I am a PhD student and hate it here. How can I warn prospective students during admit weekend without ruining my reputation?

Question

On the one hand, I want to warn students not to come to my program. On the other hand, I don't want to be "that one," and I also don't want to tarnish the reputation of the specific people I worked with (who I mostly like).

More specifically:

I want to warn students about lack of funding, administration being uncaring towards students, certain PhD requirements being a lot more onerous than they say they are, general departmental atmosphere and culture among the grad students, general culture of the school, poor location, etc etc.

Also my school is the only top school in my field that has a "rotation system" for picking advisors, and that is generally framed as a benefit, and a reason to choose the school. But I don't think students really realize how much rotations suck until after they've come here.

Answer 1

Imagine, as a thought experiment, making your points in an argumentative text—a paper*— that should pass peer review by your department (assuming intellectual honesty on their part) — so that you have to be careful that what you write is objective. You have to separate facts, beliefs, anecdotical evidence, etc. Then you have something you can pitch to people (in an informal context) while being professional and objective when describing facts, so it subsumes lots of other advice. (EDIT: lots of other things would be relevant to getting a paper accepted, but I only care about being careful with your opinion).

Moreover, framing things this way might help you expose them to anybody else — from people on this forum, to your advisor, to people who might change things at your school. Many of them will be excellent at arguing their point this way, you have to be better than them to win.

While this is a top school, it has several disadvantages in comparison to other top schools:

• funding is inferior to other schools.
• in my experience, dealing with the administration was frustrating [evidence]
• while other schools allow you to pick your advisor, here you get it assigned through a rotation system. While it has the advantage of ..., it prevents you from picking the advisor with which you'd work best (something that you probably want to read about if you didn't already).
• ...

The above isn't very convincing or accurate. Also, I don't have citations appropriate for your field. But hopefully you get the drift.

Also, as others said, if you can, give your opinion in an informal context (as recommended by others). The event should include moments for honest opinions.

*I suspect some would debate to which extent a paper is an argumentative text, because this depends somewhat on the scientific community — at the very least, the importance of some results is not just a fact, but something that (in this information overload era) you need to argue for, if you want to get attention of your readers. In case you haven't been taught this already, somebody might be failing you more than you think.

Answer 2

• Focus on facts, rather than your emotional impressions.
• Don't try to overgeneralize. Say what didn't work for you, rather than imply that it does not work for everyone (unless everyone agrees) or it won't work for the prospective student (who knows...).
• You could say "I would have chosen differently" (ideally, adding the other possible options) or "overall, I dislike this program" rather than "this program sucks" or going into long rants.

Answer 3

lack of funding,

Here I think you can be straightforward. Probably the faculty are just as disappointed as you are.

administration being uncaring towards students,

I don't know exactly what this means; as a grad student I never tried to attract the attention of any administrator. If you have any specific problems you might bring them up.

general departmental atmosphere and culture among the grad students, general culture of the school,

If you're talking with an old friend privately, sure, bring it up. If you're meeting students at some big admit weekend, then you would piss people off by saying anything, and indeed there's not much reason for you to: prospectives will get a chance to observe the atmosphere for themselves.

poor location, etc etc.

Griping about this is pretty common. (Among faculty too!) I don't think it's especially frowned upon to complain about this, at least if your point of view is widely shared or if you are speaking to prospectives in private.

Indeed, I remember one student at one school telling me: "The only positive thing I have to say about the campus or the location is that there is adequate parking."

Also my school is the only top school in my field that has a "rotation system" for picking advisors, and that is generally framed as a benefit, and a reason to choose the school.

Tread a little bit more carefully here. "In retrospect, I believe that I would have fared better without this system; my experience was blah-blah-blah. But this is a system that our school touts, so you might talk to other people too, to get a sense of what would be best for you."

That said, if this were some kind of admit weekend, I'd consider inventing an excuse to be elsewhere for the day. If not many current grad students are willing to show up and talk to prospectives, that will itself serve as the warning you want to offer.

Answer 4

I personally do not think you can warn perspective students without ruining your reputation at a departmentally sponsored event. If your department asks you, or even just provides an opportunity, to meet with perspective students, the expectation is that you will represent the department in the best possible way, while being honest. That means you should not volunteer things that you do not like. if you are asked a question about something you do not like, you should of course answer it honestly. Using such an event to express your views about the short comings of the department, is unprofessional and I would think less of a student who behaved that way. If a potential student contacts you unofficially, then it is less inappropriate to, but still inappropriate in my opinion, to disparage your department.

Answer 5

You'll probably end up in conversations with the prospectives about the other schools they're considering. Then you can highlight differences between your school and the other school without making (too) overt judgements on which you consider to be better.

