[Miserable in PHD - where did it go wrong?]

Update:

 

I spoke to the professor, without writing a proposal, about my concerns. I thought about it, and while I'm still writing the proposal for my own purposes, I should just talk informally and at least express that my interests are in materials science, not quantum information. We are not going forward. I talked about a project that he has personally brought up before, and talked about some ways we can go about that project - instantly shut down with a "might not be a good idea" - and that's a project he brought up before. They really want to push me into the quantum information research and even that semiconductor project that the professor previously came up with, is probably getting shelved. I didn't come here to do quantum information. This is an unsolvable problem. Plus, the heavy teaching load does not make things any easier.

[Miserable in PHD - where did it go wrong?]

Three lab sections is a lot. 

What is the TA trajectory like at your university? Where I am, the 1st year TAs all had to teach 2 x 3hr introductory labs per week for the first academic year and grade 45-50 lab reports every week (prelab, quizzes, reports and post labs). The first semester was rough, because of course I had to take classes and do my lab rotations.

BUT...

...It did get easier in my second semester. Grading became quicker, I balanced stuff up better, and was able to focus more on research. In our second academic year, the TAs at my university are moved to the more specialist labs: I now only have to TA one 3hr section and the grading for that is really slick. 

 

Will you be expected to TA these same sessions with the same time commitments next year? All things being equal, if that's not the case then I would just stick it out. 

 

HOWEVER...

You need to be where there is cash. A department without money is not going to be able to provide you with the resources, training and support you need to get a worthwhile qualification to do well on the job market. Citing a lack of "research fit" is reason enough to transfer schools. 

 

Thank you. The department has alot of momentum in terms of infrastructure from when it was doing well financially. The problem really 3 fold: 1.) teaching burden, 2.) I don't know if the professor will approve of me writing my own research proposal 3.) social life sucks. I was surprised at how the department had a relatively high ranking yet still had such a massive teaching burden.

 

Is this a good plan? I've already done alot of reading on the techniques used in the lab. The professor seemed to be technique, rather than system oriented, and I'd like to write my own proposal for applying these techniques to systems and questions closer to device physics. The technique itself is very versatile, I just don't like the systems that the professor wants me to study. The professor has no grants other than an instrumentation one at this point, and I'm not supported by the grants anyways, so I feel it is appropriate for me to think of other ideas - perhaps this one will be funded. I'll write up a 2-3 page proposal for addressing these problems, applying his techiques (no instrumental modifications), with literature citations as necessary. If the professor says "yes", I'll stay. If they say "no" in a way that says it can be worked out, I'll try to work it out with them. If they say "no" in a way that they don't want me doing a more independent project, then I'll have to transfer.

[Miserable in PHD - where did it go wrong?]

 

What did you do wrong?  Probably nothing.  It's difficult to get a good sense of what being a student at a particular department is going to be like until you're there.  You can meet and like a professor for the 1.5 hours you talk to him, and then find out that he's not good to work for.

 

Also, teaching 3 lab sessions is a LOT for a graduate student.  I taught two lab sessions in one semester of grad school and I felt like I didn't have time to do anything else.  I get a sense (could be inaccurate) that the department is using doctoral students as low-cost teaching labor.  The fact that they are running into financial issues and are withholding research funding at the point when you really need it (the beginning of the program) is also worrying.  It's easier to juggle teaching and your own work when you don't have courses and when you know a little more, so frontloading the teaching requirement seems a bit silly.  Especially since you are all doing research anyway.

 

The more important question is - what are you going to do now?  You can try to make it work at your current institution or you can attempt to transfer somewhere you'd be happier personally and professionally.

 

If you're going to try to make it work, you'll have to change your approach to working with your advisor.  The professors who have projects that are very different - I would sit down with as many of them as you can and have a 30-minute chat.  Where is their research really going?  If you have ideas, where do your own ideas fit into their lab's work?  What stage are they at with your projects?

