shefff

3.Understand the job market

Know exactly what you want out of your degree.  If it's a career in academia, take time to assess the possibility of never finding a full-time position.  Will the degree still be valuable to you if you don't get the teaching job you hope for?  What else might you gain from your grad program?

If you're not absolutely sure you're in the place you want to be, with a strong support network around you, think about alternative career paths once you reach the master’s level.  The rewards, at least in the humanities, are not commensurate with the pay we receive, nor job prospects, nor the sacrifices we make to get the Ph.D.

Knowing everything that I know now, I would recommend that the number of available slots in graduate school would be so small that there wouldn't be any need for more advice.  Graduate school in the humanities is a low-rent economic and employment system that is in crisis.  It demands far more graduate students than it can possibly support as full-time career teachers.  The job itself is too demanding for the pay scale.  The emotional environment is often terrible, often much worse than real world jobs (in many of which I have worked, before, during, and after grad school).  Grad school does create expectations that the professors have to know in some sense are false.  If there are 17 people admitted each year and only 2 to 3 jobs being found, there is a problem.

Consider carefully the state of the academic profession before spending years in penury as a graduate student.  If there's anything else you would be happy doing, do it.  If you decide to stay in the graduate program, do it--quickly.  If there's anything you would be happy doing with your graduate degree besides being a college/university faculty member, do it.

Keep non-academic career options open.  Use summer vacations and winter breaks to explore career opportunities and to develop life skills rather than use the time off simply in academic pursuits.

I would strongly advise students who plan to pursue teaching careers to have a Plan B in case they cannot get an academic job or if they should decide that academia just isn't what they really want after all.  Holing up in a Ph.D. program in the humanities is the perfect way to insulate yourself from alter- native career opportunities.  Faculty members in my program acknowledge that there is a job shortage and make this clear to incoming students, but do precious little else to encourage students to consider just what else they might be good for outside the ivory tower.  The longer I'm in this program  the more burned out on academia I become and the more I wish I had done more to prepare myself for alternatives outside of college/university teaching.

The job market is very bad in the humanities, and although many incoming students are vaguely aware of this fact, I think more should be done to really let people know the current state of employment in academia.  I don't think it is wise to go into a Ph.D. program unless you are really committed to a long job search (3-5 years at least), and the possibility that you won't ever get a job in your field.  I would still have made the choice I did, but I think a lot of students are fully aware of the realities of the academic world when they enter graduate school.  They just know that they are good at being students and want to continue being students.

Carefully research job opportunities in the field before you invest so much time and lost income.  Be a good consumer--what is the department's placement record?  How do they help students get jobs?  Most people get Ph.D.’s because they love teaching and/or research and expect a career in it.  That's not the case for a large percentage of Ph.D.'s--even from “top 10” schools.  Departments need to take more responsibility for this: being clear about the situation during recruitment, lowering the number of incoming students, etc.

shefff

4. Understand and get funding

I would not advise anyone to enter this field generally.  I especially would not advise anyone to enter graduate school in English unless they have a commitment to 5 years of funding.  (Ideally of course one would get 6, and some of that in fellowships, but let's be realistic...)
If they still were committed to going, I would advise being very aggressive in researching outside sources of fellowship funding to supplement teaching awards.

Don't go to a school without a tuition waiver; investigate local cost of living and teaching stipend/salary.   

I would encourage students in the humanities to go to grad school only if they are fully funded-- particularly programs where everyone is funded.  Be prepared to have no money anyway.

Avoid taking loans for grad school in the humanities.

Don't go to graduate school on your own penny--find funding, reapply, or don't go.

5.Select your advisor carefully

Pick your advisor based at least in half on his/her record as an advocate on the job market and his/her record on moving people through (while maintaining high standards).  Do not pick an advisor who is hands-off about deadlines.  You’ll be in trouble--I've seen too many unhappy graduate students in their n-th years with advisors who are practitioners of benevolent neglect.  Avoid large egos.  

There are some great faculty out there.  Seek them out when choosing professors. To work with, value a good teacher who cares about students over the latest hot theorist -- even the big shots can't do much for your career in these troubled times, and often (although not always) the best profs aren't the biggest names.

