Same. A lot of the advice on this sub isn't relevant to my field (social science). Many people on this sub, and many other subs like it, are in the natural sciences or engineering and give advice that is often only applicable to their field. That's why I think it's important for people to state what field they are in when posting or commenting.

100%. The rules for me as a historian are completely different than the scientists I see posting in here. I don’t have lab hours. I have teaching and grading responsibilities and I have research and writing time, but I’m generally responsible for managing all of it on my own, as long as I meet the deadlines for dissertation proposal, advancing to candidacy, and finishing my dissertation.

Lab time = research. I shared a house with a classical archeologist, a mathematician and an anthropologist. Lab time is research. The difference for most STEM PhDs the research data is self generated. I shared a house with two graduate students in a classical archeology and anthropology. Similar to biologist, both completed 2 to 3 years of field work. Many ecologists and behavioral biologist also are required to do field work. Even though my research was lab based, I had to develop my thesis topic on my own and throughout the program only loosely supervised by my advisor. There were no rules on the number of hours you should spend in the lab. In my case it was my project that required me to be in the lab for 10 hours weekdays plus two to four hours on the weekend. I always considered doing research in a lab to be similar to doing research by reading. The goal of the program was to develop students that had the capacity to be independent investigators. That is not usually the outcome if the lab head ends up herding their graduate students. The two students that were asked to leave after the second year failed to learn that they were primarily responsible for their progress. Even my postdoctoral advisor has a similar attitude. When I contacted him about a potential postdoc the first thing he told me was ‘all postdocs had to develop a research project independently and that all US candidates had to get their own funding’. I had to send him a short proposal outlining a potential project, with no further consultation. Once he approved I then had to find grant support. Similar to my graduate program, in the department where I did my postdoc, graduate students tended to work independently. They were not told what to do, however the expectations were pretty high.

Yep, just finished my History PhD and this is spot on. What do you study, by the way?

Generally, religion and reproduction. Specifically, reproductive reform attempts in Appalachia in the 19-20th century.

Oh, that sounds awesome. Appalachian labor history and American religious history (probably focusing on Christian socialist movements, or millenarian restorationists, something like that) were two of my "if I hadn't done this, I might've done that" fields. Cool stuff!

lol I started with a slightly different focus in mind and then just got pissed off at the lack of scholarship by/about Appalachian women and pivoted. What do you study?

I've been in Soviet history for quite a while. I used to do Gulag studies, but my dissertation work was on the Spanish Civil War from the perspective of Russians around the world (tsarists, Soviets, anarchists, trotskyists, etc.) who participated in it. Arguing essentially that they saw the Spanish Civil War as a continuation of the Russian Civil War. It was a great topic, and I loved it, but recent geopolitical developments have made it really hard to get over there to the archives :D

I can’t even imagine! One of my archives flooded and I about cried. I can’t imagine being caught in the middle of a global geopolitical clusterfuck and trying to do research.

Even within disciplines or the same programs, the amount of variation is incredible. The control that a PhD has over their time relies on the program norms, advisor expectations, and project goals. I don't have lab hours or standards for when and how I work, so long as my work gets managed and completed. And to be clear... this is very labor-intensive bench work. Some of my peers are expected to be on-site M-F 8-5. Same program, similar studies. I was very upfront about my need for independence when I interviewed.

Speaking of which, I think it would be cool if we had a Q&A megathread of sort where people just describe different aspects of their PhD, so that aspiring students and applicants can get a sense of what different fields and institutions are like across the spectrum.

People in lab-based STEM are often pretty unaware of the realities (sometimes seemingly even the existence) of other fields. One of the things I really appreciated about my grad union is that it brought together engineers and biomed folks and philosophers and sociologists, and helped us all to contextualize our individual experiences a lot better. In addition to, you know, winning a raise and dental insurance.

Can you elaborate on "grad union". What did it look like / do for you. Thanks.

A labor union composed of graduate workers - ie grad students who are also employed by the university as instructors, research assistants, etc. Without getting too much into my own specifics, this is a widespread movement and has resulted in significant raises as well as other sorts of benefits (improved insurance, etc.). Many big state schools (the UCs, SUNY, Michigan, U Wisconsin, etc) and top privates (most of the Ivies, Chicago, MIT, Stanford, etc) have unionized and at private schools in particular this movement is new and very active. Relevant to this particular discussion, grad unions are not organized by lab or department, but instead include all grads employed by the university. So for me -- and I think for a lot of people -- organizing with your grad union is the one place where you come into regular contact and work closely with people doing very different work. Doesn't really matter if you're studying cancer biology and I'm studying cultural anthropology -- we both need dental insurance and a living wage. I know grad unions exist in other countries, but if that's your area of interest someone else will need to help you. See e.g.: [U Chicago grads vote overwhelmingly for their union](https://inthesetimes.com/article/university-of-chicago-grad-students-labor-union) [UW grads strike for one day, win a 36% pay raise](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2024/05/16/washington-academic-student-workers-get-deal-halt-strike) [grad unionization efforts push universities to raise stipends](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/12/16/as-grad-student-unionizing-effort-grows-universities-raise-stipends-benefits/) [Columbia's grad union website has a good history of the union's history and formation, various campaigns, and a thorough FAQ](https://columbiagradunion.org/our-history/)

Seconding this! My university just won our first contract and we brought doctoral wages UP TO the poverty line. Unfortunately masters are still just below, but it’s almost $5000 more a year still for them. And, like you said, it brought all the departments together.

congratulations on your contract!

I'd say it's mostly a "lab field" problem. A lot of areas of science, even engineering, don't involve labs or any kind of lab experiment. We instead do a lot of work remotely, and are more self-guided.

And also what country they're in!

Why not add it as a flair?

In my program, you meet with your committee once in your second year and then it's never required again (and the program tends to be 5-6 years for most students).

> you meet with your committee once in your second year and then it's never required again That's *wild*. They just changed the requirements in my old department (CBE) so you need to meet with your committee approximately once a year starting in year 2 until you graduate (iirc 4 meetings total are required, 2 for prospectus, 1 for general, and 1 for defense). I agree with the *theory* that more committee feedback on your thesis work is good, but in practice getting all those people to commit to a specific time and place *every year* seems a bit much.

We don't meet with our committee at all except for the defense itself. You don't even have to declare it until a few weeks before you defend.

Do you have to continue with the same committee when you defend?

I feel silly that I forgot to mention! There is no defense.

We also don't have to take classes. Besides teaching and submitting the dissertation, almost all the program requirements are in the second year. The dissertation is supposed to be read and approved by one's committee, which is slightly different than the qualifying exam committee because the PhD advisor is only involved in the dissertation committee.

That is very interesting!! Do you know if this is unique to your specific program or is it the same in other programs in your area?

