A Path to A Business PhD

i think we're going to get started so thanks everyone for joining the webinar today path to a business phd my name is christina pazos and i'm the outreach and program manager for the

phd project i want to send a special thank you to justin bailey relationships manager at gates millennium scholars program who collaborated with me to host this event a run through today's event

uh we will hear from blaine roushak president of the phd project and the kpmg u.s foundation who will provide us some information about the phd project dr ronald ramirez will then discuss life

as a professor before our panelists join him we will have an open discussion and try to answer many of your questions so please use the q a box below to drop your questions in that area and we'll do our best to answer most of them

now or as a follow-up to this session also please use the comment box to introduce yourself and let us know where you're joining us from the session is being recorded and we'll share that playback link with you once available

okay so i think we are ready gleam let's get started thanks christina and and welcome everybody thanks for for joining us today and i know you are going to have an amazing session we have a great panel

um my name is blaine roushek i'm the president of the phd project which i'll talk about in a little bit but also president of the kmg u.s foundation

um i'm going to share a quick story you know when i went to school many many years ago i went to two schools to get my undergraduate and then a third school for my graduate degree

and during that entire time so you know actually six years of education had zero faculty of color at three schools and when i look back you know what a missed opportunity and a

shame it was and when i think about my classmates in my classrooms very little diversity so back in 1994 kpmg foundation looked at that issue of lack of

diversity in business schools and thought well maybe the problem is that there's not diversity in front of the classroom and so they initiated what is now called the phd project

26 years ago um and basically the premise was if we can get more um you know african-american black hispanic latinx and native american indian

um professionals to lead their careers go get their phds and become professors in the classroom right so be those mentors and the leaders and the educators as well as researchers doing

some amazing research on current issues that that might encourage students of color to major in business and so 26 years ago we started the program

um and you know since that program we had amazing results so i'll quickly share you know some of the other results so next christine so you know we have a number of organizations that have joined on

because they've bought into the the same premise and they support the phd project you can see a lot of organizations in the financial services industry in the accounting industry

um marketing and management so all the business disciplines are participating and supporting the project and it basically sends the message that you know everyone realizes that this was an issue that needed to be addressed and

that's what the phd project has done for 26 years next um so what we're trying to do is create this equitable environment where

people see that they have you know a a multiple career paths and opportunities that students of color can come into the classroom you know have this amazing experience and then once again i i think

you know when we look at the cycle it's you know join you know corporate america you know have a successful career and then selflessly thinking that down the road say you know what

i'd like to get a phd and become that professor that's going to be that role model classroom so we look at it as a full cycle of the diverse faculty attracting diverse students diverse students getting an

amazing business education joining corporate america and then someday maybe looking at getting a phd themselves and hopefully that's you know your what you're tuning in today is to learn more about

what it means you know to be a phd in business next you can see that as we look at statistics um the the representation in the classroom

in terms of faculty is not representing demographics of the student and that's one of the things that we're working really hard on with the phd project is to increase diversity of faculty and also some stats in a minute in terms of

what we've been able to do but we would definitely love to have you know all of you on this call if you think this might be an option for you or a calling for you consider looking at our november

conference where it all starts where we introduce what the phd is you spend three days learning about you know what a true phd is and hopefully that encourages you to apply for and enter a phd program and you'll hear some

of our panels talk about that today next um you think about impact and i think you know a lot of us you know it may be different points in your life you're going well i really want to look at the

purpose and the impact i'm having and we look at the phd project when you think about becoming a professor so we'll use an example let's say that you go to university and you teach four

classes a year so two in the spring two in the fall and each class has 50 students right so that's you know you know 200 students and you know that you're covering for that year

and multiply that by 15 or 20 years that's impact just directly on those students and then think about those students now going into kind of the business world and having impact on those around them

so it's a huge impact that you can have so one can have an impact on many and as an adjunct faculty um you know myself at a number of universities i truly love the feeling of being able

to impact students to get their minds thinking to get them thinking about why they'd want to look into a topic or research it or understand it better so um you know i think you're gonna hear some some great advice and and tips from

the panelists today next um so i'm gonna conclude there um i really want to thank you all for joining i i know that um

you know time is valuable these days but our panelists have a great session in store i also want to say christina from the phd project for helping to organize and run today's

session and with no further ado i'm going to turn over to dr ramirez so uh hello everybody and uh welcome to this uh lovely event you know i just saw on my

