orgtheory.net

Eszter recently had a good post on the role of conferences. Here’s Eszter’s other professional advice columns. I think we’d agree on many points, but not on others. Here’s my take on the conference world. Previous grad skool rulz.

First, you have to figure out how important conferences are in your discipline for publication. For example, conference proceedings are the primary publication venue in computer science. In contrast, most social sciences assign no value to most conference proceedings. Lesson: If conference proceedings matter for your discipline, you had better show up!

Second, find out the informal rules of your discipline. It’s often the case that specialized conferences and department workshops are where work gets vetted. It’s often the case that the people at these venues will be the reviewers at major journals. If you have already responded to their criticisms, it’s more likely that they will help you in the review process. In contrast, panels at national conferences are populated with a random assortment of folks. These people need to hear your ideas, but it’s not likely that it will help with regard to professionalization.

Third, there is no replacement for working hard on your research. Yes, it is good to get feedback, but too many conferences can take time away from data collection, analysis, and writing. There is definitely a trade off. One solid journal hit is more important than attending dozens of conferences.

Fourth, there are important indirect effects of conference attendance. People meet you. They can put a face to a name. You get invited to visit places to speak, even grad students. You might get invited to submit to a journal or edited volume. You might also meet people and make new friends. This is all important.

Fifth, there is conference etiquette. Most conferences have an informal dress code. Nothing fancy, but if you are giving a talk, nice slacks/jacket/dress are good. Also, people expect you to talk about your research.  It’s a conference after all, so people want to hear about your work. So have a 1 sentence summary ready to go. Push your cookie!

Sixth, remember that conferences are business meetings. It’s ok to approach people for business purposes. At ASA, there are job placement services, data sales people, book editors, college deans, and people who give money out for foundations. It’s totally ok to meet these people and start a conversation – it’s the reason they showed up.

Seventh, you can go on the cheap and save money. Drive instead of fly. Student registration fees or one day fees are lower. Double up on hotel rooms. Many colleges and universities have student travel funds. Ask around. Heck, ask your mom for money.

To summarize: Conferences are useful, but not a make or break deal. You should definitely go, but don’t let it crowd out your research or teaching. When you do go, be aware that it’s a business meeting and plan accordingly.

A few weeks ago, I wrote on the importance of publishing in graduate school and how one might do it. A few folks asked for a post that describes the publication process in more detail. Here it is:

• Let’s assume that you already have a manuscript that you’ve circulated and presented multiple times. Let’s assume that it’s a journal article, and not some other form of publication. Now you want to take the big step and get it in print.
• Choose a target. As I wrote before, you probably want to start with a top journal, a respected specialty journal, or a respected regional journal. Ask around if you don’t know the hierarchy of your field.
• Go to the journal web site and make sure the paper is in the right format. Social Science Quarterly, for example, is very insistent on short papers. AJS, for example, routinely publishes longer papers. Editors will tolerate a little fuzziness about length, but they will return a paper if it is way too long (e.g., the limit is 30 pages and the paper is 60).
• Write a cover letter that briefly explains the purpose of the paper. If you are in an unusual field (e.g., Eskimo linguistics), you might want to provide names of possible reviewers.
• Should I suggest reviewers? If you are asked, it might help. But otherwise, don’t do it. Why? You have no idea who is a speedy or fair reader. Why recommend someone who might tank you? Sleep better at night by letting the editors choose reviewers. Remember, that’s their job.
• Upload/send it out once it’s in the format.

What happens next? Journals vary a bit, but it usually goes something like this:

• The journal is run by a bunch of folks: the editors who make the final decisions; the associate editors, who help the editor but usually don’t have final say; the editorial board – a  few dozen scholars who agree to review papers but do not formulate decisions; the managing editors, a secretarial person who does all the paper work. Most editors/editorial board members are scholars/scientists/professors. Managing editors can be a professor, student, or a clerical person.
• The managing editor is the person in charge of shepherding the paper from submission to final decision. This is the person you contact for normal questions like “Did you guys get my paper?” Smaller journals may not have a separate managing editor.
• The journal editor, associate editors, and the managing editor may look at the paper and make a snap judgment about whether the paper fits or is good enough to be reviewed. Soc journals will review most papers if it at least looks plausible, while biological journals will often “bench reject” about 50% of submissions.
• Once the paper is deemed reviewable, the main or associate editor will assign reviewers. How does that happen? A few ways – people who are well known for work in your area may be asked to read the paper; perhaps an associate editor or editorial board member will write a review; they may look at the references and say “if person X is cited, they must be an expert.” If the paper is deemed to be of low quality, a graduate student may be asked to review it.
• Mix of reviewers: Varies a lot. Some journals will rely heavily on the editorial board. Some may mix between a famous person and a new person.
• Once the reviewer agrees to read the paper, they get a hard or electronic copy and a form they have to fill out. Usually, they are asked to grade the paper on some scale, provide comments for the author, and confidential comments for the editor.
• Number of reviews: Varies a lot. If a paper is atrocious in the eyes of the editor, they may simply wait for one review and reject. Most journals will try to get 2-4 reviews. If a review is incompetently done, they may try another reviewer. As a former managing editor and student editor, my belief is that it usually takes about 5-6 requests to get 2-3 decent reviews.
• Once the editor or relevant associate editor reads your paper and the reviews, they make a judgment: accept (with possibly require revisions); revise and resubmit; and reject.
• How do they decide? In most cases, it’s obvious. At the most competitive journals, a lot of papers get 2-3 negative reviews, so it’s easy to make the decision. If the reviews are truly ambiguous, the editor may read the paper herself, or ask for additional advice from associate editors or other scholars. Then, they just have to be the decider!
• What counts as good? In general, well written articles that work within the mainstream do well at many journals. Thus, you should try to show mastery of contemporary ideas and methods. There’s also luck – some reviewers may have a soft spot for your ideas. Connections matter as well – scholars and editors may be more generous to friends. And of course, there will always be editors who just have a special gift for identifying what’s truly original and innovative and they’re willing to go with a cool idea, even if the reviewers didn’t get it.
• The author receives a letter with the decision and copies of comments written by reviewers. Some editors will write a long explanation of the decision, while others will stick to short form letters.
• How long does this take? In many fields, about 1 month to process the paper, 2-3 months to wait for reviews, 1 month for make the final decision. About 4-6 months is decent. Some journals fall into disarray each stage can take forever. Editors don’t have time to read papers; managing editors are lazy about getting reviews; etc.  In some areas, it can take a year or more to get a decision.

Eek! I just opened my journal decision letter! What does it mean?

• Accept or accept contingent on revisions: This is good news! Take the afternoon off! Just do the revisions ASAP and get that guy into print.You’ll have to format the paper in the way demanded by the journals and correct the proofs. You’ll see paper copies (if they still exist) in about a year. An accept on the first round is fairly uncommon in most fields.
• Revise and resubmit: Technically, your paper has been rejected, but the editor thinks it might be publishable if certain changes are made. We’ll talk about R&R’s in some detail below. But this is good news!!!
• Reject: :(  Don’t feel so bad. Everyone has rejected papers. It’s actually the most common outcome in most decent journals.

Let’s get into detail about R&R and reject. Let’s start with R&R:

• With an R&R, you’ve been given the option to revise. What should you do? In most cases, you should revise the paper and give it another shot. Why? With the current journal, you have a decent chance at getting something out of the process. An R&R means that the editor finds *something* valuable and is seriously considering your paper. If you go to another journal, you usually have to start all over again with no promises.
• Once in a while, you decide that revision isn’t a great idea. For example, if you are persuaded that the revisions are literally impossible, or completely stupid, you might try another journal. If the editor acts strangely, then maybe it’s not worth the effort. But this is rare. You should almost always revise.
• After you read the letter and the comments, put it away for a few days and try to mellow out and develop some distance.
• Read the comments, both from the editor and the reviewers and try to summarize them. Then make a “to do” list of specific recommendations (“you have to cite this,” “use robust standard errors,” etc.).  Then do as many of these things as possible.
• Then think again about the gestalt of the paper and the reviews. How does it all fit together? How can you rewrite the paper so that it will still be readable and offer a coherent argument?
• Once you’ve shown the paper to people and you feel that you’ve put in 110%, write the revision memo. That’s a document where you explain in detail what you changed. In general, I recommend extreme detail so that you show reviewers that you took what they said seriously. Also, sometimes you simply can’t do what everyone asked, so explain why and do so clearly and in detail. Write a new cover letter with a paragraph or two explaining how the new paper has addressed the reviewer comments.
• Then send the whole bundle back to the journal.
• The R&R process varies. Some journals have editors read the new paper “in house.” Others will send it back to the old reviewers, some will mix, and some will (frustratingly) send it back to completely new reviewers. You really don’t have control over this.

