Life as a Doctoral Student

It's easy to see why everyone wants to be a professor, they live an exhilarating life full of adventure, fame, and fortune. Far fewer understand the journey it takes to reach the hallowed career of academician--the journey through a Ph.D. program. This page is intended to provide an overview of life as a doctoral student. While each doctoral program is different, this page provides an overview of doctoral studies in general and is intended to help you know whether a Ph.D. program is right for you. Learn what you can from here, read about Life as a Professor, and talk to faculty and doctoral students at lots of different universities to help you make a well informed decision.

Why get a Ph.D.?

If you are visiting this website, you likely have an itch. A thought keeps popping up in the back of your head saying, "I want a new job and I think I would enjoy teaching" or maybe "Man, my professors have a great life." Whatever the voice says to cause that itching, you need to scratch it. For many of you, a quick scratch of finding out what a Ph.D. entails is more than enough to quiet that voice. For the rest of you, you have just started on an incredible journey.

A doctoral degree differs from all other educational degrees. It is the highest, most prestigious academic achievement available. Once earned, the doctoral degree opens to its recipient many exciting doors. In accounting, and most other disciplines, a doctoral degree is critical to working as a university professor. There is little reason to earn a Ph.D. in accounting (and most other business school disciplines) if one does not want to work as a professor. Thus, the Ph.D. is a means to an end, with the end being working in a university setting.

There are many great things to working as a university professor, but lets discuss three that are both great blessings of being a professor and keys to being successful. First, professors are constantly learning. Professors spend the majority of their time teaching and researching. Both of these acts are rooted in learning and sharing your learning with others. If you enjoy and are excited about learning about the world around you, asking questions and findings answers, and sharing what you learn with others than you will likely enjoy earning a Ph.D.

Second, professors want to make a difference in the world. While in the classroom, professors stand as role models to their students and give students the ability to make the world a better place. Professors stand as guides in helping students discover who they are, what they believe, and what they want to become. This is an intensely satisfying part of our work. The research process is similarly one of trying to make a difference in the world. Research is an attempt to understand and find truth with the hopes that greater understanding can lead to improvements in how mankind lives. The act of researching is therefore a service activity to promote the greater good in this world.

Third, life as a professor is full of flexibility. Not only do professors work largely when and where they want, but they also choose what they do. Professors are constantly engaging in different activities--research, teaching, service--so that every day is new and exciting. Those who are good at motivating themselves and working in an unstructured environment thrive with these flexible working arrangements. In addition, to flexibility at work, academics have tremendous flexibility for family time. They do work long hours, but they get to choose when to work those hours.

So, do you still have that itch? If you love learning, want to make a difference in the world, and want flexibility, a doctorate degree will help you reach your goals.

What do you do as a doctoral student?

There are three significant phases to an accounting doctoral program (1) coursework, (2) comprehensive exams, and (3) the dissertation. Also, during each of these phases you are expected, at most schools, to work as a research assistant or teaching assistant (or teach your own class). Therefore we discuss each of these five topics individually.

Coursework Phase of the Ph.D. Program

During this phase of the accounting program you are a traditional student. That is, you go to class, have tests, and all the other things you probably did as an undergraduate or masters student. There are a few differences from your undergrad. First, the classes are a usually a lot harder. Second, you usually don't take as many different classes at the same time. Third, the classes are usually a lot smaller.

The courses you take are usually separated into major courses, minor courses, and then other "tools" courses. The major courses focus on your discipline, with a particular focus on the research your discipline conducts. For example, in accounting you do not take any more classes where you learn the rules of how to be an accountant (i.e., in-depth study of tax law, audit practice, financial transactions, etc.). Instead, your class is focused on understanding how you research accounting issues. Often times the classes take the form of seminars. A typical seminar class will entail reading several academic research papers and then having one class member present on those papers. The presentation takes the form of an active discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the paper, how the paper could be extended, the theory the paper builds off, etc. The professor usually takes a somewhat back-seat approach to seminars and allows the students to do much of the discussion. Professors then chime in discussing points the students missed or to emphasize particularly important concepts. Most programs have students take several different accounting research seminars. The seminars are grouped based on research topical areas or methodologies.