slide how i actually i went to the original or the fir inaugural phd conference back in 1994 so that gives you an idea of how much hair i used to have back

then but anyway i've been around the kpmg pro the phd project and the different doctoral associations since uh the beginning so it's been a very exciting journey and so i'm very happy

to be here today to talk to you uh for those that are considering um pursuing a phd in business

so next slide please um so uh you know what is the role of a business professor as this slide says i can talk about my

role when you start out as a business professor as an assistant professor you go through different stages in your career but

at all stages you teach in the business degree programs of your school so that could include undergraduate programs graduate programs like master's programs

as well as doctoral programs so i'm at currently the business school at the university of colorado denver and i've taught in all three of those programs

and so the second role of a professor is to conduct research and so that's where you develop new knowledge for the academy as we like to call it so for the fellow researchers out there at the

different professors at the different business schools as well as for practice so one important thing you'll do is you may do your your pure academic research but you want to make sure that you're

able to translate that into practice to help business and organizations as they evolve and innovate and one way you publish that research

to get it out to the academy and to practitioners is you publish your research in journals and books and it's we'll talk maybe a little bit about tenure but

oftentimes academic journals are what's most important uh during your tenure journey then finally your third role as a professor is service and in that role you you can

volunteer to do many different things it could be from campus level service where you're serving on university committees it can be uh service to the community

such as volunteering at the kpmg project or it can also include service to the business school and so i didn't talk really about my role but as

currently but after becoming an assistant professor you go on to get tenure and you get promoted to an associate professor

and there at that point you have several career paths you can choose you can go to full professor which is everybody's goal but also you can go into administration

and that is my current role right now beyond doing research and teaching i'm also the associate dean of programs at the business school like i said at cu denver

so that's just a general overview of the role of a business professor so next please all right so when you think about paths to a phd in business i can talk about

this slide but also reflect upon my own journey so yeah the first thing of course obviously you need an undergraduate degree so for me i had a bachelor in science

in electrical engineering and like the path on the left talks about i actually went out and got a full-time position working for the chevron corporation as a

network analyst so working on their computer network and while i was in that role i fell into a liking on the business and management side

of technology and so uh back in those days if you were interested in management and you didn't have a business degree you'd pursue an mba

so as you see here in this path you on the left side you can go into your mba program and after the mba program i went and actually did worked again and on the management side in a

technology company before i decided to pursue my phd in business now there you can go straight into a phd program from your undergraduate

studies you don't need to have any work experience you can go straight in or you can join at any one of those lines as shown here on the slide one thing i will say it does benefit to

have work experience when you're in front of the classroom so certainly well actually all level undergraduate masters and phd students

like when you can relate the theory and the different concepts you're teaching to practical business and the one way you're obviously able to talk about practical business is if you have that work experience

but it's important to understand that you you don't necessarily need to you can go straight for my undergraduate degree into a phd program if that's what you'd like to do

okay next slide please all right so when you're in a doctoral program as i really may allude to later one of our panelists there are different stages in the

doctoral program the first stage the most important stage is the coursework it can be very challenging but you have to learn different things you need to learn your topic or your discipline the

concepts there you need to learn about the methods of research so how do i conduct research and then oftentimes it's very beneficial to study in a second area sort of when you think

about an undergraduate studies you can minor in an area so in a phd program it's good if you can study in multiple disciplines so in my area at uc irvine where i pursued my phd

earned my phd i studied in the management area and also in economics so after coursework there could be an exam

but um it's it as it shows there you also try to conduct research so oftentimes you'll work with your professors actually maybe from your courses and you try to

start off conducting research on your own you may try to publish it for example in a conference so it varies by program but that's obviously a step you should try to do but once you're done with that

coursework phase the big thing comes the exams and these these the type and format of the exam will vary by the university you're at so as it says there

it could be a written and oral examination it could also be a comprehensive examination it just depends again on the university where i went i had one exam

written in oral that took place after the second year uh and really could perhaps talk about the exams she has to take here at uc denver and then finally after

you pass your comprehensive exam you go into the dissertation phase and the first thing you need to do there is to develop a dissertation proposal

and then defend that proposal and then once the committee that you work with approves the proposal you go out and you collect your data you conduct your analysis you build your

theoretical model and then you empirically test that model with that data and then you write your dissertation and have your defense now the length of time can vary

by the student and the program you're in oftentimes it can take four years more often it can take a little bit longer um the best prepared candidate

to go look for jobs in the professor market are those that have not only the dissertation completed the publications and journals and conferences

