A Guide To The Economic Meltdown For Grad Students

If you're a graduate student and worried about how the recent economic turbulence effects you, fear not. The good folks at PhdComics.com have put together a handy guide (click on the picture for a larger version).

Part-Time Ph.D. Programs

I've had a number of emails asking if it's possible to go to a reputable finance Ph.D. program on a part time basis. Unfortunately, the writers probably won't like the answer. To the best of my knowledge, it's not possible -- and a program that offers a part time doctoral program probably isn't worth it.

Getting a doctorate in Finance isn't like getting a "Super MBA" - it's a totally different animal. First off, the level of material is both more difficult and much less structured. Second, it's geared towards producing future scholars. So, a big part of the doctoral process involves "acculturation" to the academic world. The (very) strange world of the finance academic scholar is generally best learned by a) seeing how academics arrange their day-to-day lives, and b) being able to ask frequent questions of faculty or peers on an irregular basis. These are best done by living with the natives. After all, An anthropologist usually ends up living with the people he's studying (at least for a while), and a doctoral student should too.

Finally, writing a dissertation is extremely difficult when working full time. At the front end of the process (determining the research question and working toward a proposal), it's important to have access to faculty (I shudder to think how many times I imposed on one committee member or another with "just one LITTLE question").

Then, when you're in the writing phase, you need regular blocks of uninterrupted time. It's hard writing while working. This is why so many students who take a visiting teaching position while writing their dissertation take so much longer to finish (if they finish at all).

I realize that taking a few (i.e. 4-5) years off to get a Ph.D. is a huge committment. In a perfect world, you could do it part time so people wouldn't have to pay such a price (3-4 years of lost income and a lot of studying). Unfortunately, doing it that way probably wouldn't do the job in the same way that the current system does.

As a result, a program that offers a "part time" doctoral program wouldn't be well respected, and it's graduates would have an impossible time getting jobs in academia. I could be mistaken, but it's true as far as I know.

Advice to First Year Ph.D. Students

I came across this a while back, tagged it, and immediately forgot about it. So while I spend my day torturing the English language (my coauthors are both internationals and I'm in charge of "englishizing" the paper), this might keep y'all busy. It's written by Matt Pearson, a UC-Davis econ grad student, but there's so much overlap between econ and finance at "good" programs, that it's worth reading the finance PhD students, too. He starts out with a few running themes:

• You'll spend a lot of the first year studying things you think are useless, silly, or off point. Expect it. But realize that you really don't know yet what's needed and what's not. So, keep slogging - it does get better, and learning the foundational stuff is essential.
  
• You'll often feel like an impostor - particularly when one or more of your classmates is a star that seems to coast through things. In my case, we had a student who was ABD in physics, and he could run rings around some of the professors when it came to high-level math chops. In contrast, I struggled with basic real analysis. I got through it, but it wasn't pretty.
• You'll want to give up - often. In fact, this is a running joke with some of the students. Avoid the temptation.
  

Following these observations, he gives some very practical tips that seem painfully obvious, but are often ignored. Read the whole thing here.