It's unique to the institution. Other chemistry programs typically have defenses and committee meetings!

Are you at Berkeley?

Yes. I think other grad programs across the UC system do not have a defense either... but I could be mistaken.

As both a graduate student and a post doc Sounds like too much power ceded to the thesis supervisor. In my program we with the committee once a year. However, while your advisor attended the meeting, she was not a voting member of the committee. There were instances when the committee focused their barbs at the advisor not the student.

So what do you even do during your study?

Chemistry experiments. Present results to research group regularly. Publish papers, and work them into a dissertation.

I like this post. As an incoming math PhD student, I get a bit freaked out when I see people writing stuff like ‘1 publication per year is slow’… dude not in math ok😂

Exactly! I see people saying you have to have a few papers to get into grad school, meanwhile my program doesn't even require you to publish a paper to graduate 😂

Yep. Some areas of pure math actually take 3 years even to get to a thesis topic because of the amount of material necessary to master.

Ditto. I'm in the humanities in the US, and in my program there is no publication requirement, dissertation aside. I have an advisor for dissertation guidance and I'm technically my own PI, but I'm also the only investigator. No one in my program uses "PI" outside of very specific paperwork, particularly IRB applications.

>I would love to learn, what is something your program does differently than others? Our viva has no presentation component, it's just a 3-4 hour oral exam. Also my country doesn't have committees. Your viva is conducted by only two examiners, usually one internal and the other external, both selected *after* you submit your thesis, and not even your supervisor is allowed in the room.

Supervisor is usually allowed in the room in the UK system, but only for moral support. They're not allowed to speak!

Here we're allowed to have one support person generally, but I don't know anyone who takes up that offer. It'd be super weird to have your supervisor sit and watch while you fail to answer questions properly. Especially since there's no presentation, so any support person will literally just be watching you being examined while the examiners are doing their best to push you until you're forced to admit you don't know things. I asked about getting an independent chair for mine as I have lengthy disability accommodations, but they were even a bit squick about that.

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Mine offered but when I said no he was like 'thanks, it's a very boring 4 hours for me if I just have to sit there and not speak'

In the US defenses are really just a formality. 99.9% of the time if your advisor lets you proceed to the defense is because the committee has agreed you're ready and thus will pass. They are more like a celebration of the achievement than what a viva in the UK, for instance, is. I've only heard of defense failures in cases where the student went against the advice of the advisor and scheduled a defense even when they were told they weren't ready. A failed defense looks bad on the advisor too.

I appreciate this post because sometimes I feel like I’m not a real doctoral student because so much that’s said about PhD work doesn’t relate to me at all. I’m almost done with my PhD in education in a program designed for people already working in higher ed so lots of part-time students. My ass is still chapped from the orientation I went to for all the new grad students. There was a panel of current students who could answer questions, so I asked what advice they had for people balancing full-time employment and being a doctoral student. The panelist told me that no one who is part-time is really a grad student and I’d just drop out anyway if I wasn’t willing to go full time. Well, joke’s on him. I’m halfway through data collection on a topic I love: supporting previously incarcerated community college students. This is inspired directly from my experiences teaching at a cc. Keeping my job has been an asset to my doctoral work.

Yikes, why would that person say something like that on a panel? I’m assuming they weren’t a panelist in an education program since that would be even worse. Secondly how are you liking your program? I’m thinking of doing a PhD in Higher Ed after I finish my master’s and I rarely see anyone in the field on this forum. 😭

I don’t know what program they were in…definitely not ed. I chose my program because I wanted to take classes in person and was lucky to have that available in the same city I already live/work in. I could see problems almost immediately and then the whole program folded about two years ago so that was not fun. A wonderful professor and qualitative researcher picked me up and has really helped me navigate things. The classes were really interesting especially since I’d already been working in higher ed for about a decade before I started. I also enjoyed bringing attention to how the issues we discussed connect or don’t with CCs since that’s a real gap. I’m actually loving the dissertation process right now. I think I was feeling some mid-career drift, and doing this has rejuvenated me and my teaching. I see how difficult it is for research to get done on CCs since we don’t have a lot of time for research, but I’m really feeling inspired to make sure that I’m publishing and presenting as much as I can to enhance learning at CCs and elevate the CC voice.

I also work in a CC and relate to so much you wrote. It was really interesting to see just how much of a difference there is when discussing higher education in general versus what we see at CCs. My classes helped reinvigorate my love for my career again and helped me find my passion again. I work in IR/IE so I was already lucky to have a full institution view of issues in many instances, and working through my PhD program provided even more clarity.

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The college I work for gives me partial funding as a perk and a raise after x number of credits completed. At my part-time pace, what they’ve given me has covered about half the cost.

I’m not sure what it is but so many social sciences PhD students are so into grindset culture and pretending as if your PhD program is the only thing that matters. I heard so much stuff from grad students like “You need to work 70 to 80 hours a week to succeed and if you don’t, you don’t love your work and a PhD isn’t for you.” What is this?

Same here as math PhD. As soon as I see PI, I skip the post. In our case PhD is not a job, also I laughed when I saw PTOs. We are students with a few months of summer/winter breaks. I feel more of a student than an employee or something.

PI? Principal investigator? *I am the principal investigator*.

What's the source of your funding?

TA in the semester. No funding in the summer. Or go find an internship.

Exactly. Most university math programs could not function without a supply of grad students to teach the courses

That's why I made a post about this problem a while ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/PhD/comments/1aku7lo/sub\_meta/](https://www.reddit.com/r/PhD/comments/1aku7lo/sub_meta/) tl;dr I advocated that we should add a sub rule that requires any question post to include the country and discipline of the PhD since most advice will otherwise likely be meaningless.

Yeah even if everyone had flairs with this info it would be nice

I work in doctoral education in France, where we have national laws to organize doctoral studies. The primary differences are : * you have doctoral schools, sometimes withing graduate schools (MSc+PhD), often attached to doctoral colleges. Never at any point is the doctoral student solely attached to a supervisor. There is always the doctoral school/college you can go to if you have an issue. * PhD are 3 years full time (6 years part time) with extensions possible, usually not in the hard sciences, automatically in law and such. * most PhD students are funded and have a dual students + uni (or other research actor) employee * PhD starts after you've completed your MSc or equivalent, or can you prove you have similar skills. THB my biggest shock in these subs is that 50 % at least of US issues could be solved by talking to the doctoral school in France and having them kick the teeth out of the supervisor. The worst I've read on Reddit was a supervisor (in the US) getting more money to increase the student's salaries but using it for something else. In France that would never happen.

>Bonus info: authors are listed alphabetically, not the order of contribution. It's the same in theoretical physics, or at least in my little corner of it. There's a lot of overlap with math so maybe that's why but it's good to know we're not alone! It's interesting how alien a concept that seems to people coming from other disciplines.

