should I accept my phd offer?
February 28, 2023 6:52 PM Subscribe
I have a life that I am generally very happy with at the moment (aside from my job, which frustrates/bores me). I've recently been accepted to a fantastic PhD program and I'm conflicted about whether to leave all of the amazing things I have here to go.
[This is a super long post - sorry in advance!]
A few caveats:
- I know that no one but me can make this decision; to that end, I'm hoping to hear perspectives on how others have negotiated some of the trade-offs that I am considering or general advice on making Big Life Decisions.
- I have not visited the program yet but will be visiting in two weeks, which may significantly change my opinion. I am feeling quite anxious about this, though (I think understandably!) and wanted to get some thoughts sooner rather than later.
I was recently accepted to do a PhD at the Information Science program at University of Michigan. I'm absolutely thrilled to have been accepted; this program has been one of my top choices from the moment I first started even thinking about doing a PhD. I still can't quite believe that I've been accepted!
But, a few weeks later, my enthusiasm has become clouded with my anxieties and concerns about the future, and boy are there many...
My life right now is pretty freaking awesome. I live in Cambridge, which is an incredibly city that I love very much, for a number of reasons:
* There's so many things I love to do here, and I like the size of Cambridge and its proximity to Boston -- I'm rarely bored here.
* I'm the perfect distance from my parents to be able to visit them whenever I want but not too close that I don't feel like I have space from them; I feel so lucky to have this, especially as I've grown closer to my mom in recent years. I am frequently aware that as the years go by, I will have less and less time with them, and I really value being close to my family.
* I have quite a few college friends in the city as well as new friends who I love dearly!
* I've started to form relationships with older mentors, especially other people of color, that are growing so important to me.
* And, there are strong communities related to my culture and values; I'm South Asian and there's a strong South Asian community, I also care a lot about progressive/leftist values and there's a strong progressive community, and most miraculously, there's a strong progressive South Asian community -- which is just awesome!
I've been living in Cambridge for a little less than a year and I could certainly see myself living here for a long time, growing deep roots, becoming a part of the community. I'm in love with the city and I don't know if I'm ready to leave.
However, I know that I like research. I got a fair amount of research experience in my undergrad, including an industry research internship, so I have a fairly good understanding of what being a researcher is like and I think that I would excel in that role. I've always loved pursuing big, interesting questions; I enjoy reading and writing; I am highly self-motivated; the research that I want to do feels important and meaningful and something that I think about on a daily basis -- the questions I want to answer are questions that I think I need to answer; and the idea of creating new knowledge is amazing to me! I think that grad school could be an incredibly rewarding opportunity for me, both personally and professionally. A PhD is training to become an independent researcher, to develop the intellectual tools/rigor, maturity, and perseverance of a researcher -- this is something that I absolutely want to do. I want to learn how to think like a researcher.
I've also been extremely lucky to be admitted to a program that seems like a really good fit to me:
* It's highly inter-disciplinary, which is what I was seeking in a PhD program.
* All of the grad students I have spoken to so far (I will definitely be talking to more) have seemed very happy with the program
* there are so many scholars at the program that I admire so much, and the program is very prestigious in my field.
* I've spoken with both of my future co-advisors, and the research fit is just incredible -- pretty much perfect, which I know is rare! And advising-wise, I think we will be a good fit; both co-advisors and I were in consensus about valuing work-life balance, quality over quantity, and a collaborative rather than a directive advising relationship. I still have a few questions that I want to ask them, but from what I have heard so far, I feel good about my future advisors.
However, I worry that going to UM will mean leaving behind many of the things that I love here. I have a few concerns...
* I've heard that Ann Arbor is decently walkable, which is great -- but I've heard conflicting things about still needing a car, and definitely there isn't as great public transit to get out of the Ann Arbor area as there is in Cambridge.
* Ann Arbor definitely seems to be a mostly college-town, and I've so valued having intergenerational community here and being able to befriend people who are not in academia. I worry that I won't be able to make any non-grad-student friends.
* From my research online, Ann Arbor also seems much whiter than Cambridge, and it does break my heart to leave behind the wonderful South Asian community that I have found here -- especially after so many years of feeling alienated from my cultural identity.
* It seems like there's plenty to do in Ann Arbor, but certainly less than in Cambridge/Boston (though maybe I need to stop comparing the two).
* And Ann Arbor is further away from home, which makes me really sad - I don't want to be away from my mom. (Though I also think that, having lived mostly in MA close to my family, it would be a good developmental experience for me to move away for a little while).
I also have general worries about life in grad school. I don't like my job a ton at the moment -- some days it's okay/even pretty good, but most days I feel dull and bored and alienated from myself and my passions. I have a CS degree, but I don't think I want to keep going down the route of being a software engineer...I don't really think that's for me. While I think professionally the transition would be good, I'm scared about being super stressed and burnt out and depressed in grad school. I worry about having no time for my hobbies and just my life, and at UM especially, worry that my life will become the university. Being out of school for the past almost-year has been incredible because I have had the time and space to really become re-acquainted with myself, to deepen my existing hobbies and discover new hobbies, to rest and recuperate after working very hard in undergrad. I worry that grad school will not offer me the same space. I'm also anxious about spending most of my 20s in grad school -- there is undoubtedly a significant financial and perhaps even social opportunity cost, especially in a city like Ann Arbor.
And even though I really like research, I still have reservations about whether the life of a researcher is for me. It can be so alienating, spending a lot of time by yourself reading and writing. In my undergrad, I found research to be quite lonely and it started to drive me a bit insane -- I don't know if I want my entire career to be like that. And I sometimes question the fundamental value of research; while I have not liked my job, there is something rewarding about doing practical, applied, on-the-ground work. I love theory, but I also really value practice -- and I question whether the insularity of the Ivory Tower has space for all of that. Not to mention all of the many toxic aspects of academia...Is it normal to be ambivalent about becoming a researcher even if one really likes research? Does that mean that I'm not cut out for this? I've heard that you should really only go for a PhD if you're 100% sure that it will lead to the career path that you want. I am not 100% sure.
I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out what to do...ideally I would like to defer my admission by one year so that I can live in Cambridge for a little bit longer, but I don't have a good enough reason to tell the university. I've considered not going this year and re-applying next year, but I'm worried that I'll get rejected from this program and I would definitely regret giving up the opportunity to work with these professors. But the idea of going this year makes me feel sad--perhaps this is dramatic of me, but I feel grief already, leaving behind this life that I already love so much.
I'm so conflicted on what to do. I love my life right now, and I think grad school could be really good for me...but it could also be pretty bad, and regardless, it would mean letting go of things that I love. If anyone has any advice on how they would make a decision like this or any experience with decisions like this, I would love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you!
[This is a super long post - sorry in advance!]
A few caveats:
- I know that no one but me can make this decision; to that end, I'm hoping to hear perspectives on how others have negotiated some of the trade-offs that I am considering or general advice on making Big Life Decisions.
- I have not visited the program yet but will be visiting in two weeks, which may significantly change my opinion. I am feeling quite anxious about this, though (I think understandably!) and wanted to get some thoughts sooner rather than later.
I was recently accepted to do a PhD at the Information Science program at University of Michigan. I'm absolutely thrilled to have been accepted; this program has been one of my top choices from the moment I first started even thinking about doing a PhD. I still can't quite believe that I've been accepted!
But, a few weeks later, my enthusiasm has become clouded with my anxieties and concerns about the future, and boy are there many...
My life right now is pretty freaking awesome. I live in Cambridge, which is an incredibly city that I love very much, for a number of reasons:
* There's so many things I love to do here, and I like the size of Cambridge and its proximity to Boston -- I'm rarely bored here.
