Money Flows Toward the Student
Via Invisible Adjunct, your one-stop-shopping source for depressing information about academia, a "Thomas H. Benton" essay about graduate school. This is a follow-up to the previous piece which kicked off a series of posts about graduate school (scroll up for more) here.
The previous article argued that students shouldn't even think about going to graduate school. This one provides advice for those who will not be deterred. Some of the more pessimistic stuff is fairly specific to the humanities, but it's solid advice for those considering science grad school, too. In particular:
Do Not Pay for Graduate School.
Not even if it is the best program in your field. Do not accept future promises (e.g., a job) instead of fair payment in the present.
If anything, this is probably more generally true in the sciences than the humanities. We flat-out tell our students that if they're accepted to a program that doesn't automatically provide tuition waivers and, at a minimum, teaching assistantships, they should turn it down.
It's a variant of Yog's Law in publishing: Money should always and only flow toward the student. If you're in grad school in the sciences, you will eventually be doing your advisor's research for them-- you should expect to be compensated for this labor. If the department or school is insisting that you pay tuition, you're getting screwed. (And don't get me started on the frequent attempts to amend the tax code to treat tuition waivers as taxable income...)
Another critically important bit of advice from Benton is:
Advising: Your adviser will be the most important person in your academic career, and your final choice of a graduate school should also take potential relationships with a few, specific advisers into account.
It's hard to overstate the importance of this choice. Grad school with an incompatible advisor can be hell on earth. You will be directly accountable to this person for the next several years, and your future will be entirely in their hands. If you can't get along with your advisor, your life will be utterly miserable. On the other hand, if your advisor has a bad reputation in the field, or a history of graduating students who have trouble getting jobs, it doesn't matter how wonderfully nice they may be, you don't want to work for them.
I tend to disagree with a lot of the commenters over at the Invisible Adjunct about the degree to which grad school is a trap, and strands people in career limbo-- it's a big decision, yes, but it's not the end of the world. But while it won't necessarily irretrievably wreck your life if you slip up, deciding whether and where to go to graduate school is a major decision, and it's important to do it right. Benton's advice on these points is well worth reading.
Posted at 11:55 AM | link | follow-ups |