by Guest » Sun Apr 15, 2012 11:04 am
Devils_Advocate wrote:Guest wrote:In my own student-advisor relationship, I have found the SMART scholarship to be of great help. My advisor appreciates the fact that he no longer has to pay my stipend and tuition. It has made it possible for me to drive my own research and not have to get projects funded or work on a funded project that doesn't relate directly to my dissertation.
-2009 SMART Scholar
I totally agree! Especially when the pay difference between the two is $5k - $6k as well! I think the lack of flexibility it attending conferences and doing work for him over the summer is his complaint, but I'm having trouble seeing his side of the issue.
I'll keep this in mind as I decide what to do. He's a solid guy to work for, but may not be worth it.
Only $5-6k difference!? Where do you go to school that they pay you over $30k as a student????
There is also no reason you can't go to conferences. I go to them all the time. Also, there's no reason you can't still do dissertation research over the summer in addition to your internship as long as 100% of your research isn't in a lab. Usually you have to do at least some analytical work or data reduction/interpretation and lots of writing. Besides that, if the advisor doesn't pay you, you don't work for him anyway. You are independently funded and that means they can get you to work on their pet project ideas they can't afford to get funded if they have to pay a student. By the time a professor pays a students tuition, fees, and wages over a 2 or 3 year proposal, and then the school burdens that money by 50%, your professor can save upwards of 50k per year of proposal at a public university...more if you are out of state or at a private school. Sometimes that's enough of a money savings that they can get some project idea funded they wouldn't normally be able to. A GOOD advisor would be much more concerned about how a significant period of DoD employment would affect your future prospects of going into academia. You are not likely to publish near as much at a DoD lab, if at all, as compared to a traditional post-doc. So, you do that for enough years and you become a pariah in the academic world with all of them wondering why you are too lazy to publish for 3 or 4 years. Show the guy how much money he would save by not having to fund you beyond project materials, printing, and a computer and tell him you can still go to conferences and do analytical studies and writing at night and over the weekends during the internship and if he still doesn't go for it, either he doesn't like the prospect of losing a grad to a non-academic career or he's a moron.
[quote="Devils_Advocate"][quote="Guest"]In my own student-advisor relationship, I have found the SMART scholarship to be of great help. My advisor appreciates the fact that he no longer has to pay my stipend and tuition. It has made it possible for me to drive my own research and not have to get projects funded or work on a funded project that doesn't relate directly to my dissertation.
-2009 SMART Scholar[/quote]
I totally agree! Especially when the pay difference between the two is $5k - $6k as well! I think the lack of flexibility it attending conferences and doing work for him over the summer is his complaint, but I'm having trouble seeing his side of the issue.
I'll keep this in mind as I decide what to do. He's a solid guy to work for, but may not be worth it.[/quote]
Only $5-6k difference!? Where do you go to school that they pay you over $30k as a student????
There is also no reason you can't go to conferences. I go to them all the time. Also, there's no reason you can't still do dissertation research over the summer in addition to your internship as long as 100% of your research isn't in a lab. Usually you have to do at least some analytical work or data reduction/interpretation and lots of writing. Besides that, if the advisor doesn't pay you, you don't work for him anyway. You are independently funded and that means they can get you to work on their pet project ideas they can't afford to get funded if they have to pay a student. By the time a professor pays a students tuition, fees, and wages over a 2 or 3 year proposal, and then the school burdens that money by 50%, your professor can save upwards of 50k per year of proposal at a public university...more if you are out of state or at a private school. Sometimes that's enough of a money savings that they can get some project idea funded they wouldn't normally be able to. A GOOD advisor would be much more concerned about how a significant period of DoD employment would affect your future prospects of going into academia. You are not likely to publish near as much at a DoD lab, if at all, as compared to a traditional post-doc. So, you do that for enough years and you become a pariah in the academic world with all of them wondering why you are too lazy to publish for 3 or 4 years. Show the guy how much money he would save by not having to fund you beyond project materials, printing, and a computer and tell him you can still go to conferences and do analytical studies and writing at night and over the weekends during the internship and if he still doesn't go for it, either he doesn't like the prospect of losing a grad to a non-academic career or he's a moron.