Admission from a school, but the professor's area of research does not quite match with my interests

[precious1]

I got an admission letter from the school, but the professor that I will work with is not the one that I mentioned in my statement of purpose.

I looked into his information, but the area of research does not match with my interests.

I am switching my major from education to social science and I do not have any research experience yet. (I got my BA and Med degrees in education) Therefore, I got rejection letters from the rest of the schools that I applied.

The program that I was admitted is 5 years term (part of MA and part of PhD)

I am hoping to get financial aids and they will let me know in a couple of weeks.

Here is my question.

Can I transfer to another school right after getting a part of MA? No one would know exactly how many credits would be transferred to the school that I might transfer in the future, but how does this work in general?

What should I do about this at this point or right after beginning of the program in the fall for "efficiency" ?

Don't get me wrong. I am glad to be accepted because it will allow me to build my background knowledge and research experience in the field as long as decent financial aids is provided.

[adinutzyc]

The only way to know for sure is to ask, though I am not sure how one would go about doing that. Since part of it is an MA, I would suspect that you will get a Master's after two years, after which you can just quit the program. On the other hand, getting recommendations from the people you worked with that you are abandoning might be tricky.

On the right side, I know one of my college professors (bare in mind I am in a different field) told me that if I want I could probably transfer to a better ranked school if I wanted, after a couple of years into my PhD (which is not really something I believe right now that I want to do, but who knows, I might change my mind).

So maybe you can, but you have to consider where you'd be getting your recos from etc.

[Behavioral]

The only way to know for sure is to ask, though I am not sure how one would go about doing that. Since part of it is an MA, I would suspect that you will get a Master's after two years, after which you can just quit the program. On the other hand, getting recommendations from the people you worked with that you are abandoning might be tricky.

On the right side, I know one of my college professors (bare in mind I am in a different field) told me that if I want I could probably transfer to a better ranked school if I wanted, after a couple of years into my PhD (which is not really something I believe right now that I want to do, but who knows, I might change my mind).

So maybe you can, but you have to consider where you'd be getting your recos from etc.

Your professor told you this? Wow. That's an excellent way to burn bridges and to smear your name across your discipline. This isn't undergrad -- transferring is seldom done, and usually for very exceptional reasons. I'd be careful about telling anyone this strategy as it's a bit reprehensible and irresponsible.

[rising_star]

Okay, I'm of the belief that your research interests don't have to be *exactly* in line with the person you work for. The match could also be theoretical, methodological, etc. In some ways, it's cool having an advisor that doesn't do exactly what you do. Why? 1) You have to sort of find your own way through the literature. Your advisor can and will be a starting point but, you'll get to explore in ways you might not get to otherwise. 2) Fresh eyes on everything you write and submit that are coming from an outside perspective and can tell you when and where your arguments are strong or weak. I find it particularly helpful when it comes to grant writing.

Sure, you could probably leave with your MA and go to another program for the PhD. BUT, that will add to the total time for completing your PhD (you'll finish 6-7 years from now, rather than in 5 years) and you might burn bridges at this department depending on how and why you exit.

[precious1]

Thank you, everyone, for your comments and thoughts!

I really appreciate it and I still welcome more comments on it!

I hope all things work out for me.

Learning or discover what I might not be that into at this moment could turn out to be the one that I really want. Who knows!

I have not started working with the professor yet. However, although his current area of research is not in line with my interests, I hope it is not something completely far away from what I might want to do.

I am not sure why the professor that I mentioned in my essay did not end up being my mentor, but I might end up working with him or some other faculty members later on.

I will keep my fingers crossed!

[tragicomix]

What I'd do is contact the professor and ask him if he can take some time out to talk with you on the phone.

When you get him on the phone, you can ask him what he's looking for in a new student, what projects he expects you to work on, what background, knowledge and experience you need to have and stuff like that. If all that looks good, then your problem is solved. If it doesn't, then you can let the professor know what your concerns are and I think there is a pretty good chance he'll try to address them.