Select a dissertation chair who can be supportive of the "process," not one who only thinks in terms of "product," one who can care and encourage your growth as a full person, not just as a scholar, one who is nurturing, not one who thrives on conflict, status, and power.
Select a department in which the faculty take time for mentoring the students, a department where there is a true community of scholars rather than just a group of individuals competing against each other.

Find faculty members you can get along with, if not like, with similar interests and develop a relationship.  Although the best relationships grow on their own, you should aggressively seek out opportunities and people that can help you in your program.  Professors will rarely seek you out or take notice of you of their own accord.

Enter a program with at least two faculty that you plan to work with and to develop a relationship with them as soon as possible.  Also, to check with the department about faculty retirement and hiring so that you don't enter a department only to have your advisor(s) leave or planning on leaving.  

Choose your advisor very carefully and talk to other students who have worked with her/him about their experience with her/him.  Try to find someone who you can really enjoy working with, who you respect, and who respects you.  That's more important than working with a big name who will not treat you well and make it more difficult to finish your degree.  Don't allow yourself to be infantilized by faculty members or your fellow graduate students.  You’re an adult.  Act like one and expect to be treated like one.  Don't calmly suffer abuse or exploitation.     

6.        Take time off between undergraduate and PhD studies

Take some time off before grad school.

Get some real world professional experience prior to graduate school.

Do a terminal MA first, this provides opportunities to be more certain about research and commitment.

Definitely take time off before going to grad school, and be positive that you are dedicated to your studies.

Consider taking time off before enrolling in a graduate program because people who have taken time off usually have a clearer sense of direction, a better support system outside the program, more confidence in themselves and finish more quickly.

shefff

五. Geology


1.Know yourself and know what doctoral study entails

Don't commit to doing a Ph.D. unless you are absolutely sure that is what you want to do.  It is time-consuming, selfish (time-wise) and can be expensive.  If you are unsure, do the master's degree.
Once you have made the decision to commit to a Ph.D., pick a project that really interests you!  It is a long haul and will get boring if the project is not something you really love to research!  Don't do a project that someone else wants you to do or that you think may get you a job.  You will most likely be told what you have to work on when you get a job so enjoy your opportunity to choose what you want to do now.
Jump in with both feet!  Graduate school in the hard sciences is not a Monday through Friday 8:00 to 5:00 job.  If you want to compete at the Ph.D. level it is a 60 to 80 hour a week job.  However, most of us who finish wouldn't trade the experience for anything!
Take at least a year off between college and graduate school.
Try to come to decision about graduate school independently; it's easy to be influenced by professors, parents, etc., but grad school is a long haul and in order to get through, you need to be really committed.
Look around for mentors (older students, other faculty)--don't rely on your advisor for mentoring!
The primary purpose of a Ph.D. is for going into academia.  If you're not sure at the outset that you want to be a professor, or lack a clear alternative path that requires a Ph.D., you should wait before going to graduate school.  Five years + is a long time to work for something if it doesn't directly contribute to your life's goals.

2.Investigate the program thoroughly

It is extremely important to visit prospective graduate schools to look for a fit with the faculty and potential advisor, the research, and the atmosphere in the department and school.  You want to make sure you will be happy where you are at, because otherwise your research and performance will suffer.  The best way to ensure this is to go visit, talk to students and faculty, and just get a feeling for the place.

Try to develop a good understanding of *what* exactly it is that you'll be doing in grad school and how you can tailor that most to your benefit and direction.  Get informed from other grad students as to amount of workload, interaction with advisor, number of courses, type of research, housing, etc.  These are all crucial towards one's enjoyment of grad school, and not having a good idea of what it entails or being disappointed by inaccurate expectations changes the experience for the worst.

Be sure of where you are going!  If something seems amiss, don't do it!  I was warned by three different grad students not to come because things were not good here, but I came since this was the only one I was accepted into.  In hindsight I should not have come.

3.Understand the job market

Make sure that 1) you love your field enough to commit years to it, and 2) that you are aware of the real-world job prospects when you finish.  That is, if you pick a field without much money, you will probably have to give it all up years later unless you are truly a uniquely gifted and very hardworking individual.

Obtain work experience!  Experiment with your discipline in an applied way.  Gauge the job market.  I've seen many Ph.D. students finish and then realize their employment options are limited.

