美国对研究生教育的调查及对申请读研的建议

shefff

美国对研究生教育的调查及对申请读研的建议

整理自http://www.phd-survey.org/

1999年春夏，一些机构和学者对美国国内28个高校，11个专业的超过4000个博士进行了调查。调查报告 "At Cross Purposes: What the experiences of today's doctoral students reveal about doctoral education," 于2001年1月完成。该survey主要调查了在读博士的就业目标，对研究生教育的意见，研究生教育存在的问题等。分析了美国研究生教育的现状和存在的问题。

此调查报告下面有下载，但内容与申请关系不太大。但此调查报告出台后，他们针对所发现的问题，对博士申请者提出了一系列非常实用的建议，包括如何寻求学校信息，选校选系选导师注意事项，对读博还是就业的思考等。整理如下：

目录

Introduction: Questions To Ask When Thinking About Pursuing a Ph.D.

Section One: Questions to ask to determine your goals and what the Ph.D. is all about

Section Two: Questions to ask to investigate the program

Section Three: Questions to ask to help select an advisor

Section Four: Quotes from students 在读博士对各自专业的申请者所提建议，
专业包括 Art History, Chemistry, Ecology, English, Geology, History, Mathematics, Molecular Biology, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology。

shefff

Introduction：Questions To Ask When Thinking About Pursuing a Ph.D.

Copyright 2001,  Chris M. Golde

The decision to attend graduate school to get a Ph.D. is an important one, and not one to be made lightly or without consideration. Typical doctoral programs take five to seven years to complete; by the time you are done, you will have spent about one-quarter of your life in graduate school. In many fields your training will not be done; in most science fields students then spend 2-4 years in postdoctoral training before beginning their professional career. Committing to a Ph.D. also means some sacrifice. Doctoral students are generally not well paid. You may increase your personal debt. Relative to your peers, you will forego many years of income. Furthermore, you may sacrifice personally, as doctoral training is a "job" that requires perseverance and very hard work.

Research shows that up to half of the students who begin doctoral study never receive the Ph.D. One culprit in attrition is a poor match. Doctoral study may be a poor choice in the first place, or there may be a poor fit between the student and the program.

But take heart! Doctoral work is usually an exciting and positive experience. Most students would earn their Ph.D. all over again. Most report being pushed and challenged, and growing personally and intellectually in positive directions.

Everyone is best served if prospective doctoral students take the time to research the graduate school option thoroughly – and relative to other options – and making the best possible choice of career path and graduate program.

The questions that follow stem in large measure from the advice of thousands of doctoral students who were asked to give advice to new students.

shefff

Information Sources

You have a variety of sources of information available as you narrow your choices and move through the application and decision process. When you ask questions, be prepared to hear things you do not want to know!
Remember, no person or place is perfect. But take heed of the warnings that you get.
To understand the possible programs you can apply to, read widely: university and program catalogs (paper and internet), rankings and guidebooks. Ask your current faculty or other faculty you know.

To investigate particular programs there are a lot of steps to take. Talk to graduate students at your own and other institutions; they can help you think about questions to ask and they probably know about other programs. It is very, very helpful to visit the campus and department and develop your own opinions. While you are there, talk to faculty and staff at those programs. Talk to students who are enrolled there. Visit classes and labs if you can.

To investigate particular advisors: talk to their students, talk to other students in the program, talk to the advisor (on the phone, in person, via email), observe their lab or group in action.

How to ask

Asking these kinds of questions, particularly those in the second two sections – questions about the program and questions about an advisor – can be a difficult process. For many people, it is uncomfortable to ask probing questions. It can seem like you are skeptical and untrusting. It can feel aggressive and inappropriate. One strategy for overcoming your fears of asking difficult questions is to practice asking. Role play with friends and trusted advisors. Consider who are the best people to ask about various things. Faculty members have limited amounts of time, and may prefer that you ask some questions of staff or students. Some questions can be asked via email, others are better asked on the phone or in person. Put yourself in the place of the person you are questioning: an email with 15 questions may well not be answered. One or two general and open-ended questions may yield fruitful answers.

