orgtheory.net

grad skool rulz: toxic department edition

I’m intruding on Fabio’s turf here to point you at a useful post by Brian Leiter on departments to avoid. He’s writing about Philosophy programs but the principles are quite general.

Written by Kieran

April 4, 2008 at 10:26 pm

Posted in grad school rulz

«
»

7 Responses

Subscribe to comments with RSS.

  1. i think one of the most useful things in that post is the idea to talk to the current grad students as they will have the most thorough and up to date dirt. the faculty at your undergraduate institution may have some advice along these lines (as indeed, they counseled me to avoid a particular grad school) but it won’t cover as many aspects of the grad experience and may be out of date.

    Like

    gabrielrossman

    April 5, 2008 at 2:34 pm

  2. The issue of a factionalized faculty is a tough one. Yes, it can be troublesome to be in a department that is factionalized, but I don’t think it makes or breaks a deal. Some of the best departments have factions and yet they manage to avoid transferring their intra-faculty problems to the students. If I were an applicant, I would be careful to listen to students’ experiences at these schools and figure out from them if faculty use students for political purposes, etc. If they don’t, then I think a student can survive and even flourish in a department where some divisions exist between faculty.

    Like

    brayden

    April 5, 2008 at 5:11 pm

  3. Brayden makes a good point. Here’s the ultimate test: publication and placement. If people still manage to do these, then the problems are probably limited. If grad students don’t publish or get decent jobs, then the problems are hampering the grad program. In other words, just apply evidence based management and you’ll do fine.

    Like

    Fabio Rojas

    April 5, 2008 at 6:50 pm

  4. There would seem to be a question of selection bias. If the relevant kind of toxicity is selectively applied, the question is whether people like you (the applicant) are publishing and getting jobs. I suppose this was implicit in your comment — that what matters in the case of factionalization is whether one faction is consistently losing or whether things are balanced.

    Like

    Kieran

    April 5, 2008 at 8:15 pm

  5. Good point, Kieran. Let’s be Bayesian here. If you are accepted to program X, then it’s reasonable to place a high probability that you are like other students at program X, so looking at the average outcome isn’t a bad place to start.

    Like

    Fabio Rojas

    April 5, 2008 at 9:17 pm

  6. I agree with Brayden that the issue of factionalization can be overdone. Most top departments are factionalized even in a weak sense. This is the inevitable result of putting a bunch of big egos together in the same room. Other departments are “factionalized” and have in fact instituted this factionalization into grad training, by literally substituting most course-taking by “workshops” in “research groups” (Stanford is the clearest example of this). I don’t think this is necessarily damaging to grad students careers. I think the students that do well under these types of regimes are the ones that have a pretty clear idea of what they are going to do early on (I came here to study with X or Z with Prof. Y). Students who are still trying to feel out the discipline (or who weren’t sociology majors) might be taking a risk here, simply because in a factionalized situation choosing the wrong (for you) faction early might carry costs later, since in this situation “switching” is not just an intellectual but a political act and might be difficult. So I would say that if a student is like me when I started grad school (a Psychology major who read cultural studies and philosophy and who didn’t know Ron Breiger from Carrot Top) then going to a “no-factions” place like a AZ was a good deal less risky.

    Like

    Omar

    April 6, 2008 at 1:43 pm

  7. […] has some covered in this edition of Grad Skool Rulz over at Org […]

    Like

    Color Me Pissed « BackStage

    April 23, 2008 at 3:05 am


Comments are closed.