ABSTRACT
Joining a research group is one of the most important events on a graduate student’s path to earning a PhD, but the ways students go about searching for a group remain largely unstudied. It is therefore crucial to investigate whether departments are equitably supporting students as they look for an advisor, especially as students today enter graduate school with more diverse backgrounds than ever before. This study will characterize this multi-year process from the student’s perspective in order to gain insight into the thoughts and actions they experience during this important part of their academic career. In doing so, we hope to better understand how factors such as a student’s social network, undergraduate research, and departmental culture all coincide to influence their ability to navigate their search for a research group.
Project Lead
Mike Verostek
Rochester Institute of Technology
Project Lead
Ben Zwickl
Rochester Institute of Technology
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. How do PhD students experience the process of seeking and finding an advisor and research group?
METHODS
We conducted semi-structured interviews with 41 first and second year physics PhD students about how they experienced the process of finding a research group in graduate school. Interviewees chronicled how and when they interacted with departments, faculty, and the graduate student community as they attempted to navigate the process of finding a research group.
CONTRIBUTION TO PROJECT GOALS
This study provides an in-depth investigation of a crucial step in PhD students’ path toward completion. Studying how graduate students find research groups will yield insights into difficulties they experience during this process, and how departments can provide students with improved guidance and support. Crucially, this study has the potential to reveal barriers to finding a research advisor that disproportionately affect students from historically underrepresented backgrounds. The results of this study have the potential to help more graduate students enter into a fulfilling and productive relationship with an advisor and research lab, thereby improving their likelihood of degree completion and overall research productivity.
FOCUS AREA WITHIN GRADUATE EDUCATION
Transition into graduate school, mentoring, advising, and graduate school selection processes
INVESTIGATORS
Ben Zwickl, Rochester Institute of Technology
Casey Miller, Rochester Institute of Technology
Mike Verostek, University of Rochester