What PHD Topic is best suited to Interests?

Graduate School
1

So long story short, I have had a very rough time figuring out what exactly I want to do.
Currently, I have:
Associates degrees in Communication and History
Bachelors in Political Science
Currently halfway through a Masters in Public Health specifically healthcare administration.

My interests now though are related to climate change and specifically impacts on wildlife and ecology. Ideally, I would like to do both field research (collecting wildlife/water samples) and lab research. First off, what PHD program am I describing most closely? (Ecology, Wildlife Science, Global Change, etc)

Second, is that in anyway compatible for admission with the current academic resume I have? (Given that my interests are more STEM and my ug/MPH is social science/hybrid)
For reference, my grades are good (3.7), GRE in the 74%, and I was a McNair Scholar as an UG (federal grad prep for minority/low-income).

2

Why do you want a PhD? It’s not for the faint of heart, and definitely not something you should get into on a whim or just because you don’t know what else to do.

Do you have any experience, gained from research experience or from course work, in lab research or in field work? Have you done any course work in ecology or environmental science? A PhD is a continuation of Bachelors-level (and sometimes Masters) work. If you don’t have the equivalent training in the specific field, you’re not prepared for the PhD.

It sounds like you’re interested in a change in career opportunities from the path you’ve been on, and that you’re interested in a career where you can make a difference in climate change. You don’t need to be an ecologist to do that. Your humanities background can be applied to outreach initiatives, working for non-profits, government policy, etc.

3

@geraniol thanks for your reply!
I want to do a PhD because I love school and love getting further in depth on topics I enjoy. Also, in my case it’s cost effective. This far in my academic career, I have made money and have no debt.
The McNair gave me extended fellowship opportunities beyond normal as well so I am very confident I can continue to make money doing something I love while making myself more employable.

In terms of lab research, I’ve done the basic lab science in undergrad. Really don’t have a ton of experience outside that. I do have research experience in public health and political science. I did take graduate level Environmental Science as well as Biostatistics and Epidemiology which I would argue are related to the fields I mentioned.

The problem for me is not the impact so much as the work. I don’t really see myself in policy anymore as I do first hand research/fieldwork.

Hope you can shed some light on my options given this information!

4

That’s not really a good rationale for a PhD. A PhD is going to give you plenty of opportunity for additional learning, sure, but it is really geared toward training students for research and/or teaching careers. You can get more in depth on topics, if that is your only interest, but reading in your free time. Doing a PhD is a much more involved process and requires a lot more thought.

This should not be part of your consideration whatsoever. Just because you have no debt does not mean it is a cost-free choice. There is a lot of opportunity cost associated with doing a PhD, during which you will earn grad student wages instead of those of an actual career. Whether you are accumulating debt or not, you are still losing money. If you aren’t committed to the career paths a PhD enables, it is rarely the smart choice.

A PhD does not, in general, make someone more employable. If anything, it tends to make people less employable, but we earn the degree anyway because the doors they open are more interesting than the doors they close for us.

5

@boneh3ad Thanks for the reply!
I appreciate your comments and understand the concerns you raised however as I said I love school and have no real desire to stop right now.

If you have any suggestions on the original question (which major, my chances given my background) though I’d appreciate the help!

6

If you don’t know what you want to study in depth for your PhD, then you shouldn’t be considering a PhD. If you know what you want to study and just not what department it would fall under, I’d suggest seeking research papers in that field and looking at who publishes them and what departments host them.

7

@boneh3ad That’s a good idea on the research papers, I’ll look through some.

Yeah, I would say I’m confident though not sure about a topic area but much less on the concentration but I am deadset on getting a PhD. It’s weird because I have little desire to teach, but love academia/student life/classes.

8

Well good luck. You will need to have a better explanation for your motivation than that in your personal statement, though. Some PIs may not care, but I know that if I was sorting through prospective PhD students to hire into my lab, lines like “I love school” as reasoning for why a student wants to pursue a PhD would be a red flag. That’s not something that would give me, as a PI, a high degree of confidence that the student will successfully complete the program.

I say this as a faculty member in a different STEM field who regularly does exactly this. I can’t promise that my field is exactly the same as yours in terms of student recruiting, but I would strongly consider you think this through a bit more.

