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Does the ranking of the university matter for PhD?

A

Hi all,

I'm in the stage whether going a university that the ranking is not high is worth the time. What do you think about this topic?

Thank you

E

Ranking matters but not very much. Ranking matters more when you want to go further in academia. If you work in academia, publications are more important than ranking. If you work outside academia, ranking does not play a great role.
Nevertheless I do not agree with those employers who based their choice solely on ranking and publications but it is how it works in most of the academia world.

J

What is the university like with respect to your particular chosen field? That's an important question, notwithstanding that there often is bias in terms of valuing ranking, especially as eng says in academic appointments.

A

Quote From Jamie_Wizard:
What is the university like with respect to your particular chosen field? That's an important question, notwithstanding that there often is bias in terms of valuing ranking, especially as eng says in academic appointments.



I want to go to the Computer Science sector of research. I was told for this area, ranking is not really an issue for both academia and industry.

A

Quote From eng77:
Ranking matters but not very much. Ranking matters more when you want to go further in academia. If you work in academia, publications are more important than ranking. If you work outside academia, ranking does not play a great role.
Nevertheless I do not agree with those employers who based their choice solely on ranking and publications but it is how it works in most of the academia world.


I'm in the situation that I've got a scholarship to a PhD at a university that is OK. Not great but not bad as well. What do you think if one is in this situation?

P

You need to be thinking about the quality of the research and the reputation of your group rather than wasting time on nonsense such as university rankings. After that, you need to be thinking about producing great papers and networking. Honestly, obsessing over rankings is a waste of time and energy unless you are talking about Cambridge or Oxford.

I have worked alongside people in permanent academic posts who went to ex- polytech unis and people from Russell Group unis who can't get out of post doc hell.

There is a lot of snobbery about these institutes but it's all bullshit and in my experience it's largely coming from students who went there. Please don't allow yourself to be distracted by this sort of thing.

A

Quote From pm133:
You need to be thinking about the quality of the research and the reputation of your group rather than wasting time on nonsense such as university rankings. After that, you need to be thinking about producing great papers and networking. Honestly, obsessing over rankings is a waste of time and energy unless you are talking about Cambridge or Oxford.

I have worked alongside people in permanent academic posts who went to ex- polytech unis and people from Russell Group unis who can't get out of post doc hell.

There is a lot of snobbery about these institutes but it's all bullshit and in my experience it's largely coming from students who went there. Please don't allow yourself to be distracted by this sort of thing.


Thank you for your experience, it sounds you know a lot about this idea of PhD. I guess I should focus on the research itself.

P

You are welcome.
I would also advise you that if you are worried about this, start researching into how to progress your career beyond the PhD as soon as possible. There's lots of things you can do to improve your chances of getting a permanent position such as organising conferences, doing outreach work with school kids, offering to help with the administration tasks within the department, marking class tests, tutorials etc. You cannot start this type of thing too early. Start talking to people who actually have permanent jobs for further advice and be wary of those who have not yet secured permanent employment (including myself by the way :-D because beyond this advice I can't help you further ).
You'll be surrounded by others who will talk incessantly about impact factors and league tables. Leave them to it. That would be my advice.

T

Good advice pm123. I have a permanent academic post but I tend to see the route in is different for each discipline. The universal feature though is teaching experience and good publications. So don’t really focus on ranking of the uni. Focus on the supervisor, pick a good examiner (they can help) and teach where possible but also get some publications from your work.

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