Tier 4 school for IR PhD

[bethanygm]

Is this pretty much career suicide before I even have a career?

I did a google search and I see that graduates of this program actually have jobs as professors at other colleges, so that is a good sign.

My husband is getting out of the military and finishing college. We want to move by his family.

I was thinking...

If I have a really good GRE score and GPA, that might make it so I can get fully funded at a school that usually draws applicants with lower scores.

Funding is the most important aspect for me.

I am thinking of focusing on the Middle East, and learning Arabic.

I can't see why it would even matter where I go, as long as I know my stuff when I am finished. I think NGOs and the Government would be happy to hire specialists in that area.

What do you think?

I was advised not to do any history PhDs at low tier schools, because the market is so flooded. I would need every edge I could get. This doesn't seem to be as bad.

(I am interested in a lot of stuff. I've looked into history and anthropology on these boards, and also school psychology. I was looking at the faculty and what they are studying in IR, and it is quite interdisciplinary. My main concern with grad school is that it allow me to analyze things in an interdisciplinary way. Also, IR seems to be more practical than just history.)

EDIT::

Also, I don't think I care at all about tenure if I end up getting a job at a college. I think I would be happy teaching undergrads part-time and doing research on the side or writing books and articles and trying to get them published. I don't care if I have a full-time job supporting my research, although that would be nice. I want the freedom to move around and do what I want more than I want tenure at this point. My husband is going to be a software engineer, so we won't be starving, and we'll likely have health insurance. If I need extra money and don't want to trade flexibility for a 9-5 job, I am sure I can work something out in life.

[bbq555]

what school?

[bethanygm]

what school?

I feel like I am jinxing myself if I actually type it. They do research at this school, and they are allowed to issue PhDs, so it can't be too bad.

:oops:

Can we just talk about a hypothetical low-tier school and my chances of getting hired?

pretty please?

[junebug62]

Have you finished college? Its a little unclear...

It seems like you need to do more self-reflection or get more experience to figure out what you want. A PhD when you don't even know what field you want a PhD in is a waste of time and you are likely to question yourself while doing it. Particularly if you pay any money for it.

As for post-PhD prospects, if you want a government job, school rank doesn't matter so much as long as you can show you learned something useful and can pass a basic interview. But I imagine most of these positions would be in the DC metro area. If you want flexible work schedules, government is excellent.

If you want academia, I doubt you'd be that competitive for much with a tier 4 school. Maybe you could teach part time at a community college or small liberal arts college or rural university.

Also, if the only reason you would go to this particular school is because its close to where your husband's family lives, you are making an academic sacrifice for your husband. When is he ever going to make a career sacrifice for you and let you truly "move around" for your career? Sorry, I'm a woman too and I'm constantly wondering how I would ever manage a two-career marriage. I think this is a horrible reason to pick a graduate school.

And, actually I'm not sure I know what a Tier 4 school means, but I assume you mean ranked 100+ in the field?

If I were you I would not apply to a PhD now. I would try and get more work experience, a research assistance position, or something else to figure out my interests. Also, perhaps by that point you and your husband may move to a better location closer to better schools, which may be more worth your investment of time, money, and effort.

[polisciphd]

I am curious as to what you mean by poli sci IR being interdisciplinary...

[bethanygm]

I am curious as to what you mean by poli sci IR being interdisciplinary...

Well, it seems to be. If I wrote a dissertation on some particular area of conflict in the Middle East, I would look into many areas. The history of that area (and the history of the ethnic make-up of the people of that area)- that would illuminate the origins of some old conflicts. I might look into gender relations and the social status of people (sociology, women's studies, even psychology). I'd see what sort of governmental institutions they have in place, and who holds the power (political science aspect). I would look at the area in geographical terms (who lives where? Does one group have more access to resources than others? This is also in economical terms, then, too). I would continue to study the language of my choice, and I realize that language also tells a part of the story. The cultural anthropology aspect (holistically, who are these people? What do they believe in? What makes them tick?)

In international relations, I can approach everything from a very global perspective, or focus in on a small piece of the world.

If I graduate and get a job analyzing this stuff for someone, I'd be looking at all of this, in order to give a more complete picture of what is going on. If I'm asked to present some ways of dealing with stuff, I'd take into consideration ALL of these things, holistically, to come up with some ideas.

If you don't fully understand the people in another culture, it's quite easy to step all over them and not even realize you are doing it. That generally leads to more conflict, in the long run. (case in point- the arbitrary way in which states were divided up after the west colonized other places. Nobody bothered to think about and try to truly understand the PEOPLE involved in the situation, and we are now seeing the political fall-out of too many different cultures shoved into artificial "states").

[bethanygm]

Have you finished college? Its a little unclear...

It seems like you need to do more self-reflection or get more experience to figure out what you want. A PhD when you don't even know what field you want a PhD in is a waste of time and you are likely to question yourself while doing it. Particularly if you pay any money for it.

As for post-PhD prospects, if you want a government job, school rank doesn't matter so much as long as you can show you learned something useful and can pass a basic interview. But I imagine most of these positions would be in the DC metro area. If you want flexible work schedules, government is excellent.

