what the fuck am i getting myself into with this grad school stuff

I've heard schools (precisely which shools I don't know) are soon going to be phasing out physical copies of theses as well, giving you PDF's instead.

already, in the first half of the last decade, my doctoral university eliminated physical copies of the thesis in favor of PDFs.

trying to carve a 500 word supporting statement out of what seemed to me like an already pretty concise 1000 word supporting statement - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

bullets and more bullets!

i can do 2000 to 1000, but 1000 to 500 is impossible for me. i start again, and (especially) forget my favourite sentences.

583 words! many tragic losses. and nowwwww for some german-style compound nouns, i guess?

drop in copious footnotes. they do not count as words, right?

Depends...one journal I'm writing a paper for at the moment insists that the bibliography contributes the word count ffs.

contributes to obv.

caek do u know

http://www.phy.bris.ac.uk/people/hussey_ne/portrait.jpg

i am a visiting fellow at bristol right now, but never met him. it's a big dept. (biggest in the uni, i think), and he does real physics not astronomy.

ah its cool cuz i just found him searching for NIGEL

haha

so after "contributing" (ie, whining a bunch) to this thread a couple years ago as a student, now i'm feeling the grad school experience from the other end - my fiancee is in grad school and i never see her anymore. she's doing landscape architecture so most of the tools she needs (drafting table, software, etc) are at school, and she always has huge projects every week and ends up coming home after 11pm most nights, then going straight to bed. tbh dealing with her grad school thing has been about 1000x worse than actually doing it myself! so fucking lonely. so for all of you who happen to have significant others, try make sure to try to make time for them every once in a while.

#hownottolive

wey I made it. RIP, 502 awesome words.

so, gf got into basically every phd program because she is v. v. smart

it seems like it's between 2-3 schools right now

the first one has A++ academic reputation in the subject...though when she visited she realized the department was basically a half dozen 70 year old white men. it's kinda far from where we live but *almost* within a doable commute. some people do it.

second one has a very good academic reputation (prob top 15? but there doesn't seem to be a standard ranking, not that there should be.) it's a very big department and slightly less selective, but has more profs doing the stuff she wants to do. they've had some people place very well recently (including a tenure track pos at school #1) but it also seems like something of a professional risk to not go to school w/ school #1's name. this school is very close and would make our personal lives much, much better.

school #3 has good ranking, good name, very close...but was her alma mater and she's been told by various people that it's generally bad form to go to the same place for grad school. she's visiting this one today.

am I a bad person for pushing for #2? this is a field where jobs prospects are pretty shitty. despite her visiting, researching etc. it seems strangely difficult to tell whether school #1 is really 'the best school'. I know grad school doesn't quite work like that, but at the very least it is the most selective w/ admissions.

is there a database somewhere w/ all tenure track placements?

from what you say, #2 sounds best. people saying don't do your phd at your undergrad school are right. big mistake by me. ranking or prestige of dept is a second order thing in determining career. it mostly goes on achievements, networking, letters of references, etc. (although letters of reference from more prestigious/famous schools/people are worth more, and are easier to come by if you're in a top dept. to begin with). in my field at least, people say it's very difficult to move up in prestige of department after your first postdoc, but i don't hear that said about the grad school—postdoc transition.

more profs doing the stuff she wants to do

*ding ding ding* this is the place to go. Seriously, you need people who can relate to you and your research or you're screwed.

However:

1) Never heard about it being bad form to continue at your alma mater, and I know that there are universities here that will offer you an extra grant if you do stay on. I'm guessing there might be a US/UK difference in this, though.

2) I'm terrible at thinking about this in career terms. I'm only doing a PhD because I love my subject - am hoping that somehow magically someone will come and teach me how to turn this into a career prospect, but I'm almost certainly doomed.

Seriously, you need people who can relate to you and your research or you're screwed.

this.

that's what I had gathered from my research. if she is gonna make this decision though, it's gonna be a pretty painful conversation w/ her mom.

there are still prestigious/famous people at #2 fwiw.

another problem: the only 2 profs who work in her field at school #1 were both on leave during the visiting day. that seems like a huge risk and I suggested that she get to know them online/via phone *very well* if she was gonna go with #1.

yeah i cant really emphasize enough how impt is to work in dept. where you are going to be valued/your research will be nurtured.

paying too much attn to rank/prestige of program is sorta pointless at least in the sciences, i feel, the work you do ends up counting for so much. there will be a different set of opportunities at a less selective school, but not necessarily a worse set of opportunities. & at least there is some evidence that ppl from school #2 can get jobs in the field, its not the end of the world.

