How much fun is MIT as a graduate student?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Hence, given the fact that a not insignificant percentage of the PhD students apparently don't really want to become researchers, every school should be providing resources to help those students succeed in whatever it is that they do want.

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<p>Unless they explicitly say so, it's not apparent based upon what they indicate on their applications. The unversities can't predict who will become functional researchers, or who will want to continue to be.</p>

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Or else, just don't admit those students in the first place. Once you've admitted them, then it's your responsibility to help them, because like I said, they are going to be linked to your school forever. If they end up unhappy in low-end jobs, your school's reputation will inevitably suffer.

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<p>Since we have no foolproof means of figuring out based on the application who will go on to be functional researchers, I guess we have to live with the imperfection of letting time tell whether or not these students will wind up in jobs for which the universities' reputations will be tarnished.</p>

<p>At the risk of being overly cynical, I don't think universities are too worried about a few of their admits winding up working at McDonald's or some such. And if they are, does it really matter? Why shouldn't universities' reputations be tarnished, if they do not provide the services they claim to be able to?</p>

82

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Is there something wrong with industry/other options that still utilize research & the PhD? It seems most if not all of the conversation here says the only choice besides academia is to learn a completely separate "useful" skill and use that instead.

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<p>Not at all, IMO. To me, functional research encompasses a multitude of career possibilities.</p>

<p>This article I discovered through phds.org offers further comment:</p>

<p>Salon</a> Ivory Tower | Out of academia</p>

83

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Let me ask one question -- so I'm going to be bold, or not so bold, and assume that a Ph.D. in any kind of engineering discipline from MIT doesn't really have to worry about job prospects, because engineering is by nature not an impractical thing.

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<p>I'd make the argument here that whether one needs to worry depends upon their expectations. I've known plenty of people who have PhDs in "engineering-like" disciplines from places like MIT who've been jobless (not by their choice) at various times during their professional lifetimes.</p>

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Now, my question is: which (let's for the time-being exclude humanities and social sciences from consideration so people don't bicker about it being off topic) disciplines coming out of MIT may need to worry about this issue we're talking about? Let's say pure math, physics...what else? And, to what extent are graduates of each such department in danger of not going forward with an academic position, say assuming they want to? Any way to quantify that? I'm keeping it to MIT, given it's an ESPECIALLY super-selective program.

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<p>Offhand, I don't have these numbers. It should be possible to contact each MIT graduate department and obtain a list of people who've earned PhDs. From there, you could find out where these people are now, although you may have to utilize professional search services. However, this only describes what has already happened: it is no guarantee of what will happen. Whether someone gets an academic position depends upon a number of factors, such as the overall economy, the availability of said positions, not to mention the tenor of society at large with respect to academia.</p>

84

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Is there something wrong with industry/other options that still utilize research & the PhD? It seems most if not all of the conversation here says the only choice besides academia is to learn a completely separate "useful" skill and use that instead.

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That attitude is pretty reflective of academia as a whole. I can only speak about biology, where there's a strong industry component (biotech, pharma, etc.) -- careers in industry can be lucrative and fulfilling, but everybody who stays in academia is going to act like you're working at McDonald's. It's pure snobbery, of course, but that's the source of the attitude.</p>

<p>Many programs in biology, like mine, are trying to give more career guidance to PhD students interested in careers in industry, but the major roadblock is that, by definition, faculty members in top programs are the ones who fought tooth and nail to stay on the academic hamster wheel (to mix a few metaphors), so they think that academia is the only career choice worth making.</p>

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Many programs in biology, like mine, are trying to give more career guidance to PhD students interested in careers in industry, but the major roadblock is that, by definition, faculty members in top programs are the ones who fought tooth and nail to stay on the academic hamster wheel (to mix a few metaphors), so they think that academia is the only career choice worth making.

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<p>Plus, take something like pure math -- who actually gets the PhD in pure math and naturally leans to industry! Either A) They got the PhD because they like the subject, B) Both A) and they want to become academics. There's really no natural industrial position a pure mathematician would lean towards, geared towards his/her skills. Hence, I guess the math people have to be proactive looking around at options themselves!</p>

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<p>That's silly. I know people who applied to grad schools in pure math and didn't at all want to be a professor. It's just what they wanted to do next. Of course you should have a reason to want to go to graduate school in a subject you love, but that reason doesn't have to be academia</p>

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<p>Pebbles, if you were referring to my post, I'd refer you to my point A, which would tell you why I'm aware of your point. My meaning may have been subtle, but the point was that unlike in other disciplines, there is no such thing as "pure math industry" -- whereas there is such a thing for many other disciplines. A pure math grad student who goes into an industrial position after graduate school will essentially be learning skills that are not in any sense related to pure math.</p>

<p>The reason I made this point is that this may lessen the likelihood that pure math faculty + graduate programs would alert students to the "natural job prospects" they could have that aren't academic in nature. Meaning, there would just not be anything natural, as many options as there might be.</p>

88

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Unless they explicitly say so, it's not apparent based upon what they indicate on their applications. The unversities can't predict who will become functional researchers, or who will want to continue to be.

