While I have always assumed that the last statement goes without saying, I've recently learned that some of my peers do their research WITHOUT students.
Is this okay? Is it field dependent?
I always thought that it went without saying that the PI should, no matter what the classification of the school (or discipline, for that matter), do research with her students. Heck, even as a grad student I worked with undergrads.
So please tell me: is it okay or absurd to do research without students?
11 comments:
At medical schools, there are certainly laboratories that have no students, and only have technical staff and post-docs.
Ah, good point, CPP! I hadn't thought about medical schools.
I think doing your own research (in addition to directing some students) is more than ok. Its awesome.
depending on the resources available, sometimes certain tasks or project preclude student involvement. in most places you should probably be doing some/most research with an educational component (student involvement) but some ideas are probably most efficiently executed by the PI. also, consider how research happens on a sabbatical, probably not traveling to another lab to "advise"
I think it's great to involve students at all stages - that being said, there are definitely projects that I could move along faster on my own. But I can't see myself ever conducting 100% of my work without students - they're actually necessary helpers for me.
I knew some faculty at SLACs that had to do a required amount of research with students for tenure requirements and then after that booted all the kids out of the lab.
I hear in math you are supposed to do research all on your own when you are a young-to-midcareer prof (only senior dudes/dudettes get to have students). In theoretical physics some people also do research without students, either alone or with a couple of postdocs.
For experimental work though, you have to have hands in the lab but I suppose they need not be student hands (can be techs or postdocs as CPP says).
But then we come back to what the mission of the institution is... I think if you are faculty at a university, it's your duty to do engage some students in research; part of the educational mission.
GMP said what I would have said. Warm bodies are more important in experimental work. In theoretical work, I'd say most faculty split their work up into tasks they can afford to let a student dally with and ones that need to get done at a professional pace.
The trick is to advance your professional standing (to maintain grants and earn tenure) while engaging students at a level where then can function effectively.
Research in geology, often field work, is sometimes done without students. This depends on the topic or how things are organized.
Depends on what you mean by students! If I understood you right, you're talking about undergraduate students not graduate students? In my university, undergraduates are not allowed to help out in labs/with research (and almost always lack the time to do so) unless they are being paid (very rare) or doing an accredited module (which in my department means they design their own projects, hence inevitably are very little use/relevance to the ongoing work of the group). So I would LIKE to offer more opportunities but our context doesn't allow it. I understand it's kind of different in the US - would love to hear an explanation of your context.
It is great work that you have done and I must say that you are doing research with students so that they can learn from you. According to me you should do research with students so that you can get more ideas as well.
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