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N_Pan18

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Hi,

 

Could someone tell me the difference between a 4 year PhD program and a PhD research project?

 

 

Thank you!

I'm not sure that in science in the US there is anything known as a 4-year PhD program; unlike undergraduate degrees, with research there is no defined timeline — it takes as long as it takes. A research project is the work you do as part of the PhD program, but a full program will include some classwork (unless the graduate school or department divides the program into coursework and research, or includes the coursework in a Master's degree as preparation for the PhD) and probably some research before you have decided/started on a thesis topic, to get you up to speed on lab skills. It's not uncommon in physics to spend several years taking classes and working in a lab before getting to the point where you can take over an experiment and take data for your thesis; you are helping other students with their work and/or building up the apparatus. I know of situations where 4 years (if it included coursework) would generally be considered too short for a program and too simple to deserve a PhD.

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Hi,

 

Could someone tell me the difference between a 4 year PhD program and a PhD research project?

 

 

Thank you!

 

To add to what swansont already told you, PhD programs are usually quite flexible. The PhD is a research degree and the primary requirement is a significant original contribution to the field. Course requirements are incidental to that. The only requirement that is hard and fast is an acceptable dissertation.

 

I know of one very fine PhD who received the degree in about 4 years after matriculating as a freshman. I know another who took about 10 years in graduate school. Lots never make the grade.

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As with the above posts, PhD's are very flexible and the amount of time you take to complete them is completely up to you. That being said, in Australia almost every PhD student studying some branch of science will have theirs within 3.5 years. This is simply a result of the fact that you can't get scholarships for any longer than that time (for international students, it's 3 years) and you have to start paying tuition, so many are forced financially to complete within that time frame.

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That being said, in Australia almost every PhD student studying some branch of science will have theirs within 3.5 years. This is simply a result of the fact that you can't get scholarships for any longer than that time (for international students, it's 3 years) and you have to start paying tuition, so many are forced financially to complete within that time frame.

 

 

The situation is very similar here in the UK. One can get funding for 3 years and often an extension for another 1/2 a year. So 3 to 4 years is typical. There maybe some formal constraints on the length of the PhD, I recall I was given a deadline of 4 years. There was a specific date for which I must have submitted my thesis. It is naturally longer if you only do it part time.

 

There is also 4 year PhD programmes offered in some UK universities. Ones I have come across tend to have a flexible first year and "try out" different areas of research before picking a project.

 

The PhD is a research degree and the primary requirement is a significant original contribution to the field.

 

In the UK the requirements are not quite that stringent. One has to make an original contribution; no requirement of being interesting or significant (which is difficult to define anyway). It just has to be original. There is no formal requirement that one should have papers published, though some people do have publications before their PhD and it is typical to have a paper or two based on your PhD thesis.

 

Manchester, where I did my PhD will expect you to have given a seminar or conference talk before gaining your PhD, but it is not a formal requirement.

 

I know of one very fine PhD who received the degree in about 4 years after matriculating as a freshman. I know another who took about 10 years in graduate school. Lots never make the grade.

 

As I said, here in the UK 3 to 4 years is usual. Some people will have also done an MSc before PhD, which will add a year to this. I get the impression in the USA that the whole process is much longer and involves a lot more formal lessons.

 

Are there any formal requirement to have publications or have given a conference talk etc in the US?

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Are there any formal requirement to have publications or have given a conference talk etc in the US?

Not formal AFAIK. Where I went to school the physics department had a rule that you must have submitted your work for publication, which places a bar for quality that depends on the advisor's willingness to submit a paper that also has his/her name on it.

 

I got the impression from the German exchange students we had that they had covered a lot of our first-year coursework as part of their "diplom" education, so there's at least one year of work included in US physics graduate degrees that would not be present in their system.

