Tall Chai Latte

For my rotations, I checked out the profiles of PIs on the program website, and write them a brief email to introduce myself and asking about rotation possibilities. And shoot for meeting them in person or converse on the phone.

For my program, I got my grad school email account when I accepted the offer (the usual April deadline). And then I started receiving information about activities, classes, etc at some point in mid summer, as well as contacting potential rotation advisor (if you are in life sciences). I know how exciting it feels!

Well, I think it's normal to feel depressed telling your supervisor that you will be leaving after all. Maybe deep down, you still want to continue working with her. Because if you didn't like it there you wouldn't have stayed for the last two years of your undergrad. I experienced the same 'depression' when I told my undergrad supervisor that I'd be heading off to another institute for my PhD, and it was a lab I stayed with for 3 years of my undergrad and 1 post-bac year! They will understand, and you won't be the last undergrad coming through the lab. It's okay, you will be just fine. I'm sure the program you got accepted to is a good choice as well!

I think wrote them cards. For my undergrad research PI, because I've been to his house, so I decided to mail the card. Something neutral is good.

I didn't do an MS, so I don't have a lot of advisor-student stories to share out of my own experience. I had one good advisor for undergrad research, but I was just an undergrad, and was presumably treated differently. My current advisor is good, she upholds her professional standard better than other PIs I rotated with, so I like that. We also work well with each other. However, she tends to spend less time teaching you things because of her somewhat impatient nature -- so you gotta do a bit of learning on your own. But I'm more of an independent person and like tackle problems on my own first.. So I guess that works out. She also doesn't micromanage, which is a big plus.

1. It depends, but I don't think there's an end to reading. You need to stay current on the literature, so that means reading often. 2. This is an important skill to learn. I'm still learning how to do this, but according to my PI, you can start from reading review articles published in your field (and not just some random review articles -- the ones published in prestigious journals are the most ideal). In some of these review articles, authors will explicitly state what are the unanswered questions in the current field, and that can give you some leads. Or you can simply read a lot and make connections between findings, sometimes an interesting question would pop up. The latter method is harder in my opinion. 3. Having a mind map definitely helps. At your current stage, you can use it to track general informations rather than jumping straight to opportunities for research. At one point I had one of those mind maps, but it was too labor-intensive for me to go back and forth between reading and making the map. Now I just take simple notes to help me remember things I read.

Hi there! Hopefully you will find this forum helpful!

You know, I think I am going to agree with you on #2, the lack of skill/experience to supervise and manage. My PI is in similar situation as you, who's young and but not as new as yours (I'm the second grad student in the lab). The nature of my project is in a completely different discipline, and research of the lab is very interdisciplinary as well, which means the PI will have to manage all sorts of fields she's not familiar with. Like you said, this can potentially be salvaged by a well-balanced thesis committee. I also have the same concern as you do, but I guess we have to remain confident in them and do as much as we can to help ourselves. After all, these new faculty are still in the growth phase like us. I was wondering if anyone else has other tips on how to ensure smooth completion of PhD program when your PI is a new faculty. We are far less experienced in terms of sensing good projects or good directions to pursue, but other than appointing a well-balanced committee, what are some of the things that we could do to self-help at least?

For me, I had doubts every step of the process. Starting from applying, getting accepted, deciding on a program, choosing a lab, and up til recently, passing the prelim. Luckily I had people in my cohort who were going through the same thoughts too, and we gave each other emotional support and reminding each other "we are good enough for this" along the way. I think if you think that every decision you made along the way was the best decision at that point in time, then there's really nothing to regret about. After all, you could only worry about the present and have no control over what the future holds.

Dal PhDer, I don't think being someone's first PhD student is necessarily a bad thing for mentoring. The person just started, he or she would still have qualities of a post doc and maybe less intimidating to work with, more willing to spend time with you, anticipate where difficulties may arise etc. The cavet is that you may be under a lot of pressure to produce, as your PI will be pushing to establish his/her research. At least from my experience, I think these junior faculty are better at tuning in to your needs than more established faculty, because you two would be no more than 15 years apart in age.

Hey Mo. B- is good enough, just make sure your grade doesn't hinder your overall progress in the program is good enough. I didn't know you are a pathology student!

They weren't harsh, but they were pushing for my limit for sure. I patched up most of the holes found in the writeup during the actual talk, so some committee members lost some questions to ask. And when they asked about alternative hypothesis and other potential scenarios, I pulled up my backup slides and explained what the answer could be. The committee was impressed, whew!