so when you think about your path to becoming a professor oftentimes people will talk about four years for the journey to earn the phd degree but you also have to think about being the

best prepared candidate for the job market and so think about publishing papers again when you're in your phd program okay next slide

all right so when you think about um you know do i need for example a business degree do i need any certain type of degree or skill well in general you need

quantitative and qualitative skills you know you need to be able to handle statistics and mathematics especially if you're doing empirical work so if you're doing econometrics or anything of that nature

so it's good to have some of those classes in your undergraduate program or in your master's program but you don't necessarily need those classes when you start a phd program obviously

you may have to take an exam the gmat test and you could get in to a program based solely on the score on your test and then if you have any shortfalls in maths or

statistics or any area oftentimes the programs will allow you to take those classes to come up to speed and in fact prior to the start of your program they may even have a boot camp

when it comes to math and statistics and that's what i did prior to my phd program and then obviously when you're writing your dissertation you're writing journal papers and

conference papers writing is a key skill you need to have and so you have to learn how to write like an academic as well and oftentimes you can learn that through practice

those are just two general skills that you need so you don't necessarily need to have studied a certain degree prior to your phd in business

but you need to have these core skills next slide 16. okay and so

16. okay and so as mentioned before the phd project has been very successful in its mission it's increased

the number of faculty in front of the classroom by already a multiple of five as you can see there's some statistics about between 1994 and

2021 the just raw number increase of minority faculty in front of the business classroom in the u.s and one thing as well when you

do start your phd program and you're part of the kpmg project you can also take advantage of the doctoral student associations and i think those doctoral student

associations is a group of peers in your area of study and they will actually help mentor you and support you in the completion of your doctoral

program and i think that's why we see the phd project students graduate at a much higher rate than the u.s average so this i know for myself personally this program was

was very helpful to my success as a phd student as well as launching my career as a faculty member and so you'll see those great success rates here

on this slide so next please all right so uh you know part of this uh event we're going to have a panel and so i think at this point we're going to have our panelists introduce

themselves so we're going to start off with aurelia hi everyone my name is aurelia mandani and i am currently a third year phd student

at the university of colorado at denver dr ramirez is actually my advisor and mentor through the phd project and my advisor on

campus my area of study is in cyber security and we can get more into the details of that i am as a third year

phd student i recently completed my comps last summer so i am abd all but dissertation which means that i am currently working on my dissertation proposal

so if any of you have any questions about what that process looks like or even what my comprehensive exams look like at specifically the university of colorado at denver which is pictured

here feel free to ask and i am happy to answer any questions that any of you may have

next up we have dr renee pratt and she's going to talk about herself thank you aurelia good afternoon so

my name is dr renee pratt and i am a professor at the university of north georgia um and my area of interest of research specifically focuses on enterprise

resource systems in particular within the health care industry so a lot of our ehr systems and as noted feel free to ask any questions about particular research area as well as

anything else that i'm discussing my actual undergraduate degree is in mathematics so i started in the stem area and so um i'm happy to share how that

impacts and affects uh my decision to end up getting a phd in mis and management information systems and now being part of a department that is actually both

computer science and information systems so i attended the phd project in 2002 and it has been an absolute wonderful aspect

of my career um and similarly to dr ramirez it has helped me grow in my program as well as a faculty member and many of my dearest friends today are

individuals that i met through the phd project in addition there are other lots of opportunities and things that we can do as faculty and one of the things that i'm very

proud of is my moment as a fulbright research scholar in which i actually spent nearly a year in germany focusing and examining on their health care system and the comparisons with with us in the united

states and other countries so there are a number of aspects in which we'll be exploring today but note that i do as i mentioned i come from a mathematics degree with computer science and information systems

for my master's and then eventually moving into the management of information systems within the business school next mute okay so uh it's a time for our

panel uh and so what i'll do is i'll perhaps ask a question and then we can start answering as panelists

so i'll chime in here and there but uh i guess perhaps let's start off with aurelia uh how did your prior work experience

prepare you for a doctoral program yes so i gave a very brief overview of my background so just a little bit more on my background i got my bachelor's

in political science and in international relations and that actually helped me prepare for basically almost the business side of things

because i had a economics and political economy background with my degree from there my master's is in library and

information science with a focus in it so although it is a librarian degree my i.t

i.t focus really helped me prepare for my program which is a similar to where dr pratt teaches that um where dr ramirez and i are at at university of