When talking with faculty, remember that they have very little spare time. Most faculty members do not respond to email messages that seem to be sent to many people. ("Dear Professor X, I am interested in being your advisee. …) Do your homework in advance. Read their work. Ask a question of them or one of their students at a conference. Determine if you have common intellectual interests before you contact them. If you are in a field in which it is the norm for faculty and students to match prior to and during admissions, find out who students typically meet faculty members. Some departments have funds to bring prospective students who are strong candidates to campus in order for faculty and students to meet. In some cases this takes place on a predetermined date, in others it is arranged individually.

Below are forty one questions that you should ask before you select a doctoral program. In some cases the question is followed by some elaboration or additional questions. They are divided into three categories. Click on the section to read those questions. Or, finish reading this page, and then use the link at the end to go to the first set of questions.

Questions to help you know yourself and what the Ph.D. is all about,
Questions to ask of a specific program that interests, and
Questions to ask a specific faculty member that you are interested in working with.

shefff

Section One:  Questions to ask to determine your goals and what the Ph.D. is all about


The most important questions you can ask yourself is why you really want to attend graduate school. Too many student enroll because they have been encouraged by others and because they haven’t explored other options. This is not sufficient! You should be very clear about why you want to devote the necessary time and energy to developing specialized expertise in this area. Many students counsel taking at least a year off after undergraduate studies to explore alternatives and to develop clearer focus.

You should also develop a clear idea about what doctoral studies entails. Doctoral work is very, very different from undergraduate, master’s or professional degree programs (MBA, JD, MD). It is much, much less structured. Typically, students take classes for 1-3 years, and then spend the remainder of the time solely pursuing research and scholarship. Often, students begin working on research from the very beginning of their time in school. The duration of the degree is unpredictable, but typically runs 5-7 years. The goal of the Ph.D. is to train students to be independent researchers and scholars, and so learning how to think, to theorize, and to conduct research is more important than learning more facts. Much of doctoral work is solitary and autonomous. It is also relatively flexible and individually determined. One student’s course of study and time table may be radically different from another student’s. Furthermore, doctoral training differs among disciplines. Be sure that you understand what the conventions and norms of your chosen field are.

The five questions you should be able to answer before you begin to look at specific programs are these:

1. Why do you want the degree?
Why a Ph.D. instead of work or a professional degree? Are you getting the degree to please someone else or at someone else’s suggestion, such as a family member or a faculty member? What other options have you seriously considered? One way to learn more about doctoral studies is to do research in a lab or with a professor, in the summer or during the academic year. Another good strategy is to take a year or two off between undergraduate and graduate school and work in or near your field of study in order to experience the realities of doing the work.

What is your driving passion? Why do you want to study in this field? What attracts you to this area of study? Are their other areas of study which would be good alternatives? Can you describe what you love about your discipline? What questions and aspects of the discipline arouse your passions? Is this passion sufficient to sustain you in difficult times?

shefff

2. What are your career goals?
It may be noble to consider graduate study for the sake of knowledge, it is important to consider what career you want to follow after the Ph.D. What career options does the Ph.D. give you? Can you enter your chosen career without a Ph.D.? What do you know about the day-to-day lives of the people who are in the careers you aspire to? What personal characteristics does a successful person in this field possess (persistence, enjoying working alone, marketing skills, etc.)?

3. What is the job market?
As you consider your career goals, find out what the job market is like in that area. For many fields the academic job market, that is the number of jobs as professors, are very small. There are many more people who are seeking faculty jobs than there are jobs available. In some fields there are many jobs in government or industry.

4. What is doctoral study like?
As described above, doctoral study differs from undergraduate studies. Be sure that you spend some time learning what doctoral study is like. Talk to graduate students at your current institution (or a nearby institution) about the realities of graduate school. Seek out graduate school-like experiences: write an honor’s thesis, work in a lab, take a graduate level course. If you have not spent time at a research-intensive university, you may want to learn how faculty-student interactions differ at such an institution.

You also should consider the work settings and challenges that will face you and determine whether you are suited to doctoral study:

What kind of work settings are most conducive for you (lots of people, very quiet, juggling many projects, working on one thing)?
Are you a persistent person? Do you finish things in spite of adversity? Did you have a lot of incompletes or dropped courses as an undergraduate?