Be prepared to work harder than you ever have in your life.  Graduate school is orders of magnitude harder than undergraduate.   
For Ph.D. candidates, publishing papers, attending conferences, and writing funding proposals is worth all the time and work.  Without these things on your CV, forget about getting a faculty job at a research university.

I entered into a program in a field that is currently and has been depressed for multiple years.  I think it was extremely fortunate that I found employment that was supportive of my degree program.  I also feel it's very dishonest that universities across the country continue to accept students into Ph.D. programs when there is a glut of Ph.D.'s, and very few job opportunities.  My advice would be know what the employment market is and what chances there are for fulfilling your goals.

shefff

4. Understand and get funding

Find an advisor who has money and is still active in the research area you wish to pursue.

Ask about funding, especially for summer.

Not all grad students remain in their area.  I have had to go out of my department for research funding.  Fortunately, it has been a terrific experience for me.

Availability of research funding should play a major role in deciding which program you enter.

5.Select your advisor carefully

Be selective when choosing an advisor.  Degree of interaction and guidance can vary greatly from one professor to another.  Make sure your needs are compatible.  Talk to his/her other grad students.  Talk with currently enrolled grad students when choosing a program or an advisor.  Grad students will be able to give you the most informed and honest impression of student life at that university or with that advisor.
When applying to grad schools make contact with at least one professor and visit if you can before admissions decisions are made.  Often these decisions are influenced by whether a professor has spoken on your behalf.
As well, the research interests of individual professors and their willingness to work with you should be a major factor in choosing a grad program.  I have seen grad students arrive only to find that there were no faculty members with the necessary expertise or the faculty member was not interested in taking on any more students at that time.  Under these conditions, a student can succeed, but he/she must be extremely self-motivated!

Select your advisor only after significant experience with him/her.  Mine was nothing like I expected from classroom contact.  Ensure your advisor has time for you and is personally interested in your research.
Choose advisor based on more than the research quality.  The ability to interact with students in a meaningful way is just as important.   Make sure the advisor has the time to properly oversee the research.
You should wait at least a semester, maybe two, before you make a final decision on an advisor.  Do not feel obligated to stay with the faculty member who sponsors you.  See how all the faculty operate.  Take some classes from various faculty members, then decide.  Choose one who likes to teach.   You will be able to learn from him or her.
Talk to the faculty before you enter the program.  Definitely talk to the students to find out about the atmosphere in various research groups.  Have an advisor that you want to work with, so that you won't waste time finding the right advisor and research topic.
Communicate with your advisor, and set deadlines early on in your dissertation writing.  View your advisor as a research mentor and source of funding for your specific project,  and look to other faculty/staff/students for moral or other support if necessary.

Thoroughly research your advisor, consulting previous and current students and finding out what type of working relationship is developed over the course of a doctoral student's career.

6.Take time off between undergraduate and PhD studies

Personally, it was extremely beneficial to leave the academic environment for a few years to work in the private sector.  I would encourage all prospective new graduate students to consider discovering alternative work environments.
  
If you are at all unsure about wanting a Ph.D., do a Master’s first.

shefff

六.History

1.Know yourself and know what doctoral study entails

Think seriously about WHY you want to go to grad school in the first place.  If you are simply entering a program because you don't know what else you want to do with your life, take more time before starting a grad program.  If you simply are DYING to be an academic or prof, or are incredibly passionate about your field, then start.
I was naive entering grad school; I thought it would be a great way to gain an expertise in history that I could then use outside of academia (namely in a writing and editing career).  I didn't realize how focused grad programs are on training ALL grad students to become professors.  I also didn't realize what a long (and sometimes rather grueling) process all of this would be.  Sometimes I wonder if I could have achieved my career goals WITHOUT having gone to grad school.
I don't dislike what I'm doing; but sometimes I'm not sure if it's worth it, considering that I'm not sure I want an academic job.  SO--I would   encourage potential students to talk at length with other grad students and profs, and enter a grad program with their eyes wide open as to what the expectations, demands, and potential outcomes of grad school are.
Talk to people and try to understand, really understand, what grad school is about.  I didn't do a very good job of it and I spent a lot of time taking wrong turns in this program.
If you are in the liberal arts, especially history, do the degree because you want it.  The job market is horrible and there are no guarantees at the end.  Therefore, keep in mind other job opportunities.
Pick an advisor as soon as you can, and try to find someone personable, with whom you are compatible.  There is plenty of misery involved in working with an ogre.
Maybe visit campuses early on and meet some of the faculty so you can make an informed decision about where to apply and where to go.