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<p>Sure, they can't specifically predict individual behavior ex-ante. But you don't need to do that. All they have to do is look at their job placement information ex-post and note that clearly significant percentage of their graduate students clearly do not take academic/research positions. Hence, as long as the past is at least somewhat correlated with the future - and I think we can all agree that it is - that will mean that some future grad students will also not want to become academics or researchers. </p>

<p>What you can is offer a strong set of career resources and counseling, combined with a strong brand name and a powerful alumni network, and those grad students who discover that they don't really want to be academics/researchers will use them.</p>

<p>Even better: departments can offer integrated programs such as the MIT Chemical Engineering program that has integrated the PhD with the Sloan MBA program. That's pure genius. I think all PhD programs should look into that, not just at MIT but at every school. To be clear, nobody is being forced to enter the Sloan MBA program. If you want to get a PhD in ChemE without ever touching Sloan, you can certainly do so. But the option is there. </p>

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Since we have no foolproof means of figuring out based on the application who will go on to be functional researchers, I guess we have to live with the imperfection of letting time tell whether or not these students will wind up in jobs for which the universities' reputations will be tarnished.

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<p>Why not pursue the better option: create (optional) programs to prepare them for top jobs so that the universities' reputation won't be tarnished? Again, that's what the ChemE department has done. If that department can do it, why can't others? </p>

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At the risk of being overly cynical, I don't think universities are too worried about a few of their admits winding up working at McDonald's or some such. And if they are, does it really matter? Why shouldn't universities' reputations be tarnished, if they do not provide the services they claim to be able to?

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<p>That sort of attitude is precisely the crux of the problem. Universities should be worried. This is a matter of long-term brand management. Like I said, whether we like it or not, any former student will be associated with MIT forever. Marketing managers understand well that the best way to tarnish a strong brand name is to be associated with poorly-performing products. Cadillac badly damaged its brand name by launching the Cimarron, which was little more than a Chevy Cavalier with a Caddy nameplate, and Cadillac needed decades to restore its brand. </p>

<p>Every university, MIT included, cares about preserving and enhancing its brand. That's why MIT runs the News Office, which is basically MIT's public relations and marketing arm. A stronger brand translates into better students who want to study there, better faculty who want to work there, more alumni donations, more recruiters, which then serve to further enhance the brand in an ever-virtuous cycle. </p>

<p>MIT</a> News Office</p>

<p>The problem comes when people don't seem to care about properly managing the brand. That's how you end up with disasters like the Cadillac Cimarron.</p>

89

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I've known plenty of people who have PhDs in "engineering-like" disciplines from places like MIT who've been jobless (not by their choice) at various times during their professional lifetimes.

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<p>Look, the fact is, anybody can find themselves involuntarily jobless at some point in their lifetimes. In fact, I would argue that you lived a charmed life if you never did. Right now, plenty of people with elite MBA's are now involuntarily jobless. </p>

<p>The goal is not for any of your graduates to ever be involuntarily jobless, for that is clearly unrealistic. The goal is provide them with lifelong career resources, such as strong alumni networks and a strong brand name, as well as important life skills so that they can easily find and transition to new jobs. For example, I know a bunch of recently laid off engineers who found new jobs through contacts made through their local MIT Alumni Clubs. That is precisely the sort of career infrastructure that should be encouraged.</p>

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Many programs in biology, like mine, are trying to give more career guidance to PhD students interested in careers in industry, but the major roadblock is that, by definition, faculty members in top programs are the ones who fought tooth and nail to stay on the academic hamster wheel (to mix a few metaphors), so they think that academia is the only career choice worth making.

