Assess and Answer my questions about my PhD path

juillet
Thu, 26 Jun 2014 02:39:32 +0000

Also, does the profession allow for creativity when dictating what kind of research you want to? I’ve heard a variety of answers. @juillet Do you know?



In theory, yes. You can decide to do research on whatever you want. Nobody is going to force you to do research you don’t want to do, and one of the commonly cited perks of academia is getting to select your own research questions.

In practice, the research you do will be driven by a whole lot of factors. During your graduate career, it’ll be driven by the resources available at your graduate institution and the kind of work that your advisor does. Ideally, you’d work with an advisor and in a research lab that does work that is very well aligned with your own interests - but it might not be a 100% perfect fit, and thus your research interests may change slightly and/or you may have to work on projects that are a little afield of your own interests. (For example, I wanted to do research on school-based HIV prevention programs with adolescents 14-18. But I was flexible, and it turned out that the mentor who was perfect for me actually primarily does HIV prevention research with young adults 18-30, although he does have access to samples of adolescents 12-25. So I started to work with both samples, and in the course of doing so I found I actually prefer research with emerging adults now.)

During your research career, your research will be partially driven by funding availability and what’s “hot” at the time. Like, in my own field, let’s say I’m interested in stress and HIV disease progression. The current “hot” field is using biomarkers of stress (like cortisol levels and HPA axis activation - biological signals that a person is stressed) to measure stress levels, so my research is trending in that direction because that’s where the funding is. Another trending thing is longitudinal research.

In every field, there are things that are new and innovative and the big granting agencies (primarily NIH and NSF, but there are many others) want to give money to research that’s cutting-edge and not to research that’s a rehash of what’s already been done. If your granting agency has a particular mission, you might be guided into doing research on that in particular. Like, let’s say you’re doing brain research in 20 years and Google offers you money to study how its Google Glass changes brain connections or something - maybe you’ll do that. Or if you want Department of Defense money, you’ll maybe do research on how traumatic brain injury change neuronal connections. If you are an academic researcher, your university will pressure you (subtly or hard) to do research that is going to win the university grant funding and recognition. You may even be expected to fund a significant portion of your salary out of your grants (at my university, it’s 80%).

If you’re at a think tank or national lab, your research will be directed by that organization’s mission and outside contracts. They’ll contract with outside orgs (often the government) to do research and you, as their scientist, will do it. Now you may have some say in the contracts they take on and will have control over how the research is done, but you’ll have less say than if you were an academic.



Thanks @juillet‌ For anyone else that could answer my questions, what about a faculty position at a liberal arts college?



Depends on the kind of SLAC. Top SLACs can be just as competitive as some research universities. Like if you wanted to work at Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams, etc. - I’ve browsed CVs and talked to some professors there, and they have generally done postdocs as well (usually just 1, though). They seem to have, on average, a few fewer publications than someone who went to Michigan or Harvard, for example. But many top SLAC professors could have successfully competed for positions at top research universities. They also have the added pressure of having to demonstrate a commitment to teaching. Many of them have sole-taught their own class. Many have not, but they have extensive teaching assistant experience and show an enthusiasm for working with undergrads. If you want to teach at a SLAC, then you should try to get experience mentoring undergrads in grad school in the lab.

Mid-tier SLACs have heavier teaching loads, and they want to be sure that if they hire you, you won’t fly away at the first hint of an R1 job. So they like to see more teaching experience, evidence that you really like teaching, and perhaps fewer publications. I have heard professors at mid-range SLACs say that they tend to be more wary of people who come from top-tier graduate institutions - kind of like a “why are you applying here?” thing - but most, I feel, understand that the job market is rough AND that some people just really want that kind of environment.