Suppose that one gets his PhD (electrical engineering) in his mid 40's; is it too late to get an academic job at a university?
100344
I think that in India research institutes will never take a faculty candidate who is over 35. Is it so all over the world?   I am asking this question from the point of view of if someone starts their PhD. at the age of 27 then its unlikely they will be faculty candidates till they are 40.
114857
Earning a PhD help you learn tools and techniques in your field, and lets you become an expert in a very specific field of science. However, once you get your degree and try to enter the labor market, you're competing against people who are younger than you (i.e. recently graduated non-phd engineers) and may have actual work experience (i.e. non-phd engineers with a few years in the market).  There are, of course, some positions in which they cannot compete, including research and teaching position. Those are the minority, though... in most other fields it seems that holding a PhD is not as important as (for example) work experience.  So, I would like to know:   Is work experience more important than having a PhD in the many work environments? What skills can I acquire/demonstrate during my PhD to become more "valuable" than a non-PhD candidate for the same job?
93769
How successful would someone be who completed his PhD in something such as computational biology or neuroscience but wanted to pursue post-doctoral training and beyond in computer science?   I say computer science because, presumably, dissertation work in computational X involves programming and a working knowledge of data structures and algorithms.
35494
I did my PhD in Electrical Engineering with supervision from three people. Very hard times during PhD as there was not much supervision from the three. Presently, I am working in an industry doing R and D, but look forward to apply for post doctoral positions. One of my advisers have told me he won't recommend me for any university in the foreign country, the second one is not reachable and the third is very rude fellow. In short, I wont get recommendation from any. What are chances for a post-doctoral position in a reputed university.  I have 3 international journals (2 Elsevier and 1 IEEE) and 3 conferences from my PhD work. I also have a Best Paper Award from one of the main IEEE conferences (EMBC 2014). I can manage reference letters from my masters advisers. Will recommendation from my masters advisers sufficient for applying to post-doctoral studies? Chances of getting a recommendation from any faculty from the university where I did PhD is very low.
83325
I would begin by apologizing for a soft question. Reading the FAQ, I have tried to formulate my  question precisely in the last paragraph and you may skip the following paragraph where I make subjective observations, which I think may be relevant and any comments would be more than helpful. By formal education I mean registering in an academic department in a university as a grad/Phd Student.  Subjective belief: I feel I am personally not upto the mark of high-quality physics students. I need to learn a lot more, and do a lot more problems to be any good. I've noticed that Physics particularly is a very selective field dominated by hard-working and primarily young people who accomplish a lot at an early age (olympiads/contests, early phd's from very good places, etc). Even among this bunch a lot get filtered out and wouldn't get faculty positions. Theoretical Physicists tend to be outliers in a field almost entirely composed of outliers. And to learn from such a community, I feel an academic environment is essential, and not just reading books in isolation. So I beleive academia is the only legitimate environment that functions to produce sane physicists who know their field. However, if one has been set-back for some reason but carries the self-beleif that he can be smart enough to do it, would ageing be a parameter. I read a statement in Kleppner's undergrad mechancis book that "by finishing all this at the age of 26, Newton set the trend which follows today, that great advances are made by young physicists". I haven't found a counterexample so I would trust academic departments have the same criterion.  Q: Do people who missed out all the action in their 13-20 ages miss out on having a good career? What are the possible reasons to take a hiatus of "self-study" for a 22-year old so that he may be a good candiate for a respectable physics career (Phd/postdoc etc) later.
103018
This question is specifically aiming at the UK PhD admission system.   Having spent roughly 6 years in the UK - 2 years A-Level and 4 years undergraduate, I am now moving forward into applying for PhD programs. To my surprise, I discovered that I would have to face a lot of difficulties regarding my eligibility for funding.   Most of the funding I applied for were strictly 'UK/EU citizens only', and it is rare to have full funding for international students. I have applied to a lot of places, and received a lot of responses in the form of "... you are a good match, but I don't have funding for overseas students...".  Having chosen the UK to study with the belief that 'as long as I am competent I should be qualified for the job', the reality has really slapped back at me.   Why such discriminations are allowed in a developed country like the UK? I made this claim knowing little to nothing about the US or other countries' systems, but lots of my friends having applied to EU PhDs received their offers without being asked whether they are 'caucasians' or not.
50646
Is it possible at all to do a PhD without a Master or a Bachelor's degree?   Every now and then I meet someone who claims he knows someone who knows someone who was able to do a PhD without previous degrees (maybe only with high-school).  Is that true, was it true in some specific cases?
5819
Assume you have already completed your undergrad and have been working for a number of years. Does one need to be part of a university or a learning institution to publish papers?
