undergraduate thesis advisor reddit

Advice and Resources for Mathematics Graduate Students

Advice from Students on Finding a Thesis Advisor

From Rishi Sonthalia (AIM PhD 2020):   Once I was admitted, I went onto the math department website and went through each and every professor’s personal bio/website to see what they worked on. Part of this involved not just reading what they said about their research but also looking at their recent publications. (I did this because I feel a lot of bios/websites haven’t been updated, but their recent papers show what they have been interested in.)

I then made a list of every single person I could potentially be interested in working with. Once I had this list, I started emailing professors (Winter first year) from this list asking for a meeting. Sometimes getting a reply took some time. Some people I had to email a second time a few months later to try again. But I did get a meeting with everyone I emailed.

Then once, I met with them I asked them about their interests and whether they would be interested in taking on new students. I did a get a few negative responses, but I then asked these people who they thought I could work with, and then I set up meetings with these people.

I actually found my outside of the math department advisor like this. A math professor I met with gave me 3 names of people to talk to, one of these is my outside advisor.

(Rishi is a now a post-doc at UCLA. His advisor was  Anna Gilbert )

From Gilyoung Cheong (Math PhD): Coming to Michigan, I was quite determined to work with Wei Ho , whose work seemed to involve many fascinating parametrizations of various arithmetic objects. Despite the matching research taste, after having some conversations, I felt that I was not strong enough to parse through some prerequisites before getting to the frontier of the research that she would like to think about. I ended up not working with Wei, but I still plan to study some of her earlier work in the near future. Moreover, she has given me great career advice at various places like number theory lunch, GLNT (Group, Lie, and Number Theory) seminar dinner, or GROW (Graduate Research Opportunities for Women) conference, so I still think it was a great idea to contact her.

When I was struggling to find an advisor, there was a junior colloquium talk that was organized by Karen Smith , and the talk was given by my current advisor Mike Zieve . Mike talked about Galois coverings of some Riemann surface, and I vaguely remember that he used some result about finite groups to obtain something new. It was quite clear from his talk that Mike did not require heavy prerequisites before he jumps into a research problem. This does not mean that he does not care about big machinery, but his need of studying any machinery often comes after a concrete problem.

What I didn’t realize in the beginning of my graduate school is that not everyone needs to work on big machineries. Even though I like to learn about formal foundations of many mathematical theories (such as commutative algebra and algebraic geometry), I only tend to learn them as I need when I work on research problems, and Mike was the same way. To see if I can be his student, I decided to talk to Mike about some computations I have made about counting roots to some polynomial equations over finite fields. Mike gave me extensive feedback, and I immediately asked him to be my advisor. The computation became a small publication, thanks to Mike’s help.

Oddly enough, I have never “worked with” my advisor Mike Zieve on projects. Although he and I work on different mathematics, I do enjoy listening to him talk about his work (mostly something to do with Galois theory). The topic may not be relevant to my works, but I still observed how a professional mathematician thinks about research problems. Mike also helped me numerous times when I felt like I did not know enough math or my result was not good enough. Whenever Mike critiques any of my writing, it becomes a much better paper. He understands my style of research so well that he often suggests which mathematicians I should talk to, and I have benefitted much from this (e.g., Eric Rains at CalTech).

The bottom line is that people work differently, so I hope you find your style and any advisor you can work with. (Read Karen’s advice above , which seems to be quite on-point.) Good luck!

From Jenia Rousseva (MLB 2018, currently AIM PhD): I agree with everything written in the “ Finding an Advisor ” section, but maybe I can elaborate more on the first point for Marjorie Lee Browne scholars . As an MLB student I had the option of starting research during the summer before my first year and I had to find a research advisor by the end of my first year with whom to work with that summer. I would like to point out to future MLB students that they may work with the same advisor or a different person during these summers. Although, as masters students we had less time to find a research advisor, there are still opportunities to explore collaborating with different people and working in different fields. MLB students in the AIM program even have the option of choosing a research advisor outside of the math department.

