All Posts Tagged With: "grad school"
How profs talk about you behind your back
Prof. Pettigrew explains what’s in the reference letter
Sealed letter by zappowbang on Flickr
In Robertson Davies’ The Rebel Angels, Simon Darcourt takes up the task of writing letters of reference for his students when he happens to be in a bad mood. Worse, his students have irked him by making requests at the last minute and expecting him to pay for postage. So, in a fit of pique, he savages them: “treacherous, never turn your back on him” he says of one; he describes the mind of another as “flat as Holland—the salt marshes, not the tulip fields.”
When I was a student I was always respectful when asking for letters, lest my profs be offended and take out their anger on me in the same way. Now, as a professor who has written dozens upon dozens of reference letters for scholarships, grad programs—once to help a student get an apartment—I can see how nerve-wracking the process must be for those doing the asking.
Considering graduate school in the arts or social sciences?
Here are some job statistics you’ll want to consider
King Henry VIII from Wikimedia Commons
After a steep recession-era decline in hiring of academics in the arts and social sciences, potential PhDs have reasons for optimism—or despair—depending on how you look at it.
The good news is that job listings on the American Historical Association’s website, considered a market barometer for North America, increased from 569 in the 2009-10 academic year to 627 in 2010-11. That’s up 10.2 per cent year-on-year.
The bad news? That figure is still 40 per cent lower than the 1,064 jobs posted in 2007-08, before the recession led to budgetary restraint.
The modest rebound is a common theme across the arts and social sciences.
Continue reading Considering graduate school in the arts or social sciences?
The fast track
For some students, four years of undergrad is too much
Photo by Cole Garside
From the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings—on newsstands now. Story by Richard Warnica.
Shawn Alavi, who graduated from McMaster University in 2006, was 21 when he landed his first engineering job. Today, at 26, he’s a certified engineer—a P.Eng. in the jargon—with years of professional experience, money in the bank and a settled career. “Getting out of school earlier meant I was able to clear my debts earlier,” he says. “Now I’m just saving for my future, deciding on my next step.”
In engineering, Alavi found a profession that allowed him to enter the workforce after just four years of school and to achieve his professional certification through paid experience. “I’ve been working for almost five years now,” he says. “I’ve been able to get my life on track a little quicker than most.”
Should I pursue a master’s degree?
Prof. Pettigrew explains the basics of grad school
Photo by Gibson Claire McGuire Regester
Even if you’ve just started university, you may already be wondering what graduate school is all about. By “graduate school” I don’t mean professional programs like law or medicine or education; I’m talking about continuing your studies in the same academic discipline you’re majoring in now, like Anthropology or Physics at the master’s level. Obviously, every school and program will have unique features, and you should do your own research to decide where to go and what to take. But here are a few thoughts to help you decide whether a graduate degree may be right for you in the first place.
1. Is it hard to get into a graduate program?
Yes. Graduate programs will often give a minimum requirement for admission (say a B or a B-) but in reality, the standards are usually much higher. You will generally need at least an A- average.
Master’s degree on the mosh pit
Alberta student’s thesis is on social experience of moshing
Photo courtesy of tatu43 on Flickr
Gabby Riches, a Recreation and Leisure student at the University of Alberta, is writing Master’s thesis about mosh pits.
It’s a respected topic. The 25-year-old recently won an award from the Canadian Congress on Leisure Research for a mosh-related paper.
Moshing started in the early 1980s in the American hardcore punk scene, Riches told the Edmonton Journal. The name was coined after the band Bad Brains would yell “mash it up” to their audience. ”But the singer had a thick Jamaican accent, so people heard ‘mash’ as ‘mosh’,” explains Riches. She has identified two main types: the ”circle pit” and the “wall of death.”
Riches describes moshing as a social experience that’s not yet widely understood. “At first, moshing can feel intimidating, frightening, because it’s physical and aggressive,” she said. “It looks violent, but I don’t like to say that because it isn’t.” She hopes to continue her exploration of mosh pits in a PhD program at Leeds Metropolitan University in the U.K.
School board to teachers: Why don’t you consider Asia?
