Younger Asst Profs vs Established Full Profs

[hope4fall2012]

I posted this in the Earth Sciences forum (), but since it's relevant to a wider audience, I'm reposting it here.. This decsion will play a major role in the final admit I have to accept.

Expanding departments expand by usually taking in younger assisstant professors.. I was thinking the pros and cons of working with fresh, younger assisstant professors against elder, more established 'full' professors..

My gut feeling says that assisstant professors usually work much harder (I'm not generalising here, and I mean no offense) and this maybe rubs off on their grad students. Also, they might have more time to devote to graduate students since they may not yet be involved with non-teching and research tasks. Also, while it is definitely challenging to work in an upcoming lab, the pleasure that comes from succeeding in such an environment is much larger, don't you think? Also, would they find it easier to relate with grad students since they've just gone through the whole grad-sudent phase very recently?

On the other hand, established professors have experience on their hands, which might mean that they might be more insightful when it comes to research problems. Also, they might hold more clout (for the lack of a better word), in the department and could possibly get things done easily. And this could apply to areas outside the dept. too right? Like journal publications and conference acceptances and stuff..

Am I reading too much into this? Should I be thinking about this at all or just concentrate on research-fit? I've often heard that the most important decision grad students make is the professor they choose, and all your other choices should be made around this choice.

[wildviolet]

Am I reading too much into this? Should I be thinking about this at all or just concentrate on research-fit? I've often heard that the most important decision grad students make is the professor they choose, and all your other choices should be made around this choice.

I've heard this, too, and I have the same concerns. I think it will really depend on the specific professor. Generalizing is okay to some extent, but I think you have to try and get more information. For example, I plan on visiting campus and meeting with the faculty and students. Additionally, I have also found recent graduates of the program and contacted them about their experiences and advice about potential advisers. So far, I've found people to be fairly friendly and open.

[hope4fall2012]

For example, I plan on visiting campus and meeting with the faculty and students. Additionally, I have also found recent graduates of the program and contacted them about their experiences and advice about potential advisers. So far, I've found people to be fairly friendly and open.

Of course, thats the best way to go about it.. Visiting is definitely ruled out for me since I'm an international student, but I should definitely send out emails..

[xxcheshirecatox]

In my opinion, I prefer working with established full professors. I've noticed a huge difference in the amount of students that get first authorship with full professors vs. working with an assistant who is, by nature of the tenure process, dedicated to helping themselves first and foremost. Also, the clout thing is definitely a huge, huge plus, just in terms of networking, letters of recommendation, and getting administrative things taken care of in the department.

[msafiri]

I've done both, though admittedly in the social sciences and not the "hard sciences". I worked with a tenure-track assistant professor in my MA and now work with a full professor for my PhD. I think the difference comes down more to personality and how many students they have than it does to their title, in some cases.

For example, my MA advisor had only two students, which meant she was able to give me lots of hands-on attention when I needed it (for things like writing my thesis, preparing for the defense, working on PhD applications). She wasn't working on churning out a million publications. Also, we never wrote anything together because though we used similar theoretical backgrounds and methodologies, we were actually researching completely different topics. My PhD advisor, on the other hand, is a prolific publisher. If you look at his CV, you'll see loads of publications with his grad students. That said, most of that has stopped since I got there since he no longer has research funds to employ grad students as RAs on his grants (that's where the pubs were coming from). He had 14 students when I got here, and still has 8. Consequently, it can be hard to get a meeting to discuss your research, get him to look over grant proposals, etc. That said, being part of a big group of his students means that we all review each others articles, chapters, and grants, some of which he never lays eyes on until after they've been submitted.

I never considered somebody's ability to relate to life as a graduate student since every tenure-track or tenured professor will tell you that being a faculty member is far more work than being a graduate student. As a grad student, service is optional. As a prof, it's 20% of your job. Assistant professors are included in this and often get stuck with the more time-consuming service tasks because they are new(er) to the job. So, I wouldn't assume that assistant profs have more time to spend on research and teaching than full profs.

In the end, I would say that you should decide based on research fit, personality, and funding. Talk to the people's graduate students so you can get a real sense of how closely they work with their students, if they mentor them, etc.