* I'm the perfect distance from my parents to be able to visit them whenever I want but not too close that I don't feel like I have space from them; I feel so lucky to have this, especially as I've grown closer to my mom in recent years. I am frequently aware that as the years go by, I will have less and less time with them, and I really value being close to my family.
* I have quite a few college friends in the city as well as new friends who I love dearly!
* I've started to form relationships with older mentors, especially other people of color, that are growing so important to me.
* And, there are strong communities related to my culture and values; I'm South Asian and there's a strong South Asian community, I also care a lot about progressive/leftist values and there's a strong progressive community, and most miraculously, there's a strong progressive South Asian community -- which is just awesome!
I've been living in Cambridge for a little less than a year and I could certainly see myself living here for a long time, growing deep roots, becoming a part of the community. I'm in love with the city and I don't know if I'm ready to leave.
However, I know that I like research. I got a fair amount of research experience in my undergrad, including an industry research internship, so I have a fairly good understanding of what being a researcher is like and I think that I would excel in that role. I've always loved pursuing big, interesting questions; I enjoy reading and writing; I am highly self-motivated; the research that I want to do feels important and meaningful and something that I think about on a daily basis -- the questions I want to answer are questions that I think I need to answer; and the idea of creating new knowledge is amazing to me! I think that grad school could be an incredibly rewarding opportunity for me, both personally and professionally. A PhD is training to become an independent researcher, to develop the intellectual tools/rigor, maturity, and perseverance of a researcher -- this is something that I absolutely want to do. I want to learn how to think like a researcher.
I've also been extremely lucky to be admitted to a program that seems like a really good fit to me:
* It's highly inter-disciplinary, which is what I was seeking in a PhD program.
* All of the grad students I have spoken to so far (I will definitely be talking to more) have seemed very happy with the program
* there are so many scholars at the program that I admire so much, and the program is very prestigious in my field.
* I've spoken with both of my future co-advisors, and the research fit is just incredible -- pretty much perfect, which I know is rare! And advising-wise, I think we will be a good fit; both co-advisors and I were in consensus about valuing work-life balance, quality over quantity, and a collaborative rather than a directive advising relationship. I still have a few questions that I want to ask them, but from what I have heard so far, I feel good about my future advisors.
However, I worry that going to UM will mean leaving behind many of the things that I love here. I have a few concerns...
* I've heard that Ann Arbor is decently walkable, which is great -- but I've heard conflicting things about still needing a car, and definitely there isn't as great public transit to get out of the Ann Arbor area as there is in Cambridge.
* Ann Arbor definitely seems to be a mostly college-town, and I've so valued having intergenerational community here and being able to befriend people who are not in academia. I worry that I won't be able to make any non-grad-student friends.
* From my research online, Ann Arbor also seems much whiter than Cambridge, and it does break my heart to leave behind the wonderful South Asian community that I have found here -- especially after so many years of feeling alienated from my cultural identity.
* It seems like there's plenty to do in Ann Arbor, but certainly less than in Cambridge/Boston (though maybe I need to stop comparing the two).
* And Ann Arbor is further away from home, which makes me really sad - I don't want to be away from my mom. (Though I also think that, having lived mostly in MA close to my family, it would be a good developmental experience for me to move away for a little while).
I also have general worries about life in grad school. I don't like my job a ton at the moment -- some days it's okay/even pretty good, but most days I feel dull and bored and alienated from myself and my passions. I have a CS degree, but I don't think I want to keep going down the route of being a software engineer...I don't really think that's for me. While I think professionally the transition would be good, I'm scared about being super stressed and burnt out and depressed in grad school. I worry about having no time for my hobbies and just my life, and at UM especially, worry that my life will become the university. Being out of school for the past almost-year has been incredible because I have had the time and space to really become re-acquainted with myself, to deepen my existing hobbies and discover new hobbies, to rest and recuperate after working very hard in undergrad. I worry that grad school will not offer me the same space. I'm also anxious about spending most of my 20s in grad school -- there is undoubtedly a significant financial and perhaps even social opportunity cost, especially in a city like Ann Arbor.
And even though I really like research, I still have reservations about whether the life of a researcher is for me. It can be so alienating, spending a lot of time by yourself reading and writing. In my undergrad, I found research to be quite lonely and it started to drive me a bit insane -- I don't know if I want my entire career to be like that. And I sometimes question the fundamental value of research; while I have not liked my job, there is something rewarding about doing practical, applied, on-the-ground work. I love theory, but I also really value practice -- and I question whether the insularity of the Ivory Tower has space for all of that. Not to mention all of the many toxic aspects of academia...Is it normal to be ambivalent about becoming a researcher even if one really likes research? Does that mean that I'm not cut out for this? I've heard that you should really only go for a PhD if you're 100% sure that it will lead to the career path that you want. I am not 100% sure.
I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out what to do...ideally I would like to defer my admission by one year so that I can live in Cambridge for a little bit longer, but I don't have a good enough reason to tell the university. I've considered not going this year and re-applying next year, but I'm worried that I'll get rejected from this program and I would definitely regret giving up the opportunity to work with these professors. But the idea of going this year makes me feel sad--perhaps this is dramatic of me, but I feel grief already, leaving behind this life that I already love so much.
I'm so conflicted on what to do. I love my life right now, and I think grad school could be really good for me...but it could also be pretty bad, and regardless, it would mean letting go of things that I love. If anyone has any advice on how they would make a decision like this or any experience with decisions like this, I would love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you!
Best answer: You shouldn't do the PhD because you think it will lead to the career path that you want. You should do it if you think you can't imagine the rest of your life not including pursuing your research goals and making a contribution to your field. If you don't think you'll regret not doing that, it's probably not worth it.
It's completely normal to be ambivalent about becoming a researcher. Probably everyone, or almost everyone, you'll meet in the program will, when they're being honest, express some ambivalence about it. You'll make it past that ambivalence if doing research gives you a satisfaction and fulfillment you can't find in another way. Grad school is psychologically, emotionally, and physically taxing. You might see the smartest people in your program drop out of it because their mental health suffers too much to make it worth it. It's hard!
But! It's also the only chance you'll get to pursue those research dreams. It's very hard to work full time, have a social life (and/or a relationship!) and also devote time to an independent research project. And once life gets going, obligations pile up, relationships entangle and it becomes equally hard to leave all that behind and pursue a PhD later on in life.
I'm someone that dropped out of my program while dissertating because it almost destroyed me, so take that into account when receiving this advice: if you can't imagine your life without the PhD, do it. If you think you'll be happy making a life without it, then it's probably not worth the agony. If you think 10 years from now you'll wish you had done it, do it. If you could take it or leave it, leave it.
posted by dis_integration at 7:30 PM on February 28, 2023 [10 favorites]
It's completely normal to be ambivalent about becoming a researcher. Probably everyone, or almost everyone, you'll meet in the program will, when they're being honest, express some ambivalence about it. You'll make it past that ambivalence if doing research gives you a satisfaction and fulfillment you can't find in another way. Grad school is psychologically, emotionally, and physically taxing. You might see the smartest people in your program drop out of it because their mental health suffers too much to make it worth it. It's hard!
But! It's also the only chance you'll get to pursue those research dreams. It's very hard to work full time, have a social life (and/or a relationship!) and also devote time to an independent research project. And once life gets going, obligations pile up, relationships entangle and it becomes equally hard to leave all that behind and pursue a PhD later on in life.
I'm someone that dropped out of my program while dissertating because it almost destroyed me, so take that into account when receiving this advice: if you can't imagine your life without the PhD, do it. If you think you'll be happy making a life without it, then it's probably not worth the agony. If you think 10 years from now you'll wish you had done it, do it. If you could take it or leave it, leave it.
posted by dis_integration at 7:30 PM on February 28, 2023 [10 favorites]
I don't have a PhD although I thought about it for a hot minute while getting my masters.