 

If you want to stay with your advisor but do different work or write grants, you're going to have to be more assertive and independent.  Most advisors appreciate this kind of initiative, which is something I wish I had known in grad school.  If you wait for your advisor to give you the go-ahead, you might be waiting forever.  If you want to write a proposal, identifying a granting agency and draw up an outline.  Then make a meeting with your advisor and show him the outline and discuss it.  If he thinks it's a bad idea because your idea needs work/won't work scientifically/it's the wrong agency/some other valid reason, then you might need to do revisions or think about a different avenue.  If he vetoes it simply because he doesn't want to support you in writing the grant, then run away and find another advisor.

 

You'll also need to try to obtain external funding.  This might be difficult - it sounds like you're not eligible for NSF because of your MS, but you might be eligible for NDSEG and Hertz (more competitive).  That will relieve some pressure and maybe get you into labs that you couldn't work with before.  If your university has internal fellowships that could also help.  If you're teaching 3 lab sessions (which I'm assuming are around 2 hours each), and you also have to attend the lecture (which is probably 1.25 hours), then you have this 3 hour meeting, and you're holding multiple office hours (let's say 1 per session).  That's already 13.25 hours you are spending without even including prep time, like all the grading, preparing labs, etc.  With grading large sections of individual lab reports, I could see your teaching easily taking up 25-30 hours a week, which is WAY too much time in the beginning of your program.  I think it can hinder your progress.

 

 

Thanks for the reply. The labs are actually 3 hours long, but at least lecture attendance is optional. Grading the labs is a nightmare since its all individual lab reports. I literally spend 15 hours a week (9 hours lab, 3 hour meetings, office hours) on physically being present as an instructor. I indeed spend 25-30 hours per week on the teaching job alone. The meetings actually have *homework assignments* such as doing prelabs along with the students and stuff.

 

None of the labs I'm interested in have a problem with financing the research - they have a problem paying an RA salary. All of my research is heavily electronics based. Once the parts are in, there's no more consumables except sample fabrication until the parts break. All the professors I talk to say "sure, you can work for me, but I probably won't have an RA for you for a while".

 

I'm trying to be assertive and independent, but its hard to do when you're the new guy. I'm definitely independent since I have the experience needed to be independent. I've already started to think about potential projects and writing outlines, but the problem is, the professor seems to really want to push me into his theoretical research direction rather than the applications based one that I thought I'd get to do coming in.

 

I have actually thought about transferring, not least of which is because one of my friends talked to a professor who explicitly said that transferring is an option. I just feel like I've sunk a year into this and want to try to make it work. However, as backups, I've already begun applying to new universities. I just need to know how to write the application in the correct way.

[Miserable in PHD - where did it go wrong?]

Well, what kind of research did you do on the school beforehand?

Did you make a school visit?  Sit in on any classes? Speak to any students at length, both in terms of the program but also casually? 

Did you ask about what teaching is like and what the workload or philosophy would be?

Those are all the factors you're pointing to as not fitting, so I wonder whether you understood those things or not before going in. If you did know these things beforehand, then it sounds like you didn't know yourself very well, or at least not what you would like out of a program. If you did NOT know these things beforehand, it would seem like you could have done more thorough homework.

 

Also, I don't know how long you've been in the program, but is it possible you're having a sort of post-Christmas Day let-down? You know, after you anticipated grad school/Christmas Day for months and months, getting all excited and imagining what it would be like, and what might be inside those boxes, now that you've gotten it, it's a sort of let down?  Either not what you expected and hoped for, or simply just the normal deflation after all that excitement and anticipation... ?

Just a thought.

 

I thought that wouldn't be an issue. I came into this with eyes wide open - I had a MS, I taught, I did research, I presented at conferences with PHD students and already talked to many students who already had a PHD. I passed the PHD program's written qualifier exam before school even started.

 

I visited, but it was a managed visit - we did not get to sit in on classes or anything. I didn't even think about teaching philosophy or workload being an issue because these policies were all recent changes - starting this year, TA workhours shifted around such that there was an invisible increase in the amount of hours worked, and for a longer duration, due to recent funding issues. I thought I had done my research well, but it seems like I didn't know myself well enough - I didn't know what would be issues and what wouldn't, or things that are very important now seemed secondary back then.

