<p>I am one of those people who would really be glad if they could get their PhDs in 5 or so years. I have already joined a group and it seems that my supervisor tends to graduate students in like 6 years. Ok I know its just one year but one year is a long time. Like does working harder than normal (yes I know PhD students work really hard but I have obesrved most are not that efficient) and taking less holidays help you complete the PhD faster or should I just follow the normal course of nature and assume I will probably be completing my PhD in 6 years if I even make it that long??</p>
<p>Also who decides that you are done- your supervisor??? And is it based on how advanced you are in your research or do they just have a specific time they want you to be around?</p>
<p>Your advisor and reading committee (but mostly your advisor) determine when your research and dissertation have provided enough of a contribution to grant your degree. And it’s entirely up to them. If your advisor wants to make you wait for 6 years, then it’s 6 years even if you finish your work early and spend the last year twiddling your thumbs.</p>
<p>Sometimes advisors have some milestone that they’re looking for. Like they want you to have enough research for some predefined number of journal submissions. If you hit that early, they’ll let you out early. But too often they just have a predefined number of years.</p>
<p>My milestones were pretty clear: Complete coursework, pass language exams, get an advisor (first reader), pass qualifying exams, complete and get prospectus approved, get green lights on chapters as you complete them (some of these were begun as papers in classes), assemble a committee, schedule the defense, defend the dissertation. For me this took 7 years. See if you can get these steps nailed down and put together a plan.</p>
<p>Your advisor. This is why it is so critical to select a decent advisor. If you select an ass, then they will make your life a living hell, make you stay longer than you ever intended, and require you to publish before you finish your dissertation. </p>
<p>If you know already, that your advisor’s timeline does not mesh with your timeline you might want to consider transferring advisors, programs, or schools if necessary. You don’t want to spend the next five years of your life completely miserable.</p>
<p>The milestones are usually pretty clear. The problem is the time to progress to the next milestone. </p>
<p>My milestones were start -> courses -> exams -> proposal -> defense. The courses were spelled out in the handbook and the exams followed the coursework, so everyone took the same time from start -> exams. The difference was the time from exams -> proposal and proposal -> defense, and these times varied wildly. The advisor determined when the proposal could be submitted, and the committee (heavily influenced by the advisor) determined when the defense could be scheduled. Some students went start -> defense in 4 years, some took 6 years. Some advisors had a specific amount of time (5 years) and some based it on the numbers of papers accepted to 1st tier journals. </p>
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<p>I think this is a good idea for an advanced student, but for a relatively new student it’s going to be very hard to nail down milestone timing. How is someone supposed to answer “How long will it take me to propose from the time I pass quals?” if you haven’t really started your dissertation yet? And you can’t really ask “What do I need to be able to propose?” because the answer will be a vague “Good research with a clear direction.”</p>
<p>How long it takes varies a lot based on advisor. I am pretty sure how it works is: if you want to leave before 5 years, the advisor should be convinced you have been super productive and will continue.</p>
<p>Else, you will stay 5 to 6 and graduate assuming the advisor was happy with your progress. Some advisors expressly have the number 6 in mind.</p>
<p>I am sure they have some minimal standards, but I doubt they apply the same one to all students. After all, depending on who you are and what you work on, your progresses could be measured quite differently.</p>
<p>I suppose that it depends on the U and dept; maybe I got lucky. I was in a humanities dept. at a major East Coast U and everyone was helpful and encouraging all the way and the sequence was clear. The only setback was having to retake one of my 4 quals, which put me back about a half a year. Otherwise the director of grad studies helped run interference and my advisor was on my side. No one wanted to stall me, in fact, they wanted to keep me moving. Even so, it did take 7 years, and this was post-Masters. There was some serious good cop/bad cop at the defense but I chalked that up to expected hazing. One of my colleagues that year did not pass his defense but after some rewrites he was able to successfully defend later the same year.</p>
<p>As someone who went into this saying “I want to graduate in 5 years or less” - take your time. The average time to degree for even the sciences is 5-7 years, and if you are in the social sciences you can expect it to take a little longer. How much time you spend on each milestone really depends on your research. For example, let’s say that - by no fault of your own - one of your experiments fails. Or your data gets messed up and you need to collect extra. Or you have a nervous breakdown and need to slow down a little bit. There are many things that can happen that can make a program take 6 or 7 years - it’s not really a big deal. It feels like one on the front end, but once you are in the program, it’s not. I’m in my fourth year and I am contemplating taking a 6th to give me more time to finish and publish.</p>
<p>also:</p>
<p>yes I know PhD students work really hard but I have obesrved most are not that efficient</p>
