I feel very grateful that D1 has such a supportive, nurturing, and fair mentor/advisor. Her program is pretty stressful, but knowing he has her back, that he respects her, that he wants the best experience for her, has been the most important factor in her success, imo.
I feel for those students who do not have this kind of relationship with their advisor. I just can’t imagine getting through a rigorous program like that without having the support of the mentor.
I agree that it’s both unproductive and unwise to discourage or to suggest that someone should cut off a chosen path. Further, I agree that luck is also a component. Third, obviously some grad students do survive and survive well, and end up in academia, to the pleasure and benefit of many sons and daughters. I keep telling one of my ex-students (now in undergrad but clearly material for academia) to stay the course and not be intimidated; I say that because she has all the promising signs of gifting the world with her talent and intellect. I’m convinced she will be one of the lucky/clever ones who will end up in academia and very highly placed as well. But all students, yes, should enter with eyes wide open. It’s just sad that despite open eyes, many exceptional students will be mortified by what they see and leave.
There must be a better, more honest, less exploitive way to handle the “slave labor” aspect mentioned above.
My son has an abusive adviser. He has had 2 other advisers, both of whom left their jobs. The last one left when his start up was bought out. He is so discouraged. His goal,isn’t academia but industry. I feel his pain. Over half his classmates have left with their MS.
bookworm just confirmed everything I have heard. There does seem to be a 50+% dropout rate. All that for “cheap labor”? Shame on the institutions.
I guess I should thank my lucky stars that neither I nor anyone I know is in this kind of abusive/coercive relationship with their advisor. Though perhaps it is a field thing. I only know a few people in broadly-defined science fields.
I have an absolutely amazing advisor. She is my staunchest advocate and constantly puts my physical and emotional health and well-being above any academic-related things. She is not unique in my department and all of my PhD friends here (it’s a small department so that means pretty much every other PhD student/candidate in the dept) have the same experience.
I think these differing experiences are vitally important when advising potential PhD students. Again, in my experience, the students that I reached out to were brutally honest (for better or worse) about what the climate was like in their department. IMO, this is probably one of the most important things a student can figure out before s/he even applies to the program. Who wants to work in the environment described by several here? Certainly not me. After last semester (I was chronically ill but with no definitive diagnosis), in some of the programs described above, I’d probably have quit.
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This is not necessarily true. At the University of California the cost of fully supporting a graduate student researcher, including all mandatory benefits, is actually more expensive than hiring a postdoc. Plus there is the 5-6 year commitment to keep the grad student funded, all while running the risk that they will bail at any time once they find their ‘true calling’. Grad students with TA funding are a different matter; they are indeed ‘cheap labor’ compared to hiring faculty to teach the same courses.
Epiphany, cheap labor? My son has a NSF award. It runs out this year, so doubtful his PI will put his hand in his pocket.
Sorry to be so emotional. I took this man out to lunch nah, with my best friend, and in 5 minutes, we both had the same impression of the man. Son’s g/f added to our impression.
I missed the “cheap labor” comment.
I’m costing my school/department at least $80k per year in tuition, stipend, and insurance so I’m not sure that I’m really “cheap.” My program guarantees 6 years of full funding, not to mention all the extra perks we get.
I loathed my advisor by the time I was finished. Personally, I can’t believe they let me out. Some students who were still working when I finished were expressing concern because the large number of PhD’s being awarded was decreasing the value associated with getting one. I’m sure they were including mine in their complaints to the school.
Are there a couple of posters here with reading comprehension problems, as in post 77? I was not the one who introduced the term, but I just love it when I get blamed for other people’s assertions.
FWIW, dh is happy today, grad students in the lab even though it’s a holiday. They aren’t all bad, but he does think they are more distracted than kids were in his day. I think dh is probably a good advisor, but not necessarily stellar.
One issue I see is that there seems to be a big difference in ability between the MD/PhD students and the regular grad students. This is probably less of an issue at other institutions.
I guess it all depends on one’s perspective.
