When do you do what YOU want to do?

[Chronos]

Hello all,

I am starting graduate school this upcoming Fall and am wondering when do graduate students typically start to incorporate their own ideas for their thesis work? I know it depends from field to field (I'm in chemistry), but when do you stop doing what your advisor mandates you to do and start doing your own project (as in completely your idea)?

[Behavioral]

When your advisor is convinced you're mature and knowledgeable enough.

It's a little too idiosyncratic to figure this a priori.

[eco_env]

For me, right away. It was a little too much independence for me.

[surefire]

Sorry I don't have something more insightful, I'm incoming! Best of luck to us!

[Eigen]

Short answer: when you start bringing in your own funding.

Or when you are mature and knowledgable enough in your discipline to convince your PI that your research idea is a viable use of curt funding, assuming it fits under the grant criteria that are being used to pay for it.

That, or convince them your project is worth writing a grant for, and then write large portions of the grant and then have it funded.

In Chemistry it's all limited by what the funding is for. You can't use money from one project to pay for another project unless the two are closely enoug related that you can write up that other project in yearly progress reports for the grant.

[msafiri]

This really varies by field. I've never worked on any of my advisor's projects. My first two summers, I found small grants to pay for preliminary fieldwork and then spent time once I got back analyzing that data. I'm in the field now conducting research with funding I secured.

I imagine it works differently in fields where you need a lot of equipment or lab space or where you're working for someone as a RA...