Is it career suicide to obtain your undergraduate and graduate degree at the same ins

[tiohn]

titution?

If you know anything about it, particularly in mathematics, would I be destroying my career before it even began if I were to obtain a master's or Ph.D. from the same institution? I've heard answers ranging from "fuck yes" to "hell naw" from people in academia, so I have no idea what to think.

[Brandon Clements]

Pure math? And what school?

[tiohn]

Pure math? And what school?

Pure math at NCSU. They are a vastly better school for applied math, but I don't want anything to do with that crap.

[Raife]

This sounds like a question for Math Professor Dave Perkins.

[Jakub]

I never understood what the big deal about switching schools for post-grad was.

[Tim James]

I never understood what the big deal about switching schools for post-grad was.I was never aware there was a deal about it at all. I just figured all the engineering and science chicks had been tapped out of the one school.

Is this for real work career or academic career?

[tiohn]

Is this for real work career or academic career?

Hey now.

[Jakub]

I was never aware there was a deal about it at all. I just figured all the engineering and science chicks had been tapped out of the one school.
If that was the reason, men would be changing schools twice a year.

[dfs]

Hey now.
It's a serious question. If you are planning on living in the academy. You want your degrees from different schools.

From industry it's less of a concern.

If you are doing pure math.....My guess is that you are following that first path.

[Mordrak]

Why do different schools matter? What's the thought process in academia?

[mouselock]

Is this for real work career or academic career?

Know a lot of folks out there in the trenches with PhDs in pure mathematics, do you? ;)

I think in general it's looked at this way:

If you do your undergraduate and there are a lot of better schools out there where you could have gone for postgrad and you didn't, why didn't you? Could you not get in?

If, on the other hand, you're already at one of the better schools out there for your field, then there's nothing wrong with staying.

If you don't know whether or not your school is good for the field, and nobody can honestly tell you, you should probably try to go to another school for that reason alone.

An anecdote from the prof for whom I work (previously postdoc, now a research scientist): He once went to interview at a school and was effectively told "Well, you do great work and you have plenty of publications and you'd be a good fit, but your school wasn't prestigious enough."

That's pure bullshit, of course, because the work should matter, but it often isn't enough to overcome the prestige of your school/PhD advisor if other factors are reasonably similar. If you're world class at your field it's moot, but most people aren't world class at their field.

[skedastic]

If academia is your goal, go to the best (in terms of research) school you can get in to. Coming out of grad school, if you're exceptionally good you might be able to get a position at a school comparable to your grad school, but almost everyone moves down, often a lot. If you don't go to a very good grad school you'll have trouble getting a job at a research-oriented school. After a few years good schools won't care at all where you did your phd, but that first appointment is critical.

I don't think many people will care much if you do grad and undergrad in the same place. The idea is you're better off if you're exposed to thought at more than one school, but really no one cares what you did as an an undergrad. That's my impression, anyways, and I personally ignore undergrad stuff when plowing through piles of applications.

[Ezdaar]

Short answer, no.

Longer answer, what skedastic said. Apply to the best places you can get recommendations for and choose from the ones you get into. Applying to masters programs at places is also not a bad idea, they are a bit easier to get into and can act as a nice stepping stone to something better.

My guess is that you don't want to uproot the family, yes? I hate to say it, but that's going to put a huge obstacle in the way of a research career. If you're not set on being at a research institute then it's not as big of a deal. There are a lot of teaching positions at 4 year colleges and community colleges that tend to pay as much, if not more, than a research school and have a better quality of life.

One thing good about going somewhere else is that you'll likely be exposed to a lot of stuff you've never seen before and might like it better than what you currently do.

Also, get a really good score on the math gre. Everyone says it isn't that important but it is.

[JeffL]

If you're going into industry, nobody really cares, and once you've got a job in industry the emphasis then shifts to your accomplishments in industry. For academic jobs, yeah, people pay more attention to stuff like that and like seeing your Ph.D. from a different school than your B.S. The rationale being that much of the teaching you'll get in your core courses in undergrad will come from the same profs who will be teaching the grad courses, thus if you go to two different (good) schools, you'll get a broader/fuller education.

