Dear Prospective PhD Student, Pay careful attention to the optics of this advice. It is addressing how you can best serve your PI. Your goals and aspirations are not addressed. It is advice on how to land a job, but does not address why you should want the job, or if it is a good fit for you.
Perhaps you are a good fit for the academic life. But seek out more advice on what the job of Prospective PhD Student is. Seek out more advice on the job market of jobs that require a PhD. If you are thinking of working in the university setting, there may be a lot fewer tenure track jobs, with a lot more applicants than you might imagine, available that you.
IMO you want to distinguish between advice that is tactical and short term or strategic and long term.
The best tactical advice tends to from people who were recently in a very similar position as you, had had approximately the same goal you have, and either achieved the goal or failed. You want a sample of both successes and failures. The less recent, the less useful the advice.
The best strategic advice tends to be from people who have accomplished things you want to accomplish, regardless of time distance. Their tactical advice is less useful (because it is often dated), but the strategic advice tends to be better. You again need a large sample size to filter out noise.
You trust no one, and, at the same time, everyone. Determining what you are getting yourself into, based on data, not your imagination of the jobs based upon your undergrad experience, should be your first research project. If you aren't up for doing that research, evaluating the data you gather, and seeing the bias in the data, a research position probably not a good fit.
It should be a mutually beneficial relationship. That said, I run into far too many PhD students who want to join my lab who cannot answer the question "Why do you want a PhD?"
I work in AI, so there is enormous opportunity inside and outside of academia currently (was not true when I finished my PhD, when it was the least popular area of CS), but I'm very upfront with students about how challenging it is to get a tenure-track job. That said, for those who want that, I help them make plans and set goals to achieve that objective, which means having a much stronger CV by the time they graduate than for those aiming for industry.
Many may disagree in practice, but I see my primary job as creating strong scientists and helping them achieve their career objectives. But, I won't take PhD students if their goals would not greatly benefit from having a PhD.
I do think too few academics are upfront with students about how challenging it is to get a tenure track position and what's needed to pull that off.
I feel like this article is missing a gigantic point: your PI is everything as a PhD student, if you have a PI who’s a shitty person (sometimes even unknowingly), you are going to be in hell for four to seven years. Don’t pick your PI just based on «they seem to be at the forefront of research on this field », also check how they treat their students. This is not like a normal job where you can easily quit, you’re likely going to be stuck with your PI, so they better be good.
This 120%. Your day-to-day, your mental health, and your research success are largely a function of your lab's culture, and it's the PI who sets that culture. And the unfortunate reality is that PIs really don't get any formal training on culture-setting and people management, so there are some really successful folks out there who suck at running their groups.
The way you tilt the odds in your favor for getting a good PI-student match is to be embedded in the field. If you're an undergrad, getting involved in research is a great low-risk way to do this. People in research have reputations in their field, and people in the know will direct promising students away from labs with bad cultures.
1. Don’t opt for a phd just because it sounds cool (remember the first tweet shared in that article).
2. Academia is a pretty hard space if you can’t get your own funding or if you don’t like hustling for it. Getting tenure track jobs without having funding attached is impossible.
3. Very few jobs in industry need a PhD. Most are ok with a masters. Those that require a PhD can be selective based on where you graduate from and what your publication record is.
4. Know your PI well and reach out to his/her previous students who have already graduated. Some may reply - especially those with a bad experience.
5. Back to point #1, don’t take up the PhD just because you get the assistance and stipend. Make sure you really like your subject - it’s the only thing you’re doing for the next 4-12 years depending on your discipline while subsisting on poverty level stipends
Yes - this is unfortunately everything. There are a number of categories to optimize (research area, lab size, funding, university, other lab members, etc) but the biggest factor is your relationship with your PI. I cannot imagine working as a PhD student in a lab where I don't deeply respect and get along with the PI. I was very lucky but selected for this when choosing PhD labs. A surefire way to have a terrible few years is to ignore others advice about PIs to avoid.
I chose mine because he was a reasonably guy to work with and talk to. What I did not know at the time was that he was very junior in the department and needed to please other professors. So even though I liked working with him, I was quite helpless at certain difficult parts of the process.
Far too few incoming students value this, even if explicitly told. They will go to the lab of the most famous professor at the highest rank university, even if that PI is not a great mentor. Not all PIs are intentionally aiming to make their student's lives hell, but many inadvertently do by providing insufficient mentorship, which results in students suffering huge amounts of anguish because they are struggling to excel and know it.
If a PI isn't meeting with each PhD student for at least 30-60 minutes per week, especially in the first few years, they are probably not doing a great job.
