Before you submit an application for a PhD program....

After you take the GRE* and after you've chosen a few graduate programs to apply to (see my previous posts here and here), you should take a few steps to make the initial contact with potential future graduate advisors. First, do your research about the faculty member online and maybe read a recent paper or two of theirs. Then draft a professional e-mail to introduce yourself and enquire whether a faculty member anticipates taking any new graduate students for the next academic year. A generic e-mail (from your university e-mail account) might read like this: Dear Prof. X, My name is Jane Doe and I will complete my B.S. in Geology at San Francisco State University in May 2011. I hope to begin PhD research next fall and I am very interested in your research on Interesting Topic Y that I read about in your X et al. (2010) paper in Important Journal of Research. I completed a research project on A and B with Prof. Z at SF State and believe I am well-prepared to start research on Interesting Topic Y at Prestigious University. Do you anticipate taking any new PhD students next fall? I would like to discuss any opportunities you might have to join your research group. I see that you have a poster with Unknown Person [the first author on the poster that you're referring to] on Wednesday morning of the AGU meeting in San Francisco - if you plan to be at the poster that Wednesday morning, may we schedule a time to meet briefly? I am attaching my CV for your reference. Many thanks for your consideration. Best Regards, Humble Student Because the process of applying to graduate programs starts in the fall term, you have two opportunities to make further contact with potential graduate advisors (particularly if their university is too distant to justify a road trip for a casual visit): at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America meeting (in October or November) and the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (in December). For my students who always attend the AGU meeting in San Francisco, I recommend checking to see if the faculty member is presenting a talk or poster at which you might introduce yourself, hear about their research, and ask intelligent questions: Search the Fall Meeting program for their last name. If you get zero search results back, you can still ask whether they will be at the AGU meeting in San Francisco, and might be able to meet - they might be planning on being a "conference tourist" (i.e., attending but not presenting) or, if not, you get bonus points by showing that you will attend that meeting. You should certainly invite a potential advisor to visit your poster if you're presenting one - be sure to include the details of your poster (i.e., T32E-47) and when you plan to be at your poster (your poster stays up all day, but you will only likely be present for 2-4 hours). If you are an M.S. student writing this e-mail, you should include a few more details about your interest in the faculty member's research and certainly more details about your research experience (tailor it to the specific faculty member: field work, lab/analytical techniques, a one-liner about the preliminary results of your research). Then proofread your e-mail: Fix typos, check the spelling of the faculty member's name, etc. I would add a "signature" at the bottom of your e-mail that has your name and contact information (kind of like a business card): Jane Doe M.S. Candidate Department of Geosciences San Francisco State University 1600 Holloway Avenue San Francisco, CA 94132 Tel: 415-555-5555 (cell phone is OK) Fax: 415-555-5556 E-mail: jdoe@sfsu.edu Home page: http://online.sfsu.edu/~jdoe If you are going to send several of these e-mails, MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE that you have used the correct name of the faculty member, the correct topic of their research that interests you, and the correct name of their university before clicking 'Send'. It's very easy to change the Dear Prof. X part, and forget to make similar changes to the body of the e-mail. Don't embarass yourself. Then, depending on the response you get, you plan your meeting with him/her at AGU (dress nicely [smart casual, no tie needed], bring a copy of your CV, read the abstract of their poster/talk in advance, etc.), or you reply "Thank you very much! I plan to submit my application to Prestigious University in the next few weeks. Regards, Humble Student". If they say 'no thanks', still take the time to thank them for their response. Whatever you write back, don't just reply "thx", but format your e-mail professionally similar to the first. The whole point of this is to introduce yourself to a potential future PhD advisor so that your application stands out from the rest (or so that you don't waste time and money applying) and so that they remember communicating with you, or meeting you, in a positive light.

*GRE scores are no longer required in applications to the graduate program in Earth & Climate Sciences

Choosing a PhD advisor

A recent blog thread prompted me to read an article by Bruce Alberts, Editor-in-Chief of Science "On Becoming a Scientist" and post some thought on choosing a PhD advisor here.

He starts: “The exact project pursued for a Ph.D. degree is not nearly as important as finding the best place for learning how to push forward the frontier of knowledge as an independent investigator.” How true. Some advice summarized from the article:

1) Choose a research group led by a person with high scientific and ethical standards. Have they published frequently and in prestigious journals? Do they have NSF-supported research projects? Search for their name on the NSF awards web site;

2) Find an advisor who will pay close attention to your development as a scientist (a small research group is perhaps better than a large group in which your interests can get lost). Talk to current students in that group and discover whether they have had conversations with their advisor about their future career. Have they been encouraged to present their research at conferences, write papers and grant proposals? Are there multiple faculty doing research in related fields? That could create a supportive community of faculty and grad students in which you might thrive. Are there regular departmental seminars on topics of interest to you by visiting scientists? Does the research group meet regularly to discuss research progress, etc.? The upshot: is there a community that will provide an intellectually-stimulating and supportive environment?;