The minor courses in a Ph.D. are taken with Ph.D. students in other areas. In accounting, students offer minor in economics, finance, information systems, psychology, or statistics. The minor courses are usually major courses for students in those other fields. In most of these classes, the focus is once again on understanding the research that these disciplines conduct. Minor courses can take the form of seminars or like a more traditional lecturing format.

Finally, "tools" courses are courses that are intended to build specific competencies so that individuals can conduct research. These types of courses often center around gaining knowledge of statistical methods or experimental design. They may also focus on the basics of the scientific method and philosophy of science. Depending on what type of research you want to conduct, these courses can vary significantly.

For most Ph.D. programs, course work takes 2 years. In some instances, this is extended to 3 years--especially if incoming students have a lack of background knowledge or have been away from school for an extended period of time. Your work is very structured during the coursework phase of the program and will be very similar to your undergrad or masters experience.

Comprehensive Exam Phase of the Ph.D. Program

After you finish coursework, Ph.D. students are required to pass a comprehensive exam. This exam may be a written exam, oral exam, or both. Most accounting Ph.D. programs require a written comprehensive exam. The purpose of the comprehensive exam is to test whether students have a strong grasp of the current and past research findings in their discipline and whether students are capable of understanding the methods used to conduct research. Studying for the exam also helps students identify important gaps in the research stream or interesting questions. These often times turn into a students dissertation topic. Most students will spend several weeks and even months preparing to take their exams. The exams usually last an entire day or are spread over two or more days.

The exact format of the comprehensive exam can differ significantly from university to university. The most common form for a comprehensive exam are essay questions and a review of a paper. Here are actual examples of comprehensive exam questions. If asked to review a paper, the student will be given a "finished" academic paper (usually a working paper) and asked to write a reviewer report. This is similar to the task of reviewing academic papers that professors conduct. The student will have a set period of time to read the paper and write a review explaining the strengths and weaknesses of the paper. For more information on reviewing papers see this page.

After completing the exam, your professors will grade your exam and let you know whether you passed or not. If you did not pass, you are often allowed to take the exam one more time (if you fail the second time, you are usually dismissed from the program). If you pass the exam, you enter the dissertation phase of the program. Some universities also grant you a masters degree upon successful completion of the comprehensive exam.

Studying for and taking the comprehensive exams is a stressful part of the Ph.D. program. Becoming an expert on the research in your field is a laborious process. The time is also completely unstructured such that procrastination is possible and can really hurt your chances of passing if you do not take your study time seriously. Although difficult, the feeling of passing your exams is euphoric. Also, you gain significant confidence in your abilities as a scholar when you pass the exams and know that you are an expert on research in your field.

Dissertation Phase of the Ph.D. Program

The third and final portion of the Ph.D. program is the time spent preparing your dissertation. The process of writing a dissertation has several parts.

After finishing your comprehensive exams, and often times before then, you identify faculty member to serve as your dissertation committee chair. This is usually someone who shares an interest or similar research skill set. This person serves as your mentor through the dissertation process and is incredibly important in helping you develop your academic career.

After selecting a chair, the first part of developing a dissertation is coming up with a research question. This part of the dissertation starts now, that is, you can develop an interesting question to answer at any time and use that for your dissertation. Ideally as you study for your comprehensive exams or work in other classes you create a list of interesting research questions. You then decide, with help and guidance from your chair, to use one of these questions for your dissertation.

