"Better" research or "better" mentor?

[toomanygoodthings]

I'm torn between two great opportunities for a PhD in an engineering discipline. One is a top 5 engineering school, the other an Ivy League, both are in great cities, I'll be funded at both, I really like the general campus/department culture at both, so I know I can't go wrong with either. 

My uncertainty lies in which advisor + research topic combo to choose... Both are young and energetic professors with new labs who seem to be working on relevant and exciting problems in their fields. But there are a few differences... 

A: This professor's research is right up my alley - I couldn't have come up with a better way to combine all of my (fairly varied) research interests, and I was psyched about every potential project he proposed. He and his students were very friendly and I felt we clicked personality-wise, though I didn't get to talk to them all that much. 

B: This professor is super excited to have me join - she and her students went out of their way to make me feel welcome and have us get to know each other. For what it's worth, I think I would find it really valuable to have a female research mentor, and I'm sure she would be a great one. Her group's research, while it sounds promising, is pretty far outside of what I'd been thinking to do, and I feel sort of underprepared for it (honestly didn't really understand a big chunk of the projects she described) but I think this adviser would try her darnedest to make sure I succeed. 

So which will be better in the long run? I'm really not sure. 

I'm sure after I make the decision I'll be convinced I made the right one, but for now it feels like a big deal. 

Edited April 1, 2017 by toomanygoodthings
Whoops on mobile and clicked submit accidentally.

[rising_star]

What is their track record with publications and placing their graduate students? Who did you "click" with better on a personal level?

[virionoftomorrow]

I would choose a mentor over a topic any day. I don't know about you but I know for a fact I can get excited about a lot of topics in science, especially in my subfield. Having a good advisor makes a huge impact on your day to day life so making sure that your advisor relates well to students and has time to mentor you is really important. Its much easier to develop interest/knowledge in a new area than it is to change your boss!

[toomanygoodthings]

Thank you both for your responses!

@rising_star Both professors established their labs recently enough that neither has graduated students or published as last/senior author, and have similar publication records before this. Personality-wise... I'm not sure. I definitely got to know B better on a personal level, and she is a fabulous person, but I know I would enjoy both working with and generally getting to know A also. At any rate, both have made clear that they want to work with me to define a mutually interesting project and support me in whatever my eventual career goals are.

@virionoftomorrow I guess my issue is that, insofar as I can define my subfield, B's research wouldn't really fall under it, and I'd be /really/ excited to work on what A is thinking about. That's not to say B's research isn't promising, just that before now I'd have seen it and thought, "I'm excited to see what comes of that line of research!" rather than "I'd be excited to get my hands on that kind of work!" But I am more sure that she will make the time to be a good mentor that she "relates well to students," as you put it.

Thinking about it some more, I think maybe I'd have more general opportunities for academic/personal growth at B's school, but I don't know how much that should influence my decision. At this point I might just need to base it off of something relatively arbitrary. I can't help but feel bad that in the end I'll have to turn one of them down... had I heard from only one or the other each would be a trivial choice.

[rising_star]

38 minutes ago, toomanygoodthings said:

Thinking about it some more, I think maybe I'd have more general opportunities for academic/personal growth at B's school, but I don't know how much that should influence my decision. At this point I might just need to base it off of something relatively arbitrary. I can't help but feel bad that in the end I'll have to turn one of them down... had I heard from only one or the other each would be a trivial choice.

Flip a coin and use that to decide. Then sit on it for a day and think about how the decision makes you feel.

But, honestly, it's fine to prioritize general opportunities for growth personally and professionally.

[Concordia]

That's where I will likely come out.  My Option A has a very good department, a wonderful (if inexperienced) supervisor who is focused on the same decade and region as my proposal, and at least one colleague who could help touch on some of the angles I'm interested in but the supervisor hasn't addressed.  Option B has the supervisor who helped me on my master's dissertation (which went very well), and a ridiculously better environment for learning.  We're talking proximity of excellent and related departments, massive institutional clout, and a social atmosphere that will probably work better for an introvert who is easily distracted.  The supervisor there is only tangentially involved with the particular problem I am starting with, but seems to have a good notion of how I can get better at what I need to do.  He is also inexperienced with doctoral supervision, as is the guy at A, but ya gotta start somewhere.

My needs aren't necessarily typical, but I'd rather be a good historian with a ton of fabulous contacts and the possibility of discovering approaches that I haven't begun to consider--(B)-- than an expert on my thesis topic who couldn't focus on my work or expand my view  in useful ways (A).  [While I'm looking at this particular period because I stumbled upon it and it does need work, it's not one I would have necessarily planned in advance.]

A liberal arts approach?  At some point you do need to specialize a little, but at the moment I'm not relishing the thought of narrowing my focus too much.  

 

 

Edited April 26, 2017 by Concordia

[Concordia]

On 4/1/2017 at 2:32 PM, virionoftomorrow said:

I would choose a mentor over a topic any day. I don't know about you but I know for a fact I can get excited about a lot of topics in science, especially in my subfield. Having a good advisor makes a huge impact on your day to day life so making sure that your advisor relates well to students and has time to mentor you is really important. Its much easier to develop interest/knowledge in a new area than it is to change your boss!

Well said.  My third option may actually go too far in that direction--the supervisor thinks he may be abandoning my area of interest.  A shame, as he could be a real nice challenge to work with. But that is a first-world problem at the moment.

[redheadacademic]

On 4/1/2017 at 1:22 PM, toomanygoodthings said:

I'm torn between two great opportunities for a PhD in an engineering discipline. One is a top 5 engineering school, the other an Ivy League, both are in great cities, I'll be funded at both, I really like the general campus/department culture at both, so I know I can't go wrong with either. 

My uncertainty lies in which advisor + research topic combo to choose... Both are young and energetic professors with new labs who seem to be working on relevant and exciting problems in their fields. But there are a few differences... 

A: This professor's research is right up my alley - I couldn't have come up with a better way to combine all of my (fairly varied) research interests, and I was psyched about every potential project he proposed. He and his students were very friendly and I felt we clicked personality-wise, though I didn't get to talk to them all that much. 

B: This professor is super excited to have me join - she and her students went out of their way to make me feel welcome and have us get to know each other. For what it's worth, I think I would find it really valuable to have a female research mentor, and I'm sure she would be a great one. Her group's research, while it sounds promising, is pretty far outside of what I'd been thinking to do, and I feel sort of underprepared for it (honestly didn't really understand a big chunk of the projects she described) but I think this adviser would try her darnedest to make sure I succeed. 

So which will be better in the long run? I'm really not sure. 

I'm sure after I make the decision I'll be convinced I made the right one, but for now it feels like a big deal. 

 

My advisor's research initially was not all that similar to my already fairly developed research agenda, but it was the absolute best decision: she is an amazing mentor, a fantastic teacher, and she has both become invested into my research topic as well as let me adapt some of her topic to my methods. I am defending my dissertation in June, and have - thanks to her, in a large part - a tenure track job waiting for me, and have 8 first author peer-reviewed paper published. All that to say: I would really consider option B. Having a female advisor/mentor is fantastic, too.