From Jasmine Powell (Math PhD 2020): Coming into grad school, I had some very vague ideas of areas I was interested in but no particular person or field I was sure about. I took the alpha courses my first year, and the instructor of one, Sarah Koch , was a fantastic teacher and a lot of fun to talk to. I had never even heard of her area of research (complex dynamics), but once I realized that she seemed like she might make a good mentor, I spent some time reading about her area and thought it might be something I’d enjoy as well. The summer after my first year I approached her about doing a reading course, which we did throughout my second year. In that reading course, I discovered that:

•  I absolutely loved the math. It was an area that I’d never thought about working in, but it mixed all of my favorite parts of other math that I’d seen (lots of topology, LOTS of pretty pictures!), and
• Sarah was someone I wanted to work with. Her motivational, excited mentoring style was and is one that I think works very well for me, and I realized that she embodied a lot of the qualities of a research mathematician that I wanted to cultivate myself.

Once I figured out those two things, I asked if she’d be my advisor!

From  Ursula Trigos (MLB 2018, currently AIM PhD):  I used to always say that “I got lucky” with finding my advisors, a sort of right-place, right-time thing. But looking back, it seems I was making a lot of choices that put me in that right place.

As an incoming first year, I had never seen graduate students before. My undergraduate institution had no higher degree in mathematics. So, upon entering the MLB program here at University of Michigan, during orientation I clearly recall that they sat us down and told us “You have all seen graduate students, you know how they act. This is you now, act appropriately.” I was thoroughly bemused.

To make up for this fact, I attended as many seminars as I could. I reached out to as many professors as I could, those studying meteorology, climate change, biology of large mammals, biology of virus and pathogens, ecology— and I asked as many questions as I could. I reached out to other students in my program, all of whom were very helpful! I even ended up googling topics in math and science that I found interesting (along with “umich”) to see who came up, and I would email that person!

I met with several professors and just asked them about their research and what they were looking for in a potential advisee. I even started working on several projects but nothing really felt right.

Then in an AIM seminar my current advisor, Dr. Annette Ostling from the EEB department, came in to give a speech about topics she wanted to pursue in research, and said she was looking for a mathematician to help.  What really struck me about her talk was how everything she was passionate about was so aligned with what fascinated me.  Every project she spoke about sounded like something I would want to pursue.

I emailed her after the talk and that was that.

The best advice I can think of would be to open yourself up to possibilities: go to talks you may not normally attend, challenge yourself to think about what really interests you, and pursue it.

From Umang Varma (Math PhD, 2019): I came to UM from a small liberal arts college with a lot less background than many of my peers. I knew no category theory, didn’t know what a quadratic form was, had never heard of group actions, and never seen the definition of a measure. In retrospect, these were the easiest challenges to overcome: I worked hard, talked to my peers, and went to office hours. At the end of the year, I didn’t feel like I was behind my classmates in my alpha classes and passed the quals comfortably.

My biggest struggle in graduate school came in finding an advisor. During my second year, I organized a reading course with a professor who was working on questions that I found interesting, but I often felt uncomfortable asking “dumb” questions. I already knew that other professors in the field wouldn’t be good matches (based on conversations with other grad students and some professors) so I decided to look in a different field.

I picked up papers by a different professor and started reading them. I found the proofs really cool, even though they were hard to understand initially. I started speaking with this professor regularly. About six to seven months later (a couple months into my third year), it became clear that this wouldn’t be a good match. I didn’t feel like I understood why we were trying to answer these questions and it would be a big detour to get to a point where I did. The professor was also upfront about their expectation that students come with questions they want to work on. We agreed that with my background, it would be hard to get there in a reasonable time frame.

I soon felt helpless and unsure of what to do. The two fields that I had tried to get into felt like they wouldn’t be good matches. With one semester remaining in my third year, I didn’t know how to find a different advisor and different field. The one really helpful advice I got from some peers was to try getting an advisor in theoretical CS as it is a field that students are able to jump into pretty quickly (plus, I had some background and interest in CS). Although this process was complicated by poor timing (my first few choices based on their recent papers/online profile were away on parental leave or sabbatical or had recently moved to a different university). However, at the same time, I was asked by a professor in math if I was interested in working on their new project. I believe a couple professors in our department who knew my situation had suggested my name to this professor. I found the topic really interesting and the professor very supportive, and was able to jump in quickly. We agreed within weeks that we wanted to work together and I took my prelims a few months later.

