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Where are the politics? I must have missed that portion of grad school. PhD students typically take a few classes in related topics, meet with a mentor regularly, and conduct independent research until they defend their dissertation. This model is very old and very straightforward.

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Not sure about US, but in Poland it is all about grants. If you have one, you can get paid for part of the year, go to conferences outside your city/country etc. If you don't have a grant, you don't get money, you have to support yourself somehow (e.g. get a job, but then, you have less time for PhD).

Your mentor (+ his overseers) decides where the money goes = politics.

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