in exchange they gain access to an academic career. The problem is that there are a lot of people paying the quid, and barely anyone getting the quo. Unless you are a student of independent wealth, you are not producing this research out of the goodness of your heart with no greater, more important objective. To the vast, vast majority of people doing their Ph.D's, a Ph.D. is a career maneuver.
  - tansey 13y ago
    I'm not sure what PhD students you're hanging around, but all the ones I know are painfully aware of the fact that we're making terrible career choices. No one expects to get a job as a professor right out of the program, except maybe a few people who hope to get a job at a teaching college. Even those who are going to do a post doc are doing it with full belief that it is unlikely to lead to a tenure-track position. And all of that is at a top 10 CS PhD program. PhD students generally just love research. We sign up for this because it's what we enjoy doing. Companies try hard to recruit us away, but we stay in spite of that, because why would we want to do anything other than work on the one problem we've always wanted to solve? Maybe it's different in the humanities, but every STEM PhD student I've ever met has low expectations, with the exception of one-- and she has a first authorship on a Nature paper and is working on a Science submission, so I still think she's pretty well-grounded.
    - Fomite 13y ago
      Exactly. Most of the ones I've known are profoundly aware of the job market - hell, most of us looked at the jobs we could have gotten with MS degrees and chosen to continue. Honestly, at this point, finding out that the job market is grim takes only a shred of research, and absolutely the kind of research you should do before applying.
impendia 13y ago
> There is a dramatic misalignment of what you think you're doing there and what your students think they're doing there. The purpose for doing a Ph.D. is to produce original research. Motivation can vary: intellectual curiosity, desire for employment (academic or otherwise), because their parents demand it, because "Dr." sounds impressive when hitting on strangers at bars... I'm fine with any of the above, as long as the student is willing to do the work. The students might love research, or perhaps they feel as if they are being made to jump through hoops --- but, unless the students are getting their information from people who aren't actually familiar with academia, there's no misalignment and our students are indeed getting what they came here for.
- vacri 13y ago
  because "Dr." sounds impressive when hitting on strangers at bars... I dropped out of my PhD when I realised my strongest motivation - my actual strongest motivation, no jokes - was to be a "Dr." who dressed downmarket. This is not a reason to choose a career path. I'd fallen into the PhD program by accident and it had never been a particular ambition of mine...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
gradstudent 13y ago
> There is a dramatic misalignment of what you think you're doing there and what your students think they're doing there. There appears to be a dramatic misalignment between what you think a PhD is for (seemingly, to secure a job) and its actual purpose (to advance human knowledge in some area).
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  Hullo, fellow grad-student. That would be a perfectly sensible position if not for the fact that they kick you out of PhD school after you finish instead of promoting you. A PhD is an apprenticeship in doing original research. It is not your first job. It does not pay well, or have any job security or benefits. Your first job is the one you get after your PhD, because they punished you by accepting your thesis, printing your degree, and kicking you out of graduate school, thus forcing you to find an actual position. Which means that if the job prospects after PhD school are "nothing permanent involving research", then the system is indeed broken. It's broken because thousands of people spend years of our young adulthood working incredibly hard on a single project, only to be told at the end that we haven't really ever held a job, that we are not qualified for a job, and that figuring out what to do after five years of experience in the world's most difficult intellectual endeavors is our problem. If grad school is not going to lead to, well, anything afterward, then we should stop considering it to be school at all, and just all go on strike to demand that our first real job out of undergrad pay a whole lot better for the hours it makes us work.
  - gradstudent 13y ago
    > That would be a perfectly sensible position if not for the fact that they kick you out of PhD school after you finish instead of promoting you. Promote you? Why would you expect that? A PhD is not a meal-ticket. It's just an endorsement that says you are very good at undertaking novel and independent research. There is no promise made any point that an academic position or related industry position will be waiting for you at the end. As you say, it's just an apprenticeship. Nothing more. It's up to you to figure out what, if anything, you will do with that education once you receive it.

