Local or Prestigious?

Reader Kris needs advice. She asks

I am going to grad school this fall. There is school that I can go to and it's mediocre, but its in-state (if I'm going to be going to classes in person it has to be in-state as I have a mortgage and have to work full time at a local job).

That being said, I can attend a more prestigious university but I can only take classes online (the whole degree would be online as the school is 1,000 miles away) because of my situation. What should I do? Opinions? I know that I will get a better experience going in person and that it would be more fun, but, that being said, is it worth the sacrifice in prestige? There are no prestigious universities that I can attend locally for my area.

Thanks, Kris

I think this is a tricky situation where considering what you want from the degree might help you decide what to do. Are you aiming for a master’s or Ph.D.? In science or another discipline? Do you plan to do experimental research for your thesis? What kind of job do you hope to get when you’re finished?

I don’t know anyone who has done an online advanced degree in science, but I know someone who is starting one in the fall. Like you, she didn’t want to move, but she couldn’t find a suitable program where she lives. In her case, she wants a master’s to get the credentials for industry jobs she can’t get with a bachelor’s only, but she isn’t especially interested in the grad school experience or becoming an academic.

I think a PhD based on lab or field work would be extremely difficult to do remotely unless you currently have a job as a technician or something that you could transition into grad work, making your boss your research advisor while taking your classes online and having an academic advisor at the remote university (this is what I did but with a local university). Motivation is difficult enough when you are surrounded by other students and have your advisor around for accountability and guidance. Doing it on your own, especially if you are keeping another job, will probably take a LOT of discipline and self confidence.

As far as I can tell, the importance of prestige varies by field. Some fields seem to have a well structured hierarchy defined by prestige. I think it's more about the lab in my field. Sure, there are some departments in my field that really rock out, so students graduating from them tend to be highly qualified with better networks and they often get good jobs. But for the most part, it’s the advisor’s reputation that’s vital. There are stellar labs in crappy departments that graduate excellent students who launch enviable careers. So you might find a star in an otherwise mediocre university or you might find that online program loses some of the prestige of the university if it’s not tied to a big cheese advisor. Can you investigate how important prestige will be for your career?

I think one of the biggest things you might lose with an online program is access to your advisor’s network. Given that you don’t want to move for grad school, are you willing to move once you graduate? If not, the prestige of the remote university may not help you find a local job as much as the contacts you would make by attending a local university. If you think you’ll be more mobile after you have the degree, then maybe the clout that comes from the Prestigious U’s online program would be beneficial.

That’s just my opinion. What does everybody else think? Anyone have experience with online grad school?

Impending transition

I’m still far from my next big transition (graduation), but I feel like I am on the cusp of a change in mindset; I feel like it is an adjustment for me to transition from a student with a long way to go to one who is wrapping up.

I recently finished one big chunk of my research that will become a chapter in my dissertation (huzzah!). I had been planning it for ages, then working on it off and on for the past 18 months or so, and now the data are collected. One of the things that way always in the future is now at hand. Add that to the manuscript that is in preparation, the lab work for another chapter that is 70% done (see sidebar counter), and the last chapter that was dramatically reduced after my most recent committee meeting, and I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I feel different preparing for Big Conference next week than I have for conferences in the past. People always ask if I’ll be finishing up soon and I always have to say no. This time, I get to say yes, I expect to be graduating in about a year and yes, I’m starting to think about post docs, will you have one available? I’ve even ordered business cards (I hope they arrive in time) to give out during all the networking I have planned. I feel similarly about the job ads that sail through my inbox every day. Occasionally, I’ll see interesting job listings, but I know I’m too far from finishing to pursue them. That will be changing soon.

It’s a little scary to realize the thing I’ve been doing for the past five years (seven if you count the time I was a tech in my current lab) is coming to a close. I love where I am, so it’s sad to think about leaving. But at the same time, it’s exciting to think about leaving to pursue something new, or even about staying but with a new project in the same lab. I’m really ready to graduate, but apprehensive about the thesis writing and defense process which I know will be stressful given my advisors’ lack of enthusiasm for reviewing my writing. So, while it may seem trivial to think of the last year of grad school as a transition, I think my mindset and even my daily routine will be changing quite a lot. I hope it’s good.

scientiae-carnival.