9

Oh for sure! My personal statements are top notch generally, even though I am not really sure of my motivations, I know what schools want to hear. If I put “I love school,” I would be concerned if they didn’t reject me. Plus I have a year to two years to narrow a research focus. My biggest concern is the move to STEM from STEM light in terms of admissions.

I guess another reason for my jump to eliminate anything but a PhD is the lack of viable alternatives. I don’t want to jump into the job market considering my previous majors (I do have to intern for my Masters but I am finding I don’t like public health and have 0 desire for politics related jobs), I considered law school in the past but don’t have any desire for it now so it seems like doing a PhD in a field I know I have interest in, will likely be paid for, and boosts job prospects (or at very least provides versatility in a different field) seems best. Plus, I would much rather write a dissertation (I wrote a 70 page undergrad thesis which I enjoyed) than work in a field I know I don’t like.

10

Oh good. Another generic, disingenuous personal statement.

Writing the dissertation is the easy part. Doing the years of toil required to fill it with an original contribution to your field is the part that requires motivation beyond “yay school.”

11

I think @boneh3ad is being a bit hard on you. I did a PhD for similar reasons (wasn’t interested in getting a job, having too much fun in college) and it was very enjoyable and the most relaxing three years of my life. However I did math which is atypical (in my case long baths were the main source of inspiration :wink: ) and the people I know who did lab or field based research had a much different and more stressful experience. That does usually require “years of toil” and it sounds like you haven’t done much lab/field based work to date. So is there a topic more towards the policy side which would fit your aspirations both socially and academically?

12

To get into a PhD program isn’t like undergrad, where you pick something you thiknk you’re intrested in. You need a background, a research interest you have experience with. Faculty approve your application, in large part based on whether they can work with you, one or more of them have similar research interests. There are exceptions, but it’s a different sort of proving.

@Twoin18 I’d bet you had a strong math background-?

13

@lookingforward Yes my degree was in math. But I’m not telling OP how to get in (I agree with you on that), just that the initial reasons aren’t that ridiculous, though a lab or field based PhD might not be as enjoyable as expected.

14

Plenty of people start PhDs because they were good students in undergrad and had no concrete plans for what to do next. I know because I started grad school during the recession and even at a top 5 program I had classmates who were there ‘just because’. That being said, most of those people either ‘mastered out’ or were miserable the whole time and ended up going to professional school after their PhD (law, dentistry, medicine, high school teaching).

But again, for a PhD, your educational background matters a lot. As does research experience. However, a first-authored paper does not make up for not having taken the appropriate pre-requisites in undergrad. I highly doubt that programs in Environmental Science would consider you if you have not taken the complete set of undergrad courses in geology, biology, chemistry, ecology. You need to be able to fundamentally understand the field of study before you can do PhD-level research in it. Again, the PhD is a continuation of undergraduate work, taking the concepts that a BS-holder has learned mostly through coursework and teaching them to apply that to generate new knowledge. The PhD will not make up for foundational knowledge you don’t already have, so if you don’t have that foundational knowledge (ie. undergraduate courses), PhD programs will not admit you.

You’re still at a university completing your Master’s degree. Does your school offer an environmental science degree? Can you audit some of those courses to see if you have that knowledge / actually like the subject matter? I’m sure there are also students who are studying environmental science/geology/ecology etc. Maybe get to know them and get some insight into what they do and how they prepared for graduate school? They might be able to give you a more candid assessment of your suitability for a PhD given your educational background.

Also regarding job prospects… the grass is not always greener. Do a search on Indeed for the kinds of jobs you think you’d like with a PhD in the realm of ecology/environmental science, whatever you really think your interests are. Job postings for PhDs are unbelievably specific - you need to fit that particular area of expertise to be considered. Your jobs prospects will tend to narrow rather than widen with a PhD. Looking for a job with a PhD is kind of nuts. I have a very secure, pensioned job that I enjoy - whenever I’m frustrated with work, I look on Indeed for jobs for PhDs in my sub-discipline, and it helps me count my blessings.

