Haven't been on the board for a while, but now my daughter, 21, is graduating with her masters and going on for a PhD, I thought I would make a post about the current environment for graduate studies with all the funding cuts.
First, I thought my daughter would go to Harvard, since her father was class of 80. But he died when she turned 8, stopped donating and that counts when you are not donating. She ended up at USC and it was the best thing. She is into ocean stuff. So right off the bat, she gets a job at the Museum of Natural History, across the street from USC, doing marine classification. And she gets a work study job in a chemical oceanography, working for a top oceanographer. She does both for 2 years. She dives so then dives and does research for a professor at Wrigley. Publishes a first author paper on kelp bass in her 3rd year. She actually graduates in 3. But stays another year for her masters. She attends COP30 virtually, she publishes more papers. She has a TA job and was a guest lecturer. It takes all of that to be competitive for a PhD. And she wouldn't have had that without USC. Which was great for her program. And I think particurlarly great for aerospace engineering. These kinds of opportunities were specific to USC and when choosing a college, it is important to align what your kid wants to do with a school and extracurricular options that enhance the educational CV.
Had a soft admit for PhD from MIT last year, then the DOGE cuts. The professor that had funding for a PhD student, suddenly did not. So USC allows her to stay another year and gets her masters -- which she finds out is critical for overseas PhD applications. She is also a dual citizen, Canada and US. She applied to China, Australia, Taiwan, Europe, here and Canada. Professors here said that they did not know if they had funding for themselves, let alone a PhD student. Australia funding was difficult. I made her take Mandarin since she was 5, so China and Taiwan were options, but not first choices. She got into UBC, which is tops for her ocean stuff.
But it was really difficult. Funding is tight everywhere. Europe is tightening. And because of increased military spending in Europe, they have tightened up. Getting into a PhD program now is like winning the lottery. You have to build a connection with a professor who can get funding.
In addition, she got a summer internship with WWF in DC. Highly competitive. So Harvard was not her best option. And if her father had not died, she might have gone there. But it wasn't the right place.
And I am glad she has a field that is not business (i worked on Wall St for over 25 years) and in school while the world is going crazy. She is using Claude for her masters thesis, saying it saves her over 100 man hours in statistical and economic research. Her PhD will use AI in the same way, building a system for fisheries data. I think of all the business jobs that will disappear within a few years. She integrated AI into her thesis since I said that is the only way to get a job when she finishes in 4 years.
Anyway, I just wanted to post her experience with college and PhD applications in the current environment.