Don't treat graduate school as holding pen for other options.  If you came to graduate school because you always succeeded as a student, bear in mind that graduate school is about turning you into a researcher and teacher. Graduate programs require a pivotal switch in thinking about your talents and desires.  
Be prepared for self-doubts and loneliness; in the end, work is solitude.

First, ask yourself: Why am I doing this? What do I want to be? Am I really sure that grad school is the place to find myself? If your answer is “I think it would be cool to be Dr. so-and-so,” then forget it. If your answer is: “I have a really good idea of what it means to be a historian/sociologist/folklorist/ physicist, and there is nothing else I would rather be,” then, well, it’s still probably not a good idea. Try catering, or real estate.  If, on the other hand, these alternatives are utterly abhorrent to you, move on to the next step.
Determine if you are pursuing your field (in my case, history) in order to have a career in academia, a career outside the academy, or if you are just doing it because you want/have nothing better to do. If the last point is true, you should either be independently wealthy or content to go into a ridiculous amount of debt for no good reason. Humanities/arts people are no longer valued by today's society, if they ever were.
If the first of these is the case, find out the attrition/completion rates of the Ph.D. programs you are considering. Then look at the placement data upon graduation. Be careful to determine if the jobs that graduates get are tenure-track, full-time or not. If the dept. does not provide this information, or if you cannot determine it from external studies or from talking to graduate students and faculty in the program, DO NOT ENTER the program. The dept. is clearly not being responsible, and not making it easy for prospective students to make intelligent choices. This information is equally important (if not more so) than such issues as the reputation of the program and the funding situation/endowment/ resources. These, of course, are also important, and the prospective student should take them into account when he/she makes his/her decision.
This may be the most important bit of advice: don't borrow $$$ to go to grad school. Not one red cent. Make sure you pursue every possible avenue of funding before going. If none surface, keep your job at Target and keep applying each year until you get funding. It makes absolutely no sense for anyone smart enough to get into grad school to be so dumb as to go neck-high into debt when the job market is so bad (and shows no signs of letting up). I have friends in history programs who are $30,000-70,000 in debt. Amortized over 30 years, they'll be paying something like $500-1,000/ month to their creditors until almost the end of their lives. All this and no equity.

Be absolutely sure you love your field enough to give up time, money, effort, and sweat.... If you're not 100% certain, then do something else for a while.  It's a wonderful, exhilarating, horrible, frustrating process; you'll be poor for years, you'll work like a dog, your advisor will probably kick your ego around a bit, so if you're not passionate about your field you'll probably have a hard time.  On the other hand, it can be a great experience.  I'm glad I did it, but I can't say it's been easy.

Be sure it’s what you want--grad school and academia are not easy.  As one older student said to me when I was visiting schools, “If there is anything else you can see yourself doing, do it.”  (Cynical, but rings true to me now).  In particular, be sure you love your subject!

Be prepared for years of poverty, long hours, non-existent weekends, exploiting faculty members, Byzantine administrative paperwork, and constant self-doubt.  The first year of graduate school will be the most unmitigated hell you have lived through with the possible exception of 7th grade.  It should get better afterwards.  If not, drop out.

shefff

2.Investigate the program thoroughly

When selecting a grad school, pick a department that has a strong, supportive community of grad students.  Your fellow grad students will provide you with more advice, support, and intellectual guidance than any advisor.

A university is more than a collection of buildings and brains. It’s a place, too, where you’ll probably spend at least five years. And, given academic job prospects, it might be the last time (before you retire, anyway) where you actually get to choose where to live. If you are happy only within a half-hour of an ocean, stick to the coasts; if you need to see the mountains, avoid Kansas.  If you’re happy where you are physically, you’ll also be a better student and scholar.
Talk to students in the program where you want to go. Buy them a beer and ask them to give you the straight scoop about faculty, attrition rates and time to degree, financial support, campus facilities, if/where people get jobs when they finish, etc.
Your advisor is very important. Find out if you get along personally, what their track record with former students is (do they get support? do they finish? do they get jobs?), find out what their modus operandi is and if that fits your style.
Go to graduate school if you think that you’ll enjoy the school part, and not just because you want the Ph.D. or the academic job at the end of it all. The best (and happiest) students are those who are enjoying the ride.