After developing an idea, you have to refine the idea to the point that you are ready to pass your dissertation proposal defense. The time required for this depends on how diligently you work on the project and on your university's norms. Some schools required a virtually finished paper at this point, others require a much less refined idea. In getting ready for hte proposal defense you will spend a significant amount of time working with your chair. The proposal defense is a formal meeting where your dissertation committee (several faculty members including your chair) quiz you about your research idea. They are testing to see whether your proposal has merit and if upon completion the work is sufficient to earn a Ph.D. After your presentation and a question and answer period, the committee will vote. A successful vote establishes a contract between you and the university such that if you complete your end of the deal, they will award you your degree. An unsuccessful vote means you will have to continue to refine your idea or select a new idea and go through the process again.

After passing the dissertation proposal defense, you conduct the rest of your research and produce a final copy of your dissertation. You then present this final copy at your dissertation final defense. Again, a committee of faculty examines what you did and questions you about your work. After they finish questioning you, they vote. If they vote in the affirmative, you are awarded a Ph.D. If they vote in the negative, you will be required to rework your dissertation and repeat process.

The time to complete a dissertation varies widely. A dissertation may be completed in a single year or as many as 9 years. The average time to completion is usually 2-3 years.

Working as a Research Assistant

As the name implies, working as a research assistant mean that you assist a professor in conducting research. At the beginning of the semester you are either assigned or select (or some combination of both depending on the program) to work with a professor. The professor will then ask you to help in conducting research. What you do usually depends on (1) what you are capable of doing and (2) the professor's needs. Thus you experience as a research assistant can vary widely.

Examples of different types of activities you may be asked to perform include hand collecting data (e.g., searching press releases for pro forma information for hundreds/thousands of companies), finding previous research that is related to a topic, writing up a summary of previous research on a topic, designing an experiment, conducting statistical tests, writing up final results for a study, or supervising other students in these tasks. As your skill level for research increases, you are usually assigned more important roles in the research process. Depending on who you work with and what you do, you may even be considered to be a coauthor on a project. This should not be expected in most instances, but it is possible.

Working as a Teaching Assistant or Teaching your Own Class

Doctoral students often earn their stipend by teaching or helping to teach classes at the university. The amount of teaching that you are required to perform is usually a function of the research ranking and funding of the school. The more research a school conducts and if the school is private will generally be associated with a lower teaching expectation. You should be aware of the teaching requirements that are expected when you apply to programs. The greater the teaching requirement, the less time you will have available for research.

Often doctoral students teach introductory financial or managerial courses. Occasionally students will teach higher level classes, but even then they are usually still undergraduate courses. It would be very rare for a doctoral student to teach masters courses.

Nitty-Gritty Details

Hours spent studying/working

The amount of work that a doctoral student puts into the program varies by student and by program. However, most students who are still in coursework spend about 60 hours a week (again this varies depending on how hard the student wants to work). After a student finishes their coursework and their comprehensive exams, the student then can work however many/few hours they desire; however, the fewer hours the student works the longer it will take to graduate. During the coursework phase of the dissertation, the student does get Christmas break, spring break, and summer break. These times are great opportunities to relax from the stress of coursework, take vacations, and be with family. However, a break is not like High School breaks. The student usually still has assignments and/or projects to work on during these breaks.

How long do you do it?

To earn an accounting doctoral degree, it takes most students four to five years of dedicated work (i.e., students normally work full time on a Ph.D. and do not have a full or part time side job). The amount of time to get the degree varies based on how hard a student is willing to work, the traditions and beliefs of the university granting the degree, and the rigor of the Ph.D. program. The four or five years usually consists of two to three years of coursework and then whatever time is necessary to write the dissertation (usually one or two years).

Stipend

Usually accounting doctoral students receive a full tuition and fees waiver while working towards completing their degree. They often also receive a stipend in exchange for teaching or being a researching assistant. The stipend can range from $12,000 to $30,000+ depending on the school. The requirements for teaching and being a research assistant also vary widely depending on the school. In general, schools with a greater research reputation pay a higher stipend and require less teaching than schools with a lesser research reputation.

Why not get a Ph.D.?