I always encourage students to email the current and former students of the professors they want to work with once admitted to see if they can have a video chat to discuss what it is like working in the lab. Even then, it can be hard to get frank feedback.
This is my advise to people who ask me for advise when applying to PhD / graduate school for research. The advisor is probably the only other main factor besides finances and any other personal constraints. If you have a great advisor all around (not just the best researcher in their field, as in they also know how to mentor, teacher, network, and help you reach your goals), they will know how to navigate your different research interests and goals of your PhD and get you to where you want to go.
I would just flat out advise against it. Don’t set your life up for a dice roll on which PI you get. It can be good. It can be bad. But it’s not a wise gamble for any aspect of life quality that I think is particularly wise to orient towards.
* talk to your PI beforehand obviously, so you can see if they are a jerk
* keep an eye on the failure mode. Check if you are making real progress after a year or two. If not, mastering out in a STEM field a totally legit path that will still leave you with a perfectly decent career potential. Some places will even let you do a thesis with your masters if you for some reason love writing giant LaTeX documents.
progress can be extremely nonlinear - my year or two progress check would have yielded little, but ultimately I was in great shape when graduating my PhD program. Your advice isn't bad, but it's helpful to understand that the foundation can take a while to lay and then progress can accelerate rapidly towards the end.
as someone who mastered out SEVERAL years into it this is the only advice anyone will ever need regarding a PhD. of course if you come from money and can roll a dice on a career go for it
As someone that runs a PhD program in economics, I'd like to see "in a grant field" added to the title. It's completely different in fields with limited grants (those that hire TAs rather than GAs). One of the things I wasn't expecting when I started this position is the number of students that use advice from the sciences/engineering as if it applies to all fields. (And a lot of my email time is spent fixing those incorrect beliefs.)
> Most PhD programs in science and engineering will come with free tuition, a stipend, and health insurance.
Don't go if it doesn't come with funding. There should be a tuition waiver (not always a full waiver, I didn't get one), but...
> fees typically aren’t. This can still be a significant amount of money each semester
This really is ridiculous. They can be in the thousands of dollars. Make sure you subtract fees from the stipend. You might need to pay taxes on the full stipend, but not be able to deduct the cost of fees (I don't know current law).
> Again, program stipends will vary widely. Some may offer a stipend, but not guarantee it past 1-2 yrs.
This is a concern if you're funded by a grant. I know lots of programs that don't guarantee five years of stipend, because they aren't allowed, but in practice they'll do everything they can to keep funding you if you're making progress. That's because completed PhD's is a big deal when evaluating the research status of universities.
> health insurance. Most programs will offer graduate student health insurance. But, as with stipends, the monthly premiums and quality of insurance can vary widely.
If you can get insurance through your parents, you almost always want to go that route. I was surprised when I saw how much this varies from school to school. My employer covers 75% of the cost (one of the highest I've seen) but it still costs the student $700/year. As with fees, subtract the cost of health insurance from the stipend, but only after you determine the quality is sufficient for your needs.
Yeah I’m currently in my 5th year in a top Econ program and a lot of this is just foreign to my experience. The torturous part was how my department handled Covid but after that it’s been pretty smooth sailing.
My advice is find a PhD you want in Norway or the Netherlands. They have programs with competitive research groups, salaries that will get you a quality of life you will appreciate, they will end in 3-4 years, and they have money to pay for you to go to conferences, etc without you having to fight for it from your adviser. Everywhere else sucks.
This comment is based on my experience working as a scientist in academia in USA, Japan, Germany, France, Norway, UK, and now the Netherlands.
Add Luxembourg and Switzerland to that list - at least EPFL and ETH. It's so unbelievably better to be at an institute where travelling within Europe is simply not a budgetary problem at all.
Your experience at ETH might vary a lot though. Their PhD programs are extremely heterogeneous between departments and vary from modern, well structured grad schools to the old-fashioned central European style where the student are basically at the mercy of their advisor for five years.
Currently the salary is not competitive however Poland is the shining star of Europe given their growth and everything else these days. I might go there if science funding becomes more inline with other European countries.
When I was an undergrad, I once asked one of the department professors "I want to do a PhD, how do I do that?" and the first thing he said to me was "Don't."
It turned out to be pretty good advice. I didn't in the end, and having seen close friends do it, I'm glad I was dissuaded.
Since it seems just about everybody who's been in or around a PhD program agrees it's a miserable institution with low chances of satisfaction, I will continue to follow the advice that it is not for me.
However, are there alternative paths to a research career? I really enjoyed being in an academic environment in undergrad and dream of working on AI/ML research in some capacity, but I'm a total outsider.
> it seems just about everybody who's been in or around a PhD program agrees it's a miserable institution
I disagree, quite strongly in fact. But my experience is not with US PhD programs, which is what discussions here often center upon.
