Leave PhD with MS for a better Program

<p>Is is possible to start for a PhD, and if you feel you're doing really well, try to leave that program with an MS and go for a more prestigious PhD program? Would this be considered unethical?</p>

<p>Do you have a reason for this? Is it just prestige or is it due to the limitations of research topics at your current school? Would you be alright starting over from scratch at a new place?</p>

<p>It would be unethical to <em>plan</em> to do it. If you accept an offer of admission from an institution due to a full funding package or other reasons with the full intent to reapply to a "better option" after two years, it would be somewhere along the moral lines of deliberately marrying somebody for money, waiting until you've got kids together, then starting divorce proceedings so you can take a handsome slice of alimony to live comfortably with someone prettier.</p>

<p>If however, a marriage just isn't working out--your spouse/adviser just can't get the funding you need, you find that your interests don't jibe as well as they seemed during courtship/open house--then there's nothing technically bad about leaving. However, if you do do this, I would suggest that you don't step foot on your former campus again, and don't bother to ask your former advisers to write recommendations for your new program. Even if a break-up would be best for everyone, exes can get pretty sore.</p>

<p>This happened at my institution about five years back; a promising young lady took the best funding package the chemistry department could give, used her advisers' resources for a few years, then decided she didn't really want to get a PhD, grabbed a masters and sold out to pharmaceuticals. Faculty and staff still buzz angrily about it every year at admissions time; her name is an infamous synonym for traitorous grads. And she didn't even leave for someone else.</p>

<p>I would like to take issue with this impression that working in pharma is somehow "selling out". This idea is pervasive among academics and it isn't appropriate. Pharma catalyzes a lot of original research and even if the environment isn't for you (it is not for me) that doesn't mean that people who do it are somehow inferior or are "selling out" on their morals. It is fairly obvious to me that people involved in the altruistic field of therapeutic innovation/drug discovery are not just corporate slaves. They chose to be there because they feel that their efforts have inherent value. If anything, the work of scientists in pharma are more directly connected to the improvement of healthcare in society. They just get paid a lot more to do it.</p>

<p>Dude, I wasn't insulting the pharmaceutical industry. I was relaying the department faculty's reaction to this student's choice to leave academia--in their minds, and from some of their mouths, she "sold out." It's their way of lashing out at the underlying issue: that they were abandoned. She broke an invisible contract and sold /them/ out for industry; pharmaceuticals were in no way implicated as a lesser path or anything of the sort. The faculty chair here actually spent a considerable portion of his life at Eli Lilly developing the insulin analog that replaced the traditional stuff harvested from pigs...we're big supporters of pharmaceuticals, as long as students enter the industry <em>after</em> their proclaimed graduation date. There's no need to get your dander up.</p>

<p>"I was relaying the department faculty's reaction to this student's choice to leave academia--in their minds, and from some of their mouths, she "sold out." It's their way of lashing out at the underlying issue: that they were abandoned."</p>

<p>Good G-d! What small minded ninnies you work with! She decided she didn't want to finish a Ph.D., well lots of people decide that. She decided she'd make more money in industry than in academia, well lots of people have figured that one out. That they feel emotionally "abandoned", and fuss about it all these years later, and you don't have what it takes to tell them to shut up and get over it? </p>

<p>Tell us, what exactly was she supposed to do? Work as a grad student slave in her advisor's lab indefinitely? Give back the money they'd awarded her after she decided to leave? At some point she was going to finish, and she was going to leave. That she left earlier than originally expected, and for industry instead of academia, really should not be such a big deal. Not every Ph.D. candidate is going to permanently join the academic life!</p>

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<p>Yeah, I see your point.</p>

<p>So if I do an MS and then decide to do a PhD, would I still have to go through about 6 years, just like someone who starts the PhD program with a Bachelor's?</p>

<p>Probably. The big problem is getting started in research, getting an advisor, taking classes that aren't covered by your masters (this can be up to a year at some places), etc. It's really not worth it if you're going STRAIGHT to that school from MS. In addition, have you considered the downsides of going to a prestigious uni? The competition for good advisors will be way more intense than at a lower ranked place. Ask yourself if you think you can distinguish yourself at a much better uni.</p>

