The beginning of a scientific career (part 3)
Having dealt with higher education in the form of undergraduate and graduate programs, you can proceed to the first step on the path to a real scientific career - to enter graduate school.
First you need to clarify that the attitude to graduate school in Russia and abroad is slightly different.
In Russia, graduate school is often viewed as a kind of “completely higher” education, which is prestigious to have, but which does not automatically give a person the status of a scientist. Accordingly, not all graduated from Russian postgraduate students go to universities. Quite a few graduates go to companies or somewhere else outside the laboratories.
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In the West, undergraduate, maximum, a master's degree is almost always enough for employment "in the world". A completed graduate school is required exclusively in a scientific career (or in those rare cases when a private company actually engages in some research activity).
Perhaps this is due to the fact that in Russia there is an even higher level of education - a doctorate, which is clearly not required when working outside the university. In the West, graduating from graduate school and obtaining a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) degree marks the end of education. Both the dean of the faculty and any professor are carriers of this degree.
In Russia, the PhD degree corresponds to the “candidate of sciences”, and the degree of “doctor of sciences” is awarded after doctoral studies.
Thus, the Russian postgraduate school, although formally it prepares scientists, in my opinion, is not perceived by society exclusively in this capacity. On the contrary, in the West you have no reason to go to graduate school if you are not going to make a career in science. Accordingly, admission to graduate school almost always implies a further university career (and in many respects determines the attitude of other people towards you; for example, having a PhD degree may even hurt when you try to work in industry).
Now about how to get into graduate school. As I already mentioned, the higher the level, the more possibilities. The position of the graduate student is already considered "work." Being a graduate student, you can not only have a good chance of free education, but also very real opportunities for obtaining scholarships. Lists of available PhD Studentships are regularly published on a wide variety of websites, ranging from university sites to subject bulletin boards such as jobs.ac.uk or Scholarshipnet.info .
But just at this stage a specific inverse factor of the “native” student appears on the scene. Advertisements published on open boards attract a lot of people (which is not surprising), so sending documents to an open competition always brings you to a good company of competitors :) At the same time, I suppose very strong candidates can be rivals. In the end, what to expect from a student going to the master's program? Well, good at learning, well, wrote some saytik, won the certificate. A candidate for graduate school may have in the luggage and scientific publications, and a solid resume.
In fact, most applicants to graduate school do not have to go through the hearth of hard selection. There is always a postgraduate training program in the home university (or friendly to it). As in Russia. At the same time, recruitment to it is carried out through “internal” channels, and usually it happens even easier than ours - no entrance examinations, a verbal agreement, a written application with a request to enroll in graduate school and (if relevant) scholarship documents.
A fairly simple scheme usually works. Choosing a supervisor for the thesis (master's) work, the student can immediately play with a long-range sight, directly asking about the possibility of further work in graduate school. Usually this is perceived with enthusiasm, and if the relationship with the supervisor is established, the master's thesis naturally flows into graduate school. It is beneficial for the manager to take a familiar person in whom he is confident. A graduate student can assist a supervisor in his work; accordingly, nobody wants to take a cat in a bag as an assistant. A high percentage of defenders also plays a big role: they will take someone who is more likely to defend themselves.
Thus, it seems to me personally that the easiest way is to “cling” to the magistracy. Often, our students enter the magistracy even with a Russian higher education, because they are unable to get through to graduate students right away. There is another argument in favor of the magistracy. The fact is that postgraduate education is structurally different from the master's degree. In contrast to the cycle of lecture-practice-exam, here we have to deal with research, publications and other things that are not met at the master’s level. Thus, a person who enters graduate students immediately faces two problems at once: with adaptation to Western education and the environment, and also with “pouring in” into a new type of activity. Magistracy, with all its “Bologna”, ultimately boils down to the usual lectures and exams.
However, I am not trying to turn anyone away from a suitable opportunity to go to graduate school. All difficulties are surmountable, the competition can also be “broken through”. You can even try to "break through" the factor of "your student," if you try to directly meet someone from the right professors at the desired faculty. Suppose you are going to write a diploma in the subject of X. You are looking for a department where you do something similar, find a relevant person there and explain the situation. They say that I study X in the magistracy, I am interested in whether you can continue your scientific activities. With a certain luck, you can become quite your “own” :)
However, I feel that I am already talking about it. I see that this time there was enough space to talk only about admission. Next time we will discuss the process of education in graduate school.