I spent nearly a decade as a Lecturer at a State Uni and advised lots of students and what I always asked those thinking about a PhD was:
1. You probably won't get into a program locally. Are you prepared to move away from friends and family?
2. Do you want to teach at the college level? If not, what are the job prospects in your field with a doctorate? If you want to teach, are you prepared to take part-time teaching gigs at community colleges, state unis, while you are looking for a tenure track position? You might be doing this for years.
3. If you want to teach, what is the tenure track job market for your field, degree?
4. Are you being offered full funding to do this? If not, are you offered a scholarship, or a stipend for tuition, a part-time gig TA-ing, lab assistant, etc? You should not be paying full price tuition to do this.
5. These are years (5-7) you will be out of the job market, possibly (likely?) accruing debt from student loans you need to take out to live, and not putting money away for retirement. And once you graduate, it may take awhile to earn enough to live comfortably, save, and pay back your loans. This is really hard if you are having to do the PT teaching gig.
6. How is your mental health? Grad school can be demoralizing, competitive, and beyond stressful. Especially if see No. 1
If you need more perspective read this
Good luck!
posted by socrateaser at 8:06 PM on February 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
I spent nearly a decade as a Lecturer at a State Uni and advised lots of students and what I always asked those thinking about a PhD was:
1. You probably won't get into a program locally. Are you prepared to move away from friends and family?
2. Do you want to teach at the college level? If not, what are the job prospects in your field with a doctorate? If you want to teach, are you prepared to take part-time teaching gigs at community colleges, state unis, while you are looking for a tenure track position? You might be doing this for years.
3. If you want to teach, what is the tenure track job market for your field, degree?
4. Are you being offered full funding to do this? If not, are you offered a scholarship, or a stipend for tuition, a part-time gig TA-ing, lab assistant, etc? You should not be paying full price tuition to do this.
5. These are years (5-7) you will be out of the job market, possibly (likely?) accruing debt from student loans you need to take out to live, and not putting money away for retirement. And once you graduate, it may take awhile to earn enough to live comfortably, save, and pay back your loans. This is really hard if you are having to do the PT teaching gig.
6. How is your mental health? Grad school can be demoralizing, competitive, and beyond stressful. Especially if see No. 1
If you need more perspective read this
Good luck!
posted by socrateaser at 8:06 PM on February 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
Quoting because it resonates for me (also a dropout):
posted by Alterscape at 8:30 PM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
if you can't imagine your life without the PhD, do it. If you think you'll be happy making a life without it, then it's probably not worth the agony. If you think 10 years from now you'll wish you had done it, do it. If you could take it or leave it, leave it.I wish someone had given me-at-21 this advice. I'm not quite sure what my life would've looked like if I hadn't had the experience of spending six years on a Ph.D then dropping out after my proposal defense for my mental health, but .. my twenties would've probably been less miserable. Then again, I dropped out to become a software developer, so I'm in a different position than you are.
posted by Alterscape at 8:30 PM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
4. Are you being offered full funding to do this? If not, are you offered a scholarship, or a stipend for tuition, a part-time gig TA-ing, lab assistant, etc? You should not be paying full price tuition to do this.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This.
Do not even consider a PhD program if you do not have a funding letter IN HAND and it provides full funding or an overall package that comes very close to it. Do not accept any verbal assurances that funding "will come" or that there will be "plenty of opportunities" once you join the program. Do not accept any excuses that funding "is a little tight this year, but next year will be better!". Do not naively believe that the PhD program is a terrific opportunity worth making sacrifices for and incurring debt--because it isn't!
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:33 PM on February 28, 2023 [34 favorites]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This.
Do not even consider a PhD program if you do not have a funding letter IN HAND and it provides full funding or an overall package that comes very close to it. Do not accept any verbal assurances that funding "will come" or that there will be "plenty of opportunities" once you join the program. Do not accept any excuses that funding "is a little tight this year, but next year will be better!". Do not naively believe that the PhD program is a terrific opportunity worth making sacrifices for and incurring debt--because it isn't!
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:33 PM on February 28, 2023 [34 favorites]
You appear to be considering a PhD plan without funding, and without a clear idea of what the PhD would do for you. You're not excited about the area, and you're not excited about the research you will need to do.
Stop, right now, and decline this offer. There is no upside from spending half a decade or more of your life on pursuing this PhD.
posted by saeculorum at 8:35 PM on February 28, 2023 [17 favorites]
Stop, right now, and decline this offer. There is no upside from spending half a decade or more of your life on pursuing this PhD.
posted by saeculorum at 8:35 PM on February 28, 2023 [17 favorites]
Aren't there a gazillion universities in and around Boston? Why not find a nice program near Boston? Even if the one in the midwest is highly ranked, it's the midwest. If you have a good support network already, cherish it.
If you haven't visited yet, absolutely go and check it out before making a decision. 7++ years of your life is worth the plane ticket.
posted by dum spiro spero at 8:53 PM on February 28, 2023 [8 favorites]
If you haven't visited yet, absolutely go and check it out before making a decision. 7++ years of your life is worth the plane ticket.
posted by dum spiro spero at 8:53 PM on February 28, 2023 [8 favorites]
I started writing up a comment about my experience doing a masters' degree, but this comment says it better than I could have put it. I'm glad I did the master's, but also very glad I didn't continue on to a PhD.
There's some other good comments in that thread as well. Not to be discouraging — maybe this program really is the right next step for you! — but I think there's a romanticism around grad school that you need to make sure you've deconstructed in your head before committing to spend 5+ years of your life and $$$$ on a singular project.
You sound pretty happy right now. I think you will be much less happy in grad school (isolated, overwhelmed, discouraged) and it will not be worth the good things in your life you'll be giving up for it.
posted by mekily at 9:12 PM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
There's some other good comments in that thread as well. Not to be discouraging — maybe this program really is the right next step for you! — but I think there's a romanticism around grad school that you need to make sure you've deconstructed in your head before committing to spend 5+ years of your life and $$$$ on a singular project.
You sound pretty happy right now. I think you will be much less happy in grad school (isolated, overwhelmed, discouraged) and it will not be worth the good things in your life you'll be giving up for it.
posted by mekily at 9:12 PM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
What could you do with this PhD that you couldn't do with a Master's?
I'm also someone who left a PhD program. Go visit before you decide. Stay at least two days. As someone who lives close to Cambridge, Ann Arbor will be an adjustment.
If you found undergrad research to be alienating, then you are right to be concerned. I found it to be terribly isolating, and learned that I don't function well in completely unstructured space. So I left, and eventually after I recovered, got a MS in a practical application strongly related to that original course of study.
posted by canine epigram at 9:15 PM on February 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
I'm also someone who left a PhD program. Go visit before you decide. Stay at least two days. As someone who lives close to Cambridge, Ann Arbor will be an adjustment.
If you found undergrad research to be alienating, then you are right to be concerned. I found it to be terribly isolating, and learned that I don't function well in completely unstructured space. So I left, and eventually after I recovered, got a MS in a practical application strongly related to that original course of study.
posted by canine epigram at 9:15 PM on February 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I've always loved pursuing big, interesting questions; I enjoy reading and writing; I am highly self-motivated; the research that I want to do feels important and meaningful
So here's a thing to know: your PhD program will almost certainly not be this. Your PhD program will narrow down to getting the thing done, by bloody grinding on one small point, in order to get the credential. This credential is of value if it unlocks certain jobs where you hopefully get to do what's important research. (Uh, might have to get tenure first.)Is that trade-off worthwhile? No don't answer that. Can you identify the unlocked jobs that make it worthwhile?
