Unsure on Research Fit

[meggied]

I need some advice.

I got into a great school and everything is pointing me to go there except I'm not sure if there is a great research fit. I want to start not attached to a group so I have time to try out a few groups. The school has a good variety of research but only one professor that is doing research I originially thought I was interested in. How many people change their research focus after starting school and then also has anyone had bad experiences or heard of bad experiences going into a school not in a lab yet?

[DiscoTech]

1 hour ago, meggied said:

I need some advice.

I got into a great school and everything is pointing me to go there except I'm not sure if there is a great research fit. I want to start not attached to a group so I have time to try out a few groups. The school has a good variety of research but only one professor that is doing research I originially thought I was interested in. How many people change their research focus after starting school and then also has anyone had bad experiences or heard of bad experiences going into a school not in a lab yet?

If you have 2+ years of fellowship support, the speed dating method should be fine.

However, if you're on a first year fellowship and want to be on RA support thereafter, you will probably want to identify your group sooner rather than later. The group you are interested in might have committed its RA funding to someone else by the time you make a decision.

That said, the worst case is that you just end up TA-ing for a year. This is the only kind of bad experience I have heard of. Students waited till near the end of this second semester to find a group and by that time their group had already committed money to other students.

Research fit, at least to me, is about more than the subject matter. It is about the style of mentorship, dynamics of the research team, etc ... My M.S. work, which I will be continuing with at a another institution for my Ph.D, was not the topic I saw myself working on initially. I found a good mentor, learned more about research in the field, and was hooked.

When things go bad, there are always back up plans - (link).