15

OP, I would like to gently submit that a PhD might very well make you miserable.
You say you are “deadset” on one because you like school. But a PhD program is nothing like undergrad, and it is very different from your average master’s program. Only a small portion of it is coursework and learning new things through didactic instruction, and that is the least important portion. The vast majority of it is independent research and learning, and it’s more time-consuming and stressful than most BS or MPH program. It’s not anything like most people’s typical expectations of “school.”

Your career/job doesn’t have to be directly related to your major. Just because you majored in social sciences fields doesn’t mean you have to work in policy or politics (although there ARE a lot of policy and politics involved in ecology and wildlife conservation).

With that said, to answer your questions:

  1. If your only research experience is in political science and public health, you will find it difficult to gain admission to a PhD program in the life sciences. Those PhD programs usually expect students to have had 2+ years of research experience in their specific field, not just any field. The research ecologists do is very different from the research political scientists do, with different methods.
    So what you should do is get some research experience in the field(s) in which you’re interested.
    You also don’t have the coursework foundation that you need to take graduate-level courses in these fields. You’d probably be expected to have the equivalent of an undergraduate major in a related field - so biology, chemistry, physics, etc., and/or with some coursework from each and some coursework in math.
  2. The exact name of the PhD doesn’t really matter so much as the research and coursework that you get to take. So programs in any of the fields you listed could work if they offered the appropriate research and coursework. Look up the professors doing impactful research in your field and see where they teach/do research.
16

Thanks for the great replies! I think Bone has been helpful, maybe a bit idealist in that he believes PhD students aren’t tailoring personal statements but clearly I am a bit too thinking I can switch so easily at this stage.

@Twoin18 See the issue is I have really no desire for policy advocation except from a science/research background (think when scientists attend congressional hearings to present findings). This sucks in a way because I graduated #1 in my major (albeit from a middling state school) in political science and will have a similar grad certificate from a top 25 institution.

I think after hearing the comments, maybe trying to hit a sweet spot between STEM/SS might be best i.e (Environmental Management v Environmental Science). I just hope that doesn’t kill jobs that I might want which I fear it may.

@geraniol
Environmental Science is probably an outlier in that it is so clearly STEM. I think my realistic options are more Ecololgy, Global Change, Wildlife Conservation which are more STEM light or even something like Homeland Security with more of a ecological concentration.

Unfortunately, my school used to offer an Environmental Health Science degree but stopped admitting in the past year. I would have strongly considered it if they kept it (it was taken out the year I entered the program). Outside of that, we have Biology and Geoscience, neither of which I could probably gain admission or really would want to pursue.

I really appreciate what you said on the job prospects, it does give me cause for concern.

My thought is that I can’t really get jobs I want with the degrees I have so if I go to a PhD I can use it if I need to and keep it in my pocket if I don’t. That’s not ideal but again, I think I’m in the “best of a bad situation” scenario.

Job in the fields I currently have experience is out of the picture for the most part.

Professional degrees are outside of the picture.

Really the question is which PhD? I’d love to hear thoughts on the other programs of study I mentioned. My “outer tier” that I haven’t mentioned consists of security/defense degrees, resource management, emergency Management (concentration towards wildlife/ecologic versus human).

I also should mention where my strongest experience in research this far has been in the following areas:
political history, opioid epidemic responses, cannabis legalization (insert witty comment), neurodevelopmental disabilities.

I also have held very high positions in higher education (was on government committees, held top student position in state).

I’m hoping the opioid/cannabis/neurodevelopment pieces might be STEM enough to translate.

17

@juillet

I get why you would be concerned on that note. But one of my favorite parts of undergrad was doing my thesis which was largely independent (I met with a faculty committee/mentor once per month).

Granted, I know it is leagues and bounds harder but I submit this for your consideration.

-Average length of thesis: 35 pages, mine was 70 pages.

-Mentor commented that I did independent research better than anyone he has mentored previously.

-I had many days where literally the entire day was spent reading, taking notes, and revising my thesis and I was happy with that.

-Remarked that I was one of the quickest students in terms of pace (while not sacrificing quality). Said not procrastinating will come in handy.
I know this is incredibly anecdotal but he was chair of the department.

This was done while taking a regular course load and being super involved on campus (my social life could have used tending to, but my friends are academics so that helps). I assume the added work of a PhD would be offset by the fact I could more solely focus on the task at hand.

