doing a thesis based masters vs. a course based/professional one

[anon1234]

hi guys

 

i want to go to grad school and i am in my 4th year now. i am debating which type of masters i should go for. i currently work at a lab, i did a summer project in the same lab and am doing a work study there now. my supervisor is really nice and i have known him for about a year or so now. his work is in the field of genetics......i have not approached him to ask if he would be willing to take me in his lab as a grad student just yet.

 

 

one of my very knowledgable profs said that it was good if i was this profs MSc student, but that my grad work would be valuable if i was able to have a first author paper or two.....that this would be valuable for the U of T grad review policy.

 

now i went to discuss this with the PhD student in my lab and asked him what he thought - since he's been with our prof for about 5 years now. he kept telling me (and has done so on prior occasions too) that i should just try to get into some kind of a professional MSc degree, because suppose i do an MSc in genetics, and still do not make it to med school - what would i do next?

 

my answer to this was that i would try again, because i have my mind made up that i want to do medicine. i do not want to do physiotherapy etc because i don't ever plan on working as a physiotherapist. i would finish that, MAYBE work on year or two but then i would still apply to med school....so is it worth it? i could use those 2 years to do research and maybe find something good? then again there is the payoff of having an MSc but no admittance to med school which is quite possible!

 

so what i am trying to say here is: i need to do a masters.......and i'm confused about what is better - a research based masters, or a professional type MSC, keeping in mind that in the long run, i definitely plan on going to med school at some point in my life, even if it is not in canada!

 

could someone please guide me? my prof says that the research based one is good, however the PhD student in the same lab tells me not to do this. i asked him how many first author papers he had in his PhD and he said "none".

 

so what should i do? if i do decide to do the research based one, should i be working with a prof who has a PhD student who didnt even have a single first author publication? of course it might just be the PhD student. but i don't think i'm so much better than him, if it can happen to him, it can happen to me.....he's been there 5 years and i will be there for 2, so i really need to consider if i really would be able to publish something!

 

would it be better to try and find another supervisor? i do like my prof a lot but i'm just a bit concerned.

 

 

thanks for all the help guys.

[rmorelan]

Hi there! I know it is back tracking a bit, but I will ask any way - why do you feel that you NEED to do a Masters at all? What is currently in your opinion limiting your ability to get into Med school?

 

That will help with the discussion of which stream might be best

[anon1234]

Hi there! I know it is back tracking a bit, but I will ask any way - why do you feel that you NEED to do a Masters at all? What is currently in your opinion limiting your ability to get into Med school?

 

That will help with the discussion of which stream might be best

 

hey!

 

cGPA is low - only 1 year above 3.8 and hopefully this year too. don't want to do an extra year because i have been advised against it by my prof who is very well known and knowledgable, so i respect his opinion.

[rmorelan]

hey!

 

cGPA is low - only 1 year above 3.8 and hopefully this year too. don't want to do an extra year because i have been advised against it by my prof who is very well known and knowledgable, so i respect his opinion.

 

hmmm ok! Your professor's advise surprises me - in Ontario if you don't hit the GPA cut offs for undergrad you at most of the schools you cannot get an interview there. Western and Ottawa are clear examples, Mac only gives your a very small bonus for doing a Masters, Queens does have a grad review policy (which is great!) but that is only one school with 100 spots. Toronto does a full package review (which is also great!) but they are known as being heavily GPA driven as well. The situation is similar to areas outside of Ontario (is there a specific school you are hoping to apply to?). Why did your professor think that a masters would be so useful for you (perhaps I need to update my knowledge base).

 

I am trying to figure out exactly how a masters will best serve you here - I would hate for you to do a degree and not have it meet your expectations.

[astrogirl]

Here are a couple of thoughts. First of all, if I were you, I would apply to both med schools and master's programs the year you graduate, not just master's programs. Even if people are telling you that you won't get in to med school without doing a master's degree, you should still apply because you won't know unless you do. You might just get in right away, and then you won't have to bother with a master's. Even if you don't get in, you'll hopefully at least get a couple of interviews and you'll have experience that will help with your next round of applications.

 

Now about publications. I have a master's degree and I'm working on a Ph.D., so that's where my background comes from. I think how many publications you get while you're in grad school depends on three factors - you, your supervisor, and what kind of research you're doing. It sounds like you're pretty motivated, so that takes care of the you factor. As far as your potential supervisor, talk to him about it. Ask him if he thinks you can get some publications while working on a master's degree with him. Based on what he says and how he reacts to the question, you can figure out his attitude. Some professors want their students to publish as much as they can. Some professors don't think it's very important. So talk to the prof you're thinking about working with, and talk to a few other potential supervisors. The conversation you had with the Ph.D. student in your lab honestly does seem like a bit of a red flag as far as working with that prof, though. Maybe there are issues with the prof that he doesn't feel like he should tell you about, but he's trying to steer you away from working with him so you don't end up in a bad situation. Or maybe he just doesn't think you should do research if you don't want to end up in academia for the rest of your life. So it would probably help to talk to that prof's other grad students, if he has any.

 

Another issue with getting publications has to do with your research itself - some projects are easy to divide into different parts and you can write those up as you go along. But some projects don't give you any results until you've worked on them for years. So that may be why the Ph.D. student doesn't have any publications yet. I know some really good researchers who don't publish a lot just because of the types of projects they work on. So if you can, try to get a project where you'll have intermediate results!