colorado at denver the information systems program is a computer science and information systems program i'm just doing an is focus at information systems

focus so before joining the program i was working as a librarian slash a user experience researcher so i had a kind of a mixed methods

background on how to conduct research and that really prepared me for learning how to understand the different methodologies that are

used in is research and within that during my time through my phd i worked as a cyber security professional

as you probably are um seen in my for the gate scholars here i'm also a gate scholar so the information systems degree program is covered through the gates

scholarship it's one of the seven funded areas so if you have questions about that i'm happy to answer it but that's also what led me to a degree path a phd path

in computer science and information systems because of the opportunities that were available through the gates foundation

dr pratt your uh work experience history sure um so as i mentioned my undergraduate mathematics and so from there i actually went on to work for

both the city and the city of miami and the state of florida eventually in which i focused on i actually got more into the computer side using my mathematics to help develop systems for

the um physics areas within and and um and essentially like control of our building situation so building construction and so forth for the state and the city

and so that's kind of where my interest began and i started to branch out beyond that in which i started developing databases and websites and that was sort

of the time where it's like okay we're in the the start of the bubble right um and so at that point i actually transitioned and moved to

atlanta and i was working there um for a company that focuses on web hosting and web development but i was the head of internal coding and so

in that respect what i began to see was really that a lot of times the programmers and coders and developers didn't have an understanding sometimes of what the sales side perspective of

and what do our and what do our clients need and want and when it really became more a concern was that when we started having individuals leading our department that were non-technical

but they had the business knowledge and so um this really drove the question for me of like how do we merge these two how do we get you know a group of individuals who both understand people's side as well as

the technology side and that is sort of where my idea of like well this is really a question to be like explored and i want to i want to be able to give that back to my community as well

um and this really fueled my thought of i'm going to probably eventually go back and get my grad school degree so i went and i ended up getting like i said a master's in information systems and

focusing on my program actually had since i had the technical background to spend a little more time on the business perspective and understanding people and applying technology to that

um and that's where i realized okay i this is my area i am enjoying this i am loving it um and i was introduced i received a flyer from the phd project in the mail

and i said you know let me find out more about this what what is that and so it really helps to prepare me to give me a question um so as you're writing your

applications into your programs and you're trying to explain what what your interests are um one of the things you know we're looking as faculty as we're in looking at your applications why do you

want to do this what's of interest do you have a question in mind already um and so that really helped prepare me for providing a question and giving me some direction now once

you're in the program a lot of times depending on who your advisor is you may end up taking different routes and different angles and i think that's the big thing is preparing you and understanding that you are

open to different ideas and concepts because how we view and how we have seen technology and how technology applies in business um is such a vast area

that prior to you entering into the doctoral program you you only get to see a snippet of it in your career and so that really helped kind of to give me that that push and that

advantage into the direction of the doctoral program um and then the understanding of technology and science definitely helps it provides discipline and other aspects that helped with

understanding the statistical knowledge as well as just being able to sort of craft your projects and your ideas in ways that make sense and that are logical

yeah so that's that's a good point you know your background does help shape your research and and you know your research questions your interest area also help shape how you do your work and so i

you know i hadn't thought about that but what back be prior to my phd program i had a question about i would see millions of dollars being spent in in computers and technology and

the company i worked for in the cfo's office and i went off and asked the question is this investment really worth it so that led to my core question of are organizations receiving a value from

the technology investment and that actually led me to my doctoral program because irvine was an area that was studying that exact question i had no idea but

after i investigated and applied i found out look they're doing exactly my area of interest from a practical side but and maybe you both have covered this but real quickly

when you were considering a phd because right now we're talking a little bit about prior to your phd what led you to take that action to then apply to actually take that step

so dr pratt why don't you start sure um so as i mentioned i i went on and did my masters and um so as i was coming out of my masters i did a one-year

accelerated program and i was about to start on as a senior consultant for a firm in it and that was just about the time our market was starting to get a little

shaky and so um so a lot of companies were already just turning down newly graduate students that they had already accepted offers and we're telling them sorry we don't have a

position anymore because of market and uh so this was the time where i started saying okay i have an opportunity now to try to do something different and to look at it differently

and this that's really what pushed me into that point so i still i was lucky i was one of the lucky ones i still actually had my position but i went ahead and i chose to explore something else

and so i worked for about a year after um my under my masters and then applied to programs and decided at that point that this was a great time i think