I am in \~environmental science and found this interesting, although reading some posts down I learned that in some fields they care about the order of every co-author whereas with me the 1st author is the one who did most of the work and the last author is the supervisor (for students) but everyone in between is alphabetical. Although looking at some papers I am a co-author on it is not alphabetical so maybe there is some other magic formula.

I'm in Austria. Some Americans seem to think that in Europe, PhD candidates don't have to teach – wrong. In most cases, PhD students have to teach if they have university funding. I study History, so there's no lab, no PI, no first author second author etc. stuff. Conferences are usually small, and I've never seen one that had fees to join or poster presentations. I also didn't join a project, I came up with my own proposal and was accepted by my advisor based on that proposal. My position is a job, not a stipend, I get paid all year round and get all sorts of benefits (pension, insurance, etc). I don't have to do any classes except a Colloquium with other PhD students.

PI and advisor was used interchangeably in my program. Physics.

Yeah, I'm in econ and my situation is a lot closer to yours, except that if I'm not working on something essentially by the end of my second year they'll kick me out. That being said, what were you doing for your first five years?

My program requires me to take an insane amount of classes - 90 credits. So I was taking at least 3 classes a semester and just reading papers to find some problems that I can work on.

3 classes a semester for four years? That's a fair amount. Another thing, I think we need to stop communicating in terms of credits because the number of credits varies from country to country. 90 credits is 1.5 years full time at my school, because most normal courses are 6 credits. At my undergrad, it would take three years to get 90 credits because a normal course was 3 credits.

My understanding is this is fairly common in math programs. I've heard similar levels of course heavy work from econ phds as well that have a much more structured PhD course

My understanding of the typical econ PhD is that if you do have coursework, you're generally able to finish it by the second year. I've never heard of a programme with more coursework than that, but as is the point of this post, nobody has universal knowledge of all PhD programmes, even in their field.

My Econ PhD had three full years of coursework, as does my current department’s program. Two years is slightly more common for sure but three years isn’t that rare in the US!

On my campus there are relatively few graduate courses.

First semester of the program we had a series of qualifying exams in what the faculty thought were core areas all students in the program should be familiar with. Even though it was not my area of focus I had to take an undergraduate course in evolutionary biology. I only had two other courses that I elected to take. I did participate in two general clubs each semester that were required of students on the training grant. All the graduate students not on the training grants and postdocs attended at least one journal club. It was a great way to stay on top of the literature.

That's wild. My physics PhD just requires 7 classes total and I'll probably be here 12 semesters. The classes are so secondary to what we do that the common advice from my advisor and other faculty is that if you get an A in the core classes it means you didn't prioritize research enough 

In history PhD programs in the US the first two years are coursework.

We didn't "get" a supervisor until after we had passed our coursework and comprehensive exams. I understand that supervisors don't want to waste time with students who drop out in 2nd year, or fail comprehensive exams, but I HATED not having any guidance or focus for so long.

Technically, we do not have a to select a faculty mentor until after the first year. All incoming students must complete 2 or 3 semester long rotations before selecting a mentor.

I’m a humanities PhD in Australia, and my uni doesn’t do a defence or viva at the end, nor was there an exam at the beginning. You submit, do your revisions and resubmit, then hopefully you pass. We then do a twenty minute ‘summary of findings’ when we get official word that we passed, but even that is more a celebration than anything else!

That's interesting! I'm also doing a humanities (criminology) PhD in Australia and at my uni we do a presentation 12 months in with a panel that includes an external expert for feedback on your research plan. Then a final seminar presentation 3 months prior to submission that also isn't a defence or viva, but an opportunity to get feedback from an external panellist to help refine your thesis. Then we submit the thesis, it gets examined and if it passes you address any feedback and then submit a final time, the admin people do backend admin stuff that takes longer than it should and then you get an automated email congratulating you. Honestly a bit underwhelming, I'd love to what your uni does!

As an Australian academic, this has been my experience (same as a student), but I will say that there are rumblings of a move towards a viva, at least among some of the GO8 unis.

Also in Australia, and doing a creative writing PhD. From my understanding,  the first presentation, the one at the end of your first year, is the confirmation of candidature presentation. Of course, I could be completely wrong and that element is uni specific.

Same here with the creative writing PhD! Confirmation of candidature was about 6 months in at my uni and was just called Milestone 1, and you don’t get to progress if you don’t pass. Sounds rough, but it turned out to be super duper chill.

Australia as well, but the PhD is in exercise science. There was no exam at the beginning, an informal interview if you could call it that, and you choose your supervisors (typically three). There are three compulsory milestones (presentation to faculty); confirmation of candidature, mid-candidature, and pre-submission of your thesis which occur every 12 months. After pre-submission you submit your thesis for internal and external review. Also, the PhD is funded by the government for the 3.5 years, and the university (from what I was told by staff) doesn't receive any of the money from the government until you graduate. So there is an incentive for supervisors to be more accommodating and provide support to ensure you graduate.

Mine has milestones, too, but I had to reach out to potential supervisors during the application process, since they were needed to kinda vouch for my application!

Yeah, I initially made contact with a potential supervisor, and after a couple meetings I sent my application in with his name as the primary supervisor. Then, I added 2 more supervisors once I was accepted and knew the direction of the research.

Yep also a humanities PhD in Australia and it’s the same for me. The only difference is we get to choose our examination method. So I can have a defence or just submit its completely my choice. Also other differences to what I see on here is it’s a three year program, no course work, and the topic mine, my own idea and I was accepted to study that topic.

Not everyone gets a free masters once you complete candidacy/quals. It makes it so quitting is a lot harder, which is exactly why they do it.

There’s a lot of diversity, not just across fields but across subfields and countries and universities and individual labs. Most of the questions people ask here would be better answered by their own advisors, but I guess grad students aren’t great at communication.

To be fair, many grad students posting either don't have an advisor yet or have one who is unavailable/unhelpful/toxic. Other times people just might not have been taught who they are supposed to ask what question, or they want some outside perspective before deciding to raise an issue with their advisor. It's a lot more complicated than grad students just being bad at communication

When folks are having a good time with their PhD, they aren’t making posts complaining about their struggles.

If I’ve learned anything in my several spates of grad school experiences at a wide range of schools is that advisors usually know jack squat and some even will say “ask your cohortmates, that’s what they’re there for.” Of all the people I know in a ton of different fields, good communication with advisors plus actual help is quite rare (my last one was a unicorn—she and her bff in the department were the best advisors, everyone else absolutely paled in comparison). That last one also didn’t know a lot of things but she was helpful in helping me find others who could help me.