Reject – what does it mean? Here you have to be brutally honest and ask why you have failed. A good piece of advice is that nearly any paper can be improved. But aside from that generic advice, here’s more detailed ideas:

• Maybe the paper is good, but not a good fit for the journal. You can tell if this is the case if the reviewers says “this is a good paper and it’s a solid contribution, but to another field.” Solution: Do a few minor revisions, and send it back out immediately to a new journal.
• Maybe the reviewers just didn’t get it or they are incompetent. It happens. Sometimes you have an idea that the readers just didn’t dig. Once again, send it out ASAP to a new journal.
• Maybe your paper has some real issues. Read the reviews. If they raise a lot of good points, then maybe your paper isn’t ready yet. So be honest with yourself. We can all improve and the reviewers are doing you a favor. If three reviewers all say, “Y needs fixing,” then they’re likely right. So go back to the woodshed and do the recommended fixes.
• Maybe your paper is just bad. It happens. We have a cool idea and our friends agree. But reviewer X points out a devastating logical flaw. Suck it up and put it to sleep.
• Appealing decisions: Once in a while you feel that something just wasn’t right. If you can logically explain why the decision was in error (and not just vent), an editor may change her mind. Doesn’t happen often, but it’s worth considering in extreme cases.
• When can I send a rejected paper back to the same journal? In general, once a paper is rejected, send it to a new journal. But in some cases, you may want to go back. For example, if it’s a flagship journal, an acceptance can be a career maker. So here’s my advice: send it back if the paper has been truly revised and is really different. If you did all the changes and it’s way better, then send it back.
• Mixed reviews. Sometimes the reviews are all over. In that case, just do what seems reasonable and send it out ASAP.
• Bottom line: Keep sending them out. If you work hard at revising your work, you’ll get accepted sooner or later. And volume is often the key.

Finally: Where should I send rejected papers? The rule of thumb is: start at the top and let the editors decide where it lands. Some scholars, especially at elite research departments, will only bother with the top. Here’s my view: unless the paper is logically flawed or just lame, the paper was written for a reason, to bring knowledge. Who says that the top 10 journals have a monopoly on knowledge? We should all aim high, but we shouldn’t let career ambition impede our core mission: generating knowledge.  And we sometimes have to go to small outlets to make that happen.

Here’s the bottom line: modern academia is about publishing. Even if you intend on working at a teaching institution, most respectable programs will require that you publish and maintain your active involvement in the scholarly community. Furthermore, if you wish to compete for a research oriented job or top liberal arts college, you must demonstrate an ability to publish in well regarded journals.

So let’s start with an easy question: Who has to publish?

• If you want a good job in most disciplines, you will need to publish something while in grad school.
• Exception 1: Some technical fields have a short time to degree and it is impossible to do anything except complete coursework and write a job market paper. Econ and engineering fit into this mold. It’s all in the unpublished job market paper and sponsorship by disciplinary elites.
• Exception 2: In some qualitative areas, books are the norm, so hiring committees are a little less obsessed about early publications.
• Caveat: Even if you are in a field that is an exception, you will benefit if you can get a good publication.

The harder question – what counts as publishable?

• Learn by reading books and journals in  your area.
• Read what your adviser and professors publishes.
• Usually, it has to be a contribution to knowledge. In other words, it has to tell us something that we didn’t know before.

Next question: where should I publish?

• Every discipline has an informal, but well known, ranking of journals.
• Every field has around 2-5 top journals (In soc: ASR/AJS and many people see SF and Soc Problems as close behind).
• Every field has journals that serve specific specialties. (Org Studies: ASQ. Education: Soc of Education).
• There are well regarded “regional journals” run by professional associations (Soc Quarterly, Soc Perspectives).
• If you want a good job, you will sooner or later have to publish in one or more of these journals. People who get fly outs for good programs usually have one or two pubs in these venues.
• It’s also cool to publish in the journals in related fields – but only if you can persuasively argue that it’s appropriate. E.g., an applied stats person might try to land a piece in JASA. A population studies person might try Demography.
• If you are in a book intensive field, you might try to get a contract in your last year or so of grad school.
• In general, I’d avoid smaller more specialized journals until you get at least one or two higher profile hits in top tier, specialty or good regional journals.

How do I actually get published?

• What counts as publishable is a topic that deserves its own post. But suffice to say that it varies from area to area. Read a lot and talk a lot to figure it out.
• Once that you’ve produced a manuscript, go to the journal website. Now, you can submit through the web site or just mail it to the editor. A few “old school” journals will require paper copies.
• In general, start with more prestigious journals and work your way down. Why? High prestige journals will draw more attention to your work and they have more resources for fast review. They also tend to have better reviewers.  I don’t necessarily mean start with journal #1, but start with a journal that most people consider to be highly regarded and bounce around. Then move to smaller journals after that.
• Get a thick skin. Every academic has piles and piles of rejection letters.

Should I work solo? With a team? What about authorship?

• Working with a team: Pros – teams produce things faster and benefit from a division of labor. Team members (older faculty) may have the connections and knowledge to make the project get published. Also, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There’s a lot less risk. Cons – easy to lose your identity and not get credit. Remember, there’s little reward for being author #8 on four articles.
• Working solo/small team: Pros – more freedom to design your own research. You get the lion’s share of the credit. Cons: Since you’re charting unknown waters, there’s a lot more risk.
• In general, the higher the author’s name in the list, the more credit. After three or four authors, no one notices your name and people may assume your an RA on the project, rather than a contributor. If you are working with faculty or on a team, have a discussion with the team leader/faculty member about how you can get the proper recognition for your contribution.

Let’s talk about some myths:

• Do I need a million publications to get a job? Not really. If you have one or two good ones, that’s enough.
• Is it all an insider’s game? Academia, like any job, has its fair share of gaming the system. All older academics will regale you with stories of “such and such got published because the editor was a friend.” So what? That’s life. But academia is also remarkably open. In soc, we have our four lead general journals, about 5-10 high quality specialty journals, some excellent regional journals, and many more respected journals that don’t fit the mold (i.e., Theory & Society, Poetics, etc.) If you try really heard and put out your best work, I promise you’ll get good results

If you have more ideas about publishing as a grad student, please put them in the comments.

I’ve got planned the remaining grad skool rulz installments:

• getting published as a grad student
• conferences/networking
• how you know you are done
• the job market
• the job interview
• filing your dissertation and the defense
• a few words on starting your career

What other topics should be in the rulz? Here is the list of previous rulz. Please put your suggestions in the comments. Thanks.

Few weeks ago, I dedicated an edition of the grad skool rulz to the subject of when to quit. The comments were good and a number of questions were raised. Fellow blogger and awesome culture researcher Jenn Lena wrote:

Previous grad skool rulz.

I strongly believe that most people who enter graduate school can successfully complete the program. However, it is also important to know that academia is not the right choice for everyone – even among those who possess the talent to complete the PhD degree. Think of this post as a guide for answering the question: “how do I know this is really the best choice for me?”

