Grad students vary in their research autonomy. Some students are very willing to ask for advice and to listen to it carefully, while others put a high priority on generating and pursuing their own research ideas their own way. This varies with personality, in that more independent people pick more independent strategies. It varies over time, in that students tend to start out deferring at first, and then later in their career switch to making more independent choices. It also varies by topic; students defer more in more technical topics, and where topic choices need more supporting infrastructure, such as with lab experiments. It also varies by level of abstraction; students defer more on how to pursue a project than on which project ideas to pursue.
Arnold Kling's "Genghis Khan" view of academia can explain this very easily.
The more you defer to your advisor, the more you are setting yourself up for a life of following in that person's footsteps. That's a tempting proposition if you work for Ghenghis Khan himself. If you are working for some podunk nobody, though, then it's less tempting, and you are more tempted to swing for the fences and hope to make it big later on.
It also matters on a day to day basis with your involvement with other people. When you align with Genghis Khan, you will walk through life having everyone bow to the things you say except for a few weirdo outcasts. If you align with a nobody, it's just the opposite; everyone including Genghis's tribe will be throwing rotten tomatoes at you, much like if you identify as libertarian or as a gold bug.
To what extent is it possible that this same dynamic applies to professors? Those at lower-ranked schools could also perceive themselves as erroneously assigned low status, and thus perceive a larger difference between the deference owed to their advice and the deference it receives.
It's possible to be overly conscientious (for a given role). Graduate students at elite schools are highly conscientious. (Professors cloning themselves need conscientious students.) But (my guess) the most productive scholars are less conscientious; intellectual progress requires rule breaking.
It would seem that the requirements for the Peter Principle are in place.
Yes, as I was writing it I was wondering if "conscientious" perfectly captured what I meant. I do think you can be conscientious and not have this "climbing" quality, absolutely.
Robin is reporting a discontinuity he observes (although it takes a fairly close reading to discover this). The discontinuity is between students at top schools and those at all the others.
The answer to the puzzle is that there does exist an unexpected discontinuity--in the academic job opportunities available.
The solution (however simple it is) tends to validate Robin's puzzlement.
I don't know if this continues to be the case but, in my experience, at a prestigious department students were hired as research assistants and required to work on their major professors' research projects. Students were pretty much assigned to major professors and expected to stay with them as long as the professor would have them, all the way to the Ph.D. Your Ph.D. topic will relate to your major professor's projects. [This is pretty intolerable at an idealistic young age if you lack interest in the subject matter, agreement with the premises, or confidence in the methodolgy.] The expectation is that you are pursuing a career, not (at this stage) any specific intellectual interest. [This seems what Robin expects.] In some ways it struck me as an anti-intellectual environment.
At nonprestigious departments, the funding just isn't available to secure this conformity.
As to the academics' motivation in giving advice, I take it from Robin that the overarching drive of academics is to clone themselves (to certify their intellectual power, the basic function of academic scholarship). Other reasons are mostly rationalization.
I think you're on to something. Let's say that following prof advice tends to be good for your application once you go on the market. Who will be most likely to take that advice? Someone who is really into cultivating an impressive job application, and willing to let other considerations take a back seat. And what grad students got into the top programs? The ones who did whatever needed to be done to assemble impressive applications. It's no wonder that the dispositions which got them there don't disappear.
My only quibble is with your word "consciencious" to describe this sort of person. One could also describe him or her as a climber. In medicine, they are called "gunners". But anyway, I think that such people tend to concentrate in the top departments. Often, they also have extraordinary talent, but even if they do, the talent played a much smaller role in getting them into the top program than did their gunnerish dispositions.
I suppose it matters *why* advisors assign research topics to grad students. One reason is to try to maximize the student's marketability (which also contributes to the department's reputation). Another reason could be to accelerate the genuine progress of the discipline. A third might be to recruit the student to the advisor's side in a disciplinary war, or to use the student's work as a proxy in such a war.
I have a feeling that the first reason is most common, the third is not rare, and the second reason is almost never used. I imagine that reasons 2 and 3 would come up as often in middling departments as in the top ones, but not reason 1. That's because the faculty of top departments are also the editors of the top journals, atendees of the top conferences, and generally have advanced notice on what sort of research is about to blow up. In many cases, they're *making* the hot stuff hot. So maybe students at top programs benefit more from letting advisors assign research topics, because the advice they receive is likely to be better than what they would get in a middling program. They either get better cottails to ride, or they have an insider scoop on some bombshell articles destined to appear in the Autumn edition of some fancy journal. If your advisor tells you "anything with the word 'blahblahition' in the title will be auto-published in a top-10 journal if they receive the article by April" then you'd be a fool to not start writing about blahblahition today!