I don't think many of my peers had an honest explanation of the time that a Ph.D. in history would take, the enormous cost, the dearth of financial assistance (other than loans that would leave many with crushing debt payments--some more than $800 a month), the difficulty of finding employment, or the possibilities for non-academic professions.  Nor were we adequately prepared for the high rate of attrition--I think that it must range between 50-75%--that the university seemed to countenance as an acceptable process.  It was painful to watch friends and colleagues with a deep passion for their studies leave in a cloud of bitterness and failure as the cost of a graduate education finally became too much to bear, or the impossibility of finishing while working 30-40 hours a week finally became evident.

Learn everything you can about the program you're interested in and about the professors with whom you will work.
Know that it will be a difficult 5-7 years of your life, with little time to devote to other things.  Knowing all that, I highly recommend graduate school to those who are willing to put in the work and the time.  It is worth it in the end!

Carefully examine the actual semester course offerings for several years (not the list of course in the catalog) to determine exactly what the direction of the program is, and what courses they are really giving and who is really teaching.  All too often, and in my program especially, students are accepted for programs that are poorly supported with teaching faculty and courses, which they discover only after entering.  For example, my period in early modern European history, the catalog listed a dozen grad courses and five professors, but in actual fact there is only one course offered, a general seminar, and only one full professor (who rarely teaches) and one assistant professor, who does teach, but who was denied tenure and will not be replaced.  Yet, this year, three students were admitted in the early modern European program.

Make sure you take into consideration all factors and possibilities before you enter.  For example, are you so good in your field that you will receive competitive funding at every stage?  If not, do you have you own personal resources set aside?  Do you have children -- how does your campus help with childcare, if at all?  How will you fund your research?  What percent of students have research funded by your institution?  If the percentage is small, select a topic that can be researched locally.  Also, explore all money opportunities, not just those in your department or university.   
Have an idea of the field you will study, and, if possible, of the advisor you'd like to work with.  Go to the university and meet that advisor and get a preliminary feel for whether you can work with him or her. Talk to his or her other graduate students -- what kind of advisor does this person make?  Are they hands off and do you need someone who sets deadlines?  Are they autocratic and unconcerned with whether you eat or not?  Ask TONS of questions.   
This is enough, but I could go on for much longer.  The bottom line is, know yourself and the program well.  Don't think things will change for your circumstances - if you think it's an ill fit, it probably is.  There are many wonderful people in academia who can help you when you stall, but if you are in a rigid program and run into problems and you don't find one of those people, it is your academic success that will suffer.

If you have a choice about where to enroll, visit the schools and meet with faculty and students.  Your relationships with your advisors/mentors and with fellow students will play a big role in how happy you are in graduate school and how you will grow intellectually.
However, also remember that in order to be happy and to learn, you need adequate funding and a reasonable workload in your RA/TA position.  Find out how well your school supports students and what the workload is like.  Ask if graduate student employees are unionized and engaged in collective bargaining.  If not, get involved in the movement to unionize!

Research and meet potential advisors before deciding where to enter graduate school; the same goes for the graduate community.  Collegial support and conversation are very important to one's intellectual and emotional well being in grad school.

shefff

3.Understand the job market

The first thing I tell new students is that there are very few jobs in humanities/social sciences in academia right now.  Also, there are many, many very bright and talented teachers and researchers who are unemployed or who are forced to take one semester or one-year adjunct positions in which they get paid very little and they teach a great deal.  In other words, the poor job market makes us ripe for exploitation.  I feel like we need to be honest with people entering graduate school.  There are too few jobs and too many Ph.D.s.
Don’t enter history grad school expecting to be able to find a job -- no matter how talented you may be.  You must expect that you will attend grad school and still not get a job even with dissertation in hand.  If you cannot walk away at the end of the process without a job and yet not be bitter then grad school isn't for you.

