PhD student experience and expectations

[ncsudocstudent]

Hi Everyone! I am new to the Forum and glad to have this outlet. I am just completing my first year as a PhD student. I have been asked by my department to put together a session for an upcoming teaching conference that involves the PhD student perspecive while a concurrent session is held by faculty on the faculty's perspective of the current status of our PhD programs and the quality and needs of PhD students. It feels to me like maybe there is some tension between the expectations of faculty and the expression of work/life balance among PhD students in my program. I'm not sure though because I am a non-traditional (read older but not that old!) student and I am also a commuter....so this is just my sense. It feels like those faculty who have worked so hard in their careers are concerned about who they are passing the torch to.

So I would love any feedback you might have about what you feel like are issues in your department from your (grad student) perspective. Do you feel that your coursework is truly preparing you for a career in academia? Do you feel like you are getting the opportunities you need and the resources you need to be successful? Do you feel any disconnect between you as a student and faculty when it comes to expectations. Do you think technology has changed the culture of grad school (ability to work from home instead of grinding it out in the office)? Do you think faculty who are nearing retirement have the same expectations of students as new faculty? Answers to any of these questions and any other perspectives that you have would be most welcome!

[UnlikelyGrad]

Is this for your department in particular or the campus as a whole? I will try to think of a few things to say.

[fuzzylogician]

I don't know if this is helpful but I can answer this from my own very narrow perspective. I am studying a field that is less than 60 years old. My specific subfield is maybe (just maybe) 30 years old, and part of its new and most exciting directions have been around for less than 5-10 years in some cases. My program is based on concepts which have trained some very successful linguists in the past, but has not been revised to take into account the accumulation of new information that is rapidly entering the field. We are thus basically required to "know" much more about our field than our professors did when they went to grad school, but we don't get more time to do it in. Breadth requirements are extensive, while at the same time one needs much more specialization to make a significant contribution to the field than one did 15-20-30 years ago. There does seem to be a disconnect between the students and faculty when it comes to what should be reasonably expected of a graduate student to achieve while in the program, for obvious reasons it's more pronounced with faculty who are nearing retirement than with newer faculty.

I should mention that the situation I've just described is true not only for my school but more or less for every leading linguistics program in the US. So that, for us, is one major concern. I can imagine that some version of it is true in fields that rely on technology that might not have existed in the past as well.

Aside from this, to give more conventional answers to your other questions - my program is very strong in one-on-one interactions and feedback. Courses are a good place to gain general knowledge, and are required for obvious reasons. Where I pursue projects that will hopefully get me published and help secure me a job, however, is outside of the classroom; I rely heavily on individual meetings with faculty, as well as on discussions with my incredibly smart cohort. I think I have available to me all the resources I need in order to succeed, both in terms of available knowledge and guidance and in terms of funding to go out and obtain data, present, attend conferences, etc.

As for technology, on the one hand certain aspects of it are certainly conducive to research - tools for the analysis of phonetic features, statistical analysis, eye movement/reading time/brain scanning technology for experiments, presentation tools. Generally, though, linguistics is sort of a backwards field that likes to rely on handouts and blackboards more so than presentations and high-tech gizmos. Certainly, the possibility of taking my laptop and writing anywhere I want, and having accessibility to almost all the resources I need online via remote access is different than the experience my professors had when they went to school. I do think, though, that aside from the convenience of modern technology, our experiences are not that different in the end. In a way that's really a question for faculty who wrote their theses on typing machines.

Edited May 5, 2010 by fuzzylogician

[ncsudocstudent]

Is this for your department in particular or the campus as a whole? I will try to think of a few things to say.

[ncsudocstudent]

Is this for your department in particular or the campus as a whole? I will try to think of a few things to say.

It is for phd students from mulitiple universities in our discipline.

[ncsudocstudent]

I don't know if this is helpful but I can answer this from my own very narrow perspective. I am studying a field that is less than 60 years old. My specific subfield is maybe (just maybe) 30 years old, and part of its new and most exciting directions have been around for less than 5-10 years in some cases. My program is based on concepts which have trained some very successful linguists in the past, but has not been revised to take into account the accumulation of new information that is rapidly entering the field. We are thus basically required to "know" much more about our field than our professors did when they went to grad school, but we don't get more time to do it in. Breadth requirements are extensive, while at the same time one needs much more specialization to make a significant contribution to the field than one did 15-20-30 years ago. There does seem to be a disconnect between the students and faculty when it comes to what should be reasonably expected of a graduate student to achieve while in the program, for obvious reasons it's more pronounced with faculty who are nearing retirement than with newer faculty.

I should mention that the situation I've just described is true not only for my school but more or less for every leading linguistics program in the US. So that, for us, is one major concern. I can imagine that some version of it is true in fields that rely on technology that might not have existed in the past as well.

Aside from this, to give more conventional answers to your other questions - my program is very strong in one-on-one interactions and feedback. Courses are a good place to gain general knowledge, and are required for obvious reasons. Where I pursue projects that will hopefully get me published and help secure me a job, however, is outside of the classroom; I rely heavily on individual meetings with faculty, as well as on discussions with my incredibly smart cohort. I think I have available to me all the resources I need in order to succeed, both in terms of available knowledge and guidance and in terms of funding to go out and obtain data, present, attend conferences, etc.

As for technology, on the one hand certain aspects of it are certainly conducive to research - tools for the analysis of phonetic features, statistical analysis, eye movement/reading time/brain scanning technology for experiments, presentation tools. Generally, though, linguistics is sort of a backwards field that likes to rely on handouts and blackboards more so than presentations and high-tech gizmos. Certainly, the possibility of taking my laptop and writing anywhere I want, and having accessibility to almost all the resources I need online via remote access is different than the experience my professors had when they went to school. I do think, though, that aside from the convenience of modern technology, our experiences are not that different in the end. In a way that's really a question for faculty who wrote their theses on typing machines.

[ncsudocstudent]

Thank you very much for your reply!

[ncsudocstudent]

Is this for your department in particular or the campus as a whole? I will try to think of a few things to say.

It is for students in our discipline from multiple universities

[lifetimestudent]

You should check out http://www.phd-survey.org/.