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LA GRAMMATICA DI ENGLISH GRATIS IN VERSIONE MOBILE   INFORMATIVA PRIVACY

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WIKIBOOKS
DISPONIBILI
?????????

ART
- Great Painters
BUSINESS&LAW
- Accounting
- Fundamentals of Law
- Marketing
- Shorthand
CARS
- Concept Cars
GAMES&SPORT
- Videogames
- The World of Sports

COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY
- Blogs
- Free Software
- Google
- My Computer

- PHP Language and Applications
- Wikipedia
- Windows Vista

EDUCATION
- Education
LITERATURE
- Masterpieces of English Literature
LINGUISTICS
- American English

- English Dictionaries
- The English Language

MEDICINE
- Medical Emergencies
- The Theory of Memory
MUSIC&DANCE
- The Beatles
- Dances
- Microphones
- Musical Notation
- Music Instruments
SCIENCE
- Batteries
- Nanotechnology
LIFESTYLE
- Cosmetics
- Diets
- Vegetarianism and Veganism
TRADITIONS
- Christmas Traditions
NATURE
- Animals

- Fruits And Vegetables



ARTICLES IN THE BOOK

  1. Academic degree
  2. Academics
  3. Academy
  4. Accreditation mill
  5. Adult education
  6. Advanced Distributed Learning
  7. Alternative education
  8. Alternative school
  9. Apprenticeship
  10. Assessment
  11. Associate's degree
  12. Autodidacticism
  13. Bachelor's degree
  14. Boarding schools
  15. Bologna process
  16. British undergraduate degree classification
  17. Bullying
  18. Charter schools
  19. City academy
  20. Classical education
  21. Classroom
  22. Collaborative learning
  23. Community college
  24. Comparative education
  25. Compulsory education
  26. Computer-assisted language learning
  27. Computer based training
  28. Core curriculum
  29. Course evaluation
  30. Curriculum
  31. Degrees of the University of Oxford
  32. Department for Education and Skills
  33. Description of a Career
  34. Diploma mill
  35. Distance education
  36. Doctorate
  37. Dottorato di ricerca
  38. Double degree
  39. Dual education system
  40. Edublog
  41. Education
  42. Educational philosophies
  43. Educational psychology
  44. Educational technology
  45. Education in England
  46. Education in Finland
  47. Education in France
  48. Education in Germany
  49. Education in Italy
  50. Education in Scotland
  51. Education in the People%27s Republic of China
  52. Education in the Republic of Ireland
  53. Education in the United States
  54. Education in Wales
  55. Education reform
  56. E-learning
  57. E-learning glossary
  58. ELML
  59. Engineer's degree
  60. Essay
  61. Evaluation
  62. Examination
  63. External degree
  64. Extracurricular activity
  65. Feeder school
  66. First School
  67. Free school
  68. GCSE
  69. Gifted education
  70. Glossary of education-related terms
  71. Grade
  72. Graduate student
  73. Gymnasium
  74. Habilitation
  75. Hidden curriculum
  76. History of education
  77. History of virtual learning environments
  78. Homeschooling
  79. Homework
  80. Honorary degree
  81. Independent school
  82. Instructional design
  83. Instructional technology
  84. Instructional theory
  85. International Baccalaureate
  86. K-12
  87. Key Stage 3
  88. Laurea
  89. Learning
  90. Learning by teaching
  91. Learning content management system
  92. Learning management system
  93. Learning object metadata
  94. Learning Objects
  95. Learning theory
  96. Lesson
  97. Lesson plan
  98. Liberal arts
  99. Liberal arts college
  100. Liceo scientifico
  101. List of education topics
  102. List of recognized accreditation associations of higher learning
  103. List of unaccredited institutions of higher learning
  104. Magnet school
  105. Maria Montessori
  106. Masters degree
  107. Medical education
  108. Mickey Mouse degrees
  109. Microlearning
  110. M-learning
  111. Montessori method
  112. National Curriculum
  113. Networked learning
  114. One-room school
  115. Online deliberation
  116. Online MBA Programs
  117. Online tutoring
  118. Open classroom
  119. OpenCourseWare
  120. Over-education
  121. Preschool
  122. Primary education
  123. Private school
  124. Problem-based learning
  125. Professor
  126. Public education
  127. Public schools
  128. Questionnaire
  129. School
  130. School accreditation
  131. School bus
  132. School choice
  133. School district
  134. School governor
  135. School health services
  136. Schools Interoperability Framework
  137. SCORM
  138. Secondary school
  139. Senior high school
  140. Sixth Form
  141. Snow day
  142. Special education
  143. Specialist degree
  144. State schools
  145. Student voice
  146. Study guide
  147. Syllabus
  148. Teacher
  149. Teaching method
  150. Technology Integration
  151. Tertiary education
  152. The Hidden Curriculum
  153. Traditional education
  154. Undergraduate
  155. University
  156. Unschooling
  157. Videobooks
  158. Virtual Campus
  159. Virtual learning environment
  160. Virtual school
  161. Vocational education
  162. Vocational school
  163. Vocational university