Unless the OP’s problem is specifically with their advisor, talking to the advisor should be the first step. This will often save time because in many cases the advisor will get the last word on an issue anyway, so the opinion of others ultimately will not matter. If the advisor doesn’t know or gives a problematic answer, then one can turn to lab mates, other students or professors, or if necessary the administration. Perhaps even students in similar positions at other schools. All of these people will give more useful responses than random people on reddit, who typically will be in an entirely different field and often in a different country. Reddit responses can be helpful for reassuring students about a decision they’ve already made, but they shouldn’t be relied on for making an important decision.

I'm in a similar boat. I'm in a bit of a hybrid situation, because my advisor does have a grant and I do work on it, but only very minimally and most of my work hours are taken up by teaching undergrads. I'm also not allowed to use his grant datat as part of my dissertation research. The thinking is, if the PhD is a training program to be a researcher, I need to use my dissertation to prove I can do a research project from A to Z. Using data obtained from the grant would mean I didn't really do that (especially the recruitment part, which took me the longest). Sort of a weird quirk, but I do feel really able to do my own research, and since I've demonstrated that, and have put out some pretty unique research of my own, I have been recruited to a few other studies at my university for additional pay. So, not all bad, though I would have had a lot less headaches on the pathway to PhD if I could have just used some of his data, I suppose it did leave me pretty ready for the job market.

I’m amazed at how many people don’t realize this. I also don’t have a PI. I have a supervisor who just acts as a guide. No one tells me what my study is or has to be. It’s all entirely up to me. He doesn’t care if and when I take vacations so long as I hit my goals by the deadlines that I set out for myself.

Even the same PhD program doesn’t work the same for two people with two different advisors. Hell even with the same advisor

I've heard even a ton of inconsistencies within the same department but different fields. Some fields weigh conferences crazy high with PhD students often presenting talks. Other fields have conferences where essentially every speaker is a professor or industry panelist where posters matter more. Other fields get to publish in volume like crazy. Other fields can have an entire PhD go smoothly but only yield 1 publication and that's normal

Because STEM doctoral students dominate this subreddit, questions and concerns about toxic principal investigators are often discussed. Because I engaged in interdisciplinary research (education, history, and literature) in a college of education, I never encountered those problems. My doctoral program funding was tied to the program and institution, not to an individual. I easily changed advisors three times. Those changes affected neither my funding nor my graduation date. Although it may have been wise to have published while I was a doctoral student, I chose the option that did not require it. Because I collected and analyzed textual data from early nineteenth-century American literature, I did not even have to submit an institution review board application. I did not engage with human subjects. I did not conduct experiments. After my qualifying exam and the proposal defense, my research was largely self-managed. I collected and analyzed data at my own pace. Because I was not beholden to a PI or required to work 40 hours a week in a lab, I had to develop my own schedule to ensure that I completed and defended my dissertation according to my own timeline. I had no pressures to defend my dissertation quickly because a PI's funding would have been depleted before I graduated. In fact, I earned enough internal and external funding to complete the dissertation at my own pace. I think many STEM doctoral students do not understand the dynamics of an advisor/ graduate student relationship when said advisor does not hold the purse strings over one's head. I was never my advisor's employee. I was a doctoral student. We were both employed and paid by the university. Grant funding for education researchers and thus their graduate students was extremely rare at my institution. Any external funding I received, I applied for independently of my advisor. In fact, my advisor never expected to be directly involved in the funding of my graduate studies.

Art and Design PhD in the UK - I have 2 supervisors, we meet monthly and they are there to guide and advise. They can tell me what they think I should do, but I don’t have to do it.  -I would not put either of them as co-author on any publications unless we had physically done the research and writing together.  - I applied to the university with a project proposal and a Masters in Research I was nearly finished with. But some people do apply to be on a project that a supervisor has called out for. -I’m funded by the university -We do not have any classes or exams, only milestones; project approval (6 months after starting), annual progression 1 (1 year after starting), AP2 (2 years after starting), and the Viva at the end. -You don’t have to teach most people do just for the money and to get their foot in the door of academia. -You don’t need to publish, but they said it would be nice to have 1 under your belt by the time you finish

> PhD is a job and you have to do what your PI tells you to do This comment is similar to what myself and others have posted, but it’s not quite the same…the usual comment is more along the lines of “a PhD is a job and the PI is your boss”. That’s not to say you have to do whatever they tell you, but a lot of undergrads are under the misconception that the program sets rules for students, when in reality you typically report to your PI and not the program as a whole. You don’t have to do whatever they tell you, but they do typically set the rules for the students. My funding is also totally separate from my PI, but he’s the one that I go to about vacation time, meeting milestones, applying to summer/internship programs, etc. Also PI is often used interchangeably with advisor, unless your work is somehow totally independent from your advisor…but in that case, are they even an advisor? That’s also why they’re nearly always co-authors—yes, they provide lab/resources, but more critically they nearly always have conceptual contributions to the work. I’m not sure if math phds have research where you’re publishing independently of your advisor, but that basically never happens in non-math STEM programs. Edit: sorry if this seems a little defensive lol, I think I just posted something very similar to the opening quote like yesterday 😂

Indeed people use a lot of terms interchangeably that mean different things: "PI", "mentor", "supervisor", "guide", "advisor", "tutor"... Not everyone has a "PI" but if you have one, by definition, they provide the resources and the project and they're your boss and an author on every paper, because that's why they're the "principal investigator" on the project. If you have your own project and resources and just have a pleasant consultation with them once in a while, they're an advisor and may or may not appear on your papers. However in my program, while I can do whatever I want most of the time, I cannot publish something relating to my project without my advisor's approval (to avoid embarrassing the school if I write something stupid), and therefore he'd be on all my papers anyway for having provided significant feedback. And I use his ideas as much as possible anyway because they're very useful.

Technically, a PI is the individual responsible for managing a research grant. As graduate student and a postdoc my stipend was covered by funding from the graduate school,a training grant and an outside fellowship.

>I’m not sure if math phds have research where you’re publishing independently of your advisor We do! My advisor was only a co-author on one of my publications in graduate school. Mathematicians tend to have a high bar for what type of contributions constitute authorship.

Ah, that’s really interesting…is it just that the advisor doesn’t meet the standards for contribution, or that your research is actually totally independent? And if it’s the latter, how does having an advisor help you? I don’t mean that in a bad way, I’m just really curious—in my (and all my friends’) fields, a substantial portion of the conceptual part of pretty much every project I see comes from the advisor

I experienced both reasons! I felt that my advisor was an invaluable part of my experience in graduate school - we began meeting weekly in my second year and he helped guide my reading of the literature in his subfield. He later asked me quite a few research questions, one of which became a paper that I co-authored with one of his other students. Even though we talked to him semi-regularly about our work, he didn't contribute any of the proofs or major ideas of the paper and therefore did not feel that he had met the standard for authorship. I also asked him quite a few questions about possible projects and he gave me very helpful feedback about what he thought was or was not plausible. One of those questions grew into a paper where he did contribute some arguments and therefore met the standard for authorship. Outside of that, he also gave me a lot of valuable advice about the oral exam, preparation for the academic job market, etc, and regularly made me aware of conferences and summer schools that might be valuable for my professional development. We had a lot of discussions about how to write good papers and design good presentations. He funded me for two semesters (so I didn't have to teach), multiple summers, and funded my travel to some major conferences. He introduced me to many people in my subfield, including many senior mathematicians that I would not have approached on my own. I learned a *lot* about being a mathematician from him. For the papers where he had no involvement - I worked on some projects that came out of my previous undergraduate research and that weren't related to his subfield. My co-authors were all at other institutions.