While we have mentioned many of the positive aspects of earning a Ph.D., there are several costs to this decision that are important to weigh. These can be viewed as red flags that might cause you to second guess going into academics.

In relation to the benefit of flexibility, we mention the curse of flexibility. There is little oversight of the day-to-day, week-to-week, and month-to-month progress you are making in a doctoral program and as a professor. Once coursework is finished, there are few deadlines any it is unlikely that someone is looking over your shoulder telling you what to do. If you are not self motivated and able to work in an unstructured environment, you will struggle in a Ph.D. program and as a professor.

Working with professors

As mentioned above, the doctoral student experience varies vastly from program to program. Some programs place a great emphasis on working with professors from the beginning, while other programs wait until after some foundational coursework is in place to emphasize joint research.

Generally, there are a few principles to remember. First, no good professor will turn down a willing and capable doctoral student with a good idea. While you may be specifically assigned to meet with one professor on a periodic basis, you can be proactive and establish relations with other faculty in that program.

Second, many schools link your stipend to working as a teaching assistant or research assistant. While these positions are more structured and formal opportunities to work with professors, take advantage of informal opportunities as well. Weekly paper presentations are a great way to informally rub shoulders with professors and have the opportunity to start building relationships.

Finally, some professors may give overall guidance on a project but have you do lots of the work. This too can be part of the territory. As a doctoral student, sometimes the only thing you can give is hard work and your time. In general, for a "good" professor, good ideas are not the limitation, rather the limitation is the time in which to execute them. A good doctoral student can effectively add hours to a professor's day.

Working with fellow students

Generally, a PhD program won't accept more than a handful of students in any given year. You will have classes and coursework with these fellow students and also have opportunities in seminars and other settings to work with those at different stages of the program. It is best to view fellow students as colleagues and work together rather than as competitors. You are in this thing together and at the end of the program it won't matter who got the higher grades. There is plenty of room for everyone, so doing your best to work together is greatly advised.

Also, much of your coursework will be with doctoral students from other programs within the business school. While they may not be preparing for your exact research emphasis, they are receiving the same foundational skills as you. Some may initially seem intimidating because of different undergraduate backgrounds, but interaction with them can enhance your doctoral experience. Building strong relationships can also work in cross-disciplinary work. This can be a great break from the regular accounting research and may even provide rich ideas to improve future accounting studies.

External Links

• Grad School Rulz - This a fairly informative blog about some of the most common questions about graduate programs. Information is posted about a specific topic and others are free to comment. Topics include when to quit grad school and find something else, how to write a dissertation, and what are some of the unspoken "rules" in graduate programs.

How to Succeed in a Ph.D. Program

(article contributed by Jason Porter)

Introduction

Success in a Ph.D. program can be broken down into many things, most of which you already know from your work on your undergraduate and masters degrees. The most important element is work, and lots of it. Add to that dedication and perseverance and I think you’ve got the three most important elements for success, especially when you think of success as simply graduating. Other elements might include thinking outside of the box, listening to your instructors, doing your homework and all of the other study skills that you have learned so well by this time in your academic careers.

But success in a Ph.D. program isn’t really measured in terms of simply getting your degree. And, contrary to popular belief, it isn’t really measured in terms of publications or working papers either. True success in a Ph.D. program comes from developing your skills as a researcher and as a teacher. This means both developing the skills to succeed in those areas and developing yourself as an individual, because you can’t succeed in academia without the ability to come up with new ideas and relate to people.

Unfortunately, there is no magic pill you can take that will turn you into a good researcher or a good teacher. It requires lots of work, lots of practice, and lots of mistakes. Even though we don’t like to fail, we learn from our mistakes in ways that no other form of education can teach us. Perhaps that’s why we are born in the first place: to make mistakes in a relatively secure environment so that we can learn and develop. But whether that’s the purpose of life or not, that’s exactly the purpose of a Ph.D. program. You are going to learn a bunch of material and techniques through classes and seminars, and you will have opportunities to practice what you have learned. You’ll make mistakes, lots of them, but that’s okay. Everyone expects Ph.D. students to make mistakes as they slowly learn to do research and to teach. As long as you learn from those mistakes, preferably after only one or two instances, you’re going to eventually succeed, both in the Ph.D. program and in your life as an academic.