initially in my mind i had always perceived i wanted to do a phd i did not know it would be in this area of course when i was an undergrad i just assumed it was even mathematics

um but i thought it was much later in life and so i think what one of the things we've explored and seen is that you know when i was in school most of my professors were much much

older and so there was this mindset that oh it's what i do when i retire or after i put in 20 years of work experience and then go back and do it

um and and things have changed so so now it's like oh i don't have to wait until then i can do that earlier and i can i can do that in my career now and so that's really

what was the push for me i realized why not now why this is a great time a great opportunity um and i'm able to do that so

and really what about what about you yeah so what really got me into going into a phd and applying

was that in my master's degree in information science i was focusing through my research on behaviors of individuals and as i was completing my master's

degree i realized that well the behaviors are important but what about the systems that the users are using what how can i apply that to my my research

how can i really understand the connection points especially as a user experience researcher i really wanted to understand the relationship between the two how the systems worked with the users and

what balancing mechanisms if any were there when we're speaking about app development and website development and even just user experience in the physical spaces

like in businesses and how people travel and use spaces such as stores or what have you so as i started talking to my advisor about this

she actually had a previous student that was a phd student in my current program right now and she said i think you need to apply to this program

and i said oh wow okay even though i'm not really business focused this seems like a perfect path for me because i

am very interested in the technology and so that led me to um figuring out what a phd in business

meant because it is a little different when we talk about a computer science and information systems program

most of them are actually in a business school for a large percentage of those programs so i didn't know what that entailed and i had taken a few mba classes

in my master's program but i really didn't have that full knowledge and understanding so as soon as i figured that out i was like this is the path for me

and i'm going to apply for it and thankfully it was one of the covered areas for the gates foundation um so that's what really got me into applying was just realizing that this is

a area where i could broaden my knowledge and scope of research so that i could really help understand these questions these research questions

that i was building up in my master's program okay great um uh now so we're here we are in our panel we're talking about

uh prior to your uh entry into a phd program there's a question from the audience maybe dr pratt you can talk about this you talked about candidates so is there a question from the audience

was is there any advice uh uh on strengthening an application uh and then i'm paraphrasing this question do i need to have

publications or have done existing research i'm sure uh definitely i'm happy to answer that um so uh so i'll say so you don't need to have previous publications

or written demonstration that you can write or produce uh prior to entering voting now i will say if you have it that's awesome addition right so so it doesn't mean but if you don't have it

don't worry don't feel like oh my gosh i've got to hurry up and find someone to work with um but if you have the opportunity if you're still in school right now and you have an interest you know pair with a faculty member one

of your faculty members to work on a project together they're always usually open to working on things having you maybe do a little bit of data analysis or help collect data um you know just different aspects of it

so there are ways in which you can perform by either maybe entering a conference paper or doing a submission as i said with a faculty member so those are definitely

helpful but they're not necessary or required um as far as trying to improve or build on your application you know outside of the standard aspects

of making sure you're meeting the proper score requirements based on the institution um and the necessary other requirements as far as school what we're looking for

is to find a good fit and so what you want to be really focusing on is the story that you're telling us and how it's related to what the faculty at that institution

do um we want to work with individuals who want to work on similar types of topics who have similar interest so if your interest is in analytics and no one by chance at

this particular institution does analytics that's probably not gonna appeal to them as much they're going to say oh you'll you'll be a better fit somewhere else um so i what you want to think about is

think hard about what type of question you have and we understand that you're you shouldn't have your question laid out i'm like this is my only question and this is what i want to find out um because we're going to change that

trust me the likelihood of you getting the opportunity a lot of times your questions are things that you're going to end up choosing to work on your own after the fact um but getting into the program and aligning yourself with a

faculty member um look at what the faculty member has done pay attention to the types of research they do or the type of work they do and then a try to appeal to them um you

don't want to try to fit yourself with every single member there's try to create some kind of a focus to say that you've demonstrated that you've actually you know reviewed and examined who is in

that department and how they work and what they do and how you would be a good fit for that department great yeah and fit is really important i would say and and

okay so let's move now let's uh assume now we're in a program we've we've we've taken that brave step and we've applied and left potentially our job and we started

a phd program now we don't have much time but how would you describe your doctoral experience so let's hear from aurelia she's in it now

and i'm sure she's only going to have positive things since i'm her advisor but please speak freely yeah so actually i i really

really enjoy and love research and so it's a big part of just all of the past you know positions that i've had before i've always done research on

