How to decide- money vs interests vs everythingelse

[123far]

So I am going to begin work on a PhD in Biology next semester. That much I know and that is about as far as I have made it into the decision making process. I am not even too sure as to which direction I would like to go with my research.

I have a few options, and am having troubles sorting it all out into a coherent decision, and obviously I want to make the best choice for my future. I have asked faculty/ current grad students at the universities but feel like there is a sort of bias with each thinking their respective school is best (obviously...)

My choices are:

University of Iowa. I like the fact that the Biology program would be very interdisciplinary, and the grad stipend is better than at my other options. I also would have to say that this place has the most faculty in a research focus that (I think) I want to go into. Alot of evolutionary biologists using a molecular approach to try and understand what I would call more "fundamental" life processes, i.e. meiosis and recombination etc. I want to go into Evolution, but I am worried that looking at the more ecological aspects may have me running into problems getting grants, jobs, etc. (As one current grad student told me, with funding its "molecular or gtfo"). So the advantages of this place are research focus, and also as far as "rankings" this school is better. Its a Big Ten university so they have a pretty good amount of money, I've been told. Stipend $25,000.

University of Arkansas: the "lowest tier" school I applied to, but comes with a 4 year fellowship offer. The fellowship is $20,000 a year, plus the grad stipend is tuition plus $10,000, so a total of $30,000 plus tuition. However this is only 4 year funding, and I would have to TA every semester (Iowa is TA one year and after that your lab can fund you, depending on lab funding). I would be working with a guy who does conservation bio and population genetics, a lot of field work etc. His name is Michael Douglas (you can look him up...) This would be fun work but my concern is that although afterwords I would have a good ecological training, but I am worried that I may have problems finding a job/ getting funding because it seems that this kind of work is somehow "less relevant" to a largely anthropocentric scientific community. Also, I won't have the opportunity to do lab rotations here, so if I dont get along with the guy than I'm stuck...

Texas A&M: kind of "middle of the road" regarding all of these issues. Research interests, TA responsibilities etc. One advantage here is that my fiance would like to live close to her family, which is close to here. Iowa is obviously the furthest away, but i would not like to let geographical reasons get to much in the way with my decision...

So my main questions I guess are: How important is my grad research focus to my future career/ research? Will I be "stuck" if I get myself into a more ecological focus? My ultimate research goal is to investigate more fundamental aspects of evolution, how molecular processes evolved etc. As opposed to speciation, pop gen like I would be doing with Dr. Douglas in Arkansas. I have more questions too which I will follow up with as they come up...

Any help would definitely be appreciated!!

Tyler

[koolherc]

After a perusal of your situation described above, I suggest the following:

Go where you think you'll have the most fun and feel most fulfilled.

What if you do this program and then die right after you get your PhD? You wouldnt want your last years to have been wasted in a misguided attempt to 'reach happiness' later, am I right?

Of course, if you are the type of person who will be miserable because of a gripping concern about your future, then pick the one that'll most likely relieve that concern.

In other words, go where you think you'll have the most fun and feel most fulfilled.

[RedPanda]

Go where you think you'll have the most fun and feel most fulfilled.

That...is some great advice for all of us. Thank you!

[svh]

I'm having a somewhat similar situation. Perhaps people can weigh in on this to help me out? I'm looking closely at two schools. School A has a better research fit than School B; however, the stipend is a lot lower. When I do the cost of living calculator, I find that School A's stipend is about $10,000 (my hometown's dollars) and School B's stipend is about $30,000 (my hometown's dollars). That's a huge difference... What do you all think?