 

(It was a source of friction that some of the exchange students still took the first-year classes, which allowed them to have a bit more leisure time than the rest of us, while skewing the grading curve)

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The usual North American process for getting a Ph.D. is that you take courses for one or two years, either earning the equivalent of a master's degree or actually receiving one en route. Then you study for a while for 'field exams,' in which you demonstrate advanced competence by examination in the field of your intended dissertation and one or two ancillary fields. Then you go on to do your research for the dissertation, write it up, and defend it before your dissertation committee, which usually consists of three examiners. Then you receive your Ph.D. and apply for a job driving a taxi.

 

The usual European process for the Ph.D. or D.Phil. is quite different, since it focuses entirely on the research, preparation, and defense of the dissertation. Taking courses en route it usually optional, and instead of field exams being required as a prerequisite to being allowed to proceed with the dissertation, the student usually has to submit for approval a preliminary write-up of the research so far and an outline of the intended thesis. The dissertation itself will be examined by several faculty members, and almost always there will be one external examiner from another university to guarantee that you don't just get the degree because you have flattered the local faculty or appealed to their prejudices.

 

In Germany there is the added problem of actually persuading a professor to accept you as his student, and this often involves subsuming yourself under his way of thinking. Occasionally this relationship will be so tyrannical that he essentially assigns you to complete for him a part of his own research work, in return for which he will see to it that you get your degree.

 

Some institutions also have a teaching requirement to qualify for the doctorate, so you have to demonstrate that you can teach undergraduates by serving in a few courses as a teaching assistant. This is time-consuming but not assessed very seriously.

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Are there any formal requirement to have publications or have given a conference talk etc in the US?

 

There are no formal requirements like that, but it is not uncommon to have done either or both. Conference talks are easy. Publication has become much more difficult.

 

In my case I gave a talk at the invitation of an organizer of a special session at the annual AMS meeting. He was a "big shot", while my advisor was relatively young. He said he thought that my result was a good dissertation, and my advisor agreed. He also said to send it to him for publication in a journal of which he was an editor. So I wrote it up for publication, then adapted it to dissertation format. In short, my sequence was a bit different: talk--->acceptance for publication ---->submittal for publication ----> dissertation ----> degree

 

Note that the guy I mentioned who took three years from the start of his sophomore year, was 4 years out of high school when he received the PhD. That is exceptionally quick.

 

The primary formal requirement is that one write and defend a dissertation in front of an examining committee chaired by the advisor. In practice that means that the advisor must approve. Very few dissertations are rejected by the committee if the advisor approves, and even going to the defense over the objection of the advisor is suicidal.

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The primary formal requirement is that one write and defend a dissertation in front of an examining committee chaired by the advisor. In practice that means that the advisor must approve. Very few dissertations are rejected by the committee if the advisor approves, and even going to the defense over the objection of the advisor is suicidal.

 

It is very similar here. It might be slightly different at each university, but for my viva there was just an internal examiner and an external examiner. I was able to have my supervisors present if I wish, but I decided not to. I wanted to defend myself and not invite my supervisors to defend it for me, though I believe their input was supposed to be minimal at the viva. I saw it as a "right of passage" and something I had to do without my supervisors.

 

Submitting without supervisors approval would be very risky. The only people I have heard about failing did this, for what ever reasons they had. This is quite rare I believe. I myself would blame poor supervision practices in these cases.

 

My first publication was after my PhD, but 1/2 of it was based on work I carried out as part of my thesis. My supervisors were keen that I concentrate on the thesis and then later work on publication. The idea being that a good paper later on is better than a not so good one earlier on. I am happy with my two publications to date as they are not completely based on my PhD, but of course are related and I am the soul author.

 

Note that the guy I mentioned who took three years from the start of his sophomore year, was 4 years out of high school when he received the PhD. That is exceptionally quick.

 

He must have been extremely bright and very lucking with this topic of research. A good supervisor publishing a lot and bursting with ideas is needed for a very quick PhD or early career publications. It does happen, but most of us take a lot longer.

Edited by ajb
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The requirements appear to vary between countries, disciplines and even between universities a bit. Most of the time it will require something published or at least publishable, though in some cases it does not need to be a peer-reviewed paper. In some rare cases it is admissible to self-publish, for instance, but usually only after approval by the adviser. Cases for this include e.g. someone beating the student in the publication race or money running out.