Selecting a lab

As a follow-up to these posts, I thought I'd write a little about how students in my field typically find and join labs. I am pretty sure my experience is generally representative of my discipline, but there may be departments that do it differently.

It’s very difficult to get accepted to grad school in my field without having an advisor who has agreed to take you on. Typically, students go straight into a lab; they do not join the department as a student at large*. When the faculty are debating who to accept, you must have an advocate in the department who will commit to mentoring you. This means that 1-8 months before applications are due, you have to start emailing faculty whose research interests are similar to yours. After determining that you have mutual interests, it’s good to ask if the professor has space for students in the coming year, if they have funding, what new projects the lab might be initiating, etc. It can take a lot of searching to find a lab that has everything you want in a location you can tolerate.

Often, after the applications have been reviewed but before offers are made, promising prospective students are invited to visit/interview on the university or lab's dime. This might be a group event where all prospectives visit at once, or students might be invited individually by a professor. This is the time to make sure the student and advisor make a good match -- they are interviewing each other. In the best visits, the prospective gets time to talk privately with current students to learn what life in the lab/department in really like. Often, the visitor stays with one of the current students, so they get a chance to ask lots of candid questions. Although as Mad Hatter pointed out, labs that don't value "fit" so much may not provide one-on-one time with each member of the lab. Unfortunately, some students, especially internationals, are unable to make a visit for a variety of reasons. For students who can't visit (international or not) or who visit but don't get a chance to talk privately with current students, it's a good idea to contact current and former students to make sure the advisor's style is one that you can cope with.

I don't know of any departments in my field that do rotations. The department I'm in is rather small, so the faculty are so different that I wouldn’t want to work with any other than my advisor (if for some reason during the first 1-4 years I had had to leave my lab, I think I would have changed schools before I would have changed advisors. At this point, I would stay to finish up no matter what). Larger departments might have people with enough overlap that there are more options for students. People do change labs if there is a big problem, but it’s rare.

There are clear advantages to this system. The most obvious is that it can help ensure equitable distribution of students among labs, favoring new faculty if necessary, since students just aren't accepted if there isn't space in the lab they want. For example, I've heard that there can be more students wanting into a lab than the professor can handle after the students are already in the program. I imagine this must sort of typical for departments that do rotations. Personally, I think I'd be upset if were in a department for a year and then couldn't get into the lab I wanted. Of course, it's also not good for faculty to get swamped with students as Ianqui described. Another advantage of this system is that students can be sure they will work in a research area that matches their interests. On the other hand, this system is less flexible than other models. Student and advisor may meet only briefly, if at all, before committing to 4-6 years together. If the student turns out to be a poor match for a lab, they may have few alternatives but to leave the department.

I'm pretty happy with the system my discipline uses, but since I haven't experienced any others, I can't make a balanced comparison. I bet that the advantages I see might not be so important in fields where students research is less tightly associated with faculty research, or where there is more overlap in faculty interests.

If anyone reading this is considering grad school ecogeoscienceology and has questions about finding a lab/department, feel free to email me.we

*Since students join labs and not departments, the fame and quality of the professor is more important than the quality of the department.

Intellectual independence

Conventional wisdom* asserts that a student pursuing a master’s degree should be given a research project that’s ready to go. The questions should be developed, the field site identified, and the funding in place before the student arrives to begin work. These students have to complete lots of coursework and research in a short period of time, so they can’t fool around with harebrained thesis ideas. On the other hand, Ph.D. students are expected to develop their own project.

As I’ve progressed through grad school, I’ve noticed that there are many Ph.D. students who are unprepared to put together a project from scratch. The only people who are really capable of designing a new project in a timely way either have a master’s degree or worked in their discipline before starting grad school. Otherwise, students may flounder because they don’t have a deep enough understanding of the literature or the relevant experience to know what the pertinent research questions are.

I did have work experience (but no master’s) and still I came into an established project. I think the research has proceeded in different way than if I hadn’t been involved, but the fundamental idea was Research Advisor’s. In addition to the advantages of having the core ideas already worked out by an expert, I also had funding. I have heard of faculty who make incoming Ph.D. students rewrite funded proposals, tweaking them with their own ideas, in order to “take ownership” of the project. I think this is a waste of time. In my field, students usually have to write a research proposal to achieve candidacy. This exercise was very challenging and beneficial for me, even though I didn’t conceive the original project. By the time I defended the proposal, I had reworked it into something pretty different than Advisor had at the outset. But I couldn't have done that right off the bat.

