Making ends meet!

I have posted a few articles and posts before on how to save money in graduate school! What really makes me rethink the whole scenario is the kind-of financial problems and issues many grad students face in USA. I feel there is a need for better resourcefulness, management techniques and prudence to be exercised by the students to get through the years! As I have pointed before, it is tough to get through grad school, more so for PhD students. I was going through some interesting articles which I am sure, you all would like to go through! Some varsities, specially those which have money in abundance (seemingly) do give attractive packages for their grad students. I got a few articles which I feel should be very insightful!

• This article compares the grad student earnings for some of the best biological sciences programs (PhD) in USA. more
• This article has some real life stories of Grad student blues and how they try and get over the money issue. The aim is to show what all problems PhD and post doctoral students might face and how to get over them. more 

Typically Ph.D. students at most competitive U.S. research universities do not pay for their tuition costs and are paid a stipend to cover living expenses while in school.  Stipend amounts can vary, but the cost of living where the school is located primarily determines the adequacy of the stipend amount.  The source of stipends varies quite a bit as well.  Many graduate programs have training grants from government agencies that specifically support some number of graduate students.  Some programs have internal funding sources through their graduate schools that support student stipends.  Other programs rely almost entirely on grant money obtained by the P.I. whose lab a graduate student has joined.  Many graduate programs include a substantial amount of time that graduate students spend as teaching assistants in order to pay their stipends.  For the most part, programs with various forms of grant support for student salaries require less time spent as teaching assistants, often only 1 semester from the student’s entire graduate career. There are a number of programs in the U.S. that provide graduate student fellowships including stipend support for some or all of the time the student spends working on the degree.  Many such fellowships also supply money for tuition costs. It is often beneficial for the graduate schools to go for students with fellowships (private) as this increases the prestige of the university and more importantly, frees up additional resources for other graduate students. FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SOCIETIES FOR EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY

I do hope to bring out more articles on this topic! I also urge grad students to chip in with their views for the common good!

Soft Skills!

Soft skills are very important and vital for the industry! A new era has ushered in with serious thought being given to the importance of soft skills by the academia and unique steps being taken to make sure the are considered. The university of Wisconsin system is showing the first signs of moderation with a new soft skill based transcript which is going to be issued to the graduating students along with the traditional transcript showing grades. This would pave the way for better evaluation of the candidates (grads) by the prospective employers!

Quoting from the article…..

With competition for jobs heating up, colleges are looking to give their graduates an edge in the employment market. Will a second transcript; one that focuses on a student’s so-called soft skills, do the trick?

University of Wisconsin officials think so. The 26 universities that make up the state system, which includes the undergraduate business program at Madison, are working on a plan to develop dual transcripts that could be sent to job recruiters and graduate school admissions committees. These dual transcripts would include the traditional one with courses and grades and a second one that somehow validates a graduate’s creative thinking, participation in extracurricular activities, jobs, and internships, and gives those reading it a sense of the person’s life outside the classroom.

Service Sector Helping to Drive Demand

Initial reaction to the plan has been cautious, with some critics saying it was unclear why such a transcript, which would include some of the skills and activities currently part of the typical student résumé, is even necessary. But proponents say the résumé would provide official verification of the student’s abilities outside of academics.

Recruiters have been saying for years that they would like more information on graduates’ soft skills. Indeed, employers listed communication skills, a strong work ethic, teamwork skills, initiative, and interpersonal skills, in that order, as the top characteristics that they look for in new hires, according to the Job Outlook 2008 survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges & Employers (NACE).

Documented Learning Outside the Classroom

The motivation for creating dual transcripts came from a desire to prove just how well-rounded graduates are, University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly said in telephone interview. He says all sorts of learning goes on outside the classroom, and the university should capture it. Full disclosure and open dialogue, he adds, are important for all institutions of higher learning, but especially public universities.

But students are not convinced the transcripts are feasible or necessary. “We’re a little worried about how the university can make this a credible thing,” says Ryan Masse, editorial board chairman of the University of Wisconsin at Madison independent student newspaper, The Badger Herald. “How will they verify everything from school activities to jobs, internships, projects?”

Fears About Duplication and Verification

An editorial in the Feb. 11 issue of The Badger Herald condemned the proposal by pointing out that such an undertaking – signing off on an official document that assesses lofty and hard-to-grasp characteristics such as creative thinking – could require numerous resources. The editorial board also argued that most employers today get this information from a person’s résumé and references, which would eliminate the need for such a transcript.