human behavior and so being able to research it and find and discover a dissertation on my research area has been really helpful and as dr pratt said your

research areas will continuously shape and grow as you continue throughout your phds so just for a quick context i started off wanting to

do specifically governance and i.t

and i didn't know what areas with it with governance i.t i wanted to research but i knew that that was what i was really interested in is understanding how how that works within the business realm and

i was good at cyber security but i didn't realize that that could be an area that i could focus on really um because i didn't know i'm not an expert in it but it's also a new area

and dr ramirez said go for it and that's kind of just the path that i've been on just honing in on those skills that i have um from website development and security and

morphing it into a business question and so that has been super helpful and my experience has been great the only thing is

is that in the phd program whatever program you're in it will get stressful and so the biggest thing is you have to have a community of support i'm very thankful that the phd project

has allowed for me to network with other students who are in the same in similar programs and are going through the same things and so when it was comprehensive time last summer during the pandemic

all of us that were getting ready to take our comprehensive exams um literally we would call each other and be like hey your comprehensive exam is in two weeks right

okay let's schedule another meeting and debrief with you know how we're feeling and then we scheduled another meeting after all of us finished and it was just a great way to have community

um phd programs are not easy and i'm like smiling about it but there were definitely times where i was like oh my goodness i don't know if this is for me um because it is a commitment it is a

very it is something that you have to really put your all into but so far i'm seeing the rewards from it and it's been great um i've

i've been um involved with different conferences and whatnot and it's made my experience really great that's good and so you know dr pat what about your uh doctoral experience in like irelia you

know what was some uh what were some of the biggest challenges you faced sure um i think usually the first wake-up call once you enter the program is reading right

right i think most of us feel like we're pretty confident we know how to read we've you know we've made it through at least undergrad we know how to do that um but i think it is a challenge and it's learning how to read the way

academics read and and it is a different type of reading if you've never read an academic journal um you know a lot of times this is the first time you're really doing that and you you're in seminars that are

asking you to read 10 and 12 articles a week you know per so um per seminar depending right so it's quite a bit amount of reading so i

think you know a lot of the initial challenge is just kind of re organizing your mind to think about things differently to highlight things differently so that was a tough one um but i think that's

where the phd project was a really great help with the phd project one of the benefits is that you meet every year with your group and it's usually right before the school year starts

and so it's an opportunity to catch up on tools that can be used so things like endnotes and reference tools and statistical items as well as

reading materials and your fellow cl you know peers are in courses and programs similar to yours and they're able to say oh no no i read that this is that if this is that you know um or here's a new tool that i learned

about that's been really cool and so um sometimes it helps because you end up being even with the help of the phd project and similar types of programs you end up ahead of your fellow classmates at your program

so a lot of times i would go in for the year and then i'm like oh are you using this tool this tool really will help you manage your citations and your references and they're looking at me like where did you get this how do you know about this

and so i found that that was really a great help um through the process the other really challenging thing is just i think

you know um learning how to do an actual project from beginning to end and and going through the process of building your research understanding your research and then of course

as i really just recently take her exams and get through that um uh it is a learning process the first two years usually are your your courses and then

from there you move into as you noted working on your dissertation and so um also that relationship that you build with your committee that's helping you to design that that dissertation

is really important and critical and that's going to be the thing that really helps you cross the finish line yeah and so i think it is important to think about your program in steps you

know you don't want to think you have to tackle it all at once and that first step is you know is the coursework stage and you really need to get through that because those courses can be tough

uh we had a question from the audience uh you know when is a good year to start preparing for your dissertation proposal what do you think about that dr pratt

um well if you can they always say as soon as possible [Laughter] so um so as you noted the coursework is important and critical but i think what helps is

as you're going through your courses most of your seminars are going to ask you to write a paper or submit something to a conference this is your opportunity to explore different ideas and thoughts that you

might have for your dissertation and this is also an opportunity for you to build a stream of knowledge and so as irelia is exploring her cyber security right she's able to really now all of

the papers she writes she may be writing them from different angles and different topics but they have some realm of cyber security and so that helps to build a broad idea and vision

and so that being said essentially after you've you've passed your exams is when you begin exploring the question that you want to address for your dissertation and usually it's somewhere probably

within the next six months to a year based on what you discuss with your committee as to when you would actually present your proposal yeah and and you know it is important to

explore in the beginning i in the perfect world you know what you're doing is all around a common theme which is going to align with your dissertation but um you know exactly like you said start