By the way, if there are requests, I can somehow (oh, find time) tell me how I like European “Bologna” education in the magistracy. At least on personal experience.
First you need to clarify that the attitude to graduate school in Russia and abroad is slightly different.
In Russia, graduate school is often viewed as a kind of “completely higher” education, which is prestigious to have, but which does not automatically give a person the status of a scientist. Accordingly, not all graduated from Russian postgraduate students go to universities. Quite a few graduates go to companies or somewhere else outside the laboratories.
')
In the West, undergraduate, maximum, a master's degree is almost always enough for employment "in the world". A completed graduate school is required exclusively in a scientific career (or in those rare cases when a private company actually engages in some research activity).
Perhaps this is due to the fact that in Russia there is an even higher level of education - a doctorate, which is clearly not required when working outside the university. In the West, graduating from graduate school and obtaining a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) degree marks the end of education. Both the dean of the faculty and any professor are carriers of this degree.
In Russia, the PhD degree corresponds to the “candidate of sciences”, and the degree of “doctor of sciences” is awarded after doctoral studies.
Thus, the Russian postgraduate school, although formally it prepares scientists, in my opinion, is not perceived by society exclusively in this capacity. On the contrary, in the West you have no reason to go to graduate school if you are not going to make a career in science. Accordingly, admission to graduate school almost always implies a further university career (and in many respects determines the attitude of other people towards you; for example, having a PhD degree may even hurt when you try to work in industry).
Now about how to get into graduate school. As I already mentioned, the higher the level, the more possibilities. The position of the graduate student is already considered "work." Being a graduate student, you can not only have a good chance of free education, but also very real opportunities for obtaining scholarships. Lists of available PhD Studentships are regularly published on a wide variety of websites, ranging from university sites to subject bulletin boards such as jobs.ac.uk or Scholarshipnet.info .
But just at this stage a specific inverse factor of the “native” student appears on the scene. Advertisements published on open boards attract a lot of people (which is not surprising), so sending documents to an open competition always brings you to a good company of competitors :) At the same time, I suppose very strong candidates can be rivals. In the end, what to expect from a student going to the master's program? Well, good at learning, well, wrote some saytik, won the certificate. A candidate for graduate school may have in the luggage and scientific publications, and a solid resume.
In fact, most applicants to graduate school do not have to go through the hearth of hard selection. There is always a postgraduate training program in the home university (or friendly to it). As in Russia. At the same time, recruitment to it is carried out through “internal” channels, and usually it happens even easier than ours - no entrance examinations, a verbal agreement, a written application with a request to enroll in graduate school and (if relevant) scholarship documents.
A fairly simple scheme usually works. Choosing a supervisor for the thesis (master's) work, the student can immediately play with a long-range sight, directly asking about the possibility of further work in graduate school. Usually this is perceived with enthusiasm, and if the relationship with the supervisor is established, the master's thesis naturally flows into graduate school. It is beneficial for the manager to take a familiar person in whom he is confident. A graduate student can assist a supervisor in his work; accordingly, nobody wants to take a cat in a bag as an assistant. A high percentage of defenders also plays a big role: they will take someone who is more likely to defend themselves.
Thus, it seems to me personally that the easiest way is to “cling” to the magistracy. Often, our students enter the magistracy even with a Russian higher education, because they are unable to get through to graduate students right away. There is another argument in favor of the magistracy. The fact is that postgraduate education is structurally different from the master's degree. In contrast to the cycle of lecture-practice-exam, here we have to deal with research, publications and other things that are not met at the master’s level. Thus, a person who enters graduate students immediately faces two problems at once: with adaptation to Western education and the environment, and also with “pouring in” into a new type of activity. Magistracy, with all its “Bologna”, ultimately boils down to the usual lectures and exams.
However, I am not trying to turn anyone away from a suitable opportunity to go to graduate school. All difficulties are surmountable, the competition can also be “broken through”. You can even try to "break through" the factor of "your student," if you try to directly meet someone from the right professors at the desired faculty. Suppose you are going to write a diploma in the subject of X. You are looking for a department where you do something similar, find a relevant person there and explain the situation. They say that I study X in the magistracy, I am interested in whether you can continue your scientific activities. With a certain luck, you can become quite your “own” :)
However, I feel that I am already talking about it. I see that this time there was enough space to talk only about admission. Next time we will discuss the process of education in graduate school.
By the way, if there are requests, I can somehow (oh, find time) tell me how I like European “Bologna” education in the magistracy. At least on personal experience.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/50808/
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