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<p>Exactly - which is why you need a counterweight. You need somebody to speak to the alternatives.</p>

<p>I think what would help tremendously is building an alumni list of former PhD graduates who then went on to non-academic jobs who are willing to speak about their experiences, and specifically, about how they got their jobs. Note, no student will be forced to listen. If you don't want to know about how to get jobs outside of academia, you don't have to listen to them talk. But the option should be available and easy to find.</p>

<p>I personally think that much of the problem is simply a lack of confidence. Lots of grad students simply don't know how to search for jobs properly and don't have the confidence to learn. Many of them have never been outside of academia, and are scared of looking outside. What would help tremendously is if they could talk to people who actually did it. </p>

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Now, my question is: which (let's for the time-being exclude humanities and social sciences from consideration so people don't bicker about it being off topic ) disciplines coming out of MIT may need to worry about this issue we're talking about?

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<p>Well, if you want to include social sciences back into the conversation, I would have to say that getting a PhD in business/management - which I consider to be a social science - is arguably the greatest gravy train of any of the PhD programs, especially for those students who have no work experience (of which the numbers are shockingly high: the percentage of management PhD students with zero work experience is easily if bizarrely several times that of the MBA students with no work experience). Think about it - to be 26-27 years old and graduating with a management PhD and jumping right to a tenure track position without needing a postdoc - which are not only rare but also not really necessary in the management academic world - and making $150k+ a year as an assistant prof at a business school, which is more than many full profs at other departments make. Or, making far more than that as a consultant, investment banker, venture capitalist, or other such industry jobs that many of the graduates will take. Remember, we're talking about somebody with no prior work experience, yet still getting prime jobs. Frankly, these guys are making out like bandits. {The ones who are not benefitting are those who did have extensive business experience, because those academic tenure-track jobs don't care about your prior work experience and certainly won't pay you more.}</p>

<p>Which leads to something I have said on other threads: if you're thinking of getting a PhD in the social sciences, you should seriously consider doing so within a business school. Heck, to your point, mathboy98, I would say that you might want to consider it also. Operations Research, for example, is basically a branch of mathematics. The vast majority of their papers are series of models, theorems and proofs. You can get a PhD at the MIT Sloan School while working on what is basically a math dissertation. Sloan Professor Robert Freund, I would argue, is basically a mathematician. Heck, his undergrad was in math. And look at some of the journals in which he publishes: Mathematical Programming, Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Linear Algebra and its Applications. </p>

<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/rfreund/www/CVfreund.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/rfreund/www/CVfreund.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Hence, you could go to Sloan School, construct a dissertation committee of Freund or some of his other compatriots such as James Orlin or Andreas Schulz, as well as some faculty from the MIT or Harvard math department - as cross-departmental/cross-school committees are allowed - and earn what is effectively a PhD in math. You would just be doing it within the confines of a business school, which would provide you access not only to the business academic job market but also to extensive consulting and finance industry opportunities.</p>

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I think what would help tremendously is building an alumni list of former PhD graduates who then went on to non-academic jobs who are willing to speak about their experiences, and specifically, about how they got their jobs. Note, no student will be forced to listen. If you don't want to know about how to get jobs outside of academia, you don't have to listen to them talk. But the option should be available and easy to find.

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This is actually precisely what my program is doing. The list is available with contact info if you want to do it yourself, plus they hold frequent alumni events -- socials, lectures, etc., for those who would prefer to mix in a larger setting. I think it's tremendously useful, particularly because my program is rather large, so there are a large number of career paths represented.</p>

92

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Even better: departments can offer integrated programs such as the MIT Chemical Engineering program that has integrated the PhD with the Sloan MBA program. That's pure genius. I think all PhD programs should look into that, not just at MIT but at every school. To be clear, nobody is being forced to enter the Sloan MBA program. If you want to get a PhD in ChemE without ever touching Sloan, you can certainly do so. But the option is there.

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<p>If there are PhD programs that want to offer alternate career services to differentiate themselves from other schools, that's fine with me. OTOH, I draw the line at requiring that they do this, especially when it compromises their ability to produce functional research and researchers. As you have written quite a bit about the power of "branding", it should be noted that a good deal of the perceived value of a graduate department among academicians is the quality of the research and researchers, not how many people wind up having to choose alternative careers. So in that regard, anything that compromises the ability of a university to produce functional research and researchers taints the brand. In this respect, their argument is no less valid than yours.</p>

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That sort of attitude is precisely the crux of the problem. Universities should be worried. This is a matter of long-term brand management. Like I said, whether we like it or not, any former student will be associated with MIT forever. Marketing managers understand well that the best way to tarnish a strong brand name is to be associated with poorly-performing products. Cadillac badly damaged its brand name by launching the Cimarron, which was little more than a Chevy Cavalier with a Caddy nameplate, and Cadillac needed decades to restore its brand.