Fomite 13y ago

"Do they have the time?" People in my program take Spanish. I knew one person who did creative writing. We actually have a class on consulting in a closely related department that you could manage to sell as an elective. I took some only faintly related classes in another department. It's not easy, and it will add time (that's the true problem with a PhD, balancing 'Things I want To Do' and 'I want to finish') but it's doable. PhDs are also often much less "locked in" to coursework than undergraduates, especially after their first few years. "The problem here is that the definition of a Ph.D. for you is extremely different from the definition of Ph.D. for most of your students. I think there's next to no one whose primary objective with a Ph.D. is to produce a piece of original research - it is always a means to another end: usually career-oriented." I can't think of a single person in my program who wasn't fully aware that a PhD is about producing original research. They might struggle with doing that, but it's a known and understood requirement. There's a career-oriented degree. It's a Masters.

potatolicious 13y ago
Oh, I do believe your students are aware that they must produce original research, but I'm willing to bet that none of them see it as a primary objective, but rather a means to the real objective: a career in academia. The Ph.D. program, in our times at least, is pitched as a quid pro quo: you produce some original research, something worthwhile and of substance, to add to the sum of human knowledge, and in exchange they gain access to an academic career. The problem is that there are a lot of people paying the quid, and barely anyone getting the quo. Unless you are a student of independent wealth, you are not producing this research out of the goodness of your heart with no greater, more important objective. To the vast, vast majority of people doing their Ph.D's, a Ph.D. is a career maneuver.
- tansey 13y ago
  I'm not sure what PhD students you're hanging around, but all the ones I know are painfully aware of the fact that we're making terrible career choices. No one expects to get a job as a professor right out of the program, except maybe a few people who hope to get a job at a teaching college. Even those who are going to do a post doc are doing it with full belief that it is unlikely to lead to a tenure-track position. And all of that is at a top 10 CS PhD program. PhD students generally just love research. We sign up for this because it's what we enjoy doing. Companies try hard to recruit us away, but we stay in spite of that, because why would we want to do anything other than work on the one problem we've always wanted to solve? Maybe it's different in the humanities, but every STEM PhD student I've ever met has low expectations, with the exception of one-- and she has a first authorship on a Nature paper and is working on a Science submission, so I still think she's pretty well-grounded.
  - Fomite 13y ago
    Exactly. Most of the ones I've known are profoundly aware of the job market - hell, most of us looked at the jobs we could have gotten with MS degrees and chosen to continue. Honestly, at this point, finding out that the job market is grim takes only a shred of research, and absolutely the kind of research you should do before applying.

impendia 13y ago

> There is a dramatic misalignment of what you think you're doing there and what your students think they're doing there. The purpose for doing a Ph.D. is to produce original research. Motivation can vary: intellectual curiosity, desire for employment (academic or otherwise), because their parents demand it, because "Dr." sounds impressive when hitting on strangers at bars... I'm fine with any of the above, as long as the student is willing to do the work. The students might love research, or perhaps they feel as if they are being made to jump through hoops --- but, unless the students are getting their information from people who aren't actually familiar with academia, there's no misalignment and our students are indeed getting what they came here for.

vacri 13y ago
because "Dr." sounds impressive when hitting on strangers at bars... I dropped out of my PhD when I realised my strongest motivation - my actual strongest motivation, no jokes - was to be a "Dr." who dressed downmarket. This is not a reason to choose a career path. I'd fallen into the PhD program by accident and it had never been a particular ambition of mine...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

gradstudent 13y ago

> There is a dramatic misalignment of what you think you're doing there and what your students think they're doing there. There appears to be a dramatic misalignment between what you think a PhD is for (seemingly, to secure a job) and its actual purpose (to advance human knowledge in some area).

eli_gottlieb 13y ago
Hullo, fellow grad-student. That would be a perfectly sensible position if not for the fact that they kick you out of PhD school after you finish instead of promoting you. A PhD is an apprenticeship in doing original research. It is not your first job. It does not pay well, or have any job security or benefits. Your first job is the one you get after your PhD, because they punished you by accepting your thesis, printing your degree, and kicking you out of graduate school, thus forcing you to find an actual position. Which means that if the job prospects after PhD school are "nothing permanent involving research", then the system is indeed broken. It's broken because thousands of people spend years of our young adulthood working incredibly hard on a single project, only to be told at the end that we haven't really ever held a job, that we are not qualified for a job, and that figuring out what to do after five years of experience in the world's most difficult intellectual endeavors is our problem. If grad school is not going to lead to, well, anything afterward, then we should stop considering it to be school at all, and just all go on strike to demand that our first real job out of undergrad pay a whole lot better for the hours it makes us work.
- gradstudent 13y ago
  > That would be a perfectly sensible position if not for the fact that they kick you out of PhD school after you finish instead of promoting you. Promote you? Why would you expect that? A PhD is not a meal-ticket. It's just an endorsement that says you are very good at undertaking novel and independent research. There is no promise made any point that an academic position or related industry position will be waiting for you at the end. As you say, it's just an apprenticeship. Nothing more. It's up to you to figure out what, if anything, you will do with that education once you receive it.