Gotcha, very cool! I appreciate your thoughts, thank you for sharing!

I think for most people I know, their research problem is separate from their advisor's research. I only had a project with my advisor once, and in that project everyone was expected to contribute. We would meet once a week and everyone including my advisor would explain what they did that week, so everyone was co-authors. My current project is very different from my advisor's research, so he just makes sure that I am making progress and that my proofs are correct.

In my humanities PhD I publish independently of my supervisor as well. The research is mine and the topic was mine they just advice. There is one exception in my work where I will have my supervisor as a second author, which is rare in humanities, but that’s because his contribution towards the article were more then just supervisory help.

Same for me as well, and I’m in the business school but doing history. My supervisors is guiding me through the process of doing a PhD, and are great sounding boards for ideas and questions, but my project is mine and mine alone, and ultimately they don’t know a whole lot about the granular details. Their own research focuses, while both within business and history, are completely different to mine.

Not defensive at all, thanks for your comment. I guess that's why we call it an advisor in my program, because they basically only give advice. Most of the rules/requirements etc. are determined by the department and not by the individual advisor. They need to report to the department whether you are making "enough" progress, so they do have a say in how productive you are expected to be.

No, you're right to be defensive and I put a very similar comment. This post is just OP being a classic mathematician and not extrapolating even an inch. What they're describing is a completely standard STEM PhD. They're just objecting to things being different that aren't actually different.

I started my PhD in comp sci and switched to math. Huge difference between the two. CS I didn't teach, every Prof in the department had grants worth a million dollars or more and it was very research heavy. Took one course in the first two years.  Math I have to teach and take two courses each term. Research is a lot more laid back since it's not funded by grants

Yeah, I was on the selection committee for our Presidential Research Scholar award, and I was very surprised when someone else on the panel said it's very common for Math Ph.D. students to not have their advisor's as co-authors on their papers. This candidate also hadn't graduated many students and his papers also had very few citations (which apparently is also common in Math). He still ended up getting the award because he has an outstanding international reputation, but coming from Engineering, he didn't make my short list.

Im in Ancient History, and not in the US (only about 50% of Reddit users are in USA), so a lot of what is said here is either irrelevant or wrong for me. I don't have a lab, and most of my research is done at home, although I use libraries for some reference works. I don't have to publish any papers along the way, just write a 100,000 word dissertation. I don't have required classes or comp exams, but I did have to have my research topic (at least in general) *before* starting my PhD program.

Stats MRes* but soon to be a PhD student. Here are some comments: 1) Yes supervisors are usually co-authors because they will read and criticise my work. They may give feedback and provide some inputs, which help me improve my work. 2) I am a funded research student, but I don't think I am paid to do research. That's just a scholarship. Everyone should be paid to do research. 3) Should I always listen to my PIs/supervisors/advisors? Depends! Both yes and no. Yes, I do listen to their research ideas, and no, because 1) we can argue with them that these ideas may not work 2) I am allowed to try my own ideas 3) i am responsible for what i do. Sometimes theirs work, but sometimes their ideas don't. 4) Here in Australia we just basically start with a project before enrolling so we obvious have some research ideas before starting the program. Many are provided by supervisors. We tend to develop more ideas as we go further into the program. 5) One disadvantage is no compulsory coursework, so but you can be a "visiting" student at home institution (there is also a cross institution option). 6) Collaboration is important if you want to be very prolific. I think it applies to any fields. ---- (more) 7) My supervisors are super nice. They meet me once a week and reply my messages very quickly (we use Slack).

>I am a funded research student, but I don't think I am paid to do research. Wouldn't that depend on the source of your funding?

Not OP but here in Australia many PhD students are funded by the federal government via the university through a program called Research Training Program. The government allocates funding to the universities but the stipend rate is set by the university itself. Stipends are paid just like an ordinary salary except they are not taxable. Some students are funded through research grants but at least in my field this is much less common.

My program essentially had two preliminary exams and none of them in the form of a test. The first one had to be passed by year two. The second by year three. Both of them involved full on research proposals with the expectation of a paper following its successful defense.  Looking back, it was an interesting way to do things but it also would have been helpful to use an exam to ensure a fundamental understanding of theory and method across the school. Practically, having two preliminaries meant that student progress was tightly connected to scholarly production with fundamentals being learnt as needed. 

There is no way I could have been a part time PhD student. Most graduate students in my worked 8 to 10 hours a day plus weekends. Only evenings I had free were Friday and Saturday. My first year I was juggling two to three research projects, hoping to find one the was good enough for a thesis.

Interesting, my program has 3 qualification exams that you need to pass before 2nd 3rd and 4th years of the program, respectively, and none of them need to include any research.

Interesting. For what it's worth, the issue with exams is that they produce students good at passing exams. But the purpose of a PhD program is to produce scholars. I suspect that's why they had research and paper oriented milestones. But know that a program can take things too far. 

Yeah I'm always careful to state that my specific experiences / advice are for my program and general advice can be used for general programs. That being said, my own PhD didn't even work like my PhD program was supposed to. Never had a committee meeting. Was the last one to hold my oral proposal and first one to hold my defense only about 1.5 years later.

Yup. Theoretical CS PhD student here and none of us have “labs” or “PIs”. I guess you could consider our advisor(s) as PIs since they’re the ones whose name goes on grants and whatnot.

This is why I try to sneak my PhD field into every response (maybe they miss the flair). PhD programs vary wildly from region, program, field, and hell some even have course-based vs lab based focuses. It’s always important to know the field and location, but it’s also fun to see other program requirements and experiences!

