Communications of the ACM
Where Computer Science Ph.D.s Get Hired Matters More Than Where They Trained
A 2015 study found that "social inequality" across a range of disciplines was so bad that just 25 percent of Ph.D. institutions produced 71 to 86 percent of tenured and tenure-track professors, depending on field.
Now computer scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder who led that earlier study say academic pedigree isn't destiny—at least in terms of future productivity.
"Our results show that the prestige of faculty's current work environment, not their training environment, drives their future scientific productivity," according to "Productivity, Prominence, and the Effects of Academic Environment," published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Current and past locations, meanwhile, "drive prominence."
That is, when it comes to actual research output, where one works is more important than where one trained.
The researchers looked at productivity and prominence (measured in number of published papers and scholarly citations, respectively) for 2,453 tenure-line faculty members in 205 Ph.D.-granting computer science departments.
From Inside Higher Ed
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