yeah I mean there's good evidence! they didn't just get the last hot job (at #2) but her favorite young prof at #3 also went to #1. it's just so hard to get out of undergrad mentality where picking #2 over #1 would be sorta absurd, esp when #1 was offering you more money.

at the visit w/ #2 they buddied her w/ a 2nd year grad student who also picked #2 over #1. it's not an unheard of decision at this point.

there are 3 other quite good schools but she's not heavily considering them at this point. even if I didn't exist I don't think she would want to move far, but maybe that's not true.

er her favorite young prof went to #2

this number system is ridiculous sorry

and the last hot job was at #1 err

I did undergrad and phd at the same place (UC berkeley) but I went somewhere else for a second BA in between- the overlap hasn't hurt me- but I would second the feeling that it's important to have profs who actually work on what you want to work on and who can nurture your project (assuming it's a school with good placement prospects and you say it is)-

she refused to apply to berkeley because she didn't want to write an extra essay on how she would contribute to the school's diversity

I told her I would hold that against her forever (go bears)

that said, it would be a hard essay to write

it's just so hard to get out of undergrad mentality where picking #2 over #1 would be sorta absurd, esp when #1 was offering you more money.

This is so true, and I myself need to get out of this mindset, especially as I'm bound to be rejected by all the ivy's I applied to, and already have one good school with very appropriate people that has accepted me.

can't write much now but I'll get back to it later: if job sitch is shitty in the area then looking at job placement record is critical; data should be available online & if not she should ask about it, ask around about it too.

job sitch is quite shitty in this field. (fr3nch)

#2 included a placement list in their packet that looks pretty good tbh but I'm curious if they're only including the successes (which is possible cause it's a big program) or if that's everyone that graduated.

It will only be the successes, be certain of that.

yeah figured that, more curious *how* many non-successes there are.

the second * should be around many otherwise that sounds weird

I agree with everyone suggesting #2...for all that institutional reputation brings, a PhD graduate will ultimately be judged on the quality of the work he/she produces.

^^^ disagree completely, 100%

but gotta go teach now (lol @ the fruits of actually getting a job)

what's really frustrating is how little important info is available for someone not yet in grad school, these schools all have horrible website. I guess for a small field these things are all available via professional/gossip channels. I'm sure a year from now when she's 100% in those channels she'll have a good perspective, right now she's like...25% in these channels.

websites

pretty sure I have a good idea of what #1 you're referring to - I remember that when I attended that school's info on its english phd program, they mentioned the placement rate was like 50%. maybe diff for fr3nch idk

yeah it's that one. english job market seems even more brutal than fr3nch but that's just the impression I've gotten.

^^^ disagree completely, 100%

oh man really? or is it a humanities thing? as much as the school matters, and i would never argue that its negligible, i do feel like your work is going to be the biggest determining factor in your job prospects after graduating. but obv you have a better sense of these things...

i mean maybe we're collectively underselling the value that going to #1 has, and the worse the job market gets for your discipline the greater the value that is, but i have (yet, lol) to regret transferring out of an ivy league school to a less prestigious but more welcoming one

have never understood why it's gauche to do your phd at your alma mater - seems like some kind of bullshit arbitrary made up criteria, like "oh look! that candidate is wearing blue socks...she can never be as good at me at reading proust"

idk if it's gauche but it does mean you have limited institutional experience? given every university has its own systems and culture.

i am doing a phd at my alma mater - mostly cos this one guy here seemed like the ideal person to supervise me, and we have an excellent library - and sometimes i really feel like i should have moved, there was something a little too-safe about just returning to familiar ways.

I'm keen to hear Euler's perspective on this, I'm a computer science person so I'm willing to believe things are different over in the other culture.

In my field the main goal during a PhD is to get noticed - you do this by writing papers and presenting at conferences. Obviously your institution has a big influence on this, e.g. in who you get to collaborate with, who comes to visit, and so on but ultimately it's the quality of your work that people notice.

i think institutional prestige is probably more important in the humanities (not that science is a meritocracy).

idk if it's gauche but it does mean you have limited institutional experience? given every university has its own systems and culture.

that's basically it. i mean there are people in the world with worse problems than having to go to oxford twice, but i do feel like it is (rightly) held against me, and i would have found the job market nowhere near as tough if i'd have left the uk for my phd.

euler will know better, but i think in the sciences in france you basically have to leave france immediately after your phd if you want to get a permanent job in france one day.

ok done teaching for the day; gonna work upward now in this thread

In my experience French mathematicians move right from French Ph.D.s to French post-docs to permanent positions in France. The same is true for philosophers.

