Pursuing a PhD is like going through an apprenticeship for many of us doctoral students. You are taken under your adviser's wings and his or her interests become yours (ideally). I was fortunate enough to know what I wanted to work on during my studies and selected my adviser based on this interest. Getting accepted into GW and getting my first choice adviser has made life so much easier than it could have been - I know this because I have seen the alternative and, trust me, it isn't pretty.
Doctoral students become virtual apprentices of their advisers and are expected to "drink the kool-aid" In my opinion, it isn't hard to understand why. Firstly, faculty members don't get paid to mentor their "advisees". They have to read their miserable attempts at research papers, answer their random questions, and explain to them why they can't work outside the University even though their stipend barely pays for rent and food (forget diapers!) - all for free. Their "quid pro quo" is the opportunity to turn their students into disciples.
When you get your PhD and go out into academia, you become known not as the "XYZ-trained economist" but as "Dr. XYZ's former student"- this is where the opportunity lies! If their mentorship task is done well, faculty members can spawn academic carbon copies of themselves who will quote their research, spread their theories, and increase their academic "footprints." In the course of 25 years, one professor can can turn 5 doctoral students into into over 100 professors around the world towing the same academic line (assuming each of those 5 mentor 5 students, who also mentor 5 students each)!
Having research interests that truly jive with the research interests of your adviser means never having to pretend that you want to work on a project for him or her. It means that you don't risk finding out that someone else's work is more interesting or is in some way a better match for you. Having the right adviser is more important than attending the right program in many ways. Although I would agree with my Mom's advice to buy the worst home in the best neighborhood instead of the best home in an "up and coming" neighborhood, I would say that it would be better to have the best advisor in an "up and coming" program than to have the worst adviser in a top program. If you are blessed with both, more grease to your elbows!
If you are thinking about applying to a PhD program, my advice is to try and find out who will be available to work with you before making your selection. If your adviser is not doing things that interest you there will likely be rough times ahead - if he or she also doesn't get along with others in the department and prevents you from working with other faculty members in the department, you're in even worse shape. And this is where the fighting I mentioned above comes into play. One of the worst things that a faculty member can do is try and convert their colleagues disciples to their own philosophical camp - I've seen it tried and it is not pretty!
Choose your adviser wisely - you will always be known as "Dr. XYZ's student/prodigy/apprentice" and, trust me, you want to carry that badge with pride!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
The Politics of life as an Academic
I knew that success in a doctoral program involved some element of "politicking" way before my first day at the GW Business School - it was more than six months before I sent in my application when a faculty member at the school explained to me that my chance of getting in was possibly as much a function of who I knew as it was of what I knew. It was after that conversation that I began a campaign of phone calls to every professor and associate professor who would give me a few minutes to talk and whose research interests were even tangentially related to what I would eventually study at GW. The process was reminiscent of my business school days where those interested in Investment Banking spent hours hobnobbing with overworked Associates and VPs at information sessions and during "informational interviews" in order to get a coveted spot on the closed list (or whatever they called it).
In a doctoral program, the applicants that make it past the initial screen (e.g., is the application complete? Did they spell their name right on the application form?) then have to be vouched for by at least one department in order to get their application to the final stage of the process - whose going to vouch for someone he or she has never seen or spoke to? It is only after getting your vouch that you advance to the final stage of review, where applications are fed into an IBM mainframe which takes 36 hours to complete a complex process of combining GRE scores, vouches (the strength of which is determined by 1) tenure, 2) number of publications 3) strength of journals in which papers are published, 4) conference presentations 5) strength of said conferences, 6) classes taught, 7) strength of classes taught, and, finally 8) the scores on items 1-7 that people the voucher previously vouched receive), and essays*.
After the mainframe, fondly nicknamed "Georgette," spits out the names of the successful future academics"the requisite steps are taken to notify the applicants that the next several years of their lives will be full of jockeying for juicy teaching assistant posts, publications in top journals, speaking slots at conferences in exotic locales, and (of course) for a job at an institution where they can then jockey for classes to teach, publications to be a reviewer for, graduate students to be teaching assistants AND (of course) for tenure, when they can then jockey for office space, consulting opportunities, journals to be an editor for, graduate students to (I think you get the picture).
Right now my colleagues and I are only jockeying amongst each other for seats in class that minimize interaction with those certain professors that have a fondness for asking first year doctoral students questions that no first-year doctoral student should be able to answer. We have been temporarily spared the politics of academic life but only until we navigate through the thousands of pages of reading we are required to do a week and simultaneously master the 3 different statistical packages (the irony of this aspect of things is that one of the fortunate faculty members who has been blessed with teaching us to use this software keeps telling us that a fouth package will ultimately be the one everyone will be using).
As a first year doctoral student, I have only experienced a few months of what is evidently a very complex web of relationships that a full time academic builds and relies upon to have a successful career. The revelation that the "politics" I have encountered in professional life very much exists in academics was an interesting one and will surely not be the last surprise I will encounter during this journey. Stay tuned!
*Just kidding - there are only 4 items that Georgette processes to make a decision.
In a doctoral program, the applicants that make it past the initial screen (e.g., is the application complete? Did they spell their name right on the application form?) then have to be vouched for by at least one department in order to get their application to the final stage of the process - whose going to vouch for someone he or she has never seen or spoke to? It is only after getting your vouch that you advance to the final stage of review, where applications are fed into an IBM mainframe which takes 36 hours to complete a complex process of combining GRE scores, vouches (the strength of which is determined by 1) tenure, 2) number of publications 3) strength of journals in which papers are published, 4) conference presentations 5) strength of said conferences, 6) classes taught, 7) strength of classes taught, and, finally 8) the scores on items 1-7 that people the voucher previously vouched receive), and essays*.
After the mainframe, fondly nicknamed "Georgette," spits out the names of the successful future academics"the requisite steps are taken to notify the applicants that the next several years of their lives will be full of jockeying for juicy teaching assistant posts, publications in top journals, speaking slots at conferences in exotic locales, and (of course) for a job at an institution where they can then jockey for classes to teach, publications to be a reviewer for, graduate students to be teaching assistants AND (of course) for tenure, when they can then jockey for office space, consulting opportunities, journals to be an editor for, graduate students to (I think you get the picture).
Right now my colleagues and I are only jockeying amongst each other for seats in class that minimize interaction with those certain professors that have a fondness for asking first year doctoral students questions that no first-year doctoral student should be able to answer. We have been temporarily spared the politics of academic life but only until we navigate through the thousands of pages of reading we are required to do a week and simultaneously master the 3 different statistical packages (the irony of this aspect of things is that one of the fortunate faculty members who has been blessed with teaching us to use this software keeps telling us that a fouth package will ultimately be the one everyone will be using).
As a first year doctoral student, I have only experienced a few months of what is evidently a very complex web of relationships that a full time academic builds and relies upon to have a successful career. The revelation that the "politics" I have encountered in professional life very much exists in academics was an interesting one and will surely not be the last surprise I will encounter during this journey. Stay tuned!
*Just kidding - there are only 4 items that Georgette processes to make a decision.
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