If you want academia, I doubt you'd be that competitive for much with a tier 4 school. Maybe you could teach part time at a community college or small liberal arts college or rural university.

Also, if the only reason you would go to this particular school is because its close to where your husband's family lives, you are making an academic sacrifice for your husband. When is he ever going to make a career sacrifice for you and let you truly "move around" for your career? Sorry, I'm a woman too and I'm constantly wondering how I would ever manage a two-career marriage. I think this is a horrible reason to pick a graduate school.

And, actually I'm not sure I know what a Tier 4 school means, but I assume you mean ranked 100+ in the field?

If I were you I would not apply to a PhD now. I would try and get more work experience, a research assistance position, or something else to figure out my interests. Also, perhaps by that point you and your husband may move to a better location closer to better schools, which may be more worth your investment of time, money, and effort.

My husband has a very promising career going on in the military. He's on the "fast track" to making it to a top rank. He would also be getting out when he is half way to a life-long pension and health care! However, I hate being a military wife. I don't want to follow him around every few years and never get to do what I want. I also am tired of the deployments and the constant stress and anxiety I feel over his safety. It's really rough.

So, after three years of this, we have decided to get out. I convinced him that we could make it on our own, and that in this way, we could both be happy. He had some dreams for himself in the military and he is actually making quite a big sacrifice by getting out. I got him started in college, and it revived his older dream of being a software engineer. That is the main reason he was able to see that getting out was a viable alternative to staying in for the obvious benefits retiring from the military provides. Marriage is about compromise. I want us to both be happy. He'll move to where ever I get into school, and he'll try to finish his college nearby. But! I am somewhat limited in where I can go, because the new G.I. Bill only pays enough for a state school, and we need the rent money the G.I. Bill also will be paying us, so he can't do distance education (so, I can't go to an expensive private school that he would have a hard time getting into and paying for with the G.I. Bill, and if he did distance education through a state school, we wouldn't receive the rent money we are counting on while he's in school full time).

Our first and most important goal is to finish as much education as we can before having kids. My husband is already 31 and I am 24. I love my in-laws and after living for 4 years thousands of miles away from any family, I feel ready to be near some family. Also, after 10 years in the military, my husband is probably going to experience some difficulty adjusting, and our marriage is going to probably experience some rough patches through the coming transition. I think having his family around would be a nice buffer. I like the area we'd be moving to, and the school just happens to have every program we thought about getting into. We could go to the same school. So, you see, my current plan provides solutions for many, many of the issues I can see us having.

I think I'd be perfectly happy working as an adjunct. I'll probably have my kids toward the end of grad school, and if that happens, it would be great to work part-time for a small school.

See.. I have thought about this very thoroughly. There are tons of factors to be considered. My husband is making a sacrifice for me, and if you can't tell, our marriage is more important to us than a job. That is why he is getting out, and that is why I am looking for the best situation for the both of us (I am the planner, obviously, lol).

Also,

I realize that life is unpredictable and all my plans can go up in smoke at any moment. I just really like to make plans, and many of my past plans have helped me to achieve things other people didn't think possible. Plans are worth making. (I get a lot of, wow, why are you planning so far ahead?!?!?)

[natofone]

It doesn't seem like you need a PhD for your goals if they consist of teaching part time and doing occasional research or working for a government agency or NGO. A PhD will do you no better than an MA for these goals. People from my MA-only grad program are teaching part-time at community colleges and adjunct already. For government work an MA is more than sufficient.

Why not go for an area studies MA instead?

[bethanygm]

It doesn't seem like you need a PhD for your goals if they consist of teaching part time and doing occasional research or working for a government agency or NGO. A PhD will do you no better than an MA for these goals. People from my MA-only grad program are teaching part-time at community colleges and adjunct already. For government work an MA is more than sufficient.

Why not go for an area studies MA instead?

Yes, but why do an MA when I can do a PhD? Especially if it ends up being a fully funded one. I may not get tenure somewhere if I go to the lower ranking school, but the MA could be limiting, whereas the PhD should not be. I have the type of personality that makes me want to sit in a library - 24/7- reading books and analyzing problems, for fun. (Interesting (well, I think it is interesting haha ) tidbit about my genes. My grandfather, a factory worker, once read through the entire set of encyclopedias A-Z, because he had a drive to know everything in there. The Army wanted to put him through medical school, but he turned them down for some reason and decided to do a 9-5 manual labor job. He retired at 40 and spent the rest of his life reading absolutely everything and fighting with his doctors over which medications were healthy and which ones were bad, and acting as the political "watchdog" in our old town. I think the elected officials dreaded his appearance at their meetings lol. Of course I am not my grandfather, but it's amazing how much I can identify with him. I'm afraid I might end up going down a similar path, working an easy dead-end job just so I have lots of extra time to pursue my insatiable desire to learn everything. If I go the academic route, I will have some credibility, first of all, and second of all, I will have an outlet for that drive.)

