What is something you wished you’d asked your grad school advisor beforehand?
Ask A Biologist Monday 9/25/23
Answers from Biologists:
How long on average their students (not the program as a whole) took to graduate.
If this is PhD level work, can I just switch to the PhD?
Do your students complete their projects on time? If not, what contributes to project delays?
Learning more about a co-supervisor. They were 60% of my total grad school time.
What is the work-life balance like?
How to best utilize my grad committee?
How many students do they typically take on a year?
What percentage of their students successfully defend.
How do you give feedback and what is your communication style (weekend emails?)?
What is their philosophy for support during field season?
Do they advocate for non-uni courses (wilderness first aid training, hands on workshops)?
What are the expectations for publishing, if any?
How often did they stray from previous student’s thesis proposals?
Specifically how they fund their students.
How reachable they would be when I needed something?
Contact for current students.
Do you have funding for conferences or travel?
How much they valued getting it done over getting it done perfectly.
How much experience they had with the topic of my thesis.
Whether they expect students to TA to earn their stipend.
What it the diversity within their lab?
Do we have a plan if something goes wrong or comes up insignificant?
How in tune with the industry are they? As in do they know what the job market/employers are looking for?