The Gradual Life and
the Personal Hair
Dressing Degree
The Graduate Life
and
the Ph. D. Degree
Douglas Wick, Ph. D.
Department of Chemistry
SCCC
Application
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Undergraduate research experience
Strong references
Review professor’s research
http://chem.chem.rochester.edu/~wdjgrp/wdj_home.html
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Consider new geography
GRE requirements
Language requirements
Visitations
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Interview Professors
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What projects are planned?
What are the funding sources?
Where do graduates go, industry, academia?
Interview Graduate Students
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Get the pulse of the lab
Learn about the demands of the professor
Learn about how social life mixes with scientific
life
The Process
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Year 1: Course work, qualifying written
exams, choice of lab, TA work, research, say
goodbye to summers off if you were fortunate
to have done so previously
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Year 2: Research, group meetings and
presentations, Ph. D. candidacy exam (an
oral presentation with many interruptions), TA
or RA
The Process
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Year 3: Research, (TA work), group meetings,
departmental literature lecture, thesis committee
meeting
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Year 4: Similar to Year 3
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Year 5: Final experiments, writing, writing, writing,
post-doctoral position or job campaign
The Process
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Dissertation (thesis): oral presentation to public,
closed defense with thesis committee:
advisor, 2 chemistry faculty, outside chemistry faculty,
non-chemistry faculty
Celebration (brief, often anti-climactic)
During the process years you will attend professional
meetings, and usually give posters and/or talks
depending on the progress of the research project.
Usually, but not always, at least one paper is
published by the end of your graduate career
Things to Know
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You are paid to do research and teach
 $15,500 in 1993, ~$22,000 today
 Tuition & Fees paid by overhead on research
grants
You will become a devotee of pasta in its only form,
i.e with sauce from a jar, coffee and/or beer
You will be socialized through softball and volleyball
in the summer and at departmental holiday parties
Medical school students have the best parties
Better Things to Know
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You will contribute new information to the
scientific knowledge base and in doing so find
your “scientific voice”
“No one ever got the Nobel prize by doing too
few experiments”
You are developing the skills needed to
investigate new phenomena and to test
existing theories as an independent
investigator
A Human Experience
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An up and down life
Attrition of fellow students
More is always expected
Mentors can be hard to come by
A remarkable experience of truth, endurance,
ego, and humility
And you get to meet some really cool people
and thinkers
You get to do some great science
Questions
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1. What are the best ways to contact and maintain contact with
professors with whom you're interested in working?
2. What are the advantages & disadvantages of getting Ph.D.
instead of first getting a masters and then a Ph.D.?
3. How does one decide the best research topics for graduate
level work?
4. What are some resources for grant writing? Do you “starve”
while doing your research?
5. Where is the work? What is the demand for Ph.D.s? Where is
it highest?
6.Why get a Ph.D.?