<p>If you had to pick one thing that you love most about UCSD what would it be? Please explain. Thanks. :)</p>
<p>The campus, the endless opportunities for personal and academic development, and that students (in my major, at least) are willing to work and learn cooperatively. </p>
<p>In unrelated news: the first kid from our class (chem/biochem '06) received his PhD today!</p>
<p>Damn, I’m no expert but isn’t it incredibly difficult to get it in 5 years?? I thought it took more like 7-8.</p>
<p>The weather is my favorite part and the proximity to the beach.</p>
<p>Depends on the field and whether one comes in with advanced coursework (that transfers) or not.</p>
<p>For biosciences, the median seems to be between 6-7, though at UCSD, there seems to be a handful graduating in around 4 every year. Of course some of those year n, where n is a number > 8 do exist, many at UCSD (I personally know several in Microbio/Pathology).</p>
<p>Economics is around 6-7 years, though the true mean is a mystery since around 60% of entering students don’t even get through coursework/comps and many never finish their dissertations.</p>
<p>Psychology Ph.D. is around 6 years, with UCSD’s average being a little over 7 in recent years.</p>
<p>actually it was 4 yrs 7 mos at MIT chemistry (top-notch program, famous PI). average graduation time is frequently dictated by the school/dept/PI. our dept avergage is 6-7. my boss personally hasn’t had a student stay more than than 5.5 years. the lab across the hall recently graduated two 8th-years.</p>
<p>My field apparently has a mean of around 4.79 years and a median of 5 for graduation:</p>
<p><a href=“http://docsig.org/DocSig-WhoWentWhere2009.pdf[/url]”>http://docsig.org/DocSig-WhoWentWhere2009.pdf</a> (my field’s annual job placement/salary report)</p>
<p>…though the shortage of Business Ph.D. professors and the increased demand from business schools may be the culprit for the decline of years late.</p>
<p>If they printed something like that for biosci students, nobody would ever apply for grad school again…</p>
<p>Or Psychology … </p>
<p>Anytime someone in one of my Psychology courses talked about being a Clinical Psychologist and threw out a salary figure of over $60,000, I rolled my eyes. 10 years (Ph.D. + APPIC Internship is not worth a 60k salary).</p>
<p>Economics would be disheartening if people knew the attrition rates (around 75% of students entering an Economics program will not get their Ph.D.).</p>
<p>And then there’s always this GREAT read:</p>
<p>[Doctoral</a> degrees: The disposable academic | The Economist](<a href=“The disposable academic”>The disposable academic)</p>
<p>Wow, that’s a really interesting article, thanks!</p>