Advice on Meeting with a Professor who I want to study under

[dawn_dew]

I'm meeting with my honours thesis professor next week to get some advice about grad school and future plans. Ideally, I would want to be in his lab as a masters student as I want to be doing what he is doing one day. Would I be overstepping any boundary by asking him if he would be willing to supervise me? How would I even go about asking that in a respectful way? Also, what are some signs that this is a dead end and he is not interested in taking me on as a masters student?

 

He supervised me a year ago for my honours thesis project so we have gotten to know each other somewhat well. I guess part of it is that I'm nervous/scared to ask such a request. I barely managed get myself to send an email to ask to meet up regarding future plans. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

 

 

Thanks

[when]

You could say that you're interested in pursuing the same area of research and are wondering whether he is accepting students next year. In my limited experience, I feel like it may not be appropriate to ask flat out whether he would accept you, as you and he would have no idea whether there is someone a lot better suited to his interests and with more experience, better credentials etc. than you who will end up applying, so it might put him in an awkward position to say that he can't commit. However, you could always say something like, "I would love to continue research with you and plan on applying to you, but I just want to check that, completely aside from the suitability of other applicants, you would be open to collaborating with me at the graduate level." I still don't think there is anything wrong with you just telling him you're applying and leaving it at that.

[MathCat]

Don't expect a commitment to working with you - after all, you're not even admitted for the Masters yet. It's possible he will encourage you to apply, or make it obvious that he is not interested (or perhaps just not taking students), but probably nothing more than that. I think it is worthwhile expressing interest, but you shouldn't necessarily flat out ask, since you might have other prospects yourself! For both of you, it will depend on what your other options are when the time comes to decide. Don't be afraid to talk about it, though. Worst case, he says no and you know where you stand.

[Jay's Brain]

Since you have a working relationship with him, presumably a good one, all that's stopping you is the jitters of making a request as big as this. I think you deserve to give yourself credit for even asking him in person. A lot of people may try to ask casually over email. And like MathCat says, the worst possible thing that can happen is that he says no. The only reason that may happen is that some PI prefers having graduate students from outside of their home universities or he prefers that you explore your options elsewhere (the whole "leaving the nest" conundrum).

As someone who knows you well and knows what your research interests entails, you can be more direct with him. Let him know what you see yourself doing in graduate school, and ask if there's a possibility of continuing on the work you did with your honours thesis or something similar in your graduate studies.

Just ask!