With that said, I can’t provide you with a list of all the mistakes you could make and how to avoid them. In all honesty, I wouldn’t provide it even if I could. You wouldn’t get as much from it as actually experiencing it for yourself. What I do want to do, however, if provide you with some ideas for making your life in the Ph.D program easier, to reduce the chances that you will make mistakes that will jeopardize your goal of walking across that stage and being hooded by your advisor.

Ideas for Making your Ph.D. Program Easier

1. Choose the program that is right for you. The first step is choosing which program you should to attend. The articles on What Ph.D. program should I attend? and Am I ready for a PhD Program? And, which program is right for me? provide a number of important ideas to consider when you begin deciding which Ph.D. programs to apply for. I will add, however, one important factor that I think is missing: Make your decision a matter of prayer. Your choice will have important ramifications for you and your family, so you should get a confirmation that your logical choice is what the Lord wants for you. You will have far fewer problems if you start out in a place the Lord has prepared for you, than if you start somewhere else.

2. Study, study, study. Many of us finish up the BYU Ph.D. prep track feeling pretty good about what we have learned. Because of that extra training, it is easy to go into your first set of classes thinking that you already know the material and can coast a little bit as you get started. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. The classes at BYU are undergraduate or master’s level classes; they aren’t at the same level as what you are about to go through. That’s not to imply that they aren’t useful or that they won’t provide you with a good foundation for what you are about to learn, but they are not substitutes for the classes you are about to take. Your program is going to be challenging and rigorous, and you need to hit the ground running. Make it a habit to study right from the very beginning, and you’ll be much better off as you go through that first semester, and certainly as you move on from there.

3. Pass your comprehensive exams on the first round. Many Ph.D. students, including me, have the horrible experience of learning that they have failed all or part of their comprehensive exams. Believe me, horrible doesn’t even begin to describe that initial feeling or the work that came with trying to prepare for a second round of tests. It was humiliating and exhausting, to say the least. So, take the time to study carefully and prepare fully. The article How do I prepare for comprehensive exams? has excellent advice for helping you get through this important test your first time.

That said, if you do mess up, take a deep breath. You can get through it, just like the rest of us did. In retrospect, it was a good experience for me. I think it made me a much more empathetic teacher (since it was my first true academic failure), and it taught me a lot about prayer, inspiration, and humility. I certainly wouldn’t go back and go through it again, but it didn’t end my career either. So, here are some ideas for what to do if you do fail. First, take a few minutes to talk to each of the professors that graded your answers. All of them will give you good advice if you are willing to humble yourself and ask for it. Don’t be confrontational, but be direct and ask good follow-up questions. Second, ask at least one of the senior professors, preferably your chosen advisor or the head of the Ph.D. program, whether the committee was trying to send you a signal about your academic future. Hopefully they will assure that they think you can do it and that you should try again. If not, then it is time to move on. Finally, study like mad! Use the advice the faculty gave you and improve your study techniques and your critical thinking. Try some practice exams, rewrite the questions you failed, read even more extensively than they asked you to read, and create a comprehensive framework that you can jot down when you first walk into that make-up exam. Then you’ll have all the citations you need all ready to go. Make passing the test your top priority, and you’ll be okay.

4. Choose a good advisor. Our first, natural reaction is to choose the faculty member whose research interests most closely match what the type of research we want to do. That’s a good strategy, but don’t rely just on that one factor. Believe it or not, but you will spend the next couple of years completely at the mercy of your advisor. You are going to want someone who’s research interests are similar to yours, but you will also want someone with a personality you can work with. You might want to consider talking to someone he or she is currently working with or has worked with in the past. Get a feel for how they treat their students, if they change their mind every time they talk about something, and if they’ll fight for their students’ rights if necessary. Those are important factors to consider. Similarly, does the faculty member provide his or her students with a topic, or let the students come up with their own topics? Both methods have their pros and cons, which you will want to consider before making your choice.

