GirtonOramsay

Hey everyone, I didn't see a thread on this topic, so I figured that I would make one. So I am planning to go to a regional conference with one goal being to talk among local researchers about how we could work together on future projects. I'm curious how you even go about making new collaborations with new researchers. What questions do you want to ask or topics should you plan to cover during the conversation? I do have some ideas for collaboration (trying to combine experimental and computational modelling efforts) down the road, but I haven't really done much work to show these researchers since I'm still in my first year. For the longer term, what tips do you recommend for fostering good relationships at conferences with researchers that you would like to work with further down the road (say 1-2 years)?

I'm literally just taking one carry-on bag worth and backpack worth of clothes and essential items (laptop, other necessary work items) for the next two months of travel/work that's conveniently funding my way to my final destination and my apartment. I've planned well ahead to have an apartment when I get into town and will just have my parents ship a few items (air mattress, a box of personal possessions) shortly before I arrive. I don't really want to be stressed with finding a place while I crash in a gracious student's apt, so planning ahead, even with a credit card, pays off more with your time/stress levels that you can use to prepare for school. After I arrive, I'll just buy the cheapest essentials (pan, some dishes, food, etc.) with a credit card until I can get my stipend. So more or less following @samman1994's advice to travel and settle there as cheaply as your budget allows with some preparations ahead for where to stay when you arrive, whether it's just crashing on a grad student's couch or, if possible, reserving your apt ahead of time.

Thanks for the great insight TakeruK! I was looking for a strategy to limit my note-writing, and your method of leaving each point to 1 line sounds like the perfect way to compromise excessive notes and would force me to more concisely describe and remember ideas. I've definitely seen that progression from advisor to student leading meetings during my current research project and feel that my advisor appreciates that preparation. I feel the need to have something prepared for a meeting or else I would just be a disorganized mess trying to conduct the meeting, but I'll be sure to be clear about note-taking and taking pauses as needed, which I'm sure my new advisor won't mind.

As I look back at my research meeting notes from undergrad, I always found taking notes during meetings to be an annoyance and just typically distract me from keeping active in the conversation. What might be the best strategy to keep track of new ideas suggested for exploring further after the meeting that doesn't involve writing a page of notes? Recording the conversation seems more cumbersome having to filter through 30-60 minutes of audio. Is there a particular note taking strategy or practice that works for more experienced graduate students?

I found it tacky when I reviewed undergrad resumes for a student organization too since I will get to see your face if I'm actually interested in your application. Besides, seeing your face adds no value to your application/CV. I prefer to eliminate any arbitrary details of an applicant's profile (name, race, pic, etc.) since I only want to evaluate experience and skills from your CV.

This is a very helpful and insightful thread as I'm freaking out about preparing for my 1st long distance move! ? I'm currently planning to get a 2 bed apt with a roommate, but I have no way of getting out to my new town until 2 weeks before orientation due to summer camp work. Is there any way that I ensure when searching for apartments by housing companies? For instance, would be it odd to request a "virtual" tour where I ask to see a walkthrough of the apartment via video chat, like Skype or similar service?

If they are both (likely) at your home institute, then I'd imagine that they likely share grants where each advisor serves as a PI on their own grant, so they would likely contribute fairly equal roles for the advising and funding of the research project that they have in mind for you. I have a similar situation in the US where I will have two supervisors, but at 2 different institutes (home university and gov't science institute). However, my funding will solely come from my university advisor, but the secondary advisor and their colleagues are all serving as Co-PIs for a grant by my university advisor to directly fund my anticipated work. My secondary advisor and colleagues will contribute experimental evidence to make a stronger grant proposal on existing ideas by my university advisor thanks to such a collaboration. Hope this gives some insight ?

Thanks a lot for the great advice and insights on planetary science TakeruK! I agree that I really like the inter-disciplinary nature of planetary science and pursued my undergrad to learn many Earth science disciplines to be prepared for this field. You have a good point that I've put too much pressure on myself to think that I need my dissertation topic before entering grad school, but it's reassuring that having a good background in the field has put me "a step ahead" with potential ideas.