Things are getting even worse for new teaching graduates
Yesterday, we wrote about the desperate situation for newly-minted teachers across Canada. Just to offer one grim figure, there’s 67 per cent underemployment rate in Ontario in the first-year after school. Things are so bad in that province that the government has capped new enrollments in teacher’s colleges.
Today, CBC News reported that job prospects are about to get even worse in Alberta. If the Calgary Board of Education’s budget passes, there will be 172 fewer teachings jobs in the city.
What’s even worse for graduates is that if Calgary decides to hire again in the future, it has committed itself to giving priority to laid-off staff. That will only make it more difficult for new teachers to get hired.
But those graduates may wish to take the advice the board gave to it’s own teachers. They’re encouraging current staff to take leaves of absence, during which they can easily find jobs in China or South Korea.
The Calgary Board of Education’s Karen Demassi, a human resources official, told CBC that the advantage for teachers who pick the Asia option is that time spent overseas will count towards their seniority, should they ever be rehired in Calgary.
Ontario Graduate Caucus opposes more grad spots
Improve quality and accessibility instead, they say
Some graduate students in Ontario were “concerned” that the Government of Ontario announced 6,000 new master and PhD-level seats yesterday. The Ontario Graduate Caucus of the Canadian Federation of Students says the money should have gone to addressing quality and accessibility problems faced by the current 50,000 graduate students instead. Those problems include high undergraduate debt, lack of research funding and graduate tuitions that average $9,000 per year. ”This announcement will simply add more students to an over-crowded and underfunded system, leading to a decrease in the quality of graduate education,” Kimalee Phillip, Chairperson of the OCS-CFS said in a press releases. Financial pressure on graduate students is so intense that roughly half of them don’t finish the degrees they start, according to Phillip.
Ontario Liberals to fund 6,000 more graduate degrees
Only certain programs will get new money
Today, Ontario’s Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities announced the creation of 6,000 new spots for master and doctoral students in “high-demand and emerging fields – such as engineering, health and environmental studies.” The seats would be rolled out between now and 2015. However, these plans may not come to fruition if the Liberal government loses the election in October, which looks increasingly today as a new Angus-Reid poll shows Premier Dalton McGuinty has an approval rating of just 19 per cent.
These doctors mean business
Fuelled by late-blooming entrepreneurs, business schools see doctoral enrolment double
Valerie Sheppard’s been self-employed, she’s worked in government (in the tourism sector), and now she’s headed back to school. Sheppard, 50, who says she has an entrepreneurial streak, is one of four candidates in the University of Victoria’s new business Ph.D. program (UVic welcomed its first cohort this month). “I don’t see myself retiring,” says Sheppard. “Getting a Ph.D. will give me the flexibility to keep working.” After spending years out in the workforce, going back to school is a bit “scary,” she admits, but she’ll have someone close for support: daughter Leah, 26, is doing a Ph.D. in business, too, at the University of British Columbia.
A mother and daughter both doing business Ph.D.s might sound unique, but it speaks to the booming popularity of the degree. The number of doctoral candidates enrolled in business programs nearly doubled in a decade, from 696 in 1998 to 1,227 in 2008, Statistics Canada figures show. (That year, about 31 per cent of students were aged 30 to 34, and 24 per cent were 40-plus, the two biggest age groups.) UVic decided to offer the Ph.D. because “there’s a shortage of business school professors out there, and we knew there’d be a demand for graduates,” says academic director Charlene Zietsma.
Indeed, as countries like Brazil, China and India became financial hubs, the number of business schools worldwide tripled from the 1980s to the mid-2000s, drawing North American-trained academics, says John Fernandes, president and chief executive officer of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, a leading accreditation agency. (Most of the grads leaving for developing regions were international students, he says, heading back home.) At the same time, North American business schools cut back on Ph.D. programs, investing in the more lucrative, and high-profile, M.B.A. instead.
Job prospects have suffered in this gloomy economy, but they’re expected to improve. “The market for academics with a business Ph.D. has been good, and will be again,” predicts Debbie Compeau, who directs the Ph.D. program at the University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business.
