Academia vs "the real world"

UnixGuy

erpadmin wrote: »

Unixguy, or perhaps others who might be considering a Ph.D, what is your opinion of this program?

Indiana State University: College of Technology: Ph.D. in Technology Management

You have to choose one specialization from the following:

Construction Management
Digital Communication Systems
HRD and Industrial Training
Manufacturing Systems
Quality Systems

Personally, I'm more inclined between Digital Communications Systems, followed by HRD and Industrial Training and then Quality Systems. The rest is a bit outside my scope.

Two things I liked about this program are that

A) They do prepare you for academia...folks are able to get into tenure-track positions with this Ph.D
You do not have to give up your day job to pursue this Ph.D

It has a residency requirement, but none of this quit work for a year nonsense. And it's geared to be done online when not in residence, from what I gathered. I'm not sure how long this program has been available, but I'm hoping that the initial information will be more streamlined by the time I'm done with my Master's. I'm also hoping that other B&Ms will offer similar product.

I welcome any opinion on this.

I looked up the ranking of the university and it doesn't look good, so be careful.


Don't put a lot of focus on the coursework, in PhD the course work is just 5-8 courses, and it's there to satisfy the depth and breadth requirements. The focus of the PhD is on the research that you will be doing. If you are interested in management/QA/HRD then MBA is your best bet. PhD is supposed to provide you with training to become a researcher, while MBA will provide you with training in topics like QA/HRD/Management. MBA from a highly ranked university will open a lot of doors.


IMHO, you might get into academia with this PhD (and with any PhD for that matter. You can also do PhD from UK/Australia/South Africa/Malaysia part time, and PhD in those countries ideally don't have coursework requirements), but the competition is tough, and academia doesn't really pay well so I'd be careful.

I prefer doing a PhD from the best possible university (ranking-wise and research-wise) full time if possible, and it takes 5-6 yrs in the US, but you will not pay anything, you will get paid a stipend and through RA/TA, but of course it will be less than what you make with a real full time job.

UnixGuy

paul78 wrote: »

BTW - one other option as far as working for a university doesn't have anything with being a professor.

I worked for a university in the northeast US for a few years very early in my career. I worked in the Computer Services group that supported the university. And I still look back very fondly at those times. As you indicated, the base salary was not great but the benefits were very good - including flex time, generous vacation, free classes. The atmosphere could not be beat.

The work was also extremely satisfying which included working on early supercomputers, developing secure systems applications, and supporting various research problems. One of my more gratifying projects was to support systems that taught new doctors about brain cancer research for the medical school.

That's exactly why I have a short-term plan of getting into academia and the research environments, I do miss these environments dearly.


Interesting point about cancer research. I'd like to ask you more about it, I will start a new thread about this, can you please reply in that thread? I will post it in the "off-topic" forum now.