For instance, with the rotating advisor feature, you could say, “Here advisors are assigned to students on a rotating basis, whereas at Other University you would have the option to choose an advisor that best meets your needs as a young scholar.”

If you don't have information about Other University, you can suggest they research it. “You should look into how graduate students are supported at Other University. I know that here it's harder than it would seem.”

Or if you want to contrast the locations, say, “I imagine the weather's a lot better near Other University.”

In short, be subtle, and grown-up.

Answer 6

Try to ask the opposite question: what characteristics does someone need to have not to hate this program?

Different people value different things. So to be happy there someone must put a lot of value on the positive points and put little value on the negative points.

You can tell them something along the lines: this place is awesome in X, Y and Z but doesn't work well in R, S, T. If you're gonna like it or not, depends on how much value you put in each of these factors.

You can even factor in your opinion saying: I, for example, put a lot of value in R and the fact that it doesn't work well here really bothers me.

Answer 7

I may be going against the grain of other faculty, but I want incoming students to have informed consent about our program. Like every other place, we have areas that we are proud about and we have areas that we could do better. Students should weigh the pros and the cons of coming here and make a good choice.

A student who believes they were fooled or conned into a program is not going to be a happy student.

That being said, saying bad things about the program in front of your advisors is bad form. The appropriate venue is for all of the students (current and prospective) to go out for beers/coffee after the department event and for the current students to tell the prospies the real perspective there.

We actively encourage our grad students to host incoming and prospective students in their homes precisely because we want them to have ample opportunity to get a good sense of what our department is like before they make the commitment.

Finally, many places do want the current students to vent their frustrations about the program to us in appropriate and constructive ways. You should look into having ways that you can have more student feedback into department operations. Talk to your chair or your director of graduate studies about creating a student feedback committee or its equivalent.

Answer 8

It would be best to keep your bitterness and negativity to yourself. You won't succeed in convincing anyone, and the only person who will end up looking bad is you.

Answer 9

Just like with anything else in life, you need to represent your employer/department/whoever in a positive light while also being honest.

When I am in a similar situation as this, I turn "this sucks" into "this is challenging." It is all in the wording. Graduate school is not easy, that is no secret. What challenges did you have? What was frustrating? If you stick through it, what is the benefit?

I would not fault anyone for saying "X, Y, and Z are challenging, but in the end I will have a doctorate."

Answer 10

Let students discover by themselves that it is not a good program. You can do this by asking questions that send signals to guide them to another program.

By the way, are you sure that this program is actually bad? Maybe this negative point of view is your own perspective and doesn't reflect the reality. I think the most appropriate way to evaluate if the program is not well established is to think about fundamental questions.

1. What is the impact factor of the research made in your program (especially the papers written by professors)?

2. What kind of academic events (seminars, workshops etc.) are organized and how often?

3. Are professors open to interacting with PhD students?

the list can be extended.

Answer 11

If you have the opportunity to socialize with a few of them in a more private fashion, for instance by going out at night with a small group, then maybe you have a chance to do it inconspicuously.

If you want to do it during the day then you might give an honest opinion about something you particularly dislike but without forcing it too much, otherwise they may start talking with each other and this will eventually reach the ears of colleagues of yours. Try doing it objectively and put in a few things you like as well, in other words mix it in.

There are good and bad things. I feel the administrative staff could be a bit more helpful and the culture isn't what I expect it to be. I think the main thing I dislike is the rotation system to pick your adviser they use here because if you're unlucky you might end up with something which is not a good fit for you. On the other hand I'm lucky in that I'm doing something I enjoy and working with colleagues I like.

Notice on how the paragraph finishes with the good stuff at the end, i.e. you like your work and some of your work colleagues. The part about the rotation system is in the middle of the sentence but I assure that's unlikely to leave their head; the prospect of being forced to work with people you don't like is not a good one. You can also add that sure the university is quite isolated but whether someone likes it or not is a subjective matter.

Now what I feel would be the better option is if you have access to a mailing list with all of them. Create an email account using Tor and send everyone a balanced email with your opinion (e.g. list format). Do not be rude or they'll discard your opinion right away. Be factual and let them draw their own conclusions.

Culture and location are subjective, I wouldn't mind doing a degree in the middle of a forest, in fact sounds like a fun experience (as long as there's proper accommodation, food, work infrastructure and Internet... so basically what I need to get work done).

Finally, I leave you with a question. If it's that bad why are you still there?

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Update: Although the anonymous email option leaves no digital trail if done properly, people that know you may still suspect that it was you, for instance because of your writing style. Such suspicion may negatively impact your reputation.