[tiohn]

Thanks for the great information, everyone. Ezdaar hit the issue exactly about not wanting to uproot my family. However, it's not that I don't want to uproot my family period, just not while I don't have a job. My wife is supporting us until I finish, and as a school teacher, this is a really terrible time to be trying to get a job in a new school.

I will certainly be applying to grad school at Duke and UNC, but NCSU is pretty much guaranteed acceptance if I need to fall back (and not really a worse school than UNC and not terribly worse than Duke, according to phds.org). Duke would be my first choice in local schools since I really like what some of the faculty there are doing and I would like to experience a program that small, but that is by no means guaranteed acceptance.

I would prefer somewhere with more going on in category theory and algebraic geometry, so I might apply to Northwestern just for shits.

[Ezdaar]

Thanks for the great information, everyone. Ezdaar hit the issue exactly about not wanting to uproot my family. However, it's not that I don't want to uproot my family period, just not while I don't have a job. My wife is supporting us until I finish, and as a school teacher, this is a really terrible time to be trying to get a job in a new school.

I will certainly be applying to grad school at Duke and UNC, but NCSU is pretty much guaranteed acceptance if I need to fall back (and not really a worse school than UNC and not terribly worse than Duke, according to phds.org). Duke would be my first choice in local schools since I really like what some of the faculty there are doing and I would like to experience a program that small, but that is by no means guaranteed acceptance.

I would prefer somewhere with more going on in category theory and algebraic geometry, so I might apply to Northwestern just for shits.


I wouldn't rule out doing a masters at NCSU and then applying for a PhD somewhere else. A lot of the people I see coming from Group I schools have done a masters first at somewhere less highly ranked. That also gives things a bit of time to settle down so the job situation might be better.

[Pogue Mahone]

If anecdotal information is of any use to you, I received both bachelors and masters degrees at the same school. There were circumstances that might make my particular situation of less value to your situation, and my career has had some interesting turns (I'm not working in even a similar industry to the one I got my degrees in). But to the best of my knowledge staying at the same school doesn't seem to have hurt me professionally.

[Pishtaco]

I did a bachelor's and a doctorate in pure mathematics at Oxford. I don't think that this has been a problem for my career, at least not in the sense that anyone else has looked at it and thought I should have moved more. The downsides are more personal, in that after 8 years I was a bit sick of the place (but I didn't have a family, so your situation is different), and that I may have missed out on opportunities to make a new set of contacts.

[Lux]

It's actually beneficial in a lot of cases because it allows you to get the best TAships and work with guys you already know for research purposes. Teach up a storm and publish like crazy and it won't matter if you went to podunk state. As long as your professors actually made it onto the peer reviewed scene with a vengance themselves I don't think it'll be a huge issue.

[DennyA]

I got my undergrad and master's at the same university. When I finished my masters, I was told I'd have to get my doctorate at a different school. The reasoning was that department faculties have specific cultures and focuses, and they didn't feel it was good for your entire academic career exposure to be limited to that one program culture.

As others have said, out in the real world, I don't think it matters at all. But if you decided at some point in your career to look for a job in academia, having all the degrees from the same school would be considered a negative because they wouldn't feel your educational background was broad enough.

[tiohn]

I wouldn't rule out doing a masters at NCSU and then applying for a PhD somewhere else. A lot of the people I see coming from Group I schools have done a masters first at somewhere less highly ranked. That also gives things a bit of time to settle down so the job situation might be better.

This is a great idea. I am unsure why I had discarded it previously. I should be able to get my masters at NCSU in less time since they will double-count any of my undergraduate work that was at a graduate level, which should end up being about 12 hours once I'm done with the upcoming semester. And hopefully by that point, as you said, the job market may have settled down.

[JeffL]

This is a great idea. I am unsure why I had discarded it previously. I should be able to get my masters at NCSU in less time since they will double-count any of my undergraduate work that was at a graduate level, which should end up being about 12 hours once I'm done with the upcoming semester. And hopefully by that point, as you said, the job market may have settled down.

