Table Of Content81
GRAD SKOOL RULZ:
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ACADEMIA FROM
ADMISSIONS TO TENURE
by
Fabio Rojas
Smashwords Editions
*
PUBLISHED BY:
Fabio Rojas on Smashwords
The Grad Skool Rulz:
What You Need to Know about Academia from Getting In to Getting Tenure
Copyright 2011 by Fabio Rojas
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may
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*
Table of Contents
Introduction
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Do Not Go to Graduate School
Chapter 2: Picking a Graduate Program
Chapter 3: Don’t Pay for Grad School
Chapter 4: Get the Rules!
Chapter 5: Learn the Unspoken Rules
Chapter 6: Course Work
Chapter 7: Time Off: Summers and Leaves of Absence
Chapter 8: Develop Good Taste
Chapter 9: Passing the Tests
Chapter 10: The M.A. Thesis
Chapter 11: Make Some Friends
Chapter 12: Picking the Advisor and Finding a Mentor
Chapter 13: The Rest of Your Committee
Chapter 14: The Dissertation Topic
Chapter 15: The Dissertation Prospectus and the Prospectus Meeting
Chapter 16: While You’re Working on that Dissertation…
Chapter 17: Writing Your $^#@@ Dissertation
Chapter 18: Sorry, You Can’t Write Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day
Chapter 19: Working with Your Committee
Chapter 20: What Can You Say to Your Advisor?
Chapter 21: About Teaching
Chapter 22: All in the Family
Chapter 23: Words for Women
Chapter 24: For Students of Color
Chapter 25: When to Quit
Chapter 26: Publishing in Grad School
Chapter 27: The Publishing Process
Chapter 28: Publication Strategies for Graduate Students
Chapter 29: Conferences
Chapter 30: Am I Done Yet?
Chapter 31: The Job Market
Chapter 32: What Jobs Should I Apply For? What about Post-
docs?
Chapter 33:The Job Talk
Chapter 34: Getting Non-academic Jobs
Chapter 35: Wrapping It Up
Chapter 36: What Professors Can Do to Help
Chapter 37: Rulz for Post-Docs and Junior Faculty
Chapter 38: What is a Post-Doctoral Appointment?
Chapter 39: Should I Do a Post-Doc? How Do I Get a Post-Doc?
Chapter 40: Issues with Post-Doctoral Appointments
Chapter 41: Visiting Professor Appointments
Chapter 42: What is Tenure?
Chapter 43: How Does Getting tenure Work?
Chapter 44: What Counts for Tenure? How Much Do I Need?
Chapter 45: Publication Strategy
Chapter 46: Working With Graduate Students
Chapter 47: Keep Everything in a Box
Chapter 48: Service, Time Management, Saying No
Chapter 49: Professional Obligations, Conferences and Referee
Requests
Chapter 50: Grants and Fellowships
Chapter 51: Department Conflict
Chapter 52: Be Nice to the Staff
Chapter 53: Midterm Review and Yearly Reviews
Chapter 54: The Tenure Dossier
Chapter 55: The Actual Tenure Review Process
Chapter 56: Early Tenure and Switching Jobs
Chapter 57: Success
Chapter 58: Failure
Chapter 59: Conclusion
About the Author
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THE GRAD SKOOL RULZ:
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ACADEMIA FROM GETTING
IN TO GETTING TENURE
Introduction
Does graduate school confuse you? Have you spent too many years as a
graduate student? Do you feel that there are invisible rules that everyone else
knows, but you don’t? You are not alone. I felt the same way. I was in graduate
school for a long time. I was confused and anxious. I often asked myself if there
was some sort of handbook that would answer my questions or guide me. If I
ever finished graduate school, I promised that I would write down everything
that I learned so that other people would learn from my mistakes. People might
have a resource that explains how graduate school works. If nothing else, a few
people might finish their doctoral program a little quicker.