I say this as someone who actually had a pretty happy and well-boundaried (and FULLY FUNDED) experience. Grad school is almost never worth it for itself, it's worth it for something after. Know what that is.
If your personal bent for research can be fulfilled without the credential, 110% try that. I know several people whose passion for research was burned out by a research grad program. Honestly, despite feeling pretty good about the experience, I guess I'm one of them.
posted by away for regrooving at 11:04 PM on February 28, 2023 [9 favorites]
So here's a thing to know: your PhD program will almost certainly not be this. Your PhD program will narrow down to getting the thing done, by bloody grinding on one small point, in order to get the credential. This credential is of value if it unlocks certain jobs where you hopefully get to do what's important research. (Uh, might have to get tenure first.)
I say this as someone who actually had a pretty happy and well-boundaried (and FULLY FUNDED) experience. Grad school is almost never worth it for itself, it's worth it for something after. Know what that is.
If your personal bent for research can be fulfilled without the credential, 110% try that. I know several people whose passion for research was burned out by a research grad program. Honestly, despite feeling pretty good about the experience, I guess I'm one of them.
posted by away for regrooving at 11:04 PM on February 28, 2023 [9 favorites]
Best answer: Do you have a realistic plan for staying in Cambridge while finding a different profession? Because you hate your job and don't want to stay at it. Cambridge, and Boston in general, is not a cheap place to live anymore; your options are somewhat constrained if you want to sustain a middle-class or better life there. Right now you're comparing an ephemeral dream to an actual plan with actual plusses and minuses, and unsurprisingly the ephemeral dream wins. I'm not saying either is the clear right choice; I'm saying right now you're comparing apples to oranges. It would be unfortunate if you passed up on this opportunity solely because of the draw of Cambridge only to find yourself having to move on in a couple more years because you couldn't stand a job that let you pay the rent.
If Cambridge isn't boring to you, Ann Arbor probably won't be more worse (or, rather, you'll probably encounter the limits of both over roughly the same time period). If Cambridge/Boston (notoriously white!!!) isn't too white for you, A^2 probably won't be (about 14% of the UMich student body is Asian). Cambridge/Boston definitely have the edge in mass transit, but a grad student lifestyle is sustainable in A^2 (more awkwardly) without a car or with a cheap beater. A^2 itself is pretty progressive, but there are admittedly large swathes of the state which are not, more so than in MA. You should visit before deciding. Ann Arbor is probably the most Cambridge-ish place in the Midwest, but the vibe is different, it's true. Yet it's not so radically different. It's not like moving to Boise (nobody shoot me, I'm sure it's a lovely place, but it's not a small-medium liberal college town).
I'm someone who quit grad school herself, yet I'm still supportive of people who feel the call and have the money (and are in a field with a future, which is a separate issue). You don't mention money, so I suspect you are funded. (If not, abort.) The way you talk about it makes me think you do feel the call. Grad school is extremely challenging. No getting past that. But it doesn't get easier as you get older. I think requesting to defer for a year might not be the worst idea, if you just need some unstructured time to recover and do some exploration. It's probably possible. Talk to your would-be advisor/advisor committee about it.
posted by praemunire at 11:06 PM on February 28, 2023 [9 favorites]
If Cambridge isn't boring to you, Ann Arbor probably won't be more worse (or, rather, you'll probably encounter the limits of both over roughly the same time period). If Cambridge/Boston (notoriously white!!!) isn't too white for you, A^2 probably won't be (about 14% of the UMich student body is Asian). Cambridge/Boston definitely have the edge in mass transit, but a grad student lifestyle is sustainable in A^2 (more awkwardly) without a car or with a cheap beater. A^2 itself is pretty progressive, but there are admittedly large swathes of the state which are not, more so than in MA. You should visit before deciding. Ann Arbor is probably the most Cambridge-ish place in the Midwest, but the vibe is different, it's true. Yet it's not so radically different. It's not like moving to Boise (nobody shoot me, I'm sure it's a lovely place, but it's not a small-medium liberal college town).
I'm someone who quit grad school herself, yet I'm still supportive of people who feel the call and have the money (and are in a field with a future, which is a separate issue). You don't mention money, so I suspect you are funded. (If not, abort.) The way you talk about it makes me think you do feel the call. Grad school is extremely challenging. No getting past that. But it doesn't get easier as you get older. I think requesting to defer for a year might not be the worst idea, if you just need some unstructured time to recover and do some exploration. It's probably possible. Talk to your would-be advisor/advisor committee about it.
posted by praemunire at 11:06 PM on February 28, 2023 [9 favorites]
I want to learn how to think like a researcher.
This is not the role of a PhD. You can take excellent courses for free at your local community college that will help you develop your research skills. You do not use a PhD program to decide if you're cut out for a life in research. You ideally take those CC courses, identify researchers/problems/niches that are interesting to you, read their work and get a sense of the knowledge gaps that you can work on, communicate with the people working on the edges of those gaps, maybe attend a conference or lecture or audit a course here and there, make connections, network, build your ideas, and so on. Along the way, you look for opportunities: Are there researchers who you click with and who let you know they just might have funding coming that will open up a space for you in their group? Are their job opportunities that will take you on and pay for you to advance your training? Is there contract work you can do to contribute to a research project that acknwoeldges you or lists you as a coauthor? Speaking as someone who hires folks: this is so much more relevant and important to me than the prestige of your PhD program. I don't even look at that on a CV—I look at output and interest.
I'm not sure if you even mention your funding situation but, it's so important that I'll add to the chorus to say that, after my experience (in the early 2000s): no funding, no go. I'm still working on the loans, even though I was supposed to qualify for PSLF forgiveness years and years ago, and the Supreme Court is ominously poised to make student loan relief even more difficult or impossible. Higher education funding is immeasurably broken in the US. I cannot in good conscience encourage someone to seek higher education in the US without guaranteed funding in place. I'm glad I had my studies and training, but it was not worth the financial burden. Forget about the glamour and reputation of expensive programs—focus on the programs that will pay youy. You and your motivation are the important part of a PhD (or any other degree). Prestige is bullshit and not worth a lifetime of financial strain.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 1:58 AM on March 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is not the role of a PhD. You can take excellent courses for free at your local community college that will help you develop your research skills. You do not use a PhD program to decide if you're cut out for a life in research. You ideally take those CC courses, identify researchers/problems/niches that are interesting to you, read their work and get a sense of the knowledge gaps that you can work on, communicate with the people working on the edges of those gaps, maybe attend a conference or lecture or audit a course here and there, make connections, network, build your ideas, and so on. Along the way, you look for opportunities: Are there researchers who you click with and who let you know they just might have funding coming that will open up a space for you in their group? Are their job opportunities that will take you on and pay for you to advance your training? Is there contract work you can do to contribute to a research project that acknwoeldges you or lists you as a coauthor? Speaking as someone who hires folks: this is so much more relevant and important to me than the prestige of your PhD program. I don't even look at that on a CV—I look at output and interest.
I'm not sure if you even mention your funding situation but, it's so important that I'll add to the chorus to say that, after my experience (in the early 2000s): no funding, no go. I'm still working on the loans, even though I was supposed to qualify for PSLF forgiveness years and years ago, and the Supreme Court is ominously poised to make student loan relief even more difficult or impossible. Higher education funding is immeasurably broken in the US. I cannot in good conscience encourage someone to seek higher education in the US without guaranteed funding in place. I'm glad I had my studies and training, but it was not worth the financial burden. Forget about the glamour and reputation of expensive programs—focus on the programs that will pay youy. You and your motivation are the important part of a PhD (or any other degree). Prestige is bullshit and not worth a lifetime of financial strain.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 1:58 AM on March 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I have a computer science PhD from a similarly prestigious program/school, and now I am a sheep farmer. I rarely remember that I have a PhD. I tell people that the main benefit of a PhD is that you will no longer default to being impressed by other people with PhDs, which honestly is quite useful in making sense of our world.
