Xarqin

If you're already close to getting your Ph.D., you might want to tough it out all the way to the finish line. But if you've barely just begun your program and s/he is already behaving like this, then switch to a different adviser NOW. If you stay longer and eventually still find that you must change advisers, then you would have just wasted more time needlessly. Explore the research of other potential advisers and see if there's someone willing to take you under his/her wing. If you do change, keep it professional and attribute it to some reason other than he or she being a jerk, e.g. some other subtopic interests me more. Leaving on amicable terms sure beats staying on until you "break down and make a complaint", after which there will be permanent bad blood between the two of you. In the mean time, see if your department has a mediator (either another professor or a senior student) with whom you can consult confidentially. What about the other members of your thesis committee (if one exists)?

I've always preferred a textbook to its electronic versions. With a real book, you can underline/highlight important points and jot down notes by the margins etc. This makes studying from it later on much easier. Also, looking at physical pages may be easier on the eyes than staring at a screen.

It may be a good idea to start off by reading review papers, the more recently published the better. If you're in a scientific field, use SciFinder to find and filter your hits based on document type, publication year and language. Just spending a whole weekend reading recent reviews will give you an overview of your subtopic of interest, and get you up to speed regarding the 'state of the art'. Also, these reviews would have compiled some of the most important cross references for your further reading, saving you the time and trouble of tracking them down yourself. Once you are 'up-to-date', you'll just have to set aside an hour or so each day to skim through the latest ASAP articles that have been just released. In addition, during the course of your work, you'll also be constantly downloading specific papers as references, thus supplementing the above. (P.S. Don't forget to look out for recent monographs on your subtopic, as well as attending talks/seminars/conferences, and regularly discussing work with peers).

Eigen, thanks a lot for the link.

Hi eco_env, That's an extra feature we plan to add if/when we get a significant number of reviews. Right now, there's just insufficient user-generated content to justify hooking up extra search capabilities to the research advisor database.

MoJingly, That very issue regarding the URL did come up even before the site was created. The title was supposed to be partially tongue-in-cheek, except for those who really did have an evil PI.... but I admit that some might take it the wrong way. Conversely, if the name sounded too positive, researchers who have suffered a nightmare experience are unlikely to use the review system to warn others. There was also the issue of coming up with a name that wasn't already taken, e.g. most of the neutral-sounding ones.

Hi Zencarrot, It's true that reviewing your prof. would be problematic if: 1) the group size is very small, 2) the adviser-advisee relationship is a bad one, and 3) a long and detailed written review was indeed provided (thus providing identifying clues). In view of this, written comments have been made optional. There is also a 30-question questionnaire that will provide sufficiently useful info about the prof. and life in the group, even in the absence of a written review. To see an example, search "Pattenden" on the website. This was the first review we received. The user chose not to write any comments, but the rating chart is still useful for prospective students. Moreover, the advisee-advisor relationship could be a good one, and in that case, a current or former student may wish to promote the group by letting others know that the PI is a good person to work for. Thanks a lot for your critique and time. P.S. The website is not set in stone; it can be modified and improved based on user input.

Have you looked at the programs at Harvard, MIT and Rice University? Don't limit your browsing to the Chemistry departments... scout around in the ChemE and Materials Science/Engineering websites as well (and maybe even Electrical Engineering). You can often do your Ph.D. as a student in a parent department, but conduct your research with a PI from a different department. Read around and pose questions to specific researchers. Staying at your undergrad institution to do a Ph.D. is typically not a good idea. They call it 'academic inbreeding' and is often discouraged, but not unknown. It is better for you to expand your horizons and professional network elsewhere. Your current PI's agenda is in line with *his* personal career goals and interests, not yours. It is somewhat selfish of him to want you to stay where you are; my own undergrad PI never encouraged that practice. Good luck.

Professors are typically very busy people who receive scores of emails everyday. It's not unusual to get one-word or one-sentence replies. In fact, many may not even reply at all.

We've just made a website where current and former members of a research group can anonymously rate and review their PIs, and provide accounts of their experience in that group. I was just wondering if prospective students and postdocs would find such a resource useful? Most prospectives make decisions based on research topics and the professor's reputation/publication record, which are all common knowledge, but there's little to go on as to whether one would work well with the PI. Recruitment weekends are useful to some extent, but you don't always get all your questions answered. There are also enough stories about bad advisor-advisee relationships in academia to suggest that many didn't make the right decision. Any feedback is appreciated.