But academia isn’t the only option. Many of those who pursue a doctorate in business have past work experience, and about 20 per cent of all students will take their degrees into the workforce, Fernandes says. Among these people, a new type of degree is gaining traction: the doctorate of business administration. Unlike a Ph.D., which is scholarly and research based, the D.B.A. encourages “applied research that’s relevant to the real world,” says John Ingham, who directs the three-year D.B.A. program at the Université de Sherbrooke, one of two in Canada to offer the degree. (The other is Athabasca University.)
Richard Vaillancourt, 54, is completing a D.B.A. online through Athabasca while serving as CEO of OMISTA Credit Union in Moncton, N.B. “I thought a D.B.A. would be more relevant and practitioner-oriented, whereas a Ph.D. is more research,” says Vaillancourt, who’s considering a career in credit-union consulting or teaching, post-retirement.
In January, Valerie Sheppard left her government job to take on an associate faculty position at Royal Roads University; getting a Ph.D. will “solidify my ability to teach in a university setting,” she says, and keep working for many years to come. And, she argues, the so-called Ivory Tower and the real world aren’t so far apart. As a professor, “you’ve got your own courses, and students; there’s some flexibility,” she says. “In a sense, it’s entrepreneurial. That’s what I’m looking for.”
Photo by Darren Stone
Students always in transit
At least I have skype
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about saying goodbye. I get a lot of practice, so I’m pretty good at it.
I’m good at giving long hugs, hosting goodbye dinners, and promising to call and email. I’m good at packing, at putting clothes and books into storage, and I’m even good at shedding a few discreet tears during takeoff.
Like many students, I have to be. I say a big round of goodbyes in both April and August, and while the first days in a different city are often jarring, my daily routines fall quickly into place. Soon, those people whose physical presence was so warm and constant just days before are reduced to a voice on a telephone or a face on a fuzzy video screen.
In 2010, I’ll say more goodbyes than usual. Because I’ll spend the winter semester in Denmark, I’ll divide the year between three different cities, all of them thousands of kilometres apart.
But I don’t mind too much – after all, “goodbye” isn’t what it used to be. It can still mean goodbye forever, or at least until that high school reunion, but more often it means goodbye until the next time we Skype, or email, or text. Because I’m Facebook friends with at least half of my grade five class, all of whom I can contact or creep at my leisure, goodbye doesn’t have to mean goodbye at all (even when I wish it did.)
And for me, like many people I know, I expect these constant, half versions of goodbye will be a regular part of my life for years to come.
I’ve met people who are planning to stay in Ottawa after they graduate – after all, they have a boyfriend and a nice place and a cat – but not very many.
Many instead see themselves in permanent transit, hopping from city to city – or from country to country – in pursuit of travel and adventure, or just grad school and a job.
More on references
Because it’s still that time of year, and people have questions
Since my last post about reference letters I’ve been fielding a grab bag of quick questions on the topic. So here are a few more tips on asking for reference letters, as well as one more reminder that it really is that time of year, and applications for all sorts of things will be due before you know it.
First, there was a question about asking the same person for multiple reference letters. Believe me, no one will be surprised if you hit them up multiple times for references. That’s just par for the course. Anyone you might ask for a reference almost certainly gets asked on a regular basis and probably keeps a folder for exactly this reason. Even I’ve got one. I know if someone’s asked me once they are likely to come back, and there’s no sense writing something from scratch when I can reuse elements from previous letters instead. That said, as a courtesy to the potentially less organized, if you know you’ll be asking someone again you might say as much. It could save some trouble.
On a related note, I was asked about keeping letters of reference for later and holding on to generic ones for use as needed. Generic letters of reference may be very useful for job applications and in a case such as that keeping them around for later could be useful. But for applications to post-secondary programs or for scholarships or awards (the purposes I tend to assume, at this time of year) you’ll want more targeted letters. That isn’t to say that every letter can or will be a carefully crafted work of art, but each one should speak directly to the purpose for which it is intended. If nothing else it should be addressed correctly.
You may need to ask someone for a letter who you actually don’t know very well. I know that can be awkward. Do keep in mind this is a very common problem and the people you are likely to ask will have faced this issue many times before. As I suggested in my last piece, be prepared to make their lives easier by having your CV and any relevant personal statements ready for reference. That way your referee won’t be left flailing around for lack of anything to say about you. But don’t feel you need to explain or justify why you’re asking someone with only a passing familiarity with you for a reference. It happens. It’s better to get a reference from someone who does know you really well, of course, but that isn’t always possible.
