I am writing this post mainly for students who are considering graduate school. The subject of whether one should pursue a PhD is one that has been debated endlessly since I was in graduate school in the late 70's as well as on this list since its inception. In fact, discussion on this list caused me to publish a short article on choosing a major professor which can be found here http://grossman.myweb.uga.edu/notes.htm . There is no doubt that your experience in grad school, at least in the US, France, Sweden, Spain and in NZ where I've spent, is primarily determined by your major professor and her/his lab. If you have a good mentor then your experience can be tremendous and a guide for how one conducts oneself as a mentor. If your major professor isn't a particularly good mentor but gives you the freedom and resources to do creative work, then that still can be a very positive experience, especially with respect to what one *should* do as a mentor. And then there are the negative experiences that have already been described recently and historically on the list. I will say that in 30 years of being a faculty member I have seen few hard-working and productive PhD's *not* get a job they were happy with as long as they were willing to be patient and spend a few years in a post-doc. If your expectation is that when you receive your PhD someone will be waiting in the wings with a job offer, well come back to reality because that hasn't happened since the Sputnik generation, especially if you're an ecologist. The ironic aspect of these very negative posts is that the job market for ecologists is much better now than it was in the 70's, 80's and 90's. So in my view the bottom line is that if you love ecology and research/teaching then get a PhD, work hard, develop a good strategy for a successful graduate career (a topic for a novella itself) and try not to get discouraged if you hit a few pot holes along the way. In the end you'll likely land a worthwhile job, especially with the projected retirements in the next 10 years. But if I were a student or potential student I would interpret the negative posts about graduate school and academia with a grain of salt and recognize that they only represent personal experiences rather than universal situations. And as for the guy who wrote the article recommended in a previous post, well I'd pause a minute before taking advice from a guy who took 7 years to finish a PhD unless he started out "Frankly, I made a lot of mistakes in my graduate career" but I guess you have to buy his book to find out if it starts that way <g>. Keep the faith baby, -- Gary D. Grossman, PhD
Professor of Animal Ecology Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources University of Georgia Athens, GA, USA 30602 Research & teaching web site - http://grossman.myweb.uga.edu/<http://www.arches.uga.edu/%7Egrossman> Board of Editors - Animal Biodiversity and Conservation Editorial Board - Freshwater Biology Editorial Board - Ecology Freshwater Fish Sculpture by Gary D. Grossman http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gary-Grossmans-Sculpture-Portfolio/124819124227147<http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#%21/album.php?aid=2002317&id=1348406658> Hutson Gallery Provincetown, MA - www.hutsongallery.net/artists.html My ukulele channel - www.youtube.com/user/garydg29