3) Choose an advisor that will provide you with enough guidance to prevent you from wasting time on nonproductive pursuits, while giving you the freedom to innovate and learn from your own mistakes. How hands-on or hands-off is s/he as an advisor? Is there a chance that you might become enslaved as the mass spec repair dude during your PhD or will you get lots of hands-on experience in the lab while you're doing your research and walk away 5 years later with important skills;

4) Choose your research project well (this is a tricky one as it's hard to see the forest for the trees when you're fresh out of your undergraduate studies): “ambitious enough to be important and exciting, innovative enough to make unique contributions likely, and nevertheless have a good chance of producing valuable results”. Have this conversation with your advisor when you're choosing your project.

5) The choice of a postdoctoral research group is the place to establish yourself with your long-term career in mind – you should choose a lab where you can acquire skills that complement those you already have.

6) Finally, I'll add that you should consider whether the faculty member is near retirement or whether they are just starting to grow their research program (what year did they get their PhD and do some math) - are they actively doing exciting research? have they published recently? do they have active grants through NSF? Some mid- or late-career faculty might drift into administrative roles that take them away from their research. Very new/young faculty might be sinking all of their time into starting up a new lab or teaching brand new courses and not have much time for advising, they might not have external grant funding yet to support their research, or their research groups might be nonexistent or very small (perhaps not the most supportive environment). At the same time, very new/young faculty might feel more energized by their research and still have a fire in their belly that could lead you down exciting research roads (at the very least, if they are pre-tenure [Assistant Professors in their first 6 years of their positions] they will still have to work very hard to be productive...).

There is an awful lot of luck, knowing the right people, and being in the right place at the right time in becoming a successful scientist. You can control who you know - your research mentors. Choose well.

Applying to PhD programs, part I

Thinking about applying to a PhD program? There is more to consider than just the interesting research being done at a given university. A successful PhD requires:

1) A great research problem - you're going to be working on and thinking about this research for (probably) 5 years. Do your research online and see which universities have geology departments with faculty doing research in your field of interest...is it one faculty member or several? do they have laboratory/analytical facilities to carry out some of this research?;

2) A graduate advisor you can work with for 5 years - are your expectations for how hands-on or hands-off you want your research advisor to be in line with their advising style? Do your personalities mesh? Talk to a potential advisor's students to get a better understanding...;

3) A place you'd like to live. This goes beyond just geography - yes, it does matter whether the university is in an urban or rural setting, on the east or west coast, or whether it's hot and muggy in the summer or covered in snow in the winter (which do you prefer?), but consider the culture in the department you're applying to (is there a big group of students working on similar problems to yours that you might be able to look to for support? do you like them? are people in the department friendly? are doors wide open in the hallways? are there frequent seminars with interesting outside speakers?);

4) Money. No not just the stipend you're likely to be offered. Money to actually get the research done. You can live on Ramen noodles, but you can't get field work and lab work done without research funding. You can ask a potential advisor about this if you are invited to visit campus, but you can also do a little homework to find out if the advisor has any active grants with the National Science Foundation or at least whether they have a history of grant funding.

Don't get your mind set on one or two grad schools you think you'd like...do some searching on the web to see which universities have faculty working on projects that interest you and try to keep an open mind - A big name university might not be the best fit for you (and no, I'm not suggesting you couldn't get in...).

Look for Part II when I'll give advice on how to approach a potential graduate advisor with things to do before, during, and after actually sending in your application.

Also, continue to consider whether graduate school is right for you - research requires a very different set of skills than taking college courses and it's not a good fit for everyone...

Field camp is a really good thing

Field camp has become less commonly required for geology majors in the last ~10 years. That's a bad thing. In our department, we offer students a choice of either completing a field camp course with another university or completing a research project as part of a senior thesis. I believe most undergraduate geology students should take field camp, and that the undergraduate education in geology is incomplete without it. Field camp is excellent preparation for graduate school, for geotechnical jobs that require field experience, and a minimum of 5 semester units is required to qualify for the exams to become a Professional Geologist in California. Here are lists of over 100 field courses and field camps offered across North America and a few outside the US (even a couple in the southern hemisphere for those who want a winter field camp between November and February). Students in our department have attended – and gave rave reviews on – several of the field camps given through the South Dakota School of Mines & Techonology (specifically Hawaii, Montana, Iceland, Turkey, Morocco & France). 

Choosing a field camp & what to expect

This post has links to articles giving advice on how to choose a field camp and articles discussing what to expect at field camp. When choosing a field camp at another institution, consider finding a group of friends that might want to go with you so that you can apply together. That way, when you're starting out you already know at least a few people. However, one of the comments I hear frequently from students on their return is how great it was to meet students from so many different places. 