Getting a PhD is first and foremost an initiatory experience, and as such it is artificially unlike most other parts of your education and your further career. There will never again be a point where you are required to make a nontrivial contribution to the knowledge of your field individually rather than collaboratively. There will never again be a ritual like your thesis defense to get through. Once you survive the ritual then you are a member of the club forever, entitled to wear the funny costume at relevant university events worldwide.
That said, I found the experience of the PhD program very anthropologically interesting and enlightening, and the community of fellow grad students was great and created many lifelong friendships. I don't at all regret having done it. The connections and networking led to an interesting, challenging, and lucrative job (not the sheep farming, which is interesting and challenging but certainly not lucrative).
posted by Rhedyn at 2:26 AM on March 1, 2023 [8 favorites]
Getting a PhD is first and foremost an initiatory experience, and as such it is artificially unlike most other parts of your education and your further career. There will never again be a point where you are required to make a nontrivial contribution to the knowledge of your field individually rather than collaboratively. There will never again be a ritual like your thesis defense to get through. Once you survive the ritual then you are a member of the club forever, entitled to wear the funny costume at relevant university events worldwide.
That said, I found the experience of the PhD program very anthropologically interesting and enlightening, and the community of fellow grad students was great and created many lifelong friendships. I don't at all regret having done it. The connections and networking led to an interesting, challenging, and lucrative job (not the sheep farming, which is interesting and challenging but certainly not lucrative).
posted by Rhedyn at 2:26 AM on March 1, 2023 [8 favorites]
I think you should do it but only if 1. Your offer is fully funded including a stipend. No one should pay out of pocket or take on debt to do a PhD. 2. You visit the program and like the department and Ann Arbor and 3. there aren't any similar programs in Boston that you could get into. The main reason why I think you should do it is for the career opportunities, especially since you seem bored at your current job. I have a PhD in the biomedical sciences and the final 3 years of my PhD were miserable, my project was a slog and my advisor was a bully. But i did it in Boston and was close to my family and made a lot of great friends. My PhD opened up numerous doors and I have had a very rewarding, enjoyable, and fulfilling career so far. Not as a professor! I lived overseas and worked in research at a children's hospital, traveled extensively in Asia for international collaborations, then came back to the US and worked in government, now I work in industry. I am an ambitious person and my career is important to me, so those shitty PhD years were worth it.
posted by emd3737 at 2:45 AM on March 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by emd3737 at 2:45 AM on March 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
No funding offer? That's not a real offer, I'm sorry. I just graduated from my funded MFA program and I will only ever go to a PhD program if I get begged to apply, given a ton of research money and a fantastic living stipend, can choose where I live with a gorgeous place, and have an advisor who doesn't get in my way and walks their talk in supporting me, and even then, I would still be skeptical.
You want an escape from your boring job, not a PhD program. Those are two very different things. Try a less nuclear option like Code for America or something.
posted by yueliang at 3:29 AM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
You want an escape from your boring job, not a PhD program. Those are two very different things. Try a less nuclear option like Code for America or something.
posted by yueliang at 3:29 AM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I'm not sure why people are jumping on the funding thing, the OP does not mention funding as a question at all that I can see, and I would be very surprised if the UMich program admits PhD candidates without funding them, that would not be usual in a high status CS/IS program.
posted by Rhedyn at 3:50 AM on March 1, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by Rhedyn at 3:50 AM on March 1, 2023 [11 favorites]
Best answer: The program's web page says they guarantee full funding. Which isn't the same thing as having that in your office letter, but still.
I'll second away for regrooving's discussion of what a phd program is like. A phd program is a gateway to becoming an assistant professor and, in most disciplines, a very few closely allied positions like corporate research. If you don't want to do that, don't accept.
How important is place for you? You wrote a fair bit about the walkability and progressivity of Cambridge. But academia is very, very much a "go where the job is" sort of discipline and so very much depends on who happens to be hiring the year you get your degree. The modal assistant professor job is not in someplace like Cambridge, or even as almost universally desirable as Ann Arbor. The modal assistant professor job isn't even in someplace like here in Buffalo. That job is someplace like Fredonia or Rolla or Greenville or Starkville or Carbondale.
Michigan is a very good program and the placements they list on their web page are absolutely stellar. But there are more in places like Cincinnati, London ON, Bloomington, Lansing, Urbana, State College, College Station, Nashville, Pittsburgh than there are in Toronto/Boston/Chicago. I'm not bagging on those places -- an assistant professor job at Indiana, Penn State, or UIUC is absolutely a *DREAM* landing, and those are lovely medium-sized college towns. But if making a life for yourself in Urbana/Champaign is unacceptable to you, that just means that your preferences are broadly incompatible with working in academia.
For sure, if you're going to be more on the CS side of IS and less on the library side, you'll have corporate research opportunities that will be in more generally desirable big cities.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:03 AM on March 1, 2023 [8 favorites]
I'll second away for regrooving's discussion of what a phd program is like. A phd program is a gateway to becoming an assistant professor and, in most disciplines, a very few closely allied positions like corporate research. If you don't want to do that, don't accept.
How important is place for you? You wrote a fair bit about the walkability and progressivity of Cambridge. But academia is very, very much a "go where the job is" sort of discipline and so very much depends on who happens to be hiring the year you get your degree. The modal assistant professor job is not in someplace like Cambridge, or even as almost universally desirable as Ann Arbor. The modal assistant professor job isn't even in someplace like here in Buffalo. That job is someplace like Fredonia or Rolla or Greenville or Starkville or Carbondale.
Michigan is a very good program and the placements they list on their web page are absolutely stellar. But there are more in places like Cincinnati, London ON, Bloomington, Lansing, Urbana, State College, College Station, Nashville, Pittsburgh than there are in Toronto/Boston/Chicago. I'm not bagging on those places -- an assistant professor job at Indiana, Penn State, or UIUC is absolutely a *DREAM* landing, and those are lovely medium-sized college towns. But if making a life for yourself in Urbana/Champaign is unacceptable to you, that just means that your preferences are broadly incompatible with working in academia.
For sure, if you're going to be more on the CS side of IS and less on the library side, you'll have corporate research opportunities that will be in more generally desirable big cities.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:03 AM on March 1, 2023 [8 favorites]
Best answer: I’m going to assume your offer includes full funding.
Is your ultimate goal to have a career as a professor? Hopefully someone has warned you already about the state of the academic job market, which is generally grim (maybe it’s better in your field? I don’t know, ask a lot of questions about this). But let’s say you do become one of the lucky people to land a secure, tenure-track faculty job. It does still happen! How much do you know about what that job involves? Your understanding that PhD programs are all about research training is correct, but one of the ironies of academia is that once you make it through that training, you get dumped into a new role that has all kinds of stressful, high-stakes responsibilities that aren’t research and that you weren’t trained for. You’re evaluated almost exclusively on your research output, but you’re constantly under intense pressure to do all the other things. So you end up fighting to carve out precious little bits of time for your research and writing, while somehow doing what can often feel like at least two or three other full time jobs that are only peripheral to the research but that other people (like grad students!) depend on you for. And this is what it’s like in the most privileged faculty positions, so it’s the best-case scenario.