<p>"you don't have what it takes to tell them to shut up and get over it?"</p>

<p>Excuse me? I'm sorry that I, as a 20-year-old undergraduate, don't have the moral fiber to be that despicably rude to people with forty years more experience than I do. The only reason I know about this tiff is because I have friends who work at the chemistry IT department who listen to the gossip around the office.</p>

<p>Last time I checked, five to seven years is not an indefinite amount of time. If she had hated it so much, she could have worked hard to get out in four, and then she would have a degree that actually means something in pharmaceuticals. Here were her choices: work for two more years at the university and leave for a research position in pharmaceuticals that pays $150k a year, or leave right now and work as a project manager for two years at the same company to get up to a whopping $60k. Hence, I really doubt her primary motivation for leaving was money. But whatever her reason, she could at least have left gracefully. It wouldn't be a big deal if she had been honest with her advisers, wrapped up any loose projects she had lying about, and made sure the classes she was AI-ing the next semester were taken care of.</p>

<p>I had thought we had stopped substituting name-calling and character bashing for reasonable discourse in high school. Guess I was wrong.</p>

<p>I can understand why they were so upset over it. That was a few ten thousands of dollars they set aside for the purpose of producing PhD students that will bring more prestige to their graduate programs. She took it and then left before completing the program. And I'd venture this wasn't some 'unsaid' contract. I'm sure she signed actual contracts clearly stating that the fellowship money was for a PhD and not a Masters. How would you feel if you paid a contractor $30,000+ to do something for you, they take your money, and then leave the job halfway finished saying, "Actually, I changed my mind, I don't want to do this anymore."?</p>

<p>If she had wanted a Masters from the start, she should have paid for it like everyone else does - not try to trick the system by going for a PhD and then make all the offices jump through loops to try to release her with a Masters. If she went into it for a PhD and then decided she didn't like it after two years, she shouldn't have been in the program to begin with. Going into a PhD program isn't something to be taken lightly enough that there's a possibility that you'd want to quit later.</p>

<p>If that student tried to do that at this institution, she'd probably have to repay the fellowship. Just like the contractor should refund you for leaving a job half-finished.</p>

<p>I hope all those who are criticizing this girl for leaving with a MS know that less than 50% of grad students entering a PhD program finish nationwide. It is so commonplace, it sounds to me that the said department is too naive for not being ready for these situations. How did they know a PhD wasn't for them until they tried it out? Some of these comments are laughable.</p>

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Here were her choices: work for two more years at the university and leave for a research position in pharmaceuticals that pays $150k a year

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<p>I would like to know more about these pharmaceutical research positions that supposedly pay $150k a year to start for guys fresh out of their chemistry PhD program. Exactly which pharma firms are paying that kind of money? Even the chemistry PhD's out of MIT who go into industry (hence, not post-docs or academia) made an average starting salary of less than $90k in 2007. Somehow, I doubt that Indiana University chemistry Phd grads are better paid than their MIT counterparts.</p>

<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation07.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation07.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>75% in the sciences, but your point is accurate that there is no guarantee of finishing a PhD. Tkm, I wasn't accusing you of being complicit in the "selling out" sentiments. I was addressing a common belief in academia. I didn't mean to come off as insulting towards you.</p>

<p>I have to agree with jmilton90 and belevitt on this one.</p>

<p>Look, the truth is, it's the department's own fault for admitting this woman. So maybe she shouldn't have been in the program to begin with and maybe she took them for a ride. Well, then I have to ask, why did the department admit here in the first place? </p>

<p>Besides, I would ask, how much money was really 'lost' in this endeavor, if 'lost' really is the right word for it? Maybe $30,000 worth of grad-student support? In the grand scheme of matters, that's really small beer. I've known junior faculty who were hired onto the tenure track and then, before their tenure review was even up, quit to join some other university or to industry. That clearly "cost" those departments far more than whatever this girl "cost" her department. Heck, there are professors who win tenure and then afterwards choose to do very little academic work at all, and the department can't get rid of them because they're tenured. That's quite costly. </p>

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How would you feel if you paid a contractor $30,000+ to do something for you, they take your money, and then leave the job halfway finished saying, "Actually, I changed my mind, I don't want to do this anymore."?