You might also want to consider your prospective advisor’s research agenda and how many students he or she is currently working with. If your advisor is relatively free, he or she will be able to work with you much more closely, and will provide you with feedback more quickly. Several of my friends ended up spending more time at school than I did because their advisor was simply too busy to provide them with immediate feedback. In contrast, at one point, my advisor and I were turning over dissertation chapters multiple times each day right before graduation because she was willing to give me that much time and attention. Because of her help, I was able to finish up in four years, even with some major setbacks after the first year of working on my dissertation.

5. Get involved in the Church. When my wife and I moved away from BYU, we were a little nervous about getting into a new ward. However, I think my Church service was the best part of my time in the Ph.D. program. We were living away from the center of the Church, and there were lots of opportunities to serve. No matter how bad my week at school was (and I had some REALLY bad days), I was able to recharge as I made time to serve the Lord. Somehow, the Lord made up for the time I was away from home and school, so I was still able to get done everything I needed and to learn and grow in the gospel. Make sure that it’s an important part of your life so that you will get those important blessings.

6. Take time for your family. It is easy to get caught up in the day to day grind of going to school, reading papers, writing down ideas, slogging through data, etc. Add to that a calling, and you have some serious time commitments away from home. But your family life can be your most important anchor as you try to get through school. It can also be a time of enormous growth for you and your eternal companion. The time you spend in your Ph.D. program will be even more successful if you use it to improve your family traditions and relationships. Although you will often feel that you are terribly busy, it is going to get much worse as an assistant professor. Make sure to take the time, while still a student, to devote to your family and to establish traditions that will ensure you still take time once you leave your program and get onto a tenure clock.

7. Let yourself go (a little) crazy. While you are working on your course work in the Ph.D. program, you will feel much like you do now. Classes will come and go, you will work hard, and you will feel like things are progressing along nicely. Then you will pass your comprehensive exams and begin to work on your dissertation. That’s when that wonderful feeling of progress will grind to a crushing halt. That’s not meant to discourage you. However, everyone I’ve ever spoken with had stretches during their dissertation work when they felt that nothing was happening. So be prepared for those feelings.

No matter how much you prepare, however, as the first year rolls by and you realize that you have spent a whole year on something that doesn’t seem to be coming together, you will start to feel just a little frustrated. That’s when it is time to do something a little crazy with your time for a while, if only to recharge your circuits. Let me give you some examples. I had one friend who served as a faculty advisor for his old fraternity. It got him out of the business building and let him counsel and work with younger students. He had great stories about the stupid things they were doing, and that kept him on a more even keel while he worked. Another Ph.D. student I knew got so sick of her dissertation that one night she came up with a plan to make her husband a professional golfer. She lined up sponsors, got a corporate credit card, and got him going. I’m not sure how successful he has been, but it served the purpose of giving her something to do that got her away from her dissertation. As for me, well, I wrote a novel. I started it early in the program as a gift for my wife. Money was tight at Christmas, and my wife is an avid reader. So, I started writing her a story, adding a little more to it each Christmas season. Towards the end of my first year working on my dissertation, however, I sort of snapped. So, I got out the book, and I finished it. I spent more time on it than I should have, but it got me away from my dissertation into something I could control, and that was just what I needed.

The bottom line is that you will find a need, somewhere in the middle of writing and researching your dissertation, to do something else. Let yourself branch out a little bit and do something a little nuts. After a while, you will have recharged your batteries and go back to work. You’ll probably find that you actually work harder and smarter after taking a bit of a break than if you just keep pushing. You’ll also find that you have learned some skills and developed some talents that will help you later on in your career and your life.