Life improved and I graduated with my doctoral degree in 2003. I began
teaching at Indiana University. In 2005, two young assistant professors, Brayden
King and Teppo Felin and a graduate student, Omar Lizardo, asked me to join
their new academic blog, orgtheory.net. The blog is mostly about sociology, but
I had the freedom to write on any topic. In addition to social science research, I
began writing an occasional column called “The Grad Skool Rulz.” Every once
in a while, I’d write a blog post on various graduate school topics, such as
writing the dissertation or doing a job talk. Eventually, I decided to write a post
on every graduate school topic I could imagine.
Soon, the Grad Skool Rulz attracted a following. Thousands of people have
read the Rulz. At conferences, people talk to me about the Rulz. Clearly, the
Rulz were working. Friends suggested a book. Untenured, it would have been a
bad decision to spend time on a book that was not oriented toward research.
Fortunately, I was promoted and I now have more freedom to choose my work.
Academic research is still my focus, but I decided to spend some time compiling
the Rulz into one text. I added material for post-doctoral workers and assistant
professors.
The remainder of this introduction addresses two topics: Who is this book
for? And, what will I get out of this book? First, this book is intended for
doctoral students. These are students who are pursuing the advanced research
degree in a university – the “doctoral degree.” This book is not intended for law
students, medical students, terminal master’s degree students, or any other post-
graduate student who is in a program with clearly defined enrollment (e.g. two
years for the M.B.A.) and lacks a major research project. This is a book for
people who are on the Ph.D. track and are aiming for tenure track jobs.
Second, this book’s major strength is that it is blunt. Many graduate school
advice books are valuable, and I recommend that you read them, but they are
written in a very careful manner that obscures obvious truths. Instead, here, I am
direct. For example, the very first section of this book is called “Do Not Go to
Graduate School” because there are too many graduate students. Departments
and universities need young people to teach and run laboratories, but offer few
incentives for timely graduation. My personal history is another strength. I made
some serious errors in graduate school. To survive, I really had to think about
how the academic job works. Finally, my book is fairly detailed. I discuss a lot
of details that you won’t find in other texts.
As you work through the Rulz, keep a few things in mind. First, these rules
were originally written for social science graduate students. I trust that you will
be resourceful enough to adjust the advice for your own situation. Second, this
book is aimed at students in American universities. Graduate education works
differently in other nations, but I hope that the advice will still be useful for
readers in other parts of the world. Third, this text reflects my own judgment and
experience. The book contains some unorthodox opinions. Please do some
additional research before you make any major decisions about your career.
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Acknowledgments
The following people provided much needed criticism, editing, and close
reading: Katherine C. Chen, Melissa Pirkey, Robert Wuebker, Richard Tee,
Catherine Bolzendahl, Simone Mariconda, Carson Byrd, and Mary Nell
Trautner. The chapter on developing intellectual taste emerged from a blog post
and discussion with Omar Lizardo. Beth Duckles was extremely helpful in
editing passages on teaching and liberal arts colleges. Sean Medina helped me
compile all the Rulz into a single document and researched the self-publication
process. My co-bloggers provided a wonderful environment for experimenting
with an academic advice column: Kieran Healy, Brayden King, Omar Lizardo,
Teppo Felin, and Sean Safford. The orgtheory readers also provided much
needed debate and commentary: jimi adams, Thomas Basbøll, Bedhaya, Jessica
Collett, Tina Fetner, Jeremy Freese, Benjamin Greer, Dan Hirschman, Steve
Horowitz, Guillermo, Shamus Khan, Caroline Lee, Jenn Lena, Jordi, Jacob T.
Levy, mike3550, musa, Michael F. Marotta, Josh McCabe, Dan Myers,
olderwoman, Christine Percheski, Brian Pitt, Richard Pointer, Gabriel Rossman,
sd, Trey, and Chris Uggen. I also thank my colleagues at Indiana University for
showing me a well-run doctoral program, and my graduate advisors for their
help during my academic training. Kirby Schroeder designed the cover for the e-
book. I thank my spouse, Elizabeth H. Pisares, for her love, faith, and
companionship. I thank Merlyn for being a little wizard.