early okay so we're still in the program stage i want to be mindful of time uh you know there was a question about if i'm interested in interdisciplinary

research what are some tips for trying to start that or build or explore interdisciplinary research i might say if you have an interest in that and

you're not already in a phd program you know when you're exploring programs at different universities oftentimes if you look at the professor's research record they'll it'll inform if

they do interdisciplinary research and the second thing too is i think it's also worthwhile talking to professors at a school you're thinking about applying to and ask that question

do you focus on interdisciplinary research is it valued at your school because that'll give you an indication of whether or not it's done

but i want to get to this other question from the audience again i might be mindful of time we're in the current program we did hear about some challenges but i think there was a very

good question uh what about family life balance when you're a phd student and i'll i'll just say uh there are many

challenges and that is one of them a balance and i'll just tell you my own experience at irvine so i was in these classes where dr pratt said you have to read

12 articles in a week and i'm taking two or four classes it just depends on the semester but what was my schedule like

luckily my wife had a full-time job was consulting so she had to work 80 hours a week because that's what i would work to be honest i would work monday through saturday

saturday i would work until 5 pm and then i'm going to take like 12 hours off and then i would work some more and and it just i was lucky that my my spouse at the time had a

similar schedule and that was a challenge family life balance so this is a voluntary question would anyone like to comment about family life balance

okay i'll comment i was just waiting to see if aurelia wanted to comment first i'd like to speak um so i agreed i think um finding that balance

it is a challenge it is absolutely a challenge um you will need to really i think sit down with your significant other

and explain my time is now going to be significantly directed to this particular program um and what that might mean and what might what that might look like and

you'll have to have this conversation several times over um because unfortunately if they're not in a program most people probably don't truly have a good

understanding of what a phd program can can entail um and so what i will say for me in a personal experience so when i started my program um i was single

and i was able to i was lucky enough that my parents i think after the first semester saw how challenging it was for me and they actually came up and moved nearby for a year

to help me um just manage my household and just take care of daily activities and things like that so that i could focus on studies um and so they were like look you focus on that

we'll handle dinner and laundry you know so i was lucky enough during that um i will say so i actually i got married in my right after my

comprehensive exams so i did manage to get married i did manage to go through that process um and i was lucky that that at the time you know my you know my husband was able

to see kind of what i was going through and understand that okay she has to work and she has to do this for as you know as you said uh 80 hours a week and so

we set things like date night and it's like all right date night i close books i don't do anything it's focus time to be with you um so it is that challenge that you do have

to to manage one other thing i will say to also make note and aware of that we haven't mentioned about is that when you're finished with your program likelihood of you being in the same city or state

is very it's fairly low right there are only a few states a few cities that have several institutions in them um and so that's something also that you as well as your partner and your family anyone who's involved in the

process will need to understand that there's a good chance that you will need to move and it may be a lot further away from where you currently are so taking into mind where you choose to do your program

because you most programs do not immediately you're not going to immediately go into that same program and teach there or be a faculty member at that institution yeah so we're really in a rapid round now because we're running out of time

but uh it is true oftentimes you do not work where you get your phd program so if you're on a tenure track path you're most likely you will move

so there are opportunities if you happen to live in a big state or you go to school in a big state like california where i went there are hundreds of universities but

it always also depends upon the market when you graduate that market will really also determine where you where you need to go so you have to be flexible with your location just real quickly

uh there was a question about are there opportunities for online or virtual ph.d programs i would say you should be

ph.d programs i would say you should be on site for you know maybe your current home university eventually you'll go back in person so you may take classes online but

relocation is probably something to keep in mind if you're going to pursue this career and so okay let's move real quickly

um i i think i'm towards the end but real quickly life now as a faculty member um i guess dr pratt you mentioned the

fulbright scholarship so maybe you talk about germany or whatever but why don't we give an example of a part of your life as a faculty member okay sure um so i'll try to be really quick

so um so as a faculty member i we cross three main areas so teaching research and service and so i would say at any point in time on most days i am i'm definitely doing teaching and

research and then there's some portion of service aspect to it um so uh teaching so a lot of times you may not be teaching the same courses that you are specialized in so that's something to be

aware of depending on the department that you're doing but um that's also can be a beauty of it one of the things i enjoy most especially about itnis is that you get a variety of topics and

areas that you get to become either an expert or knowledgeable on that particular topic so that allows you to interact with students it allows you to help students along the way as they're finding jobs

