Again, your mileage may vary. When I wrote my first paper in grad school, I automatically put my advsor's name on it. He thanked me but said that he hadn't made enough of a contribution to earn that credit. Only after he made substantial (albeit sometimes exasperating to me) contributions to the writing did we put his name on the manuscript. And all his students had to come up with their own questions -- with some help if necessary, but their own questions. A few dropped out because they couldn't do this, but most did well.
The Brazilian system does sound good, although I'd add university funding for the first 1-2 years for the coming up with your own question part. Not everyone will do this well straight out of undergrad, especially if they're skipping the MS. But yes, having faculty be fully paid by their universities (what a concept!) will go a long way toward making my experience a lot more common and the type that leads to burn-out a lot less common. And it should be possible for grad students to be PIs. Jane Shevtsov On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 9:55 PM, Aaron T. Dossey <[email protected]> wrote: > > Ph.D. students and postdocs "picking their own question" has devolved into > institutionalized intellectual property theft. Why do original research > when you don't get credit or own the IP? Now days many grad students and > postdocs/postechs/postemps are expected not only to do all of the > experiments, but to do the ordering for the lab, WRITE GRANTS, write the > papers and even come up with the ideas. HOWEVER, it is always expected that > the faculty boss is senior corresponding author on all papers that their > students/postdocs/property generate regardless of if those faculty bosses > had anything to do with it or were even aware it was going on. They also > must be PI on all grants, again regardless of their involvement in > formulation, writing or submission of the grant. Most institutions forbid > students and postdocs from being PI of any grant they write, so even if they > want to pursue their own ideas, they must tack on the name of one of the > gatekeeper faculty to have the "right" to submit it to federal agencies for > funding. THAT is institutionalized intellectual property theft - similar to > bribes that people must pay in third world countries to authorities for > various things. Any scientist should always have an unlimited right to PI > their own grants, petition their own government for research funding and > publish their own work independently if the effort warrants it. > > Check out this article: > http://www.sciencemag.org/content/325/5940/528.summary > > Brazil has a fantastic system, as I understand it. There, federal research > grants do NOT contain any salary funding - for faculty, students or > postdocs. "Trainees" (I use the term very loosely for the sake of > discussion here) like students and postdocs write for their own fellowships, > and faculty are paid their full salaries by the institutions. This > accomplishes many nice things such as: 1) giving students and postdocs more > freedom and control of their careers - if they work for an abusive boss, > they can take their funding to another lab, 2) prevents faculty from > obcessing over grants just to get higher salaries, 3) reduces the incentive > for faculty to do NOTHING but try to get grants, since their salaries are > covered.... and it probably means that more scientists can get funding, > rather than a few faculty oligarchs soaking up all of the grants by design. > > > > On 10/17/2012 12:40 AM, Jane Shevtsov wrote: >> >> The author misses the fact that European Ph.D. programs are 3-4 years >> long because the students do, by and large, work as technicians. There >> are no classes. There is, in most cases, no opportunity or time to >> pick your own question (even within a large project), which is really >> the thing that distinguishes a Ph.D. from an M.S. in my mind. If some >> countries have programs that work differently, I'm interested in >> knowing about them, but from what I've read, American programs are >> better (aside from pay). >> >> Jane Shevtsov >> >> On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 5:03 PM, Aaron T. Dossey<[email protected]> >> wrote: >>> >>> Very well written article: >>> >>> >>> http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2012_09_28/caredit.a1200108 >>> >>> -- >>> Aaron T. Dossey, Ph.D. >>> Biochemistry and Molecular Biology >>> Founder/Owner: All Things Bugs >>> Capitalizing on Low-Crawling Fruit from Insect-Based Innovation >>> http://allthingsbugs.com/about/people/ >>> http://www.facebook.com/Allthingsbugs >>> 1-352-281-3643 >> >> >> > > > -- > Aaron T. Dossey, Ph.D. > Biochemistry and Molecular Biology > Founder/Owner: All Things Bugs > Capitalizing on Low-Crawling Fruit from Insect-Based Innovation > http://allthingsbugs.com/about/people/ > http://www.facebook.com/Allthingsbugs > 1-352-281-3643 > -- ------------- Jane Shevtsov, Ph.D. Mathematical Biology Curriculum Writer, UCLA co-founder, www.worldbeyondborders.org “Those who say it cannot be done should not interfere with those who are doing it.” --attributed to Robert Heinlein, George Bernard Shaw and others