 

 
CONDIZIONI DI USO DI QUESTO SITO
L'utente può utilizzare il nostro sito solo se comprende e accetta quanto segue:

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  • L'utente, inoltre, accetta di tenerci indenni da qualsiasi tipo di responsabilità per l'uso - ed eventuali conseguenze di esso - degli esercizi e delle informazioni linguistiche e grammaticali contenute sul siti. Le risposte grammaticali sono infatti improntate ad un criterio di praticità e pragmaticità più che ad una completezza ed esaustività che finirebbe per frastornare, per l'eccesso di informazione fornita, il nostro utente. La segnalazione di eventuali errori è gradita e darà luogo ad una immediata rettifica.

     

    ENGLISHGRATIS.COM è un sito personale di
    Roberto Casiraghi e Crystal Jones
    email: robertocasiraghi at iol punto it

    Roberto Casiraghi           
    INFORMATIVA SULLA PRIVACY              Crystal Jones


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THE BOOK OF EDUCATION
This article is from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_student

All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License 

Graduate student

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

A graduate student (also grad student or grad in American English, postgraduate (student) or postgrad in British English) is an individual who has completed a bachelor's degree and is pursuing further higher education, with the goal of earning a master's degree, doctorate, or other postgraduate qualification, such as a graduate certificate or Post-graduate diploma.

In the United States, graduate education can also refer to those pursuing a post-master's Educational Specialist degree or post-master's Certificate of Advanced Study. The term usually does not refer to students in medical school, who are usually called "medical students," and only occasionally refers to someone in law school or business school.

In Europe, under the traditional German system, the Bachelor's degree (or the Candidate degree) may be only an intermediate degree or be absent altogether in some fields, because the Master's degree is (traditionally, no longer de jure) required for the respective jobs. Such a higher degree is not considered a research degree. In fact, so-called "graduate" students may be Master's degree holders pursuing a doctorate.

Although the Bologna process is underway to "Americanize" all European university education, there are still some students who have entered such an undivided program, and will, in fact, never be graduate students. These students are expected to graduate by 2010. Furthermore, it is not expected that the fundamental structure of the education system changes. Namely, a Master's degree may still be required for management positions by private employers.

Canada

Admission

Admission to a masters program generally requires a bachelor's degree in a related field, with sufficiently high grades (usually ranging from B+ / 80% average and up, though this requirement may be significantly higher in some faculties), recommendations from professors, and, for some fields, demonstrated ability in at least one foreign language. Some schools require samples of the student's writing as well as a research proposal. At English-speaking universities, applicants from countries where English is not the primary language are required to submit scores from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).

Admission to a doctoral program typically requires a masters degree in a related field, sufficiently high grades, recommendations, samples of writing, and a research proposal. Requirements are often set higher than those for a masters program. In exceptional cases, a student holding an honours baccalaureate with sufficiently high grades and proven writing and research abilities may be admitted direclty to a Ph.D program without the requirement to first complete a masters.

Graduate students must usually declare their research goal or submit a research proposal upon entering grad school; in the case of master's degrees, there will be some flexibility (that is, one is not held to one's research proposal, although major changes, for example from premodern to modern history, are discouraged). In the case of Ph.D.s, the research direction is usually known as it will typically follow the direction of the master's research.

Master's degrees can typically be completed in one year but normally take at least two; they may not exceed five years. Doctoral degrees require a minimum of two years but frequently take much longer, not usually exceeding six years.

Funding

Graduate students may take out student loans, but instead they often work as teaching or research assistants. Students normally agree, as a condition of acceptance to a programme, not to devote more than twelve hours per week to work or outside interests.

Funding is available to first-year masters students whose transcripts reflect exceptionally high grades; this funding is normally given in the second year.

Funding for Ph.D. students comes from a variety of sources, and many universities waive tuition fees for doctoral candidates.

Funding is available in the form of bursaries and other awards, both private and public.

Requirements for completion

Both master's and doctoral programs may be done by coursework or research or a combination of the two, depending on the subject and faculty. Most faculties require both, with the emphasis on research, and with coursework being directly related to the field of research.