and working with them in the future i've actually had students where not only have i helped them to find positions or jobs but even down the road have actually worked with them in their own companies

and businesses so one of the things i enjoy is that i do have the opportunity to do things like consult with other companies and businesses so it's not

totally just about being in academia um i get to take my knowledge and provide that to other businesses and companies and so i do have a portion of that where i'm doing that where i'm

a board member for an organization in which i can provide some of my is knowledge and tech information with that um and then i get to explore my research in so many different ways and so the

fulbright was one that honestly you don't have as many business majors perspectives coming into that and so that makes it actually a really good opportunity for those who do want to seek out a fulbright

um someone did ask if i had done it while i was a phd student i did not i did do it as a faculty member during my sabbatical leave and so that allowed me to

have an amount of time that i could focus in as a research scholar my fulbright was completely about research and so i interacted with the hospitals and

um universities within germany for the year other there are other types of fulbright scholars where you can balance it with teaching or you can do completely teaching

so it just depends on where your interests are what kinds of things that you want to do with that but it was a great opportunity to build on my research and my stream and to expand my research into

international perspectives and have that opportunity as well so um so you get to do a lot of different things i've since been i've done projects with students where i go in a number of other

countries and we um add infra infrastructure is infrastructure into countries that don't normally have as easily accessible yeah and i don't really have time to talk about my

experience but you know i was i would say a non-traditional phd student i worked for a while and so uh this my career path i'm choosing

is allowed me to uh i guess mix the uh traditional faculty role with the leadership role and that's why i'm choosing to be the associate dean here

at the business school it's allowed me to pursue something that i like plus see the world so i've been all over the world uh and you get a lot of flexibility but i want to say one thing before we go to

aurelia for the last question and that is your journey does not stop when you receive your ph degree your journey you can take a breath when you achieve tenure

you know you're able to do a lot of things after you achieve tenure and that's when i started my administrative duties so we can talk about that in another panel

so last question aurelia gets this question uh i do see something in the the questions from the prospect of students about the gmat a gre

i would say do as much preparation as you can do that's possible to get the highest score that you can get i i believe the gmat is still

a useful assessment tool the higher your score the more opportunity you'll have for university choices and the bigger university you can go to the bigger program the more

financial funding will be available okay last question aurelia what advice would you give to a potential doctoral student

um i guess the question could be about what what what should they consider or should they take that next step yeah so i think the biggest thing to consider

is um to make sure that you know or have a generalized idea of where you want to go into for research or for your phd um i'm pretty

once you get to know me i ask a lot of questions and i'm also pretty nosy so one thing that i started doing was i started emailing professors from different universities

that seemed like i would be interested in their research areas and i started following them on linkedin i went to the university websites and i started information gathering to see

what i think would be a good fit for me so i started doing scheduling informational interviews with professors they'll do it um even students i contacted students that were in

programs that i was interested in and it's hit or miss because it is busy as a phd student and sometimes those emails might end up looking like spam um

so i had better luck on linkedin with getting in contact with students in programs but that's the biggest advice is just if you have questions ask

the faculty ask the students and also figure out you know what are some things that they they've struggled with in the program especially the students and seeing how okay if this is an area

that is an area of improvement for them how can i make that so that my experience in this program if i were a prospective student how would i navigate

a similar situation um because a lot of phd students will tell you okay so this is something that i struggled with with my comprehensive exam and then that's what actually helped me prepare for my comprehensive exam is

that i realized after year one i needed to start studying day one of year two um so just asking and um you know kind of figuring out

is the time necessary or the time needed to be in this program something that's going to be able some if i'm going to be able to incorporate that with my daily schedule that i have now or what changes will i

have to make in order to do this phd program um so it's kind of a little bit of life planning when you decide to do a phd okay great so i know we're down to the

last minute or so so can we go to the slides christina i have there's a few slides so thank you very much to the panelists for sure i just wanted to make uh make sure that i cover the kpmg

the the november conference the annual conference there are some requirements you'll see those listed on the slide itself so if you meet those minimums you can apply so let's go to

the next slide and so you can apply via the website as shown there at the phdproject.org and the deadline to apply september 30th

and then you'll see some of the information about registration fee and then how the application is reviewed

so um i'm going to put my uh contact information now there you go stay connected you can also reach out to christina or we can put our

emails on the chat you can probably look us up at our universities if you have any further questions for us because i know we're out of time so thank you very much for coming today

and thank you very much for our panelists and for sharing all of that great information you