Dr. Shellie

Made it to New City– we have been unpacking and organizing the house. I also dropped by campus to see my office and lab.

I had been thinking of upgrading my wardrobe so that people would not think I was a student. Now I realize it is futile. On Monday I put on my most respectable outfit and did some errands on campus. The bank teller asked me if I was ready for classes (and no, she did not mean to teach them!) and a person I asked for directions asked if I had just moved here to study (from which I conclude that I look like a young graduate student and/or freshman).

So, either a) I look very young, regardless of outfit, or b) my idea of "respectable outfit" makes me look like a 21-year old. Oh well. I guess I’ll do as the bank teller said, and be happy that I "have good skin."

On the flip side, one of the graduate students in my department who I bumped into said, "Hi, Professor!" when he saw me. So that was fun.

I thought this was an obvious point. But maybe it is not: A tenure rate of less than 50% is not attractive.

Suppose you are 30-something years old, and have moved all over the country and/or world for your career already, having done undergrad, masters, PhD, and postdoc in different locations. Would you rather go to a university where your colleagues expect you to get tenure and will support you in getting there, and the assumption is that unless something goes pretty wrong, you’ll be able to stick around after the first 5-6 years? Where you could maybe buy a house and expect to keep it for a while? Or would you rather go to a university where on average, only 50% of professors get tenure? That’s a one in two chance of getting kicked out.

Some people will always go for the more prestigious university, even if the tenure rate is low. Those universities can offer concrete (if potentially temporary) advantages. But I think that many (in particular, women and two-career couples) who would rather not be subjected to yet another high-stakes "testing" process at this stage of their lives, with the possible downside being  another job search, period of uncertainty, and possible cross-country move five years later.

An amazing thing happened last weekend. I was in the shoe store, hunting for work shoes. It was the type of shoe store where they pay great attention to measuring your feet and describe to you in detail the technical construction of each shoe. All the shoes are ergonomically correct. I tried on a pair of suede sneakers.

"Not right," I said. "These ones don’t make me look older."

A gray-haired woman sitting nearby laughed. "Maybe you could dye your hair gray!" she said.

Another customer asked why I was trying to look older– was it for my job? "That’s right," I said. "I’m trying to look more like a professor."

"Oh, are you a professor?" asked the gray-haired woman. "So am I."

I explained that I was almost a professor, starting in the fall. We started to chat. She told me her name. I realized that she was actually a Very Important Female Professor, someone whose name I knew, who I had read about several times in our university newspaper. She showed me the shoes she was trying on.

"I’m trying to look more authoritative," she said. I found it funny (and somehow comforting) that Very Important Female Professor had exactly the same goals for her shoes as I did. We went about buying our shoes, and chatted some more. On the way out, she paused. "Email me if you want to have lunch some time," she said.

So I did.

Yesterday, I finished selecting students to admit to my group for next year and made several offers. One of the students who I had not admitted emailed me to ask about the status of his application. I told him I would not have room in the group for him, and referred him to a male colleague of mine at another university who was looking for students.

My colleague later thanked me for the referral and sent me the CV of a different student that I might be interested in. The student was a female with an undergraduate degree, as opposed to a having a masters degree already. As he put it, he was unlikely to admit a female undergraduate student and thought she might be better suited for my group, since I was also female.

This struck me as a little odd, so I inquired for details. Was he unlikely to admit female students in general? He explained that he found female students (myself excluded) very timid and not very tough. As a PhD student, he had worked with a female student who reacted very badly to his criticism and left the group. So he did not think he would advise any female students, at least not any time soon.

On the one hand, I thought this was terribly unfair, since his attitude will reduce the chances of women being admitted to his department. More generally, if enough men think like him, it will be very difficult to increase the number of women in the field. On the other hand, I agree with him that he would probably make a poor advisor of female graduate students, and would not recommend female students to work with him.

I have received five inquiries from prospective PhD students from Bangladesh. These emails are not making a positive impression. Please keep the following points in mind:

1. I am not a man. Beginning your email with "Dear Sir" is not advised. Perhaps you do not have any female engineering professors in your university. Perhaps you have never heard of a female engineering professor and the possibility of their existence has just not occurred to you. This is understandable. However, be advised that there are a number of female engineering professors in the US. Starting your email with "Dear Sir" is likely to annoy roughly 1 out of 10 US professors, as they will in fact be female. "Dear Sir or Madam" is not a large improvement, as we rarely use this form of address in American English. The correct form of address is "Dear Professor (Last Name)".
2. Sending email to every single professor at my university/in the US is unlikely to help. I receive many emails from students who have relevant undergraduate backgrounds in my subject area and related research experience at the undergraduate or masters level. I read these emails with interest. In contrast, a vague email indicating that you are a student in my general discipline and want to do a PhD, without any indication that you are interested in my specific field or are familiar with my research, is not likely to get my attention. Worst of all is to say that you want to do a PhD in "soil mechanics, biomedical engineering, or VLSI design," as these are in three completely different departments and make it sound like you are desperate to do a PhD in anything at all. If you want your email to be read carefully, you must make a convincing case for why the person you are writing should specifically be interested in your background and qualifications, as they relate to that professor’s research. For example, on my faculty web page under "Information for Prospective Students", I have outlined what prior education, skills, and experience are relevant to my research program.
3. Try to build connections. If no one from your university has ever gone to study in the US, you may need to improve your connections. Consider doing a masters degree first. See if you can find a university in your country or region that will take you for a masters degree, and also has good connections with the US. For example, some foreign universities have summer internship or exchange programs with US universities, or have faculty who have studied in the US, Canada, or Europe. Your chance of getting into a PhD program from such a university will be much higher than if you are coming from an "unknown" (to US professors) university.
4. Good luck. I appreciate your effort to build your career and life opportunities. But please, no more spam!