 

As far as course-based vs. research-based, if you actually like research, and you aren't interested in physiotherapy or anything like that, you might as well do a research-based master's. You can get a job with a master's degree in genetics. There's always teaching, and you can work in labs or for the government or military. So don't worry about not getting a job if you don't get in to med school. Another advantage of a research-based degree is that it's easier to get funding for (NSERC, funding from your school, things like that). So keep that in mind, but don't let that be the deciding factor, because you can always get loans if you find a course-based program that interests you more.

 

Good luck! Hopefully you'll just get into med school right away and you won't have to worry about it. If you already have 1 year above 3.8 and you end up with this year above 3.8, your chances are probably better than you seem to think they are.

[anon1234]

Here are a couple of thoughts. First of all, if I were you, I would apply to both med schools and master's programs the year you graduate, not just master's programs. Even if people are telling you that you won't get in to med school without doing a master's degree, you should still apply because you won't know unless you do. You might just get in right away, and then you won't have to bother with a master's. Even if you don't get in, you'll hopefully at least get a couple of interviews and you'll have experience that will help with your next round of applications.

 

Now about publications. I have a master's degree and I'm working on a Ph.D., so that's where my background comes from. I think how many publications you get while you're in grad school depends on three factors - you, your supervisor, and what kind of research you're doing. It sounds like you're pretty motivated, so that takes care of the you factor. As far as your potential supervisor, talk to him about it. Ask him if he thinks you can get some publications while working on a master's degree with him. Based on what he says and how he reacts to the question, you can figure out his attitude. Some professors want their students to publish as much as they can. Some professors don't think it's very important. So talk to the prof you're thinking about working with, and talk to a few other potential supervisors. The conversation you had with the Ph.D. student in your lab honestly does seem like a bit of a red flag as far as working with that prof, though. Maybe there are issues with the prof that he doesn't feel like he should tell you about, but he's trying to steer you away from working with him so you don't end up in a bad situation. Or maybe he just doesn't think you should do research if you don't want to end up in academia for the rest of your life. So it would probably help to talk to that prof's other grad students, if he has any.

 

Another issue with getting publications has to do with your research itself - some projects are easy to divide into different parts and you can write those up as you go along. But some projects don't give you any results until you've worked on them for years. So that may be why the Ph.D. student doesn't have any publications yet. I know some really good researchers who don't publish a lot just because of the types of projects they work on. So if you can, try to get a project where you'll have intermediate results!

 

As far as course-based vs. research-based, if you actually like research, and you aren't interested in physiotherapy or anything like that, you might as well do a research-based master's. You can get a job with a master's degree in genetics. There's always teaching, and you can work in labs or for the government or military. So don't worry about not getting a job if you don't get in to med school. Another advantage of a research-based degree is that it's easier to get funding for (NSERC, funding from your school, things like that). So keep that in mind, but don't let that be the deciding factor, because you can always get loans if you find a course-based program that interests you more.

 

Good luck! Hopefully you'll just get into med school right away and you won't have to worry about it. If you already have 1 year above 3.8 and you end up with this year above 3.8, your chances are probably better than you seem to think they are.

 

thanks so much for the long post! very helpful!

 

i am actually in my final year right now and i did not apply this cycle - didn't write my MCAT etc that's why. plus my GPA was not good enough with just one year at 3.8. so my options are to do an extra year or go for grad school.

 

i do think the PhD student in my lab is trying to steer me away......and to be honest, not that the only thing i care about is how i look on paper, but not having any publications in 6 years is a big deal. his experiments didn't work so i think that's why he didn't have any first author papers.

 

how do i find out if a prof has a track record of grad students with lots of publications? just going and talking to them? do you think if all the research experince i have is a smmer project and a work-study position this year, that that would be good enough to impress a potential PI who i approach?

 

also great advice on picking a good field....is this also something to discuss with a prof when i approach them?

 

sigh....i just don't know if i should be patient, do an extra year and apply in that, then if i don't get in, THEN apply to grad school, do that and then apply to med school again........or if i should just jump into grad school now. it's quite the dilemma.

 

thanks very much for your help though, it means a lot!

[astrogirl]

how do i find out if a prof has a track record of grad students with lots of publications? just going and talking to them? do you think if all the research experince i have is a smmer project and a work-study position this year, that that would be good enough to impress a potential PI who i approach?

 

also great advice on picking a good field....is this also something to discuss with a prof when i approach them?

 

Glad I could be helpful! I think you've definitely got enough research experience to impress a potential PI. The fact that you're interested and are going to talk to them is usually enough to impress them. A lot of undergrads go to grad school without having any research experience. If someone you go talk to acts like a jerk when you tell them what your experience is, then you've just found out that you don't want to work for that person and that's valuable information. I would say just go to profs that you're interested in working with and ask them any questions you can think of. The ones who are open and willing to talk to you about it are the ones you'll want to consider. You'll be spending the next two years asking your supervisor all kinds of questions, so this is a good way to test out what that will be like.

 

As far as finding out what their track record with grad students publishing is like, that's definitely something you can come right out and ask. Good profs will be impressed that you want to take research seriously and publish. You can also ask if you can talk to some of their former or current grad students. Good profs won't mind that (and they might even suggest it), because they want you to get an accurate idea of what you're getting yourself into, and the best way to get an idea is to talk to grad students.

 

Another thing you can do to find out about their grad student publications is just to do a lit search and find everything that a particular prof has published. If they have a lot of co-authors from the same institution, there's a good chance that some of those co-authors are their students. This is an especially useful thing to do if you can go on the prof's website or something and find a list of their grad students, so then you'll know for sure if their co-authors are their grad students. This isn't as good as just talking to them, of course, but this might be a good way to narrow down which professors might be good ones to approach.

[future_doc]

anon, see m PM