[Miserable in PHD - where did it go wrong?]

Does not compute. I'm sure we'd all love to help, but you need to explain the situation first, chief.

 

I agree that more details are needed. What specific things at your new program are bothering you and how do they differ from your MS and your expectations?

 

Yah, no way to help without at least some details.

 

Sorry for this. I'll provide some details then.

 

1.) I recently graduated with a MS in physics from a large state university and was accepted to another large state university for a PHD. This university is highly ranked in my area, so at the time it seemed like a no-brainer. The only downside (in my mind at the time) was that it is located in a very remote location. I visited and it seemed fine.

 

2.) After I arrived, I found a few things wrong with the research. The professors that I wanted to work with either had projects very different from what I imagined at the time or had already filled up the projects of interest. All the other projects were in other areas that used the same or similar equipment, but very theoretical, which I didn't really have background or interest in. I thought that was fine - at least one of the professors had a project in instrumentation development, that I thought would allow me to gain valuable skills in programming, electronics, and optical devices, so I chose that professor. I directly asked the professor how much opportunities would we get to actually build the instrument from parts on up. He said that buying would be a last resort. Now in the group meeting, before I even get a chance to start, the professor wants to directly buy everything, not just parts, but entire devices. This leaves me feeling that everything that I came here for is not here anymore. The professor says that since I have experience, I can try to write my own proposal for a project, but since he changed his mind before, I don't know how much freedom I actually have to explore my own interests.

 

3.) The department has run into big funding issues. The department, in order to maximize use of existing funds, has made 2 decisions: all students must make a choice of advisor by November and no student will receive RA funding until the passing of the oral exam. This means that I must teach for at least 2 years, while preparing for the oral exam, doing research, and taking courses.

 

4.) The teaching load is heavy and I don't like the teaching philosophy here. I teach 3 lab sessions, must attend 3 hour meetings each week, have to hold multiple office hours, and the students all write individual lab reports. These are large lower division labs. The way the teaching supervisor talks about the undergrads makes me uncomfortable. He treats them like idiots to be handled, rather than learners who just don't have enough experience. He makes jokes about students and tells us to "talk to students in a way they can understand. Use simple language."

 

5.) The social life here is quite boring. There's nothing to do here except drinking. There's no grad student lounge in this department like the way there was in my MS, so I only met the other people in my cohort during the orientation week.

[Miserable in PHD - where did it go wrong?]

I did very well during my MS, so I thought that doing a PHD would be no problem. From what my classmates who moved on to a PHD say, they thought they fit right in. Except me. I don't feel like I fit in at this school, either socially, in terms of teaching (both workload and teaching philosophy) or research wise. I'll spare the details.

 

What did I do wrong when I chose this school? Is there any way to remedy the situation?

[Pens/Pencils which brands do you prefer?]

Why would ppl use pen? It feels like a bad compromise between printing and pencil - neither with the neatness of print, nor with the convenience, versatility and speed of pencil. If I need ink, I print, elsewise, I use pencil for almost everything except signatures.

[PI personality - need help.]

I've helped write one major (several million) and one minor (a bit under a million) grants. Lots of work on the latter, help here and there on the former. 

 

For senior graduate students with good ideas who can write well? I'd say it's pretty common. 

 

Sadly, without your PhD, you'll never be officially listed on the grant no matter how much you write, at least with most of the big (NSF, NIH, DOD, DOE) funding agencies. But you can list it on your CV, your letters will mention it, and it's good experience. 

 

That's awesome that you got to write a grant. I thought it was extremely rare and only the most elite graduate students could do it.

[PI personality - need help.]

The book is good for all lab sciences, even if that's the general gearing. 

 

Any experimental (non-theoretical) chemistry is pretty much the same, including chemical physics, materials science, etc.

 

Having a fellowship will give you some freedom, but I'm assuming at some point you'll want to move from a TA to an RA (as soon as possible, ideally) so then you'll be paid off the grant. 

 

Either way, the grant is paying for all of your research expenses, so what you do needs to be covered under the aims of said grant. 