I was also asked about references for phone interviews. To be perfectly honest, I’m not familiar with anything that requires your references to give phone interviews, but I’m willing to believe it’s possible. It’s common to be asked for contact information for your referees or for people who can verify activities you may be citing in your information. Where that happens, however, it’s rare for anyone to actually be called, and even then it would be a very brief conversation. A full on interview would be very rare, and I’d assume aimed at something special.
Asking for reference letters
It’s that time of the year again
Although it may come as a surprise to many students, right around now is the time to start worrying about reference letters, if you intend to apply to graduate or professional programs for next academic year. Don’t worry – you aren’t out of time yet if you haven’t started. But that’s part of the point. You want to allow plenty of time for this and you absolutely don’t want to be scrambling around at the last minute.
You may enjoy doing things at the last possible moment, but the odds are strong that the people you need to write your letters do not. Yes, it’s entirely possible that your professors and other referees (if applicable) may end up writing your letters at the last minute, regardless of when you ask. Procrastination is not a character trait unique to undergrads. But they’ll still be annoyed at being asked on short notice. Even if you get your letter it’s a bad idea to annoy your referee or appear unprofessional in your request. And really, it does take time to write a decent letter. You may find if you rush people you’ll get a poor letter as a consequence or even a straight up refusal.
A poor letter, by the way, is not one that directly criticizes you. I’ve never yet seen a letter like that. But if the reference is completely formulaic and it’s obvious the referee has nothing too personal or specific to say about you – now that’s a poor letter. Please keep in mind that the point is not simply to produce a couple of reference letters to prove that you can but rather to present references that speak to whatever qualities are sought by the programs you wish to enter. Properly tailored references are far better than general ones, and references that only prove you convinced someone to write a letter are almost useless.
A referee may ask that you give them a copy of your CV and/or any personal statement from the relevant application. You should have them available in case this happens. Unless you know your referee very well indeed (which is not very common, in our modern educational system) some additional details about you may go a long way towards personalizing what might otherwise seem too cookie cutter. Even if you do know the person very well, don’t be offended if they ask for the material. People who write reference letters tend to write a lot of reference letters. They may simply have a system. So don’t take the request personally.
It goes without saying that when you need references you should get the kind you were told to get. Academic references come from professors and instructors (more on that in a moment) while non academic references may come from an administrator, an employer, or someone else you know. Read and pay attention to any guidelines, as they will vary from place to place. For some purposes it would be entirely out of line to present a letter from your religious leader, for example, but if you were applying for a theology program it might be required. Whatever the system, don’t try to substitute one reference for another. The requirements were determined intentionally and you shouldn’t circumvent them.
Academic references are a special case. Depending on your purposes, it may be important to get your letters from specific professors or it may be less so. For graduate programs in academic disciplines you should absolutely attempt to get letters from tenured (or tenure stream) professors – meaning “real” professors as opposed to lecturers. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out the difference so don’t be afraid to ask. You might even make an effort to get one or more letters from particularly prominent scholars. For academic fields this does matter. When in doubt, speak with any professor with whom you have a rapport and get some targeted advice on who to approach for references.
For professional programs the standards are entirely different. Professional schools have no way to gauge the relative standing of your professors and so it doesn’t matter. In that case what you want are strong and personal letters from those who know you best and it’s fine to approach lecturers, graduate student instructors, or conceivably even TAs. Be wary of TAs, however, and pay attention to guidelines. That should be a last resort. But a strong and personal letter from a tutorial leader may be better than an impersonal one from a professor.
Show some consideration when you make your requests. Often you’ll be communicating by e-mail and it’s very easy to give a bad impression in that medium. Don’t request a reply “asap” or enforce rigid timelines. If you need a letter within the next three weeks it’s fine to say so, but at the same time be clear you’ll take no for an answer. No one owes you a reference, after all. If you haven’t allowed sufficient time to ask someone else that implies you feel you are entitled to the reference.
As a final note, just keep this in mind. When you’re about to ask someone to offer their opinion of your character and ability as a student, the last thing you want to do is give a poor impression immediately before that happens. So be on your best behaviour.
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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.
