Questions needed to think about when choosing an academic advisor

在选择博士辅导教授，通常大家会根据以下的几种情况选择：

1）教授有名气，在学术界/业界关系网很强大
2）自己的科研兴趣和教授的兴趣相一致
3）教授非常注重培养学生的专业能力，以及辅导学生职业规划和人生规划（和教授沟通比较容易，平等）
4）实验室的环境（学术环境，人文环境，技术环境（特指仪器））非常友善，完善，没有种族歧视，性别歧视等，科研就算没有发展，但是身心健康
5）教授评估学生，但是不允许学生对教授有任何质疑

我想除了第五项大家不要选择之外，其他的选项都是我们要考虑的因素。首先，我们要搞清楚每一项在我们心中的比重，最好的选择无非是optimize/maximize benefits and get what we desired the most。

最近看了一篇文章，上面介绍了一些在选择教授前应该考虑清楚的问题，或者直接发邮件问教授，通过学长/朋友了解，大家仔细看看吧，我觉得收益不少~

How much time do you spend with your students? Who would directly supervise my day-to-day work?

What are your expectations for students' workload? How much flexibility in schedules do you allow?

How would I be funded? How well funded is the project I'll be working on? What lab space and equipment are available? You don't need guarantees at this stage that the money is available to support you until you complete your project. But you do need to know you'll have access to the needed equipment and supplies.

What is your approach to deciding authorship on collaborative research articles? Do graduate students have a real chance at first authorship? Do author rankings reflect real intellectual contributions or laboratory rank? It's good to know that good work will be rewarded by high billing.

How many students have earned Ph.D.s in your lab? How long did it take them? Where did they go? What are they doing now? Scanning faculty members' Web pages can yield some of this information. While considering your options and the answers to these questions, keep your own career objectives in mind. If you aspire to a career at a top research university, for example, it's best to choose an adviser who has already placed former students in such jobs. If your adviser is just starting out and doesn't have a track record yet, it's a tougher call. But you can do a solid risk assessment by considering his profile in the field, or the stature of the journals she publishes in. Frequent publications in Science and Nature make it far more likely that you'll be able to swing a postdoc in a high-profile lab--your next step toward a big-time professorship.

What specific strategies do you use to help students hone their interests, refine their technical skills, and develop independence? You want evidence--from the adviser's mouth and from others--that he/she takes an active, serious interest in training and career development.

How do you guide students who are interested in pursuing nontraditional--or industrial--career options, or who are uncertain of their career goals? If you think you might pursue a nontraditional path, make sure your adviser is willing to sign on. Some academic scientists resist their students' efforts to leave the academic track.

Do you support your students' travel to scientific meetings? Travel to scientific meetings is one of the most important networking and career-development activities in which a graduate student can participate, and it can be inspiring to interact--even socialize--with other important scientists in your field. It helps you feel part of a collective effort.

红笔划出的是我个人觉得非常重要的，总之大家想尽办法把这些问题搞清楚吧！这个问题清单会很长，如果大家还想到的，就继续往下update吧

最后一点，是对学工科理科的女性，选择我们professional career的时候还要考虑personal goals，另外就是要选择一个没有性别歧视的环境下工作。一名women minority往往是没有white male占有优势，所以也把这点考虑进去

谢谢分享。请问那篇文章的名称/全文能分享一下吗

感谢分享，很有用
btw. 关于文章署名的问题，没必要问。自己去看看教授以往的paper就知道了～国际会议，如果老师不support，可以找系/学校support，一般都有grant给学生的～

这个就是那个文章的link，希望大家能够收益 =P

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/previous_issues/articles/2007_07_20/caredit_a0700102


2# xiaopihai

very good article~ thanks for sharing..
I am now considering about this issue and found the list of questions above very helpful!

顶一个，以后说不定有用。。

赞！~~
最近也一直在考虑跟新来的ap，不确定性大，是不是比较冒险的问题。。。

还有就是老prof的network多但是可能顾不上管自己    or    新ap科研有激情有potential而且更多的耐心教导甚至有些push有利于自身发展？

还有就是老prof的network多但是可能顾不上管自己    or    新ap科研有激情有potential而且更多的耐心教导甚至有些push有利于自身发 ...
10thousandyears 发表于 2010-2-28 21:04

这个问题不是简单的A or B, 得具体情况具体分析, 有很多细节信息, 需要你自己去dig去权衡, 比如老师到底怎么样, 别人站在旁边, 很难明白具体情况的.