Doctoral Programs: How to Survive Your PhD: The Insider's Guide to Avoiding Mistakes, Choosing

Product Details

Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc. (December 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1402226675
ISBN-13: 978-1402226670
Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.5 x 0.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

By : Jason Karp
Price : $16.99

How to Survive Your PhD: The Insider's Guide to Avoiding Mistakes, Choosing the Right Program, Working with Professors, and Just How a Person Actually Writes a 200-Page Paper [Paperback]

Client Critiques

Let me start with a small back story of why I bought this book: I am presently in my 3rd year of a PhD program, and the "3rd year slump" has hit me tough. My study is frustrating. I really feel alienated from my peers and my advisor/committee. Soon after reading the reviews for this book I thought this might offer you some aid. I was hoping for tips on how to deal with so many of the frustrations and let downs of acquiring a PhD. Anything inspirational, possibly even uplifting.
Nope. That is not this book.
To be frank, I spent even more than half of the book rolling my eyes at diverse passive-aggressive quips at the author's advisor and fellow students. By the finish, this felt more like a book on how to blame other individuals when your PhD takes a lot longer than you expected. Which is a pity, because I consider this story had very good teaching prospective. I can not even start to envision how frustrating and disheartening it would be to work on my PhD for seven years! The author could have turned that experience into one thing positive, by giving concrete examples of how he dealt with complications, as an alternative of just complaining about them and then advising to avoiding them in the initially spot. For instance, the author complains multiple instances about the frustrations of Human Subjects Committees. We get it. Bureaucracy is tedious and takes a lengthy time. But if you do human research it is a thing you just have to deal with. How about some guidelines on speeding up the process (eg submitting a modification of a pre-existing protocol rather of a whole new protocol)? Or advising fantastic time management: although you are waiting for IRB approval, could you be doing some in vitro operate rather? Or getting an in-depth information of the literature? Or working as a TA to pay off some student loans? Nope. You will uncover little of that right here. Then again, you will walk away with the impression that IRB's are brutally slow and are probably plotting against you.
Even significantly more concerning, some of the tips in this book is not only bad, but could in reality get you in trouble! The author suggests that you attempt to "recycle" your writing, claiming that you can't plagiarize oneself - not correct! He also talks regularly of how he created income on the side by writing for a commercial magazine, but he never cautions that if you are funded 100% by NIH, NSF, etc that you are not supposed to have an outside job. Here's my hint to surviving grad school: if you want to go into academics, do not piss off your major funding agency by publishing plagiarized magazine articles.
By far the most valuable parts of this book were the suggestions on operating with your advisor, like only giving them a chapter at a time to read, or highlighting the relevant changes. I also found the chapter on writing your dissertation valuable, in particular the strategies on how to write a little every single day. Though the list of phrases you should really use was especially horrifying - just because every person else in science overuses passive voice doesn't mean you really should as well! Nevertheless, I did find this chapter useful, and it earns the book 2 stars.
All in all, I suggest passing on this one.

This is a good book - I finished this book in only two days. The author breaks down the significant components of doctoral study and utilizes his own experiences to share what to do in order to be profitable as nicely as "what not to do" if you want to earn a PhD. This is a timely book for me as I have submitted applications and am hoping to start out on my PhD in Fall of 2010.