Table of Contents
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xix
1 So You Want to Go to Graduate School 1
What motivates people to pursue graduate study? 2
Should a student go to graduate school immediately after finishing the bachelor's degree or wait a few years? 3
Is a master's degree a necessary prerequisite for getting a Ph.D. or a job as a professor? 5
Is it possible for a student to go to graduate school in a discipline other than one studied as an undergraduate? 5
How are admissions decisions made? 6
How many applicants do graduate programs accept? 7
Should a prospective graduate student pick a school or a program? 8
Are online graduate programs respectable? 9
What equipment does a graduate student need? 10
How do graduate students finance their education? 11
2 Financing Your Education 12
What forms of financial aid are available to graduate students? 13
Why do universities pay graduate students to attend? 16
What size stipends do universities offer graduate students? 17
Where does the money for graduate assistant stipends come from? 19
What is adjunct teaching? 19
Why do highly educated professionals accept the working conditions of adjunct faculty? 20
Why do some graduate students join unions? 20
If a graduate student can work as a teaching assistant or even an adjunct instructor, is completing the degree still worthwhile? 21
Should a graduate student take a job outside the academy while completing a dissertation? 22
Should a graduate student accept a job as a professor before graduating? 23
3 Graduate Expectations 25
Is graduate school more demanding than college? 26
How is graduate school different from professional education in medicine, law, and business? 26
How is going to graduate school different from a full-time job? 27
How many hours per week should a graduate student expect to spend working? 29
What characteristics are most valuable for success in graduate school? 31
How does learning occur in graduate school? 33
What do graduate students learn? 34
Do graduate programs expect all of their enrolled students to graduate eventually? 35
What are the attrition rates in graduate programs? 35
Why do some graduate students drop out of their programs? 36
Why do graduate students' personalities sometimes change? 37
Why do graduate students often seem self-absorbed? 39
How can intellectual work take a physical toll on graduate students? 40
How long does graduate school take? 41
Why is five years considered the normal amount of time it takes to complete a doctorate? 42
What are residency requirements? 44
What are time limits? 44
Is there a best approach to getting through graduate school? 45
4 Coursework Is Hard Work 48
What are the steps in obtaining a graduate degree? 49
What kinds of courses do graduate students take? 50
How important are letter grades or GPA in graduate school? 51
How important is research during the coursework years? 53
How does graduate coursework help a student write a thesis? 54
How should a student use coursework to prepare for writing a thesis or dissertation? 54
What are comps, quals, prelims, generals, cumes, and orals? 55
Why do graduate students in many fields, even the sciences, have to pass foreign-language exams? 58
What is an advisor? 59
What makes a good advisor? 60
When should a student get an advisor? 61
Can graduate students change advisors? 62
What happens if an advisor leaves the university where the graduate student is studying? 62
5 Dissertations and Theses 64
What is a thesis? 65
What is a dissertation? 65
Who reads dissertations? 67
How do I find out what is the cutting edge in my field? 68
Should a graduate student try to work in a trendy area of research? 68
How much autonomy do graduate students have in choosing their research topics? 69
Who evaluates a thesis or dissertation? 70
What is a thesis proposal? 71
Why does a student have to write a proposal before writing a thesis or dissertation? 72
Why do apparently good dissertation topics sometimes fall apart? 73
How long does it take to write a dissertation? 74
May a graduate student seek professional writing services, such as those offered by ghostwriters or editors? 77
What is a dissertation defense? 78
Is a defended dissertation a finished dissertation? 79
What happens to a dissertation after it is defended? 80
6 The Academic Culture 82
What do the terms assistant professor and associate professor mean? 83
What is tenure? 84
How should graduate students address professors? 86
What role does institutional prestige play in a graduate student's personal reputation? 89
How do scholars disseminate their research findings at conferences? 90
Why is it important to present work in progress at conferences? 91
Why do presenters have to pay to attend a conference? 91
What is peer review? 92
How can a graduate student find out which journals are worth reading regularly? 93
What counts as an important journal? 94
Who did the most work for a book or journal article that has more than one author? 95
How do scholarly journals compensate their authors? 96
Why does a scholarly author sometimes have to pay to have his work considered or published by a journal? 97
Should graduate students try to publish their research before their dissertations are finished? 98
How much publication is enough? 99
How do graduate students celebrate the completion of their degrees? 100
Is a Ph.D. the only kind of doctorate? 101
7 Having a Life in Graduate School 102
Why do prospective graduate students often relocate to attend school? 103
What kinds of extracurricular activities should graduate students participate in? 104
What do nonacademics understand about graduate students? 105
Can dropping out of graduate school be a good decision? 106
Why do graduate students sometimes avoid family gatherings? 107
How much work do graduate students have to do between semesters? 108
What are the difficulties of maintaining a romantic relationship during graduate school? 109
Why are sexual relations between students and faculty forbidden? 110
May graduate students date other students? 111
Why do some graduate students live apart from their partners? 112
What challenges do parents of young children face in graduate school? 113
8 Degrees, Jobs, and Academic Careers 116
What are the employment prospects of a newly minted Ph.D.? 117
What are the steps in the academic hiring process? 119
What is the difference between a resume and a curriculum vitae, or CV? 122
What are the rhythms of the academic job market? 122
Should a prospective professor pick a place where she wants to live and then focus her job search there? 123
Do academic careers have to begin with an assistant professorship? 125
Why do women still leave the academy disproportionately? 125
Do universities hire their own Ph.D.s as faculty? 126
What is spousal hiring? 127
What is a postdoc? 127
How likely are faculty members to change jobs? 128
Can a professor at a community college hope to land a job in the Ivy League? 128
Why does writing a dissertation qualify a graduate student to be a professor? 129
How do new professors learn to be teachers? 130
Do professors spend as much time on research as graduate students do? 130
What do professors do in the summer? 131
Are professors satisfied with their work? 132
What nonacademic careers are open to Ph.D.s? 132
How can Ph.D.s persuade nonacademic employers to hire them? 133
Afterword 134
If graduate school requires so much work with so little reward, why would anyone bother? 134
Notes 137
Glossary 141
Sources 147
For Further Reading 153
Index 157
