[quote]Ratchet wrote:
I’m sure you have lots of great insight!
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He does! Better than the collective of Google.
[quote]Ratchet wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[If you stay in academia and become a professor, you will get even better at that. I can usually tell that by the end of the first week now.[/quote]
Thats my long term goal. Right now I am trying to get an industry job so i can stay mobile until my fiance finishes her vet degree then I will look for a job in acedemia…
May have to get start a thread / PM you about your thoughts on breaking into an acedemic position sometime though. I’m sure you have lots of great insight!
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Go ahead, or you can just post your questions in the “Field of Physics” thread. I actually should post some more stuff in there now that I think about it.
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]Ratchet wrote:
I’m sure you have lots of great insight!
[/quote]
He does! Better than the collective of Google.[/quote]
LOL! Experience >>> google, every time.
[quote]Ratchet wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]PulsedEE wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]PulsedEE wrote:
About $600 ATM in credit card debt. No school debt. I have 1 year left on my PhD in electrical engineering. Scholarships/fellowships + working hard labor jobs every summer in the oil field (making like 35k a summer) during undergrand + a 30k/year stipend since I’ve been in grad school. I’ve definitely been blessed with opportunities.[/quote]
Sounds legit. What goes on during MS/PhD programs for engineering? I can’t hazard a guess as to what that would entail.[/quote]
Can’t speak for all programs (especially those outside the US), but generally a master’s can be done with a thesis or nonthesis. Nonthesis work just requires a couple of additional classes to make up for the experienced lost without going through the 1-2 years of research and writing for your thesis. However, IMO and that of most employers, writing a thesis is much more attractive and opens you up to a broader range of potential jobs (like management type stuff).
As far as a PhD program, it’s essentially a full-time (albeit very low paying) job. I work 8-5 every day, sometimes much later if I’ve got a deadline coming up. I only take one, maybe two, classes per semester so I spend the majority of my time doing research. My field of electrical engineering is different than most others I’ve encountered: we do military research for the DoD, air force, navy, private defense contractors and have a pretty huge budget (in excess of about 2 million per student per year).
The most interesting thing I’ve come to experience while being in the PhD program is that professors view you - and you them - more as peers and colleagues than as authority figures. Pretty cool dynamic. You also (as I’ve done two semesters) have an opportunity to teach a lower-level class which is great, because a lot of PhDs end up back in academia and gives you a good idea of if you enjoy teaching or not.
Again, these experiences might be unique to my school / program, but from those I’ve spoken to across in the country in similar programs I hear similar things.[/quote]
Thanks for the insight![/quote]
Pulse EE, that is pretty much spot on… especially about the teacher / student dynamic. As you get towards the end of your program, you really do / should know more about your subject then your adviser since you have been knee / ass deep in it for a few years… As such, when you do your dissertation, no one knows more then you on your topic which is pretty cool… The other comittee memebers will know more on techniques you might have used and ask questions accordingly, but for the most part, most of them dont know more on your core goal / focus then you…
(im typing this as a break from writting my dissertation - @ 85 pages, about 50-75 more to go)… I went the paper dissertation option so i can use 3+ technical papers and a lit review / intro and tie it up with overall conclusions / future work and call it a day… I plan to get 30 or so copies bound since this will probably be the largest document I ever write…
Then again, I really want to write a book about graduate school and what you should know before you go… someday… someday…[/quote]
From some of the defenses’s I’ve been to and personal experience that is definitely spot on!
Ever heard of PhDcomics? Alot of the stuff is pretty spot on!
[quote]NAUn wrote:
[quote]PulsedEE wrote:
About $600 ATM in credit card debt. No school debt. I have 1 year left on my PhD in electrical engineering. Scholarships/fellowships + working hard labor jobs every summer in the oil field (making like 35k a summer) during undergrand + a 30k/year stipend since I’ve been in grad school. I’ve definitely been blessed with opportunities.[/quote]
Way to get it done. That’s a kick ass summer job. I wish I would’ve done more in undergrad to come out debt free (among other things). Nothing makes you feel like you didn’t do enough in undergrad like going to grad school.
I get the impression EE is a field in high demand. I sometimes think I’d like to position myself more towards EE-type device work rather than material fundamentals. How are your prospects?[/quote]
EE is in HUGE demand right now, but getting a PhD does limit your desirability to an extent; primarily a lot of places don’t have a need for that level of expertise nor do they want to pay what a PhD is worth. My field is extremely limited (DoD research, high power (100’s of kV, 1000’s of amps of current, lots of physics stuff) that is pretty much only seen in national labs, defense contractors, and military research labs. Luckily, those entities usually have the largest R&D budgets and as such are almost always hiring.
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Ratchet wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Ratchet wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]PulsedEE wrote:
About $600 ATM in credit card debt. No school debt. I have 1 year left on my PhD in electrical engineering. Scholarships/fellowships + working hard labor jobs every summer in the oil field (making like 35k a summer) during undergrand + a 30k/year stipend since I’ve been in grad school. I’ve definitely been blessed with opportunities.[/quote]
Sounds legit. What goes on during MS/PhD programs for engineering? I can’t hazard a guess as to what that would entail.[/quote]
for my masters and PhD in materials science (metallurgy)… i worked on DOD projects in casting processes, next generation steel armor and next gen ultra high strength cast aluminum alloys for the airforce…
Basically you do work for the government or private industries using equipment only the school has… i also taught a crap load of lab classes to undergrads (the next generation behind mine scares me someimes)…[/quote]
Just remember that the grad student who taught your lab classes as an undergrad thought the same thing. That is why you are there, to teach them and help them grow into people who are mature and knowledgeable enough to handle important jobs and help separate the ones who are potentially capable of pursuing graduate study from those who are not.
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Also true, and ya, after i got out of the first semester welcome to engineering classes and got to teach other classes it got a lot better. Its amazing how within a few weeks you can know who atleast cares and wants to learn and who couldnt care less…
[/quote]
If you stay in academia and become a professor, you will get even better at that. I can usually tell that by the end of the first week now.[/quote]
x2 on being able to tell which students care pretty quickly.