 

Thank you for the advice. I will keep it in mind. Hopefully I get a chance to work on a project of my own, but if not, there are existing grants that can tangentially be related to my interests, so that's always a plus.

 

A question: how often do students actually get to help write a grant?

[PI personality - need help.]

I think you're conflating "some leeway" with "running your own experiments". 

 

In most lab sciences, I'd say there's a large part of paying in your dues- you spend at least a few years learning the ropes and putting time in working on already (mostly) designed projects. Then you can start branching off and proposing/running experiments of your own. 

 

Most labs I know will slot new grad students in on an existing project/portion of a project with a post-doc or senior PI for the first year-part of a year, and then start asking for more independence from that grad student- giving them less designed projects, or just a goal and letting them design the idea. 

 

For lab sciences, the major "goals/ideas" of the lab are set when you join- they're the goals stated on the funding that runs the lab. There are deliverables that have to be met to keep the place running, and everyone paid. 

 

As you spend more time in the lab, you'll either get to start coming up with ideas that will be used in the next set of grant proposals, or for things you can do that don't cost much or are tangentially related. But most of your time, if you're paid off a grant and using grant funds, has to be spent doing things that can be detailed in the yearly progress reports for the granting agency, and likely in areas that work towards one or more specific aims for that grant. 

 

Most of your early side projects will likely, in my experience, be "spare time" projects- things you design and run that don't take away from what you're working on for the grant, but you spend some extra time working on. If those turn out to be fruitful, you're more likely to be able to continue them once you have preliminary data. Especially for something like your setup (instrument development) you can do a lot of side projects in your spare time, as supplies are cheap. This is much different than something that requires, say, live animals- those require a lot of cost and IRB approval for projects, so things "on the side" are much more difficult. 

 

I've recommended this book before, and will recommend it again here: 

 

http://www.amazon.com/At-Bench-Laboratory-Navigator-Updated/dp/B0074303Q2/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=

 

Is a great read for anyone in the lab sciences, as an intro to lab politics, organization, etc. It's not one size fits all, but it helps. 

 

Thanks for the book. I'm not paid off a grant though - I have a fellowship for part of the cost and TA for the rest. Does that give me more freedom, seeing as the professor is actually not paying for me to do specific research? I am more than willing to do what I'm told for the first year or two, but eventually would like to take ownership of a project.

 

EDIT: the book seems to be geared towards biology, biochemistry and wet synthetic chemistry.

[PI personality - need help.]

From what I've seen (in the sciences), most of the time a PI will give their PhD students some sort of order about what they should do, but the amount of leeway the student has to problem-solve/manage the project by themselves varies greatly.

 

One compromise could be that you work on the simple project that your PI asks you to in the beginning. Then later on you develop your own, more independent project. The advantage to that would be that it (a) increases the likelihood of you getting a publication early on ( proves to the PI that you can hack it in the lab, and hopefully they'll come to trust you with solo project management. 

 

Brand-new assistant professors are always a risk, since there's no way of knowing in advance what kind of PI they are, or if their research ideas are any good. You also don't know if their advertised research program is actually going to remain as described: his theoretical projects might quickly turn out to be more successful than the applied projects, in which case he may decide to focus all his efforts onto publishing theoretical papers/writing grants for theoretical projects. 

 

When it comes to making a decision about this PI, always trust your gut. If you think that something isn't right for you...it probably isn't. 

 

I guess the very fact that I'm asking all these questions about this PI means that it probably isn't going to be a good idea. My plan was to work on his project at first, but then as I get experience building/programming the machine, learning how to design optical instrumentation and interpreting results, he'd allow me some leeway to pursue projects that I can define on my own, applying the skills I previously learned to new problems.

 

The thing with the machine is this: there's no real expendables. All samples are reusable and are cheap/easy to make or buy. The spectrometer itself is basically the main cost to the research - once it is built, the only costs to running the lab will be wages, electricity and minor expendables. There really should be no logical issue with me running my own experiments other than "opportunity cost", but academia is all but logical...

[PI personality - need help.]