65839
I am a senior undergraduate (electrical) engineering student, exceedingly interested in physics. 4 years ago when entering university, for some reasons (better: illusions) I chose engineering as my major, while I was interested (and also really knowledgeable) in physics . Soon after the first semester I realized that I've decided wrong, and I must have chosen physics.  Since our university is a technical institute and does not have a strong physics department I decided to study physics on my own, without changing my major.But I took and passed the basic graduate physics courses (advanced quantum mechanics, advanced statistical mechanics, electrodynamics I &amp; II), have done a few research projects and had a paper published (maybe 1 more in the future). I have explored lots of research areas in physics and I think I have a good potential for doing research.  While concentrating on physics, I was inattentive to EE courses. Today, while searching for graduate programs, I saw that some schools require a minimum GPA, usually 3. I just calculated my GPA and found out that it is 2.95!   Do all universities have a GPA threshold?  Since I'm changing my major and also have a good GPA in graduate physics courses, is there any way I can compensate for my (very) low electrical engineering GPA? (like by taking subject GRE, etc.) If I first (somehow) get a masters degree in physics and then apply for a PhD, can I throw away this electrical engineering GPA in my PhD application ?   Any other suggestion is warmly appreciated.
103135
I'm thinking about pursue my studies and doing a PhD in information technology.  My problem is that I would like to create something new (== write code), and focus my thesis on how this new technology works (each component and global interactions), what it can do, and how it can evolves / be improved. I'm not against doing research, reading books and work on theory - but I want to be more practical than theoretical.  I'm starting to think that a PhD is not a valid option if my goal is to develop something new instead of conducting pure research. Am I wrong ?  About my cursus: I will receive my master degree soon (~= 3 months). I come from a highly technical background, with 5 years of programming and project management.    Edit &amp; more information My university doesn't offers PhD courses, thus my supervisor don't care about   my choices. Another consequence is that I have no other choices than to go to another university.
22950
I've been told by numerous people that (1) my undergraduate university will be disinclined to bring me on as a graduate student, and that (2) it's a bad idea to attend grad school where you completed your undergraduate degree, anyway.  Is that true? If so, why?
19727
I graduated with a Masters of Engineering, concentrating in digital signal processing, in particular medical and audio, almost two years ago. I've always been interested in research, but due to personal circumstances I could never commit a lot of time to working on a research project with a professor, and obviously didn't get a chance to publish anything. Now that I'm more settled and have much more time on my hands, I started getting involved in some open source projects and reading some technical literature (engineering, mathematics) that I couldn't get to before. However, I'd still like to find someone to to collaborate with on a research project who is already established in the field and publishes papers. Part of the reason I want to do that is to be able to eventually apply for a Ph.D. program in a good school, and having publications would be a great thing on my resume.  What I'm trying to find out is how I can work on a research project similar to those graduate students work on as a part of their studies if I'm not a student anymore? Should I contact my old professors from the university? Is it possible to find some "open research" team that accepts collaborators from outside? Do I have to do it on my own (quite frankly I'm not sure I can give myself a good enough quick-start)? In short, I'm willing to volunteer my time in exchange for a possibility of publication in the future. Can I do it, and if yes then how?
77992
I am trying to find out what the average duration of PhD studies are in the USA. Here in Spain it used to be 4 years, but it seems that Europe is moving towards a 3-year scheme since students are expected to do their MSc before they start. What is it like in the USA? Is some kind of shortening also occurring?
100939
I'm in the following situation: In 3 months, I'll finish my PhD in theoretical physics, and I'm certain that I want to pursue an academic career. However, I'm just as certain that my PhD research is a dead end. (My advisor doesn't think so, but I disagree with him.) Thus, I seek to change the direction of my research, but I need a few months to obtain the necessary skills. Anyway, I missed the main application period for post-doc positions (in the US).  Given the following options (feel free to expand this list), which do you think provides the best perspective of leading me to a interesting post-doc position?   Finish my PhD. Get any post-doc position. Do the work I'm required to do there. Work hard in my spare time to teach myself the stuff I want to. After 1-2 years, find a post-doc position I'm really interested in. Finish my PhD. Get a well-paying job in the software industry. Do the work I'm required to do there. Work hard in my spare time to teach myself the stuff I want to. Work harder to keep publishing papers. After one year, find a post-doc position I'm really interested in. Abort my current work. Find a new subject and a new PhD advisor. Live on unemployment money as long as possible. Work hard in my spare time to teach myself the stuff I want to. Work harder to keep publishing papers. After one year, find a post-doc position I'm really interested in.   Pros:   Get the PhD title sooner. Stay in the scientific community. Get the PhD title sooner. Earn lots of money (6 figure). In a 9-to-5 job, have more spare time for private research than on a post-doc position, where work is never finished. Go to a foreign country. It's what I should've done 2 years ago. I'll have the education I want when I finish my PhD, not later (but be older anyway). No immediate advantages over the other options.   Cons:   If a logical continuation of my PhD work, I'll suffer from demotivation. My next advisor will not want me to work on other topics that I'm not paid for. Might have to stay for 2 years. I'll move out of the scientific community for some time. I know it's hard to get back in. I'll be even older when I finally get my PhD. Not sure if I would find another advisor. Open fight with my current advisor. I don't want to live on unemployment money for long.   A particular question concerning the options above: Does being out of academia for a year kill your prospects of obtaining a postdoc position later?  I do have some collaborators who will help me to keep publishing, provided that I put enough work into my research. Also, I'm willing to familiarize myself with other topics on my own (a prerequisite for an academic career anyway).  The next application period will be from October to December 2013, which isn't far away. I'm sure I'll have most of the skills I want by then (and a paper published proving that), but still would have to work until summer 2014 wherever I am applying now.  Please give me honest answers, even if they hurt. I'll provide more information as soon as possible, if anyone has questions.
