advisers????

[nbnjoshi]

i'm into a phd in vision science and even though I am allowed a year before I make my decisions about the advisers, everyone is rushing in to the matter straight away. I'm not sure what I'll be doing till now. It's just been 2 days. how do i react???

[quicksort]

Go with your gut. Who FEELS right? You can always switch later.

[ladyling]

There's no reason to rush into that sort of decision, and some of your colleagues may find they've made a mistake. Wait at least until you finish your first quarter/semester courses. That will give you time to get to know some of the faculty and get a better sense for how you might work with them.

[Dal PhDer]

Students might be rushing in because they want to get on a professors project and/or funding. I wouldn't say rush into anything, but I would use the next few months to get to know your potential advisors/professors. Research their interests, previous work, current and future projects, talk to their graduate students about their relationships with the advisor/funding & publication opportunities/timelines and length in the programs...and maybe sit down with a few potentials to talk about your dissertation work and what they think.

A lot of students might hook up with a professor early so that they can get a head start on their dissertation work/reading. For me, I was happy to go into my program with my topic already laid out. This allowed me to tailor all my class assignments towards my topic, so I could do a lit review for a class paper that would end up being a portion of my proposal.