?

The following is a long discourse on my questions and concerns about the Ph.D. process mainly, and the job details of a professor secondly.

When I first entertained the idea of graduate school, I spent a reasonable amount of time researching graduate schools in order to find a few 'best' ones and hopefully a good 'match'. This mostly entailed gathering information such as graduate catalogs from many schools, school rankings from public publishings, and city information mainly from Places Rated. I also talked with various professors at ODU, friends from various schools, and used my own prejudices in determining what these 'best' schools would be. I found out about professors, research labs, class requirements, entrance requirements, expectations, etc for each school. I spent about 3 months compiling a database and ranking things and schools.

Ultimately this was almost useless as I graduated in December only to find about 90% of all schools had no way of financially supporting an incoming grad student in January. This of course was shocking to me since these schools theoretically can do basic math, but what was I to do. For a more detailed description of my process, my views on the process (both during and after), and my suggestions for others, you can checkout some of my papers at gradsearch. Try phdsearch for my current status.

I wrote those in an effort to enlighten the masses. While that must sound quaint, you must consider how many written sources are out there for prospective graduate students: almost none. This on the whole bothers me a great deal. Which of course is why I am writing this letter. I want to know a whole lot more about the Ph.D. process than can be found in some graduate catalog.

As a catalog would state it, getting a Ph.D. is a simple as taking 3 classes a term, doing some research, taking a qualifying exam, writing a dissertation, and taking an oral exam. Bing, bang, done.

Assuming you're back in your chair after laughing so hard, let's talk about some details: financial aid, qualifying exam, dissertation research, advisor matching, paper writing, proposals, future funding, and future job market.

There seems to be quite some variance in the requirements here. Some schools require that a student on aid (assistantship or fellowship) be registered for at least 1 credit of research, while some require registration of 9 graduate credits (presumably classes). I fear those schools requiring a TA to teach 20 hrs a week, take 3 grad classes, work on research at least 20 hrs a week, and maybe even sleep. Not to mention the problems inflicted if this schedule is before the qualifiers.

As is my understanding, one could study almost indefinitely and not be fully prepared. The test itself seems to vary from school to school as each school makes up its own test, and the requirements for passing are different. Each school categorizes the test into different categories, and passing the entire test is dependent upon passing a certain number of categories. Even the, 'passing' seems to be not only subjective according to committees, but also comparative among students taking it. I don't necessarily have a problem with this, but I would like to know what I was getting in to.

This is either research an advisor is working on, wants to pursue, or helps formulate. In either case, while the work is supposed to be more original (another nice subjective criteria) than the master's thesis, the advisor is instrumental in its formulation.

So then, the advisor seems to play an important role. I have been told this by almost every student and faculty member I have spoken with. The reasoning ranged from personality clashes to helpful guidance to future job prospects. That said, how is it done? Sure, a student may decide a certain professor does interesting work, but what about personalities or this guiding ability? What expectations or limitations can professors impose on this situation?

I have also been informed by several Ph.D. candidates and professors that these are integral parts of the Ph.D. process. This is not something you find in a graduate catalog. I have minor experience writing proposals and it seems to take quite a bit of time. My questions here mainly concern future work as a professor. How many papers would be considered normal/adequate to have written at this stage to help out in the tenure process later?

Well, all the above should give you an idea of my way of thinking, where I'm coming from, and the types of general concerns I have.

This page was created with

Clayton Berry, 1996.
Home / E-Mail / Links

spinning vi logo Copyright © 1996-97 Alex Chiang