I dunno… getting a PhD just teaches you how to do research. If you want to get a faculty position, there’s a whole other set of skills on top of that; in the US for CS at larger universities it’s mostly about getting funding and becoming “respected” in your field. But you have to tell people that you want to learn those additional skills. That’s the part that’s hard to know about beforehand.
Yep, my buddy is finally on a tenure track at a really nice school and it’s the accumulation of like 15 years of stressful work that might have never really paid off.
You have to be good at getting published, attending conferences, creating conferences, building relationships with different universities and that’s just to keep up with the competition. I think what seals the deal is not only getting funding for yourself, but showing universities how employing you would actually be a sound investment.
The one “secret” I wish I’d known a lot earlier is that you don’t have to do it alone. In fact, the more you collaborate the more successful you’ll be: more research ideas, more publications, more committee memberships in workshops/conferences, more participating on teams being put together to apply for research funding, more people to reach out to when you’re looking for a job, etc. The most successful scientists I’ve known had huge networks of collaborators.
One of the reasons my friend is in the position he’s in now is because he built a really good relationship with a couple people from the university of Tokyo when he was a grad student in Hawaii.
The dangerous thing is that you can, in many science fields, get a PhD with minimal collaboration. Just pass the quals and focus on your disseration project, there you go. But you’ll be at a tremendous disadvantage during a faculty search, when you’re up against all those people who did internships early in their career, kept those research connections, led research projects in the local lab, joined student groups at conferences and helped organize a student workshop, reviewed for conferences, helped out on projects with people you met at conferences, contributed to funding proposals, etc.
Hard to say what exactly a PhD teaches. It is a unique type of qualification that varies radically between situations, even in the same department. I can definitely say there is a difference between people with and without a doctorate, but many of the skills gained are soft skills.
I dunno… getting a PhD just teaches you how to do research. If you want to get a faculty position, there’s a whole other set of skills on top of that; in the US for CS at larger universities it’s mostly about getting funding and becoming “respected” in your field. But you have to tell people that you want to learn those additional skills. That’s the part that’s hard to know about beforehand.
Yep, my buddy is finally on a tenure track at a really nice school and it’s the accumulation of like 15 years of stressful work that might have never really paid off.
You have to be good at getting published, attending conferences, creating conferences, building relationships with different universities and that’s just to keep up with the competition. I think what seals the deal is not only getting funding for yourself, but showing universities how employing you would actually be a sound investment.
The one “secret” I wish I’d known a lot earlier is that you don’t have to do it alone. In fact, the more you collaborate the more successful you’ll be: more research ideas, more publications, more committee memberships in workshops/conferences, more participating on teams being put together to apply for research funding, more people to reach out to when you’re looking for a job, etc. The most successful scientists I’ve known had huge networks of collaborators.
One of the reasons my friend is in the position he’s in now is because he built a really good relationship with a couple people from the university of Tokyo when he was a grad student in Hawaii.
It’s a little funny that networking is one of the most critical skills you can have in hard science.
The dangerous thing is that you can, in many science fields, get a PhD with minimal collaboration. Just pass the quals and focus on your disseration project, there you go. But you’ll be at a tremendous disadvantage during a faculty search, when you’re up against all those people who did internships early in their career, kept those research connections, led research projects in the local lab, joined student groups at conferences and helped organize a student workshop, reviewed for conferences, helped out on projects with people you met at conferences, contributed to funding proposals, etc.
its pretty painful, just having to put dozens of publishing research on CV is a huge task on its own.
Hard to say what exactly a PhD teaches. It is a unique type of qualification that varies radically between situations, even in the same department. I can definitely say there is a difference between people with and without a doctorate, but many of the skills gained are soft skills.