Getting a PhD to Become and Expert

Some people decide to go into a PhD program because they think that they can become an expert in a particular field. Yes, you will become an expert. But not the kind of expert you think. Most likely, you will become an expert in something nobody outside academia cares about.

For example, if you get a PhD in management, most likely you will become an expert in a set of esoteric psychology theories.

I even heard from IT people that they don't hire Computer Science PhD's because they usually have expertise in areas that don't have any practical applications yet lack skills in essential areas of programming.

Tips for finishing PhD by Matt Schonlau

Some very useful tips from Matt Schonlau:

A few years ago I was asked by several Ph.D. students what advice I could give to finish a Ph.D. While I don't think there is only one answer I do have some principles that worked well for me- if you are a current PhD student hopefully you will find this useful also. If you have any comments or suggestions, I'd love to hear from you.

Over the years I have received many positive comments from Ph.D. students from the U.S., Canada, and as far as China and Korea. Several students have linked this site form their sites. Thank you so much for your feedback. It means a lot to me that I some of my thoughts made a difference to you.

• Begin with the end in mind
  I found it always helpful to know I what my overall goal was. During my PH.D. I aimed to finish in my Ph.D. in 3 years. I didn't make that in the end - it took 4 years - but that isn't important. The important thing is that I knew in order to make 3 years I had to do a certain course load in the first and second term , I had to take the comprehensive exam the first time it was offered, I had a rough idea of how much time I had to write the dissertation. There are road blocks along the way and things turn out different than you expect. But if you know your overall goal obstacles won't through you off the course, you are just taking a detour.
• You have no obligation to write an important or even useful thesis
  Sometimes students set out to write this all-encompassing break-through thesis and then fail because they try to accomplish too much at once. Very few researchers achieve fame because of their dissertation work. Try to write a good dissertation, not a great dissertation. Further, don't insist on writing a useful thesis. Your primary goal is to get a Ph.D. , not to change the world. There is enough time for changing the world after your dissertation when you have less constraints about what criteria your work has to meet.
• Write!
  A psychology student told me once that he spends the entire day doing research and then forces himself at the end of the day to summarize what he found - even if he doesn't think he found anything that day. This is important for several reasons : (a) writing helps your thoughts to crystallize (b) you accomplish your daily task which will make you feel good (c) you can track your progress (d) when you write your thesis you have material to draw on (e) you won't forget what you were thinking two weeks ago. In my opinion most students start too late putting their thoughts into words.
• Exercise regularly
  I have always found I can work better when I am physically in good shape. During stressful times such as exams, I exercise more often rather than less often. The energy I get from exercise more than compensates for the "time lost".
• Enjoy your "play time"
  There is a time to work and a time to play. I try to work hard when I work, and not to think at all about work when I don't work. For example, every year I fly home to Germany for Christmas. I never take work to Germany. All that would accomplish is that I would feel bad the whole time about not doing the work. When you have worked hard all week and can afford to take the week-end off, try to get out and do something fun. Try not to think about work at all.
• Talk to others about your problems
  After finishing his Ph.D. a social scientist at an Ivy League university told me once that at some point during his Ph.D. he had so much dissertation anxiety that he went to see a psychologist at the medical center. To his surprise the waiting room for the psychologist was packed and he recognized several other people. Everyone was there for the same reason. He later emailed one of the students he saw whether he wanted to talk about it . Within 10 minutes he got a reply email : the other student was just as desperate to talk about it. Most Ph.D. students at some point or another have problems - talking to fellow students or professors almost always helps. You are not alone. (The above mentioned student graduated smoothly and now excels working at a very prestigious institution).
• Record your progress
  Sometime during my second year of my Ph.D. I started writing down every week-end what I had accomplished during the preceeding week. I took great care in this and I often reread what I had done in the past few weeks. This weekly ritual became very important to me and motivated me a great deal. Sometimes in the middle of the week I would realize that I hadn't accomplished anything to be recorded at the end of the week and I would make sure I would get something done.
  In addition, I kept a list of things to do at the white board and marked each item off once I had done it. I wouldn't erase it until a few days later though - because that gave me the satisfaction of seeing what I had accomplished already. I still follow this habit to this day.
  During a Ph.D. you often try something and it doesn't work in the end. That can be frustrating - but I feel that tracking what you have done helps to overcome this frustration. The path to success has unexpected twists and turns in a Ph.D. - and while a failed attempt looks like no progress it really is.
• Don't find excuses - don't do too many other important things.
  Some of the brightest students sometimes have trouble finishing because they are so successful doing other things that may reasonably also be considered important. A very bright young fellow I know kept taking on temporary consulting jobs working for the UN in Brazil and all kind of other exciting and useful jobs. Working for the UN in Brazil is a great experience and you may not want to pass it up. But at some point finishing your Ph.D. outweighs taking on extra consulting jobs.
• Choose a dissertation topic you are passionate about
  You will do your best work when you work on a topic that you really care about. This not always possible - but if you have the choice go for it. Also, it is better to come up with your own thesis topic rather than having your supervisor find you a thesis topic. You will find it easier to care deeply about a thesis topic that you came up with yourself.
• Work on your strengths, not on your weaknesses
  I was once fortunate enough to have a brunch with the famous statistician Erich Lehman - organized by Agnes Herzberg in Kingston, Ontario. Dr. Lehman had an unusual career and had many things to say. I will never forget the following advice he gave : when in England the professors noticed that his background in mathematics was much stronger than in physics. They therefore forced him to take extra classes in physics. On hindsight Dr. Lehman felt that that was a big mistake. He didn't have any passion for physics and he claims he wasn't good at it either - so there was an extraordinary effort going into something that wasn't necessary.
  There may be situations where our passion requires us to work on something we are not good at. For example, my friend Fiona was never interested in any handyman work. However, she was a theatre major and some point she had to know technical theatre operations. And when it was relevant to theatre, she all of the sudden took an interest in handyman work as it related to theatrical set construction.
  Unless necessary though I always thought that it was good advice to work on one's strengths - because otherwise we'll be constantly disillusioned and frustrated.
• Take charge - it's your life not your supervisor's
  I have always found taking an active role leads to better results than a passive or reactive role. It makes life more exciting. For those of us who like playing computer games - it's like the difference of playing the game and watching the game. Playing is just more fun.
• Do what is right for you - including the choice of discontinuing your Ph.D.
  A Ph.D. is not for everyone and I think not to continue a Ph.D. ought to be one of your options. I am most impressed with Judy whom I met during my time as a student. She successfully mastered the comprehensive exam, and then decided that she wasn't really all that interested in research. I still hear her say "You know, it's not for everyone" - not disappointed but just matter of fact. She is happier now. However , I do think you should only quit because you have come to the conclusion that you do not enjoy research, not because "it's overwhelming", "it's too much work", or "I don't know whether I can do it" or "I don't like my supervisor". People can do more than they think - they just have to really try.

