Everyone who does a PhD there hates it. But no one has ever explained clearly to me why. So - why all the hatred for what seems from the outside to be a wonderful school?
- not trolling, no Chicago connections, just really curious
Why is Chicago so hated?
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That's not the problem. Having a person telling you to do something else before you waste half a year on it is good. Also having high standards is good. The problem is the whole environment. Its too oppressive. I've seen cases where professors told students to never go talk to them until they essentially have a paper ready to publish in econometrica. This has happened and in some cases they were unnecessarily hostile to make sure the student never went back. I've seen cases where professors said everything was ok and then after a long period of time (sometimes when its too late to fix things) ripped everything apart and told students to do something radically different. I have seen cases where they offer "advice" which clearly was intended to tell the students to go away. I have seen professors willfully sabotaging students. I have seen professors call up places and say that candidate X is bad and they should never hire that person (they forget that we know also know the guys on the other side of the line). I recall seeing cases where professors didn't care to talk to students about anything. They used to have this coffee hour thing where "students and professors could interact" and when they did show up some of them didn't want to talk to students and at some point the faculty stopped going altogether. The interaction with faculty was always limited in Chicago and when it did exist most of the faculty had this demeanor like as if somebody had forced them to attend that event and they just wanted to get out of there without talking to anyone in some cases swatting away students. If you go to these things and show that you don't want to talk then people will avoid you. There are exceptions among the faculty, but in general they sell a "do not talk to us" image. When you couple the small faculty size with this defunct interaction its no wonder that that students regularly choose to interact with professors in the GSB.
Another strange thing is that they seemed very religious in not working with students that I can comprehend but if the students are working by themselves learning how to do research then they need a bit more guidance than "come and see us when you think you have a robust result". At the very least, if you want high standards then you can help show them how to get at the standards you want them to reach (in some cases you do not even know what standards they want you to reach).
I'm not certain if the professors have their minds in the academic game and rather think of the place as some ivory tower where they can lock themselves away from everyone else.
When you couple this with a very aggressive first year, an unforgiving environment where students can only rely on each other and essentially only interact with students, bad funding, underpaid TA jobs, horrible offices (that you only get from the 3rd to the 5th year), etc. you tend to create really grumpy people that never really enjoyed the experience or learnt anything about research from the people that you would expect to guide them through the process. Worse, you create really smart independent thinking people that are extraordinarily well versed in poaching holes and tearing apart things in the most vicious way possible, as they experience on a regular basis. Anybody who finishes in Chicago knows that everything they got is because they earned it all by themselves and they know that the faculty does not deserve any recognition for your work. But we still thank the faculty because "its what looks good" even though we shouldn't have because they never were the coaches but rather only the judges.
I know that after graduating we are supposed to all be friends but when the environment you create is one where during seminars the professors sit at the big table, ask all the questions and get first pick on cookies or whatever they have that day and the students can only sit on the sides, are looked down on when they ask questions and g...See full post
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Worse, you create really smart independent thinking people that are extraordinarily well versed in poaching holes and tearing apart things in the most vicious way possible, as they experience on a regular basis. Anybody who finishes in Chicago knows that everything they got is because they earned it all by themselves and they know that the faculty does not deserve any recognition for your work.
Isn't that a pretty good thing?
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It's even worse than 5af7 says because while most students are treated like crap, professors have a few pet students since 1st year, many of them turn out to be lemons because professors basically like the annoying attention whores who disrupt class every 5 min with their stupid questions. Research ability is mostly still a hidden variable up until 4th-5th year. These guys the pet students get extra funding, lots of attention and they do get help in placement.
If you're good but those idiots do not like you then you will fall through the cracks through lack of funding, lack of support and advice or even outright boycotting and damaging advice.
If they like you even if you're an idiot (I know cases) they will push you in the job market. -
Chicago alum. 5af7 *nailed* it. I f**king hate that place, I hate the smugness which some of the students reflect, and yeah: they may have introduced me to ideas in the first few years, but I otherwise had to do their job myself. If I tried that with my students, my school would (rightfully) be on my ass about not doing my job.
I thought it was just me until graduation. I'm still surprised by the universally vicious comments and cynicism about the school that I heard in 10 minutes of us waiting for our degrees in Rockefeller Chapel.
f**k the UofC and Hyde Park.
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Chicago alum here. 5af7 nailed it.
I do not hate it though. I do not have good memories but it is the only decent department that believed in me accepting me. I do not have any contact with them anymore, a part one e-mail a year to my advisor to ask about junior candidates. Some members of my committee won't either recognize me at conferences although i did decently on the market.