Read the rest of this entry »

A whille back, I was asked to give a talk about life as a professor to minority undergraduate students who were contemplating the academic career. Of course, I recommended that they read the grad skool rulz. I gave them the basics of academic life – it’s about knowledge production, being professional, etc. But I also threw in additional comments for students of color. Here’s what I wrote:

1. The era of overt discrimination has ended. Seriously. It is extremely rare for people to be denied admission to graduate school, or appointment to the faculty, because they belong to the wrong ethnic group. Nobody will stand up and say “we don’t hire X here.” People now understand that is unethical. It is also illegal.
2. However, people of color often have to counter certain misconceptions. I honestly believe that most people in academia know racism is wrong. Most people will treat you fairly. At the same time, certain people may have prejudices that affect their judgments of individuals. It may not even be conscious. Unfortunately, students of color may be seen as inferior and you might have to prove yourself twice over to get the same reward. Be prepared to go the extra distance.
3. Treat your graduate career as a job that deserves respect. If you are lazy, late, or otherwise show poor performance, you will be penalized, often more so than others. Even if people let you slide, you will get a bad reputation that can be hard to shake. As a person of color, you might not get a second chance. Get your act together.
4. Do not depend on affirmative action. Its importance is exaggerated. It is true that many graduate programs have affirmative action in admissions, but that’s the end of the game. While a few professors are hired to fill quotas, almost every hire I have seen at the faculty level was debated on the merits of the person’s research, especially in competitive universities. Few get promoted at any decent school without some serious record of publication.
5. Affirmative action colors people’s perceptions. Ironically, a lot of people think the faculty is filled with armies of affirmative action hires. Strangely, these critics fail to notice that most major university departments, except for area studies (e.g., African Studies), are not filled with minority faculty members. Despite that fact, you will still be seen by many as an affirmative action case. You will have to prevail over this misconception.
6. Do not work with a professor just because they are black/latino/female/etc. Why? The most important trait of a faculty member is that they have a track record of helping students publish and land good jobs. There is no benefit to working with an African American professor if they are a jerk, or if they haven’t published anything decent in years. Just as you wouldn’t want your ethnicity to affect how people judge your work, you shouldn’t judge potential advisers based on their ethnicity. Go for quality.
7. Be nice to people. For some reason, students of color sometimes get the idea that they have to be abrasive and act tough. There is no reason for you to do this, even if some faculty don’t treat minority students well. Instead, be courteous. Without being unctuous, you should return email, say hello to both students and professors, and be a decent person. Don’t let people take advantage of you, but if you can lend a hand to someone who needs a little help, do so.
8. Finally, understand that this is the beginning of your career. It’s not longer about getting good grades – it’s about research output. Everything you do in graduate school should be about getting you closer to working on research. Read the big journals, catch up on all the current theory, build networks with other scholars, and submit your work to those leading journals. Don’t wait for things to happen. Make yourself into the person you want to be!

As usual, please feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments section.

Graduate school is tough for everyone, but in different ways. A few weeks ago, I asked female scholars and graduate students to share their thoughts for the benefit of women working their way through the academic system. Here’s what they said….

• Spouses: A common theme was that women have to really work extra hard to manage their partner’s expectations. Sadly, a lot of men seem not to support their spouses in the academic track: “My talks with others and my own experience suggests that, in general, male non-academic partners are somewhat less supportive of grad school than female non-academic partners. For everyone, being partnered to someone who is not in grad school is difficult but women grad students seem to struggle more with this.” I think this really underscores what I wrote here about family before. Women have to go the extra mile to make sure that their partner knows what an academic career is about and they have to be willing to stand by you 100%. If they don’t “get it,” then you have to sit down with the partner and have a serious talk.
• Family Planning: The unfortunate truth right now is that having children is a career penalty (see this ASA report). So when should someone have children? The ASA report says there is no “right time,” though multiple people have suggested to me that the time is between course work and the job market. I’ll leave it to the readers to assess this claim for themselves. However, what can be agreed upon is that the career hit can be lessened with the use of institutional, social, or financial resources. So seek out your university’s policies regarding funding and children, look for inexpensive quality child care, import relatives for help. Maybe your country, state, or city(e.g., Europe) has child care resources. Resource planning seems to be the issue here.
• Confidence: Numerous respondents addressed this issue. Academia is often a game of seminar room aggression. Many scholars said that women graduate students need to learn that they are not “impostors” and that you have to assert yourself in class and at conferences. Good words: “Women often walk a fine line between being considered too nice or sweet and being pushy, arrogant or bitchy when giving critiques. Graduate school can be an excellent laboratory for figuring out how to be assertive yet constructive. Use seminars and talks as a chance to watch how others give constructive feedback and express their opinions. Figure out how to assert yourself without being arrogant/condescending or without backing down when someone disagrees with you. This is not an easy thing to do – but it’s worth spending some time on.”
• The Old Boys Network: Another issue that men are much more common in many in subfields and it can lead women students to feel out of the loop, even if it is unintentional. Sometimes, women will be excluded from social activities because it might seem inappropriate (e.g., going drinking after seminar). First, as one respondent wrote, it doesn’t mean that you’ll be left out of everything. UItimately, you are judged on your research and teaching. The person who raised this issue even commented that she has succeeded quite well, but it was extremely awkward for her. Second, you can actually show up to these events most of the time. Unless it’s a personal 1 on 1, you can crash most quasi-academic events (snacks, drinks, etc).
• Being the Listener: Students treat their female instructors like their moms or like a free therapist. One correspondent wrote: “Female teachers are more likely to get students who tell them very personal stories about themselves and, in general, look to the female faculty member (or TA) for nurturing. This is really strange if you’re not expecting it and difficult even if you are..” I’ll actually add my own strong opinion here. You don’t have to become the department therapist. Many campuses actually have paid therapists students can go to. It’s not your job. I’d suggest that you kindly listen to the student’s issue, wish them the best, and if they need more help, ship them to the right office.
• Harassment: I’ll add my own view here because it’s actually pretty cut and dry. The university department is like any other workplace. Co-workers and bosses should talk respectfully to each other and keep their hands to themselves. If a student is harassed (rude talk, quid pro quo for sexual favors, a nasty work environment), document it immediately and talk to a knowledgeable third person who can help you. Do not tolerate boorishness and, if possible, truncate relationships where one person is clearly expecting something other than academic work. Also, do this in a respectful way so that you can continue and complete your degree. You’ll learn by consulting with other trustworthy people. Finally, exercise some judgment – sometimes it’s best just to ignore the person if the behavior is harmless.
• Paternalism: A number of people mentioned the fact that many older men will still call their adult female students things like “honey,” “sweety,” etc. I really don’t know what else to add, other than to say that you should beware. If that’s all, maybe you can let it slide. But if it’s coupled with other behavior, you should avoid them.
• Your team, network and Mentors: Many people emphasized the need to build networks and find a mentor. Get more than one friend or mentor to give you a variety of opinions. One person emphasized that it’s important not to insulate yourself with your network. A cohort of supportive female doctoral students can help each other deal with the program, not become a substitute for the program. Help and support are what’s needed, not isolation.

I’ll end with these insightful words: “You didn’t get to where you are because you played according to gender stereotypes, which, as you know, are socially constructed and wrong even if they have a pervasive, pernicious lingering effect. Read bell hooks and Paolo Freire (critical pedagogy), and Power, Race, and Gender in the Academe by Shirley Geok-Lim. Feel empowered. Feel (some) responsibility. Be a good student and institutional citizen by speaking up in class, going to office hours, going to paper talks, presenting your own work, forming the networking connections you know you’ll need now and later, and competing for those plum teaching assignments and fellowships and post-docs. Try to ignore the imposter syndrome. You deserve it, and you owe it to yourself to believe in yourself. That said, recognize that you are human, that sometimes institutional factors and lingering stereotypes and subtle discrimination can hamper even the best of our efforts. So, don’t blame yourself if you can’t get everything, can’t get everything done, and can’t do everything. You don’t have to be a super human, much less Superwoman. You don’t have to believe yourself responsible for all of womankind in ___ discipline.”

I recently read Matthew Frederick’s 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, a beautiful, concise book that compiles, in the form of a list, a surprising number of truths. Each lesson occupies one page, and each is accompanied by a witty, whimsical, or perfectly revelatory drawing. The book does not try to speak to everyone, and, in fact, some of the advice is very practical stuff written strictly for architects (#79 “Always place fire stairs at opposite ends of the buildings you design”). But I was surprised at how appropriate it was not merely beyond architecture but particularly for sociologists.

In the following, replace “designer/designing” with “writer/writing,” “architect/architecture” with “sociologist/sociology,” and “building” with “dissertation” or “book”, and you’ll have some pretty effective advice for surviving graduate school (and beyond):

• #86. Manage your ego. If you want to be recognized for designing a good or even great building, forget about what you want the building to be; instead ask, “What does the building want to be?”
• #48. If you can’t explain your ideas to your grandmother in terms that she understands you don’t know your subject well enough. Some architects, instructors, and students use overly complex (and often meaningless!) language in an attempt to gain recognition and respect. You might have to let some of them get away with it but don’t imitate them….
• #29. Being process-oriented, not product-driven, is the most important and difficult skill for a designer to develop. [The discussion of this one is a gem, too long to post.]
• #84. There are two points of view on architecture: (1) Architecture is an exercise in truth. A proper building is responsible to universal knowledge and is wholly honest in the expression of its functions and materials. (2) Architecture is an exercise in narrative. Architecture is a vehicle for telling stories, a canvas for relaying societal myths…. [Pick one and move on?]
• [And possibly my favorite!] #101. Architects are late bloomers. Most architects do not hit their professional stride until around age 50. [Accompanying drawing: Zaha Hadid, b. 1950.]

