[Air-L] Technology and authority: Graduate programs

[Christian Nelson]

This might be good for some folks, but could be disastrous for  
others. If your dream is to work at a prestigious research  
institution, you're more likely to attain that dream if you work  
closely with someone who is a respected leader in the field. Sure,  
you could attain your dream job if you stumble upon some new subject  
matter as a grad student that no one has yet claimed (ala dana boyd)  
and you exploit that matter adeptly. But if you don't, you're going  
to need to ride on coattails to join the invisible college that  
controls the dream jobs you're interested in. Now, if you're not  
aiming for a prestigious research institution, the rules are probably  
a bit different.

On May 23, 2008, at 9:50 PM, M. Deanya Lattimore wrote:

> I would caution against picking a school based on the people  
> teaching there; with the academic climate as it is, professors are  
> moving from school to school and even completely out of academia in  
> large numbers.
>
> I started my graduate program where I did because I was *in love  
> with* the work of five wonderful scholars who were there; three  
> years after I started, four of them were gone or leaving.  My  
> entire research agenda had to be rewritten three times before I  
> could take my comprehensives because I didn't want to "follow" the  
> one teacher I could have followed to a new program.
> It's coming up on ten years now and I'm still not done, but should  
> finish in the fall.
>
> I don't believe there's any good way to pick a program; I think the  
> best advice is just do your grad work as quickly as possible,  
> whatever gets you done, and then get out to do the work you love.   
> If I'd done that, I'd be home by now.  By researching and trying so  
> hard to find "the perfect school," I only shot myself in the foot.
> (But I've had the privilege to work with some amazing people.)
> :-)
> Deanya