Your university must be a very bad one. The PhD I got and the ones I advised definitely were big educational experiences, where the student received lots of benefit -- formal courses, technical lectures, personal advising, resources, experience, publishing support, etc. As for TA work, one may debate whether the amount was enough, whether there should have been workers benefit, etc, but the university did explicitly pay for the work. >>
>> As for the papers and research, while they benefited the university, the advisor, and hopefully humanity, they were much more valuable for the student -- and they would not have been published without much work and advice from the advisor, and the univ's resources.
In fact, in public and non-profit univs, the main benefit that the university gets from papers by PhD students is the ability to get more grant money to pay the students and buy equipment for them. >>
@JorgeStolfi @Hellawyn You’re making a hell of a lot of assumptions here… and I respectfully disagree with a lot of them. And of course publications help the authors. That applies to most researchers, from PhD students to profs. Same for benefiting from university resources 🤷🏼♀️ Of course PhD students are still learning, but they contribute a lot more than you’re acknowledging
@anne_kreft @JorgeStolfi
@academicchatter
The situation of a PhD candidate is indeed very special and leads to passionate debate.
Ignoring either of the aspects, "student being entitled to some form of tuition" and "employee with production objectives and associated rights" leads to serious problems: if students only, the risk is exploitation and financial struggle, if only employee, the risk is to forget that they are learning to become researchers and should be supervised adequately.
1/n
@jocelyn_etienne @JorgeStolfi @academicchatter Fair point! But I object to someone coming in and saying "your university must be a very bad one." Sweden, Norway and a few other countries have a very successful PhD education system where student are state employees (at 100%). Attrition is extremely low, compared to e.g. the US, publication output very high, and research funding *and supervision* were excellent for me. People need to inform themselves before making such blanket statements
@anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @JorgeStolfi @academicchatter
i can only secund that.
Simple fact is, Ph.D.'s work.
And more than 40h a week if they'd like a career. Wether for their own benefits—a later career, which many won't have in professional academia because of the cut-down of fixed positions at universities— or those of their supervisors, and institutions—how to get 20+ papers a year without having 5+ Ph.D.'s working *for* you?
You work, you're employed. No discussion needed.
@grimmiges @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @JorgeStolfi @academicchatter
As you say "if they'd like a career". The PhD students decide to be in the institution to be educated i.e. PhD students work to learn not to be paid
@Xna_NaJu @grimmiges @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @JorgeStolfi @academicchatter this discussion has revealed a lot of ignorance about variations in PhDs between disciplines & countries. For example, a UK humanities or social sciences PhD is unlikely to involve working under a PI on someone else's project &, unless funded, there will only be teaching if the student successfully applies for it (for which they'll be paid). Doing a PhD isn't regarded as a job for those reasons.
@SteveCooke @Xna_NaJu @grimmiges @jocelyn_etienne @JorgeStolfi @academicchatter Why would working under a PI be "a job" and working independently on your project (as I did, as a social scientist in Sweden) not be a job though? Like you say, there are variations, and some countries like Sweden or Norway have successfully instituted a model in which all PhD students (whether parts of projects or not) are state employees. And I personally think that's the way it should be
@anne_kreft @Xna_NaJu @grimmiges @jocelyn_etienne @JorgeStolfi @academicchatter because you're studying primarily for a qualification, not labouring to produce an something for someone whose being paid for it.
@SteveCooke @anne_kreft @Xna_NaJu @jocelyn_etienne @JorgeStolfi @academicchatter
So, we also shouldn't pay and sustain sports professionals as they are mainly training for their own fame? I like that.
In case you haven't noticed, we are talking about real PhDs not the ones many politicans and other VIPs carry around.
Any proper PhD thesis is a contribution to common knowledge, hence, a service to humankind. At least as much as winning the gold medal for whatever country.
@grimmiges @SteveCooke @anne_kreft @Xna_NaJu @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter
I dunno, but I do not think that coaches should pay the athletes they train. Or that gyms should pay their patrons. No matter how hard the athletes and patrons "work". >>
@JorgeStolfi @SteveCooke @anne_kreft @Xna_NaJu @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter
As I said, we must be stupid then. Don't tell the EU, not that they scrap the Horizon PhD schools.
Related #FunFact: U.S. university coaches make millions/yrs (because the big players in coll. sport generate billions), their athletes active in "college sport" get an "education" (for later premium leagues?!)
#FunFact 2: Professors at those places make much less albeit educating more.
@grimmiges @SteveCooke @anne_kreft @Xna_NaJu @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter
US college sports is a very different (and aberrant) business. Not germane to this topic.
Grimmiges and Anne, sorry, but enrolling in a PhD (education) is very different from being hired by a lab to do research work (employment). I insist: univs where the first ends up being just the second are bad univs. But I am sure that most univs in your countries are NOT like that -- even if it may seem so to you. >>
@grimmiges @SteveCooke @anne_kreft @Xna_NaJu @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter
Sure, PhD students are required to produce original research and publish papers -- but because that is the only way one can learn all the skills and knowledge that one needs to become a researcher. THIS is the goal of the PhD program -- not the work produced per se.
@JorgeStolfi @grimmiges @SteveCooke @anne_kreft @Xna_NaJu @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter
You and your argumentation are, by the way, the reason why young researchers don't want to stay in academia.
Where is the respect for our work? Without me and my phd co-workers nothing would be researched in my department.
But why should we stay, if we are not respected by our bosses for our work, because it is just "education"?
@Niqulei @JorgeStolfi @grimmiges @SteveCooke @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter
Research can be done with professors assistant, research associate, post-doc and technicians
@grimmiges @Xna_NaJu @Niqulei @JorgeStolfi @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter - that sounds horrible. In my field (philosophy), in the UK, the commonest academic contacts allocate around 40% of time to research, post-docs & PhDs pursue their own research, & most research is single authored. Unlike STEM, PhD supervision is typically treated as part of teaching rather than research in workload models.
@SteveCooke @Xna_NaJu @Niqulei @JorgeStolfi @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter
I guess in humanities there's still more of the old ways of what it meant to be an academic.
The thing I really like about Sweden was that when it comes to PhD financing, they don't make any difference. You apply for a PhD position and you get a proper PhD salary, irrespective whether it's for 3 years of pondering something or wet-lab/computer work.
@Xna_NaJu @Niqulei @JorgeStolfi @SteveCooke @anne_kreft @jocelyn_etienne @academicchatter
Not in STEM. As a (good) German professor you spend your paid time (and more) lecturing, supervising and managing/organising. No time for research.
The post-doc(s) is your prime donkey. Don't even need a whip.
The PhDs are the milk cows.
No PhDs = too few papers = no grant money = cannot hire any PhD/post-doc: research is dead.
That's the WEIRD world we live in.