It's def. unwise to go to the same place for grad & undergrad, mostly because it's uncommon & so search committees will wonder what the deal was. I doubt it would be a gamebreaker but it could tilt the balance in a close case (& they're usually close cases).

Now that I'm reading this more slowly I want to correct something I said. Institutional prestige matters a lot less than departmental prestige. My Ph.D. is from a non-Ivy but in my discipline my department ranked higher than most Ivies, even though institutionally it's below an Ivy. But *departmental* prestige matters a shit-ton (this is what I meant to say earlier). Your work will stand on its own but how it's received by others is based on where you came from & the means by which those others receive it. Sure, if you can publish it in a top-shelf place on your own then yes, it'll stand on its own, but grad students rarely pull this off (I said *top-shelf* place). Usually it's a matter of word of mouth, and so it matters who the mouth is. People at other universities want to protect their students, and so aren't likely to deliver good word of mouth to you as a student competing with their students (that'll happen in time if you're good enough (say, by tenure time), but not at the start, when differentiation b/w students isn't so clear). You want your promotors, in particular your advisor, to have as much weight in the profession as possible. And this is generally reflected by departmental reputation. Certainly if you don't know who's hot shit a priori, knowing that they've got a job at a top-shelf department is a good guide. This word of mouth thing is so crucial in philo & in math---yeah, even in the latter, b/c what search committees care about is ~trajectory~, & what you've done needs to be ~interpreted~ in order to gauge that. Your letter writers will be doing that interpretation, at least at the start. Later you'll be doing that for yourself by writing more, getting on the conference circuit, etc. But at the start you're completely at the mercy of others: it's what your reputation is, and you want your advisors & other letter writers, with their studly reputations, to identify you with that studly reputation.

gonna start a new para b/c that's getting long but look: another thing is that this profession, academia I mean, is "I scratch your back, you scratch mine". Your department Beta hires a student from department Alpha, and Alpha is going to hire a student from department Beta; and maybe even professor Aleph at Alpha is going to hire a student of professor Beth at Beta, and they'll personally reciprocate. You want into that. If your advisor is someone you relate to well (which is super critical, don't get me wrong, I love my advisors like parents) but who isn't in the backscratching business, then get ready to watch this shit going on & feel helpless. That's why going to the hottest place you can is a good idea. I mean if there really is no one she can envision working with at place #1, then she should be wary, but I'd try to make that happen. If this weren't the internet I'd talk to you more about this, but in a ton of ways I really lucked out in this process (like, I picked my dept. w/o knowing anything & it totally was a great choice in all the ways I'm talking about). It's better not to luck out. So when I talk about placement being critical, I mean: can you find out if they're on the backscratching circuit? Have her ask the grad students at the various institutions, esp. the oldest ones. The profs will lie or at least dissemble, but the grad student'll know what's up. If she can hack it, ask profs at other unis about these depts---hell, even ask people at her alma mater about placement at these other places.

ok this bullshit is way too long now but that's what I've got for now

the real problem is that it's hard to know what the hot department is in this particular discipline. we know which schools were harder to get into. but there aren't really current rankings that anyone accepts as truth. a lot of the people at other schools badmouth school #1, today she heard it being called a 'cemetery'. but this is a really small world, even as far as academia goes, I'm not sure a ranking would even make any sense.

from what we're seeing it look like school #4 is gonna get some of the other top students purely because they want to go to 'school #4'. but that doesn't actually seem like a top department for other reasons.

what's really frustrating is how little important info is available for someone not yet in grad school, these schools all have horrible website.

There are a lot of bad websites out there, it's true, but if you're thinking about going to school there, you're not going to make a decision based on what you learned from their website. If possible, you really need to visit there and see the place for yourself and talk with potential future colleagues.

the real problem is that it's hard to know what the hot department is in this particular discipline. we know which schools were harder to get into. but there aren't really current rankings that anyone accepts as truth.

And why would there be? Kanye West finished ahead of Janelle Monae in the 2010 Pazz and Jop poll, but not everybody accepts those rankings as truth. No shit!

Forget about objective, or even halfway reliable "rankings" of departments or schools, they don't exist and even if they did they would be fluid because research goals change, people come and go, new funding comes in or old funding runs out, etc. It might be boring and old fashioned, but you really need to list the pros and cons of every possible school and rank them yourself based on what's most important for you.

w/ the websites I more meant that it's sometimes not possible to even find simple things like 'list of current grad students'. at this point she has done the official visits for all 5 of the schools that she's seriously considering, talked w/ professors etc.

(she's also read this thread now.) I think school #3 is probably falling out of consideration.