Your concern is legitimate. I agree with much of the consensus here that personality between you and your advisor should fit to a certain extend. While that is an important factor to consider, you also should look at how well the advisor's expertise fit your projects. I would try to find a good middle ground between personality and expertise. Some advisors are very ambitious and adventurous; they want to try all kinds of new ideas or break into a new field, but could not find the right person to work on those new projects. Pay attention to what kind of projects they are proposing to you, and whether that's something the PI's good at, or there's a more experienced person for help and advice. If you can get no help at all from your own lab, run away and look for another option.

 

This is how my current lab is like. My advisor wants to do everything in her lab-- from structural biology to animal models- while her own training is in traditional molecular biology. I joined because the lab has been well funded (I was looking for a lab to stay in the midst of funding crisis a couple years back) and the proposed projects really appealed to me. It wasn't long before I realized that I could not get any help from my advisor and the lab, nor the help she promised to hook me up with. But I already over-committed to the lab, leaving would cause significant delay to my graduation. I switched projects 3-4 times and caused much unnecessary stress and frustration.   

 

I once read an article on the Chronicle of Higher Education on mentoring. The article concludes with the advice that "never choose an advisor who needs you more than you need him". The existing power imbalance could lead to exploitation, or something that feels like it. 

 

My prospective professor is an expert in optical spectroscopy of solids. He is more into the quantum materials side (so basically, single crystals of complex materials that stuf) since that's his postdoc work, while I want to work with nanostructured semiconductors, which was his PhD project. In addition, he has moved more into using ultrafast lasers to measure the quantum properties of solids (carrier correlations, excited state decay pathways, etc), while I wanted to also work on optical measurements of material properties (thermal dependence of optical/electronic properties, nanomechanics, etc - this was his PhD work) as well as the quantum electronics properties. All these measurements use the exact same machine, it is just that the laser sequence, delay timings, sample stage (cooling systems), etc. are different. The spectrometer has not even been designed yet, much less built - it is hoped for first light by March doing measurements on single electron defects, which requires only the most basic setup, and then to go from there to increase capabilities.

 

When I talked to him, he said that there were already students on the semiconductor materials properties and instrument design projects. He really wants me to do a project on quantum materials and single electron defects. I could do a semiconductor project, but that would be more towards solid state quantum coherence, rather than a more applied project in materials properties. I really want to do an applied project though. He said that if I could think of my own project to do with the machine, he could consider it as well, but I don't know how much this promise will be true. I understand that he needs to get papers out as soon as possible and the single electron project is the easiest to do with the machine and I'm more than willing to spend time on his projects - as long as they don't take away from the ability for me to pursue mine.

 

I don't know if I can actually get to work on my own project; how often is it that a student just follows orders from the PI instead of explore their own project? In my MS I basically took full ownership of a project from start to end and the professor basically just gave me the idea, and that was it. Otherwise, I just emailed my professor when I had trouble, we talked, and I wrote half page monthly progress reports. I know how to work independently and be self motivated. Right now, the other students seem to have less background so the lab has been moving sort of slowly and the machine is not being built at all except by the postdoc - they're just reading.

[PI personality - need help.]

Thanks guys, you've given me alot to think about. I hope other students will learn about selecting PIs from this as well.

[PI personality - need help.]

Coming into grad school one lesson I learned quickly is (i) PIs don't know everything (ii) for a lot of research-based problems you can get pretty good assistance just from asking your fellow group members - sometimes their advice is even more useful than what your PI would give! 

 

Personally, I wouldn't consider those 2 incidents to be a deal-breaker in isolation. If you have the opportunity to go along to group meetings I would urge you to do so. You don't even need to ask questions - just observe the dynamic between the PI and his students. Watch to see if he gives them a lot of detailed, precise feedback, and see how they present their work (e.g. are they soliciting him for feedback on their research problems? or do they seem to be dealing with any problems themselves?). Then get the group members alone and ask them about the PI - what his advising style is, how they deal with research problems, what his expectations are.

