US PhD with no teaching requirements

[werther]

are teaching duties mandatory and required at every US PhD program? does anyone know of any PhD program (preferably within top 50) that puts less emphasis on teaching. thanks.

[asquare]

At most schools, funding is tied to teaching. If you come in with outside funding, there are programs that do not require you to teach. (They may still recommend it, since having zero teaching experience can hurt you on the academic job market, but it would be your choice.) Also, it's sometimes possible to get RA jobs instead of TA jobs, but not something you should count on at the outset.

The down side of teaching is that it takes time away from research. But the up side is that for anyone who wants an academic career, it's basically on-the-job training. Do you want to be a professor? If so, having some teaching experience is helpful.

[Jhai]

Public universities are more likely to have more mandatory teaching duties, particularly the first year, since they rely on grad students to take care of a lot of the lower-level coursework. If you get a fellowship or other cushy scholarship, you may have little or no teaching duties. Also, you might consider looking at econ programs at business schools - since they have so much money, and since grad students are in short supply, they're often given only RA duties.

[werther]

thank you for the replies.
i asked because i have little desire to teach.
you might wonder why i would even want a PhD in that case but i had noticed a lot of jobs in the think tank and other types of organizations preferred a PhD in economics or at least an MS which is why i am considering grad school, not particularly to be an academic researcher/professor.. and you can only do so much with a BA econ

i'm guessing economics programs through business schools = expensive tuition, similar to MBA? also..what is the difference anyway, between econ programs in business school and the traditional econ department.. do i have to take marketing and accounting and things like that? because i just spent quite a bit of time switching out of BBA and catching up with BA econ requirements i don't think i want to go back to that area again..

thanks

[asquare]

Originally Posted by Jhai

Public universities are more likely to have more mandatory teaching duties, particularly the first year, since they rely on grad students to take care of a lot of the lower-level coursework.

That's not necessarily true. The other option is to not fund some first year students. Some schools need to save the funded, teaching positions for upper year students.

U-Mich does not use first year students as TAs. Any first year student who is funded is on fellowship for the first year (and I would guess that in most years, half to two thirds of the first year class is funded). Funding in subsequent years is typically contingent upon a TA or RA position, and RA positions are harder to come by.

[snappythecrab]

i asked because i have little desire to teach.

Trust me. You'd hardly be alone in grad school.

[Jhai]

Originally Posted by werther

i'm guessing economics programs through business schools = expensive tuition, similar to MBA? also..what is the difference anyway, between econ programs in business school and the traditional econ department.. do i have to take marketing and accounting and things like that? because i just spent quite a bit of time switching out of BBA and catching up with BA econ requirements i don't think i want to go back to that area again..

thanks

Ph.D econ programs in business schools are almost uniformally well funded - as in, every student gets a full tuition wavier and a nice stipend with few requirements. The programs pay for the students through all of those MBA students. Econ programs in business school are very different, so you need to look at the programs individually. Typically, they have multiple tracks, such as org behavior, accounting, marketing, political econ, and regular econ, altho, as I said, they're quite different from school to school. Really, you'll have to do your own homework here.

Originally Posted by asquare

That's not necessarily true. The other option is to not fund some first year students. Some schools need to save the funded, teaching positions for upper year students.

U-Mich does not use first year students as TAs. Any first year student who is funded is on fellowship for the first year (and I would guess that in most years, half to two thirds of the first year class is funded). Funding in subsequent years is typically contingent upon a TA or RA position, and RA positions are harder to come by.

Obviously that's not uniformally true, or I wouldn't have put in the phrase "more likely". It's a trend, observed by one person (me), but mentioned by knowledgeable others (like my professors). I haven't come across one private that allows first years to TA, but I have found a number of publics that do. Likewise, I have observed in general that public schools tie more of their funding to TA duties than do private schools.