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If that student tried to do that at this institution, she'd probably have to repay the fellowship. Just like the contractor should refund you for leaving a job half-finished.

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<p>I don't think the contractor analogy is the right one, for any real-world contractor is clearly going to charge you far far more than $30,000 for 2 years of work. Probably an order of magnitude more than that (I know I would). Moreover, contractors are also free to take on multiple projects at once. You can't easily convince a contractor that he can work on your - and only your - project for the next few years and is not allowed to take on any other jobs from other customers. Even if you could convince a contractor to maintain such exclusivity, he would surely charge you a ridiculous price to compensate for the lost business. On the other hand, students (usually) can't be in multiple PhD programs at the same time. </p>

<p>A far more apt analogy would be that of regular employment (as opposed to contracting). Some people that you hire will be great employees. Others will turn out to be bad employees. But certainly, it's a stretch to say that those bad employees should refund all of their pay (because, if nothing else, that would provide the incentive for all employers to just "say" that all of their employees are bad employees in order to avoid ever having to pay any salary to anybody and hence just people to work for free.} </p>

<p>In fact, that's the risk you take as a company: that you often times have to pay your employees without actually knowing whether their production is valuable. When Apple hired engineers to build the first Ipod, Apple had no idea whether they would actually produce a good product, or, heck, even if some of them would have quit midway through the project in order to work for somebody else. But Apple had to pay them regardless. That's the risk Apple had to take as a company. </p>

<p>Again, that's why it's important for Apple to have hired the right people. If Apple had hired a bunch of engineers who turned out to be productive, well, Apple has nobody to blame for that but itself. Apple should have hired more carefully. Similarly, if that department admitted a girl who didn't really want to complete the program, hey, that department shouldn't have admitted that girl and now has only itself to blame.</p>

<p>I admit I blew the salaries out of proportion; they were just numbers off the top of my head based on the salaries of people I know who have been in the industry for a while (which I should know better than to do, because invariably somebody will want to whip out links and gloat. Here's another link with more accurate numbers than I carelessly typed above: PayScale</a> - Eli Lilly & Company Employer Salary, Average Salaries).</p>

<p>jmilton, would this sort of comment be "laughable" if we were talking about another walk of life? People treat academia like it exists for the benefit of students only--it can be used for money and thrown away like a worn-out shoe. Heck, we should /expect/ people to abuse the system! Imagine a high school senior accepts an ROTC scholarship: free tuition if you work for the army for five years after graduation. They finish undergrad, and then say "You know what? The military just isn't for me." Happens to a lot of people, right? How could they know they weren't cut out for the military unless they /tried/ first? Naturally, they should just be set loose from the contract. Forget the years of service they had pledged to; the government will understand. They'd be naive ninnies to expect the poor little guy to actually follow through.</p>

<p>Graduate education, kind of like the ROTC deal, comes in two phases: the taking phase and the giving phase. Masters is the taking phase. You take classes, you learn techniques, you spend comparatively little of your time in the lab maybe rotating through a couple of advisers finding your groove. After quals comes the giving phase. You contribute to your advisers' work, you teach other budding scholars, you bolster the reputation of the university with your publications. Universities and private donors shell out fellowships with the understanding that the work you do in phase two will justify the cost of phase one. The girl in question didn't even bother to attempt phase two; she just took a free degree and left. I'm more than a little surprised that anyone on these boards thinks that was perfectly acceptable.</p>

<p>Of course there isn't a guarantee of finishing, but hopefully most people fail to finish because after at least attempting to give back for a year or two after the masters mark, the dissertation just doesn't work out. The OP of this thread, however, was considering deliberately accepting an offer to study for a doctorate at a particular institution in full knowledge that he/she would be leaving after two years, ostensibly as a way of getting a free masters. My point in even bringing up the girl was that this would be frowned upon heavily.</p>

