jackson23

Ok, here is my question. I want to know whether it would be possible for me to do the first two years of the PhD at the university which admitted me, while doing the following three (ie. writing the thesis) while living somewhere else but visiting the university and my supervisors with a certain frequency (once a month or so). Please disregard the funding issue in answering my question, since I have external funding and would, therefore, not be depending on the university for funding. Also, I know that it does not make the best academic case to write your thesis from another place. Even if the place where I would be has a well known university. I understand that. I understand that the interaction with your fellow students, the seminars, and a more frequent interaction with your supervisor can be crucial. My question points more to whether is it possible to do something like what I am proposing, or if somebody knows people who have done it. The thing is that I will be starting a long distance relationship in september, and was wondering whether, and just how common it is, for people to do the required 2 years of the PhD at the university, and do the thesis writing living somewhere else but visiting the university (and spending periods of time living there too, but just not permanently). I know that this is pretty common in other disciplines. I heard of a few people who have done this throughout their PhD in other areas, and am sure many others do it in economics, I'd just like to hear some feedback. My main concern is whether it is doable, not whether it serves my best academic interest. Because, yeah, I care about the academics, but I also care about my overall wellbeing, and I think this possibility may serve this the best. Anyways, let me know what you think.

For the doctoral award.

Actually... I have a question... What if you get admitted with funding, and you subsequently get an external scholarship? As far as I know, departments adjust their funding when this happens. But, does anybody have any experience with this? Are the adjustments done to leave you as well off, or bad off, as you were before? How do people approach barganing in these cases? I would be very interested to hear something about this.

Hey Antichron, do you do anything in your life besides the work for school and posting in this forum?

Ok first years, I'm waiting to hear about your experiences. Don't be shy, for the love of god.

snappythecrab: of course I'm speculating. I would love to look at the data and find a way to see the relevance of this effect. In any case, I have to object to what jhai said. Of course there is randomness in the process, in life, and everything. However, different economic backgrounds systematically affect the performance of students in university. It is speculation, if you mean that I haven't ran a regression, controlling for whatever you wanna control, and tested it. Ok, snappythecrab, you didn't get what I was saying. 1. I don't have the evidence in hand. But, do we need to be backed by evidence for everything we say? I don't think so. Speculation is part of debate, as long as we all agree it is speculation and not a fact carved in stone. 2. I don't think there is discrimination in itself by the admission comittees. My point is that I think that people with less economic resources have very different experiences in college, which tend to lead them not to satisfy as much the requirements of admission comittees, controlling for ability. No, I don't have a measure of ability. I'm posing a hypothesis. The unfairness I am talking about is that people with identical capabilities but with different economic resources end up having very different experiences... and, I hypothesize, arrive to the application process with less competitive applications. I guess this issue goes deeper, and I guess one of the major sources of all of this are bequests. I just find it is unfair the very strong dependence of outcomes which are supposed to be based on ability, with financial situation. Admission comittees play no role in all of this... changes should be made much earlier in the whole education process.

Loans are great compared to not having loans, of course. But loans nonetheless impose a higher burden on poor students than on richer ones. Where loans are available, I don't think people generally choose either loans or work. But what usually happens is that students take loans AND work. I don't think making education free is the solution. The burden could be shared between poor students and rich ones, but differentially. I don't think the role of government is to subsidize all education, but to give individuals a levelled field to develop their capacities. Why should poor students suffer the consequences of being poor in the long term? Given that being poor is just a matter of luck related to the family in which one is born.

For one thing, most application forms ask you *NOTHING* related to your financial situation, and do not care much about your experience outside school. I think that, given the different experiences of richer and poorer students, the admission process does not select the most capable and able students, but those who got the highest grades (of course I'm talking in general) which are surely correlated with the financial situation of each student. I don't think that the admission process is unfair in itself, but that it leads to unfair outcomes, given the way the educational system is structured. I don't think that this kind of discrimination should be encouraged. I think that changes should be made before. The playing field of poor and rich students should tried to be made more equal, because otherwise poorer kids end up being filtered from going to graduate school. That would be blaming poor students for being poor, something for which they have no responsibility given how the system is structured right now.

Ok, I have to disagree. Grades are a sorting mechanism, a signaling mechanism, call them the way you want. However, they are a biased and unfair one. Are we assuming that, controlling for our aptitude/ability/younameit, getting a certain grade should take identical effort? What about income? Admissions based primarily on grades may be the best second best alternative, given that it may be very difficult to sort those who are smart but had to work in simultaneous to school from those who are just not so smart and didn't have such a hard time. In any case, I don't know to what degree this is done, if at all, but I would really like to see a fairer admission process, which takes into consideration more seriously the effort that students had to go through to get their undergraduate degree. Or maybe the greater degree of fairness in the system should be provided by allowing poorer students to study with almost as much financial freedom as richer kids. Controlling for who smart you are, if you have to work 20 hours a week besides school, your grades are going to be certainly lower. So, what a surprise, the education system ends up penalizing poorer students and benefiting richer ones, just because of their financial situation. I didn't read all the posts in this thread, I just read a few of the first, and thought about expressing this view. What should be done to level the field?

Adding to my post... I hard in some cases they waive you the teaching assistanship responsabilities... I assume, without any real information, that they would be OK with keeping my TA responsibilities, paying me for them, and letting me get my external funding.

Ok, here goes another question related to our financial situation as phd students. Lets consider the following scenario. You get admitted to a school that with full funding (tuition + living expenses) for 4/5 years. Lets say you get an external fellowship either upfront, or along the way. Does anybody have any experience about the way in which universities deal with this stuff? Upfront I heard they usually tell you that they adjust the funding provided by the university proportionally to the external funding received. They dont leave you worse off, of course, but they reduce their funding either in the full amount of the external funding, or in something close to that. Thats what they claim, upfront. In practice, how does that work? What if you need the extra money, to support a family, to support part of the education of a spouse, etc? Even if neither of such cases apply... some of those more justified situations... how bargainable has the external funding been in practice? I would be really interested to hear some experiences you've had about this. Of course, any bargaining should ideally be done before accepting admission. Or, when you first hear of the external funding. In any case, suggestions about this issue are appreciated.

It looks that it is very common to work as a research assistant during the summers, while being an Econ PhD student. At least the first years. Yah, it serves many purposes, to meet professors who may later become your supervisors, etc etc. My question is whether those research assistanships are usually remunerated or not. I may still be on the undergraduate mindset, where you work as an RA for no money. But this may also be the case for PhD students. In any case, it doesnt hurt to ask, since I am starting to think that making some money during the summer will be the only way to make ends meet. Also, do you think that it is common to work as an RA for a professor without being in situ, in the same city. I mean, that shouldnt be a problem, given that so many profs work with coauthors all over the place. In any case, that would be the ideal situation for me... to work as an RA from my home city, go and visit the university a few times over the summer, but basically work from somewhere else. Anyways, if anybody has any information about thiss... more than welcome! Thanks

Thanks a lot for you comments. I think I would like to know what has been the experience of those that have had email or phone contact with the SSHRC people. Is it a very strict structured organization, or is email and phone contact very different to the appearence that the institution has? Would they make exceptions to some of their rules... Would a letter from the university that deferred my admission offer to their PhD program addressed to them help me in any way to make them defer the award? Thanksss

Anybody has any idea whether it is possible to defer, in any way, a SSHRC Doctoral Award? Any experience with this? I have been admitted to a PhD program but have deferred it, to do an MA first. Does anybody know about the chances of deferring a SSHRC Doctoral Award, given this state of affairs? I will appreciate any advise or comments!

Evanston great? Did I miss anything?