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<p>When we've gotten to the point where we start to characterize PhD programs in terms of how marketing managers would assess them, I think we have departed, at least, from what a PhD program is, traditionally. Perhaps we should be talking about some other type of degree program which promotes some type of scholarly exploration, while at the same time, can lead to a broad variety of careers after its completion. Perhaps an MBA program is that, already. But whatever it is, it is not the type of PhD program I have been talking about that is primarily concerned with doing fundamental, functional research.</p>

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OTOH, I draw the line at requiring that they do this, especially when it compromises their ability to produce functional research and researchers.

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<p>I have seen no evidence that the MIT ChemE PhD program has been academically compromised in any way by offering an alternative track. In fact, in the most recent survey, the department was ranked #1. </p>

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As you have written quite a bit about the power of "branding", it should be noted that a good deal of the perceived value of a graduate department among academicians is the quality of the research and researchers, not how many people wind up having to choose alternative careers. So in that regard, anything that compromises the ability of a university to produce functional research and researchers taints the brand. In this respect, their argument is no less valid than yours.

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<p>No, their argument is less valid than mine, for the simple reason that every PhD student of the program is a stakeholder in the program, not just those who can or will take academic positions. Hence, my position accommodates all of the stakeholders, not just a certain subset of them, which makes my stance far more equitable to everybody involved. Programs shouldn't stop caring about students just because they find out that they don't really want to be in academia. A fair program should be serving all of its students.</p>

<p>Like I said before, if the programs don't want to accommodate those students, then fine - just don't admit them in the first place. But once you have admitted them, it is the program's and the students' joint responsibility to find optimal career outcomes that advances the interests of all stakeholders, and surely I think we can agree that winding up at McDonald's does not accomplish that. It hurts the students and, frankly, also hurts the program by making it look bad. Everybody loses. </p>

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When we've gotten to the point where we start to characterize PhD programs in terms of how marketing managers would assess them, I think we have departed, at least, from what a PhD program is, traditionally. Perhaps we should be talking about some other type of degree program which promotes some type of scholarly exploration, while at the same time, can lead to a broad variety of careers after its completion. Perhaps an MBA program is that, already. But whatever it is, it is not the type of PhD program I have been talking about that is primarily concerned with doing fundamental, functional research.

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<p>Well, first off, like I said, MIT, along with every other top school, already engages in extensive brand management and promotion. </p>

<p>But more importantly, I think schools need to confront some basic realities. The fact is, not every newly minted PhD is going to perform fundamental, functional research, for two reasons: #1 - there simply aren't enough research jobs for every new PhD in the country, and #2 - a significant percentage of the PhD students, especially at the top schools, don't really want to take research jobs anyway, instead preferring jobs in fields such as consulting or finance. Point #1 is an excruciatingly acute problem in the humanities and certain social science, but also presents difficulties in the natural sciences and engineering as well, and so if those programs prefer not to arm their students with marketable skills, then the next best thing for them to do is to equalize supply with demand by simply admitting fewer students in the first place. </p>

<p>But like I said, I don't think the responsibility to build marketable human capital necessarily needs to fall on the PhD programs specifically. The greater university administration can and should also take responsibility. Maybe the individual PhD programs don't care about branding. But the greater university does. Hence, if a PhD student discovers that he doesn't really want to enter a research career, he should be able to find extensive university-wide resources to find the career that he does want. </p>

<p>Otherwise, what you will have is former graduates who wind up in rinky-dink jobs and who will then inevitably denigrate their old school, and so will their friends and family. They will offer themselves up as cautionary tales of why that school is undesirable and unhelpful to their students. No school wants that. Schools should want alumni who are successful and who are happy to promote the school. </p>

<p>The bottom line is simple. Those students who don't want to become researchers are still your students. If you didn't want them to be your students, then you shouldn't have admitted them. But now that you did, it's your job to help them succeed within the career path that they do want. Just because their career goals are no longer congruent with yours does not stop them from being your students. Casting them out without career skills hurts everybody, the school included.</p>

94

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What of working for private or government institutions (NIH, FDA, CDC, what have you)? Those are neither classified as academic nor industry, right? Maybe I'll go into forensics. No one looks down on those folks in CSI. :p</p>

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<p>@Sakky: I know you've said you think MIT does a lot better job of this than most uni's. But I'm going to play this line anyway. Suppose that a noticeable portion of MIT PhD students admitted to dept X fall out of the PhD program and have to work at Taco Bell or what have you. Further suppose that these same students bad mouth MIT, degrading it's name. Don't you think MIT would have noticed? I mean MIT has eyes and ears in many of the topic academic departments and companies of the world. If MIT's name was being sullied and that resulted in any noticeable name brand damage, don't you think MIT would know this and consciously act on it? I don't think MIT is going to significantly change their stance / position on this matter unless there is good evidence that students who fall out of the PhD program are getting screwed big time. This is probably because MIT has a very small humanities graduate school.</p>