51583
I finished my master thesis 6 years ago, since then I gained a lot of experience on my field and also in academia. I can say that in that time I was a "child" , very inexperienced. I think that also my advisor did not help a lot, and I tried to do  a lot of things by my own, without someone to really review my things. Despite that, I still received a good mention by the master committee on final results.   Some days ago, I just decided to read part of master thesis, and I just realized a big nightmare coming. I identified a lot of typos, some references errors, and some improvements that I should do, but I did not. The worst thing is that I wrote a paper to a conference with my master thesis results (and some errors are there). The conference is not a high impact conference, but still the paper has my name and is available for everyone...   As I am finishing my PhD studies for now, I am concerning a lot that situation. My dream and goal is to pursue a Professor career. So, my questions are: What are (or could be) the consequences of a master thesis and paper with errors (some minor and some major) in academia? Revoke degree after years by errors in master is possible ( I am concerning a lot this situation that I thought on it)? How can I minimize it (I thought that I can put a fixed version of my thesis and paper in the future, for instance on my personal website)? How those errors can impact me in a Professor recruitment process?  Sorry for the long text, I am blaming myself all the time, and really afraid about the possibilities since I know that Academia career is really competitive.
5050
I am a third year (starting fourth year in the fall) PhD student in mathematics. I've passed all qualifying exams and am currently doing research. As far as I can tell, I am not doing poorly. I have the good fortune of having a great advisor, being in a very supportive department, and having friends and family who genuinely care about my success.   The fact is research is hard. It appears to consist primarily of staring at a problem for days and days and days without getting anywhere. Sometimes, rarely, I do figure something out and that feels wonderful, but the overwhelming majority of my time appears to be spent banging my head against a mostly figurative wall. I am not complaining about the material being hard, and I am not averse to putting in hard work, but I get frequently discouraged when I realize the vast volumes of mathematics that I yet know nothing about (and probably never will). It's very hard to quantify progress - in particular, there are too few tangible returns after too many hours worked. I find myself thinking along the lines of "Oh, if only someone actually smart were thinking about this problem they would have solved it in moments" and so on.   I've talked about this to some number of people; here is some advice I have received:   Take a day off. Putting in hours upon hours of trying things doesn't magically lead to a solution, particularly if the brain is tired and just wants to sleep. Have a hobby. Since math research doesn't exactly provide instant gratification, a hobby might provide some instead.  Talk to other graduate students. Realize that many graduate students go through this.   I'm interested to know how other folks have dealt with being discouraged as a graduate student. Does it get better with time and experience? Is this a sign that research is not for me and that I should seriously consider a life outside academia?
78245
I've always had an interest in electrical engineering (actually all engineering in general) and I've decided that I'd like to pursue a graduate degree.  I guess I'm wondering if I should really try to do this or just keep it as a fun hobby I spend all my free time doing.  So, the question is,  how does one change fields between undergrad and grad school?  A specific example follows, but please provide answers that address a more general case, so that your answers will be helpful to other people with the same general question.  I already have a BS and MS in chemistry with a minor in applied math.I published three papers during my MS, one first author in the top journal in my specialty and two as coauthor in an average and a so-so journal.  I hope those will count for something.  I finished my BS with around 3.1 and my MS with a 3.9 gpa.  I'm sure that my MS advisor would write me a great letter.  My GRE scores are too old to count so I'd have to retake it or try and get a pass on it since I already have a graduate degree.  Since finishing school I've been working for 4 years as a chemist.  I can get great recommendations from my supervisor who is a PhD chemist.      I've been working for a while to cover some of the things I would have learned in a BSEE to try and make up for my lack of one.  I worked through some texts on analog/digital design, lots and lots of programming, built a balancing robot that got a bit of internet attention, and I'm currently working on an autonomous robotics project that's looking really good so far.  After that I have more project ideas than I have time or money for.    I want to apply for PhD programs (specifically in controls/robotics) but I'm worried that my application will get tossed right away because I don't have a BSEE.  Maybe I should just apply to MS programs?