School officials maintain that a transcript from a university would hold more weight with employers because the school is standing behind the information. Giroux, the university spokesman, noted that the second transcript would only add to the traditional academic scorecard, and not replace it. “When we look at prospective students, we look at them as whole people, not numbers,” says Giroux. “Prospective employers do the same.”

Source: http://www.businessweek.com/

Union!?!

In a development which had me wide-eyed (I have no clue about others but I guess they were/will be as well), the graduate students, teaching assistants and contractual faculty are demanding the right to unionize, the motive being an increase in the salaries and stipends being provided. Both the Examiner and the Baltimore Sun reported that, graduate students from Maryland varsities asked lawmakers yesterday to the right to unionize to negotiate for better pay, workloads and benefits!

Laura Moore, president of the graduate student body at University of Maryland says that with most part of the paychecks going for rent, more than half of the graduate students are forced to drop out as they are unable to cope with the increased workloads (as RA/TA) and meager stipends (as low as $14000).

Baltimore county officials (university) however, assert that such unionizing will lead to possible strained relations between the students and the faculty.

I would quote a very profound statement I read “………“The relationship between a student and a professor is a special relationship, and I don’t want to change it to employer-employee one,” said UMd. Provost Nariman Farvardin, who pledged to build more graduate student housing and raise stipends.”

What I really hate to see is this kind of an resentment and anger among the very best minds out there! What saddens me more is the fact that the universities in question, though are good no doubt, do not have the kind-of resources some of the more endowed varsities have! I just hope that this disproportionate attribution stops (but chances seem bleak as most of the endowments come in as Alumni and Agency based aid which are bound to go to the best universities).

It also opens the eyes of the few who are naive enough to believe that all is rosy and things are going to remain great in future as well for Grad students. A peaceful resolution is what seems best at the moment and I hope things get resolved as soon as possible! I would urge prospective students to make sure that they use their judgement and make sure they have enough in their pockets before they go for graduate courses! Best of luck to all graduate students who are out there in the cold!

Also refer to the article on CMU graduate student issues which I had posted 5 days ago!! LINK

sources: EXAMINER, BALTIMORE SUN

Time out!

I just took a moment off my boring routine and delved into the archives of the famous few. We seldom get to read good things on the Internet (let alone hear them in person) and being grad students / graduates, I feel we should indulge in the same more often! I am going to present to you, a collection of various articles which I found on the Internet….. These are truly enriching and invigorating speeches which will surely teach the reader a thing or two. So my friends, do indulge me………

• Swami Vivekanada – Golden words. -article- 
• Gates Graduation day speech at Harvard. “Don’t let complexities stop you! Be activists. Take on big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives”. -full speech-
• Bad anologies – i am as tall as a 5 foot 9 inches tree!!!!! -full article-
• Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford. “stay hungry, stay foolish”. -full speech-
• Bill Allen on “the right idea”. -excerpt-

Graduates! – too many!

Are there too many graduates coming out! We have already seen that in case of bio-sciences (I had posted an article on the same ….. how things are getting out of hand when it comes to bio based research in USA. The NIH and NSF funds have increased tremendously in the past few years (a decade), but at the same time, the increase in the number of students has been beyond comprehensible proportions! The grad fraternity in USA is feeling the heat with the absence of adequate number of tenure positions.

There has been a sudden surge in the number of students going for USA/UK. After 9/11, there was a perceptable dip. But things have again changed for the better (or worse)! People are flocking for the seemingly greener pastures and this might lead to a blow-out of sorts (a melt down so to speak!!)

The need is to understand as to what the opportunities are and how to tap them! Think of it as a career choice.

If we consider what the different sections involved think, this is what I got from a review paper from UK! - more.

Elitist perspective	There are too many graduates and not enough graduate jobs. The benefits of education are seen purely in economic terms
Democratic view:	The more educated people the better, graduates are of social benefit and there is no such thing as a graduate job; what graduates do is a graduate job. Besides, graduates ‘grow’ jobs.
Vocational Education Advocates	Irrespective of how many graduates there are, there are not enough skilled crafts/technical people. There are too many people doing degrees who should be learning a trade, hence foundation degrees
Business investment:	Lack of commitment to life-long learning on the employer’s part. Employers do not use graduates effectively.