See mini reviews here and here.

I’ve always told people that graduate school is hard for everyone. However, it’s hard in different ways for different people. I think the rulz should have at least one post, or more, dedicated to the issues women have to face in the academy. I’m not qualified to write on the topic, but I would like readers to post in comments or email me privately (frojas at indiana dot edu) what advice or strategies they think that women graduate students should get from the rulz. If you can link to other websites with good advice, that’d be great. I’ll bundle it all together into a post. Your suggestions will be confidential, unless you specifically tell me you want your name in the posts. Looking forward to your insightful feedback.

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.

Fabio

I’ve only been on the other side of the PhD for five years and I haven’t had chaired any dissertations, but I do feel that I should at least mention what faculty can do to help grad students finish in a reasonable time, barring a Skocpol style incentive system.

• Grad students have lives and they need you: It’s easy for professors to get wrapped up in their own publications and promotions and forget that grad students need your time if they are ever to proceed with their own lives. I am not saying you should martyr yourself and spend all time on graduate students, but you should periodically ask “what can I do *this* semester to help my students move along in their career?”
• Expectations: Like all ventures, explain to your graduate students – over and over - what you expect.  From the beginning. Write it down. Also try to gauge their expectations. If they want an R1 career, make it clear what they will need an exceptional dissertation or a top journal hit. Teaching colleges require less spectacular research but a big teaching portfolio. Be clear on what kind of support you can provide, both socially and academically.
• Timeliness: This is real important – respond to dissertation drafts and letters of recommendation in a timely manner. Don’t you hate it when reviewer C takes a year to read your paper? Well, guess what? Your students feel the same way. Every semester you fail to graduate someone because you couldn’t take the time to read a chapter literally costs a grad student thousands of dollars in lost income.
• Calm Criticism: It’s entirely legitimate to tell a student that they need to work hard and do better. However, it’s never useful to do so in a way that demoralizes the student. Be stern and demanding, but be nice, constructive and uplifting. On a related note, avoid changing the goalposts or providing ambiguous advice. Consistency is a virtue.
• Stability: Academia is full of divas. Don’t be that way. You should be the stable coach who taps into the right emotional pool to help students move on with their lives. Don’t turn mentorship into another stage for acting out your bad side.
• Reasonableness: Set research goals that your students can acheive and where there can be a reasonable time table for the completion of the project in a few years.. Also be prepared to help students work to acheive those goals, instead of letting them figure it out for themselves.
• Match students with goals: Notch expectations to ability and career goals. The student gunning for R1 needs an advisor who will demand good work, but the person aiming for community college teaching merely needs to produce a satisfactory dissertation. Also, remember that if you have PhD students, you are probably a respected, if not leading, member of your academic community. You are the best. In contrast, your students may not be.  Most will not engage in the research career that you have. Your talent and career may not be theirs. Set goals that both produce quality scholarship and allow them to work toward goals that match their ability and desires.
• Gentle Triage: This is tough, but needed. You have to really see which graduate students are willing and able to complete the program. Help people make the decision to pursue academia or another career. On the other hand, don’t “write off” students just because they aren’t perfect. Remember, many leading scholars failed a grad school test or acted like morons 30 years ago in that seminar. Give people second, third and fourth chances. Tolerate people who work differently than you do and don’t automatically dismiss them.
• Selection:  Accept students who you think you can have productive relationships with based on research focus or personality. It’s ok to turn down students if the fit is bad. This is the flip side of grad skool rulz #7.
• Face to face time: Get ‘em in the office. Frequently, at least a few times a semester. Take ‘em out to lunch. Anything to keep them on the wagon.
• Let them shine: It’s often the case the students apprentice on the mentor’s projects. That’s great, but make sure they complete their own work as well so they don’t look like they’re just your research assistant.
• They are future professors: Above all, these are adults who have begun a career. Treat them with dignity and respect.

R1 faculty, please add your own advice in the comments, especially if you have a solid track record placing PhD students.

Fabio

A few months ago, I asked about grad school and family life, which resulted in a very useful discussion. Here’s my summary of what people said, with a few of my own comments thrown in, about family and graduate school.

• Communication: Your family probably doesn’t understand that graduate school is a job. You have to show up and do work every day, or you will never get done. It’s not like undergraduate school, where you can wait till the last minute to do stuff. Passing exams and publishing your first papers can take months, even years, of prep work. Your family has to fully understand that.
• Boundaries: Becoming an academic is about acquiring skills and you need time to yourself to work on your materials. Thus, your spouse/partner needs to give you the space to do that. Therefore, schedule “work time” or “alone time” where the partner does their own thing or watches children while you get your job done.
• Expectations: Explain to your family what needs to be done and what the likely outcomes are. Explain early on that you will probably have to move after graduation, perhaps to a small college town. If you tell your partner and family well in advance, then they can adjust and have reasonable expectations.
• Give back: Don’t let grad school completely consume you. Make time for your spouse, kids, and friends. Not only is it fair for them, but you’ll feel better, too.
• Tell your mentors: If you have a sick family member, or other serious family issue, tell your mentors and friends. Even if they can’t directly help, the moral support is needed. Then, of course, a few of them might be able to help in concrete ways.
• Don’t Wait: I thank Chris Uggen for making this point. If you want to start a family and you are ready, “now” is usually the best time to start. You only live once and you will have the rest of your life with your family and kids, while the bumpiness of grad school is temporary. With good work habits and an understanding family, you’ll get through just fine.
• Pay for help if you can afford it: A few people, off line, said that you should pay for help if you can. This can include house cleaning, take out food, baby sitting, day care, have someone mow the lawn, etc. It’s good advice. First, you can concentrate on quality family time instead of house work, and it will free up time for your academic work. Second, while you can always get more money, you can never get back time. And if you have that spouse who’s already making money, this is easy advice to take.

There is much more to be said here, please add your own comments.

Brayden

Followers of Fabio’s Grad School Rulz series will want to check out Drek’s list of helpful hints for new grad students. Don’t let the title fool you, Drek knows what he’s talking about.

Fabio

Dissertation writing and weight loss share one thing in common. People tell you that it’s easy to do in 15 minutes a day. Well, I’m here to tell you that dissertation writing and weight loss actually do share one thing in common. They both require a great deal of persistent and dedicated effort. It’s not to say that dissertation writing should be a ten year project. Rather, successful dissertation writing, like all writing, means that you sit down everyday for a while and just work. It’s just like any other job. Here’s some things to keep in mind to help you actually create the final product:

1. Most dissertations are built from smaller chunks, which aren’t that hard to do. Therefore, you should write a fairly detailed outline of each chapter, and a sketch of how the chapters fit together. For example, most dissertations have a chapter, or section, that describes prior work on your topic. That’s a pretty easy thing to do that you can work on before you get to harder topics. Even the hard parts can be assembled from easier small chunks.
2. Schedule. Once you have figured out the bits and pieces of your dissertation, establish firm but reasonable goals for each month. For example, a reasonable goal for a semester might be to write one or two good chapter drafts and prepare one for submission to a journal.
3. Daily workout. Prepare a time and place where you can work everyday uninterrupted for many hours, at least 4-5 times a week. At Chicago, the computer lab in the basement of the policy school served this purpose for me. Make sure that you have all the tools you need to work – dictionaries, software, games for relaxation, etc.
4. Breaks. Schedule off time. Most people work in a cycle of high and low intensity, where you recover your spent energy. Go to a movie, play games, hang out with your kids. Also, eat well and exercise. Sustained writing is often an isolating activity, take care of yourself.
5. Learn that every good paper started out as a pretty bad paper. Therefore, don’t worry about how horrid the first draft is. Just do it. Once you have something, you can always revise it. If you haven’t written it, it can’t be improved, and if it can’t be improved and finished, it won’t ever help you graduate!
6. Follow the basic rules of writing you learned in freshman comp. Avoid wordiness, have a clear thesis, avoid passive sentences, etc.
7. Hang out with people who are progressing well on the dissertation. You need all the support you can get. Avoid people who discourage you or distract you. Your friends should be a help and inspiration, not a hindrance. Create a social environment of people who reinforce the right habits and attitudes.
8. Minimize time spent on teaching, committees, etc. All your time at work should be spent working on your dissertation. Even if college teaching is your main goal, you still need to finish the dissertation, which means limiting paper grading, office hours, and the like.
9. Learn that the only good dissertation is a complete dissertation. No matter how bad you feel, keep working and just get it done!

