EmmaW

Hi everyone, I hope to get some advice on my situation. I'm in my 4th year of PhD. I have only one year left after the spring semester (graduating May 2020). My advisor is up for tenure review by the end of this semester and she will find out the result by May 2019. Since she hasn't got a lot of publications, I think it's likely that she will not get tenure. She is an awesome professor and researcher and I think everyone in my department knows that. It's just that she aims very high and tries to publish papers using huge models that take a long time to finish to get the papers out. Anyway... My situation is that I'm close to ABD and like I said I only have 1 year left. I have been a good student, winning a few awards for teaching and researching within the department. I'm well liked among other professors in the department. I'm usually funded half by my advisor's grant and half by doing TA work. There are a few professors in the department that work in the same field I do and who I can certainly be happy to work with if my advisor has to go but they already have a few students and I'm not sure about their funding capabilities. My question is, hypothetically if my advisor didn't get tenure, what should I do if I certainly do not want to follow her to her new institution (given that I have family here and close to getting done). Is it wise to start talking to the program director now? Is there anything I should do now or I should wait until my advisor finds out about her tenure result? I'm pretty worried about my future & would appreciate some advice. Thanks so much.

Thank you. I checked out your post. Seems like you haven't accepted the offer yet so good luck with making the best decision

Thank you very much! My school does belong to CGS. However, in my acceptance letter they said they want me to accept/decline the offer within 2 weeks. That's why I was freaked out and accepted right away . May I ask, what kind of external funding you got? I'm international student so my chance at many types of funding is very limited and since I already got my Master's I really don't want to get out with another Master's

Hi everyone, I accepted the PhD offer to my most favorite program of all I applied to a month ago. The program gave me around $19/year with tuition remission. I was pretty naive about the financial situation that I was in and had accepted the offer. Now after talking to several current students there, they said that usually my advisor will fund me at least until I attain my candidacy, but it's very uncertain after that. I talked to my potential advisor and he said he'll try his best to fund me with his grants (if they are approved of course) but there's no guarantee. And now I'm very worried about what I had got myself into. I have other offers from programs of lower ranks but guarantee me full funding for my entire degree that are still waiting for my decision. I know backing out an accepted offer is very very bad but I'm so depressed thinking about not being able to finish my PhD because of funding cut short and I don't have any saving aside to cover tuition for 3-4 years. Do you have any advice for me in this situation? Thanks a lot.