Leave PhD with MS for a better Program

Graduate School
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<p>uh… did someone just compare quitting a PhD program to shoplifting???.. Now that comment is for sure laughable.</p>

<p>I don’t think changing your mind about terminating at the MS level in a PhD is considered morally comparable to “stealing.” It’s called a change of heart. Believe me, if a grad student doesn’t have the commitment to continue, it is better for him/her to just leave with the MS and the advisor/department to simply let them go. Any grad students on this forum will know that good research is not coerced research. And stop twisting it into a discussion like the girl had full intentions to just terminate at the MS. My discussion is about a young lady who had intentions to complete a PhD but changed her mind. Most 21-22 year olds entering graduate programs don’t have the maturity to understand the commitment of a PhD level research and implications of a PhD career-wise. So… is there really more to discuss here.?</p>

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<p>by saying there is a -difference- between ROTC and PhD funding isn’t that differentiating between the two? honestly you are the one who is not differentiating between the two. the OP’s question asked if it would be unethical. law has nothing to do with it. your answer is yes, sakky’s answer is (maybe?), and obviously the OP thinks it might be unethical or else he wouldn’t have even bothered asking the question.</p>

<p>i think a good judge would be whether the dept will let you enter for just a master’s - most will not, which means they expect you to complete your phd there. some depts will, though, and so i would look towards those if your intent is to switch universities at that point.</p>

<p>perhaps the point is that leaving for a doctorate somewhere else is not in itself unethical, but leading on advisors, people participating in projects, students signed up for classes, etc to think you will not only be getting your phd there but also continuing the next year just to up and leave suddenly without adequate time to readjust would be unethical.</p>

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<p>Good Lord, people. Saying there is a difference between ROTC and PhD funding /isn’t/ differentiating between the morality and law; it’s saying that law is the ultimate determinant of morality. i.e. ROTC contracts are sealed by law and fellowships aren’t, therefore, breaking the ROTC contract is immoral while breaking the understood fellowship contract isn’t. I can’t believe I’m responding to people functioning on Kohlberg’s level 2.</p>

<p>jmilton: read the OP’s posts. This is not a question of change of heart. This is a question of purposefully signing on for funding when you don’t intend to follow through.</p>

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<p>tkm256, I have to agree with hazelorb here: I’m afraid that by comparing PhD funding to ROTC students, it is you who is choosing not to differentiate between morality and law. </p>

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<p>I’m simply pointing out that your analogies are not apropos. You then chose to respond with ad-hominem attacks. I wonder which Kohlberg stage would describe that?</p>

<p>I’m making the basic point that if the IU’s chemistry department wants to be angry at somebody, they should be angry at themselves. They should be angry for having admitted somebody that they shouldn’t have admitted, shouldn’t have provided her resources without asking for her to contribute, and - most of all - shouldn’t have conferred that master’s degree upon her so easily. That’s simply indicative of poor management of your program.</p>

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<p>Easily? You think this would be circulating around the office three years later because it was a quiet little exchange? She kicked, fought, and fussed to get that degree. She made secretaries’ lives hell. She was not nice about it. If she was, I would never have heard the grumblings.</p>

<p>I think we’re thinking along different lines of morality here. Your previous arguments were to the effect of “that analogy isn’t correct because your example is against the law, and this isn’t” (quote: ‘you have not broken any laws.’) I naturally assumed you were saying that the ethics of a decision rest on whether or not the action is legal, e.g. reasoning by Kohlberg’s second level, conventional morality. In my mind, the ROTC example captured the central idea of deceit that someone would commit by deliberately signing on to a PhD program with the intent of leaving midway to attend another school (and I must emphasize, again, that this was the OP’s hypothetical design. No change of heart–complete intent to remain in academia). And I think if you didn’t have it in your head that I’m a bad person to be defeated, you would see it too.</p>