Yeah, I've seen that people don't care much if you got your Masters at the same school if you get your Ph.D. elsewhere.

We're assuming you're looking for a job in academia, but I don't think I saw you say that - are you?

My Ph.D. is basically chemistry/materials focused, and I had a ton of math, but I remember trying to read the Ph.D. thesis of a friend who got his Ph.D. in math at U Mass, and it was like trying to read Mandarin to me! LOL!

[tiohn]

We're assuming you're looking for a job in academia, but I don't think I saw you say that - are you?



Most likely. Either way, I want to keep that open as an opportunity.

And G. H. Hardy be damned, but a non-research school, especially if pay and quality of life are higher as Ezdaar mentioned, has often sounded appealing.

[skedastic]

Twenty years ago research and teaching oriented schools paid about the same. Now there is a very steep gradient. I'm not sure about Math, but in Economics half-decent phd-granting schools have to shell out six figures for freshly minted phds, whereas a teaching college might pay half that or a bit more. I think Math and other technical fields are similar---you should talk to profs in your field.

Whether quality of life is better at a teaching college depends on your preferences. If you really like teaching and don't mind repetitively teaching the same low-level material over and over, it's less certainly less stress to take an appointment at a teaching school. If you want to teach graduate students, stay engaged with intellectual developments in your field, and of course you actually like doing researh, your quality of life will be better at a research school post-tenure, but even pre-tenure so long as you can tolerate the hours and stress. If you don't see yourself doing research for your career, you ought to consider stopping at an MA.

[claybob]

There are two big changes with post-grad education compared to undergrad in the STEM fields and they both deserve serious thought. 1. You pick an adviser NOT an institution for graduate school. I really cannot stress this enough. 2. What career do you want and what degree is required for initiating it?

[Ezdaar]

Twenty years ago research and teaching oriented schools paid about the same. Now there is a very steep gradient. I'm not sure about Math, but in Economics half-decent phd-granting schools have to shell out six figures for freshly minted phds, whereas a teaching college might pay half that or a bit more. I think Math and other technical fields are similar---you should talk to profs in your field.

Whether quality of life is better at a teaching college depends on your preferences. If you really like teaching and don't mind repetitively teaching the same low-level material over and over, it's less certainly less stress to take an appointment at a teaching school. If you want to teach graduate students, stay engaged with intellectual developments in your field, and of course you actually like doing researh, your quality of life will be better at a research school post-tenure, but even pre-tenure so long as you can tolerate the hours and stress. If you don't see yourself doing research for your career, you ought to consider stopping at an MA.

This is only one data point, but the state university that I attended just recently hit parity with the local community colleges for their tenured pure math faculty. I think there is a lot of industry draw for economics, not so much for pure math. Not to say there isn't any, I've spoken with a few people here who went into industry after doing a research postdoc and are very happy making twice as much and not having to worry about constantly publishing.

I'm basing most of my information off the recent PFMF(preparing future math faculty) program I participated in. We talked with a lot of tier one research school faculty as well as those from smaller masters granting and four year colleges. Many of the researchers noted that they see colleagues from these other universities quite often at conferences and that if they were given the choice they might have gone that route instead. I agree that you're not going to be at the top of your field if you aren't at a research school, however a lot of people seem to have low stress, rewarding careers teaching up to masters level courses at smaller schools. I think a small liberal arts college wouldn't be a bad deal as many of them are interested in having active undergraduate research and they have small classes with an environment that is similar to graduate classes.

[tiohn]

Well, feck. I thought I had this all worked out, until I spoke with the head of our graduate program. He advised that transferring schools between master's and Ph.D. would probably be a huge pain in the ass and would likely cost me the semester or two that I save by getting this accelerated BS/MS thing since quals could potentially differ greatly to the point that one might need to retake a semester or two of courses at the new institution if they end up having wildly different content expectations.

On the other hand, he claimed that if you intend to get a research position, you would need at least a postdoc, if not two, at which point no one will care that your B.S. and Ph.D. came from the same institution, while teaching positions tend to not give a crap either way. I told him I had heard lots of opinions in opposition to his, and he pointed out that these were likely older faculty (which was true) and that ten years ago, postdocs weren't the norm and so it was important to change institutions for graduate school.