Referring to your two main points, Is there a major you might recommend that falls in between the STEM that I can’t get into and the SS I have little desire to pursue? Life Science Adjacent haha?

I will definitely be doing some major scouting of research interests/professors/their qualifications in the next 12-18 months before I start applying to programs. Thanks again for the advice, it has been very helpful!

18

That’s not what I said at all. Of course you want to tailor your statement (such that it’s possible) to each school, but that isn’t what you said. You said your statements are great because you know what schools want to hear. That’s nonsense. For one, there are no general rules for statements like this other than talking about your research interests, why you are interested, and your experience. If you think most professors can’t smell BS in a statement, you’re in for a surprise. You need to do some soul searching here. Maybe you get admitted into a program, but ultimately you need a PI to take you into their lab, and that’s often where the BS is going to get noticed.

Let’s think about this hypothetically for a moment. Suppose you earn a PhD and decide to keep it in your pocket. You send your resume in to a company hiring for a job you want and it lists your undergraduate and master’s degrees. Then it has a gap of several years with no education listed and no work experience listed in that time frame. Assuming you get an interview, your interviewer asks what you did for those three years. What do you tell them?

Irrelevant. Quality is not measured in number of pages. That’s a very “AP” way of thinking. Brevity is valuable. If a student handed me a 300-page dissertation when 150 is more typical, that’s a cause for concern, not praise.

19

@boneh3ad I just find it highly skeptical that you can peg someone as one way or the other. Clearly I haven’t had a great idea of what I want to do heading into different honors programs or even my masters yet my personal statement has been commended in numerous situations. Now, yes that is a lot different from a PhD but I think one of my talents is scouting. A good ability to scout (School strengths, local market, specific research interests of professors in department, knowing what to mention/omit about your own resume) goes a long way. Yes, the lab experience is where I agree I will face massive hurdles.

Simply say you were achieving a secondary degree in another field. I don’t think the employer is going to run away from that in most cases. Plus, many of the doctoral students I’ve met still find time to have some extra talking points on their resumes.

Literally the last point you just used a “soundbite.” I explicitly mention points backing both the length and the quality.

Again, at this point in the thread let’s stick to the questions of what majors blend my interests (more towards STEM/hybrid) against my experience (SS/hybrid). Job suggestions that might be in line may be helpful as well.

Also FYI just so we are clear on my tenacity/stubbornness, If I couldn’t get in to one of the programs I mentioned. I’d still likely go for a PhD in something else (likely closer to my current experience) which may or may not be a good idea but that’s the plan.

20

Peg someone how? Are you suggesting that you are skeptical that I can evaluate a student’s motivations and authenticity based on their application package to a graduate program? Why does that seem outlandish to you? This is one of the most important tasks in a professor’s job. If they can’t critically evaluate prospective graduate students wishing to join their program, then they aren’t likely to be very successful in running a research program. Is it 100% accurate? Certainly not. We get fairly good at it, though, because we have to. If you don’t think the average faculty member has a well-calibrated BS meter, then you are going to be quite surprised.

Undergraduate honors programs and professional master’s programs like an MPH are a completely different ballgame. If you get admitted to one of those programs and you don’t pan out, it’s a blip on the radar screen for the people making those decisions. You are one data point among a sea of data. A professor’s research program lives and dies by the quality of it’s PhD students. There is therefore much more incentive for professors hiring students to be picky and critical about students that may join their lab. If the student doesn’t pan out after a few years, we’ve wasted several years of precious grant money that could have gone to a more productive student.

Most of those thing are literally listed on the department’s website, so you aren’t somehow special because you can determine a professor’s research interest. I’d also submit that starting a new advisor-advisee relationship that is supposed to be congenial by misrepresenting yourself is going to backfire on you.

Talking points are one thing, but having a 3 to 5 year hole with no work experience and only a few talking points to fill it will still be glaringly obvious.

There is no “may or may not” about it, that’s a very poor idea. But hey, it’s clear you don’t actually want any critical or honest feedback. You think you already have all of the answers and just want to be told what you think you already know. Good luck to you. I am sure that trait will serve you well when attempting to work as the advisee of a PI somewhere.