Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Advice for Would-Be Planning Doctoral Students

This entry was written by Jessica Doyle.  Jessica is a doctoral student in city and regional planning at Georgia Tech.  If I remember correctly her research concerns public transportation investments and local economic development. 

Blog Entry: Advice for Would-Be Planning Doctoral Students

Martin Kreiger recently complained that there are far too many top-10 lists out there, even for potential or actual doctoral students in planning. So I am not going to present you with the Ten Things You Really Ought to Know Before You Start a Planning PhD Program. Besides, one of those ten things ought to be "What is planning, anyway?" which you probably already know. (I got my undergraduate degree in history, worked as a journalist, and entered my doctoral program without having completed, or even started, a master's in planning first. I am weird.)

The first thing you should do, if you are considering applying, or already applying, to PhD programs in planning, is read "Should You Go to Graduate School?" It was written by Tim Burke, who teaches history, not planning, but is nonetheless a wise person to listen to (or a wise person whose blog to read). When he says, "Two years in, and getting out will be like gnawing your own leg off"? Listen to him. One caveat: I think -- for my own sake, I hope -- that unlike a PhD in history, a PhD in city planning (or city and regional planning, or community planning) will qualify you to venture outside the academic world, if you so choose. One of the reasons why I love planning as a discipline is that even very theoretical discussions don't lose sight of the practical: toss around "advocacy planning" and "critical planning theory" all you like, but in the end you're still talking about how to get a roomful of people, some of whom have more power and wealth than others, on a particular zoning code or infrastructure project. But everything else about the totality of a PhD program applies.

If you've gone and read that, and then gone through the PhD Comics archive, and you're still eager to do this doctoral thing, then I would look at your potential schools in terms of a series of matching areas. Here are the matching areas I would consider the most important:
  • The balance of professional training versus academic training. At my program (Georgia Tech), the master's program comes first, the PhD program a distant second. This has definite advantages, in that both the faculty and the majority of the students have to keep at least one eye on the practical, and I will finish with a number of friends working planning jobs. This is not a small thing, if your career plan is to be teaching people who want to work planning jobs. But it can mean that PhD issues get addressed more slowly than issues at the master's level. If this worries you, you may want to focus on schools with a larger PhD-to-master's ratio, with a longer history of churning out PhD graduates who get teaching jobs.
  • Outreach. Some schools will absolutely love you if you want to spend your summers on hands-on projects in low-income areas. Some will not. Some advisors will. Some will not. (Some hiring committees will, and some will not, but by that point your program should be able to help you.) If you're more interested in outreach and service, and consider research as a step along the way rather than an end in itself, then you very much need to find a school that will reward and nurture you for those goals. My guess (since I am particularly slack on the service front) is that professors with a long activism history (Ken Reardon, for example) will be more welcoming of outreach- and service-oriented students than those who have concentrated more on quantitative research problems. But it's going to depend not just on your future advisor but his or her relationship to the rest of the department and the university. Be very upfront, as best you can, about your goals, so that the program can take that into account when deciding whether you're a good fit.
  • International focus. By this I mean two things, which may not be of equal importance to you. One is how well international students are supported in the program. My personal bias is that having people with experiences from other countries is an asset, but not every program's focus will include as much room for international students. The second is how much research from outside the US is incorporated into research and teaching within the program. If you think you might at all go abroad for your dissertation research, start bringing that up now, since different programs (and faculty) will have different levels of experience at helping you get your hands on the money you'll need. You do not to be arguing about your potential funding sources, and why what's going on in Europe or Thailand is relevant anyway, during your dissertation proposal.
  • Political orientation, in terms of the virtues or drawbacks of economic growth, or positions on equity issues versus an emphasis on rational planning. Put it this way: what gets your future advisor, and the faculty as a whole, fuming? Sprawl? Ugly strip malls? The stagnation of inner-city areas? Climate change? Overdependence on cars? Destruction of historic buildings or areas? They may be annoyed by all of the above, but you want smoke out of the nostrils and ears, if possible. Then look for those things that make smoke come out of your nostrils and ears. If you get a match, it will make future research directions, not to mention awkward small talk, much more bearable.
  • General comfort-level issues. To some degree this last is true of any academic department, since you will be spending a great deal of time with these people. However, if you find a good academic match, it might be tempting to put these issues aside. Do not. If you are gay, you ought to be able to mention your partner in casual conversation. If you are a practicing Christian, you ought to be able to mention your church in casual conversation. If you tend to make jokes when you are nervous, as I do, you need at least one person near you who will laugh or say something ridiculous back. The faculty at your program, especially your advisor, are going to have some control over your employability for the rest of your life, assuming you finish. You do not want to find yourself ill at ease for three years or more; it will not help.

    My final piece of advice, if you are choosing between different planning programs, is this: Find out how long it takes people to finish. In March 2005, after I got my acceptance, I had an hour-long chat with a very nice and intelligent guy who worked with my then-future advisor. He said lots of good things about Tech's program. What he did not say, or perhaps what I did not hear, is that it tends to take people a while -- and indeed, almost three years later he has not finished, or even submitted his dissertation proposal. My own tenure is probably not going to do my program's time-to-completion rate any favors. In my case I would have chosen Tech anyway, and I have no regrets, but if you have the luxury of deciding between more than one program, and you do not intend to spend a decade in this process, get as much data as to time-to-completion as you can.


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