8. Learn to teach. Most of the emphasis in your Ph.D. program will be on researching, but that’s not all there is to being an academic. Many students and new faculty think that the tenure decision is made exclusively, or almost exclusively, on publications, but that is not always the case. At many schools, especially those not in the top tier, your abilities in the classroom will also factor heavily into your promotion and tenure decision. This is especially true with the AACSB’s recent focus on teaching quality, assessment, and ‘closing the loop.’ Colleges and departments going up for ‘maintenance of accreditation’ spend a great deal of time worrying about teaching quality, which makes it all the more important for new, untenured faculty to be at least competent in the classroom. On top of the accreditation emphasis, teaching can be very rewarding for new faculty members. Notes from students, good teaching evaluations, or visits from prior students can provide you with the positive feedback you need to deal with the often negative feedback from research (rejections, tough reviewer comments, attacks during presentations, etc.). Positive feedback from teaching provides a fortification against those negative vibes and reinforces our original desire to get into academia in the first place.

Hopefully your chosen Ph.D. program will give you the opportunity to teach several classes while you work on your degree. While this teaching will take away time that you would like to spend on your own studies and work, don’t just write it off as wasted time. Instead, take the time to try out new ideas and skills in the classroom. Since most faculty, and even students, at Ph.D. granting institutions expect Ph.D. students to be mediocre teachers at best, they will be more forgiving of your mistakes than will your department chair and students once you become a professor. Most schools have one or two ‘master teachers,’ teachers that are everyone’s favorite despite the workload in their classes. Once you have identified these powerful teachers (who may or may not be tenure track faculty), try to find a way to learn from them. You can try sitting in on their classes or chatting with them about the problems you are having in your teaching. Most good teachers are happy to help you improve your teaching, especially when they notice that you are implementing the hints they have passed on. That’s the real secret: try what they tell you, go back and tell them how it went, and they will open up even more. It can be a very rewarding relationship that will make a world of difference as you work to become a college instructor yourself.

Be careful not to go too far in your teaching practice, however. Trying a few new things and watching your favorite teachers is a good thing. Spending too much time on teaching can slow you down in the process of completing your degree. You don’t want to do that. Take some time to work on your teaching, but make sure that most of your time and effort continues to go into your studies or your research. Learning to teach as a Ph.D. student is rewarding, but teaching for a real salary (after you have finished your degree) is even more rewarding!

9. Get to know the faculty and other Ph.D students in and outside your program. There are many benefits to getting to know a lot of people. First, you will have a bigger chance to get on a project in progress if you know the people who are already working on it. Second, when it comes to presenting your papers, people you have developed a relationship with will be more willing to give you constructive feedback. Third, people who know you will be more willing to spread good words about you when you hit the job market. Don't be afraid to reach out. The academic community is very small and reputations can spread quickly.

10. Speak up in workshops. Always carrying a good attitude and showing a desire to learn really will get you further than you think. Some international students tend to be more shy and be more quiet during workshop seminars or conferences ( I am no exception), and this is something that they need to work on. A well-rounded Ph.D student is not only hard-working and well-read, but also able to communicate well with others individually and publicly. Trying to be more out-going and participative in workshops or conferences will give people a good impression about you.

11. Beware of plagiarism. Nothing ruins your career faster than cheating or plagiarism. There is only black and white in the world of cheating (you either cheat or didn't), but there tends to be some gray area in plagiarism. Be careful when you are working on a paper or a project for a class. You need to give full credit and cite correctly when ideas are taken from a paper or when they are very similar to the ideas of another paper. This is extremely important and should not be taken lightly. You might also get comments and advice from workshop participants who are helpful in making your second or third draft better. In this case, you must acknowledge their help by noting their names in the paper. You might think the person wouldn’t mind if you omitted their name--think again!