<p>Now, as you say you really weren’t arguing about the thread’s topic at all, and really just defending some unknown person against moral condemnation (who, really, was only invoked as a scare tactic), I must assume that other aspects of your posts were meant to be at the fore and I just remembered the bits where you were birdwalking. Especially those attempts to argue via ethos, since we’re throwing Latin about here–focusing on completely unrelated criticisms like “I would pay a contractor much more than $30k” as an attempt to debunk an author instead of thinking about the central idea and replying in good faith. Then I start birdwalking too, and next thing you know people are being much too aggressive and the poor OP is left out of the conversation entirely.</p>

<p>I think we’re getting at the same thing, though you think it’s best to do so by saying there’s something wrong with my institution (which is okay, because I don’t like them that much either…especially the administrative offices. They can get kind of mean from the stress. That’s why I’m applying to library schools in Canada >.>): we both agree with hazelorb’s last paragraph. Basically, it rests on intent. If you mean to cheat someone, it’s bad. If you don’t mean to, but it turns out you can’t fulfill your goals by staying where you are, it’s not.</p>

<p>OP, if you haven’t been scared away by this forum yet, just choose a school that you’ll be happy with for the next five to seven years. If you’re not certain a PhD is for you, apply for a masters first. Actually, first do some research. If you’re asking basic questions like “would it take just as long in a different PhD program?” you probably aren’t that familiar with the way graduate school works. Read up, talk to advisers, talk to current grad students. I don’t know your academic level, but if it’s during or before undergrad, get into research before you take the leap. It’ll get you some good rec’s too ;)</p>

<p>And Kohlberg didn’t say anything about how people argue, though I think this entire discussion is somewhere around level two, category three (“good boy/bad boy”).</p>

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<p>Differing from the previous post, it is much easier to apply first to PhD and then switch to MS if you change your mind, than M.S. –> PhD. The former might save you time actually.</p>

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<p>Really? I thought it was the other way around, because (a) it’s easier to be accepted for a masters program straight out of undergrad because they don’t have to worry as much about funding etc., and (b) it’s easier to be accepted for a PhD if you have all the research experience accumulated from your time as a masters student. However, someone had mentioned that you’d have to spend almost the same amount of time on a PhD as if you’d gotten a master’s first, which is probably true unless you continue at the same institution.</p>

<p>What field are you in, by the way? It differs there, too–I know for library science, it’s pointless to embark on a PhD unless you have a MLS or MIS first. A lot of the computer science doctoral students here have masters degrees (I was told by the recruiter for HCI that they were ‘strongly encouraged’ for the experience), the comp. lit. department requires all potential PhDs to complete the MA coursework before petitioning to continue their studies, and one of the schools of education I was looking at a while ago wouldn’t consider an applicant unless they had a masters in a related field from a different institution.</p>

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<p>I’m a chemical engineer. They barely accept master’s students.</p>

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<p>^^ That makes sense. Research in the hard sciences is really individualized to the group and expensive. Why would a researcher involved in massive projects want to take on students who will leave after two years, when he can get one that will be dependable and increasingly useful over six?</p>

<p>In the humanities, though, I don’t think that graduate students are as terribly central to a professor’s work, because the labor is primarily mental. No beakers to wash, no mass specs to run, no cultures to grow, no programs to code, no kilobytes of data to run stats on. What use are grad students to a comp lit professor, really, other than grading undergrad papers and running over to pick up books from this or that source? They still have to read their primary sources and write their papers themselves. I’d like people in the field to chime in, though, because there are probably many functions of a doctoral student in the humanities that are invisible to us outsiders.</p>

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<p>In the humanities, generally it’s understood that there will be people who choose to leave after the coursework and comps because they’ve decided the PhD is not for them. I can’t speak for every program and every professor, and certainly there will be some that get bent out of shape about it. Mostly, though, it’s just something that happens.</p>

<p>When any grad student leaves without the PhD, it hurts the program in some way. When grad students choose programs, they check out statistics on finishing the program and placement of students (the smart ones do, anyway). Anytime a grad student leaves without the PhD, it skews those results. While the student may not be integral to a specific professor’s research, the program invests resources in each grad student to get a certain return in reputation and recognition. That is, they expect you to go on to do solid research and gain a good position after finishing. This allows their name to be “out there,” and it increases the program’s network, benefiting future graduates.</p>

