Struggling with A Research Assistantship

[eowyn10101]

Hey All! I would love some advice. I'm a first year PhD student. Eventually myself and my classmates will teach, but for our first year, we all have research assistantships.

My assigned professor is the chair of the department and has no time for me. He will not even respond to my emails. I must make an appointment with his secretary a week in advance in order to speak to him.

So far all of the work I have done is actually work that his secretary does not have time for, mostly formatting some articles for the department website and handouts. While I don't mind the work, I'm getting a little sad, hearing that all of my classmates are actually doing research for professors or helping with cool projects that are actually in their area of interest. At the very least, they are getting advise and ideas from the their research advisers.

What should I do? Should I simply figure, "I'm a grad student... I'll do as I'm told and be happy that I'm getting funded"? I don't want to seem ungrateful. Or should I find a way to address this with the professor? Should I wait until later in the semester to see if he eventually has time for me?

Sorry for the freak out I want to begin on the right foot, but I also feel like I am somehow missing out on a learning opportunity.

[fuzzylogician]

There are several things you could do here. Firstly, since it's the beginning of the semester and things are busy it's possible that your advisor will have more time for you in just another week or two, as things settle down. I wouldn't wait too long, though. You should bring up the issue of your responsibilities in a meeting some time soon - it may not be helpful to complain about having to do essentially brainless work--assistantships can be like that sometimes--but you can ask to get some additional responsibilities of the kind that your classmates have. Talk about learning opportunities and research experience. Finally, if the goal is simply to acquire some more research experience, maybe you could contact a professor of your choice (one that you know from your classmates involves her students in her work) and ask if you could join one of her projects. You may not get payed, but you'll get the learning experience.