Some takeaways: 1. This process can be long and difficult. Unlike passing quals, there isn’t a simple “work harder” solution to finding an advisor. I’ve seen myself and my peers struggle more with self-doubt and imposter syndrome during this phase of grad school than any other. 2. There are probably some additional hurdles you face when you come from a small school or come with a less extensive background. You haven’t been exposed to as many different flavors of math and you spent a lot less time taking topics classes because you were focusing on alpha classes/quals. None of these make you any less capable, but it’s reasonable to acknowledge that this might affect your grad school timeline and how you go about finding an advisor. 3. Don’t be afraid to pick topics that are outside the “mainstream” in math. Both I and many of my peers who had some struggle finding a field/advisor have done a lot better once we found advisors who were very supportive and topics that we were really excited by.

(Umang wound up working with Anna Gilbert )

From Trevor Hyde (Math PhD 2019):  Finding an adviser is not unlike dating: expect to leave your comfort zone and “make the move”; expect awkward, unpleasant interactions; and expect to court several people until you find The One. I came to grad school hearing that Professor X was *the* person to work with in my area. I signed up for this Professor’s class and it didn’t go well. It was boring and confusing and far beyond my level. I tried to meet with the Professor outside of class but the meetings were awkward and it always felt like the Professor was waiting for me to leave. So then I tried setting up a meeting with the new hot shot Professor Y the following summer. That went similarly: Professor Y would answer questions curtly without elaboration and then sit in silence until I asked another question or left. These were the typical interactions I had with professors my first couple years of grad school–quite different from my experience as an undergraduate at a liberal arts college. This stressed me out but I tried to focus on getting through my quals in this time. In my second year Professor Z returned from several years abroad and I took Z’s course. I enjoyed the lectures and put a lot of energy into the problem sets which the Professor noticed. Professor Z engaged me in conversation after class and I began coming to his office. Finally an interaction which felt (more) natural with a Professor who didn’t act like he couldn’t wait for me to leave! I arranged regular meetings and kept working hard in the class. Eventually I broached the question of whether Professor Z would take me as a student (a conversation that felt very much like a marriage proposal) and he agreed–in fact he had my file on his desk and it seems he had just been waiting for me to ask. The moral here is, I think, to stay hopeful and proactive even when it feels like you’ve exhausted all your possibilities. There are many professors in the department with a wide range of personalities. While it is unfortunately true that many professors seem to actively repel students, there are others who are just waiting for someone to come talk to them. Keep in mind that the department is always in flux with new people showing up each semester! And yes, when you’re single it sometimes feels like you’re doomed to be that way forever, but look around and be reminded that it does seem to work out for everyone eventually.

(Trevor worked with Mike Zieve .)

From Visu Makam (Math PhD 2018): 1. There is a place in mathematics for anyone that wants one. Do it your own way. 2. What you can offer to the subject matters, and not just what the subject can offer you. 3. If you enjoyed a certain course, doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy research in that area. Courses are often highlight reels of the stuff discovered ages ago, so you don’t see the ugly parts. In the subject of research you pick, the ability to get through these ugly parts without losing your mind is non-negotiable. 4. Think about whether you want an advisor whose strengths are a superset of yours or one whose strengths complement yours. And I don’t just mean strengths in terms of area of expertise. You should also think of style, attitude etc. 5. In the hours you put in for research, go for quality over quantity. Keeping an active lifestyle helps more than you might imagine for this. 6. I would summarize grad school as the place where you learn to fail. Most likely, you have to fail enough, and learn from these failures before you actually solve something dissertation worthy. So, start early and try problems way before you think you are ready for it. 7. If you are having a lot of trouble making a choice, toss a coin. If you want it to desperately land on one side, then you know your answer. If not, then it doesn’t matter. Luck plays such a big role in grad school (and life in general) that you might as well let the coin decide. If you strongly disagree with this approach, find another way to deal with it. 8. Don’t be afraid to reach out to people to help you get through anything. Pretty much everyone who has been through grad school will understand and try to help.

(Visu worked with Harm Derksen ).

From Rankeya Datta (Math PhD 2018):   I joined UMich from Columbia University, and having studied a fair bit of commutative algebra and algebraic geometry, I knew I wanted to work in one of those areas. After taking 631 with Karen , I was pretty sure I wanted to work with her because at the point of time in my life, I needed someone who would not hesitate to call me out whenever I pretended to know something but really didn’t. I also had the problem that I was (and still am) a very detailed-oriented mathematician. In one of my assignments, Karen wrote “it’s hard to find the forest in your trees.” This frankness convinced me that she would teach me how to be a good writer, a skill I desperately wanted to cultivate. After attending her office hours (she usually always has her door open so you can walk right in), I also felt like I could talk to her about things outside mathematics. In summary, I decided to work with an expert in my field of interest who I felt would help me rectify my shortcomings, be friendly, and keep me grounded.