From UICIFD blog, I got some additional information (outside the realms of engineering):

Source: Rise in graduates over-qualified for jobs

Recent reports suggest that one in three university graduates in Britain are currently in a job that does not require a degree. Critics suggest that this number suggests that mass education goals are producing a sector of young people who might not have the opportunity to realize their career ambitions because there is insufficient demand for these educated youth. The number of young people attending university is already above 40%, and Britain’s goal is 50%. The government contends that Britain needs as many skilled workers as possible to keep up with competition. The labor market, however, cannot keep pace with the rapid increase of graduates.
Some subject areas are more vulnerable than others. Researchers at the London School of Economics (LSE) found that the number of English and other humanities subjects and social sciences are three times as likely to take work that does not require a degree; art and design students are six times as likely.

These numbers also mean that fewer graduates are earning the salaries they might have expected. The difference in earnings between vocational students and students in English and the humanities continues to grow as well. Researchers suggest that whereas money is not everything, problems arise if young people are led to believe that choosing a particular career will result in a higher salary than is actually possible, given the relatively constant demand and quickly expanding supply of university graduates.

Another article which I feel throws light on the issue! In essence, it says: America’s problem is not that it has too few educated workers, but that it has too many. Over 20 percent of all college graduates are either unemployed or hold jobs that do not require a college degree. Competition to get into graduate school has reached a fever pitch, and American universities produce 25 percent too many doctorates than the economy can use. At the college level, the U.S. is the most highly educated country in the world. -more.

I would like the grad fraternity to chip in. I know that the best answer can come only from graduates and students. They will know what the exact scenario is and their insights would help all prospective students! Looking forward to some useful and enlightening comments.

PhD – What does it mean!?

Some light humour (please forgive me for being a bit blunt in the things I write here!!!)

I compiled this list of all the available full forms of PhD (sometimes makes me wonder how very creative geniuses are out there doing PhD – no wonder they are grads) …. here we go -

Pretty Hard Deal
Poor Hungry Desperate
Patience Harassment Donkey-work
Passed High-school with Difficulty
Permanent Head Damage
Possibly Hard to Describe
Potato Highly Defected
Paid HoliDays
Peacefully Hibernating Donkey
Perfect Husband Discovery
Person Hard to Describe

(at this stage I must add that I am getting this feeling that there is a need, urgent need maybe, to get some positive meanings as well)

- Now some good ones (had me laughing!!!!) - 

Procrastinating Hedonistic Delinquent
Patiently hoping for a Degree
Philosopher headed for Doom
Patiently hoping for a Degree
Piled higher and Deeper
Professorship? hah! Dream on!
Please hire. Desperate.
Physiologically Deficient
Pour him (or her) a Drink
Philosophically Disturbed
Pathetically hopeless Dweeb
Probably heavily in Debt
Parents have Doubts
Professors had Doubts
Pheromone Deprived
Probably hard to Describe
Patiently headed Downhill…
Pulsating heaving Disaster?
Pretty homely Dork
Potential heavy Drinker
Professional hamburger Dispenser… “Would you like fries with that?”
Post hole Digger
Professional hair Dresser
Perpetually Hallucinating for a Degree
Predetermined Harmonized Dementia
Piano hauling Drone
Pizza hut Driver
Pretty heavy Diploma
Phinally Done !!

(in Bengali) – Pothe Holo deri (means delayed on the way)
(in Hindi) – Pagal Hoke Dikhayenge (means we will prove it by becoming mad)
(in Hindi) – Paka Hua Dimaag (means riped brain)

The credit again goes to the unnamed soldiers of this fraternity – MAY GOD BE WITH YOU!

Important links for graduate students!

hello guys! finally am back with something for grad students…..I have collected a few links which can turn out to be very useful for graduate students and post doctoral fellows!!!

HOW TO WRITE YOUR THESIS
HOW TO BE A GOOD GRADUATE STUDENT
HOW TO SUCCEED IN POST-GRADUATE STUDY
THE RESEARCHER’S BIBLE
PhD DISSERTATION
PhD THESIS

Getting a job!

For international students, getting a job after graduation is always high on the agenda. The needs are pressing for sure. They often have to pay back loans incurred and also support their families. Understandably, many try and get a job in USA. Though I must confess, I am not inclined towards this idea at all. But I feel, I should try and list out some points I got from an article as it might help the prospectives (considering the fact that most would have almost finished their graduation). Please understand that most of these problems are associated with students going to “not so good” colleges and mostly MS candidates!