Now that you’ve relaxed by reading this post, I strongly suggest you get back to work! Chop, chop!

Fabio

Last time, we discussed the importance of knowing your dissertation’s genre. Next step: internalize the following advice:

1. You are the only one responsible for your dissertation. While a few advisers will write your dissertation, it’s usually a lonely job. If you fail to produce, you alone will suffer the consequences. Why? If you fail to write, you loose jobs and you will have wasted your time. And what happens to the adviser? Nothing. Thus, you are solely responsible for your dissertation. If you ever wonder why your dissertation isn’t done, I strongly suggest you look in the mirror.
2. Dissertations are *not* masterpieces! Sure, a few dissertations are home runs, but 90% are, at best, rough drafts of promising work. Many are simply useless pedagogical exercises. Even Einstein’s first dissertation draft was junky. Therefore, you should write a well crafted, competent work. The goal is to show you can actually complete competent research within a reasonable time period. You can write a masterpiece later in your career.
3. The only good dissertation is a complete dissertation. Seriously. The overwhelming majority of dissertations are not read, published, or cited. In fact, if you submit your unrevised dissertation for publication, the reviewers might reject it on the grounds that “it reads like a dissertation (= tendentious student work).” Therefore, once you have mastered the basics of research in your field, just get it done! You can always revise it later. There is no benefit at all to spending extra time on a scholarly product that no one will read. Exception: If you are in a field where the dissertation functions as a first draft of your book, you should probably spend more time on it so it looks good to editors. A lot of them will review dissertations, if they are well developed and already “book like.”
4. Write a *decent* dissertation. Does that contradict my previous advice? No – I just said that you shouldn’t expect your dissertation to win you a Nobel Prize. At the same time, the dissertation is often a pedagogical exercise and if your adviser is worth anything, they will expect a serious attempt at real science, not junk. It doesn’t have to be a masterwork, but show you’ve learned something and how your dissertation might lead to important future work. Also, employers might ask to see your dissertation. It’s in your interest to make sure the dissertation is in good shape. And heck, if you try your darndest, you might actually accomplish something!

Next installment: Can you really write your dissertation in 15 minutes a day?? Answer: Probably not.

Fabio

Ok, here’s the biggie in the grad skool rulz series: how to actually write your dissertation! I’ll break it up into two posts. This post is about a very subtle point – what a dissertation actually does for your career. The dissertation works very differently across departments, subfields and disciplines. You should get a grip on what it’s about in your area before you start writing. Here are some options:

1. Dissertation as useless distraction. At some programs, the faculty have taken the attitude that it’s much more important to author articles than work on the dissertation. Thus, some students may not write a single word of the dissertation until after they get the job. The dissertation in some cases is just a slightly altered version of the published articles that got you the job.
2. The “job search paper” model. In some fields, like economics, there is less expectation of publication pre-PhD. Placement depends mostly on faculty recommendations and a single writing sample called the job market paper. This is sometimes a published article or a strong dissertation chapter, so you need to show some progress on the dissertation, but few people expect much progress beyond one or two strong chapter drafts.
3. The dissertation as article drafts model. In this model, you don’t worry about pre-PhD publications. The dissertation is supposed to be a handful of essays on a topic, which are then sent to journals soon after graduation. In this case, you need to have extremely strong samples, or even a complete draft, upon entry into the market, so people can be pursauded that you are worth betting on.
4. The dissertation as book draft. This is the model in the humanities and qualitative social sciences. You might publish an article or two in grad school, but your real mission is to write the first draft of the book that will rock your area. When you enter the market, you need to have a lot of it worked out and if you want a top job, a contract with a good press. Otherwise, no one will believe you can actually publish anything.
5. The “sui generis dissertation.” As you will learn in the next installment, the dissertation is a pedagogical tool designed to help people master the research techniques of their area. Therefore, it has lots of stuff that you would never publish. In some departments and fields, you are expected to go through the motions and conform to the genre, even if the result is essentially unpublishable. Think of the “sui generis” dissertation as a very ugly car you are required to build and then completely reassemble.

Once you understand the model you are working with, it will help you develop a healthy attitude towards your dissertation and you can formulate a rational game plan. If you are doing #4 (diss as book draft), you are probably looking at a multi-year project and it has to be good enough to attract the attention of a major scholarly press – before you go on the market. You should really just concentrate on the diss and getting funding to see you through. You might even spend some time chatting with editors to get a sense of which presses might like your work.

If you doing #1 or #2, you might be looking at less than a year of work. Once you place an article or two in decent journals, you immediately become a plausible job candidate. You might not even bother with a formal dissertation proposal unless the school requires it. If you are living in situation #5, just do your best to go through the motions until the committee approves the final product and be prepared for a complete rewrite soon as you finish. Work from “sui generis” dissertations is often rejected, or if it’s published, it’s relegated to journals and presses that specialize in quick dissertation conversion (names ommitted to protect the guilty). You don’t want that.

What you should learn from this post is that “dissertation” can mean very different things. To get the most out of your graduate experience, compare the dissertations from your program with what is actually published and highly valued in your area. If you don’t, you could expend much effort on work that is completely useless.

Fabio

This edition of grad skool rulz focuses on the murky period after the dissertation defense but before the job market. It’s often called “dissertating.” In addition to the data you promised to collect and analyze, here’s some rules of thumb about what you should do during the dissertation period:

1. If you haven’t done so already, this is a really good time to try to get your first article published. Your adviser should have told you, but let me remind you as well: publications = jobs. The publication process deserves its own post, but you should know that it can take a while. Therefore, you should have at least one or two pieces under review while you are working on the dissertation. Ideally, one, or more, will hit while you are working and then you can go into the market with a record of research and a dissertation in progress. What should you publish? How about brushing off that MA thesis? Or asking a senior faculty member if they can help you write an article. Lots of opportunities if you look around.

2. Minimize teaching obligations: Let’s get this straight – you are not rewarded for teaching, except if you are at a liberal arts college. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t advocate bad teaching. Teaching should be adequate and competent, but you don’t have to be great at it. Wait till after tenure to pile up those teaching awards. Teach only if you need to make ends meet and be ruthlessly efficient in running your class. Time spent grading papers is merely a distraction from your main work. Exception: liberal arts schools place a huge emphasis on teaching, so if that’s your career goal, get the extra experience and do well. But even then, these schools now expect publications, so don’t ignore your research.

3. Work: Same as teaching. Only take a job if you will otherwise starve. Ideally, take a job that will lead to more academic opportunities. For example, working at NORC might put you in contact with survey people, which might lead to publications. In contrast, student counseling, while important, won’t get you closer to your career goal (unless you want to be a student services administrator!). Same as above – work only if you have to & try to do work that leads to academic opportunities.

4. Grants/fellowships: I am of two minds here. Obviously, getting money is great and a fellowship can you bring prestige. But it’s not as important as publishing. Thus, if you feel crunched for time, work more on dissertation and pubs. Remember, a grad school hit in a top journal is often the first step to good jobs, while no one was ever hired because of a fellowship.

5. Don’t move. Seriously. Faculty are overworked people. At the R1 schools, they usually teach 2-2, have grad students, grants, committees, etc. They also have children and families. Thus, if you move away from the campus, they can easily forget you exist. It’s not malignant, just human nature. Therefore, if at all possible, stay around campus. Also, if you move away from an academic environment, you might easily get off “the wagon” and spend too much work time on non-academic issues. Exception: field work. Even then, stay in touch (see #6 below). Send them field work updates.

6. Be in frequent contact with your committee. You don’t have to visit everyday, but keep close contact with your adviser. Send chapter drafts to the adviser and other committee members who have agreed to help out. You can also email questions to folks while you work. Your committee should know that little by little, you are accomplishing something, even if it is a crummy first draft. It also creates positive expectations for your work.

7. Keep track of all comments/suggestions provided by the committee. Be consistent so that later drafts of your work reflect the suggestions of the committee. If the suggestions conflict, just ask your adviser for his/her opinion about the best way to go. Also, if Prof X contradicts themself, you can gently remind them that you only tried your best to revise the work they way they suggested last time.

Next grad skool rulz … how to write that dissertation!