Since the pandemic, I’ve seen an uptick of established mid-career faculty in my social circles leaving academia. I think a lot of people are deciding life’s too short to live this way.
posted by somedaycatlady at 5:08 AM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
Is your ultimate goal to have a career as a professor? Hopefully someone has warned you already about the state of the academic job market, which is generally grim (maybe it’s better in your field? I don’t know, ask a lot of questions about this). But let’s say you do become one of the lucky people to land a secure, tenure-track faculty job. It does still happen! How much do you know about what that job involves? Your understanding that PhD programs are all about research training is correct, but one of the ironies of academia is that once you make it through that training, you get dumped into a new role that has all kinds of stressful, high-stakes responsibilities that aren’t research and that you weren’t trained for. You’re evaluated almost exclusively on your research output, but you’re constantly under intense pressure to do all the other things. So you end up fighting to carve out precious little bits of time for your research and writing, while somehow doing what can often feel like at least two or three other full time jobs that are only peripheral to the research but that other people (like grad students!) depend on you for. And this is what it’s like in the most privileged faculty positions, so it’s the best-case scenario.
Since the pandemic, I’ve seen an uptick of established mid-career faculty in my social circles leaving academia. I think a lot of people are deciding life’s too short to live this way.
posted by somedaycatlady at 5:08 AM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
Best answer: This is the line that jumped out at me:
the research that I want to do feels important and meaningful and something that I think about on a daily basis -- the questions I want to answer are questions that I think I need to answer;
This is the thing pretty much all happy and successful academics say, that they are called to think about their topic and cannot imagine not thinking about it, and to me it seems like a tell about whether you could be happy in this life. The other worries you mention all seem like very normal grieving in preparing for a big life change. I’m not saying those things should carry no weight, but a PhD program is not permanent.
There’s a huge survival bias in this “calling” framing, of course, because not everybody who does feel the call is able to continue. Academia is a brutal and sometimes arbitrary path with a lot of points where people get weeded. I did — I’m not doing the work I set out to do originally, and I’ll never have a faculty title. But the work I am doing has meaning and pays well. As with any somewhat impractical calling, like art or theater or music, if you do heed the call you would do well to seize opportunities for skill-building that might lead into good off-ramps, in case job openings for full time research dry up or family circumstances change or you just plain lose your love for the work. I’m not in your field but it seems such off ramps should be possible in it. This goes double if you are in love with Cambridge and want the chance to move back — you’ll need to think creatively about the kinds of jobs that could make you happy that do not require the geographic flexibility that the tenure track does. (That was one of the things that weeded me — I fell in love with my PhD town, which is a big no-no for an aspiring academic. Life still worked out okay.)
The crowd is right about funding.
Research during a PhD program is often lonely, but research after doesn’t have to be. I’m a staff scientist, and my work is much more collaborative than my PhD program ever was. And if you know loneliness is a risk, it’s one you can mitigate by e.g. starting a thesis group or getting involved in a local or national org for your discipline.
posted by eirias at 5:10 AM on March 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
the research that I want to do feels important and meaningful and something that I think about on a daily basis -- the questions I want to answer are questions that I think I need to answer;
This is the thing pretty much all happy and successful academics say, that they are called to think about their topic and cannot imagine not thinking about it, and to me it seems like a tell about whether you could be happy in this life. The other worries you mention all seem like very normal grieving in preparing for a big life change. I’m not saying those things should carry no weight, but a PhD program is not permanent.
There’s a huge survival bias in this “calling” framing, of course, because not everybody who does feel the call is able to continue. Academia is a brutal and sometimes arbitrary path with a lot of points where people get weeded. I did — I’m not doing the work I set out to do originally, and I’ll never have a faculty title. But the work I am doing has meaning and pays well. As with any somewhat impractical calling, like art or theater or music, if you do heed the call you would do well to seize opportunities for skill-building that might lead into good off-ramps, in case job openings for full time research dry up or family circumstances change or you just plain lose your love for the work. I’m not in your field but it seems such off ramps should be possible in it. This goes double if you are in love with Cambridge and want the chance to move back — you’ll need to think creatively about the kinds of jobs that could make you happy that do not require the geographic flexibility that the tenure track does. (That was one of the things that weeded me — I fell in love with my PhD town, which is a big no-no for an aspiring academic. Life still worked out okay.)
The crowd is right about funding.
Research during a PhD program is often lonely, but research after doesn’t have to be. I’m a staff scientist, and my work is much more collaborative than my PhD program ever was. And if you know loneliness is a risk, it’s one you can mitigate by e.g. starting a thesis group or getting involved in a local or national org for your discipline.
posted by eirias at 5:10 AM on March 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I passed on a PhD after talking to a PhD-less supervisor who worked in an office predominantly staffed with PdDs. He emphasized something that might be obvious, but wasn't to me at the time: In your 5ish years in grad school, you will learn a lot, and come out substantially more skilled and experienced. But you know what else can make you substantially more skilled and experienced? Five years in a job.
This of course depends critically on the work you are doing during that time. You won't learn much in five years digging ditches (or whatever the equivalent is in your career area). You say you don't like your job, and it doesn't sound like you're learning any of what you'd learn in grad school. But is there a career path that doesn't require a PhD that would mix what you like about grad school and what you like about work?
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:39 AM on March 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
This of course depends critically on the work you are doing during that time. You won't learn much in five years digging ditches (or whatever the equivalent is in your career area). You say you don't like your job, and it doesn't sound like you're learning any of what you'd learn in grad school. But is there a career path that doesn't require a PhD that would mix what you like about grad school and what you like about work?
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:39 AM on March 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I know this is a simplistic way of looking at it, but you can always quit the program and move back to the Hub; you can’t expect to do the opposite easily, you’re captivated by your research objectives and you hate your current job. Do it.
posted by carmicha at 6:44 AM on March 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by carmicha at 6:44 AM on March 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
Best answer: So i did get a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan School of Information way back when, I'll defer to the tartare yolk on what the program is like now.
Speaking more generally, by accepting the offer, you're not signing up to commit for five years with no way out. I've seen people leave entirely or transfer to another Ph.D. program after a year or two. Some people arranged to get a master's when they decided to leave the program. Some arranged for a leave of absence and chose not to come back.
Put off any decisions until you make the campus visit. Try to avoid overthinking this (I know it's easier said than done!) until then. If you haven't done so already, ask the campus visit coordinator if they can arrange for you meetings with South Asian faculty and students in the program. Is the visit just for you or is it a group one where all the accepted cohort are invited? If the latter, your cohort should also play a factor in your decision. You'll be spending a lot of time with them and they'll be part of your support network during your first 1-2 years in the program, and even longer if you share advisors or are part of the same research project(s).
I'd say accept the offer and give it a year or two. If you really can't stand it you can always move back to Cambridge, but with the advantage of new connections you have made by being in the program. You could even go back to Cambridge every summer by getting an internship located there. Think of this as 1-2 years spent studying and researching interesting stuff and just hanging out with very smart people, all while being paid!
Regarding career paths, you're not committing to academia, either, by pursuing this Ph.D. Among my cohort only a minority ended up in academia, the rest (including myself) ended up with jobs in industry, government and other nonprofits. This program is closer to a STEM degree than one in the humanities, depending on the research track and advisor you get. So you'll have the option for collaborative research with strong practical implications, if that's what you want to do.
posted by research monkey at 7:17 AM on March 1, 2023 [9 favorites]
Speaking more generally, by accepting the offer, you're not signing up to commit for five years with no way out. I've seen people leave entirely or transfer to another Ph.D. program after a year or two. Some people arranged to get a master's when they decided to leave the program. Some arranged for a leave of absence and chose not to come back.