Find out what happens to people who enter the program.  Do they get work afterwards? Where?
What else can you do with your degree when you leave besides teach?  Develop transferable skills.
Make sure you need a Ph.D. to make the living you want to make and be flexible enough during the process to rethink whether you need the Ph.D. if your goals have changed.      

Pressure the department to learn and explain more about non-academic work one can do with a history degree.  People don't know what their options are, and somehow to discuss non-academic careers has a whiff of failure about it.  This is ridiculous.

The job market is simply awful and shows little chance of improvement.  If you can think of anything else to do that will make you happy, go do that; otherwise, you're probably limiting yourself to a life of underemployment with low pay and no benefits teaching part time for schools all over creation with little or no chance of advancement or permanent employment.
Have realistic expectations about their ability to get the job they want and their own suitability to that job.  Many people in the program I was in, for example, liked teaching but not the level and quantity of research and writing necessary to get a competitive academic job.  Nonetheless, these were the only jobs seen as worthy.  People entering Ph.D. programs should be more willing to address up front what they will do if after 7-10 yrs they can't obtain a university professorship.

4. Understand and get funding

If you don't get accepted into a program with a “full” funding package, don't go.

Don't expect funding to continue until you're finished: be proactive in determining how long it will last, to what degree, and what other sources of funding are available.
Be clear on how much funding (or lack of it) there will be, how much of funding will come from teaching assistantships (and recognize how much that will slow down your progress).

Make a realistic assessment of the available funding in the humanities.  I have seen many motivated and talented students leave the program because they failed to take such concerns into account when entering school.  Their desire for the degree steadily waned as their appreciation for the costs (money, time, energy) grew.   

Funding is a terrible problem for history grad students and probably for most in the humanities.  My husband and I have both had to work our ways through school and together have amassed about $130,000 in debt.  This is not a good way to begin one's professional life...especially when the job market is horrible.  I think graduate education will soon become the privilege of the wealthy.  I hope programs do a better job of informing incoming students of the costs of this education.
Be certain that your funding package is very clear and that you will be supported during your research/write-up years.
Make sure you enter a program with equal funding for all students.  This makes a significant difference for the amount of support you can expect from your peers.

shefff

5.Select your advisor carefully

Make sure that your advisor not only has similar academic interests, but is compatible personally as well:  he/she has similar philosophies on the graduate student/advisor relationship, shares the same goals for what you should get out of a graduate program, and provides the kinds of emotional support you need to perform your best work (if is you need someone to be on your case constantly, or you need more space to develop on your own, or is supportive vs. critical).

A good, open relationship with an advisor who is interested in advising and mentoring students is vital.  I believe all students’ benefit from intellectual and emotional support and the ongoing availability of an advisor.  All too frequently, advisors seem far more concerned with their own research than with actually fulfilling their roles as advisors.  Talk to other students currently working with the advisors who interest you prior to entering your program.  Speak directly to your advisor about these feelings regarding their students and their vision of the advisor/student relationship.  I am convinced that this relationship is central to a successful experience in a doctoral program.

Go with the advisor you can really talk to, and who listens to your ideas, whether or not that person is the most well known or prestigious.

Pick an advisor who will work hard on your behalf reading drafts, writing letters, and looking for job opportunities.
Make intellectual contacts/communities with people outside of your discipline and university.
Look for a program and advisor which pushes students.  I do not mean a program/advisor which emphasizes speed/efficiency above all else, but the timelines and guidelines in my department are so loose that, unless a graduate student has a really strong grasp on what specifically he or she wants or needs to do, they can waste a lot of time between taking courses and completing prelims, etc.

6.Take time off between undergraduate and PhD studies

Take time off before entering grad school.  Enter the workforce, and come back to grad school when you really want to.  Every student in my program who went directly from undergrad to grad school has not completed the program.  And every student who has left the program for a “year off” has never returned!
Taking time off BEFORE entering graduate school is invaluable.  I gained a sense of perspective on higher education and of my own role in it that I could not have had I pushed straight through.
I also benefited from doing my M.A. and Ph.D. at different institutions.
I think it is also important for prospective or early career graduate students to ask the hard questions both of themselves and their departments about why they are there.  Are you focused on process or outcome?  Both are important.  Graduate school should never be an escape or exclusively a means to an end but an end in itself.