Fabio

After exams and choosing your committee, the next big step is your dissertation – a lengthy project on a topic of your choice. It’s a crucial decision because your career depends on completing the dissertation and publishing from it. As usual, there is no perfect choice. There are trade-offs in choosing any topic.

Let’s start with a basic question – where do you get ideas? Here’s a couple of sources:

• Big obvious problems – These are well known problems in most areas. For example, in population studies, a big question is when birth control becomes a widely accepted practice, leading to plunging fertility. Pro: You’ll be a star if you make progress. Con: Big, unsolved problems are big for a reason – they are hard. You might end up with nothing.
• You invent your own problem – You identify an unanswered question based on your own understanding of a field. Pro: This can lead to some creative, engaging stuff. Cons: You may be seen as weird or irrelevant.
• Your adviser gives you a problem – It’s common for advisers to have “problem lists” for people to work on. Variant: you work on the adviser’s project and get a piece of the action. Pro: Senior advisers usually have a good sense of what’s important in the field and what’s a tractable issue. Con: You may be seen as unoriginal and derivative of the adviser.

Other issues that are worth considering:

• Passion – You had better like your topic because you might be working on it for years. It has to be something you can stick with in the face of skeptical advisers, relatives, editors and students.
• Compatibility – Choose a problem that fits your intellectual style. If you like models, then choose something more mathematical. If you can do narrative, choose qualitative research.
• Difficulty – Don’t choose a very simple problem, or one that is beyond your scope. If you tackle a tough one, get the skills that you need.
• The research cycle – If you move first, you will get a big pay-off. Come last, and you will be seen as an imitator. Come way too early, people may literally not understand what you are talking about. Example: Social capital – super hot in 1995, not so hot in 2005, unless you have a really original insight.
• Solvable – You have to have a realistic approach to tackling the problem. Time travel is a great problem, but no one has any idea about how to solve it!
• Size – If you completely succeeded, how big would the result be? You don’t need to write a Nobel prize winning result in your dissertation, but you need to show that you are on track to bigger things.
• Novelty – There is safety in numbers, but if you are too similar to other researchers, then you won’t get much reward. If you are too original, then no one will get your point. So learn to strike the balance.
• Popularity – The topic needs to be able to attract the attention of the academic audience you wish to target. Remember, proving Fermat’s last theorem won’t get you points in the soc program!
• Publishable – Is this something that might appear in the journals/presses that figure prominently in your area?
• Time horizon – Can you solve the problem within a reasonable time limit? Unless you are willing to incur serious personal costs, any project that takes more than 2-3 years should be avoided by graduate students.

As you see, you will almost certainly have to sacrifice along some dimension. For example, an easier problem (low difficulty) may already have been addressed, which means you will be on the tail end of the research cycle (very bad). By considering these issues, you will make an informed choice that can help you get the most out of the dissertation process.

Fabio

A recent Chronicle of Higher Education article brought my attention to the fact that many graduate students conclude their studies with significant debt. My general feeling is that a little debt is manageable, but more than, say, $20k total is probably a very bad idea. Why? It’s simple – academic salaries tend to hover from $40k to $80k, unless you are in a field with a large non-academic demand like medicine, law, economics, business, or computer science. Furthermore, many schools are concentrated in urban areas with tight housing markets. Thus, you will have to pay mortgage/rent while paying a similar sized monthly student debt payment. Acheiving a tenurable record is hard enough, but add a $1000 mortgage payment and another $500-$1000, then you have a real problem. And if you have children, it’s a crushing burden.

Here are some rules of thumb:

• Do not go to any graduate program that does not offer a tuition waver for the first 4-5 years, especially if it’s a private school. If they don’t offer some sort of assistance, decline the offer. There are always other programs. With a few exceptions, there is simply no salary you can make as a professor that will allow you to live comfortably and make your monthly payments on a loan that covers private school tuition. If a department is unable to support entering graduate students with fellowships, assistantships, or teaching, then it’s a bad sign.
• Do your utmost to finish your requirements in a reasonable amount of time. Why? Many universities reduce tuition for graduate students who are doctoral candidates (i.e., dissertation writing phase) or living far away from campus.
• Message to advisers: Don’t mess with your students. Every time you delay a student’s advancement through the program, you increase the chance that a student will have to pay a significant amount of tuition and/or fees later.
• Investigate as many fellowship opportunities as you can. You may get rejected a lot, but if you can get a single award that covers you for a year or two, it will save you much pain down the road. Even if you have a fellowship now, still apply for more – you never know when you will need the extra support.
• If you are in the position of having to pay tuition, complain a lot. Contact the graduate chair, the dean of graduate studies, or whoever is in charge of advising students. Even if you need a loan to cover this semester, you might be able to get some help to cover next semester if you whine. A teaching assistantship might open up and they might give it to you becuase you complained, you never know until you ask. Remember, the squeaky wheel is greased.

The key insight is that academia is an enormous subsidy. American society knows that it is vauable to have a pool of experts on a range of fields that don’t have a lot of market value. Therefore, it is absurd for you to pay for your training because everybody knows you can’t pay it back. In exchange for specializing in academic topics and teaching young people, at a heavily discounted price may I add, society should make your training very low cost. Readers who know about grad student financing are encouraged to add their own thoughts in the comments.

Fabio

The last installment was about choosing your dissertation adviser. This week’s topic is how to select the rest of your committee. As with the adviser, there is no “perfect” committee, but you should try to choose people that have some positive traits (see grad skool rulz #7 for the list of good traits). You should also follow these rules of thumb:

1. Compliment: If your adviser is weak on topic X, choose committee members to fill in the gap. For example, if your adviser is kind of slow with the letters of recommendation, choose someone who is very professional and does things efficiently. Aloof prof X can be complimented by emotional & supportive prof Y. If prof X isn’t up to date on statistical technique, get someone who is.
2. Compatibility: Professors are human beings – they have their own disputes and you don’t want to get caught up in the tussle. Most profs will keep dept politics out of graduate training, but you should still be careful. So choose people who will get along with each other. If you have heard that profs X and Y have it out for each other, do *not* put them on the same committee. If you must, consult with your chair or the graduate chair to make sure it will be ok.
3. Transaction Costs: Remember, getting people to agree on anything is hard. Thus, you should minimize the number of committee members. Get the dept rules (see grad skool rulz #1) and figure out the minimal number of people you need on a committee. And stick to that minimal number! There is rarely any benefit to having reader #6, and there’s a chance they could mess you up.
4. No block heads: It can be hard enough working with your dissertation committe adviser – so don’t stack your committee with block heads. Choose people will work with you and your adviser, not against you. These people are often easy to identify – they make all kinds of crazy demands on qualifying exams or oral exams. They make students cry in office hours. They seem more interested in ritualistic torture of grad students than professional development. Do not, under any circumstances, put these people on your committee.

The dissertation committee is a team that has two goals: training/advising students and helping the student get a job. Most of the work is done by the chair, so make sure people can work with that person to help you develop as a professional and get a job.

Fabio

In previous installments, I’ve discussed how to get through the first half of grad school – courses, exams, friends, etc. The next bunch of “rulz” will be about the second half of grad school – dissertations, advisers, articles, jobs, etc.

This week’s topic: how to select your dissertation adviser, the person who will head the committee that must approve your dissertation. This is very important because it is very difficult to change advisers once you have begun your dissertation and you will need their professional support for a *very* long time. So choose wisely.

Advice in a nutshell: No adviser is perfect, but they need to have at least a few strong suits. Also, the dissertation student-adviser relationship is like any other relationship. If your work style/ professional attitudes don’t match, you should consider other options.