Conclusion

Life as a Ph.D. student is difficult; it is challenging; it is frustrating. But don’t allow that to keep you from trying or from bringing you down once you have begun. The rewards for completing your program are manifold. Not only will you get to teach and do research (both of which you will hopefully learn to enjoy), but you will also have a comfortable lifestyle, a good salary, and a very flexible schedule. In addition, there is nothing that can compare with that wonderful feeling of standing in front of a full auditorium and listening to your name being read while your advisor ‘hoods you’ and welcomes you into the select group of people who have completed their Ph.D.

The ideas and comments in this article are meant to provide you with some ideas to help you get through your program successfully. They aren’t meant to be a comprehensive list; not by a long shot. Anyone who has completed a Ph.D. has a list of those ideas and methods that worked for him or her, and all of those ideas and thoughts are just as valid as the ideas presented here. Everyone takes a slightly different path to successfully complete their Ph.D. program.

And that brings me to my very last bit of advice. You are beginning your Ph.D. program, make it whatever you want it to be. Learn to teach or focus solely on research; learn to do all sorts of research or just focus on the research that most interests you; start a million papers or just do your dissertation. It is your education, so focus on those things you want to get out of it. And then, as you finish up, find a few new Ph.D. students. Take them out to lunch and give them the ideas and the thoughts that worked for you, tell them how much you have learned and tell them not to get discouraged, build them up with all those things you have learned through your blood, sweat, and tears.

Then, enjoy a few minutes to yourself. Put on those fancy robes that you have now earned the right to wear and parade around in front of the mirror, or spend some time looking at that fancy frame with your degree in it. Better yet, introduce yourself to someone as “Dr. _________.” Other than the voices of your spouse and children, the first time you hear someone call you that will probably be the sweetest thing you have ever heard! And when all is said and done, that is success in a Ph.D. program.

Other Useful Tips

This is a question that is asked by every prospective Ph.D. student and there are many sources of advice. The best available advice on the internet is from fields other than accounting, but most of it applies to accounting. A list of helpful links and citations follow:

• Orgtheory.net has 21 blog posts describing "grad school rulz"
• Ngan Dinh, of the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program Vietnam Program of the Harvard School of Government, compiled advice from top economists for young economists
• Getting the Most from Your Doctoral Program: Advice for the Ph.D. Student in Finance, by Frank Alpert and Thomas H. Eyssell, Journal of Financial Education, Fall 1995

For your accounting seminars, two things helped me "excel." First, my classmates and I wrote a review of every paper we had to read and shared these with each other. That way when it was time for comprehensive exams, we did not have to reread every paper, but could reread the reviews. Our reviews followed a what, why, how framework taught by Bill Kinney. What is the research question? Why is it important? and How did the researcher answer the question? One thing I wish I would have done is after each class, I should have added one paragraph to each summary about how this research fits into the "bigger" picture and what are the main takeaways from the paper (understanding the main takeaways is much easier after you have discussed the paper).

The second idea is to volunteer to lead the discussion on the most difficult papers. This forces you to learn these papers and better prepares you for comprehensive exams and research in general. If you don't volunteer to lead the discussion you might be tempted to slack off on a difficult paper. At some point you are going to need to know the paper so by volunteering to lead the discussion you force yourself to learn the paper.

At most Ph.D. programs, students are required to pass at least one comprehensive exam after finishing coursework and before starting the dissertation. This exam usually consists of testing a students knowledge of the literature and of research methodologies. Here are a few suggestions to make passing this exam easier.

• Prepare for the exam during your seminars. For each paper that you read, write a summary of the research question that is being addressed, how the question was addressed, and what are the major findings. This will save you a significant amount of time when you are studying as you will not have to go back and review each paper. After you discuss each paper, update your "what, why, how" to include any major discussion items from class.

• Volunteer to discuss the most difficult papers in each seminar. You are going to have to know the literature and by putting in the time to learn the most difficult papers earlier in the program, you will be better prepared for comps.

• Consider creating or using a framework suggest as the one created by Ted Christensen (see Accounting Research Framework Database). This can help you see the "big picture."

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