As for working on research outside of pursuing a PhD: one option is to become a scientific programmer. Typically, you'd work on helping to execute the research, without the pressures of having to publish.
Of course, your "clients" do have that pressure, but your job typically is to Make It Happen, explain why it can't, and find crafty workarounds to Make It Sorta Happen Anyway.
Getting a PhD is hard, and it certainly does take a mental toll. Students are trying to push up against the boundaries of human knowledge to expand humanity's knowledge. That isn't easy, and because we train them to be independent researchers, much of that time is spent working on solo projects with their mentor supervising.
That said, once one has a PhD, it really opens up many exciting careers that are otherwise not attainable. If one wants to be a scientist and do research, you almost certainly need a PhD. It also gives you so much more autonomy in terms of the projects you work on rather than just being a coder working on someone else's projects. I only have one life, and we spend much of our lives working. I'd rather have the ability to control what I work on and wake up excited to get to work every day.
for yourself, write down in great detail what your dream is. What do you imagine yourself doing day-to-day? What experiences did you really enjoy?
Identify (via posting here, linkedin, discord) some people that have the sort of job you imagine and have a dialog with them. (if they are actively posting, they likely have the time to converse with you)
If your exerpience is anything like mine, you may find the activities you enjoy are a small part of the researchers jobs, which in many cases is a grant writing machine.
Having seen what my partner has been through in her PhD in generics in the UK. I can certainly advice against doing it.
PhDs are not worth the stress your will be through. You are barely paid to get by. PhD students are exploited left and right.
The whole concept is not suitable for what's life in 2023. If you have a toxic colleague at a workspace you can do something about it, change team, change your manager, change workspace.
If you have a toxic colleague or supervisor it's done, your will be miserable for 4 years. Then if you need extension suddenly fees will pop up.
I'm seeing way too many comments about not being able to change the relationship.
I was in a top school. I saw plenty of students change advisors and do fine. You have to be a bit careful - your former advisor shouldn't be in your thesis committee, and some advisors are unwilling to take you if they think it will cause bad blood between him and the original advisor. But it definitely was done. Over and over again.
Of course, it helps if the department is big (mine had about 100 professors).
They are worth it if you’re trying to emigrate out of a bad situation. My partner is in a lab with an awful PI, but she is Lebanese, and wanted to be able to bring herself and her family out of a very unstable situation.
Readit News
Perhaps you are a good fit for the academic life. But seek out more advice on what the job of Prospective PhD Student is. Seek out more advice on the job market of jobs that require a PhD. If you are thinking of working in the university setting, there may be a lot fewer tenure track jobs, with a lot more applicants than you might imagine, available that you.
EDIT: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03394-0
The best tactical advice tends to from people who were recently in a very similar position as you, had had approximately the same goal you have, and either achieved the goal or failed. You want a sample of both successes and failures. The less recent, the less useful the advice.
The best strategic advice tends to be from people who have accomplished things you want to accomplish, regardless of time distance. Their tactical advice is less useful (because it is often dated), but the strategic advice tends to be better. You again need a large sample size to filter out noise.
I work in AI, so there is enormous opportunity inside and outside of academia currently (was not true when I finished my PhD, when it was the least popular area of CS), but I'm very upfront with students about how challenging it is to get a tenure-track job. That said, for those who want that, I help them make plans and set goals to achieve that objective, which means having a much stronger CV by the time they graduate than for those aiming for industry.
Many may disagree in practice, but I see my primary job as creating strong scientists and helping them achieve their career objectives. But, I won't take PhD students if their goals would not greatly benefit from having a PhD.
I do think too few academics are upfront with students about how challenging it is to get a tenure track position and what's needed to pull that off.
The way you tilt the odds in your favor for getting a good PI-student match is to be embedded in the field. If you're an undergrad, getting involved in research is a great low-risk way to do this. People in research have reputations in their field, and people in the know will direct promising students away from labs with bad cultures.
1. Don’t opt for a phd just because it sounds cool (remember the first tweet shared in that article).
2. Academia is a pretty hard space if you can’t get your own funding or if you don’t like hustling for it. Getting tenure track jobs without having funding attached is impossible.
3. Very few jobs in industry need a PhD. Most are ok with a masters. Those that require a PhD can be selective based on where you graduate from and what your publication record is.
4. Know your PI well and reach out to his/her previous students who have already graduated. Some may reply - especially those with a bad experience.
5. Back to point #1, don’t take up the PhD just because you get the assistance and stipend. Make sure you really like your subject - it’s the only thing you’re doing for the next 4-12 years depending on your discipline while subsisting on poverty level stipends
This varies dramatically by field.
