Do PhD students get fired?

[previousstudent]

If your adviser decides to terminate you, is this the same as being fired? On a job application, when asked if you were ever fired, do you have to write yes? 

 

My feeling is that the answer is no - lots of PhD students fall out, and to have to state you were fired... that just seems like schools would be putting many very smart individuals into an undesirable classification.

 

What is the right thing to write for reason for leaving the job? 

 

I had the worst kind of adviser - the kind who simply would not put an approval through even if you got a publication if he did not like you (this is just one of the awful things he did). In other words, he decided early on that he would never grant a student the PhD but kept them around just to have more students (I was funded by another organization). It was a terrible time of my life and I held on hoping something would change. He was nice to my face but made sure I could not succeed. I could have reported him to the school with proof of unethical behavior but felt I might win a battle but certainly would lose the war.

 

Any advice/input would be greatly appreciated.

Edited March 18, 2015 by previousstudent

[GeoDUDE!]

Yes. If the university regaurds TA/RA/GA as employees, and you were in fact, terminated because of your performance in these tasks, that is fired. 

 

If you say were just a PhD student, and your advisor decides to drop you because of performance, that is getting kicked out of a program, not a job. 

[previousstudent]

This is terrible. I had no idea that was the case. I would have quit instead of holding out then. I was already looking for jobs. 

 

But your second statement does not really apply correctly to my situation - all PhD students were graduate assistants. So there is no such thing as just being a PhD student.

 

Hopefully I receive more responses. Thank you for your input.

Edited March 18, 2015 by previousstudent

[St Andrews Lynx]

It sounds more like "getting asked to leave the program", which isn't the same as formally firing you. I think that firing involves specific paperwork and admin/HR.

 

You can always check with your university ombudspeople for advice about your specific situation. 

[juilletmercredi]

You might have been informally considered a graduate research assistant in your program. But were you formally hired by the university as a GRA and your position terminated because of performance issues? All PhDs do research during their programs but not all PhDs are actually hired as formal employees of the university on GRAs.

 

Even then, I still think it's a grey area. Your employment as a GRA is contingent upon your student status. You could be performing fine at your job and still be terminated simply because you left the program; that's not really the same as getting fired from a formal job because of your performance. The important question is - if you list your PI as your supervisor, what would he say?

[AndrewBworth]

I have a very similar issue. My old advisor won't help me at all.

[Eigen]

Also to note, you can be "fired" from a lab/by a PI, but not kicked out of the program. The two are not synonymous. 

 

I think the important thing is what the HR/hiring individuals would consider your dismissal, not the technical term. If your advisor will say he fired you and you don't list it, they will likely consider it unethical to not have put that you were fired. 

 

The technicalities of whether you were "fired" or not won't really matter in that case.