poi going on sabbatical your first year in grad school?

[svh]

i just learned about this... what do you all think? i still have the option to go to a different school. any advice is appreciated.

[3point14]

I have a friend who will be finishing up her first year of grad school (in behavioral neuro) this May. Her PI has been on sabbatical this semester, and it has been completely fine. A little more hectic at times, but no major problems at all.

[once]

That depends- will they be out of town or hanging around and just not teaching?

My POI will be on sabbatical during my first semester, but he lives nearby and will be coming in for weekly office hours. I'm not sure if that's an unusual situation, however.

[svh]

I think the POI will be gone for most of Fall and will be in and out during Spring. During Spring, the POI doesn't have to teach but has to attend faculty meetings and brownbags.

[TMP]

Do you have another faculty member whom you're also interested in working with? One of the things graduate students need to do is learn to cultivate relationships with others and find "surrogate" advisers. It takes a community, not one person, to "raise" a graduate student. Can this POI keep in touch via phone or video chat?

[juilletmercredi]

My secondary adviser went on sabbatical during my third year of my program. He was here all the time, in his office - he just didn't teach and didn't attend any meetings. He was preparing a book for publication, but he still met with me every other week.

The first year is kind of critical, but it's a lot of coursework and just getting started in research. Is there anyone else who can sort of informally mentor you, or will your PoI be around meet with you? Are you the independent type?

[UnlikelyGrad]

It also depends (1) how much research is going to be done in the first semester and (2) how much your project is linked to other projects in the group.

Regarding (1): Some profs don't expect you to get much done during the first semester if your program has a moderate to heavy course load, in which case it wouldn't matter if the POI was gone.

Regarding (2): My advisor was gone during my second year, which happened to be my labmate's first year. So, you guessed it, I got to bring him up to speed on lab procedures like how to run the equipment. My advisor is rarely in lab anyway, so I probably would have done it even if she hadn't been on sabbatical...

[svh]

There is a secondary POI that I would be highly interested in working with. I emailed him and he responded with something general but positive. I am fairly independent and my primary POI said that she'd be good about skype conversations and whatnot.

[UnlikelyGrad]

I honestly don't know how grad students survived their advisors' sabbaticals before Skype/email...both of which were invaluable to me last year. You can get a LOT of mentoring that way.

[Hillary Emick]

Consider the above, and talk to your POI about it. Ask how advising will occur during his/her sabbatical... if there will be a 'substitute' advisor or if he/she will be advising you long-distance. This would not be an automatic deal breaker for me.

[ktel]

It's a personal decision that depends very much on your circumstances. My advisor is not on sabbatical, but he is the director of the department, so I really only see him once a month. I can work independently and there are a lot of people in my group to help me out.