9/23 I'm in grad school part time, and the professor I was trying to get
to advise me just sent me "What you suggest (remote, part-time, topic
formulation) doesn't fit my advising style..." Does anyone know
what "topic formulation" might mean in this context? I come with
funding from work, but the topics I can choose are somewhat limited.
Could be a reference to that...
\_ whatever it means, "doesn't fit my advising style" nullifies
the probability of having him/her as your advisor. Most advisors
hate remote (communication problems), most hate part-time
(full-timers just have more entropy), and most want to control
the topic. You should consider finding another advisor who is
more desperate for students and is willing to get someone
onboard for free. IMHO, I've seen a lot of remote & part-timers
and it's just difficult for both parties, and I can understand
why they don't want a remote & part-timer grad student even
for free.
\_ To be honest, I think it's academic snobbery. A coworker of
mine applied to and got accepted to both USC and UCLA for PhD.
When UCLA found out he wanted to be part-time while working
they sent him vibes similar to the above. USC didn't care.
The guy is brilliant and an excellent student who finished a CS
master's at the same time as his Aerospace Engineering PhD. UCLA
turned their nose up at him just because he didn't fit their
narrow definition of what they thought they wanted to deal
with. Screw that. They need to be more aware of who is paying
the bills, which is another reason why universities need less
state funding: students are an afterthought.
\_ What the hell is a part-time PhD? 12 year plan? Most PhDs
take 5-6+ years working 40-60 hrs/wk.
\_ Part-time PhD means taking a part-time load of coursework
and passing the exams. This takes maybe 2-3 years.
After that, you work on your research on a part-time
basis. The people I know who did a PhD while working
ended up working about 30 hours/week and spending about 30
hours/week on school. This is no big deal for a good
student. There are full-time students who screw around
and never make any progress. I remember one who went
full-time for 6 years and still wasn't done. That doesn't
mean you can't get it done while wasting less time. It
helps a lot, too, if some of your day job contributes
to your research.
\_ Point me to a C.V. of someone who earned a "part time"
PhD. 30 hrs/wk? Average PhD is 5-6 years @ 60 hrs/wk,
so sounds like a 10-12 year PhD. urlP = #f
\_ I know at least 5 people who earned their PhD
this way and it didn't take 10 years. Most of
them already had an MS before doing the PhD, though.
This is one of them:
http://tinyurl.com/yceq86t
I have no idea where his C.V. is online, but you
can see that it took him about 6 years based on
this update in 2002:
link:tinyurl.com/yccjl9m
"After graduation, I spent a year at the Lockheed
Martin Skunk Works doing structural dynamics
and flutter testing on the Joint Strike Fighter. In
November 2000, I joined NASA-JPL in the Navigation &
Mission Design section. This fall I am still at JPL
but am concurrently enrolled part time at Cal Tech as
a Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering."
He earned the PhD in 2008:
http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~murray/wiki/Main_Page
You sound as narrow-minded as the UCLA profs.
Luckily, Caltech is more than happy to educate
people who are smart and want to be educated.
\_ 6 years for a part-time PhD after 7 years of
full-time BS/MS. Seems about right to me.
(Source: http://linkedin.com)
\_ That's exactly right. This is the reason why you can do
part time MS in Stanford and Cornell and other nice schools
but good luck doing part time PhD in schools like Stanford
and Cornell. People laugh at the MS program so you can
get by a lot like MS, but many professors have a lot of
snobbery in that they think you should do full time research.
In their mind, if you do part time PhD, you're not really
serious about doing meaningful work. Now whether that is
true or not, I don't know, but that's just how it is
in schools like Stanford and Cornell. P.S. USC should
not be compared with Stanford and Cornell. Completely
different leagues.
\_ I think some of the most famous professors are those that already
have a lot of funding so don't care about having a freebie. They
want a grad student who is young and can slave away at the ideas
that the professor started in order to gain even more recognition
and funding. In academia, there isn't a shortage of hungry,
driven, young guys who will do whatever their advisors tell them
to do, so that's why schools like MIT and Caltech are full of
profs with this type of attitude. In the end, it's like a free
market. There is a lot of supply of cheap laborers but not enough
professors so they can afford to be total assholes.
\_ This guy is actually at the other end of the spectrum. He has
no students. He works pretty much exclusively on his own
little project that no one else cares about. But he has tenure,
so he doesn't have to do anything else. -op
\_ ah, tenure, that's the problem. Based on my experiences with
tenured profs, I'd say the majority of them burned out their
candles years ago and don't really give a damn today. Yes
there are a few good ones but they're rare. May I ask
which prof rejected the proposal and why are you requesting
an advisor who likes to work on things that no one else
cares about?
\_ I don't think I want to identify the professor. The motd
does show up google. He's not a prof at Cal.
I wanted to work with him because he has a good reputation
as an adviser. I knew student who was advised by him and
I understand that he demands good work, but does not
abusively move the goal posts like many profs do. He
is also one of the only profs at the school that works
in my research are.
in my research area.
\_ what area is that? |
http://csua.com/feed/