It seems to be getting more common for students to embark on a Ph.D. straight from undergrad. I see the appeal for the students, since a Ph.D. doesn’t necessarily go faster after a master’s, and for the faculty, who get better trained staff with lower turnover. Still, I think this trend is a little disturbing because many students coming right from undergrad are overwhelmed by the independence of grad school. It’s not that they are incapable of doing the work, but that they don’t have the necessary experience to initiate it. In my opinion, people starting a Ph.D. right from university should either join an established project to which they can contribute something new or vital, or they should be given a small project to get them started. I think it’s not right for faculty to take on inexperienced students without giving them something to start with. They are, after all, students.

*This whole post comes from my experience with how things work in eco-, geo-, and/or ecogeoscience.

Committee meeting: done

I had a committee meeting yesterday. My department didn't require annual committee meetings until this year. In the past, the committee would only meet together twice: once at the student's prelim exam and once at her defense. I guess a few "uncomfortable" defenses made the department decide it needed to be like other decent programs and require annual progress meetings.

I guess because the annual meeting was an unknown entity, I got super anxious about it. I knew it wasn't supposed to be a big deal so I'm not sure why I was so worried. I guess I thought they would tear apart the work I had done so far or not approve the changes I wanted to make to one of the chapters. Also, I felt very disorganized and irresponsible because I hadn't fully checked out the room arrangements. I was right to be worried about that because the room had a speaker phone with no speaker* and an expired calling card (one of my committee members had to participate by phone).

The phone stuff eventually worked out and the meeting went fine. Thank goodness for Research Advisor, who just the day before had passed a paper to me that covered exactly what I needed to substantiate the revisions I wanted. After two hours (!) of discussion, we agreed on a much reduced version of a chapter I proposed two years ago at my prelims and they nodded approval at the data I have so far for the other chapters. I even received some very positive feedback from my outside committee member (delivered in restrained and measured verbiage) that made me feel really good. He told Research Advisor he thinks I am "a winner". Can't beat that.


*Me to Academic Advisor in a most shrill voice, "I don't deserve a Ph.D. if I can't even set up a meeting room with a phone that works!" How melodramatic of me.

Production is up!

I had a small breakthrough today. I took some advice from How To Write A Lot and ended up writing a lot this afternoon.

First, I got permission to turn off my internet connection and did so for several hours. It made a huge difference, even though I could easily turn it back on when I wanted. When I'm working on data analysis or writing, I often briefly check my email whenever I get to something that requires a little thought. Not having that option really kept me on task.

Second, I re-read the bit about writing introductions. Silvia recommends a three-section template for intro's: stating the problem, expanding on the problem, and stating how the present study will address the problem. This sounds so simple it's verging on silly and of course the advice in the book was more elaborate. I have always struggled with intro's because I have a hard time seeing them as a whole. I can write good paragraphs presenting the relevant ideas, but I have trouble organizing them in a logical structure. I shuffled around some text I already had and then wrote some more. I think my draft is much better now.

I told Academic Advisor that I would be giving the lab group a draft of my manuscript on Tuesday so we can discuss it at lab meeting the following Tuesday. I think I really need a deadline goal. Undoubtedly, it will also be extremely helpful to get the comments of all those readers, even if they don't read it very thoroughly (which I doubt they will).

Student vs Employee Part 2: Work Hours

One of the perks of an academic job is the flexible schedule. That creates ambiguity for students, who may not know the expectations for grad student time. It seems that many advisors are reluctant to directly address the questions: how should a grad student define her/his work schedule? How much work is expected? Do they get vacation time? Sick days? Comp time?

Typically, if you have a job at an organization as large as a university, the HR department controls your compensation, including schedule and fringe benefits (at least I think that’s how it works since I’ve never had a regular job!). But grad students fall through the cracks and it can be confusing.

As I’ve said before, I spend most of my time at a place outside the university, so I work among people who have regular 40-hour work weeks. I feel like an ass if I’m not there approximately when they are even though my status and compensation are totally different. So I work 40 hours/week plus some weekends and figure I’ve done my duty*. I figure I can take 2-3 weeks vacation each year (including the winter holiday break but not the holidays themselves) and if I want more than that, I need to make up the time by working nights and weekends. Actually, I probably work enough beyond my regular 40 hours to make up at least part of those 2-3 weeks without tracking it. I do not log sick days, but I don’t take many of those.