<p>This is amusing to me because you are not in a PhD program yet, so you have no idea what “efficient” actually means. They may not LOOK efficient to you, but successfully completing a PhD program is as much about time management as it is about anything else. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. If you work 24/7 you’ll burn out and take even longer to finish. When you are in a PhD program yourself, it’ll become more clear to you, but don’t write the ones you see off as “not that efficient.” I thought that way too when i was just in my coursework, then as I got into my exams and my research phase i realized exactly how hard this stuff is and why it takes so long, especially in social science fields.</p>
<p>Taking fewer holidays may or may not help. It depends on your work style. I need a rejuvenating break every now and then so I can get back into the game, and so not taking a break wouldn’t help me. But some people are the fanatical kind who can spend 7 days in the lab, so…they can do what they want.</p>
<p>juillet, i think the op is in grad school, “I have already joined a group and it seems that my supervisor tends to graduate students in like 6 years.”</p>
<p>Like juillet said, the specific research topics you choose can influence how long you take. For one thing, an important question is: how long do you personally need?! After all, you may be more prepared for topic A than B entering grad school, but decide topic B is more interesting to you.</p>
<p>I also have to agree that the whole taking fewer holidays thing is not really a practical way of finishing the PhD earlier; when you’re talking a 5 vs 7 year PhD, you’re really not talking the difference between some holidays and not. There have to be things majorly influencing how much time your PhD takes to finish.</p>
<p>Hm, some of what he said seemed to indicate that he wasn’t in a program, but I think you’re right. I still maintain that you don’t realize how difficult it is to complete exams and independent projects when you’re still in coursework. Milestones are much easier when they aren’t controlled by you; classes are time-bounded, so most everyone finishes them quickly. It’s AFTER that, when your progression relies mainly on you, when you realize what takes everyone so long and make your peace with being in for the long haul.</p>
<p>I’ve found there’s also a lot of work you don’t see in the first year or two that happens later on in your grad career. Generally it’s not the brand new students that have to fix machines that are broken or that are doing the “riskier” projects that might not pan out. Usually early on in your grad career you’re going to take an easier project that you know will work, so you’ll have something solid to present for your candidacy exam.</p>
<p>I also know as the years have grown on I’ve picked up a lot more general responsibilities that slow down my lab progress. Having to train new people, safety manager, coaching a softball team during the season, etc. all start to eat away at your available time. You’ll also be juggling a few different projects, so while progress on individual projects can be slow you can still be doing a lot.</p>
<p>Most advisors think a Ph.D is indentured servitude and treat it as such. The only way I know of to graduate in a given timeframe is to make sure your funding runs out then :).</p>
<p>lol That comic is so true (the previous one is even better). I usually say that a finished dissertation is like a pretty girl: you know it when you see it, but you can’t explain why. And if someone asked you what one looks like, you can give a vague description but you can’t really give specific details. And two people can look at the same one and disagree. </p>
<p>That’s the problem with “When will I be done?” An advisor (and a student) usually don’t know until very late in the process. </p>
<p>It’s also one of the most frustrating parts about being a doctoral student. Your family will ask “So when are you done?” and all you can say is “Maybe in a few years.” And if you have a spouse, it’s ten times worse. People think of research degrees in the context of coursework degrees where there’s a formula based on classes that’s easy to predict and plan years in advance (assuming you don’t fail courses). It’s not like that at all.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that you yourself have some control over when you defend your thesis, and you may eventually have motivations other than trying to graduate as soon as possible.</p>
<p>I’m a sixth-year, and although my committee is happy with my progress and told me in September that they’d sign my permission-to-defend paperwork whenever I wanted, I’m waiting to get the paperwork signed. I’m finishing up two papers, and I want to submit the papers before I start writing my thesis, especially since my fellowship will stop paying for me when I defend. I’m going to need to hang out in the lab for about another year to wrap up my projects, so I figure I might as well use the fellowship money while it’s available.</p>
<p>Man, so true with this. You never know when a project is going to be a bust, funding isn’t going to come in and you need to work on something else, or you suddenly have a great idea for a project that’ll be a lot easier than the thing you’re slogging through right now and really have that interesting of results.</p>
<p>And nobody really understands it other than people have spent at least 3-4 years in a grad program (first and second years are still on the coursework mentality).</p>
<p>I’m a new faculty member in neuroscience who tries not to torture my students unnecessarily (!). It’s very difficult to answer the “when will I be done” question in terms of years because so much of science and life is unpredictable. It’s much easier to answer the question in terms of goals. My advice to any student who wants to move things along is to come up with a list of research goals that need to be achieved before you graduate and clear this list with your advisor and also your committee. This is not the standard list of courses, exams, and defenses but something much more specific to your project. In my lab, it might be collecting and analyzing the necessary data for a prescribed set of experiments and at least having a draft of a paper. Having a list like that puts you in control to a certain extent - you’ll know exactly what you need to accomplish to graduate, and the timing is (largely) up to you.</p>