Does it matter what college you get your PH.D from ?

johnny711

Hey folks
I'm in a bit of a dilemma at the minute, I'm a final year student in DIT studying chemistry, I have been offered a PhD in analytical chemistry, GCMS to specific, from a lecturer in DIT and I'd be interested in accepting it. I just have a few questions
1) will a phd in analytical chem be beneficial ?
I've been told by a few other people that it isn't worth it, but then again on work placement I noticed that the vast majority of analytical staff had PhDs
2) Does it matter where you get your PhD ?
I know your supervisor is the deciding factor but I was wondering are there any particular universities or institutes that have a good reputation in analytical chemistry. I only ask this because I believe a uni or Institute with a good reputation would have a good number of staff from well known in the area.

Any help or answers would be appreciated. Thanks

djpbarry

johnny711 wrote: »

1) will a phd in analytical chem be beneficial ?

It depends - do you want to work in research?

johnny711 wrote: »

2) Does it matter where you get your PhD ?
I know your supervisor is the deciding factor but I was wondering are there any particular universities or institutes that have a good reputation in analytical chemistry. I only ask this because I believe a uni or Institute with a good reputation would have a good number of staff from well known in the area.

Again, it depends. If, for example, you're planning on doing a PostDoc after your PhD, the first thing your prospective PostDoc supervisor will look at (apart from your publication record) is where you did your PhD to see if they know anyone there.

But, the most important factor in your decision should be your supervisor - a good PhD supervisor is worth their weight in gold. They will make sure you publish appropriately and that should open plenty of doors for you.

To give you some perspective, after doing my undergrad at UCD (engineering), I did my PhD at DIT (biotech). I was my supervisor's first PhD student, but he made sure we published little and often. So, by the time my viva came around, I had three papers under my belt. None were in huge journals, but all were respectable. In the year or two after I finished, we got another couple of papers out of the thesis, so all-in-all it was pretty productive. I did my post-doc (cell biology) at a pretty high-profile institute in London, even though most of the staff there have probably never heard of DIT and they certainly had no idea who my PhD supervisor was. I was probably helped by the fact that my skill-set is slightly unique, but the point is that, in my case, having an excellent PhD supervisor was ultimately far more important than the international reputation of DIT.

dory

I wouldn't worry too much about where - publishing seems to be more important. And as has been said, it all depends on where you want to do it from. I know one IT that seems to have a policy of hiring its PhDs for teaching posts. It's a small IT that others may look down upon but its doing well!

hughie1989

As above, I don't think it really matters where. There are many other more important factors to consider (e.g. funding NB!!!). The only thing I would say in OP's case is it might be better to go elsewhere from a personnel development perspective. It might look better on your CV when it comes to getting that job interview in a few years. Having studied at three different third level institutions myself (DIT included), I think that it does make a difference.

Deep_learning

It depends on what you want to do afterwards.

Chemistry is very competitive. It is far more common for chemistry graduates to pursue a PhD than engineering graduates. If you want to pursue a career in research, where you do your PhD can make a huge difference to the opportunities available to you. You will be competing with PhD graduates from here and abroad and the profile and reputation of where you did your PhD could be a critical factor in whether you are interviewed or offered a position.

This would be less of a concern if you were doing a PhD in engineering.