It’s different in a university setting because people are off doing all sorts of things that make them absent from the office/lab. Students are teaching or taking classes, faculty are teaching or in meetings. This makes it easy for people to breeze in and out with little accountability for their time. I have no doubt that many academics work an obscene number of hours. But I also suspect that many students (and faculty for that matter) would be surprised by how little they work if they actually clocked their time spent really working.

The tricky thing is that students don’t really have to work any set number of hours. Their TA or RA is probably for 50% time, which is pretty unclear since they are obviously expected to work more than that. Nobody tells incoming students how much they should work, so some treat it like undergrad, showing up for class and doing everything else at home. Others, like me, treat it like a job, which may inhibit their progress. And of course, work hours are a central source of conflict in many student – advisor relationships.

Just one more thing that new academics are stuck learning for themselves. How many problems could be prevented or solved by just telling people what they need to know?

*This is largely to deal with guilt about not working all hours, i.e. if I work hard during normal hours, any extra time is bonus.

New attitude (for now)

I'm sick of The Race. I'm both irritated and bored by the rush to finish projects and write papers and not get scooped (which almost never happens in my field anyway) and all the rest of it. I want to just relax and enjoy what I'm doing. If I do it right, then presentations and papers should come naturally as part of the process.

I want to do science because it’s interesting and fun and valuable. There are lots of other jobs I could be doing that would get me more money with less education. If science isn't fun or interesting, then there's little point in doing it for me. Sure, there's the benefit scientists provides society. But I feel like I could do as much or more good in another profession. It would just be a very different sort of good.

The other day, my carpool buddy was fretting about some deadline that he didn't think he could meet. Ecogeoman and I are constantly doing the same, both for external deadlines and the ones we set ourselves for motivation. But I suddenly realized how arbitrary our deadlines are. No one is going to die on an operating table or starve in the immediate future if we don't meet our deadlines.* My research is very important, but not it’s just not that urgent.

That thought brought on a welcome sense of relaxation. I have been thinking about how all this worrying about meeting goals takes mental energy away from actually doing the work. I want to focus on the parts of my job that are fun and interesting. I'm tired of spinning my wheels, planning and replanning my future, both immediate and distant. I need a break from all the fuss to just do my work and enjoy it for what it is rather than doing to meet an arbitrary deadline or because it's good for my career. I want to do it because it's good for science. My career will follow.

I hope that this change of attitude will provide some renewal of my motivation. But rather than renewing my fortitude to meet an arbitrary goal, I hope to renew my excitement about my research, and that’s all.

*I know some of you work in fields where this might be the case.
scientiae-carnival

Anything but a professor

Today I told Research Advisor that I don't want to be a professor. I have decided that I want nothing to do with academia long term.

I started grad school after working as a technician for a couple of years after college. Seeing that having only a bachelor's degree will get you little more than a dead-end job in research, I thought, "what do I need to do to keep doing this?" Then I enrolled in a Ph.D. program.

I have never been interested in teaching. When I started grad school, my ideal was to get a job with as much research and as little teaching as possible. But the more I learn about academia and the more I learn about myself, I realize that academia is not for me. The positions with the highest proportion of research are generally the most prestigious and competitive. Given my 40-hours-a-week-is-enough attitude, I don't think I'd be the best match for those jobs.

More than that, though, I've realized that I dislike the culture of a university -- the heirarchy, the competition, the inconsistent priorities. Facutly are pulled in a dozen directions at once, with so many people relying on them for urgent issues. I don't want to teach, but I also don't want to write upteen recommendation letters or read students' crappy first drafts, or explain the same concepts over and over. Yes, I appreciate that someone is doing that for me. But it doesn't mean that I want to do it. Frankly, I don't even want to mentor grad students.

There are several government agencies that have research facilities where I could work. Of course, those research-only positions are not easy to get. Soft money isn't so attractive, either.

I'm beginning to realize that I'd rather do something else with my science skills than do research as a professor. Management and consulting are appealing. I'm glad to be thinking about this now so I can keep my eyes open for alternative jobs because they are difficult to envision. When academia is almost the only path offered to Ph.Ds, it takes some thinking outside the box to find something else. However, I very much want to do a post doc because I want to learn something new and experience a different lab. I think a braoder skill-set would be beneficial for any kind of science job.