As Trevor points out, asking someone to be your advisor does feel like a marriage proposal, but this marriage is a lot more fluid. You should talk to mathematicians other than your advisor. Of course, it helps when your own advisor introduces you to other senior mathematicians in your field (Karen always does this at conferences), and encourages you to start collaborations with them! So I guess find an advisor who is not overly possessive 🙂

From Siddhant Agrawal (Math PhD 2018):   Coming into grad school, I had some background in Analysis after doing a master’s thesis in PDEs and I was also interested in Geometry. I knew I was not so much interested in Algebra but didn’t hate it. I basically made a list of potential advisors I could work within the areas of Analysis (Probability, PDEs etc) and Geometry (more analytic than the algebraic side). I really needed to narrow down my interests so I attended essentially all seminars/colloquium in the areas, took/sat through some advanced courses in the areas and talked to senior grad students. It quickly became clear to me that I did not have enough background in geometry/topology and more importantly I did not like some aspects of the area (e.g. I never really overcame my scepticism of whether some proofs in algebraic topology/differential geometry were really rigorous or not). On the other hand I had the impression (which has been reinforced later on) that areas like Riemannian Geometry are a lot more connected to other areas of math than say the area of PDEs. Nevertheless I decided to not work in Geometry as I did not like to think about the mundane/day to day things in that topic and only really liked the big/major/cool things in the area.

After some time I had narrowed my interests to Probability and PDEs (the fact that there were enough potential advisors in these areas was also part of the criterion). I started talking to senior grad students and tried to figure how working with the advisors would be like. After making a new list of potential advisors I started to seriously consider different aspects such as

• Does the faculty give a problem to their students
• How frequently they met and how much time does the faculty give to the student
• How supportive the faculty is both academically and financially.
• How active they are and the kind of problems they are working on right now (by looking at recent papers and talking to older grad students)
• How their previous grad students did after their PhD

I had then narrowed down the list to 3 advisors and then I just chose my advisor because I liked her personality and her way of doing math (from the observations I made while attending the PDE seminar). I started doing some reading over the summer with my advisor and really liked how it went so I made it official.

(Siddhant worked with Sijue Wu )

From Rafe Kinsey (Math 2014):  I t’s important to get advice from lots of people (grad students both your age and older; PhD alumni–you can find them with google, math genealogy, LinkedIn; professors; postdocs). Some people’s advice will be better than others, but it’s hard to know which ones are best, so triangulating from a lot of sources and weighing more heavily the ones that seem wiser is a good approach. Also, people’s advice will be affected by their experiences, and its relevance might vary based on your needs. (For example, someone who’s very thick-skinned might have different advice about choosing an advisor than someone who’s more sensitive, and where you fit in that spectrum affects whose advice is most relevant to you.) Getting advice from a lot of people also has other benefits: it helps you develop relationships/a network, which is crucially important in life, whether you stay in academia or go onto another career.

Self-knowledge is important and difficult. By the time you finish your PhD, you’ll have a good sense of what type of math you like, what working style you like (frequent meetings vs not, hand-holding vs independence, friendly/convivial vs focused on business, collaborative vs “tell me what you did”), etc. The challenge is to have a good prediction of what that will be 3-4 years earlier, when you’re making an advisor choice.  In your first 1-2 years of the Ph.D. (from day one, really, even before you start the official advisor search), focus on that self-knowledge. For example, when I was choosing grad schools, I sensed I might like either analysis or topology. Within my first year, it quickly became clear that I was destined to be an analyst–I love estimates, and I discovered that I actually didn’t particularly like topology. This let me focus my advisor search on faculty in analysis and PDE.

Talk to many professors. I probably talked to 6 or so professors, across analysis and PDE. The analogy with dating is apt, except there is an asymmetry: you might be nervous and inexperienced at this, but the professors will generally be understanding and supportive. They know that you, a young grad student asking to talk to them, are interested in them as a potential advisor. It is fine to “date” multiple potential advisors at the same time for a short period. For example, ask 2-4 professors (from a larger list of 4-8) for suggestions of reading, and meet with them over a few weeks, and then start narrowing down the list. (If you’re around, spring/summer after first or second year are good times for this.)