 

There are advantages to having hands-off advisors. I've found that my ability to problem-solve and my self-confidence as an independent scientist have both grown when I've worked with hands-off PIs: when I worked for more hands-on PIs I would end up rushing to them whenever I had a problem, without pausing to think things through for myself (it was so easy, they were always so happy to suggest something). With hindsight (i) I could have solved most of those problems myself if I'd had the time and confidence (ii) it kinda hampered my professional growth, because then my advisor didn't view me as someone who could work independently, and so kept me on the low risk/low reward-type projects. "Hands-on" and "micromanager" are often closely linked terms in the sciences. 

 

I'm not saying that you should bite off more than you can chew when beginning a PhD - just to think about what you want (long-term) from a PI, versus what you need. And don't undersell yourself! 

 

Thank you. My PI for my MS was very hands off and I didn't bother her much but there were 2 critical differences:

 

1. She was available. Ask a question, reply within 24 hours, even if it was "I don't know". Walk up to her office any time, ask random stuff, and either she saves you time by telling you the answer, or saves you time by saying I don't know, instead of giving a roundabout, long answer that doesn't answer the actual question.

 

2. She had flexible deadlines because she was tenured. Can't finish something? That's fine, give you another 3 days/a week/whatever. No results? That's fine, no results.

 

This PI is a new assistant prof literally straight out of his 1st postdoc. There's no getting around at least a bit of micromanagement and hard deadlines. However, if you have such hard deadlines and micromanagement, then shouldn't you also try your best to help students meet those deadlines?

[Is this ethical and/or commonly done?]

Depends. If there was some uncontrollable variation in the sample prep, and the measurements yielded only a few that worked out of many, then this is valid as long as you can quantify the differences between the samples that were not good and the samples that were good. Elsewise, it is bad practice, in my opinion, since you don't know which one is the accident.

[PI personality - need help.]

Thank you both for the advice.

 

DanielleWrites: That is true. If the professor does not fit the style that I can learn from, perhaps it is better for to select someone else, even if their project is really good.

 

FuzzyLogician: Unfortunately the department has taken an accelerated approach to advisor selection and requires it before November. I will try to get an extension but an independent study doesn't seem to be an option. I will still try to ask for one though. I was thinking of going to a group meeting and asking pressing questions, and seeing if the response is better in a small setting. I had already obtained permission for that.

[PI personality - need help.]

One of my prospective PIs has a personality that I'm not sure if I can deal with.

 

In a research meeting, I asked him about a valid question about his work. Instead of giving me the direct answer, or telling me to look it up on my own because he didn't know, he gave me a very round-about answer that did not answer the question. I said that I didn't understand, and he just repeated exactly what he said before and asked if I understood now. I didn't want to waste his time further, so I said "I sort of get it, I'll just look it up later."

 

Another time, in a class, a student asked him a valid technical question, yet again, instead of directly answering the question, saying I don't know, or telling the student to check up on it himself, the professor answered in a round-about way that didn't answer the question, the student didn't get it, and when the student said that he couldn't get it, the professor did the same thing: repeat exactly what he said before, then ask "so do you get it now?"

 

I am scared that if I pick this professor, when I meet research problems he won't have the patience to guide students through it and won't answer questions directly. Even though I have a MS, this professor's project is extremely challenging and running into both experimental and theoretical difficulties is to be expected. Am I overthinking this? Is this a big deal?

[Lab Size]

You can't think about "top 10 or bust" or anything like that, unless you want to become R1 faculty. If you do, then just remember this:

 

The proportion of PHD students that become R1 faculty is similar to the proportion of college basketball players that become NBA superstars.

[Dealing with conflict between interest and hireability]

Agreed! In addition, because we write articles rather than books, dissertations in my field are usually just 3-5 articles "stapled" together (i.e. copied verbatim into thesis format) and then a little bit of filler/introductory material in between. No one reads the theses besides the committee and maybe the next grad student that picks up your project. One recent graduate put a sentence near the end that said "If you read this, tell me and I'll buy you a 6-pack" to see which committee members actually read the whole thing.

 

 

For me, the answer to that question would be the same as asking if I wanted to get that single job in that single industry. If I felt that the job had all the things I wanted (some job security, well-paying, mentally stimulating, able to live where I want) then sure, I would definitely go do that and know that I have a very secure chance of a job at the end of my PhD. (However, is that ever true? I don't think very many jobs are a sure thing in today's market!)

