Why go to a top school?

juillet
Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:49:02 +0000

All of the above.

I’m a doctoral student at Columbia. It’s one of the top 10-20 schools in both of the fields I’m in for my interdisciplinary PhD.

I thought I would get a great education here, what with the top researchers in my field at this university and particularly the concentration in my field of study. More importantly, I think it’s preparation for a great career both in and out of academia. In academia, my program is recognized as a top program and I’m working with some of the most prominent researchers in my field - people who know people at other schools and who can introduce me to and network me with other people I want to know. I’ve looked at the big-name post-doctoral fellowships in my field and realized that most of their fellows come from the top programs. And since if I stay in academia I’m aiming for the elite private LACs, this positioning is beneficial. Schools like Amherst, Swarthmore and Wellesley like to have a professor with a degree from Columbia. Big name graduate school can lead to big name post-doc can lead to ideal position. It’s the wisdom in academia that you will probably teach at a place a tier below where you actually went to school, so Columbia opens up a lot of tiers.

Outside of academia, where I am also looking, not only is my program recognized as a top program within my broad field - the name recognition my university possesses is great for a lot of government, military, and private industry jobs that I’m looking at. I’ve been thinking about management consulting and the top firms come recruit at my school - both the undergrads and the grad students. One time I went to a graduation ceremony for my fiance, who’s military, and a colonel was there. He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was getting my PhD at Columbia. He was so impressed, he spread it around the squadron! This is a colonel with a long and distinguished military career - the kind of person who has some institutional power should I decide to apply for military research positions. If I could impress him, who has seen a lot, just from getting a PhD at Columbia…?

Ego boost is secondary. Like I didn’t come here because of the ego boost but it is a nice byproduct of the experience. People are genuinely impressed when you say you are getting a PhD from Columbia. It changes people’s perceptions of you ever so slightly, in a very good way. As for funding - well, that really depends on the program and not necessarily the university. Columbia’s Arts and Sciences disciplines have some of the best funding in the country, partially because the school is in New York and they know the eye-rolling that would occur should they try to give us a rural county stipend in New York. (Let’s put it this way: I had to take a small pay cut to take my NSF.) The funding varies in the other programs.