If I could just stay in school for the rest of my life, learning about many things, in depth, that would be amazing. Of course, I can't and I do want an income, so this seems to be a nice way to go about it. The PhD will give me a chance to really develop some in-depth expertise in at least one area.

I am more interested in all the time I get to spend learning new things, than I am about what I will do, exactly, when I get the PhD. However, I want to be able to bring in a decent income, so I have to look at what area would be most practical. The Middle East is interesting to me, and a lot of other people right now, so it seems like a good choice. I actually can envision myself working part-time as an adjunct, doing part-time bookkeeping, maybe teaching some singing lessons - for an income (I can charge $20-30/hr in the case of the last two), and then also doing research on a topic I am interested in, or homeschooling my children. If I magically got a full-time job that gave me the time and resources to write and submit many articles or books for publication, I'd take advantage of that, too, probably.

My goal is to be happy in life. I have thrown away my old ideas of "success" and embraced some new, maybe somewhat eccentric, ones. The PhD isn't totally a means to an end. I'd do it because of the inherent worth I feel it has.

also-

The government does pay more if you have an advanced degree. A PhD comes in at a higher rate of pay than an MA would, and an MA comes in with a higher rate of pay than a BA.

There's a standard pay scale with the government jobs.

[rising_star]

Well, it seems to be. If I wrote a dissertation on some particular area of conflict in the Middle East, I would look into many areas. The history of that area (and the history of the ethnic make-up of the people of that area)- that would illuminate the origins of some old conflicts. I might look into gender relations and the social status of people (sociology, women's studies, even psychology). I'd see what sort of governmental institutions they have in place, and who holds the power (political science aspect). I would look at the area in geographical terms (who lives where? Does one group have more access to resources than others? This is also in economical terms, then, too). I would continue to study the language of my choice, and I realize that language also tells a part of the story. The cultural anthropology aspect (holistically, who are these people? What do they believe in? What makes them tick?)

In international relations, I can approach everything from a very global perspective, or focus in on a small piece of the world.

I don't know much about IR but what you're describing to me sounds like a dissertation you might find written by someone in a geography department..

[polisciphd]

interesting, I wish that IR was more conducive to this kind of thing, but most places are not.

[DrewCarolina]

I agree about this not being completely Poli Sci IR. Obviously, life is "interdisciplinary" but unfortunately a lot of research approaches are not. If I had to classify your interests within political science I would say they are more comparative politics or area studies.

[slothy]

I think your reasons for pursuing a PhD sound fine. I've actually used the federal pay scale argument on my parents. The conventional wisdom for "two-body problems" in graduate admissions is to pick a handful of large metro areas with a lot of academic institutions to target your applications towards - namely, DC, NYC, Boston, So Cal, SF Bay, Chicago, perhaps the Raleigh-Durham-CH "triangle"; there might be a few more good ones. It's not uncommon for couples to attend universities in completely different cities and endure long commutes from places in the middle - e.g., living in NYC for Princeton and Yale or living in Trenton for Columbia and UPenn (sorry for the Ivy League examples). This maximizes the probability that one or both of you will be able to attend an institution above "Tier 4." Obviously this is most common in the Northeast for geographic reasons. And it's always risky to bet the farm on one university, even if it's Tier 4 - these forums are filled with stories of applicants (myself included) who were rejected from their "safety" programs.

Good luck!

[junebug62]

Ok ok bethanygm, it sounds like you have thought about it. Still, I'd try not to settle for Tier 4 if you can do better...Reading your posts, it seems like you still need to better define your research interests. You can't be all over the place with a PhD and "enjoy learning"...

also-

The government does pay more if you have an advanced degree. A PhD comes in at a higher rate of pay than an MA would, and an MA comes in with a higher rate of pay than a BA.

There's a standard pay scale with the government jobs.

Don't worry so much about this. Government will hire you at a higher GS level depending on your experience and education, but you'll get promoted throughout your career no matter what level you start at. This may only set you back like 2 years or so on the promotion pay scale. Its not a big deal.

Also, I guess your husband is getting out of the military anyway, but there are many civilian job options if you are interested Middle East affairs.

[fsmn36]

I agree about this not being completely Poli Sci IR. Obviously, life is "interdisciplinary" but unfortunately a lot of research approaches are not. If I had to classify your interests within political science I would say they are more comparative politics or area studies.

I agree.

[sonnyday]

I don't know much about IR but what you're describing to me sounds like a dissertation you might find written by someone in a geography department..

This sounds like political science to me, except more of a focus on Area Studies. Bethany, your work sounds interdisplinary and interesting, and doable in many schools of Poli Sci.

But don't second-guess yourself. You may end up attending a Tier 4, but atleast apply to a wide range of schools with different rankings. There is no reason to think you can't get into a higher school, and GRE and GPA aren't everything. Plus, for Ph.D, you should get funded wherever you get in so don't worry about the money. You can appyl for Tier 4 schools as safeties, but you don't have to limit yourself so soon. I had the same feelings you had as an undergrad junior/senior, but obtained very good options for grad school and I don't have high stats. Its more about your research fit with professors and the schools focus, and in my case I think, the possible novelty of your research area.