Ph.D. advice?

If you have the ambition and desire, then I say go for it.

I'm starting mine come october. Been an interesting progression; BSc (hons) Biochemistry, MSc Nanotechnology & Microsystems, PhD in Biophotonics (physics).

I think now is a good time to take one on. If you stick at it, and it is funded, then you have 3-4 years where you have money coming in and you are working on your education. Hopefully a good way to ride out part of this credit crisis.

 

You'll only finish a Ph.D. when you've had enough of all the nonsense. I recommend getting aggravated early

Paul
Ph.D. Mech Eng

 

Is your school there in Chicago? I know the U of Chicago has a good reputation for conservative economics. I don't know about Northwestern or the U of IL Chicago or DePaul. My main question is will they give you any funding? It is very late in the academic year to get an assistantship or fellowship. If you are a good student, you should be able to get an aid package for school if you apply early enough. If it is too late in the game for that, just enroll part time to see how you can handle graudate level courses. Check with your advisor to avoid taking classes out of sequence or getting into a class that need prerequisites for you to be most effective.

 

Just a quick question, whats the difference between a PhD in Mech Eng and an Eng.D ?

(any engineering based doctoral studies I've seen over here have been Eng.D)

Or are they just the same thing?

 

You should take a good hard look at U of I Champainge/Urbana. It is less than two hours from Chicago, and is truly world class. It should also be much cheaper than NU or U of C.

 

I've never heard of an Eng.D and nearly all my profs in Mech Eng were Ph.Ds. Wiki it?

 

I plan on starting a Dr. of Counseling program in the near future (I was hoping for Spring '10, but I'm too late for that). I'll most likely be doing it at the school where I earned my Master's Degree in Counseling, as I really liked the school and faculty, and feel I learned a great deal while there.

Basically, I have no real advice to offer, but wanted to subscribe.

 

No difference, except which side of the Atlantic you are on, in terms of education. There may be some differences in professional licensing that I don't know about.

 

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I got a PhD in physics in 1993. It's been good for me. But I also have friends who have struggled with the degree, some to the point of wishing they could give it back. There are two general issues to be aware of:

1. You need to research the job market carefully, and not rely on the word of a handful of professors, because their opinions are clouded by "survivor bias." For at least the past couple of decades, there has been a glut of PhD's relative to the number of available jobs that require the degree, with the possible exception of clinical PhD's such as counseling. As a result, I think that most PhD's who are gainfully employed, have either forged non-standard career paths, or are entrepreneurs.

2. The degree carries the expectation that you want to work at a fairly high level, for instance in research leadership or management, and that you have the interpersonal skills to thrive in those areas. Many science PhD's got their degrees because they just want to work in a lab, and then discover to their dismay that they are considered overqualified for the work that they enjoy.

The criterion for getting the degree should be: Are you so madly in love with the field that you can't live without knowing more about it? And, if you have a family, are they willing to make the sacrifices with you?

 

To the OP: I cannot comment specifically about your intended discipline, but one thing I found crucial in the application process is to find potential supervisors whose work you respect and whom you might like to work with (work for, ha) and contact them. Email, call, and if possible, arrange to meet and talk with them personally. Read their publications as well as checking out the school's program.

Your supervisor will likely be the most prominent person in your academic and professional development. Also in making sure you get funding etc. At least early on, you will be tied to his/her work/research. So make sure that you can get along personally as well as professionally.

The previous posters have given some sound advice based on their experiences, as well.

Getting Ph.D is a long haul and sometimes frustrating, but can be rewarding. Great feeling when you pass your defense and turn in the FINAL draft of your dissertation.

Cheers and Good luck.

wemedge

 

I am of the opinion that you should not spend more time getting degrees than is necessary to get the job you want. As a working stiff engineer an advanced degree would have been a waste of my time and money. A MS would have taken most of my career to recoup, a PhD would have never paid for itself. From what I have seen only special areas benefit from the advanced degree. I'll add the disclaimer of what I have seen in the industries I have worked in for the past 12 years. Your career path may be different.

 

One of the most important things to consider when applying to a doctoral program is fit. Do you fit with the program? Do the faculty members have the same interests as you? You're expected to have a pretty good of idea of who you are, professionally speaking, when you apply to a doctorate program. For example, if you want to apply to a doctorate program in psychology, you don't say, "I have an interest in industrial and organizational psychology." You say, "I have an interest in how transformational leaders instrinsically motivate employees along with how organizational fit moderates this relationship; I want to come to program X because Dr. Y is an expert in this field." Not all doctorate programs are that narrow. I'm planning on applying to a cohort Ph.D program that's full of people from various walks of life and their dissertation topics are pretty diverse. But a doctorate program is going to be more specific than a Master's program.

 

I definitely agree with this. When I was looking at graduate school, I wanted to apply to all of these Ph.D programs. When my girlfriend, who has a doctorate, asked why, I said, "So I can be Dr. LiquidMidnight." She told me to "Get what I need to get what I want." There's a lot of merit in that. In many professions, there's not much of a discrepancy between people with a Master's and people with a doctorate. On the other hand, I told my Master's department chair that I was considering an MBA to compliment the MA I'm almost done with. She made a good point: I'd be moving sideways. If I go for more schooling, a doctorate would open up a lot of opportunities, such as teaching as the university level. That's not to downplay an MBA, but if I'm going to spend more time on a degree, it might as well be the big kahuna. But going back to what my girlfriend originally said, I'm kind of going in a direction in which a doctorate may very well be an asset.

 

This is key, and something I really did not understand when I started working on my Ph.D. By all means seek out people you want to work for, who do what you want to do. If not, they won't be interested in you or help you very much in school or after school.

 

Ph.D = Endurance ! I get fatigued hearing those three letters put together as I am trying to stay alive through my M.A.

 

Fair game, thought that may have been the case