*
Chapter 1: Do Not Go to Graduate School
College is usually the end of formal education for most people. However,
every year people continue to “graduate school.” In this chapter, I’ll tell you
what graduate school is, how to get in, and whether you should go. In general, I
recommend against graduate school. The Ph.D. is expensive in terms of money
and time and many graduate programs are poorly run. The doctoral degree
prepares you for academic research but rarely confers skills that would be useful
in other jobs. Some non-academic employers even see the Ph.D. as a liability.
Therefore, you should not go to graduate school unless you have an
exceptionally strong belief that being a professor is the right career for you. Even
in the sciences, there aren’t enough teaching positions and schools can’t absorb
all recent Ph.D.’s. Many science Ph.D. holders will find jobs in industry.
Let’s get started: What is graduate school? It’s simply any additional formal
education beyond the bachelor’s degree. In general, there are two types of
graduate education, professional and academic.
Professional graduate school – you are trained for a specific job, like being a
doctor or lawyer. Professional degrees include the M.D. (medical doctor),
M.B.A. (masters of business administration) or the M.F.A. (masters of fine arts).
Academic graduate school – you are trained to create new knowledge in a
specific area. Most will teach in a college or university setting. Typical degrees:
M.A. (masters of arts), Ph.D. (doctor of philosophy), Sc.D. (doctor of science).
The big difference between professional and academic graduate school is
research. The medical student does not have to show she can discover new
things. She’s learning specific skills that will solve specific problems. The Ph.D.
program demands that you to discover something new before you get the degree.
This book is about the Ph.D. degree program.
What do you learn in grad school? Here is what happens if you enter grad
school. Two or three more years of courses. A few will teach you research skills,
others will survey certain topics, and some are highly specialized. Then, you will
take a bunch of tests and write a Master’s paper, which is a short research
project. Finally, you will write a short book called a dissertation. You have to
discover something new and write about it. It will be bound like a book and
stored in the university library.
As you can see, graduate school is a very long process. It can take anywhere
from 3 to 20 years. Physical science fields have an average completion time of
about six to seven years, depending on the field. The humanities graduate
student often spends, on the average, ten years in their program. That’s the first
thing you have to know. Graduate school is a huge investment of time and
money. A graduate program is an apprenticeship that’s much longer than those
found in most other jobs. For that reason, graduate education is not really school,
it’s a job.
Why does graduate school take so long? Here’s a partial list of answers:
* Low pay – you often have to work while you study and stipends are low.
* No structure. After the courses and tests, people do miserably without
externally imposed deadlines and professors pushing them. Some people can’t
focus and choose their own goals without a supervisor.
* You might flunk tests and have to retake them.
* Your research doesn’t work out the way you expect. You have to redo
everything.
* Dissertation/faculty problems – your advisor can give you an unusually
hard time and/or not help you.
* Coaching – some graduate students do not learn well from the faculty.
* Ability – Sometimes, people don’t have the academic ability needed to
complete the program.
Graduate school is only for people who have a strong internal drive and have
the organizational skills necessary to function in an environment with little or no
supervision. In medical school, you have to graduate in four years. They force
you out. In graduate school, if you are too lazy or disorganized to write your
dissertation, no one will care. Your school or department will let you hang for
years. The result? About 90% of medical students become doctors, while only
half of Ph.D. students finish their program.
Why should people go to graduate school? Here are the main reasons:
* A strong internal drive to discover how the world works. You will
participate in a conversation that is hundreds of years old.
* Love for teaching college age students.
* Tolerance for working without deadlines and you can set your own
schedule.
* Tolerance for rejection. For example, the top academic journals reject over
90% of submitted papers, including many that go on to be very important.
* Tolerance for working alone or in small groups.Tolerance for modest pay
and little control over region where you live.
When should people avoid graduate school? Here are the main reasons:
* You need a lot of clear guidelines in your life.
Description:Get the inside scoop on graduate school and the tenure track. This no-nonsense guide gives you blunt advice about everything from admissions to dissertations to getting tenure. Filled with concrete strategies for surviving graduate school while keeping your sanity.
