Choosing an advisor is the hardest and most crucial part of graduate school. Even though you'll only be in graduate school for many years, you want an advisor who can help you years after graduating. Picking the right advisor is tough, but these tips will hopefully help you choose someone who matches your mentoring and learning styles.
You should already have a few advisors in mind at this point. In this post, I will use primary investigator (PI) and advisor interchangeably because they are the same person for me. But depending on your research area or your comfort level, you might have a PI that you do research with, and the advisor is someone else in the department/school.
Rotations
If your school offers rotations, do them! I can't stress this enough. Rotations are short 3-10 week "trial" periods in a lab. Each lab approaches these differently. Some PIs will have you work on your own project, while others will ask you to shadow another researcher.
These rotations are in place for you to benefit more than anyone else. It gives you the chance to get to know the research team and faculty while also learning about the research. Even if you're dead set on joining a lab, doing the rotations will allow you to learn about new techniques and experiments, which will help you when you're working on program requirements or applying for internships, jobs, and fellowships.
When I joined at Emory, my rotations were… interesting. I started early in the summer and had a specific lab in mind. I wasn't able to research with the lab I wanted during the summer and then, by the end of August, I had taken that lab out of my rotation schedule! I dropped this group because I realized the PI and I didn't really mesh well and I wouldn't be as productive or enthusiastic if I joined that group.
These are some of the things that ultimately helped me decide on which lab I wanted to join.
Professor ranking
Drop everything you've heard about rankings. Rankings have absolutely no meaning. Most professors are ranked based on their publication record, which gives no indication of how they treat their group members or how good they are at advising students. Instead, focus on how you feel interacting with professors. And don't burn bridges, you might end up needing that professor to serve on your committee.
Funding
This is a big question you need to ask your potential PI. For most STEM PhD's you get paid. But where the money comes from can differ vastly from person to person. Some people are paid by the department as teaching assistants, while others are research assistants and are paid off of some grant, and other students apply for their own external fellowships.
The reason this is an important question is that you want to know what you're getting into. I've seen people who need to juggle teaching with research all five years, making them always feel stretched thin. I've had friends who, after joining the lab, found out that the PI hasn't been applying for grants and the last grant they received is drying up. Some PIs have money but expect their students to apply for their own fellowships as a soft graduation requirement.
Until you ask, you'll never know what your potential PI expects from you. This all being said, life will still sometimes throw a wrench into your plans. I had a friend who, during their fourth year, had to start teaching again because their professor's grant proposal got rejected and the lab suddenly needed to stretch out the last grant until they could get funding back.
Am I comfortable asking questions?
Over your time in grad school, you will be asking lots of questions. By asking at the beginning, you can get a good idea of whether your advisor takes the time to teach or expects you already know the information.
For me, being comfortable asking questions was an instrumental part of deciding my advisor. I had switched subfields from physical chemistry to chemical biology and wasn't familiar with all the literature. My advisor was very friendly, she gave me resources to read and took the time to walk me through the more difficult concepts.
Questions are the hardest part of graduate school. A good researcher asks lots of questions, but our imposter syndromes make us feel like asking the "wrong" question can make us look stupid. Because most of what I was learning was very new to me, I needed someone who made me feel accomplished while learning instead of someone who was angry that I wasn't learning fast enough.
What are the expectations of this lab?
Ask your potential advisor questions about the lab and ask them questions about life outside of the lab. It's best to lay all expectations out at the beginning to know what the next few years of your life will look like. The following bullet points will go through some expectations that you should ask your potential advisor about. It is wise to also ask other graduate students both inside and outside of that group what they think about the advisor's expectations.
Mentoring style This is a biggie. It's especially hard to think about it when graduate school and the project is so new. There are a few different mentoring styles and I encourage you to look into them more if you're interested. In this post, I'm will talk about mentoring styles from a mentee perspective because, when I first started, I had no clue what different mentoring styles were and which worked best for me.
As I said, I switched subfields in chemistry, so the research and techniques were new for me. Initially, I thought I would want an advisor that's more hands-on, but after one of my rotations, I realized being micromanaged was too stressful for me. I didn't like the feeling that I needed to have new (and useful) data every week and that my advisor would do surprise drop-ins during the week. This PI had good intentions; he felt like he was too busy and wanted to be there for his students. But for me, it was a very stifling environment.
My current advisor is both hands-on and off. She definitely has her preference for how things are done, but she puts our opinions first. While this can still be stressful for me at times, I enjoy the freedom it gives me. Productivity comes in waves and with a more hands-on advisor, I feel like I can take a break if I need one.
My advice would be to think about something you are really good at, because by the end of your PhD, you will be really good at your job. Once you have what you're good at in mind, think about talking to someone about it. Do you want that person to share enthusiasm about your approach? How often would you want to speak to them about it? How often do you want to show progress? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? How do you want feedback, constructive criticism or advice? Using something you are more familiar with as a checkpoint helps you pick a better advisor. Keep in mind though, your style may change with time, but your advisor's style may not unless you can already see that they have a flexible mentoring style.
You can tell if they're flexible by seeing if they treat each of their students as individuals or have a one size fits all approach.
Vacation/Sick days
Most schools in the US provide two weeks of vacation and a handful of sick days per year but talk with your program supervisor and your advisor on their personal expectations. Some PIs will keep track while others trust your judgment. This is one of the first things I would ask your advisor because some people find out halfway through the first year that their PI will take extra sick days out of vacation time or expect members to come in on the weekend to make up lost time.
Publications
How often does the PI expect you to publish? How does that compare to how often everyone actually publishes? Does the department have guidelines on publication? Some people expect a new publication every year, but because of the nature of the research, it actually takes a few years to publish. This attitude can result in labs with tense atmospheres because everyone believes they're continually missing expectations and overworked.
The standing of the professor also makes a difference in publications. Untenured professors may be publishing more frequently to add to their tenure package while tenured professors may publish less often.
As long as you and your PIs publication expectations align, the number of publications shouldn't matter. Quality is better than quantity. Just always be upfront with authorship because that is where a lot of academic fights happen.
Conferences
Conferences are one of the best ways to network. Ask your potential advisor how often students can go to meetings and how they are paid for. Some professors don't let students go to conferences until the work is published, while others encourage students to go to many different conferences. Being upfront about allows you to prioritize the conferences you'll get the most out of.
Lab size
Do you work better with a few people or a lot? Usually in bigger labs the the PI has less time to spend with the group. It is common in larger groups to see subgroup meetings rather than one on one meetings (there are some exceptions). But if you're someone who doesn't need a lot of guidance or does not want to meet with your advisor frequently, a bigger lab might work for you. Personally, I prefer the smaller lab experience because it allows me to ask for advice as issues come up.