241–250 of 259 posts
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Is it that unappealing for US citizens to get a STEM PhD? Especially in the US the private sector ought to offer enough jobs at the PhD level and pay to make the PhD worthwile.
Depends on the particular stem field but in general, if the goal is a well paying job, STEM PhDs are one of the harder ways to get there.
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What you're describing as what you didn't expect is how PhDs were done traditionally. It's the more recent US model to have classes and exams. I posed a question to my advisor in order to get onto the PhD, started researching immediately, and my 'general exam' half-way through was a presentation and viva. Obviously the question changed totally by the time I finished, but that's the nature of research and where it tak…
> What you're describing as what you didn't expect is how PhDs were done traditionally. It's the more recent US model to have classes and exams. Classes and exams in a PhD programme? I've never heard of this anywhere - I had no idea that was a thing in the US. There is an ugly trend in the UK to having "credits" for attending workshops as part of your "personal development". You basically have to go and sit in a work…
I really don't like it!
I don't think PhD students should be sitting in a class or going through as a cohort. You're supposed to be a professional, independent researcher.
My first day of my PhD, I was shown my desk at 9 am and told 'get researching, mate'.
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> What you're describing as what you didn't expect is how PhDs were done traditionally. It's the more recent US model to have classes and exams. Classes and exams in a PhD programme? I've never heard of this anywhere - I had no idea that was a thing in the US. There is an ugly trend in the UK to having "credits" for attending workshops as part of your "personal development". You basically have to go and sit in a work…
I think the UK thing is wrapped up in the idea of a CDT, which seems to be trying to make our PhD programme more like the American style. I really don't like it! I don't think PhD students should be sitting in a class or going through as a cohort. You're supposed to be a professional, independent researcher. My first day of my PhD, I was shown my desk at 9 am and told 'get researching, mate'.
You can also get credits for publications and attending conferences, but the credits you can get like that are capped at about 20% of what you need. So you can have 10 publications in a year and still need to attend workshops.
Word of warning though, his first venture/partner tried to screw him royally which ended up in a long and expensive court battle, which was a hard lesson to learn before he split and started it by himself. I helped him get off the ground infrastructure wise and last I heard they were doing great business.
I love working for smart people. If you pay attention you learn so much, to the point that I would readily join another PhD led team.
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Depends on the particular stem field but in general, if the goal is a well paying job, STEM PhDs are one of the harder ways to get there.
Hard ? Because of getting the PhD in the first place or refocusing your career afterwards ?
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Ahh the UK where health insurance coverage is much easier to attain... Where in the UK? What field? There are several important details you are leaving out.
Manchester, programming languages. Not superstar machine learning or anything like that.
I remember seeing colleagues from the UK who got a good stipend. I think in general in the UK doing a PHD was good at that time, specially because it usually lasts only 3 years.
Nevertheless, after spending other 4 years in academia, I turned to Industry and would never go back. Academia is broken at this point in time.
There is a joke I like that goes A professor of mathematics noticed that his kitchen sink at his home leaked. He called a plumber. The plumber came the next day and sealed a few screws, and everything was working as before. The professor was delighted. However, when the plumber gave him the bill a minute later, he was shocked. "This is one-third of my monthly salary!" he yelled. Well, all the same he paid it and then…
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A single cherry-picked university in the UK may disagree, but what I said is generally true for American universities. When I was a grad student in physics, everyone pretty much took 5-6 years at minimum; this was true for every single grad school I got in to. I've heard that universities across the pond have different tracks for grad students, so that might be responsible for the discrepancy.
That university is ranked as 21st in the world on the ranking least favourable to it and in the top ten globally on all others. Its system of graduate education is comparable to other U.K. universities, like Manchester, Imperial, Edinburgh or Durham. You are expected to get a doctorate in three or four years, you generally start research immediately but there are exceptions that will have taught courses and you need…
> mainland Europe is that you will find it difficult to impossible to get onto a doctoral programme without a Master’s
Not true in the US at all. It is very rare for a student to finish in 3-4 years here in the US unless they are absolutely stellar.
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A single cherry-picked university in the UK may disagree, but what I said is generally true for American universities. When I was a grad student in physics, everyone pretty much took 5-6 years at minimum; this was true for every single grad school I got in to. I've heard that universities across the pond have different tracks for grad students, so that might be responsible for the discrepancy.
It's not cherry-picked, actually; the historical standard in the UK is three years. However, it's not common to do any qualifying exams or courses in a three year program. There's a new trend of so-called "Centres for Doctoral Training" where students take four years, and get a year or courses and qualifying exams at the start. Consequently, UK PhDs are often quite a bit more junior than US PhDs -- although it works…
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I think the UK thing is wrapped up in the idea of a CDT, which seems to be trying to make our PhD programme more like the American style. I really don't like it! I don't think PhD students should be sitting in a class or going through as a cohort. You're supposed to be a professional, independent researcher. My first day of my PhD, I was shown my desk at 9 am and told 'get researching, mate'.
It's still the same in the UK as it always was, just plus this credit thing. If you're maverick enough you can dodge it by being a good enough researcher that they aren't going to kick you out for not attending workshops, but that's probably going to get harder. Most people cram enough workshops into one week at the end of each year to get the necessary credits to "progress". You can also get credits for publications…
CDTs are also causing centralised admissions and making all students start at the same time in a year.