What kind of relationship do you envision with an advisor? Would you talk about personal matters or would you want solid boundaries between work and personal life?

To what extent do you like being in charge of your own life? To what extent do you want your advisor determining your research agenda and your future career path?

What other aspects of your life are important? How do you imagine balancing family, friend and personal responsibilities with graduate school?

What if you don’t finish?

5. What is it like in that field?
Not only should you consider what graduate study is like generally, but you should consider what it is like in your field of choice. What are characteristics of the research? Do they suit you?

shefff

Section Two:  Questions to ask to investigate the program


Although rankings and reputation are important, they are only some of the things that you want to investigate about a program. Many less highly ranked programs are home to faculty doing exciting work. Many programs embrace innovative strategies and forward thinking components that provide students with an excellent, well-rounded education. The key is to discover if the program you are considering suits you and matches your goals.

General Information

6. What is the reputation and ranking of the department?
This is the most common question that students ask. It can be a useful starting point. What is the reputation of the department? How will the department’s reputation affect your experience? A highly ranked department may imply a high caliber of fellow students, research production pressures on faculty, and little time for people to spend together.

7. What is the mission of this department?
Some programs are geared to training future faculty, some to provide students with a broad education, and others to train practitioners. Does the department agree on its mission? Although doctoral education is primarily located in the department and program, you might also consider the institution as a whole. What is the institutional mission? Is the emphasis on graduate or undergraduate students? Does it have a religious affiliation or specialized in other wise that matter to you? What is the overall reputation of the institution?

8. What is the location? Does it suit you?
This is another common question. What is it like to live in this part of the country? Do you like the climate? Do you like the location of the campus (rural, suburban, urban)? What opportunities are there for your spouse/partner to find satisfying work? What opportunities are there for you to meet a spouse or partner?

9. Who are program faculty whose work excites you?
This is another common and important question. Which faculty members in this department would you like to work closely with? Have you read their work? Do you like the way they think?

Student Progress

10. What is the normal the time to degree?
What is the average time to degree in the department? The average in most fields is between 5 and 7 years. How many years do faculty and administrators assume that it is? This can affect how long is funding available, for example.

shefff

11. How many students leave the program? Why?

Career Outcomes

12. What are the career prospects, both in and outside of academia?
If you want to be a faculty member, have you ever talked to faculty members about the academic life? What is the current job market like in your field? What is the projected job market? What are your options if you are unable to get a faculty job? Would you be willing to take a faculty job anywhere in the country (such as the rural south, or a small state teaching college with little research support and without the brightest students in the country)?

13. What careers have graduates of this program entered?
How many recent graduates are employed? How many are employed in academic jobs? Where? Full-time or part-time, tenure track or fixed term? How many are employed in other areas which the department sees as a primary career track? How many are unemployed? What non-traditional jobs are recent graduates doing?

14. What resources can help you explore possible careers? How supportive are faculty of those who pursue non-academic careers?
Some departments and universities have excellent programs to help students explore a range of career options. Some faculty are supportive of students who undertake non-academic careers, others are not.

Structure and Content of the Program

15. What is the structure of the program? What are the requirements? How flexible are they?
Programs can be very differently structured. Find out what the typical experiences are each year. When are most students taking courses, taking prelims or quals exams, starting research, conducting fieldwork, writing your proposal and dissertation? What are the core requirements and expectations? Are the requirements flexible? Are the courses listed of interest to you? What foundational background does your department expect you to have, especially in your subfield (foreign languages, theoretical background, level of math or computer skills)?

16. What range of courses and faculty are available to you?
Are there several faculty doing work that interests you? If there are several, you will still find faculty to work with if one person leaves or if your first choice advisor does not work out. Are the faculty listed in the catalog still in the department? Are the courses taught regularly?

17. What are the expectations for, instruction in, and opportunities to teach, and to take increasing responsibility in teaching?
What is the balance between teaching and research in the department, both for faculty and for graduate students? Some programs offer students well defined and structured opportunities to grow as teachers.