Put off any decisions until you make the campus visit. Try to avoid overthinking this (I know it's easier said than done!) until then. If you haven't done so already, ask the campus visit coordinator if they can arrange for you meetings with South Asian faculty and students in the program. Is the visit just for you or is it a group one where all the accepted cohort are invited? If the latter, your cohort should also play a factor in your decision. You'll be spending a lot of time with them and they'll be part of your support network during your first 1-2 years in the program, and even longer if you share advisors or are part of the same research project(s).
I'd say accept the offer and give it a year or two. If you really can't stand it you can always move back to Cambridge, but with the advantage of new connections you have made by being in the program. You could even go back to Cambridge every summer by getting an internship located there. Think of this as 1-2 years spent studying and researching interesting stuff and just hanging out with very smart people, all while being paid!
Regarding career paths, you're not committing to academia, either, by pursuing this Ph.D. Among my cohort only a minority ended up in academia, the rest (including myself) ended up with jobs in industry, government and other nonprofits. This program is closer to a STEM degree than one in the humanities, depending on the research track and advisor you get. So you'll have the option for collaborative research with strong practical implications, if that's what you want to do.
posted by research monkey at 7:17 AM on March 1, 2023 [9 favorites]
Best answer: Assuming your program is fully funded, I say visit the school, talk to advisors, explore the area and decide from there. I did the same thing -- I left a place I knew and loved for a new city and grad school. Two-and-a-half years in, I realized I hated the experience and didn't want to go down the path of academia, so I left with a masters. Life goes on... in fact, it's pretty damn good after.
Whether you love it or hate it, you will build connections, knowledge, life experience, character. If later you decide to leave and come back to Cambridge, great! If you love the program and see it through, awesome! Both outcomes lead somewhere and there is always something good at the end of the tunnel.
That said, be sure to pick a good advisor. A nasty one will most definitely sour your experience.
posted by extramundane at 7:31 AM on March 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
Whether you love it or hate it, you will build connections, knowledge, life experience, character. If later you decide to leave and come back to Cambridge, great! If you love the program and see it through, awesome! Both outcomes lead somewhere and there is always something good at the end of the tunnel.
That said, be sure to pick a good advisor. A nasty one will most definitely sour your experience.
posted by extramundane at 7:31 AM on March 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
Do you know who your advisor would be? If not, are there people there who you'd want to have as your advisor? Do you have a sense of whether they are kind or supportive people? Do they share your interests and priorities?
Grad school starts out as a relationship with a whole faculty and a cohort of students. But it turns quickly into an intense monogamous relationship with an advisor — with maybe a few other labmates, committee members, or research collaborators playing supporting roles. When that relationship is happy, grad school can be a very happy experience. When it's unhappy, grad school can be utterly miserably.
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:30 AM on March 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
Grad school starts out as a relationship with a whole faculty and a cohort of students. But it turns quickly into an intense monogamous relationship with an advisor — with maybe a few other labmates, committee members, or research collaborators playing supporting roles. When that relationship is happy, grad school can be a very happy experience. When it's unhappy, grad school can be utterly miserably.
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:30 AM on March 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I got into fully funded, competitive programs three years after I graduated with my BA, so please don't lose hope that this is your one and only chance if you don't take it now. Is this the only PhD program you applied to? If so, my concern is that you don't have enough to compare it against. You may also feel totally different when you visit. (I personally didn't vibe with Ann Arbor [and also my would-be advisor didn't take it well when I declined], and I ended up choosing my school primarily because I loved the city it would be in [but the program was a poor fit advisor-wise.)
As another PhD dropout, I found that I really didn't care for academia itself and found grad school to be a boring ass mind numbing uncreative unfulfilling grind. The first year I could handle it, but once I got my MA I couldn't see the pot of gold at the rainbow, got extremely depressed and demoralized, so I bounced.
posted by sm1tten at 11:37 AM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
As another PhD dropout, I found that I really didn't care for academia itself and found grad school to be a boring ass mind numbing uncreative unfulfilling grind. The first year I could handle it, but once I got my MA I couldn't see the pot of gold at the rainbow, got extremely depressed and demoralized, so I bounced.
posted by sm1tten at 11:37 AM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
In my experience, you need three things to be successful in completing a PhD program:
1) You have to be very, very dedicated to the field you are studying.
2) You need to have some kind of financial support (most likely a stipend provided by your department)
3) You need to be an optimist to get past the many hurdles you will encounter, especially when your experiments don't work, and your thesis advisor ignores you.
Of these three, I had only one. This is me today.
posted by alex1965 at 12:05 PM on March 1, 2023
1) You have to be very, very dedicated to the field you are studying.
2) You need to have some kind of financial support (most likely a stipend provided by your department)
3) You need to be an optimist to get past the many hurdles you will encounter, especially when your experiments don't work, and your thesis advisor ignores you.
Of these three, I had only one. This is me today.
posted by alex1965 at 12:05 PM on March 1, 2023
Best answer: From what I can see, it’s really seem to value when you have in your life right now. Sometimes it is so difficult to find a balance in your personal life, particularly the feeling of belonging somewhere/feeling at home. You still in your 20s. Yes, you don’t exactly like your current job but you can always switch. And you don’t become any less of a competitive candidate if you apply again a couple of years down the line. If anything, you will probably be way more competitive than you are right now. I wouldn’t dismiss the sense of peace and comfort you have right now. And who knows you may end up at a local university? Good luck!
posted by bigyellowtaxi at 12:26 PM on March 1, 2023
posted by bigyellowtaxi at 12:26 PM on March 1, 2023
Best answer: As a recent UM PhD, I want to push back on some of these answers - UM has one of the strongest/oldest grad student unions in the country - no PhD student is without at least 5 years funding guaranteed, it comes with truly excellent health/dental care (seriously, I miss it so much), and it is very, very, easy to extend past those five years - I never knew anyone who had problems until maybe their 9th or 10th year (at which point, they really want you to graduate!), and even then most of those people managed.
As mentioned, the PhD offer is not a contract set in stone - if you decide after earning a masters (usually after 2-3 years depending on the program), then you can leave on good terms with your masters degree. Look up the cost from flying to Detroit to Boston - I bet it's not that much - surely, you can maintain those friendships.
Ann Arbor: I was really eager to leave by the time I was done, but it's fine. UMS offers an excellent series of performances every year - in terms of quality it's as good (and often identical traveling shows) as what you'll get in Boston, just obviously a more limited amount. And student tickets are affordable! The city is mostly white, but the grad programs at UM are fairly diverse - at least, notably more diverse than the undergrad/town population, and very progressive. Around North Campus there is a cluster of South Asian businesses (grocery, restaurants). The art museum isn't going to rival anything in Boston, but it's still a museum that gets some nice exhibitions. And then there is Detroit, and Chicago is a 4hr train ride - so doable for a weekend. Plus there are so many interesting lectures, film screenings, etc. through the university.
Needing a car: you can get away with no having one - the bus system is actually pretty excellent considering the size of the city - but a car will expand your options to Dearborn, Detroit, nice hiking/lake swimming in good weather, more ethnic restaurants in various strip malls, etc. And it makes grocery shopping much easier. But I got by without a car for years, though I managed since I had housemates/friends with cars. It will also make it easier to do things that will help you meet non-grad students, like joining a bowling league, etc.
As for the whether it makes sense to get a PhD- the school of information is pretty broad (I had a couple of friends in the program) so it's hard to say without knowing exactly what path you plan to take within it, but you should approach the PhD with the assumption that you will not be able to get an academic job. For people getting an English PhD studying 19th century poetry, that can be pretty devastating, but the people I know from the school of information all easily found jobs in the private sector based on the hard skills they developed. So as PhDs go, I'd say it's way more practical than some of the above answers give it credit. But I would bring this up with your advisors and the current students - what are the different careers paths for PhDs? How does the university support you to be trained for different career paths?