If a PI isn't meeting with each PhD student for at least 30-60 minutes per week, especially in the first few years, they are probably not doing a great job.
I always encourage students to email the current and former students of the professors they want to work with once admitted to see if they can have a video chat to discuss what it is like working in the lab. Even then, it can be hard to get frank feedback.
Deleted Comment
* talk to your PI beforehand obviously, so you can see if they are a jerk
* keep an eye on the failure mode. Check if you are making real progress after a year or two. If not, mastering out in a STEM field a totally legit path that will still leave you with a perfectly decent career potential. Some places will even let you do a thesis with your masters if you for some reason love writing giant LaTeX documents.
(2) is mixed. There’s a lot of science that doesn’t care about masters at all. And for many people it is extremely soul sucking to master out.
(I worked as a research engineer at a big name university for 8 years, helping people do experiments for their PhDs, and I have Seen Some Shit.)
> Most PhD programs in science and engineering will come with free tuition, a stipend, and health insurance.
Don't go if it doesn't come with funding. There should be a tuition waiver (not always a full waiver, I didn't get one), but...
> fees typically aren’t. This can still be a significant amount of money each semester
This really is ridiculous. They can be in the thousands of dollars. Make sure you subtract fees from the stipend. You might need to pay taxes on the full stipend, but not be able to deduct the cost of fees (I don't know current law).
> Again, program stipends will vary widely. Some may offer a stipend, but not guarantee it past 1-2 yrs.
This is a concern if you're funded by a grant. I know lots of programs that don't guarantee five years of stipend, because they aren't allowed, but in practice they'll do everything they can to keep funding you if you're making progress. That's because completed PhD's is a big deal when evaluating the research status of universities.
> health insurance. Most programs will offer graduate student health insurance. But, as with stipends, the monthly premiums and quality of insurance can vary widely.
If you can get insurance through your parents, you almost always want to go that route. I was surprised when I saw how much this varies from school to school. My employer covers 75% of the cost (one of the highest I've seen) but it still costs the student $700/year. As with fees, subtract the cost of health insurance from the stipend, but only after you determine the quality is sufficient for your needs.
This comment is based on my experience working as a scientist in academia in USA, Japan, Germany, France, Norway, UK, and now the Netherlands.
Definitely stay away from places like France or UK. They both have terrible salaries and culture (at the university).
I would say Germany is a mixed bag. Your salary can be nice in Berlin. The same salary in Munich, and it will be the same, is unliveable.
It turned out to be pretty good advice. I didn't in the end, and having seen close friends do it, I'm glad I was dissuaded.
However, are there alternative paths to a research career? I really enjoyed being in an academic environment in undergrad and dream of working on AI/ML research in some capacity, but I'm a total outsider.
I disagree, quite strongly in fact. But my experience is not with US PhD programs, which is what discussions here often center upon.
As for working on research outside of pursuing a PhD: one option is to become a scientific programmer. Typically, you'd work on helping to execute the research, without the pressures of having to publish.
Of course, your "clients" do have that pressure, but your job typically is to Make It Happen, explain why it can't, and find crafty workarounds to Make It Sorta Happen Anyway.
Indeed, that is my sole reference point. If I ever leave the US, maybe that will be a better opportunity!
> one option is to become a scientific programmer
I'll look into this. Thanks!
That said, once one has a PhD, it really opens up many exciting careers that are otherwise not attainable. If one wants to be a scientist and do research, you almost certainly need a PhD. It also gives you so much more autonomy in terms of the projects you work on rather than just being a coder working on someone else's projects. I only have one life, and we spend much of our lives working. I'd rather have the ability to control what I work on and wake up excited to get to work every day.
Identify (via posting here, linkedin, discord) some people that have the sort of job you imagine and have a dialog with them. (if they are actively posting, they likely have the time to converse with you)
If your exerpience is anything like mine, you may find the activities you enjoy are a small part of the researchers jobs, which in many cases is a grant writing machine.
PhDs are not worth the stress your will be through. You are barely paid to get by. PhD students are exploited left and right.
The whole concept is not suitable for what's life in 2023. If you have a toxic colleague at a workspace you can do something about it, change team, change your manager, change workspace.
If you have a toxic colleague or supervisor it's done, your will be miserable for 4 years. Then if you need extension suddenly fees will pop up.
It's not worth it.
I was in a top school. I saw plenty of students change advisors and do fine. You have to be a bit careful - your former advisor shouldn't be in your thesis committee, and some advisors are unwilling to take you if they think it will cause bad blood between him and the original advisor. But it definitely was done. Over and over again.
Of course, it helps if the department is big (mine had about 100 professors).