<p>I believe what TKM is trying to say is true. It is one thing to go for the PhD with every intention of finishing, decide partway through that you don’t really want to make that sort of commitment, and leaving with the master’s. That’s acceptable. It’s entirely another to purposefully enter a PhD program with the intent to never finish. That’s deceptive and unethical.</p>

<p>If you really only want a master’s, apply for a master’s program that funds its students.</p>

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<p>This is odd - so you are saying that you can get a degree at IU simply by raising havoc? Your schools seems to be quite the pushover then. I don’t know what’s going on at IU, but I would say that at the schools that I know, if you don’t fulfill the requirements of the degree, then you won’t get it. It doesn’t matter how much hell you raise. Hence, maybe that points to the real solution - IU should simply increase the requirements of the MS.</p>

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<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, … 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>tkm256 -</p>

<p>Sorry to have upset you. From the detail in your original post, I assumed that you were a faculty or senior staff member, not an undergraduate student. Certainly I wouldn’t expect an undergraduate to tell their faculty advisors to quit whining about something as petty as this. However it certainly is within my purview as a grown-up to call other adults on the carpet when they behave in unseemly ways. Whining incessantly about what someone did five years ago falls into that category.</p>

<p>Likewise, I assumed that the young lady in question left for a paying job because in my experience, just about any beginning salary in industry is going to be much more than what is normally collected on a grad assistantship. If indeed she left on such extreme short notice as your post indicates, one would be forgiven for suspecting that she indeed had come to “hate it” - in which case a quick departure was probably the wisest move available to her. You may fault her a few points for style, but again, not knowing the situation, she may have done the best she could with the time that she had. Hating the place where you are, or the people you are with, can make even one more day (let alone two more years) look like an eternity. Ph.D. programs are well known for taking longer than expected, and for not guaranteeing any certainty of gainful employment. I expect that she made what she believed to be the best choice for herself.</p>

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<p>This is a fair point, though. If a person decides the PhD just isn’t worth it, then s/he should be expected to leave gracefully. It isn’t unfair to expect an adult to notify advisors and work out how to turn responsibilities over. A grad student is, in many ways, an employee of the university as well as a student. When a grad student dumps all their lab and teaching responsibilities without a second glance, it really screws up the entire system. Some of you are parents with college-aged kids. You’d be screaming holy hell if a TA suddenly dumped their responsibilities to your undergrad students, and rightfully so.</p>

<p>Grad students are adults. Grad studies involve adult responsibilities. Part of being an adult is learning to leave a job gracefully. It sounds like the person in question did not do so, which understandably would leave a bad taste in the collective mouth of the program.</p>

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<p>sakky, you have some great ideas, but they keep getting buried in the snappish language you use, which is highly incondusive to clear communication. Instead of letting the constructive advice of your posts alone, you’ve been decorating them with needless insults: “That’s bad management of your program,” “Your school seems to be quite the pushover,” “I blame the department”…it’s like you have a personal grudge against IU chemists.</p>

<p>What exactly do you hope to accomplish by throwing punches at my program? You can express your disagreement with me and my school quite adequately without nastiness, but for some reason choose not to. Instead of “tkm: You’re numbers are off. New PhD graduates make on average of less than $90k a year, not $150 [link], but it is true that there is a disparity between holders of doctorate and masters degrees” you say “I would like to know more about these pharmaceutical research positions that supposedly pay $150k a year…Somehow, I doubt that Indiana University chemistry PhD grads are better paid than their MIT counterparts.” Simple contradiction and correction for my mistake is sufficient, but you prefer to heap sarcasm and ill will in the reply. Instead of “I believe your department overreacted, but management can easily make some changes in the requirements of their grad students to make sure this doesn’t happen again” you say “your department is bad bad bad.”</p>

