Dr. Aaron Hill, Oklahoma State PhD in Management Alum, talks about his PhD experience

I'm Aaron Hill. I'm an associate professor of management at University of Florida. I did my undergraduate degree at Gonzaga. I graduated with a bachelor business administration. I did an MBA there, and then I came to OSU for a PhD in management and I graduated in December of 2010.

The biggest thing that I took away from OSU was, we had a really good family type relationship. Not only worked closely with the faculty that were here, Federico, Scott Johnson was here. Very hands-on collegial relationship, but also with other students. I was really fortunate to go through with a wonderful group of people, not only are great scholars but I become great friends and just great people in the field. I think it really helps to have a close-knit environment and it was definitely fostered here.

Oh very, very prepared I mean, we started from day one on projects with the goal of getting them out the door. So it was very much a hands-on, hey we're going to do a project this semester. We had a goal every semester to have a project, at least move forward to where you would feel reasonably comfortable submitting it in the subsequences, so by the time I took comps which was a couple years in, I basically had four or five papers that were you know in progress or underway. So, it was very much from the start, a very clear focus. Some of that when you start, you don't really necessarily know what to do right? So you need someone to mentor you, so it's a very clear, "here we're going to work on this, and here's why. and so let's walk you through the process." So that when I was in year three it was kind of inverted, where you know I could walk through the process and have someone kind of help guide. So then when I was done, basically the training wheels were off. It was like riding a bike kind of start with some balance and then you start with giving up some speed, then you take the training wheels off. It was very well designed and I felt comfortable the whole time.

Yeah I think regardless the job market's going to be a little stressful. There's a lot of uncertainty in terms of where your place, what jobs are even open, so the matching is a little stressful for everyone. But, I felt incredibly prepared and part of that is that the program thought through what we needed and the steps that we needed to kind of hit us hallmarks so that our CV looked as it needed to do. So I felt very much prepared not only from the vita standpoint, but from the process standpoint. So we did a very good job of kind of like mock interviews and talking about how the process would unfold, so maybe you can't create it exactly but I felt very prepared which ultimately when someone gave you some questions.

One of the things I'm most thankful for is the support I received not on the social side as much as professional side. So, not only did we have funding for conferences, which isn't always the case everywhere. We went to the strategic management Society conference, even went to Rome. But, also received support from the faculty while I was there. It was very much and when I was here, Margaret, Scott, Federico, helping us get to know others in the field and it was very much a collegial family type environment. You just don't, I don't think you get that everywhere and part of that stuff people. Yeah, it's very much a testament to the people and the culture of the place.