Masters candidates undertaking research are typically required to complete a thesis comprising some original research and ranging from seventy to two-hundred pages. Some fields may require candidates to study at least one foreign language if they have not already earned sufficient foreign-language credits. Some faculties require candidates to defend their thesis, but many do not.

Ph.D. candidates undertaking research must typically complete a thesis, or dissertation, consisting of original research representing a significant contribution to their field, and ranging from two-hundred to five-hundred pages. Most Ph.D. candidates will be required to sit comprehensive examinations--examinations testing general knowledge in their field of specialization--in their second or third year as a prerequisite to continuing their studies, and must defend their thesis as a final requirement. Some faculties require candidates to earn sufficient credits in a third or fourth foreign language; for example, most candidates in modern Japanese topics must demonstrate ability in English, Japanese, and Mandarin, while candidates in pre-modern Japanese topics must demonstrate ability in English, Japanese, Classical Chinese and Classical Japanese.

At English-speaking Canadian universities, both masters and Ph.D. theses may be presented in English or in the language of the subject (German for German literature, for example), but if this is the case an extensive abstract must be also presented in English. In exceptional circumstances, a thesis may be presented in French.

French-speaking universities have varying sets of rules; some will accept students with little knowledge of French if they can communicate with their supervisors (usually in English).

United Kingdom

Admission

Admission to do a research degree in the UK typically requires the sponsorship of a professor. It is useful to have a master's degree, but certainly not essential. A good bachelor's degree, however, is required. Usually research students are admitted to do an M.Phil and can later convert to a Ph.D if they progress well.

Admission to do a taught master's degree (based on coursework) depends upon having an undergraduate degree, generally in a related subject.

Funding

It is very difficult to obtain funding for postgraduate study in the UK. There are a few scholarships for master's courses, but these are rare and dependent on the course and class of undergraduate degree obtained. Most master's students are self-funded.

Funding is available for some Ph.D. courses. There is more funding available to those in the sciences than in other disciplines.

For overseas students, most major funding applications are due as early as twelve months or more before the intended graduate course will begin. This funding is also often highly competitive. The most widely available, and thus important, award for overseas students is the Overseas Research Student Award, which pays the difference in university fees between an overseas student and a British or EU resident. However, a student can only apply for the ORS for one university, often before he or she knows whether they have been accepted.

United States

Admission

Admission to graduate school usually requires a bachelor's degree. High grades in one's field of study are important, grades outside of the field less so. GRE scores and, especially, good letters of recommendation from undergraduate instructors are essential.

Within the sciences and some social sciences, previous research experience may be important; within most humanities disciplines, an example of academic writing normally suffices. Many universities require a personal statement, which may include indications of the intended area(s) of research; how detailed this statement is or whether it is possible to change one's focus of research depends strongly on the discipline and department being applied to.

In some disciplines or universities, graduate applicants may find it best to have at least one recommendation from research work outside of the college where they earned their Bachelor's degree; however, as with previous research experience, this may not be very important in most humanities disciplines.

The most selective schools set minimum GPAs and test scores below which they will not accept any applicants; this reduces the time spent reviewing applications. Some also require professors to act as sponsors. Finally, applicants from non-English speaking countries must take the Test of English as a Foreign Language.

At most institutions, decisions regarding admission are not made by the institution itself but the department for which the applicant will be studying.

Requirements for completion

Graduate students often declare their intended degree (Master's or Doctorate) in their applications. In some cases, master's programs allow successful students to continue toward the doctorate degree. Additionally, students who complete their coursework but not dissertation ("ABD," for "all but dissertation") often receive master's degrees and an additional master's called a Master of Philosophy, or MPhil. The Master's component of a doctorate program often requires one or two years, and some students, because doctoral programs are better-funded, apply for doctoral programs while only intending to attain a Master's degree. This is generally not accepted and, if a student's advisor learns of the student's plans, can result in early termination.

Many graduate programs require students to pass one or several examinations in order to demonstrate their competency as scholars. Comprehensive examinations ("Comps") or Qualifying examinations ("Quals") are often required in the first year of doctoral study, and are designed to test a student's background undergraduate-level knowledge. Students failing after two attempts are usually expelled from the program, often being awarded a master's degree instead of a Ph.D. Some students who fail to perform well are declared "terminal Masters" students and not allowed to progress on to the Ph.D. after finishing & defending their masters thesis. Comprehensive examinations of this type are more common in the sciences and some social sciences, and relatively unknown in most humanities disciplines.