<p>"hey, that department shouldn't have admitted that girl and now has only itself to blame."</p>

<p>This is true, but I think you've missed the point of this thread. You're now telling the OP, who had planned to follow in this woman's footsteps, that it's perfectly okay to do. Naturally, he shouldn't feel guilty at all doing this--it will be the department's own fault for trusting him.</p>

<p>This is like someone posting on the fictional Criminals 'R Us forum: "Is it okay to shoplift?" and the replies say "Well, it's really the store's fault for letting in customers who could steal from them. They only have themselves to blame for not putting enough security up...and it's just a shirt, they won't lose that much out of it. So yeah, go right ahead."</p>

<p>
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jmilton, would this sort of comment be "laughable" if we were talking about another walk of life? People treat academia like it exists for the benefit of students only--it can be used for money and thrown away like a worn-out shoe. Heck, we should /expect/ people to abuse the system! Imagine a high school senior accepts an ROTC scholarship: free tuition if you work for the army for five years after graduation. They finish undergrad, and then say "You know what? The military just isn't for me." Happens to a lot of people, right? How could they know they weren't cut out for the military unless they /tried/ first? Naturally, they should just be set loose from the contract. Forget the years of service they had pledged to; the government will understand. They'd be naive ninnies to expect the poor little guy to actually follow through.

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<p>This analogy is not apt also. Simply put, the ROTC system has specific and spelled-out consequences if you take the money and then refuse to complete your commitment. In short, everybody knows what the rules are beforehand, and hence people can make a decision about whether they want to participate. </p>

<p>On the other hand, there are no written penalties involved in entering a PhD program just to get funding and a master's degree and then leave. Which means that some people who apply to the program are probably going to view it as a way to do just that. Hence, the admissions committee is supposed to know that that might happen, and then properly vet applicants accordingly. If they refuse to do that, hey, they have nobody to blame but themselves.</p>

<p>
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This is like someone posting on the fictional Criminals 'R Us forum: "Is it okay to shoplift?" and the replies say "Well, it's really the store's fault for letting in customers who could steal from them. They only have themselves to blame for not putting enough security up...and it's just a shirt, they won't lose that much out of it. So yeah, go right ahead."

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<p>That's not the same, for the issue involved is not criminal. It is not a crime to take PhD funding and then just leave with a master's. You have not broken any laws.</p>

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Graduate education, kind of like the ROTC deal, comes in two phases: the taking phase and the giving phase. Masters is the taking phase. You take classes, you learn techniques, you spend comparatively little of your time in the lab maybe rotating through a couple of advisers finding your groove. After quals comes the giving phase. You contribute to your advisers' work, you teach other budding scholars, you bolster the reputation of the university with your publications. Universities and private donors shell out fellowships with the understanding that the work you do in phase two will justify the cost of phase one. The girl in question didn't even bother to attempt phase two; she just took a free degree and left. I'm more than a little surprised that anyone on these boards thinks that was perfectly acceptable.

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<p>I'm simply saying that we shouldn't be surprised to find people who are going to follow their own incentives. First off, why is there the taking phase, followed by the giving phase? Why not mix both? Have your students start serving as RA's or otherwise contributing to the department immediately. That way, even if those students do leave in midstream, the department has still benefitted from the limited time they were there. While I don't know what's going on at IU, I know that many Phd students at Harvard and MIT are closely collaborating with faculty as soon as they enter the program. </p>

<p>Secondly, and far more importantly, why is the department in question making it so easy to get that master's degree? Again, I know many PhD programs that make the interim master's quite difficult and time-consuming to obtain that often times many students don't even bother getting one at all. My father, for example, never bothered to pick up an MS - he just got the PhD. I know of other programs where students who do get the MS will do so after only many years, by which time they have been substantially contributing to the program. </p>

<p>So, again, if the department is going to make it so easy for people to obtain the MS and then leave without ever really contributing to the department, then I would blame the department. The department should change the incentives it provides.</p>

<p>sakky, I give up. You're apparently one of those people who can't differentiate between morality and law.</p>