Timeline for Is it wise to select a PhD topic before choosing an advisor?
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| Jun 30, 2016 at 13:41 | comment | added | paul garrett | [cont'd] In mathematics, apparently unlike some other fields, advisors rarely "work in collaboration with their students", but the alternative is not to ignore them or fail to help them. Such a (false) bifurcation is dangerously simplistic. And the issues of "publication" for senior tenured faculty are wildly different than those for a beginner, so senior people who may conform less to ultra-traditional "rules" may nevertheless well-appreciate what young people should do to have reasonable careers. Finally, tenure at a well-ranked university is at least a sign that one understands The Game. | |
| Jun 30, 2016 at 13:35 | comment | added | paul garrett | For one thing, in mathematics, for hiring at both postdoc and tenure-track, I've never looked at any "impact factors", nor have I ever heard a single mention of them. Sure, things may evolve otherwise in the future... Then there's the question of what "publication" means these days: must it be traditional? (to affect "impact factors", which are commercially motivated products of traditional for-profit publishers, etc?) Or could it be arXiv? Or web-page? And what foolish advisor would make the mistake of not "pushing a student to publish"? [cont'd] | |
| Jun 30, 2016 at 8:42 | comment | added | Lucile | Simple here, about this h-index: a professor who publishes a lot is more likely to push a PhD to publish than a professor who is not really publication-oriented. In many fields, if you don't publish by the end of the PhD, it's going to be way more difficult. Exceptions exist, there is no debate about that. So wether it's an h-index, or just looking at their publications, publication records should be a criteria to me (again: not the only one!). But please, provide counter arguments, it would be informative for everybody. | |
| Jun 30, 2016 at 8:34 | comment | added | Lucile | Without wanting to stay in academia, what is the risk of going with almost any advisor? wasting 3 years of your life? it's not a big deal to me. I am not in maths, I said so. h-index should certainly not be the only criteria, but it does say something about the ability of the professor to publish (at least more than a ranking of the university!). (Do you think I would answer such a question not being in academia?) | |
| Jun 30, 2016 at 2:28 | comment | added | paul garrett | I'm afraid I cannot see this as good advice at all: it's not true that "any senior advisor will do", nor that h-index or any other software-generated ranking will help you choose a good advisor. That is, this answer sounds as though it comes from someone who's pretty unfamiliar with graduate education, and certainly with mathematics (which was an aspect of the question). | |
| Jun 29, 2016 at 7:50 | comment | added | Lucile | I absolutely agree on the last sentence, that is why I said "They have a point there I think, but only if the advisor really works in collaboration with his PhDs". Quality of someone's research not being linked with metrics: yes, I agree, and everybody agrees. Yet you get hired based on that. One of the many contradictions in academia.To me the most striking example of academic contradiction is Nature/Science papers: not necessarily good, many are in fact rather bad, but if you have one as 1st author in your CV at the PhD level, you are almost guaranteed a postdoc. | |
| Jun 29, 2016 at 7:46 | comment | added | user2390246 | I'm not sure about the suggestion to use h-index to judge quality of an advisor. Firstly, it's widely acknowledged that citation metrics are highly flawed representations of the quality of someone's research. Secondly, being a good researcher is not the same thing as being a good advisor. | |
| Jun 29, 2016 at 7:44 | review | First posts | |||
| Jun 29, 2016 at 8:21 | |||||
| Jun 29, 2016 at 7:39 | history | answered | Lucile | CC BY-SA 3.0 |