Pros and Cons of being a Professor's First Grad Student?

[bezoomny bunburyist]

For one of my top schools, my POI has never had a grad student.  I am very interested in their research.  Because they work in the same lab, I will also be working with another faculty member, who is well-known and I heard is very good (although I hear is no-nonsense and not warm and encouraging).  

 

I will be attending an interview soon.  I don't know my POI's advising style and cannot find out because they have never had a grad student.  I have heard that a professor who does not have tenure will be very busy and stressed, but also will be very motivated to work on research projects and churn out a lot of publications while not letting you be first author.  Some people have joked that faculty usually "ruin" their first grad student.  Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

[thegirldetective]

This thread has a lot of helpful discussion: 

 

Busy and stressed is probably going to be true of most faculty that are coming up for tenure. But people often also complain about tenured advisors not really being around much to mentor grad students, or not having a realistic sense of the current job market.

 

I've never heard of new profs not letting grad students be first author, but in my field the convention is for the PI to almost always be last author, so that could be a difference in fields.

 

Just make sure you have a good, in-depth conversation with this person about their philosophy on mentoring, authorship, how graduate students should balance lab work with classes/teaching, etc. It's not as good as being able to talk to past grad students, but it can help to hear them articulate their ideals. Also: Does this person have postdocs or techs working for them? Those are good people to talk to.

[bezoomny bunburyist]

Thanks for the advice!  In psychology the PI is often not the last author, unless they did the least work or they are already well established.  Too bad, I wish psych students could more often get first authorship!

[lewin]

 ...while not letting you be first author

 

To be clear, the convention is psychology is that the person who contributed most is first author. The challenge is that contributions are sometimes difficult to define. Early graduate students often think they're doing a lot of work by, e.g., running participants or analyzing data because that takes a lot of hours so their work is salient to them. But they don't see the contributions of the advisor -- writing, shaping the paper, or having the idea in the first place.. these are all "harder" and count for more. Early on, usually the prof is first author because it was the prof's idea. (Funding the study shouldn't count for anything here.)

 

That is, grad student thinks: "I should be first author because I had an idea, ran the study, analyzed the data, and wrote the method results." Prof thinks: "That idea was based on my past work and I refined it, I gave the project a theoretical framing, and wrote the intro and discussion."

 

In the both situation both people might think they should be first author. My bias is that the prof has contributed more in the above example.

 

 

One reason new profs might more often be first author is because they have a lot of ideas that they want researched and will want their grad students to mostly work on those ideas. Most established profs might care less about what you work on, so long as it's interesting to them. Also, it might not be that new profs are stingy but that senior profs are too lenient: Senior profs might be more willing to give grad students the chance to be first author when, objectively, they might not really deserve it (e.g., even if it was the PI's idea) because the senior prof doesn't need the publications. 

 

I was an early grad student of my advisor and it worked really well for the reasons you said: motivated to publish and make a name for himself, had lots of opportunities for me to be involved in. My early publications were not first-authorships because they were projects he initiated, but later ideas that were more mine I'm first author on.

Edited January 26, 2014 by lewin

[tingski]

My friend had a REALLY bad experience becoming a professor's first grad student. Even when the research idea came from my friend, she did all the work, and she did all the writing, that professor claimed first authorship because according to the prof, supervising my friend takes up the time she could have used on her other projects. I think you should look at that professor's previous publications -- how many does he/she have in the past, how many are under review, were they first authors in those publications. I think that will give you a pretty good idea on how good the professor is, and how competent he/ she is. If she/ he has a lot of first author publications, I don't think she/ he is going to be so driven to claim first authorship on your work; and from my own experience, a competent confident professor is gonna want to teach their students, instead of feeling insecure and wanting to compete with the student. 

[thegirldetective]

My friend had a REALLY bad experience becoming a professor's first grad student. Even when the research idea came from my friend, she did all the work, and she did all the writing, that professor claimed first authorship because according to the prof, supervising my friend takes up the time she could have used on her other projects. I think you should look at that professor's previous publications -- how many does he/she have in the past, how many are under review, were they first authors in those publications. I think that will give you a pretty good idea on how good the professor is, and how competent he/ she is. If she/ he has a lot of first author publications, I don't think she/ he is going to be so driven to claim first authorship on your work; and from my own experience, a competent confident professor is gonna want to teach their students, instead of feeling insecure and wanting to compete with the student. 

 

This is also why I think talking to the prof about their idea of how many first author pubs a grad student should have is key. Yes, they may say one thing and do another, but if they say that they believe a grad student should have at least X first author pubs before they leave, chances are they will help create opportunities for that to happen.

 

And if early on your feel like you aren't getting enough, you can sit down with your advisor and say "Advisor, I'd really like to have a first author publication before I graduate. Can we discuss what sort of things I should do to make that happen?"

 

Yes, some professors will still be awful and back track on what they said they were going to do, but I think the situation Lewin outlined above can be fixed in most cases by clear communication and expectations throughout the process.

 

Another thing you could do it look at the last few years of graduates from your program, and figure out the average number of first author pubs they have. Then you can go to your prof and say "Based on the last few years, the standard seems to be that graduates have X first author pubs when they leave. What can I do (now, early in my grad career) to be on track to hit that number?"

 

Again, some people will just be asses. But if your advisor gives clear expectations on what they think constitutes first-authorship, you can do what you can to make sure that you are fulfilling those expectations. Even if those expectations are particularly strict by the standards of your field/program.

[bezoomny bunburyist]

For 2 schools, I applied to both a new professor and a more established professor.  Both of the new profs told me that they would be my primary advisor, but that I would also work with the more established prof.  Is that usually the case, for a grad student to work closely with both if the profs work in the same lab or often collaborate?  Or is it a tactic for new profs to appear more appealing?  Will I actually be mentored by both?

[bathingintheneon]

I'm in a similar boat. The professor I applied to is very established and famous in my area, but for one reason or another has never had a grad student. He said it was because 1) he is very picky and doesn't take mediocre students, and 2) when he had offered admission to students, they would turn him down for a bigger "named" private school (Harvard, Yale).

I know that situation isn't ideal, but it doesn't seem like such a risk since he's not a new professor. Plus, my interview went really well, and he more or less offered me admission.

[bezoomny bunburyist]

Congrats for your good interview!  It's quite a compliment to be accepted by someone so famous and picky.  The new professors I applied to are less established.  People will sometimes say "who?" when I tell them, but a lot of people also know of them.  They have tons of first-author publications and are no doubt brilliant.  The older professors that I purportedly would also be working with are some of the biggest names in my area.  That is why I wonder if I will actually be mentored by them.

[rbroni88]

All situations are circumstantial but let me describe my experience working with a brand new professor:

 

During my senior year of undergrad, we received a fantastic professor (research wise--it was amazing is all I can say, phenomenal neurobiologist) and I became his first student researcher. I worked with him for two semesters until I realized that he was very aggressive and could not take criticism very well at all. I had already committed to continue at the school for my MSc but I switched advisors and did not have much communication with this new professor for quite some time. Fast forward a year later--new professor quits halfway through the semester and abandons his grad students more or less. I have no idea what happened to the classes he was teaching but I am glad that I used my best judgement and worked with a different advisor. 

 

tl;dr

 

new professor quit school after 4 1/2 semesters and left grad students to find a new mentor