Timeline for How to/Can you get a PhD position when you need more experience first?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 25, 2011 at 23:03 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | Gerry, as someone who 400 days ago thought he'd be an unemployed ex-postdoc trying to look for work in what remains of the British economy... I'm not claiming that it is necessarily harder nowadays to find jobs in math(s) academia, but that is the impression I've formed over the years. | |
| Feb 25, 2011 at 4:27 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | @Yemon, I'm sure you're right, I'm just not sure which way the inequality goes. | |
| Feb 25, 2011 at 4:12 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | Job market 2000-10 != job market 1970-80 | |
| Feb 24, 2011 at 23:51 | comment | added | Qfwfq | @Jerry, Josh and Jim: sorry I misread the phrase! (because of my much less than perfect English I suppose). | |
| Feb 24, 2011 at 22:54 | comment | added | Thierry Zell | By the way, anyone caught the article in the Economist back in December: "The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time". economist.com/node/… Well, at least they wrote often, not always. I don't necessarily condone the content, but I would agree that anyone contemplating a PhD had better think carefully about exactly what they want to do (and not just jump into any program that will take them). | |
| Feb 24, 2011 at 21:53 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | @Ben, if anyone with a pulse and a BA can get into (or could have gotten into) a PhD program, then I reckon it follows without saying that someone with a master's can get into a better program, so I didn't say it. Maybe I should have. @Sheik, I firmly believe that talent will out, and that even a PhD from a crummy program can, if her publications are good enough, eventually land a rewarding job. Also, there's the possibility, mentioned in one of my comments, of transferring to a better program. | |
| Feb 24, 2011 at 20:40 | comment | added | Sheikraisinrollbank | Also, what's the point of going to such a place (assuming it even existed)? Spending 5 years of ones' life in grad school without hope of landing a job afterwards seems like a terrible thing to do (at least most grad schools in math pay your tuition, but still). I don't know how to put this delicately: it seems irresponsible to give this advice without accompanying it with a realistic assessment of post-grad school job prospects. | |
| Feb 24, 2011 at 19:10 | comment | added | Ben Webster♦ | Gerry- I'm not disputing your experience. (Though you definitely should have said "a pulse and a BA.") But I still think it makes your answer less helpful and less convincing. Someone with a master's degree in math, even if they are a bit underprepared, can get into a much better graduate program than that, and that's a point worth emphasizing. | |
| Feb 24, 2011 at 11:31 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | @Ben, 30 years ago a foreign student asked me to write letters for her. I told her I would write that she was the 16th best student in a class of 23, and that I didn't think such a letter would help her much. She said that was perfect - she knew she wasn't cut out for graduate work, but her country required her to apply to grad school as a condition of paying her college bills, so she wanted a letter that would get her rejected. So I wrote the letters as requested - and a couple of places accepted her! I'll grant you that "pulse" and "warm body" were overstatements, but not by a whole lot.... | |
| Feb 24, 2011 at 7:29 | comment | added | Ben Webster♦ | @Gerry: I think you may have marred a good answer with overstatement. I certainly hope (for the sake of both the faculty and students of such a hypothetical program) that no such programs exist. But it's a very good point that there are a lot Ph.D. programs in math in the US, and most of them (for example, Oregon, where I'm a professor) are willing to consider students who haven't had an entirely orthodox mathematical education and may have some gaps in their knowledge but do have evidence of mathematical ability. | |
| Feb 24, 2011 at 1:31 | comment | added | Thierry Zell | @Gerry: fair enough, but I would consider alternative options too. | |
| Feb 24, 2011 at 1:14 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | @Thierry, yes, I would, if the person really really wanted to do a Ph. D. in Math and didn't have another option. A Ph. D. from any (accredited) institution is a Ph. D., and gets you started on a life of research (if that's what you want to do). Alternatively, if you impress enough people your first year or two at such a program, you might get some letters enabling you to transfer into a better one. | |
| Feb 24, 2011 at 1:01 | comment | added | Thierry Zell | I doubt it's still the case, but even if you found one such program, would you recommend it to anyone? | |
| Feb 23, 2011 at 23:59 | comment | added | Jim Conant | @unknowngoogle: Math departments use grad students to teach calculus, not take it. | |
| Feb 23, 2011 at 23:55 | comment | added | Josh | @unknown: Gerry is probably talking about the students having TA positions to teach the undergrad calculus classes. | |
| Feb 23, 2011 at 23:53 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | Teaching Calculus classes - they needed warm bodies to serve as Teaching Assistants. | |
| Feb 23, 2011 at 23:09 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | Given the way tertiary education in North America and Europe has evolved since the early 1970s, I am inclined to believe that things are not like this today... | |
| Feb 23, 2011 at 23:01 | history | answered | Gerry Myerson | CC BY-SA 2.5 |