 

 

The German system, on average, gave students a bit more freedom while pursuing their research, mostly due to the fact that most Profs have permanent position as part of their contracts on which they can put students. In the US many students are paid via projects or by TAing, which may limit time and/or scope. Of course in the end it depends on the style of the adviser how it really plays out (regardless of the system).

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He must have been extremely bright and very lucking with this topic of research. A good supervisor publishing a lot and bursting with ideas is needed for a very quick PhD or early career publications. It does happen, but most of us take a lot longer.

 

He is very bright.

 

There was no luck involved. He did what should have been a very good dissertation as a junior, and then did another one later on that counted and was major work in the field.

 

His supervisor didn't do very much except challenge and get out of the way.

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I think ajb means luck with the topic. Especially in experimental areas you may have great ideas but a) the experiments take bloody long and may still fail and b) the idea may have been excellent, unfortunately nature decides not to work that way. The very bright part can accelerate the undergrad time, but in the actual lab work things are slowed down by external factors, usually.

However, sometimes (too rarely, though) things fall neatly into place.

Edited by CharonY
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I think ajb means luck with the topic. Especially in experimental areas you may have great ideas but a) the experiments take bloody long and may still fail and b) the idea may have been excellent, unfortunately nature decides not to work that way. The very bright part can accelerate the undergrad time, but in the actual lab work things are slowed down by external factors, usually.

However, sometimes (too rarely, though) things fall neatly into place.

 

No luck invol;ved. No experiments either. Pure mathematics, ajb and I are both mathematicians, so perhaps it was not clear to others that we were talking about mathematics research.

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No luck involved. No experiments either. Pure mathematics, ajb and I are both mathematicians, so perhaps it was not clear to others that we were talking about mathematics research.

 

Not to want to disagree with you, but I think that some luck is going to always be involved in PhD work, including mathematics. For sure the guy in question must have been very bright, hard working, well motivated etc. but getting the right project and then making contributions early does take some good fortune. The right project is of course very specific to the individual. Also finding supervisor or supervisors that work in a style suited to you can involve some luck.

 

I do not mean to down play his great success in anyway, it is a great achievement.

 

In the UK there is a 4 year deadline imposed on Research Council funded PhDs. If the student goes over the 4 years, his or her supervisor will be penalized in the next funding round.

 

That tallies with my understanding. People I know who have taken longer are part-time and/or fund the PhD in some other way.

 

This is interesting. I assume the research council is one of the major funding sources in the UK?

 

The Research Councils UK (RCUK) overlooks the seven individual research councils in the UK. You will find links to these councils via the RCUK website.

 

The one that provided my money, though what they call a doctoral training account, was the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). They provide most of the money for physics and mathematics.

 

The other "big player" is the Science and Technology Facilities Council who fund the large experiments in nuclear & particle physics and astronomy. They also fund some theoretical physics related to these.

Edited by ajb
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The time taken to do a Ph.D. can and should vary enormously. At the time I was doing a Ph.D. in England, there was a debate whether the university should impose a standard deadline on all Ph.D. candidates. But this seemed absurd, since some people in plant biology can get a doctorate for growing 100 plants and noticing something about them, while other people in theoretical physics can't get a doctorate until they resolve some mega-speculative puzzle about the physics of black holes. Why the same time-line should apply to both types of projects is a mystery, and academics should know better than to impose such a uniformity.

 

In the U.S., however, you have the frequent and sad story of the 20-year-long Ph.D. candidate sleeping in the department TA office and scrounging for money from his friends long after his grant money has run out while he continues researching his doctorate on parasitic infections during the development of the subcapsualr membrane in the Minky Whale. It seems to be a prerequisite for this role that the afflicted academic be male, overweight, balding, have an unkempt beard, and be a chain-smoker. The tragedy is that such characters are also usually brilliant, but have gotten so deeply into their research that they have become out of touch with practicalities. Some motion in that direction is necessary to be a good academic, but too much is dangerous, and setting just the right balance requires more talent than most new Ph.D. students realize.

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