Field camp isn't cheap

Please see this post that points you to a few resources that might help. You can reduce the cost by 1) attending field camp at your home institution so that you don't have to cover the cost of tuition at another university; 2) attend a field camp close to home to reduce the amount of travel needed to simply get to the field camp site; 3) attend a field camp in which you're actually expected to camp in tents (many offer cabins or other accommodations that increase the total cost); or 4) choose a field camp in a location that you can find cheap air tickets to/from.

Piled Higher and Deeper

Grad school getting you down? Is your advisor too demanding? Do you need to seek solace in others who share your situation? Check out Piled Higher and Deeper, a grad student comic strip.

Mentor-mentee relationships

I just spotted this blog on Sciencewomen that discusses the job of a mentor and being a mentee. I like this passage, paraphrased from a talk SciWo attended, in particular:

"Dr. Cassell also talked about the characteristics of a good mentor, qualities that included accessibility, empathy, honesty, savvy, humility (most important), consistency, open-mindedness, and understanding of the current/new research/academic/professional environment. Mentors should be providing networking opportunities, offering moral support, and encouraging creative thinking. In turn, good mentees are proactive, probing, gracious, and humble in accepting critical feedback.

Of course, you are not going to meet all of your mentoring needs in a single relationship, so Cassell suggests to never let go of old mentors, establish both official and informal mentors and also find a set of confidants. She urges mentees to keep meetings professional."

I'll let that speak for itself.

More on writing

When you write, yes I mean you, you use far too many words and write in a passive voice. We're all guilty of this sometimes, but the student writing that I've been reading lately is riddled with it. Scientific writing is meant to communicate information, not the place to wax poetic. I will ask students in my group to read about three ways to significantly improve their writing and to apply these to their own writing before asking me for edits:

Why My Writing Sucks discusses several common problems in writing, and gives two good examples of problems using 'too many words' and 'passive voice' in particular:

5. Do not use empty, cliche words and phrases in your writing. These include "Generally," "in general," "basically," "it went as follows," "really," "it has been proven time and time again that...," "the fact of the matter is..." Here is a very wordy example:
Bad: It is a safe assumption to state the idea that the attitudes of our forefathers have affected the entire course of history.
Better: Delete the first ten words. Begin the sentence with: The attitudes of our forefathers...(Communicates the same idea much more forcefully and directly.)

6. Avoid the passive voice wherever possible. Use the active voice instead.
Passive voice: President Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth.
The same information, recast in the active voice: John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln.
(The passive voice is usually in the form shown in the first example: the word "was," followed by the past tense of the verb, followed by a preposition.)
Overuse of the passive voice is one of the most common style errors in college student papers. The passive voice is weak; things are happening to people rather than people doing things. Also, the passive voice is wordier, therefore more boring. (One cannot always avoid the passive voice, especially if the subject is not known, or if it would sound strange [or be wordy] to specify a subject.)

One other common problem leading to wordiness and, therefore, confused readers is the overuse of prepositional phrases. Here is an exerpt from Painless Writing:

A preposition is a word used to link a noun to a sentence, and in so doing, related the noun to either another noun or a verb. Some common prepositions that we use all the time in our writing: by, under, for, near, about, on, against, to, with, next, inside, because, during, from, like, over, in, until, across, above, toward, outside.

A prepositional phrase consists of a preposition and a noun acting as a preposition’s object. Within this phrase, the preposition depicts a relationship to the noun. Some prepositional phrases are: on the beach, near the desk, against the wind, from the beginning, under the table, off the cuff, during his speech, across the continent, toward the end, until the last.

If your sentences contain only a few verbs, especially verbs in the passive voice, and many prepositions, your writing is probably wordy and confusing.

Here is an extreme example of overuse of unnecessary prepositions as well as passive voice sentences from Painless Writing. Notice how difficult the passage is to follow.

Exploring Mars

At this point in time, Mars is the target of the modern astronaut. By reason of its relative closeness to Earth, Mars is being studied by scientists for the purposes of a future mission. In a manner similar to the earlier study of the Moon by scientists, a probe is planned to be sent by NASA to within the immediate vicinity of the planet with a view toward collecting data with respect to the atmosphere of the planet. NASA plans to send in excess of one dozen of these probes during the course of the next five years.

From the point of view of a nonscientists, this proposed expenditure of billions of dollars for the purpose of studying an inhospitable planet appears to be a waste of money and human effort. At this point in time, our own planet and its inhabitants are in need of attention, particularly with regard to the environment. However, on the basis of what I have seen thus far, this concern will not be addressed at this point in time or at a point later into the future.

We must not succumb to this attack of viciousness on our common sense. Of course, I am writing in reference to the concerted effort of the community of scientists, the politicians, and the groups with special interests. We must persevere in our quest to bring this question of social importance to the attention of the public.

God, that was painful!

I bet you would end up with an essay half that length if you simply removed all the unnecessary words and re-wrote it in an active voice. That's most of what I do when I edit your writing. Once you learn to do that too, you can begin to write more effectively.