I am fairly certain that I want to attend Idaho, but I have this "mental barrier" that is making me apprehensive to fully commit since I feel I won't find viable research topic(s), given my specific circumstances. In my case, I have all of the usable data sets available to me (from an expired satellite mission), but the data has been scoured over for many years to the point that all of my ideas have already been done by other researchers. I read the literature (for ~3 months now) and get overwhelmed since I can't find any good ideas that haven't been explored yet. My POI has assured me that there is plenty of available problems to get a PhD, but I still remain uncertain of my capabilities. I just have this feeling that I won't be able to make an impact with my lack of confidence in my ideas now, but I also may be making overly high expectations for myself too. In general, what are some things that I can do to develop research ideas with advice and feedback from my POI during my first year? Should I rely on my POI to just give me some ideas to test out for the first year?

Kinda forgot to come back to this question lol. I definitely appreciate all of the advice from everyone's different perspectives! My situation is a bit more complicated with regards to the authorship situation considering that I was assigned to an abandoned PhD project that was 4 more years in the works such that the methods were pretty well established. I then came on to regenerate the programming procedures for the methods and gathered newer, updated datasets for the analysis. My advisor and I have working together to finish producing the results (developing a multi-regression model) and do expect to finish it in the summer before I leave. We were planning to begin the writing phase in summer and submit it by year's end. At the end of the day, I definitely want (and my advisor too) to this project go through to completion since my advisor has slowly developed the theory and contributed to the observations for nearly a decade now supporting this "ignored" effect. In regards to graduate collaborations, this research is in a different field from where I'm going for any grad school, so that would definitely not be an option. In the meantime, I'll take everyone's advice to discuss the important details of authorship responsibilities and will create an "ideal" calendar for producing the final expected results. @brainlass I'm in the same boat too (no grad student/postdoc), so I realize that the ball is in my court now and will need to put in the work to make it a publication like yourself.

I am currently working on 1.5 year research project that I started as a senior undergraduate, but my advisor doesn't expect us to have the final results and write-up for publication ready by the end of summer and says that I could just work with her in my first-year of PhD to finish up the publication. Does this seem like a reasonable expectation for me to follow through with considering that I will be busy with classes and maybe TAing once I start grad school? One note is that I have not established whether I would be first author as the research ideas are credited to my advisor, but I have helped perform a large chunk of the work to get the results.

Lol it is meant to reference when an Indian tried to spell Gordon Ramsay's name when he visited India. Yeah you just got the straggler school. Tbf, the POI seems very busy though with 8 publications (2 first-author) for 2018 alone...so he gets a pass for now, but not in 2 weeks

I applied to 2 schools in the UK as well and have had the same concerns with doing a PhD in 4 yrs (skipping Masters too), but apparently my POI at Exeter has said that the American vs UK/European graduate school programs are quite disputed. He described it to me as the UK system just skips the "qualifying exam rubbish" and doesn't try to waste time having students taking 1-2 yrs of graduate courses, which takes away from research. Although, he told me that he has his students sit in on a few masters-level core classes, like fluid dynamics, to gain foundation knowledge expected for the research. Definitely worth mentioning as an idea to your Cambridge advisor since I was also worried about having no classes, but a few core classes is a good compromise to me. This methodology apparently comes from the fact that UK students typically take 5-6 yrs to do their undergraduate studies, which starts at 16 vs 18 in the US. Most UK PhD applicants graduate with a first-honors degree (US equivalent to B.S. with honors thesis & high/highest honors) where they specialize in a certain field of science to a deeper level than a typical US college undergrad. This has the advantage of allowing UK students to become more certain and developed in their research interests that allows them to easily jump into and start working on independent research projects, hence the shorter graduation time. Whether this system is better than the US system for developing research skills is to be determined as I am not convinced either way yet. Ultimately, in the UK PhD, you are expected to do full-time research (could still TA though) as soon as you get there, and he told me that the main difference is "don't underestimate the very intensive workload and pace that we may expect of you" compared to the US. In other words, you get your hands down and dirty immediately after arriving in the UK vs in the US where you get to take a few years to develop your knowledge base and write a dissertation proposal with the qualifying exam before you do full-time research.

Lol "fast" = "sometime; maybe in April". I had one POI send me emails after each interview how "my CV/interview went and how my research proposal is sure to be chosen for a fellowship. Then emails me last week saying he was sorry that he couldn't add me to his team (as if I rejected) only to say that I should hear back the next day about it after correcting him. Still have no word on the admission or fellowship

Yeah I still have 4/7 to hear back from (one being my top school). Even for the "safety" schools that I've got accepted nearly a month ago, I just heard today about an unofficial estimate for one. Calling the department only turns up: "They haven't made decisions quite yet, but they're close", but still nothing after 2 weeks.