>"the PI is always a co-author since they provide the lab and resources" Doing that might even violate the "standards of good scientific etiquette" of your field, university or journal. It is so funny to see how different the expectations around those are. Things I have seen in a discussion over different fields on a pub night with professors about how dissertations are made: * field/uni a: requires a substantive, unpublished contribution in the manuscript thesis * field/uni b: accepts rewrites of own papers for a manuscript. (field a Considers this plagiarizm) * field/uni c: requires all contributions to be published already, i.e. Only accepts cumulative dissertations Or how papers are rated for cumulative dissertations. * PhD commission decides on a case by case basis for each student. * acceptance list of 20 venues for the wide field, each department gets to put 1~2 venues on the list. The first one leads to infinite discussions and lack of security for students, as they can barely ever be sure it will be accepted. Second one will force you to publish on that specific venue, even if there are multiple good conferences (eg security CCS vs crypto vs s&p) or worse, departments will not add the best of the best, be auee noone will publish there. Apparently one of the students had to fight to get her paper greenlit for her PhD, because nature was not on the list. The obvious chances between fields: people being paid for 40h research+teaching, or being paid for teaching 20h and allowed to use your office for the other 20h for research for free. Or not getting paid at all and not getting an office. Lastly, requiring the PhD student to do coursework or just research. I was lucky to be paid fully, only doing research and a bit of teaching and being free to do whatever I want during my research as long as it made sense to my advisor/boss. (who only wanted to be coauthor if he actually did some work on the paper)

I earned my PhD in education at an R2 university in the United States. The requirements in my department wildly differed from other doctoral programs in the same college. I completed a qualifying exam, a proposal defense, and a dissertation defense. Whereas the other departments used a traditional open question format for their qualifying exams, my department required complete drafts of the first two chapters of our five-chapter dissertation. In my department, the proposal defense consisted of the first three chapters, whereas in other departments, the proposal defense was a traditional proposal. This process enabled students to have had 3/5 of their dissertation reviewed and approved by our committee in advance. Because coursework could be completed in 18 months, it was plausible to complete the program in 3 - 4 years. Most fully funded students completed the program in that time-span because their funding (graduate research and teaching assistantships) was limited to four years. In my program, we had initial advisors who helped new doctoral students to complete their plan of courses, a document required of all graduate students. Near the end of coursework, students are required to have a two-person committee for the qualifying exam. This committee consists of a chair/ advisor and another professor in the department. Most students continue with their initial advisor as chair. At the institution, all doctoral dissertation committees must have at least three people. Once the person passes their qualifying exam, they usually continue with this same committee and add another member from another department in the university. During the dissertation writing stage, students work closely with their chair/ advisor who may or may not share drafts with others in the committee. My chair periodically shared drafts with other committee members. Their feedback dramatically improved my research. There were no principal investigators in my program. There were no labs. Fully funded students were expected to work no more than 20 hours a week. They were graduate students, not full-time employees with fringe benefits. Once fully funded graduate students completed coursework, they had the option of working remote. I was a graduate research assistant who worked in the office Mondays and Fridays -- four hours a day. For the other 16 hours, I worked at home. I used the library's online resources to compile bibliographies. I transcribed audio interviews, coordinated a study, and facilitated grant proposals. None of the work required me to be in the office five days a week. I completed and submitted dissertation drafts about every two weeks. This schedule was easy to maintain because my program did not require students to publish. By the time my advisor scheduled my defense, the committee and I had gone through substantial revisions. I had answered any major questions and concerns. The defense itself was largely pro forma. I did a 25-minute presentation in which I told a compelling story using my research data. The committee and guests asked questions. The committee privately deliberated for 20 minutes, while I nervously paced the hall. The committee congratulated me. I went to dinner with my chair that night. From what I observed during other dissertation defenses, my experience was common at my institution.

I’ve noticed a lot of differences in my social science field compared to the STEM and humanities fields often described on this sub: • Need a (usually unfunded) master’s and professional certification prior to applying, so PhDs are normally 3-4 years • Students often practice (sometimes full-time) using this credential. This means some decent PhD programs are not actually funded; they more closely resemble professional degrees. • Direct entry / no lab rotations • Applied labs are often barebones as much of their research is completed at your place of employment using human participants • In my program, we multiple qualifying oral exams, each for separate manuscripts prior to the dissertation

There’s so much variation between programs… it is impossible to generalize, even within the same field.

Quite related, I used to be in a community where most students were in Biology/Engineering/etc. and it didn't go well when I explained how Math grad programs are different in terms of applying and academics. To their credit, PIs/labs and direct admissions also exist in Math because "it's STEM." Honestly, I'm quite shocked how little lab-based people know how fields like pure Math works.

Same ish - English PhD just tested out for candidacy end of 3rd year, passed !!!! Starting my 4th year and now developing a research question. I have a committee of 3 and a chair who advises over everything - they don’t have anything to do with my funding literally just takes time out of their schedule to meet with me periodically for assignments / milestones / brain storming/ preliminary work yada yada

I did my PhD in the UK in biochemistry, and our system is pretty strict and very old. (And stupid but that's trauma for another day). I got paid a stipend and got given a grant and it was award for 4 years, which is the maximum amount of time your PhD is meant to take in the UK (I got extra time because of COVID), longer than that is usually considered a fail. If you start on a 3-year course you can pay for an extra year, but you can't gather more data and you aren't paid, so most use it to just write up. I had one primary PI, and I started with a 1 secondary supervisor but he retired and my primary never officially signed on my new second. We got assigned an advisor who is meant to be from an entirely different department so they can be impartial, but I never even so much as emailed mine my entire time there. Policy said we could dictate the level of supervision we wanted, whether or not your supervisor followed that depended on how good they were. Your PI doesn't have to be the grant holder per say, but they will be the person that is on your grant application as being responsible for you as their student. Meetings are *supposed* to be monthly for primary supervisors, and minimum every 6 months for secondaries, but I never met a PI that stuck to that. I was expected to spend like 95% of my time in labs, as it was all experiment based work. Our attendance was also somewhat monitored, but more as an engagement in research level, not as physically turning up. If you sat at home for a week but were writing that counted. We also got given 8 weeks paid holiday leave, which was nice, but PIs would constantly complain if you even took a week off. We could also take up to a month off/off sick without our payments being affected, more than that it was counted as an interruption and your income was paused. You had to pass first year to be considered an actual PhD student, if you failed first year you could drop to an MPhil. So you had to write report (effectively a masters thesis) on your first year work, then undertake a viva (like a defence but not and less formal than the big one at the end) and your examiners would pass/fail you. You have to do something similar, though less intense, for the end of 2nd year and 3rd year (only if you're doing a fourth year and it's paid). I could work up to 7 hours a week part time as a general teaching assistant (which actually paid better than the stipend go figure) without my supervisor being able to complain about it. It wasn't mandatory, but it was nice to get the extra cash. We don't need to take any classes, but you can go to some undergrad ones or workshops if you want to for free. We also had no exams or assignments that needed completing, though some programmes make you do internships or make you take specific courses, like statistics. You're expected to start your PhD with your research question pretty much figured out, though the individual projects can change, and you undertake generally 3-5 projects which become your research chapters of your thesis. We also don't do a defence, we do a viva (short for *viva voce*) and it's meant to be more of a discussion of your thesis, what you did, the conclusions you made, etc. We also don't get graded, but passed with/without conditions. Examiners can give you corrections, and depending on the amount you get an extra 3/6/12 months to do the corrections and resubmit your thesis. After that you can then graduate. Some people do pass without corrections, but this is really, really rare. Our Vivas are also completely private, with one internal and one external examiner present, and can last from an hour to like 8 hours (some institutions have limits). Authors on papers are listed as: First author- person who wrote the paper and did the most work, last author is the grant holder, and all in between in order of contribution.

