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Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning an M.A. or a Ph.D.
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Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning an M.A. or a Ph.D.by Robert Peters
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86 of 86 people found the following review helpful: Covers almost all the crucial topics, March 6, 2002 Reviewer:Monica J. Kern (Lexington, KY United States) - As a college professor, I am always on the lookout for a good source to help undergraduates who are contemplating getting a Ph.D. as well as to help graduate students succeed in their Ph.D. program. This book is one of the best in this genre I have come across. Although the author is a biologist, it is clear he has done his homework on other disciplines, and his advice is useful for graduate students in any field. One of the most impressive features of the book is its comprehensive coverage. From improving one's credentials to get into a graduate program to getting a job once you have the Ph.D., Peters has detailed, entertaining advice for all the steps one encounters along the way. Liberally sprinkled through the book are anecdotes from students in a variety of fields that will leave most of us thankful that we did not have the Ph.D. advisors these poor hapless souls did. Indeed, there were only two aspects I wish the book would have covered but it did not. First, there is no mention of handling coursework in a graduate program. This is probably because coursework and course grades are of much lower priority in graduate school than it is for the undergraduate degree, but I think Peters could have made this point and encouraged readers not to fall into the trap of spending more time on coursework than is warranted. Second, I wish Peters had devoted more space to talking about getting academic jobs. College-level teaching is still the single most popular career goal for Ph.D.'s, and there are aspects of getting an academic job that are different than applying for jobs in the private sector. I wish he had written a separate chapter on academic jobs. In a related vein, there was only one piece of advice that Peters give that I flat-out disagreed with, and that was his comment that teaching wastes time and that Ph.D. students should avoid teaching as much as possible. This is true for many Ph.D. students, but it is definitely NOT true for Ph.D. students desiring teaching jobs at 4-year, liberal arts colleges. Those jobs will want to see ample teaching experience, not just as a teaching assistant but also as sole instructor of a course. A student who does not have considerable teaching experience will not be competitive for those jobs, and because there are more of those jobs available than tenure track lines at research universities, taking Peters' advice on that score could be ultimately self-defeating. However, those are the only negative comments I would make on an otherwise excellent book. I recommend it highly for anybody even contemplating going on beyond an undergraduate degree, and I plan to give copies of it to all my incoming graduate students.
Product Review
“This is an excellent book. I don’t know how Robert Peters was able to assemble all this highly relevant and valuable information after only one pass through the system known as graduate school, but he has produced a definitive piece of work.” – Dr. Gene Woodruff, Dean of the Graduate School, University of Washington, Seattle, President of the Association of Graduate Schools, Chairman of the GRE Board
Product Review
“This is an excellent book. I don’t know how Robert Peters was able to assemble all this highly relevant and valuable information after only one pass through the system known as graduate school, but he has produced a definitive piece of work.” – Dr. Gene Woodruff, Dean of the Graduate School, University of Washington, Seattle, President of the Association of Graduate Schools, Chairman of the GRE Board
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