A willingness to defer may help students get into top schools. Crummy sample size, but of the people I knew in undergrad (small liberal arts school), those most likely to go on to grad school tended to spend a nontrivial amount of energy cultivating friendships with professors, which could make them more attractive candidates for better PhD programs by providing (i) greater understanding of the subject matter, (ii) better rec letters, and (iii) better grades. As far as I can tell, the interest in the subject matter was genuine, but to a degree there was a sense among these students that they were "winning the game." Being on good terms with your professors also promoted a willingness to defer to their positions - a student who knew a professor's life work was spent arguing for Position A would know never to attack Position A, or at least not attack Position A too strongly or passionately - and of course their grade would be better if they defended Position A. It's plausible that the habit of cultivating likeability and deferring to professors in undergrad, which would tend to make students able to get into a better school, would lead to a willingness to cultivate likeability with well-connected professors in grad school, and hence defer to their guidance and research interests.
I also agree that, even lacking the above tendency, students would be more likely to defer to the higher quality (or at least higher status) professors at top-tier schools. If someone is a leader in the field, someone who you admire, have read before, and want to emulate, you're more likely to think they have more to teach you and are more worth listening to than someone you admire less and may resent having to study under instead of a top-tier professor.
I would think it more a matter of knowing their own interests and expecting less support from their professors, though it may be they feel can can demand more at top schools, whether they can get it or not.
People who get into top schools do so in large part because they are conscientious. This means that they are always paying attention to what they are "supposed" to be doing - before, during, and after grad-school. Top graduate programs select for conscientiousness, not original thinking.
I'm surprised that you seem to have contempt for people who follow their own hunches. Of course it's a riskier strategy on the individual level, but most of the good things that we have today came from lucky pioneers.
Cynically: Top departments trade obeisance for job opportunities. In the absence of job opportunities, you have nothing to offer as incentive for cloneship.
[Except, perhaps, a learning experience. Do students master a discipline better by pursuing their own ideas or by following their advisors? Robin says early graduate students aren't ready to pursue their own ideas, but ready for what? Ready to learn by so doing or ready to contribute to the literature? What's the relationship between the two?]
fwiw, my observations derive from Social Psychology at UW Madison circe 1970 (top 15 at the time); Psychology at University of South Carolina (circe 1970s and very mediocre); University of Alberta Department of Psychology, late 70s); and the reported observations of a philosophy professor at University of S.C. (now at a top tier department) who graduated from Stanford. [His impression, which is no doubt worth more than mine, though not necessarily more than yours is that the smartest students chose nonconforming projects to signal their intelligence.]
Perhaps there's a distinction in disciplines. If you're smart and in economics or physics, it seems easier to show it while remaining on the beaten track than in psychology or philosophy.
Arnold Kling's "Genghis Khan" view of academia can explain this very easily.
The more you defer to your advisor, the more you are setting yourself up for a life of following in that person's footsteps. That's a tempting proposition if you work for Ghenghis Khan himself. If you are working for some podunk nobody, though, then it's less tempting, and you are more tempted to swing for the fences and hope to make it big later on.
It also matters on a day to day basis with your involvement with other people. When you align with Genghis Khan, you will walk through life having everyone bow to the things you say except for a few weirdo outcasts. If you align with a nobody, it's just the opposite; everyone including Genghis's tribe will be throwing rotten tomatoes at you, much like if you identify as libertarian or as a gold bug.
To what extent is it possible that this same dynamic applies to professors? Those at lower-ranked schools could also perceive themselves as erroneously assigned low status, and thus perceive a larger difference between the deference owed to their advice and the deference it receives.
It's possible, but is it likely?
It's possible to be overly conscientious (for a given role). Graduate students at elite schools are highly conscientious. (Professors cloning themselves need conscientious students.) But (my guess) the most productive scholars are less conscientious; intellectual progress requires rule breaking.
It would seem that the requirements for the Peter Principle are in place.
Yes, as I was writing it I was wondering if "conscientious" perfectly captured what I meant. I do think you can be conscientious and not have this "climbing" quality, absolutely.
Why expect sudden discontinuities?
Robin is reporting a discontinuity he observes (although it takes a fairly close reading to discover this). The discontinuity is between students at top schools and those at all the others.
The answer to the puzzle is that there does exist an unexpected discontinuity--in the academic job opportunities available.
The solution (however simple it is) tends to validate Robin's puzzlement.
[I agree with the thrust of your other point.]
I don't know if this continues to be the case but, in my experience, at a prestigious department students were hired as research assistants and required to work on their major professors' research projects. Students were pretty much assigned to major professors and expected to stay with them as long as the professor would have them, all the way to the Ph.D. Your Ph.D. topic will relate to your major professor's projects. [This is pretty intolerable at an idealistic young age if you lack interest in the subject matter, agreement with the premises, or confidence in the methodolgy.] The expectation is that you are pursuing a career, not (at this stage) any specific intellectual interest. [This seems what Robin expects.] In some ways it struck me as an anti-intellectual environment.
At nonprestigious departments, the funding just isn't available to secure this conformity.