18. What are the expectations and opportunities for learning about ethical practice of the profession?

Department Climate and Culture

19. How supportive and cohesive is the student community?
How do students support one another in the department? How much contact is there between first and second year students? How will you learn the ‘inside scoop’ on life in the department? Are study groups and writing groups common? Do students make friends across the sub-fields of the department? Are most students full time? Are the places and opportunities for students to interact? Is there an active student association? Do students have a voice in departmental governance?

20. What is the nature of the intellectual and social community in the department?
What kind of orientation program can you expect? Do faculty and students socialize together? What is the intellectual life in the department like? Are there Brown Bags, Colloquia and other opportunities to share ideas?

shefff

21. What is the climate of support for students of color, women, gay students, and international students in department and on campus?

Funding
Financial aid for doctoral study is quite different than for undergraduate study. It is typically not granted based on need. Funding for the student (tuition, fees, and stipend for living expenses) is different than funding for research (travel, supplies). Often funding for summer months is not part of funding. In some cases, particularly in the sciences, funding is tied to the advisor, and is both student and research funding are part of working in that advisor’s lab and on their research projects.

Typically a student is supported by a variety of mechanisms over the course of their program. The common methods are:

Fellowships: This is a stipend that allows you to do your own research and coursework without any specific work (teaching or research assistantship) obligations. This give a student freedom, but may not give them collegial connections or community. Many are competitive, and will involve writing applications and proposals.

Traineeship: These are most common in the biological sciences. Like a fellowship, there are few explicit work obligations, although you may be working in various labs on "rotations."

Research assistantship: This is pay for work done on a research project. These are most common in science fields, in which most students are funded on RAships for most of their time in school. An RAship implies some work obligation – which may be work directly related to the student’s dissertation or may not. RAships are an excellent mechanism for learning how to do good research.

Teaching assistantship: Like an RAship this is pay for work assisting in an undergraduate course. These can be excellent for developing knowledge and skills for teaching, particularly if attention is paid to helping and teaching you as a TA.

Loans and personal assets. Often students find themselves without funding (this is particularly true in humanities fields) and must rely on personal assets (savings, family, partners) or student loans.

22. What is the mix of funding (traineeships, fellowships, RA and TA ships)? Is it competitive or assured? How many years are students funded?

23. What is the level of financial support for tuition, fees, stipend, and research funding?
You need to understand how are doctoral students funded in this department. Is funding guaranteed or competitive? What opportunities for summer funding are there? If your degree takes longer than average, can you find financial support? How successful are department members at winning fellowships for dissertation support?

How are student’s research expenses paid for? Does the advisor’s research grant cover the expenses? If so, do the funders constrain the choice of topics? If not, what other resources are their to fund research? Do students often pay the expenses themselves?

24. What are expenses (housing, health care, child care, cost of living)?
The cost of living varies dramatically from place to place. Understand what you can expect to pay for rent, parking, food, vacation travel, computers, books and the like. How many years will be in graduate school, and what financial resources do you have for dealing with minor (books, car repair, clothes, dental care) and major (unexpected illness of self or family member, pregnancy) financial emergencies?

25. How many students go in to debt? How much?
What level of debt are you carrying from undergraduate education? Can you afford to add to your debt load?

shefff

Section Three:  Questions to ask to help select an advisor


The most important decision, particularly in the sciences, is the selection of an advisor. In different disciplines and in different programs students and advisors are matched through different process. There are two common models: the student and advisor matching up after the student is enrolled (in some cases, one picks a dissertation advisor as late as the third year) or matching up as part of the admissions process.

Research on advising suggests that students who ask a lot of questions and take many criteria into account when selecting a potential advisor, are more likely to be satisfied with their advisor. Most students think about an advisor’s area of expertise and research when picking an advisor. Many students advise also considering the advisor’s personality, working style, advising style and work environment they create in their lab or work group (which is not relevant in all disciplines).

These questions cover a wide range of the kinds of things you may want to discuss with a potential advisor. These are also questions to ask of other students who have worked with that faculty member. Some questions may be more applicable to some fields than to others.

26. What is the process and criteria used for matching advisor and student?

27. Do students often have multiple mentors?

28. Is the advisor’s personality appealing and compatible with your own?
What kind of person do you expect your advisor to be (remember, perfection is very rare!)? What kind of relationship do you image that you will have?

