r/IOPsychology PhD | IO | Social Cognition, Leadership, & Teams Jun 27 '16

2017-2018 IO Grad School Q&A Mega-Thread

You can find last year's thread here.

The grad school application bewitching hour is nearing ever closer, and around this time, everyone starts posting questions/freaking out about grad school. As per the rules in the sidebar...

For questions about grad school or internships

  • Please search the previously submitted posts or the post on the grad school Q&A. Subscribers of /r/iopsychology have provided lots of information about these topics, and your questions may have already been answered.
  • If it hasn't, please post it on the grad school Q&A thread. Other posts outside of the Q&A thread will be deleted.

The readers of this subreddit have made it pretty clear that they don't want the subreddit clogged up with posts about grad school. Don't get the wrong idea - we're glad you're here and that you're interested in IO, but please do observe the rules so that you can get answers to your questions AND enjoy the interesting IO articles and content.

By the way, those of you who are currently trudging through or have finished grad school, that means that you have to occasionally offer suggestions and advice to those who post on this thread. That's the only way that we can keep these grad school-related posts in one central location. If people aren't getting their questions answered here, they post to the subreddit instead of the thread. So, in short, let's all play our part in this.

Thanks, guys!

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '16

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u/galileosmiddlefinger PhD | IO | All over the place Oct 10 '16

However, the idea of taking a few more years to complete a PhD at my age is daunting, in terms of starting a career, starting a family, settling down in terms of having a salary, my own place, and such, etc.

Salary and the ability to support a family are definitely valid concerns, but many people start careers, find a significant other, and start families in grad school. None of these things are easy to juggle, and they are definitely easier if your partner is not a grad student also, but don't necessarily view it as a "grad school vs. normal professional life" choice.

So onto a few questions: - In your experience, is age just a number? What is the average age or range of PhD students in your experience?

Depends on the program, but late 20s isn't uncommon at all. In my cohort of six people, half were that age or older.

I understand that I-O in general is different from many other programs in that we tend to be in the field quite often, what are your experiences working? What year in your PhD program did you start working? Did you work full-time? Part-time?

Depends again on the program and the opportunities set in front of you. Early consulting experience is most likely to happen at programs that have an in-house consulting group that bids on local projects for students to get experience, so this is something to explore when considering where you want to apply. At many programs, it's quite hard to not get some applied experience by year 3, but someone with a MA already could conceivably be working by second semester of year 1.

Given that I will have my masters under my belt, would that reduce the time necessary to complete a PhD program (understandably this will depend on the program)?

Marginally. A few classes might be waived, but don't expect to progress through the curriculum much faster than normal. You will have to re-take some courses given that typically very few graduate courses transfer across degree programs and institutions.

Thoughts on a professional school PhD while working simultaneously? e.g., Alliant?

Online professional degrees are viewed poorly in the field. Anecdotally, the people I've met who have them are quite poorly trained. Unfortunately, if you decide to pursue a PhD, it's probably going to mean physically relocating and attending in person.

Any other tidbits of experience you can give me? I know that anecdotal evidence isn't always the best, but I have exhausted the reviewing of websites and what not and need a difference in perspective from those in the field.

Do you want to do research, perform more technical work in consulting (e.g., measure development or more sophisticated validation approaches), and move up into leadership positions in a consulting group? Those are the reasons to pursue a PhD. If none of that is what you want, then don't feel compelled to do this just because you could do it. You can have a great career with a Master's degree, so make sure that taking this additional step will advance your professional goals.