A few minutes after we finsihed our conversation, I asked Research Advisor if she thought less of me for saying I don't aspire to be a professor. She does not and pointed out that many people start PhDs with no intention of doing research. She said if it's okay for them to want to teach from the outset, it's fine for me to want to not teach. She's great.

Don't spare me

Some things are hard to learn in grad school. The things we are trained to do during grad school, specifically research, are not the only responsibilities we are likely to have in the jobs we get after grad school. The most general observation I can offer is that I work mostly in the lab while my advisors work mostly at their desks. We are clearly not doing the same things.

The most obvious way to learn about all the administrative work that goes into running a lab is to ask one's advisor. But it doesn't always work. Once when I asked about funding, I was told I "didn't need to worry about it". I think my advisor was feeling stressed about the level of funding he had and how to distribute it. It irritated me though, because how are students supposed to learn things like how to manage a lab's finances when no one will disscuss it because they don't want to disclose any worries?

This is a rather isolated example, as Academic Advisor really explains a lot of what goes in the department, the politics of our field, etc. Certainly Research Advisor seems to tell me pretty much anything (everything?), but it's a little different with her because I'm the only student in her lab, so there isn't such a structured hierarchy. They both encourage me to go to meetings, introduce me to visiting scientists, discuss proposal ideas, and whatever else. Overall, my advisors rock. But I know that most students struggle with this stuff, perhaps not even knowing what they're missing. It must be especially difficult for students in really big labs with famous advisors who travel frequently. But the trade-off is the association they get with a flashy name.

Mrswhatsit has a couple of really great posts on this topic.

On one hand, I appreciate being sheltered from the nasty or not-fun parts of science. On the other, I want to learn how to deal with it all. At the very least, I want to know what I'm getting into. I want to be ableto make an informed decision about what kind of carrer to try for when it's time to apply for jobs.

Guilt

I almost never remember my dreams, but I had one last night that came back to be this afternoon. In the dream, I had a new born baby. I nursed it, laid it down to sleep, and then forgot about it for many hours. When I remembered it, I fed it again, then put it down and forgot about it again. This kept happening, once overnight; I woke up after sleeping for 10 hours and realized I had never woken up to feed the baby during the night. Each time, to my relief the baby was fine but I felt terrible for forgetting it.

I feel this has something to do with my guilt over not working during the snow day yesterday. Something about ignoring my research and worrying it will die. Or something.

It just nags at me. I had a really productive day today, which you would think would make up for yesterday. My goal is to feel like if I work hard during "work time", i.e. 40 hours or so each week, then I can forget about work during "play time." This is fine, but if I slip up at all, like yesterday, it all falls apart. Plus, it doesn't work in reverse -- I don't get give myself much extra credit for working on a Saturday. And, I feel bad that I'm not passionate enough about my research that I want to work on it more (like Ecogeoman and many friends seem to do).

If I'm going to continue in science, I need to get this guilt thing sorted out. There's no way I'm going to live the rest of my life this way.

Student vs. Employee Part 1: Compensation

If I’m an employee, I am laughably undercompensated. If I am a student, then my university is a bunch of suckers for giving me so much money to get this degree.

I think I’m somewhere in between student and employee, but much closer to employee. Research Advisor has funding for my thesis project, so if I weren’t doing it she’d have to hire a technician at a much higher rate to get the work done. I am lucky enough to have an outside fellowship, so neither she nor my university have to pay me (well, my university department supplements my stipend a little). If I didn’t have that funding, I would have to TA for my salary stipend. Teaching assistants play a major role in universities like mine, covering most lab and even some lecture sessions for so much less pay than faculty. In that sense, they fall into the laughably undercompensated category.

For those students with a tuition waiver, the value of tuition can be considered a big contribution to their compensation. That means a student at a private university gets compensated dramatically more than one at a public institution, even if their salaries stipends are the same. It probably doesn’t feel like more pay to the person who gets a waiver for expensive tuition.

In the end, I feel that grad school is a luxury. I am very lucky to become so highly educated, that there are opportunities for me to do such interesting work, and that I don’t have to spend my time on nothing but food acquisition. But I’ll be happy when grad school is over, both because I’m tired of its obligations and I want more pay.


It seems like the grad student's real position is a perennial issue. Posts like this made me want to write about it too, although more explicitly. More to come.