For many international students, the United States is considered the land of job opportunity—an excellent place to gain experience and to launch an engineering career. Top dollars and companies are out there fueling our desire to get in. However, more often than not, international students find it difficult to get jobs.

It’s important to remember that regardless of your homeland, most students find it challenging to get their foot through the door of the job market. But, because of a variety of factors, international students have to work as hard or sometimes harder, to ensure success.

“An international student may have excellent grades and graduated from a good American university, but that alone won’t convince a prospective employer he has the best candidate for a job,” says Steven Rothberg, a Canadian who attended the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and later founded the Minneapolis-based college recruiter. “That’s just the beginning. You have to show that you can add value to the company.“

But international students have some disadvantages when entering the playing field. The obvious one is the language. “Frankly, many international students—particularly those in the engineering discipline—have a hard time communicatingin English. This can be a serious obstacle in the job interviewing process,” says Bob Santore, executive vice president with Comforce, a Redmond, Washington - based information technology recruiting firm that has placed hundreds of international students with U.S. companies. Recruiter might view communication issues as potential trouble centers in future work environment for the candidate in question.

But while language skills are important, social skills are even more so. “I find that a lot of international students need more help with their job interview preparation than do Americans,” Santore explains.

International students can further hurt their employment chances by not getting work experience while in school. Several sources noted that international students don’t apply for internships often enough. “It’s so expensive to go to school in the U.S. that many international students try to graduate as fast they can,” Rothberg says.

Often, finding a job can be harder for an international student simply because some employers will say, “Why bother,” given the time, effort and paperwork involved in the hiring process. “It doesn’t happen that much, but it has been a consideration for employers inexperienced in hiring international students,” Santore reveals.

So, yes, there are factors at work that make it tough. But good things will happen in the job market to prepared people. The fact is, many opportunities are available to level the job-hunting playing field for you.

Some methods which could be used to improve you chances as stated by professionals include: 

Work harder to improve your language skills.
Watch more television shows-in English, that is. Hire a tutor or take a four to six week immersion course, if you can afford one. Take an English course, or several, if necessary. And, as Thomas Jacob explains, “Hang out with and around Americans. Too many international students like to hang with their own native language speaking kind. That won’t help them get the skills they need to succeed in the job market.” Jacob, who is from England but works in New York City in high finance, is a 1998 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is not that necessary for people who are adept in english communication…but that doesn’t mean you would neglect this point altogether. It is always wise to learn the culture and values of the people you live with. It can benefit in ways which are sometimes beyond comprehension!

Network more
Remember the old axiom—it’s who you know that often gets you a job. “A friend’s father, an aunt, a brother can all be great networking sources, but you have to talk to them,” says Mary Spaeth, executive vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based AngleTechnology LLC, who adds, “And don’t forget your professors. They generally have amazing professional networks as well.” Rothberg encourages international students to contact the alumni office at their university and get the names and phone numbers of alum from their homeland who majored in engineering and computer science. “Call and offer to take them for coffee or dinner if they live close enough,” Rothberg says. “Tell them you know about their successful career and that you want to get where they’re going. Ask them for some tips and advice on how to do it. I get a call once a year from a Canadian student studying at the University of Minnesota who does exactly that. I’m flattered and, of course, I help.“

Get some work experience
Check your university to see what internships and other experience-gathering opportunities are available. Quiz your professors and classmates. “Go to your country’s consulate and get a list of companies from your homeland that have operations in the U.S.,” Jacob advises. “Then call them to see if they offer internships in your major.“ Understand the norms carefully though as it is illegal for F1 Visa holders to work. So do keep your interest upto an internship!

Milk your career placement center’s resources
Studies show that only about 14% of university students use the career placement center. Don’t be one of those deadbeats. The center can help prepare you for a job interview. For example, they’ll do mock interviews with you and tape them so you can critique your performance. They have valuable resources in the form of books, articles, counsellors………

Attend job fairs
This is an excellent opportunity if a student’s personal resources and contacts are limited, Spaeth says. “International students should be working hard to turn themselves into business professionals from the first day they step foot on an American university campus,” she advises.

At the end of the day, How tough, getting a job can be depends on the individual involved! I hope those interested in getting a job in USA would take note of these points and also research more to try and understand the nuances involved and also add any new points they stumble across through comments so that others may benefit!!

Source: http://www.graduatingengineer.com/

Useful link: RESOURCE