- Yaman K Singla, Scientist at Adobe MDSR, Google PhD Fellow at SUNY-Buffalo and IIITD
This post came about as a result of several interactions with many of my friends doing PhD around the world. Quite a few of those misfits wanted to do a PhD in India but did not know about all the amazing opportunities available here and ended up making an un-informed decision. So here's a series of posts dedicated to:
- Making the Indian PhD scene a bit clearer
- Helping others riding in the same boat to make a more informed decision
- Helping Indian research community in whatever way I can
What is a Joint PhD?
Quite simply, you enroll in two institutes, have two advisors (one from each institute), spend time at both the universities and finally earn a degree containing both of their names.
Why Joint PhD?
Well there could be many reasons:
- Two different advisors with each bringing their own expertise and ideas
- Two different research cultures
- Experience of living at another place
- VISA (if one of your universities is in another country)
- Greater choice of courses
- Benefits of both the universities combined in a single program
- Stay with the family during a part of your PhD and its associated benefits (like food, lodging, etc)
Downsides
Not much in my opinion but here are some which I observed:
- Hassle involved with going and staying at the other university