Most graduate students perform teaching duties. Early in the program, they often serve as graders and tutors; as they advance, they can be promoted to Lecturer status, receiving more responsibility and a larger stipend.

Doctoral students generally spend roughly their first two years taking course work, and by their second year if not before, begin research. Many master's and all specialist students will perform research culminating in a paper, presentation, and defense of their research. This is called the master's thesis (or, for Educational Specialist students, the specialist paper). Many US master's degree programs, however, do not require a master's thesis, focusing instead primarily on course work.

In the second and third years of study, doctoral programs often require students to pass more examinations of their competency. Programs often require a Qualifying Examination ("Quals") or General Examination ("Generals"), testing students' grasp of a broad sample of their discipline, and/or one or several Special Field Examinations ("Specials"), testing students in their narrower selected areas of specialty within the discipline. If these examinations are held orally, they may be known colloquially as "orals". For some social science and many humanities disciplines, where graduate students may or may not have studied the discipline at the undergraduate level, these exams will be the first set, and be based either on graduate coursework or specific preparatory reading (sometimes up to a year's work in reading). In all cases, comprehensive exams are normally both stressful and time consuming, and must be passed to be allowed to proceed on to the thesis. Passing such examinations allows the student to stay, begin doctoral research, and rise to the status of a doctoral candidate, while failing usually results in the student leaving the program or re-taking the test after some time has passed (usually a semester or a year). Some schools have an intermediate category, passing at the Master's level, which allows the student to leave with a Master's without having completed a Master's thesis.

For the next several years (typically three to eight years, though a rare few finish more quickly and some take substantially longer), the doctoral candidate primarily performs his or her research. The typical doctoral degree takes between 4 and 10 years from entering the program to completion, though this time varies depending upon the department, thesis topic, and many other factors.

For example, astronomy degrees take five to six years on average, but observational astronomy degrees take six to seven (due to limiting factors of weather) while theoretical astronomy degrees take five. Though there is substantial variation among universities, departments, and individuals, humanities and social science doctorates on average take somewhat longer to complete than natural science doctorates. These differences are due to the differing nature of research between the humanities and some social sciences and the natural sciences (solitary as opposed to lab or group based), and to the differing expectations of the discipline in coursework, languages and length of thesis. However, time required to complete a doctorate also varies according to the candidate's abilities and choice of research. Some students may also choose to remain in a program if they fail to win an academic position, particularly in disciplines with a tight job market; by remaining a student, they can retain access to libraries and university facilities, while also retaining an academic affiliation, which can be essential for conferences and job-searches.

Traditionally, doctoral programs were only intended to last three to four years and, in some disciplines (primarily the natural sciences), with the economic support of a second-income, a helpful advisor, and a light teaching load, it is possible for the degree to be completed in that amount of time. However, increasingly many disciplines, including most humanities, set their requirements for coursework, languages and the expected extent of thesis research by the assumption that students will take five years minimum or six to seven years on average; competition for jobs within these fields also raises expectations on the length and quality of theses considerably.

In some disciplines doctoral programs can average closer to seven to ten years, with those taking less seen as not doing as full a job as they should have; archeology, which requires long periods of research, tends towards this. The increase in length of degree is a matter of great concern for both students and universities, though there is much disagreement on potential solutions to this problem.

Foreign graduate students outnumber American-born students in some US departments, primarily in the natural sciences.

Funding

Graduate students who are not independently wealthy live very meagerly, but how meagerly depends greatly on the nature of funding at their university.

At some elite universities with large endowments, there may be a minimum stipend established for all Ph.D. students within their first five years, as well as a tuition waiver. This stipend may consist of a scholarship for one to two years, and then guaranteed TA or RA positions. At many elite universities, these stipends have been increasing, in response both to student pressure and especially to competition among the elite universities for graduate students. Because of this competition, increases tend to be concentrated on the beginning years of the program, not on the relatively poorly funded finishing students.

At most univerities, however, the level of available funding is much less and required work greater. Students who are able to attain a RA (research assistant) or TA (teaching assistant) position, at least, may acquire tuition-forgiveness and a stipend that pays for most expenses. Stipends do not usually correlate with local cost of living, so students in expensive locales such as Boston and Berkeley, even funded, almost invariantly lose economic ground.

RA positions are more coveted than TA positions because, while teaching is generally considered a distraction from one's work, RAs typically are paid to work on the dissertation they are required to complete anyway. RA positions are more typical of science disciplines; they are relatively uncommon in humanities disciplines, and where they exist, rarely allow the student to work on their own research.

