Timeline for What are the benefits of having an external commitee member?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
22 events
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| Aug 14 at 15:58 | comment | added | Azor Ahai -him- | @Buffy Oh really? Where I've been, the committee is nominally approved by whoever, but the student is responsible for asking and filing. Are you saying that in your experience, the student's advisor asks all the faculty themselves, and just tells the student, here's your committee? | |
| Aug 13 at 16:40 | answer | added | UJM | timeline score: 6 | |
| Aug 13 at 16:13 | comment | added | Ivan Nepomnyashchikh | Just a heads-up. I am doing Ph.D. at a USA university as an international student and I have an external Ph.D. committee member. From the "logistics" perspective it can be a total nightmare. Externals must be appointed. Appointment takes a ton of time and signatures. That's not the biggest problem though. The biggest problem is that the appointment can expire. I was scheduling my preliminary exam when I learnt that it expired. And nobody told me because nobody tracks that. An oscar-winning Hollywood action movie can be filmed about how I managed to reappoint him in time for the exam. | |
| Aug 13 at 13:17 | vote | accept | principles-investigator | ||
| Aug 13 at 11:44 | answer | added | Ben | timeline score: 2 | |
| Aug 13 at 5:26 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Aug 13 at 3:22 | comment | added | principles-investigator | Adam, I do not find that to be entirely accurate, but I will not attempt to change your mind. Thank you for your input, I do appreciate it. | |
| Aug 12 at 23:30 | comment | added | Adam Přenosil | "While I think you are correct in that, that is the question I want to ask, I would appreciate if you could elaborate on this in an answer, because it is not at all obvious to me." Well, do you prefer your work to be evaluated by someone who understands it or by someone who does not understand it? I suppose if you have a low opinion of your work and think that your only option to scrape through is to trick the committee members in some way, then the latter may be preferable. But otherwise surely almost everyone would prefer the first option? | |
| Aug 12 at 22:45 | answer | added | WhatTheDuck | timeline score: 5 | |
| Aug 12 at 21:59 | comment | added | Buffy | Ask yourself why your advisor suggest including her. Is it to better support you or do they have some other reason that benefits them. I don't suggest this is happening, but the question should be considered. | |
| Aug 12 at 21:56 | comment | added | principles-investigator | Adam, in a previous version of your comment you said that the answer to "what is the benefit of having a committee member who is closely familiar with some of the work" was obvious. While I think you are correct in that, that is the question I want to ask, I would appreciate if you could elaborate on this in an answer, because it is not at all obvious to me. | |
| Aug 12 at 21:52 | answer | added | Buffy | timeline score: 4 | |
| Aug 12 at 21:51 | comment | added | Adam Přenosil | "My advisor suggests that I should consider her. However, I do not know if there are particular benefits of having an external member in the first place." Your question seems like a bit of a non-sequitur to me. Yes, she is an external member, but presumably the reason why your advisor proposed to ask her is that she is "closely familiar with some of the work that will be in this dissertation". So really the question you should be asking is: what is the benefit of having a committee member who is closely familiar with some of the work? | |
| Aug 12 at 21:51 | history | edited | principles-investigator | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Aug 12 at 21:46 | comment | added | avid | For some projects -- yes, there is a clear benefit to having an external member (e.g. your project is to optimise the design of Acme Widgets and the external member is the technical director of the Acme Widget Company). For other projects it would just be another cat that you will have to try and herd. I'm not sure this question has a useful general answer. | |
| Aug 12 at 21:44 | history | edited | principles-investigator | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Aug 12 at 21:42 | comment | added | principles-investigator | No, I have to choose the committee members but it is at the discretion of the thesis director and the program director. This seems to be a common arrangement in many programs as far as I am aware. I hadn't heard otherwise, but the alternative also sounds plausible. | |
| Aug 12 at 21:40 | comment | added | Buffy | My experience is that students don’t pick their committees. It can vary of course. | |
| Aug 12 at 21:38 | comment | added | principles-investigator | I am the student. Is there something in the question that suggests that I might be the advisor? Asking so I can fix it. | |
| Aug 12 at 21:36 | comment | added | Buffy | Are you the student or the advisor? | |
| Aug 12 at 21:31 | history | edited | principles-investigator | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Aug 12 at 21:26 | history | asked | principles-investigator | CC BY-SA 4.0 |