Assess and Answer my questions about my PhD path

Catria
Fri, 27 Jun 2014 00:53:19 +0000

Thanks for the information, because I realized that I’d rather teach at a school without a graduate program, and that UPenn (and, really, a couple more schools on my list) would not be out of place to apply to, given my application in its current state.

If I’m not mistaken, in physics, depts without a graduate program prefer to hire professors whose research does not require costly start-up (this effectively rules out many, if not most, experimental condensed matter, plasma or biophysics research projects) although they can still conduct research to the tune of undergraduate capstone projects and, less frequently, summer research internships (are these eligible for work-study? Or is summer funding separate from WS for undergraduate financial aid purposes?)

And is it true that departments without a graduate program exert less pressure on faculty to publish and get grants than departments with a graduate program? If so, how much less?

It’s often tempting to say that teaching at a physics department without a graduate program is the same as teaching that stuff at a LAC… but that isn’t always the case. (The first such department I’ve ever heard about is Villanova)