OMG today was so embarrassing. I knew that my writeup had a big flaw going in, and I knew my committee would keep asking me questions. And they did, I just stood there and can't even compose a coherent sentence. My PI was there watching the whole thing, but she said I hit at least half of the questions, so my performance has exceeded her expectation. At least it's over, I can finally relax!

I'm so eager to share with you all on grad cafe!

OMG I just had my prelim. I felt and still feel like what the OP described, but I unconditionally passed!

So yea, I couldn't sleep. My prelim is tomorrow and I'm pacing back and forth in my room. I've been brainstorming potential questions but I constantly feel under prepared. The older grad students said majority of people usually passes, but.. ahhhh!! Panicking!! End of today's episode of panic attack. Now back to reading.

elem3nt, I was just like you when I was in undergrad. I had classes and was heavily invested in research. Although I learned a great deal from these activities, I feel like I've lost some valuable life experience when compared to my other undergrad friends. But soon I realized what fuzzy just said, you need to schedule your free time in and stick to it, just as you do anything else. This is going to be hard during your first year in grad school, but once you settled in/got a handle on your routine, scheduling should be much easier. You will also learn to do a "just good enough" job in grad school, so you are not too sucked in on perfecting one thing. All this is doable, you just need time to figure things out. For example, I've never run before, but I picked up running as a hobby during the start of my second year. It's been a great relaxation technique and motivator. I will be training for my first half-marathon once I'm done with my prelim, pretty excited about that!

I do add fellow grad students and post docs as my facebook friend, but if a PI wants to friend me -- I would think twice about that. You don't want occasional rants to go on their time line

I think it does vary from field to field. I am in the life sciences, for my program, students do rotations during their first year. Research contribution is less important, but we are told to focus on the coursework during our first year. Once you join a lab at the start of your second year, you might still have one or two courses to finish up, but the main focus is on research. Expectation is that you need to maintain good standing on coursework and research, so you really have to balance well. Most people in my program graduates in 5 years total with at least one first author paper. As for the major overachiever in your cohort -- just ignore her. Everyone has their own pace, as long as you are satisfying your advisor's expectation, what she chooses to do has nothing to do with you. I understand you would feel pressured by her performance (I would feel so too since I expect highly from myself), but PhD program is a marathon, you need to run the starting warm-up miles slower to achieve overall faster time. You will do great!

Half.com may also be another option. Although I've never bought any textbooks from them, but someone might be selling the books you need on there. They are at a good deal too.

That happened to me two semesters ago, and I was placed on academic probation. Classes outside of your field can really be a hit or miss. I mean, I guess people come to grad school having their mind set on something they are interested in/good at, sometimes when you take a course outside of your intended field, it could turn out to be interesting and you do well. If it doesn't interest you, well... It could be a drag. I was asked to retake the course (there's a very long story behind it), I managed to pass with a B+ but honestly, I didn't think the material interests me much, and the semester went by so slowly. Find a happy place Mo! Your happiness is the first and foremost.

My lab is also very small, consisting of 2 PhD students (one will be graduating soon, and there's me) and 5 post-docs. We also have a lab manager who take cares of supply ordering. Our PI is oversees all research activity and have one-on-one meetings with us weekly. General lab stuff is taken care of by our lab manager. The rest of us focus on handling issues arise in our own research, we would go to the PI if the obstacles persist. Most of the labs I've been in have post docs, and it's nice to have them around to help. One way is you can go directly to the PI and ask for help, he is your advisor and he's there to help you. The other way is trying to seek help and advice from senior personnel in another, say the lab you are collaborating with. It will be more difficult, but not impossible to see support.

Which grade level are you teaching? I spent some time as an ESL student back when I was in 10th grade in HS, some of the interesting reads I remember includes Fahrenheit 451, The Giver (this one is really short), and George O'well's 1984. We also read other stuff, but I just don't remember now.

Thanks guys, it's great to know that I'm not alone. I am the only grad student in the lab (surrounded by Asian postdocs, who didn't get their PhD in the States and don't seem to understand what it feels like to go through the process). They spend very long hours in lab, so it feels little awkward to take time off, but you gotta do what you need to do -- passing is very important. BassAZ, my PI is not allowed to be on the standing committee, but the committee will ask him his opinion about me. There's a saying that goes like this: if your PI wants to get rid of you, the best time to do it is at your prelim. Though I think it is unlikely things will come to this... Hope not.