Here is a list of desirable adviser traits. As I said, no one is perfect, but you need *something* to work with. In no particular order:

1. Placement – A track record of placing recent students in schools you would like to work in. For example, if you want to be a liberal arts teacher, don’t work with someone who disdains undergraduate teaching.
2. Reputation – A reputation within the profession as a competent and accomplished researcher [Note: I didn't say "super star." Just respected within his/her field.]
3. Authorship/ Co-authorship – A track record of publishing with graduate students in reputable books/journals. The adviser encourages students to publish their own work during the PhD program or shortly thereafter.
4. Funding – A track record of helping students with funding via grants/research projects.
5. Usefulness – The ability to offer constructive criticism and praise. One without the other is usually a recipe for emotional disaster.
6. Accessibility – they are actually around campus so you can consult with them.
7. Craftsmanship – the ability to see that academic research is a craft that can be taught and developed.
8. Professionalism – the ability to complete administrative tasks such as writing letters of recommendation for jobs and fellowships.
9. Boundary control – the adviser does not overstep personal boundaries and treats you as a colleague in training.
10. Expertise – the adviser knows and/or cares about the are in which your are working.
11. Personality Match – Make sure your adviser can tolerate your persona. For example, if you are very chatty and need feedback, make sure your adviser can deal with this. They don’t need to be chatty, they only need to be able to tolerate chattiness in others.
12. Intellectual Style Match – Make sure you can handle the “style” of your adviser. For example, if you are going to write a tightly argued statistical dissertation, don’t pick the guy who reads Foucault all day. A loner shouldn’t work with an adviser who does all group projects. However, if you are willing to learn, you can get a great deal from somebody with a different “style” if you can make some compromises.
13. Social match – Make sure your adviser has a reputation for liking/tolerating people with your social/intellectual characteristics. For example, some folks really feel more comfortable working with people of a certain gender, or they prefer only ethnographers. Don’t be on a crusade to change other people’s personalities. But be open minded – some people only appear rigid on the outside and can be rather open minded when approached with a smile.
14. Rational expectations – does the adviser think the dissertation is a perfect object to be carefully worked on over 20 years, or a project with fixed objectives that can be done in 2-3 years?

There are other desirable traits and remember that no adviser is perfect, but you need to choose someone who has at least a few very strong traits. Here are a few other good rules of thumb:

• Super Star prof isn’t always the best adviser. Stars are often asked to go to a million conferences and serve on fancy committees. A lot of people don’t handle graduate education and these other tasks well, and grad students are often abandoned.
• Ask around. If Grumpy Prof has been teaching for 25 years and has only placed one student, there’s probably a reason. Ask and you will find out. And don’t think you’ll succeed where others have failed – that’s what the other students said!
• Appearances can be deceiving. Some folks may be great lecture hall instructors, but awful dissertation advisers, or vice versa. Once again, ask around.
• Dig deep. Is the great placement record of Prof X’s students dumb luck? Did people succeed despite the awful behavior of Prof X? Get a sense of how Prof X helped out.
• Avoid junior faculty. In general, most junior faculty are still figuring out the academic game. Also, they tend to move around a bit, especially if they are hot (in the academic sense). Exception: In fast moving technical field, like computer science, a junior adviser may be the *only* person who is on top of things.
• Don’t use stereotypes. Just because Prof X is of the same gender/race/political persuasion/etc as you, it doesn’t mean they will be a good pick. Don’t let these sorts of characteristics blind you to their weaknesses. What matters is that they can help you become the scholar you want to be. And remember, if you read closely, I said the adviser has to tolerate people like you, not actually be like you. As long as someone can be tolerant, they can usually have a strong work relationship with some one who is very different than themselves.
• Be prepared for rejection. Some good profs may be overloaded with students, too close to retirement or may not like you. So if you ask to work with them, you might get rejected. It’s ok. Just ask someone else.

Finally, have reasonable expectations. Faculty members are just middle aged men and women with their own careers and families. Don’t expect miracles, but if you do your homework and ask around, you will probably find someone who is professional and helpful.

Fabio

[Previous grad skool rulz #1, #2, #3, #4, #5.]

My advice in this installment is simple: make some grad school friends. Your ultimate success in grad school depends on the creativity and effort you invest in your work, but having a good set of friends is important. Here’s what your friends can do for you, and what you can do for them:

1. Offer emotional support. Grad school isn’t easy and it’s hard for your family or non-academic buddies to really empathize. It’s good to have people who understand what you are going through.
2. Offer information. Your friends often have important “local knowledge” about how things work in your program. Advanced grad school buddies can be very useful in helping you find an advisor and other dissertation related topics.
3. Offer academic help. I have been helped many times by people who know how to format a table, or fill out an application, or run a regression. Have a decent set of friends means I have more people to ask about my problems.
4. Start a project. You can team up with a buddy to write a paper. It is often better to be co-author #2 on a grad student paper than be author #8 on mega-team paper lead authored by super-famous advisor who gets all the credit.
5. Have fun. One of my favorite moments in grad school was when Millsaps political scientist Michael Reinhardt (electric guitar) and I (trumpet/flute) helmed the “Hyde Park Jazz Unit.” Fun, and we actually got paid a few times. [Other personnel: Minnesotta Geographer Frank Shockey on Alto Sax, New York hipster/Columbia musicologist Paul Steinbeck on bass, Leon on drums, with Chicago soc grad student music/culture ethnographer Nick Dempsey occasionally on tenor... The Chicago Maroon once described the HPJU as a weird funk/ Thelonious Monk hybrid.]

You shouldn’t be a complete social butterfly and spend all your time socializing, or pretend to be everyone’s friend. But do realize that having just a few good, dependable friends can make a big difference in the quality of your graduate education.

Fabio

This week’s “grad skool rulz” topic is the graduate exam. Every PhD program has tests you have to pass. There are two questions that naturally arise: How do I pass the exams? and What should I take away from the exams?

On the first count, it is important to remember that social science graduate programs usually have two sorts of exams: sit down tests of memory and skill & take home essays. The sit down tests are probably the trickiest ones but luckily there’s a simple piece of advice you should follow. Most graduate programs have old test. Get as many of them as you can and then sit down and do every single exam. Then redo them with the time constraints. Of course, check your sample answers with samples from the department (if they offer them) or with faculty and/or advanced graduate students. Like anything, you will find that practice leads to mastery. You will be more confident and relaxed during the tests if you have seen similar tests before and are ready to answer them in the time allowed. Also, practice with previous tests means that you won’t be surprised.

The take home tests are a bit different. It’s hard to take a week off just to practice test taking, but you can still prepare. Departments often keep old qualifying exams so you can read these and sketch out answers before hand. You can also write extensive summaries of articles and books, which is a way of practicing the craft of writing. In these exams, it’s also important to be succinct – don’t write 100 page qual exams! – and show you have a well founded opinion on a topic. It’s about synthesizing and expanding ideas.

What should you take away from these exams? My opinion is that sit down exams are really best for making students learn technical skills (like regression) but these exams also tend to have lots of idiosyncratic topics thrown into them. In field like economics, there is a lot of “cramming” for the test and forgetting all the weird & useless stuff once you pass. Thus in the long term, they may not be as important as the take home essays because in that case you have to really learn a literature. The take home essays simulate the actual work of the academic much more than a timed three hour exam on French.

Also, and this is very important, graduate exams are the classic case of “not much credit if you pass, but a disaster if you fail.” That is, the test is a hoop and jumping through it won’t get you published or get you a job. But failing the test can easily end a budding academic career. Not only do programs eject students who don’t pass after a few tries, but your confidence and esteem can take a serious hit, which makes it harder to carry on. So treat these exams seriously. There is a technique that will maximize your chances of passing. If you do it, you will probably be ok. Then immediately move on to the next stage of your career.

Let me conclude with a few words on failure. If you don’t pass an exam, you should ask why you didn’t do well. Get an explanation from the graduate chair or exam committee chair. It’s their job to explain the exam. In some cases, it may be a case of knowledge. You simply didn’t know what was on the test, or maybe you were nervous. In that case, just take a break and then follow the regimen described above and you’ll be ok. It’s not the end of the world.

It might also be the case that you were thrown a curveball – maybe there was a truly unusual or hard question that caught people off guard, or maybe there was unusually harsh or arbitrary grading on the exam. It happens. Maybe you can appeal, but you will probably just have to retake the test and you will be fine. In either case, don’t panic. Lots of stellar academic careers started with not so great exams! Hang in there!

But once in a while, a student realizes that they didn’t take the test seriously enough to invest the time and effort needed to pass. If this describes you, then you have to ask yourself a serious question: why don’t you care? Is it that you think academia is boring or silly? This is the time to really think hard about you career goals. My view is that most graduate students have the ability to pass most exams. But if you can’t muster the energy to read a bunch of articles and write a 5 page essay in exam, then how will you write a Master’s paper, or a dissertation, or a 400 page book? The purpose of raising this issue is not to discourage students, but to encourage people to follow careers that they actually like. Exams can be an opportunity to think about what matters to you the most.

Fabio

[For previous advice on getting through graduate school, please see grad skool rulz #1, #2, and #3.]