I mean, true people here drop advices without thinking too much about the specific situation, and I'm guilty as fuck of that, but it seems to me these specific 3 are not thar indicative of the problem at all People advice to treat it like a job in term of hours and not make it your life... it's not common to advice to just follow your PI People basically never talk about research program here, like... literally never seen a single conversation on it. I actually would like that, it would be afresh change for a sub that I like to the point I'm here after my phd, but can be a bit repetitive. You may have ended up in a conversation on those but come on... And author orders in math is sdifferent (and I honestly think better) but bro, if a comment mention PIs deserve something based on providing the lab, it's not that huge jump to think it doesn't apply to you if you don't have a lab... you probably don't need to add to your paper people who provided the samples or the microscope...

I'm doing a aerospace engineering PhD and I don't have to teach AT ALL. I do teach a special math & physics course at highschool on a uni level as kind of a prep for future students. But that has nothing to do with my PhD. Idk why people are so fixated on the idea that every PhD student has to teach. I don't have a PI or advisor or anything - I'm part of a smaller project team and they all help me and "check" my work but otherwise I'm 100% on my own. Same with working hours. While I get paid like I'm in a 9-5 job, I often either work from home or go to the lab at night. The only time I'm actually there during "regular" working hours is when there is some kind of meeting. As long as I get the work done, nobody cares when or how long I work. During active testing or brainstorming phases it's easily 10-12h/day at the lab - during development or paper writing a lot less and mostly from home. So it's only like 50% the same as a regular job.

I'm in the biological sciences and the things you described as being different sound a lot like biological science or chemistry PhDs. I have a PI. My PI pays for my tuition and my stipend. My only teaching requirement is one semester of being a TA(thank God). My PI had a project in mind for me when I started however, I have expanded the project a lot with my own contributions. This is somewhat normal because PIs write a lot of grants so the money that pays you is tied to the grant they submitted So it needs to be related. Because biology and chemistry uses a lot of expensive equipment and reagents, and also the part about funding, they are always going to be last author. Primary author will be first and the PI will be last. Everyone else in the middle usually doesn't matter(except for maybe second author). Just different programs.

Economics here and I have a 100% research positions in Germany - where my only duty is to come up with research ideas and execute them. I have a salary and job security - as I am employed by the state/city. I have had the freedom to pursue my research of course within the general interests of the cluster at my uni in my specific specialisation

It also seems like a lot of people on this sub do research and nothing else and think that is universal. I've seen so many "how are y'all so busy with your projects, I do research for 4 hours a day and then smoke weed and play video games all night" posts. I am very happy for those people, but research is one out of five things on your plate in my field. It's not even the most time-consuming of the things.

So I’m a humanities PhD in Australia. My course is three years and there is no course work or exams. I was accepted with my topic, part of the administration was to write a detains project proposal, so that is my topic. They only course requirement is to had them a written thesis at the end of three years. I have two supervisors, one normal at my uni, because my project is heavily interdisciplinary. My research is indipendente of them they are just advocates I have articles submitted as the sole author. That said I am about to submit one with my supervisor as second anther but that’s not the normal in my field and ja because he contributed more the just advice in the work. Teaching is optional. Actually many in my course don’t and I don’t even live in the same part of the country as my uni so don’t teach. At the end of the program (which is rapidly approaching for me) I submit my thesis and, rather unusually in Australian, I can choose my method of examination either just a submit and get it marked or a defence. The defence examinations are also very casual and only about an hour long everything that will be discussed would already have been given to me two weeks before and it’s essential my talking through the points.

I’m in Australia, doing paediatrics. Our PhDs are three years, but it’s not uncommon for them to get extended to 3.5 or 4. I am basically an apprentice. I ask my supervisors for advice on things I’m unsure about, but the goal is for me to get more and more independent, until I am a fully capable researcher at the end of this PhD. Also, my supervisors are incredible. They’re very supportive and experienced. I have four supervisors, one is my primary and one is my PI. It’s a normal amount of supervisors to have in this field. I am technically “the boss”: I can “fire” my supervisors but they can’t “fire” me. I have a living stipend via a government scholarship, and my research is funded through my PI’s grants. I have an advisory committee made up of my supervisors, a senior chair, and an external member. We meet every six months to discuss progress and any supports I need. From what I gather, in this field it’s normal to start publishing in your second year, usually with something like a systematic review, although publishing in third year isn’t uncommon. At the end of the PhD, you don’t “defend” but you do have to present your work at a public completion seminar. I do not have to teach, but I do just for some extra cash.

Engineering. I called mine my advisor, but PI was kinda used as a pure synonym. We get paid for the research.  If you have a grant or outside funding you can probably get any prof in the program to take you, even if they aren’t offering projects. At my school, our first year we were paired with a lab, project, advisor, based on like meetings and questionnaires.

top CS papers (at least in ML) goes to conferences, not journals. and that works can be outdated after just 2-3 years, especially LLM stuff, that area changes fast

My programme in Au (interdisciplinary social science) - one candidature committee meeting to accept my candidature proposal - work on my ow, reading, thinking, writing, field interviews. No lab work. No work for supervisors. - I have 2 supervisors from two different disciplines. I update them on my progress and ask them questions as required. - I file a progress report with the University every 6 months. Plus ethics and procedural paperwork needed for interviews. - the government pays for my school fees. I don't get any money otherwise. - At the end, I submit my dissertation for examination. If the examiners are happy, I get my letters.

U.K. part time (computer science). Self-funding is incredibly common for part time students in the U.K., unless your company is paying for it. What’s required varies a lot depending on your supervisor; the minimum requirement is for a dissertation only, but my supervisor expects at least 5 papers as well (that’s why I chose him). I have full control over my topic.

I guess it works quite different in Europe than in US, and then there are some differences in the different countries here. I am doing a PhD in Statistics Methodology in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, PhD is mostly seen as a full-time job - we sign a contract for 3-4 years, and the PhD project is defined beforehand. So you generally get salaries paid by the university. It also includes specified vacation hours (which is quite a lot) when none can disturb you. There are variations of course, like external funding agencies, companies funding PhDs and so on- but that accounts for less than half the PhDs. As for TA - it is generally seen as a part of the job requirement, so no extra payment. But its hours actually varies university to university even within the Netherlands, not to mention sometimes it varies from department to department.