Befriending College Staff

If you are a PhD student, your success in the program will depend on your school's staff as much as it depends on your own effort and support from your professors. Trust me, there will be at least one occasion in your career where things will depend on nothing but a decision of one of your school's clerks.

Make sure you are friends with people like:

• IT support staff (if you are nice to them you can always get hardware and software you need)
• Cleaning staff (they can help you to get access to building if you lost your keys)
• Secretaries (they will give you insider knowledge about some of the things that are going in the department; won't report you if you violate some of the department policies)
• Records people (they will help you if you miss registration deadlines for example or fail to submit some needed papers)

Make sure you are nice to those people. It will certainly pay off. I've seen quite a few PhD students who look down on staff, thinking those guys are not at their intellectual level.

I didn't have a problem with building relationships with staff - I think I'm a very friendly and down to earth person. I did make a mistake though. At one point our IT folks just drove me nuts with their screw-ups and incompetence. We were like enemies. But then I took time to apologize and do some damage control. The result - I got a bunch of software by putting it on the department's tab as opposed to paying for it myself.

Teaching: You do the math....

If you think teaching is your calling, I strongly encourage you to look at the following statistics:

• The estimated average salary of all public elementary and secondary school teachers in the 2004–05 school year was $47602 (Source: United States Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos069.htm)
• According to a 2004-05 survey by the American Association of University Professors, salaries for full-time faculty averaged $68,505. By rank, the average was $91,548 for professors, $65,113 for associate professors, $54,571 for assistant professors, $39,899 for instructors, and $45,647 for lecturers

Don't forget to factor in the following when comparing those two salaries:

• It takes, on average, 4-6 years beyond your masters to get a PhD degree.
  
• Your chances of getting a position of an Assistant Professor can be as low as 5% in some fields.
  

Crappy Majors: Math and Physics

I think math and physics are some of the hardest fields to get a PhD degree in. Yet those fields have some of the worst prospects in terms of pay and employment. I remember my math professor told us that a starting salary of a PhD graduate in their department was like 27K (I think he meant post-doc). I personally knew a PhD graduate in physics who was happy to find a job as a car salesman after 7 years in grad school!