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<p>Kryptonsa -- are you a lower life form that you'd consider such professions?</p>

<p>(JUST KIDDING!)</p>

<p>But that's how the snobbish snobbery goes, I think. I think perhaps it becomes more and more tough to ignore this kind of snobbery as one looks at grad programs whose students are increasingly averse to careers other than academia. </p>

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<p>Isn't this pretty noncontroversial, people? If not, can there be specific reasons given as to why not? I mean, firstly let's look at this in the larger context of graduate school, rather than just MIT graduate school -- more and more at other schools (well, other than those comparable to MIT), students are probably less likely to become researchers. And more and more at other schools, who do NOT have MIT's name, the school needs to struggle more to keep its reputation high enough that students will want to attend. </p>

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<p>This point may work in the case of MIT, given MIT is MIT, and maybe not as many graduates complain, plus it seems pretty hard to drag down the name of such a famous school. But what about other schools!</p>

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Isn't this pretty noncontroversial, people? If not, can there be specific reasons given as to why not? I mean, firstly let's look at this in the larger context of graduate school, rather than just MIT graduate school -- more and more at other schools (well, other than those comparable to MIT), students are probably less likely to become researchers. And more and more at other schools, who do NOT have MIT's name, the school needs to struggle more to keep its reputation high enough that students will want to attend.

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<p>Ultimately, no school can be all things to all people. In the end, it can only make a best effort to provide educational services. If the marketplace can only support but so many researchers, the rest will have to do something else. This is true regardless of whether the school grants PhDs, MBAs, joint PhD-MBAs, certifications, or anything else. Reasonable people understand this, and make adjustments.</p>

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This point may work in the case of MIT, given MIT is MIT, and maybe not as many graduates complain, plus it seems pretty hard to drag down the name of such a famous school. But what about other schools!

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<p>A graduate school whose reputation can be sufficiently pulled down by a few complainers who feel they're entitled to more career services that the school can reasonably offer doesn't seem to have much to recommend itself.</p>

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<p>The purpose of a PhD program is not to produce "marketable human capital". It is to provide resources so that its graduates may become functional researchers. It may be years, decades, even centuries before the fruits of that research become valuable to society, let alone marketable. People who enter into PhD programs must realize this. If they do not, it is not the universities' fault. At best, the universities can make a best effort to provide career services, but they cannot guarantee that all the graduates will get the jobs they want, when they want. Reasonable people understand this, and make adjustments. But if there are enough complaints to cause the university to go out of business, it should just acknowledge that it is no longer needed.</p>

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The fact is, everybody who has been admitted to MIT for grad school has clearly been highly successful. They have never tasted failure. These are precisely the kinds of people who are most susceptible to being overconfident, a notion that has been substantiated in much of the academic psychology literature.

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<p>These are questionable assumptions, at best. And even if they were true in all cases, reasonable people acknowledge that there are no guarantees in life. So if these overconfident people complain about how unfair it is that they don't have the jobs they want, and the universities didn't do enough to help them get better jobs, reasonable people ignore them and go about the business of trying to make their way in the world.</p>

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You are absolutely correct in saying that nobody goes to MIT thinking that they are going to do poorly, yet the fact remains that, simply by definition, 5% of them must end up in the bottom 5% of their class. By not providing support to whoever ends up in that bottom 5%, MIT (and every other school) is basically taking advantage of people's overconfidence. That's harsh.

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<p>Reasonable people make adjustments when confronted with such circumstances. They don't feel they've been taken advantage of, because they realize there is no guarantee they will have the job they want, when they want.</p>

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A graduate school whose reputation can be sufficiently pulled down by a few complainers who feel they're entitled to more career services that the school can reasonably offer doesn't seem to have much to recommend itself.

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<p>Well, it's not just about "name" -- it's the general idea of how people from a given school are doing. I'm a "reasonable person" and well know that it's not a super easy world out there. But am I going to consider what graduates from university X are doing after they graduate? Probably. </p>

<p>I don't know that I quite understand yet exactly what Sakky proposes, but his general message seems to work -- I'm interpreting it to mean that schools should look out for their students. I understand a Ph.D. program is there for research purposes, and I don't think anyone here is suggesting that be changed...</p>