<p>I’m not sure if this is just your style of forum-posting or if I said something to offend you in my original posts (because the streak of meanness did begin before I said anything to you directly). Or maybe you’re an IU graduate and you disliked it so much that you’ve made it a personal mission to slam it at every opportunity. Whatever your goals, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from the insults in future replies, and focus on the discussion of ethics the OP had hoped to initiate.</p>

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<p>“I would say that at the schools that I know, if you don’t fulfill the requirements of the degree, then you won’t get it.”</p>

<p>D’oh <em>slaps self on forehead</em>. I forgot to mention a crucial detail that would have allayed a lot of strife: IU doesn’t /have/ a master’s program. There’s a masters of arts in teaching degree, but that’s just a masters from the School of Education with some upper level undergraduate chemistry courses thrown in–and the masters of chemical information is administered by the library school. You can see for yourself, no straight master’s program exists, and therefore there were no requirements to fill: [Chemistry</a> @ IU :: Degrees & Programs](<a href=“http://chem.indiana.edu/grad/degrees.asp]Chemistry”>http://chem.indiana.edu/grad/degrees.asp)</p>

<p>Now, I remember reading on an old bulletin that the school can unofficially confer an MA upon students who simply can’t fill the requirements (they can’t get funding, they have kids and can’t live on the $20k stipend anymore, they failed the jury a second time, etc.). The procedure was something to the effect of the student sitting down with departmental advisers and outlining a course-heavy schedule for the next year so they would mimic fulfilling requirements for an MA at similar institutions. In the blowup incident, the woman didn’t want to do this–she wanted to get out then and there and demanded that the classes she already took count for the masters. They broke down and gave it to her, because they didn’t have official grounds to deny her on, figuring there’s not much you can do with a master of arts in chemistry, anyway.</p>

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<p>I have no grudge against IU chemists. </p>

<p>The issue is that the IU chemistry program has evidently designed a program with mixed incentives and then are shocked, shocked to discover that somebody would enter the program who does not share the same goals as the administration does. Even that is not a problem in itself - the real problem is that they are somehow holding a long-standing grudge against this woman. That’s where I have a problem. If they want to assign blame, then they should assign it where it belongs: to themselves. </p>

<p>Look at it this way. You said it yourself: the incident in question happened (5?) years ago. Frankly, if I was in that department, then, in the grand scheme of things, I would consider this to little more than a minor issue, not only because it happened so long ago, but because surely far more controversial things have happened in the department since then. But the department is still nursing the grudge. Seriously, why? Come on, that was a long time ago. They really need to let it go. How long are they going to keep clinging to this incident? I think it’s time for the department to move on, don’t you? </p>

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<p>First off, don’t tell me how to post. You don’t run this discussion board. We all have the right to free speech. If you don’t like my posts, then you don’t have to read them. </p>

<p>Secondly, from everything you have told me, I have concluded that the IU chemistry department managed this admission case quite poorly, and I am well within my rights to say so. Why does this bother you so much? It has nothing to do with you. I am not insulting you personally. </p>

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<p>Then that lowers my opinion of the management of the program even further (if that is even possible), for 2 reasons. First, come on, get a backbone. You can’t just have students pushing you around to give them a degree that doesn’t even officially exist. If the requirements of a particular degree are not spelled out, and you don’t feel that a student has earned a degree, then you don’t have to give it to her. I don’t know too many other schools where students can simply badger their schools to give them a master’s degree.</p>

<p>But secondly, and far more importantly, you said it yourself: the department felt that you can’t do much with a MA in chemistry anyway. OK, then if that’s really true, then that gets back to what I said above: why do they still care so much about the incident after so many years? Why are they still angry about it? Like you said, she ended up with a degree that (the department believes) is not valuable anyway, so who cares? Hence, at least according to the department, that woman basically ended up wasting her time for a few years earning a far lower pay package that she would have earned if she had entered the workforce directly, only to wind up with a degree that doesn’t have much value. Shouldn’t that be punishment enough? So why is the department still harping over the incident years later? I think we can agree that it’s time for the department to let it go and move on.</p>