 

The problem with STEM careers, at least in industry, is that they are extremely specific. You are right about the risk of finding a job, which makes STEM graduate degrees even more risky - you either train for one job in one industry doing one thing, or you train with a flexible skillset that no one will ever hire you for since they can get people who did exactly what they want in their graduate degrees. Academia is more flexible, but the flexibility is a tradeoff for even higher risk.

 

Social science graduate students face very different problems than we do.

[Dealing with conflict between interest and hireability]

^Yeah, this.  As odd as it may sound, I think you should treat the grad school process like an apprenticeship period/vocational training program, in a sense.  You're doing all of these things to make yourself more marketable, and able to get a tenure-track job (or a think tank position or whatever).  Therefore, you need to pick up marketable skills.  Not flash in the pan trendy fad skills or interests, but things that will be long-term useful.  As you do more reading and immerse yourself in the conversation with scholars, you begin to identify the difference between fads and longer-running trends.

 

I saw my dissertation as a learning project.  I'm not sure what field you are in, but in my field we don't write books.  We write articles.  Therefore, the idea of writing this monograph was patently absurd, because no one was ever going to read it.  But as I got closer it became clear to me that that's not the point; the dissertation is intended for you to learn how to manage a large project all by yourself; it's intended for you to learn some new skill or area; and it's intended for you to dig really deep into a specific area so that you have a foundation upon which to launch the beginning of your research career.  It's also so that you learn how to learn - aka, when you need to do something that requires Skill A but you don't know Skill A, how do you go about acquiring that information?

 

Once I figured that out, the project became long instead of difficult.  I selected a moderately interesting topic that wasn't *exactly* what I want to do for the rest of my life, but rather was in the same general area - so that I could mine the literature review for future papers for a while, and so that I would be pretty much up-to-date on the lit in this field and really just adding new stuff.  I selected a statistical method I didn't know how to use yet so that I could teach it to myself (and I also ended up teaching myself a new stats package, too).  BUT I also chose a project that was more or less the culmination of work I had done earlier in my graduate career. I don't think you're ever really starting from scratch - even if it's the norm for you to pick something that perhaps you haven't already done research/scholarship on, surely you're not expected to pick something you've never read a book about or written a seminar paper on?  You can build upon the work you've done in courses and comprehensive exams.  This also shortens your time to degree!

 

I didn't really have this issue either...or, maybe I kind of did?  It's hard to remember, because it's a chicken and egg thing.  I'm a practical person and came to get the PhD because I wanted a job, so from the beginning I was very attuned to practical aspects.  I already had interests in research methods and statistics, and I also had interests in a specific broad area.  I already liked these things, but I liked them even more when I realized that they were in high demand in my field - and a demand that didn't seem to be going away.  The substantive area is a relatively new area of inquiry and the NIH is just brimming with RFAs for it so it looks like it's fine, although in the next 10 years or so I will need to use innovative ways to study this area.  That's where the methods and statistics part comes in; but in my field, that is ALWAYS going to be in demand.  They're always going to need someone to teach the intro-majors-research methods and stats classes, and that is totally my wheelhouse.

 

The problem is that social sciences and STEM have different ideas of what employable is. From what I hear from senior students, its more like:

 

Social science employable: oh, I know some general statistics, I'm employable.

 

STEM: You know basic statistics? Don't care, you have to be a Sigma 6 black belt with a thesis on the applications of Lebesgue integration to machine learning or something before they let you anywhere near statistics.

 

Would you have spent your PHD working on a single employable skill that's used in a single industry (and literally nothing else) that you thought was merely "ok" to do? However, if you got that skill, you're almost guaranteed to get that single job in that single industry.

[Deciding PHD projects.]

Thank you for the help. I originally wanted to go into industry with a job that has me building and thinking, rather than just do characterization of materials using known equipment; I've done that for my MS and in internships. Its not exactly the most interesting work. If I go on the first project, several papers will be published on the instrumentation design itself before we measure any semiconductors at all.