Feel free to MeMail me if you have more questions.
posted by coffeecat at 2:43 PM on March 1, 2023 [11 favorites]
As mentioned, the PhD offer is not a contract set in stone - if you decide after earning a masters (usually after 2-3 years depending on the program), then you can leave on good terms with your masters degree. Look up the cost from flying to Detroit to Boston - I bet it's not that much - surely, you can maintain those friendships.
Ann Arbor: I was really eager to leave by the time I was done, but it's fine. UMS offers an excellent series of performances every year - in terms of quality it's as good (and often identical traveling shows) as what you'll get in Boston, just obviously a more limited amount. And student tickets are affordable! The city is mostly white, but the grad programs at UM are fairly diverse - at least, notably more diverse than the undergrad/town population, and very progressive. Around North Campus there is a cluster of South Asian businesses (grocery, restaurants). The art museum isn't going to rival anything in Boston, but it's still a museum that gets some nice exhibitions. And then there is Detroit, and Chicago is a 4hr train ride - so doable for a weekend. Plus there are so many interesting lectures, film screenings, etc. through the university.
Needing a car: you can get away with no having one - the bus system is actually pretty excellent considering the size of the city - but a car will expand your options to Dearborn, Detroit, nice hiking/lake swimming in good weather, more ethnic restaurants in various strip malls, etc. And it makes grocery shopping much easier. But I got by without a car for years, though I managed since I had housemates/friends with cars. It will also make it easier to do things that will help you meet non-grad students, like joining a bowling league, etc.
As for the whether it makes sense to get a PhD- the school of information is pretty broad (I had a couple of friends in the program) so it's hard to say without knowing exactly what path you plan to take within it, but you should approach the PhD with the assumption that you will not be able to get an academic job. For people getting an English PhD studying 19th century poetry, that can be pretty devastating, but the people I know from the school of information all easily found jobs in the private sector based on the hard skills they developed. So as PhDs go, I'd say it's way more practical than some of the above answers give it credit. But I would bring this up with your advisors and the current students - what are the different careers paths for PhDs? How does the university support you to be trained for different career paths?
Feel free to MeMail me if you have more questions.
posted by coffeecat at 2:43 PM on March 1, 2023 [11 favorites]
Best answer: CONGRATULATIONS!! I know you've been through a lot of ups and downs these past few years, and I'm so happy to see this happy news. It's a hard choice! I think you really want to do this PhD so, assuming the funding works out and you like Ann Arbor, I say go for it. You can always go back to Cambridge, especially if you choose a non-academic route, and can start networking in grad school to prepare. I had the option to get a PhD awhile back and I don't regret not having done it; I still may get an EdD one day but I love my career already. Our lives can feel stagnant at different times and there's no guarantee you'll become or stay happy at either location. However, life goes on and has its ups and downs. PhDs are so hard so people should only do them if they're fully committed; however, it sounds like you are excited, ready, and realistic. As others have said, if you don't like it, you can make changes or move. You're at the perfect time in your life for this, and I wish you luck. And if you decided to stay put, other opportunities will come your way too; you're on the right path!
posted by smorgasbord at 7:01 PM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by smorgasbord at 7:01 PM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you for all of the perspectives, everyone! I’m realizing that I should’ve clarified some things that were so obvious to me that I didn’t even consider mentioning them, so I will do so now:
- The program is fully-funded with excellent support. It’s a very well-resourced program and my advisors are also well resourced
- I only applied to programs where there was strong research fit; I scoured the Boston area and there were no programs with aligned fit, sadly :(
- I do want to leave my job, but I had always planned on getting a PhD anyways and had always seen this job as a kind of transition thing between undergrad and grad school/the next thing to lead me to the career that I desire. Just clarifying because I’m realizing that I may have given off the impression that I see the PhD as a romanticized intellectual project, but I’m under no illusions about the immense stress of a PhD and I decided to apply because I want a career in research (or that would leverage research skills).
After visit days, I’m even more enthusiastic about the program and my advisors…but still quite ambivalent about Ann Arbor. If anyone has further specific perspectives on adjusting to A2 or even more generally a place that’s quite different/less ideal from where you were living, or on a more emotional level, dealing with the grief of a big life transition, I’d love to hear them! And thank you for those who have reminded me that this is happy news and something to be excited about; in my anxiety I lost sight of that :)
posted by cruel summer at 7:05 PM on March 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
- The program is fully-funded with excellent support. It’s a very well-resourced program and my advisors are also well resourced
- I only applied to programs where there was strong research fit; I scoured the Boston area and there were no programs with aligned fit, sadly :(
- I do want to leave my job, but I had always planned on getting a PhD anyways and had always seen this job as a kind of transition thing between undergrad and grad school/the next thing to lead me to the career that I desire. Just clarifying because I’m realizing that I may have given off the impression that I see the PhD as a romanticized intellectual project, but I’m under no illusions about the immense stress of a PhD and I decided to apply because I want a career in research (or that would leverage research skills).
After visit days, I’m even more enthusiastic about the program and my advisors…but still quite ambivalent about Ann Arbor. If anyone has further specific perspectives on adjusting to A2 or even more generally a place that’s quite different/less ideal from where you were living, or on a more emotional level, dealing with the grief of a big life transition, I’d love to hear them! And thank you for those who have reminded me that this is happy news and something to be excited about; in my anxiety I lost sight of that :)
posted by cruel summer at 7:05 PM on March 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
First-year Ph.D. student at U-M here—so I'm hoping that while I can't give you the weight of experience with my response, there's some value in the fact that I was in your shoes only a year ago!
As far as Ann Arbor goes, I think all of your concerns are somewhat valid. I think the town can be pretty walkable, but it definitely depends on where you live. More walkable areas are going to be more expensive—and while your stipend should cover living there, you'll be able to stretch it further if you're able to commute in a bit.* A car would also help with your cultural concerns: Ann Arbor isn't overwhelmingly white (and Ypsilanti less so), but being able to drive into Dearborn or Detroit on demand seems like it'd be a good thing for you. Though there are buses from Ann Arbor to Detroit, at least, so you'd be able to make day trips even without a car! And Chicago is only an Amtrak ride away.
[*Note that this is a contract negotiation year, so if you're lucky, you'll end up with more cash than the package that has been offered to you might suggest! If that could sway you one way or the other, I'd wait out the negotiations (and the strike that will probably follow) as long as possible before giving a response.]
As for your worries about grad school—there's not much to say here, except that you're not alone. I'm in a pretty different (non-STEM) field, but I definitely have a similar ambivalence about the "research experience." That said, I don't think research is the only reason to get a degree—I'm more interested in teaching, or in moving into the library/museum/other cultural institution space. Do you have other interests or goals that getting a Ph.D. might advance? If literally the only reason you'd want a degree is to qualify you for research jobs and you're not sure you love research... then, yeah, taking time to figure yourself out might not necessarily be the worst idea. That said, I have friends who have left doctoral programs to pursue other interests (or even to eventually enter other doctoral programs), so don't think of this as a commitment etched in stone. If you take the offer and find yourself miserable, you can always drop it down the road.
ideally I would like to defer my admission by one year... I'm sure there are people here who have been on admissions committees and can speak to this in more detail—but my gut instinct would be that you should talk to your potential advisors about this! They want you to end up at U-M, and may be able to shift things around to make a deferral possible (or at least tell you whether that's a possibility). If you just reject the admission out of hand, they may take another student off the waitlist and not have room for you next year.
I'm sure you've already been in contact with other students, but if you have any more specific questions or anything, feel free to shoot me a message!
posted by the tartare yolk at 7:28 PM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]