After paying >$50K/yr for 4 year private undergrad education, DS and I are both tickled pink that his PhD program (STEM) not only covers his tuition but also gives him a stipend (enough for a single low maintenance kid to live comfortably) and provides him with health insurance and an office… guaranteed for 5 years assuming adequate progress. “They pay you to just go to classes?” I said. Next year he will TA a class but even so…
Perhaps naive on his part, but he thinks even if he does not end up in academia, there’s nothing he’d rather be doing for next 4.5 years. He is fortunate that there are non academic jobs for his field.
Perhaps naive on my part, but I think attrition in a PhD program is OK. The reason for the attrition obviously varies but if a student decides, which many do, that this is not for them, that’s not a bad thing.
I’m in medicine, a field with very low attrition rate, and have known many who would have left the field if they had not 1) invested so much money, 2) invested so much of their life energy, 3) invested so many years in their training, 4) could find another job that would support the lifestyle to which they (and their spouses) have become accustomed. Gilded cage and all that.
Lovitts (2001) wrote a book on doctoral attrition. The drop-out rate is approximately 50%. There are some programs with drop-out rates higher than that. This study on PhD programs in Math says that “PhD completion rates are notoriously difficult to obtain, and when present, are frequently unreliable”
http://www41.homepage.villanova.edu/klaus.volpert/PhDStudy/PhD_Study.htm
Lovitts, B. E. (2001). Leaving the ivory tower: The causes and consequences of departure from doctoral study.
@foobar1, thanks for the link. Interesting info, esp since DS is in math :D.
Interesting that (looking at pure math data only) just a handful of the top programs have >75% completion rate, then just a few in the 60-75% range, with the vast majority in the <50% (even among highly respected U’s).
It will be interesting to see what happens with DSs cohort over next few years. So far, after 1 semester, he hasn’t seen any attrition.
@foobar1 thanks for that link. That study is exactly what I was looking for as my kid is interested in math. The completion rates are scarily low. It’s a bit worrisome, but I’m willing myself to get over it.
@bookworm so sorry to hear of your son’s run of bad luck. Is there any way to get a new adviser who would be a better match? I don’t know if such a thing is possible, so maybe others who have experience with it can speak on it. Best wishes to him.
From what I’ve heard from friends and relatives who have gone through or are currently in PhD programs in a wide variety of fields, the stages where attrition tends to be greatest is usually further along in the PhD program such as after comp or required skill exams(i.e. foreign languages, quantitative methods, etc*) or in some programs with vicious weedout policies after a full year or more.
@cobrat - this is what I saw as a graduate student. Before reaching the dissertation stage, some students were instructed to seek a Master’s rather than sit for comps, while others failed skills tests or failed comps. Students also left if/when funding was not renewed. (A 5 year package should remove those types of worries.)
Some of the students who left began graduate studies in other departments or other schools.
Interesting. For many of the PhD programs my relatives and friends were in or ones I was looking into myself, the “consolation Masters” could only be obtained after passing the comps. If one dropped before getting to the comp stage or failed the comps in those programs…no “consolation Masters”.
Also, some universities/departments are known in academia for being restrictive about funding like Princeton’s hard 5-year limit for PhD students across many of their academic departments.
One math Prof from a SE LAC who had been a tenured Prof for 15+ years when I met him in the early 00’s took 9.5 years to get his PhD at Princeton had to secretly* work the last 4.5 years of his program as a busboy at a nearby country club to defray what outside research grants he was able to get wouldn’t cover as his department completely cuts off funding for students who exceeded the 5-year limit with few exceptions. At least they allowed such students to stay on…albeit without further departmental funding with the exception of a minute number of extreme extenuating cases.
A college classmate’s father in another Princeton department ended up getting summarily booted along with others because they didn’t finish in 5 years and that department’s policy was with extreme rare exceptions to boot out all PhD students who exceeded the 5-year funding limit. Ended up having to finish his PhD elsewhere.
@cobrat - Was it impossible to move from a PhD program to a Master’s program (typically not requiring comps) even at a school that offered one or more tracks towards a Master’s degree as well as a PhD?
I know several who changed their minds and went to law school. I know one who changed herminds about what she wanted to write her dissertation about and no one wanted to support her new idea. I had a boyfriend who went to the school he liked, but with a department that wasn’t a good fit. He ended up going to med school. I also knew a handful who took 10 years to get their PhDs. One of them is now a tenured prof at Stanford.