Do people habitually overrun their PhD funding because of some aspect of human nature - by which I mean you know you have X months to produce a thesis and human nature just means that however large X is, it will take most people X+12 months? or is it actually extra difficult to do a PhD level project in 3 years and we should be habitually looking at 4 years' funding.
My instinct is that for any X between, I don't know, 24 and 1200 months the first is the answer and the problem is requiring people to single-handedly produce this substantial multi-year research project in a way they will never approach again right at the start of their career, rather than having some kind of sensible career structure which involves building up from junior roles in well-defined research projects to senior roles devising and running research projects (with, incidentally, no real need for some further qualification or, if we must have the extra qualification, then allowing submission by papers more universally). Not that I'm volunteering to completely rework the academic career structure from ground up according to what I think is sensible because I can't see any way that would work out well, even if someone would let me.
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Date: 2020-02-04 09:39 pm (UTC)Do people habitually overrun their PhD funding because of some aspect of human nature - by which I mean you know you have X months to produce a thesis and human nature just means that however large X is, it will take most people X+12 months? or is it actually extra difficult to do a PhD level project in 3 years and we should be habitually looking at 4 years' funding.
My instinct is that for any X between, I don't know, 24 and 1200 months the first is the answer and the problem is requiring people to single-handedly produce this substantial multi-year research project in a way they will never approach again right at the start of their career, rather than having some kind of sensible career structure which involves building up from junior roles in well-defined research projects to senior roles devising and running research projects (with, incidentally, no real need for some further qualification or, if we must have the extra qualification, then allowing submission by papers more universally). Not that I'm volunteering to completely rework the academic career structure from ground up according to what I think is sensible because I can't see any way that would work out well, even if someone would let me.