This edition of grad skool rulz focuses on course work. First, you should know that course work is highly ambigous at this stage of your career: In the short term, courses are extremely important. Fail and you will be ejected. Even if the program keeps you, you might be tagged as a loser. Also, fellowships often depend on having good grades. In the long term, courses are irrelevant. Nobody was ever hired for a competitive research position because they got an A+ in a seminar. You are hired because of your dissertation, your articles, and in the case of teaching colleges, your teaching record.

Given the different perspectives on course work, what should you do? Well, when it comes to taking courses, you should probably use the following rules of thumb:

1. Take a course if it is required or fulfills an elective slot. If the instructor is horrid, you might petition for a substitute in another department.
2. Take a course if you will learn a concrete valuable skill (e.g., statistics, foriegn language, interview technique).
3. Take at most one or two courses on topics that are fun or deepen your knowledge. Any more than one or two, you are wasting your time. You should be able to learn on your own at this level anyway.
4. Learn diminishing marginal returns: the first course might be useful, but the 10th or 12th probably isn’t. Learn to say no to courses.

Then there is the subject of how much effort you should put into course work. My personal view is that effort expended learning real skills is probably good, but there is a point of diminishing returns. One or two semesters of multivariate statistics is probably good, but unless you are training to a statistician, any more than that is probably a waste. Also, do well in any required course. If you are mediocre in a required course, then the faculty will probably know and it might be hard to recuit them to be on your dissertation committee. If you do real bad, you won’t be allowed to continue. In other circumstances, you might justifiably decide that a course really isn’t relevant to your plan of study, that you will never deal with that lame instructor ever again, or it’s just a really bad course. In that case, the minimum non-embarrassing effort level might be appropriate. Finally, unless you are in the 1st or 2nd year doing required courses, effort in courses should *never* crowd out effort learning the craft of research. Research should be your main activity, and after the first year or so, courses should be your extra-curricular activity.

To summarize my view on courses: they are important in short term, but irrelvant in the long term; only take them if you have to, but you can indulge in one or two fun courses; don’t bomb in any course and thus jeopardize your self, but you can probably scale back your effort in courses that don’t directly benefit you; and in the long term, courses are not as important as your research.

Fabio

My last post on gettting through graduate school (grad skool rulz #2) triggered an interesting email exchange between Omar and myself. Omar pointed out that many top programs have a “survival of the fittest” attitude. This made me think of the following rule. Controlling for program prestige and other factors, you should choose the graduate program that scores highest on the following scale:

1. Toxic Graduate Program – Some departments provide no support for students and seem happy pitting students against each other in zero sum games (e.g., grading exams on a x% fail rule). Signs of the toxic graduate program: nobody has graduated in a while; placement is bad; low morale among students and faculty; etc. Only go here as a last resort.
2. Benign Neglect Program – This characterizes most graduate programs. A few good students get support from the faculty, but otherwise, it’s “every man for himself.” Signs of benign neglect: program has no consistent record of grduation or placement, but you see the occassional success story; people talk about individual supportive faculty, not about any system for helping students.
3. The Workshop System – The program has a clusters of scholars, who work with “apprentices.” This is common in areas like demography (UNC), orgs (Stanford, Northwestern) and medical sociology (IU, Florida State). Not a bad deal, but if you aren’t in the workshop, it can be lonely and tough. Signs of a good workshop system: faculty routinely publish with students; leaders in specific areas (like orgs) frequently produced by the dept; big grants to support research and grad student assistants.
4. The Supportive Overall Program – The program has a well thought out set of courses that exposes most students to what they need to know to survive in the academy. Or they have so many workshops that they can absorb most serious graduate students. Signs of the overall system: few involuntary drop outs for failing exams or fighting with faculty; strong placement in multiple specialties (not just the ones tied with workshops); consistent publication by grad students in good journals; high morale in a broad cross section of the grad student population; support for different career paths (research, liberal arts, private sector).

Like I said, there are other factors that should go into your decision (e.g., program prestige, financial aid, intellectual fit, etc), but this four point scale should clarify a major issue for you. Also, as with any career decision, the quality of the person matters the most. Some fantastic persons have survived highly toxic programs because of intelligence and persistence. Similarly, a flaky person will definitely fail in a supportive program. Last comment: these situations can be short lived as faculty enter and leave a program. A program with a few solid workship may degenerate into a toxic program when the most active faculty retire or leave. A toxic program may turnaround with a cohort of new professors ready to make things work. So get current information and make sure that there will be effective faculty at the school for the next 5 or so years so you can work with them.

Fabio

A few weeks ago, I started a new feature: grad skool rulz. The idea is simple: give common sense tips on how to get through graduate school. Last week, the advice was “learn the rules.” Get the graduate program announcement and figure out how to fulfill your requirements without wasting time. This week’s advice: learn the “unspoken” rules.

What do I mean? It’s pretty simple – every program has informal rules about how to get through the program. For example, I learned that at the Chicago econ program, students prepare for the infamous general exam by studying previous exams. In theory, you should be able to pass just by taking the econ core courses, but it turns out the exams cover specific topics in specific ways that aren’t always covered in econ core courses. It’s way easier to work from older exams and work on basic skills, then memorize tons of materials, most of which never appear on the exam. So this is one informal rule of many programs: practice from old exams and ignore coursework. There are other rules: avoid exams in topic X; take courses with professor Z; and don’t spend too much time studying for foreign language exams – except if you are a foreign language grad student!

How do you find out about these rules? It’s actually pretty simple – ask successful graduate students who are still in the program, the people who have finished coursework and exams in a reasonable time period. You will soon find out that graduate school is kind of like a mine field. There are all the invisible dangers, but they are easy to avoid if someone points them out to you. By talking with other successful graduate students, you will get a sense of how “things work” in your program. Try to get a handle on the following topics:

• Which courses & workshops are useful.
• How to fulfill requirements in a straightforward and quick manner.
• Certain personalities to approach or avoid.
• How to pass the graduate exams, which topics are on the exams and how to answer them.
• How to get financial and academic support in the program and from other units on campus.
• How to approach professors, as students and possible collaborators.

Orgheads are invited to add informal rules in the comments.

Fabio

One of my goals is to de-mystify academia. I believe that one of the main obstacles in getting people through graduate education is that they are ill informed about how things get done. That’s why I am introducing “grad skool rulz,” a semi-regular feature aimed at grad students. I can’t claim to know everything, but I will try to communicate some basic bits of information so that grad students, and others in a similar position, will have the information they need to navigate the academic system. Every once in a while, I will post a rule of thumb that has helped me make it this far in my professional life.

So here we go, Grad Skool Rulz #1: Get the rules! Ask for a written copy of the regulations of your department. Then memorize the rules.

Explanation: To complete your degree, you will need to know the requirements. Every program has a graduate handbook that lists the degree requirements. Go to the graduate secretary or dept office, or website, and get a copy. Right now.

This is very important because a lot of people:

1. Waste time doing things that don’t get them any closer to finishing the degree.
2. Satisfy requirements in completely bone headed ways that waste time.
3. Are shocked to find that they can’t advance in the program because they didn’t do some lame requirement. Avoid these problems by learning the rules.

I have also found that faculty members sometimes give bad advice because they don’t know the rules of their own program. Why? Because professors usually have earned their degree in the distant past at another school. They almost certainly don’t know the details of the program where they teach.

My favorite example: I once attended a panel discussion on getting into grad school that had four professors from the same department. A student asked: “Is getting an MA a requirement for the PhD in your program?” The professor at one end of the row said: “No, in fact, we just abolished the terminal MA program in our program.” Then, the professor at the other end yelled: “Hold on! I’m the chair of the MA program!! It hasn’t been abolished!”

You should also consult the graduate chair, or another knowledgable person, about grad school requirements. In my case, I often tell graduate students to consult the graduate director on technical questions. I can lecture for hours on economic sociology, but I really don’t know about the fastest way to satisfy the foreign language requirement at Indiana University.

You might ask if I advocate a “careerist” and instrumental approach to grad school. The answer is yes! Absolutely. In grad school, you will have many opportunities to learn from your friends and instructors. And you will definitely take courses purely because of a love of the topic. I took great courses in topics that are not related to my area, and I did some community service. You will also learn much throughout your life that has no direct career benefit. But I did spend time figuring how to fulfill requirements without wasting my time and I am very glad I did.

Overall, graduate school is a professional training program. Anyone who tells you otherwise is really missing the boat. Therefore, you should develop a plan that helps you achieve your goals, and this includes a strategic plan for fulfilling degree requirements in a timely fashion. And to do that, you will need a copy of the rules.