Can someone please explain me this? You really have to be "one in a million" to be good in math in physics. I would think that those who are willing and able to do this would be in short supply and would get paid a lot. But this doesn't seem to be the case, right?

Interested in Psychology? Try Management Instead!

If you have interest in psychology, I suggest you major in management or marketing instead. Many areas of these two business disciplines are nothing but applied psychology. Yet both marketing and management are in business school. You may have much better employment and earning potential if you get a degree in one of the fields. As for psychology, I think there are more psychologists in the United States than dogs and cats combined.

Teaching

Make sure you don't put too much effort into teaching.

You may be tempted to do a great job teaching your classes. I think two factors may lie behind this drive. First of all, somewhere deeply in your mind you think that university is all about teaching. In fact, this is what you did as an undergraduate student - you took classes. You admired good teachers, and you loathed crappy ones. So you, as a teacher, may want to be among the good ones. Second, just like any responsible person, you may be too embarrassed to do a crappy job in front of several dozen people.

Putting a lot of effort into teaching is a big mistake. What really counts for your reputation in the program and your future employment prospects in academia is your research. I remember one of the top professors in our field told us the following:

"If you are one of the best teachers in the college, your dean may stop by and say 'you need to improve, buddy!' If you are one of the best teachers in the college, your dean will stop by and say 'great job, buddy!' And that's about it"

Of course, you shouldn't do a really crappy job teaching. Just make sure you do an OK job, may be even slightly below average. I think that some of the most successful students in the department did a really crappy job teaching. To the point where their students would go to out department chair to complain about their teachers dismissing them early from the class or hiding from them outside of classroom hours.

Sounds like a shady advice, but this is the sad reality my friend!

Academia is Business!

Academia is business. It's not your average American business. But more like an average Soviet business. It's big. It's usually state owned (or controlled). It's oligopolistic: schools use accreditation, strict licensing requirements for employees, etc. to keep others out the industry. Nevertheless, its business.

You, as a PhD student, is an employee of that business. Obviously, because it's a very inefficient business (mainly because it operates in the absence of free market) it cannot pay a PhD student what a personal of his or her qualifications would demand in the real world. So what is school's marketing strategy to attract PhD students?

First, academia creates this exclusivity aura around PhD. Their marketing message is that having a PhD is like having a Rolls-Royce. It's a sign of exclusivity. The reality is that you don't really need a Rolls-Royce. Hey, if Warren Buffet can get around in a Lincoln, so does everyone else. Pragmatically, the only reason to have a Rolls-Royce is to impress someone, to have that feeling of exclusivity. Similarly, the only reason to have a PhD is to have the privilege to be a professor.

Academia also promises you "eternal life" of a tenure professor. This will mean high pay for little work until you die. The trick here is that this offer is as alluring as a lottery prize. Very valuable, yet you are not likely to get it.

Very often this marketing message doesn't work well and schools have problems attracting PhD students. In this case, there's another source of PhD students: international students. For an international student PhD can be a valuable platform for immigration. Also they don't sacrifice as much financially. In countries like India, China, or Russia, 20,000K per year is really a salary of young professional. That's why there are so many international students in U.S. PhD programs. However, as the standard of living is rising in BRIC countries, there will be a dry-out in the stream of international PhD students (I think there are already signs of the dry-out).

Don't do anything unless you are reminded about it 3 times

Don't take your professors too seriously. They talk a lot, they do little. Don't try to put up with all their requests and suggestions. You will end up in a mental hospital. Ignore some of their requests. They don't have the mindset to follow up. They just don't care. They talk for the sake of talking. Then they forget what they told you. They may even ask you to do completely the opposite if you were stupid enough to do what they told you. So here's a useful tip for you:

Don't do anything unless you are reminded about it 3 times

You have to master this skill if you are to survive in academia. Your professors are experts in this, haven't you noticed? They won't do anything unless you remind them several times. This is how they survived in academia.

Staying Focused

You have to stay very focused in the graduate school. And here's what your focus should be:

"Graduate! Get a job!"

Your goal is not to change the world. Your goal is not to come up with innovative ideas. Your goal is to:

"Graduate! Get a job!"

Your professors want you to develop a new course?

"Graduate! Get a job!"

Your professor forces you to attend guest speaker presentations (usually by a his or her buddy on a topic you don't care about)?

"Graduate! Get a job!"

No matter what kind of stimulus you get from your PhD program, repeat this mantra three times before you think of anything else:

"Graduate! Get a job!"
"Graduate! Get a job!"
"Graduate! Get a job!"