 

In terms of funding, the new professor has money, but it is being spent on buying parts (some parts are extremely expensive, such as fiber lasers, optics, detectors, computers, etc) and an electrical engineering postdoc. No students will have RAs until a grant is received. The second professor just lost his DOE funding (as in 2 months ago) and while he's trying to get more money, students have to TA.

 

I have no idea if I get along with the PIs since I've only been here 3 weeks. The new professor has no information. The old professor is known to be nice, but hands on. He says he doesn't micromanage, but I don't know that works out. The new professor seems to have an easy going personality, but the requirements of the project means that she'd be putting the pressure on me. The theory behind semiconductor optics is hard for most students and other more senior students actually have less research experience than I do because I have a MS. It'll be me, the professor and the postdoc. The older professor is a hands-on guy who comes in on the weekends. Group members: haven't met the full groups yet, will be going to group meetings.

 

In terms of time to graduate: the first professor is an unknown, but he took 6 years to graduate. The second professor graduated his PHD in 4 years, and most of his students stay for 5-6 (closer to 6).

 

I haven't really been in a high stress research environment before. My MS advisor just let me do my thing, and as long as I had results by deadlines, it was OK. That meant that whether I decided "I'm tired and I'm gonna watch TV all day" or "Oh damn its deadline time gotta stay till midnight" was up to me. No micromanagement necessary. I can deal with difficult ppl, but I don't prefer to. I'd like to be friends with the ppl in my group. I had a really good relationship with my MS advisor and the ppl in my group, and I hope in my PHD, I can keep it the same.

[Dealing with conflict between interest and hireability]

I have a related question though: what would you consider a "useful skill"?

 

Is it a skill that can be used across multiple industries and are very broad, such as optics, electronics and programming?

 

Or is it learning how to use a specific instrumentation/technique that has some specific types of jobs associated with it, but is confined to only a single type of industry?

[Deciding PHD projects.]

I'd go with the second project. Perhaps there will be room for a more experimental & risky/high reward side project once you start getting results. That's something you can chat to your advisor about. 

 

Thank you for the advice. However, I have a feeling in the back of my head that I'd always think "what if". I already have a MS and already have done electronics and programming work in the past. I've always wanted to contribute somehow to building chemical/physical instrumentation, to not just be a user, but part of the people developing foundational technologies. But I'm not young now either, and have practical things to consider. It is really annoying. I also only have a few months to decide.

[Deciding PHD projects.]

People say follow your interests, but sometimes, there are many things to think about.

 

I have 2 projects I'm considering. One is a very high risk project that I would be taking nearly full ownership over, where I would be building a new measurement instrument for characterization of a very hard to measure property in semiconductors. It will probably be heavily managed by professor. Professor is new. I don't fully understand the theory behind the project and it is alot of theory to take in. I don't know if I'm actually good enough at programming and electronics to handle it. Even if I work hard, results are not guaranteed. Materials used are not used in industry, characterization techniques used not in industry, making it risky for employment as well. Only employment value is selling transferrable skills.

Second project is a low risk project. The professor just received tenure and has a track record of placing students in industry. The equipment is commercially available except for some modifications, and most of the work will be in data analysis and sample fabrication. All the equipment is used in industry and has specific jobs lined up. Results are guaranteed if I work hard. I understand and like the theory behind his work. It is relatively routine work, mostly data analysis of results using known instrumentation. There is little real device fabrication or instrumentation involved.

 

In my MS I've always been an independent worker and did things at my own pace. I don't know if I can handle being micromanaged, especially on such a high risk, high stress project. Another con to the project is that it is extremely risky since the semiconductors measured are not directly used in industry. However, it seems like a very interesting project.

[How do I talk to faculty about PHD minors?]

I'm late to this party but, you should check to see whether the minor requires you to have a committee member from that department for your comps/quals or for the dissertation... That may be one reason people typically pick a major from inside the physics department in your program.

 

I actually would rather have an engineering faculty on the committee, since they understand the importance of applications; there are more than enough fundemental scientists in the department as is. I'm an applications driven person that wants to do applied research.