Take time off before coming in; at least one year, even if you're very sure.  One year won't be a big delay and even if at the end you think that you were ready all along, the year off will have been a good change and a touchstone to remind you that you know you belong when times get rough.
Get some job experience first, after college, to make sure you are truly committed to graduate work.  Even just a year off provides a welcome breather in class work, and alerts you to other possibilities.
  
If I were talking to a 22-year-old I would say hold off and work at something for a few years. An older person is more likely to know what they want to do (this was my situation--I was 29 when I started).

shefff

七. Mathematics


1.Know yourself and know what doctoral study entails

Be prepared.  When people tell you it's a big jump from undergrad to grad, believe them.  Make sure you are willing to make the sacrifices and put in the time.  Be sure you like the department, and not just the prestige of the university.  Interact as much as possible with other students--the communal misery makes it easier to bear.

Find out if this is what you really want to do; if you're unsure, at least don't forget to continue to explore other directions, which is not encouraged behavior for grad students.  Talk with someone who has the job you want, and be open about what you imagine their job to be like, and see if they agree/disagree with you about that.  Keep in mind that the main reward for an academic job is that you are able to do research.  If you don't love this research, will you love the job?

Really seriously think about continuing your study.  How much do you like your field, and enjoy your work, what are you interested in.  What would be worst possibility when you enter the graduate school?  If you are uncertain about what you want to do, and in particular, if you've just graduated from the college, it would be good to take a job or travel and think about that.  Being in school for a long time without break might not be such a good idea.

Be sure you really love the subject, because otherwise you should probably not be in grad school.  Remember that it's never too late to change your mind about what to do with your life!

2.Investigate the program thoroughly

Carefully look into the university and the program; compare different ones. Select a university where:
•       Grad students are friendly and seem to collaborate.
•       Faculty are friendly and are available for you to ask questions.
•       The guidelines are clearly defined.
Try not to select an advisor based on reputation alone.  Make sure you can work with them.
Choose an area of study that is flexible and will give you a diverse range of options in the future.

Try to make frequent contact with senior graduate students.
Familiarize yourself with the variety of research topics available in your department.
And most importantly, choose your advisor carefully!

Ask a lot of questions before you commit to a program.  Know how much teaching you will be expected to do and how thick the red tape is.  For example, in my program, if you want money in the summer, you teach.  But in order to teach, you must be registered for 5 hours of coursework.  Find out how many years you will be taking coursework before you even start work on your dissertation.

shefff

3.Understand the job market

If you don't want to be a professor, then your training in grad school is at cross purposes to your goals.  You've come this far, so you clearly enjoy classes and your field to a pretty large extent.  However, it's worth your while to think about where you want to be, what you want to do.  It is possible to finish the degree because you're excited about the research only to end up in a job you may only find tolerable.   

Explore alternate careers for people with a Ph.D. in your field.  Take some courses outside of your department to develop those skills.

would advise incoming graduate student to select an area of study very carefully and to be aware of the career opportunities (or lack of them) at the end of their degree.

4. Understand and get funding

Make sure that you can live on the financial support package that you're offered.

Consider other funding opportunities; a teaching assistantship is a lot of work.  There exist other options that give more time for your own research and that can possibly better prepare you for future work.

5.Select your advisor carefully

Get an advisor first (regardless of “policy”).  Go to a school that has the advisor you want, nothing else really matters.

It is more important to select an advisor whose personality will work well with yours at research than to select one whose research you're interested in.

Find out which field you would like to do research in and then find a good thesis advisor by asking other students or other faculty (maybe outside of the desired field) who really has the student's best interest at heart.

If you are Black, make sure you choose an advisor that can see your intelligence.

Have mentors who do not serve as research advisors.

The single most important factor in a successful graduate career is a productive relationship with ones advisor.  This should be achieved by finding out about professor’s research interests before entering graduate school, and during the first two years the student should interview with multiple faculty members to get an idea of options.

The most famous and established faculty member is not necessarily the best advisor.  Talking to other students is crucial.

6.Take time off between undergraduate and PhD studies

Take time off away from academics before beginning grad school.  Explore other career options; don't let the grad education system channel you into the expected.
  
I took time off before returning to school, so that I was more motivated to obtain my Ph.D.  While this is not an option for everyone, it certainly helped me.