Differences in graduate programs
Anna Kushnir
Monday, 07 July 2008 14:21 UTC
PhD programs in the biological sciences tend to take a great deal longer to complete in the US as opposed to the UK and other countries. It took me seven years to get my degree, which was well within the average time to completion at my institution. Meanwhile, graduate education in the biosciences is capped at three years in the UK and takes far less than 7 years elsewhere in Europe. Is there any upside to my 7 year PhD? Beyond differences in funding structure between the US and other countries, why does it take so long here? Are there differences in how the degree is received by future employers?
-
Replies
Jump to resultsResults
-
Interesting topic, i am grad. student here in Dublin. We have a similar “open ended” PhD programme here, in other words it is largely up to the discretion of your supervisor when you finish. The PhD programmes are funded by three main bodies, two are extensions of the Irish government (SFI and HRB) and the other is the Wellcome Trust. We have Marie Curie and some other agencies but for the most part its the big three. A typical PhD stipend in Ireland is Euro 15 to 20,000/year plus fees for three years and then nothing, unless you have a generous supervisor with spare cash lying around. I am wondoring is this a typical figure and is it fair?
On a side note there was what i thought was interesting article posted in our main national paper during the week. It gives a good overview of how Irish grad students and post docs are feeling about Irish science at the moment.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/innovation/2008/0714/1215725808126.html
-
Thanks for your reply, David. I am slowly realizing just how different graduate programs are all over the world. There seem to be more differences than commonalities! Does the funding scheme in Ireland in effect cap the PhD at three years? The fact that the advisor has to pay out of pocket for students taking longer than three years would seem to be a potent motivator to get the students out in a timely fashion. Does that not work out to the case?
I am afraid I can’t address the money part of your question though. At the moment, 20,000 pounds is a fortune to Americans such as myself! In all seriousness, the stipends in the States vary greatly, usually between $20,000 and $28,000, depending on the area of the country and cost of living. I can’t tell if that’s comparable to the amount you posted.
-
Anonymous
It takes 6.5 year in my lab on average. If you have a fellowship covered all the expense and start to work on a well-established topic, you will graduate sooner. Or your advisor urges to retire.
In US, you have to teach 20 hours/week at least for 1 semester as a program requirement. If you have a research assistantship, you may need to spare time on doing things no relationship to your thesis. If your advisor don’t have a generous funding for you, or he or she has too many students to fund, then you will end up to teach 20 hours/week to support yourself for many semesters. Your first project may not work at all, then 1-2 years passed left you without any publication. You have to start all over again on something new. Also, not unusually. people switch lab, advisor, even program, as a result of the things I mentioned above, and sometimes personal reasons.
US PhD training is not just solely emphasize on research, but want you to multi-take on several things at the same time. There is a way to graduate in 5 years, that’s to schedule yourself well and communicate that plan with your advisor, bearing all the work he or she loaded on you in order to be productive, no complaint, and have 1-2 fellowships to get rid of financial dependence. Be single or date less may helps too. Then if you are hardworking and the project works, congratulations, you will graduate before your peers and ascend to post-doc heaven with good recommendation letters and several publication. I have a labmate planned well and did it, but he is the only one of his kind there.
U.S. graduate school experience is like life itself. It makes you grow up through hardship, then you will face the even-tougher American academia with all your training in graduate school, if you still interested in the game.
Results
-