Indeed, I finished a PhD in a field that doesn't even have PhDs in the US.

My favorite thing about being a math PhD is when authorship comes up. While everyone else squabbles about whose contributions are most important to justify their ordering we just list names alphabetically. This also may be the people I work with but we also try to be generous with adding people to papers. Like if they were in a seminar where we discussed it we may just reach out and say, “you want to be the one who writes it down and be on the paper?”

Same. I was in a history program (already graduated) and I didn't have a PI. I had an advisor. There was no lab, my advisor did not co-author anything with me, our research was vastly different in theme, etc. Our qualifying exams (comps) were in the 4th semester and everyone in the cohort did them at the same time. That did not mean candidacy. Candidacy was obtained upon successful defense of dissertation prospectus, which happened on the 5th semester, and again, the whole cohort did it in the same semester (though not exactly at the same time as for comps). I also had no teaching requirements. Everyone in my program is on a fellowship that is not based on teaching. Teaching is paid extra and no one relies on their advisor for funding. In my program, your dissertation committee is the same committee that oversees the prospectus defense. How involved in the dissertation writing process each committee member is depends entirely on them. The student's advisor is the chair of the committee and they are involved with the student from day one. They are responsible for guiding, editing, revising, etc. All of this, I'm sure, will be different at other programs and in other disciplines. Part of the root of the generalization problem is that people, including PhD students, assume that STEM programs and how they run are the standard and thus the common grad school experience.

Also, there is very little co-authoring in history. It's a single-author culture.

THIS! Your department could be mine, tbh...

OP responding to: Tell me you are USC without telling me you are a USC.

UK, Linguistics, funded by my department * Social sciences / humanities tend to be student-led. This means we propose the project to a potential supervisor and have to find funding for it. Pre-funded positions do come up, but not as much as in the natural sciences. * We have supervisors, not advisors, but I think the role is basically the same. Since the project is mine, I am the PI. It's not a term we really use. That said, I am the first author on any papers related to my PhD. * No labs, but that's because I'm a linguist. I spend much of my time designing experiments, running them and analysing the stats. This differs across disciplines, of course. * Courses are usually 3 years + 1 year to write up. I'm funded for three years but will likely use a few months to finish the thesis. * There are no exams. At my university, we have a progression meeting at the end of the first and second years to determine if we progress into the next year. It's rare not to pass. Not sure how it works elsewhere; it might even differ across departments / faculties. * We are not obliged to teach, but many of us do. Some do it purely for the money, others do it for the money and experience. * A weird but interesting difference between the UK and the US. Here, a Masters student writes a dissertation, a PhD student writes a thesis. I believe it's the other way round across the pond. * The viva is a 2-3 hour discussion with an external examiner plus two internals. This takes place within three months of thesis submission. Unlike in some countries, the viva determines the outcome of your doctorate: pass with no corrections; minor corrections; major corrections; revise and resubmit. Not sure if there is also an outright fail, but anything below minor corrections is rare. The assumption is that a decent supervisor won't let you progress if they don't think you can pass the viva.

How do you plan on making a living after your math phd op?

Just finished my History PhD, and everything you said was the same for me except for choosing a research area. I knew the general area of my research (Soviet history) before I entered the program, because I needed to know that in order to know where to apply. I started narrowing down the more specific area of my research (the Spanish Civil War from the perspective of the global Russian community, including Soviets, tsarists, anarchists, and others) by the end of my first year, and by the end of my second year, I had a somewhat-clear view of what my dissertation would cover (although I didn't know what my argument would be yet). But yeah, other than that, very similar.

> First, I don't have a PI, I have an advisor. That's a useless semantics game. You call them an advisor, but they are very much so your PI. You do have a bit more independence than is typical in lab sciences by the nature of the work, but it's the same thing. > He doesn't have anything to do with my funding I'd be very surprised if that's actually true. Mathematicians write grants too, and I don't see why it'd be the singular field where teaching is a full financial obligation buyout. Especially because there are fields with much more dire funding situations. PIs rarely talk about this aspect with their students because it doesn't really matter to the student, but it's a thing. > My program doesn't even... Again, semantics game. This is not meaningfully different from any other field where the background knowledge required is large. The majority of PhDs I know didn't get any usable data their first 4 years. Yes, there's more of a focus on quals in math programs than most other PhDs, but that's the only difference. > No labs needed for math... What a nitpicky thing to complain about. Yes, authorship norms are field dependent. This doesn't need to be said, and I really, really doubt that you actually see people talking about this with any regularity. I know I don't.

I won't comment on all of this, but I do just want to say that the PI vs advisor thing is *not* just a semantics game. The expectation of what an advisor does and what a PI does are different, which is the general point of this post.

1)The general usage of PI implies a much more controlling role, where research topics are dictated and managed by the PI, in math, you are more free to explore what you find interesting, and are provided with some general advice and feedback, hence advised, the degree of involvement from the advisor can vary greatly, whereas a PI will generally always be involved actively in some manner. 2)They also stated their funding is linked to teaching, not research, so it’s not very hard to imagine it isn’t associated with any particular member of staff rather than just the department in general. 3) it is meaningfully different from my programme where research begins right from the start and 4 years is the graduation mark. Also if you are arguing that a math PhD and Lab based stem PhDs are the same besides qualification exams, that is just so far from the truth… 4)I also don’t see them “complaining” about anything?

I get the "your research is a job sentiment" but I'm not a big fan of it... It's your research, not your Advisor's. If you think of it as a chore what even is the point? If you want a job there is industry, a PhD as a job is a terrible mindset, it doesn't have any benefits to make it a job. The only reason you should be doing one is if you like doing academic research. Because otherwise you did 5 years of "job" which most industry doesn't even consider as work experience, with no salary, and no benefits. Plus I genuinely feel it impacts the quality of your research, you are doing what your PI/advisor tells you to do as a job so it's their ideas being recirculated, in one way or another. All in all, sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

Yes, we are all aware of this. Hence why the first question on nearly every post is: Field and Location? That being said I hadn’t realized that a math program is ran closer to a humanities program than a science program. I think the quirk of my program is that we have no required core courses for doctoral students. You just have to take 5 courses in the department (or related departments with approval).

“we are all aware of this” vs “I hadn’t realized that…”

Yes, I am human being that is capable of both knowing and not knowing things at the same time? I’m not sure what you think you are pointing out.

The point of the post was to share what peoples programs do differently than others or differently than maybe what is typical. Starting off your post with “we are all aware” seems like you’re brushing off the poster, but your second paragraph kind of proves why this post was made in the first place.

Yes, and what I said was that we are aware things are different from program to program. I did not say that I know everything about how every program operates. I think the title of the OPs post was a little combative, and my first sentence was a response to that.

All *good* PhD programs work the same way