Academia is a business
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"Remember the Golden Rule: Those who have the gold make the rules."

Academia is a business, and "graduate student" is a job title. This is especially true at private universities. Academia is very peculiar type of business. It is certainly not the Real World and does not work in the same way that the ordinary corporate world does. However, it is a business nonetheless and as a graduate student, you must treat it that way. Graduate school made a lot more sense and became much easier for me after I realized this. If you think of graduate school as an "Ivory Tower" free of politics, money problems, and real-world concerns, you are going to be severely disappointed. If you don't believe me, read The Idea Factory by Pepper White (listed in the references) for one account of graduate life at MIT.

A few graduate students are independently wealthy or have fellowship and scholarship money that cover all their expenses for their total stay in graduate school. Such students are rare, however. Most of us needed financial support, in the form of Teaching Assistantships or Research Assistantships (RA's). In general, RA's are more desirable to students since those can directly fund the research you need to finish.

Where does the money come from to fund RA's? Your professors have to raise funds from external organizations. These include government agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and others. Private companies also fund some university research, although this tends to be less common, in smaller amounts, and in the form of equipment donations. These organizations don't just give money away as charity. They expect their money to accomplish something. Increasingly these days, this takes the form of a contract for a working demonstration that must be shown at the end. That means once the money is delivered, your professors must come through with the working demonstration. It is rare that they do this by themselves. Instead, they find some very capable, young, self-motivated people who are willing to work long hours for small amounts of pay. In other words, they fund RA's.

The RA job is crucial to the academic business. If the RA's cannot successfully conduct the research, then the demonstration will not work in the end and the funding agencies may not be happy. They may choose not to fund your professor in the future, which will bring his or her research program to a halt. And there are many professors and other researchers chasing too few research dollars these days; it is a competitive market. Thus, each professor wants the best students available. These students are the most capable ones who can get the research done required to fulfill the funding contracts.

That means you must treat an RA like a job. You must prove to your professors that you are capable of getting the work done, being a team player, communicating your results, and most of the other characteristics needed to do well in regular jobs. That's why many of the upcoming sections in this guide sound like ones written for the regular workplace.

What do you get out of this? At the start, you may have to do tasks specifically related to the funding contracts. But eventually your professor must be flexible enough to fund your own specific research program that leads to the completion of your dissertation. Your stipend and tuition waiver should be enough to live on frugally without going into debt. You will learn the state of the art in your chosen speciality and conduct cutting-edge research on a subject that you find interesting and enjoyable. If you don't find this compensation sufficient, then you shouldn't be in graduate school in the first place.

The bottom line: realize that academia is a peculiar kind of business and the role you play in this enterprise. If you do your job well (and have good negotiation and interpersonal skills, as discussed in future sections), both your needs and your professors' needs will be met. But don't enter an RA position thinking that the computers, research equipment, staff members and other resources that you are provided with are your birthright. Don't take them for granted! Most of those exist only because your professors have been able to raise the money to provide those to you. In turn, you must fulfill your end of the deal by doing great research with those resources. If you don't do your job well, don't be surprised if your professors choose not to fund you in the future. They do not have to provide you with an RA job or let you use the computing equipment they acquired. And the student who has no funding, no tuition reimbursement and no access to required computing resources is the student who leaves the university that semester.

How do you make sure you are one of those best, highly desired RA's? Read on!