A rare few students can attain outside fellowships such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Physical Sciences Consortium (NPSC). The sciences are funded well enough that most students can attain either outside or institutional funding, but in the humanities, not all do. Some humanities students are forced to borrow money during their coursework, then take full-time jobs while completing their dissertations. Again, funding differs greatly by the wealth of the university; some universities give five years of full funding to all Ph.D. students, though often with a teaching requirement attached; other universities do not. However, because of the teaching requirements, which can be in the research years of the Ph.D., even the most funded of universities often do not have funding for humanities or social science students who need to do research elsewhere, whether in the United States or overseas.

Foreign grads are typically funded the same way as domestic (US) grads, although some funding sources (such as many NSF fellowships) may only be awarded to domestic students. International students often have even worse financial difficulties than domestic students. Reasons include high costs to visit their families back home, support of a family not allowed to work due to immigration laws, tuition that is ridiculous by world standards, and large fees: visa fees by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, surveillance fees (such as Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems, or SEVIS[1]) by Congress and Homeland Security.

In rare cases, graduate students can lose funding and be de facto terminated from the program. Depending on the structure of the department, this can sometimes even happen at the whim of an advisor. This can be devastating, and there have been instances of suicide or murder of professors or advisors by graduate students who have lost funding and are unable to complete their degrees.

With the recognition of both the lack of funding and the uncertainty of the job market, many academics advise their undergraduate students not to pursue graduate education if they do not have adequate funding. However, even students with generous funding at the beginning of their degree may find themselves struggling to find funding to conduct research away from the university or to finish writing.

Unionization

There is debate within American academia as to whether or not graduate students should be considered students or employees; many graduate students see themselves as akin to junior faculty, with lower pay (by a factor of perhaps up to seven). Specifically, most students resent teaching duties because, not only are they doing this work at the expense of their research, but they are denying work to prospective professors, who would need to be hired if not for cheap graduate labor to make it possible to teach larger classes without personally handling all grading, question and answer, et cetera.

The United Auto Workers (under the slogan "Uniting Academic Workers") is one of the unions that represents graduate employees. Universities' administrations often oppose these unions, arguing that student should be exempt for labor laws intended for "workers", while the union organizers and most graduate students feel all workers have an inalienable right to unionize. Nonetheless, in some cases, unionization movements meet even with enough student opposition that they fail. At the schools where graduate students are unionized, which positions are unionized vary. Sometimes only one set of employees (e.g. teaching assistants, residential directors) will unionize; at other times, most or all will. Typically, fellowship recipients, usually not employed by their university, do not participate.

When negotiations fail, graduate student unions sometimes go on strike. While graduate student unions can use the same types of strikes that other unions do, they sometimes elect to perform a grade strike. In a grade strike, graduate students refuse to grade exams and papers and, if the strike lasts until the end of the academic term, also refuse to turn in final grades. It is rare that lecturing or critical resident-director duties are neglected; in some cases the union declares these duties voluntary, and almost all students perform them, recognizing that it would be unfair to neglect the undergraduates because of a disagreement with the institution, not the student body.

Life after graduate school

Traditionally, successful doctorate candidates in the English-speaking world would receive tenure-track faculty positions, after an optional post-doctoral position. In recent years, the poor academic job market has required academics to perform multiple low-pay, low-respect adjunct positions before earning a tenure-track job. Not wanting to be poor into their 30s, many Ph.D.'s enter industry-- in some fields, more than 50 percent do. Others seek academically-related fields, such as Librarianship.

A doctorate in humanities, however, is often referred to as a "professor's degree" and, outside of academia and teaching, does not confer upon its recipient better job prospects. Because, in these fields, there are many more Ph.D.s awarded per year than tenure-track jobs opened, humanities graduate programs are likened to exploitation: Ph.D.'s are overproduced for profit, then face a downsized job market. Some manage to cobble together the semblance of an academic career by taking on multiple part-time positions as Lecturers at different institutions, with teaching contracts that must be renewed every semester. These positions are paid less than public school teachers and frequently have few benefits (health insurance, etc) and no job security.

See also

  • Ph.D
  • Doctorate
  • EURODOC (European Council of Doctoral Candidates and junior researchers)

External links

  • Piled Higher and Deeper is a webcomic about the life of grads at Stanford University
  • Phinished.org a discussion & support group for those who cannot seem to finish their theses or dissertations...

References

  • William G. Bowen & Neil L. Rudenstine, In Pursuit of the PhD (Princeton UP, 1992; ISBN 0-691-04294-2). A comprehensive report on graduate education in the US from the 1960s to the 1990s, based on surveys of tens of thousands of graduate students.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_student"