======= Date Modified 24 Aug 2008 01:48:16 =======

i've been to uni in two countries and going to my third now - so i'm not even thinking about staying at the same uni or even in the same country. IMO it is significant to be know by the people in your department. people on this board have mentioned having difficulties getting references for their next step because they were unknown in their department. not good. references are REALLY important. i got my position through references.

it is also important so that you can collaborate with other people in the department. even if they might only be "peripheral players", they're still more likely to be known than you. being known is also a better way of getting stuff like grants or being introduced to visiting "key players".

you're missing out on so many opportunities to network and get to know interesting people when you hide yourself away at home. you'd also be very surprised at how many people know each other, have studied with each other and kept in touch. it's not clever to sort people into useful/not useful for my future" categories.

swantje:

agreed on your wisdom of references... sadly references are required in most places in order to do pg study (not that i agree with the need for references cause in principle they prove absolutely nothing.. i've written enough of them for other ppl for their pg studies and work stuff to know that.. they are pure twaddle.. but hey no one told the emperor that he was naked either).. in theory your work should have enough 'legs' to get you to where you want to go without the need for cronyism .. k... that was my bit of idealism for the day.. now back to the real world..lmao

of course the 'peripheral players' are more known than the phd candidates.. goes without saying... which takes us back to useful/not useful categories which you argue against in your next paragraph

anyhoo i'm with missspacey on this one....no academic ever comes into the pg rooms so unless you spend your time hanging around the coffee machine you dont get much out of coming in everyday .. at least at my uni (which is also uk based)

collaboration is useful ..no deying that...

i think that a REALLY EXCELLENT reference will always stand out from the plethora of average references. i am also (still) not advocating useful/non-useful categorisation of people, i was using the terminology key versus peripheral players for your benefit. i don't think for example that time in the pg-room is wasted when there are "only" master's students there. i have collaborated with master's and phd students so far and it is not necessarily always true that the phd students were better or more advanced. i also think it's a mistake to ignore people who are "peripheral players" because not only can that change in the future, but some people don't necessarily promote (or want to promote) their research enough. this does not make their research any less interesting.

ehh true swantje ..... all good in theory ... the rest always comes out in the wash anyway.

guess i'm just having one of them pissed off days [eh lets be honest a pissed off year.. hehe] where i fail to see any benefit to anything... no matter what the lifeforms at uni say.

======= Date Modified 24 Aug 2008 21:27:22 =======
my univ is 40 miles away from the place i live. but i go to my office every day (our univ provides office space for PhD students, which is generally shared by two to three students). As I am in a U.S univ, and it is a business school, so networking and visibility become very important. Also, despite my long commute (with rising gas prices), i go to univ because i like to have another place to belong to besides my home. If i did not want regular contact with univ, I should have opted for online PhD. Also, going to univ helps you discipline yourself, like getting up in the morning, dressing up, etc etc, and helps you draw a psychological line between what is home (place to relax) and what is univ (place to focus on work). Moreover, in context of networking, i can drop anytime in the office of my colleague or faculty and ask for help if I am stuck somewhere, likewise I can be available to help others. I cannot imagine isolating myself by staying at home, I need human contact which is beyond family faces (though they are the best) :-)

Another reason to be at the university while working on your research, and further, to try to participate in collective exercises such as seminars and conferences; is that knowledge can not possibly be produced without discussion and debate.

The ultimate goal of a research project is to generate some kind of new knowledge, and if you are aiming to do research as an occupation, you need to learn to interact with other people and look for such opportunities to exchange ideas and learn from each other. I know that academic departments are not great at that, and that most of them just dismiss the importance of students participating in the knowledge generating process; but if you want to make the most of the PhD programme, by not interacting with people you are just missing out on an important part of that process.

well i guess that is what conferences are for ..... and the workshops etc... loitering around the corridors and pg rooms is a diff kettle of fish though;-)

Well I'm going to dare to be different. I very rarely work from home - although I can understand the attractions (i.e. no noise, distractions from others etc), and on the rare occasions that I do work at home, I can concentrate better than in uni - I would get very isolated if I worked at home every day. My department has very good provisions for pgs (large desk in a shared office, laptops), and it means I can go and see my supervisor for a brief chat whenever I feel like it, rather than having to schedule a meeting. I think I would feel I was missing out if I wasn't in the department - even just on office gossip. I enjoy having a routine of going into the office every day and knowing that when I get home, I can switch off from work. Another reason for not staying at home is that I wouldn't have the house to myself (annoying retired parent!), so I'm sure I would be distracted very easily!