29. How many advisees does the person have? How many students finish? How quickly?
Is the time to degree for students of that advisor shorter or longer than the norms of the department? (One lab from which students never seemed to graduate was called "The Roach Motel," because "students checked in and they didn’t check out.") How many students does the advisor have? What stage of the process are they all in? How does this compare with other faculty members student load? How many students of that advisor do not complete their degree, or transfer? Why?

30. What are their former advisees doing? Is the advisor proud? Does s/he still serve as a mentor to some?

31. What is the person’s reputation as an advisor?

Research interests

The most important criterion in selecting is advisor is finding someone who shares an intellectual interest and field of research with you.

32. What is the person’s line of research and their reputation as a scholar? At what stage of their career are they?

33. How does and will the advisor’s research relate to the student’s research? How does a student pick dissertation project(s)?
In some disciplines a student’s research is very directly connected to the advisor’s research, in others the connection is less direct. Understand the norms of the discipline before you begin talking to faculty. Within the normal range in the field, you still need to understand how much autonomy of project definition and direction is expected of you and available to you.

Some things to learn: How do students select a research project? How much input does the advisor have and want? Is there a research group? What is the range of dissertation topics typically pursued? How quickly do students select a dissertation research project? To what extent does the final dissertation really resemble that in the proposal? Who determines when the student has done sufficient work to complete the dissertation?

Advising style        

Advising style is a very personal thing and varies from person to person. Some advisors are very thoughtful and deliberate about their advising, and spend a lot of time attending to their advisees.

shefff

34. What is the advisor’s work style? What does s/he expect the work style of students to be? Is it compatible with your own?
An advising style can be a difficult thing to ascertain and define. Think about the kinds of behaviors you expect from your advisor, these can be a useful way to define an advising style. You need to know, when you ask an advisor or faculty member for help, what kind of response is helpful to you? Different students expect, want and need different amounts and kinds of feedback. Likewise, different faculty members approach advising doctoral students on research related problems with different degrees of hands-on/hands-off feedback. Here are two examples: (1) If you asked a faculty member for help on a particular research puzzle, would you want them to: Send you to books/articles that can help, offer to give direct feedback on the text or data, tell you what the next step is, offer general strategies and encouragement?(2) When writing articles, research papers or dissertation proposals and text, faculty members might give feedback. How many drafts of each kind of work does an advisor read? What kind and level of detail of feedback to you receive? How quickly can you expect the text to be returned to you?

When talking to other students, you can ask what kinds of students thrive best with this person?

35. What is the advisor’s communication style? What is the frequency and quality of interactions?
Recognizing that there are norms by discipline, you can determine how often the advisor meets with students about their work. Is it daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly? Are meetings set upon the student’s request, when the advisor requests, or are they regularly scheduled?

36. How much time does the advisor spend with students on their work?
What are the competing demands on the advisor’s time? How frequently is the advisor out of town?

37. What is her/his philosophy of advising?
Many advisors are able to articulate such a philosophy, although many have not yet done so. For example, how does the advisor foster increasing independence in students? How does the advisor resolve conflicts?

Work environment

In many fields there is an active lab or work group in which the advisor and several graduate students (as well as post doctoral fellows and undergraduate students) work together on common research. If you will be spending a lot of time in a lab or in the field in the company of other students and researchers it is important to consider the work environment.

38. Does the work environment and culture of the lab or research group suit you?
How closely do students of that advisor work together? How does the advisor facilitate collaboration?

39. What are the work expectations? Are students able to strike a balance between work/school and personal life?
What are typical student work patterns in the department? Do students typically work most nights and weekends?

40. What opportunities for professional development exist? How supportive is the advisor of students’ efforts to gain professional breadth?
What other kinds of sponsorship does the advisor provide? Do students co-author papers with the advisor? Does such co-authorship imply joint intellectual work or is the advisor added by courtesy? Do students attend professional conferences? Who pays for these trips? What kinds of help does the advisor provide in finding jobs or post-doc positions?

41. How are students funded for research and travel?
How much funding and financial support can you expect from your advisor? For what does the advisor financially support students: conferences, supplies, books, research expenses, tuition, summers?