PhD interviews--Asking about funding? What aspects of a program are most important?

[kgw18]

So I have a couple interviews for neuroscience programs coming up, and I'm trying to think about what I want to ask/learn about each program. Is it rude to ask a faculty about his lab's funding? This seems really important, since isn't that where your stipend comes from?

In general, any ideas on what aspects of a program are most important to ask about? What did you take into consideration while deciding which offer to take? Is there anything you didn't ask about but now wish you had?

Thanks for any help! And good luck to everyone else on interviews!

[Eigen]

Be careful too blatantly asking about funding. You might be able to find that out through more circumspect means. As to its importance, you're both right and wrong- it is important, but not so much for funding your stipend (you could be funded through the department as a TA), but because its what funds your research. You need the PI to have a good revenue stream to fund the projects you'll be working on.

Personally, I would make sure that you got a chance to talk to the graduate students in the lab- see what their perspectives are. In my department, we're all pretty helpful when it comes to steering prospective students to good professors and away from those they might not have the best fit with.

As to what to discuss with the PI- I think you primarily want to look for a personality fit with them. This is someone that's going to be mentoring you and that you will be working closely with for the next 5 or 6 years- you want them to be someone you like and get along with. I would also make sure you ask how they like to manage their graduate students- do they hand down projects from on high, or do they let/expect their graduate students to come up with their own projects, or is it a mixture of both?

How is lab space? Is everyone crammed together, or is there enough room for each person to have some workspace for their own projects.

How do publications work out? Do the grad students right drafts and suggest submissions, which the PI then edits and approves? Or does the PI set the publication schedule, and direct the majority of the writing?

There isn't a right or wrong answer to the above questions, but you need to find answers that mesh with your personality. If you want a PI that's more involved in the research and writing process, you need to find that. If you prefer to work in a more self-directed fashion, you need to find one that supports it.

From my last few years, seeing what frustrates friends in multiple disciplines, it almost always comes back to some fundamental lack of compatibility with the PI. They oversee nearly every aspect of your graduate career, so differences in ideology and outlook that might seem small at the beginning can really start to chafe after a while.

[kgw18]

Awesome! That all sounds like really good advice.. thank you so much for the help. Just had my first phone interview today and first in-person one this weekend. Yay!

[Genomic Repairman]

Why ask when you can snoop, use the NIH reporter... See link below.