hey you all i'm Apurva and welcome back to WeDesified today we are going to discuss
about the top six things that you should know before coming to do phd in the us
these six things are very essential for every phd applicant to know
irrespective of your background or the program you're applying to these will definitely put
you in the right track to be successful in your phd program so let's get to it but before that
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hope you are following and watching our videos from the study in the uss series
in this series we have made videos on gre preparation or toefl top tips and tricks how
to get the best letter of recommendations how to write your sops the application timeline and
so on but today i'm going to share some things from my personal experience that will help you
to prepare yourself better in your phd journey so make sure you watch this video till the very end
let's start with the first point 16 years of education
if you want to pursue a phd degree or even a master's degree in the us then you need to
complete 16 years of education now this may sound not such a big deal for students who are coming
from an engineering background or from some other degrees which have four years of undergraduation
but there are some other programs like mine like i did my bachelor's in economics from university of
mumbai and my program was three years of undergrad after my 12th initially i had plans to apply for
a master's program in the us but at that time i realized that i had only completed 15 years
of education which is not enough so i decided to do one year of masters from university of mumbai
that will complete my 16 years of education and then apply for master's program in the us
but then i realized that my program that my master's program was very intense and i was
also liking it so i decided to complete both the years and get the master's degree from university
of mumbai and then apply for a phd program in the us so if you're someone who are pursuing three
years of an undergrad degree and want to come here for masters or for phd program then it could be an
issue you can either get one year of your masters and then come here for masters again or complete
your master's degree get 16 years of education and then come for the phd degree in the us
some of my friends did one year of their masters and completed their 16 years of education and
then came here for masters and are doing great or some people like me completed their masters
and then came here for phd so choose what works best for you our second point is research phd
program is all about research in fact you can say that phd and research are like synonyms in a way
so that's why when you are applying for a phd program the admissions committee look
out for those candidates that showcase research capabilities we get this question a lot from
many of you asking how to showcase this research potential and we all know that we don't get enough
opportunities for research in our undergrad or master's curriculum so this is a big gap to fill
so if you are planning for phd then you should start reaching out to your professors asking them
if you can join in any of their papers or projects that they would be working on so that you can gain
some experience and also learn a lot in this process if you get some papers published then
that would be great but even if not then you can always mention the papers that you are working on
in your sop or resume to showcase your interest in research and your potential to get that phd admit
also you should remember that four to five years of your phd program would be dedicated
to pure research so you should be well prepared for that and if you're not someone who would be
interested in doing a lot of research then you should re-evaluate your decision to pursue a phd
our third point is teaching for phd programs along with research teaching is also very
important aspect especially in the us i say this for two reasons firstly for phd programs when
you get stipend you are expected to work either as a research assistant or a teaching assistant
now if you get a teaching assistantship then you are expected to teach either undergraduates or
masters students so that is why the admissions committee look for candidates with some kind
of teaching experience or interest in my case after i completed my master's i worked as an
assistant professor for a year and i think that helped me to get the admission with full funding
and also boosted my confidence when i had to teach the students here in the us
secondly after you complete your phd program you will find a lot of scope in the academic sector
so if you want to take up teaching as a career option then this experience will also help greatly
if you don't have any teaching experience but you are interested then you can even work with some
of the ngos like teach for india and that will really help you but if you don't have teaching
experience at all then no need to worry all we want to say today is that be prepared for some
teaching assignments while pursuing your phd program in the us our fourth point is funding
along with this research and teaching planning how to afford your education is also very important
you would be taking around 90 to 100 credits during your phd program and each credit can
cost anywhere from thousand dollars to fifteen hundred dollars which is almost one crore in
indian rupees that is a very big amount apart from this there are living expenses as well
so if you get stipend then it will cover the living expenses but even if you don't get the
stipend then you can try for ra or ta positions or on campus jobs to cover your living expenses
but if you don't get full funding with your admit letter then don't join hoping that
you may get funding later because that could be risky if you don't happen to get funding at all
so our advice is to join the college that offers you at least full funding for your phd program
our fifth point is technology not just for phd but if you take any field these days then they
are technology driven you need some programming language or a tool for every field especially for
phd you do research you work with data so you are expected to know the relevant softwares and this
is not something that you can learn by taking coursework during your phd you have to learn
them on your own if you have already learned those programming languages or tools then that's great
but what happened with my case was that for phd in economics we need softwares like stata sas
or programming languages like r python but i wasn't well versed with them so i had to
catch up on them in limited time since i had to complete assignments from the first week itself
so my sincere advice is if your course needs any softwares then start learning them from today you
can take online courses from udemy or coursera and this could help you with your application as well
as your research later our sixth point is patience patience and perseverance are very important while
pursuing your phd program your patients will be tested starting from the application process
itself since the phd application process is lengthier than other programs and you may
have multiple rounds of interviews as well and also remember that the average duration of phd
programs in the us is five to seven years and you have to be motivated throughout this period
trust me this is very intense and stressful because of the course work comprehensive exams
rita jobs publications and the research expectations and at times you may feel like there
is no end to this but you have to keep patience be motivated and remind yourself of your end goal
apart from this you will see that your friends or the people around you graduating and start earning
but you would be doing the same program and that might be a little demotivating
but you have to keep yourself focused and keep doing what you're doing and trust the process
to reach your goal if you cannot keep patience and be motivated for five to seven years then there is
still chance to re-evaluate your decision to apply for phd so these are the top six things that you
should know before applying for phd programs in the us and this will also help you to successfully
complete your phd as well so that's all we have for today if you find this video useful
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below we will reply and make videos answering all your questions until next time keep learning bye
you