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I can't disagree with any of that. The best advice I can give about grad school: Know your adviser before accepting an offer. Non-tenured should be a big worry
by robg 18y ago
I can't disagree with any of that.
The best advice I can give about grad school: Know your adviser before accepting an offer. Non-tenured should be a big worry. No other students should be too. Use the beer night all schools feature to get honest assessments of potential advisers - after a few beers have set in. In a real sense, your adviser will be your venture partner with vast majority control even as you do the vast majority of the work. The decision of who to work with is therefore critical.
- neilc 18y agoHaving an untenured advisor is not necessarily a bad thing. An advisor trying to get tenure is going to be very active and focused on their research, because their own job is literally on the line. Although a more senior professor might have a more established reputation and more grant money, they might also be less involved in the details of the research their students are doing. That said, all this depends on the nature of the particular advisor -- and I would certainly agree that your success in graduate school has a lot to do with the advisor you choose.
- robg 18y agoThe key word there is "their". If you want to be an apprentice, then a non-tenured professor could be fine. You're working on their, narrowly conceived, research. Of course, there are exceptions but an applicant to grad schools isn't usually well-prepared to distinguish. So, given your last point - which I agree with 100% - I think it's better for students to just go with more established folks (assuming good reviews from their current and former students). Let the non-tenured faculty hire assistants - they're cheaper and their independence is less critical to their long-term development.