As to the academics' motivation in giving advice, I take it from Robin that the overarching drive of academics is to clone themselves (to certify their intellectual power, the basic function of academic scholarship). Other reasons are mostly rationalization.
I think you're on to something. Let's say that following prof advice tends to be good for your application once you go on the market. Who will be most likely to take that advice? Someone who is really into cultivating an impressive job application, and willing to let other considerations take a back seat. And what grad students got into the top programs? The ones who did whatever needed to be done to assemble impressive applications. It's no wonder that the dispositions which got them there don't disappear.
My only quibble is with your word "consciencious" to describe this sort of person. One could also describe him or her as a climber. In medicine, they are called "gunners". But anyway, I think that such people tend to concentrate in the top departments. Often, they also have extraordinary talent, but even if they do, the talent played a much smaller role in getting them into the top program than did their gunnerish dispositions.
I suppose it matters *why* advisors assign research topics to grad students. One reason is to try to maximize the student's marketability (which also contributes to the department's reputation). Another reason could be to accelerate the genuine progress of the discipline. A third might be to recruit the student to the advisor's side in a disciplinary war, or to use the student's work as a proxy in such a war.
I have a feeling that the first reason is most common, the third is not rare, and the second reason is almost never used. I imagine that reasons 2 and 3 would come up as often in middling departments as in the top ones, but not reason 1. That's because the faculty of top departments are also the editors of the top journals, atendees of the top conferences, and generally have advanced notice on what sort of research is about to blow up. In many cases, they're *making* the hot stuff hot. So maybe students at top programs benefit more from letting advisors assign research topics, because the advice they receive is likely to be better than what they would get in a middling program. They either get better cottails to ride, or they have an insider scoop on some bombshell articles destined to appear in the Autumn edition of some fancy journal. If your advisor tells you "anything with the word 'blahblahition' in the title will be auto-published in a top-10 journal if they receive the article by April" then you'd be a fool to not start writing about blahblahition today!
nit: adverse -> averse
A willingness to defer may help students get into top schools. Crummy sample size, but of the people I knew in undergrad (small liberal arts school), those most likely to go on to grad school tended to spend a nontrivial amount of energy cultivating friendships with professors, which could make them more attractive candidates for better PhD programs by providing (i) greater understanding of the subject matter, (ii) better rec letters, and (iii) better grades. As far as I can tell, the interest in the subject matter was genuine, but to a degree there was a sense among these students that they were "winning the game." Being on good terms with your professors also promoted a willingness to defer to their positions - a student who knew a professor's life work was spent arguing for Position A would know never to attack Position A, or at least not attack Position A too strongly or passionately - and of course their grade would be better if they defended Position A. It's plausible that the habit of cultivating likeability and deferring to professors in undergrad, which would tend to make students able to get into a better school, would lead to a willingness to cultivate likeability with well-connected professors in grad school, and hence defer to their guidance and research interests.
I also agree that, even lacking the above tendency, students would be more likely to defer to the higher quality (or at least higher status) professors at top-tier schools. If someone is a leader in the field, someone who you admire, have read before, and want to emulate, you're more likely to think they have more to teach you and are more worth listening to than someone you admire less and may resent having to study under instead of a top-tier professor.
I would think it more a matter of knowing their own interests and expecting less support from their professors, though it may be they feel can can demand more at top schools, whether they can get it or not.
People who get into top schools do so in large part because they are conscientious. This means that they are always paying attention to what they are "supposed" to be doing - before, during, and after grad-school. Top graduate programs select for conscientiousness, not original thinking.
I'm surprised that you seem to have contempt for people who follow their own hunches. Of course it's a riskier strategy on the individual level, but most of the good things that we have today came from lucky pioneers.
I was a bit incredulous about the pollution bit.
But the economics dept. at George Mason probably attracts independent-minded students.
Cynically: Top departments trade obeisance for job opportunities. In the absence of job opportunities, you have nothing to offer as incentive for cloneship.
[Except, perhaps, a learning experience. Do students master a discipline better by pursuing their own ideas or by following their advisors? Robin says early graduate students aren't ready to pursue their own ideas, but ready for what? Ready to learn by so doing or ready to contribute to the literature? What's the relationship between the two?]
One can see how independent-minded students would be exasperating to academics seeking to clone themselves.
[Added.] Can't resist wondering: Is the drive to clone oneself professionally correlated with the drive to clone oneself physically (by cryonics)?
fwiw, my observations derive from Social Psychology at UW Madison circe 1970 (top 15 at the time); Psychology at University of South Carolina (circe 1970s and very mediocre); University of Alberta Department of Psychology, late 70s); and the reported observations of a philosophy professor at University of S.C. (now at a top tier department) who graduated from Stanford. [His impression, which is no doubt worth more than mine, though not necessarily more than yours is that the smartest students chose nonconforming projects to signal their intelligence.]
Perhaps there's a distinction in disciplines. If you're smart and in economics or physics, it seems easier to show it while remaining on the beaten track than in psychology or philosophy.