Part of me is wont to believe him, as the only person above him in the department is the head, and the other part isn't sure if he was just trying to convince me to stick around. Since he didn't know anything about me as a student until the end of our talk, I mostly doubt the latter.

Bah.

The good news is that I submitted my application for graduation today, 10 years after first enrolling in college.

[Ezdaar]

Well, feck. I thought I had this all worked out, until I spoke with the head of our graduate program. He advised that transferring schools between master's and Ph.D. would probably be a huge pain in the ass and would likely cost me the semester or two that I save by getting this accelerated BS/MS thing since quals could potentially differ greatly to the point that one might need to retake a semester or two of courses at the new institution if they end up having wildly different content expectations.



Yeah you would likely tack on an extra semester or two unless you can pass all of the new place's quals/comps right from the start. I would think of the masters then transfer for PhD deal to be primarily a way to go to a better place than you might have gotten into straight out of your undergrad. Hopefully at the end of the masters you'll have given some talks at other places, perhaps published a paper and things like your math GRE score will probably be significantly better.

The professor you talked to is absolutely correct though in that you're not going to get a research position without at least one, more likely two, postdocs in between. This may be different in other fields but it is absolutely the case in pure math. If you really just want an academic math job there is always math ed, the students there have multiple tenure track offers before they graduate. Of course, then you're doing math ed, instead of actual mathematics, so there is that problem.

[Miramon]

I can't imagine why that would be. The thing that matters with a PhD is the school's rep and your advisor's rep, IMO, I can't imagine anyone caring about your MS or whether you even have one or where it came from.

[Dave Perkins]

This sounds like a question for Math Professor Dave Perkins.

I sense a cry for help. A cry I cannot answer. I am occupied with level 10+ Nazi ninja zombies in the lava level.

[ceolstan]

For what it's worth, check the issues with funding. Never pay for your own graduate school. It sucks, and if an institution makes you pay, you can be assured they don't have enough $$$ to support decent research. Additionally, it's common for graduate institutions to give out assistantships for students planning to pursue a PhD, but deny funding for students who enroll in the masters program. Even if you plan to leave with an MS, you really do need to tell the institution you want the PhD.

It's also true that you may find yourself staying in school a bit longer. It's not an apples to apples transition when it comes to graduate programs. Different institutions do things differently. Expect to tack on an extra year minimally, depending on how things transfer.

With respect to the issues of undergrad and graduate degrees from the same institution, part of it is the issue of academic inbreeding. You need to get some exposure to different approaches. If you go the academic career route, it's best to get your degrees from different places. If you go into industry, it probably doesn't matter.

[Ephraim]

I was faced with a similar decision, albeit in Clinical Psychology rather than Mathematics, a few months ago.

After consulting with some fine folks on Qt3, and professors at the two universities I was considering (my Bachelor's uni and another in Montreal), I ended up choosing to do my PhD at the same place I did my Bachelor's. Unlike you, I don't have the option of transferring after my Master's, as the Clinical Psych program at McGill does not have a terminal Masters. So I'm fully committed for the 5+ years. I'm happy with my decision, which was very much based on my choice of supervisor. The one I ended up picking is a publishing powerhouse, extremely well-regarded in his field. It also helped that he's successfully graduated many PhDs, some who have gone on to be stars in their own right. Sure, they were all neuroscientists and I'm his first Psychology grad student, but we're both excited about the multidisciplinary aspect of our collaboration.

I also think that my school's international reputation played a part in my decision. Why go elsewhere for a different experience and the small chance it might help me get a position in the future, when I can guarantee doing science at a top tier research-focused university? Any place that won't hire me in the future, assuming I end up pursuing research/academia, because I did my bachelor's and doctorate at the same place is no place I want to be!

I think, in the end, you really can't go wrong if you find someplace where you will do great research and get yourself published and earning grants. That's the track record that will dictate future employment in the research domain, if what I've been told is correct, along with your Post Doc efforts.

No matter what you end up doing, I'm sure you'll make it work. Good luck!