Comments on: Department retreat

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By: JeffE

JeffE — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:50:58 +0000

10 Ph.D. students? At once? 50 in career? Really?

No. Not really.

By: Jeremy LeJyBy

Jeremy LeJyBy — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:57:10 +0000

Actually, I was not suggesting to “raise” fewer PhD students, but rather to prepare them to life in general and not only to academic life.

I have my own retreat on Friday, far away from campus, the attendance seems average, we will see. I will report!

By: Glencora

Glencora — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:39:23 +0000

The retreat was off-campus, but nearby. There was no wifi. I, along with a few others, had data devices. I admit to using mine to look up rules and regulations that I didn’t know – I was thankful for not having to interrupt more than I did. Overall, I thought that the participation was high. Apparently they have been to more exotic places in the past, but opted for somewhere local due to budget concerns.

I didn’t raise the issue you do, Jeremy, even though I was thinking of it at the time. I did always think that I wouldn’t raise too many Ph.D. students. I’ve had the opinion that “why a Ph.D. if you don’t want to be a prof?” I think I need to change my thinking though. Perhaps the route from Ph.D. to non-academic job isn’t as clear in theory, but then, perhaps, I need to think more on what the options are.

By: Jeremy LeJyBy

Jeremy LeJyBy — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 11:24:31 +0000

In all the departments that I know, young faculty members who are on tenure track do not direct PhD students by themselves (they are not allowed), only co-direct them with a more senior faculty, and usually only one at a time. (It is different issue for Master’s students.) 10 PhD students at the same time is still a lot in computer science, even for a tenured professor, unless you make them work in a pyramidal scheme (e.g. the more senior students direct the younger ones, there was a PhD comic about it) as in Chemistry labs (but even there, it is considered a bad practice from what I heard).

Was your retreat on campus or far away? I had both, and usually retreats which are far away are far much more interesting, because people who came care more, and do not escape for email (although in our era of blackberries, iphone and androids, maybe this has changed too).

I always thought about the supervision of PhD students as a form of reproduction process (hopefully not cloning!), and with each faculty member directing 40 students over a career of roughly 40 years, it is obvious that only a very few can become faculty members and that graduate school should prepare them to take other duties (both psychologically and educationally) after graduating. Did they raise those issues at the retreat of your department?