One thing I’d encourage is that you try to maintain some of these relationships even after you choose an advisor.  These professors can offer suggestions, serve on your committee, write letters for you, etc. Remember, networks and connections are valuable.  Also, as you move beyond your Ph.D. project to a postdoc, your research interests will broaden, so it’s good to have some of that breadth of connections and exposure to related areas of research while you’re in grad school.

One consideration that might be material if you’re focused on staying in academia is your advisor’s success placing students. (This didn’t apply to me since I left academia, but I saw it for my peers who applied for academic jobs.) To first order, focus on an advisor whose area of research you’ll love and who you’ll be productive with–that’s most likely to maximize success, since you’ll be most likely to produce good research. That said, some advisors are better than others at getting their students to advance in academia. This could be because their area is hot (which might change in 5 years) or at least not cold (some beautiful areas of math are no longer as lively, and you might not want to work there), because they have a strong reputation, or because they’re just good at getting their students positions (e.g., because they have good networks). Still, this should be a lower-order consideration; there are plenty of examples of advisors without a long “track record” placing Ph.D. students who have subsequently had students who’ve done well, and you’re much better-suited with an advisor you click with than choosing someone just because their students do well. In other words, don’t choose an advisor because they place students well, but if you’re split between two advisors and one is really good at this and one isn’t, it might be a deciding factor, and if an advisor works in a dead area or is known to be particularly bad at placing students, that might be a red flag. (Of course, to the extent that you plan to leave academia or pursue a teaching-focused job, this becomes much less relevant.)

Be proactive in the advising relationship.  After a year or so of working with my advisor, I realized that I was more productive when I had the structure of a fixed weekly meeting. I suggested this to my advisor, who was happy to do it, and I became more productive as a result.  (Of course some advisors might have a specific preference and not be as flexible. This is one of those self-knowledge things. Do you want/need structure, do you want/need freedom, etc? Advisors differ. Similarly, some advisors are willing to spend a lot of time with you–mine was incredibly generous–whereas others have more limited availability. What will work for you?)

Don’t be afraid to switch advisors.  I had a great relationship with my advisor, but I had peers in grad school who had difficult relationships with their advisors. Some eventually switched advisors (often rather late); some didn’t but perhaps should have.  It happens, it’s okay, people move on. If you sense things aren’t working out, perhaps speak in confidence to one of the associate chairs (e.g., Karen Smith) for their advice. In this situation, it might make sense to be diplomatic and discreet as you explore the possibility, so at not to jeopardize relationships. Of course, math research is hard, so it is important to be gritty/resilient. Try to figure out whether it’s math research and/or you that’s causing the frustration (which is okay, don’t beat yourself up about it!), or whether it really is an issue with your advisor (or that research area).

(Rafe worked with Sijue Wu )

From Luis Núñez-Betancourt (Math PhD 2013):  When I arrived to Michigan, I had already decided that I wanted to work in Algebraic Geometry (AG). I also had possible advisors in mind. However, during my first semester at Michigan, I took a wonderful class in Commutative Algebra (CA) with Mel that changed this idea. The way Mel explained proofs and motivated theorems made a big impression on me. I also enjoyed his jokes. Our interactions during office hours were really nice. I remember that during the last week of class, Mel mentioned that he was very busy as he has been recently appointed as chair. For that reason, he would be taking fewer students than usual. At the time, I was not sure about switching from AG to CA, but I did not want to miss the opportunity to work with Mel. So, I went to the last office hours of the semester and talked to him. I mentioned that I was not sure about working in CA yet, but that I did not want to lose my chance. Mel was very understandable and gave me time to think about it. He also met with me once in a while to discuss math. I also talked to several of his students. After a few weeks, I ended up being informally his student (I needed to pass my QRs to formalize this). The experience as his student was amazing. I feel lucky to have had that class with him during my first semester (otherwise, I may have done something else). From my experience, the main advice I can give to students is to not be afraid to talk to potential advisors and to get to know them a little before choosing one.

From Sarah Mayes-Tang (Math PhD, 2013):   When thinking about graduate schools, I had a couple of excellent advisors who recommended that I think about potential advisors before applying to graduate school.  They said that I should choose the person over the specific subject. So, I did a lot of research online about advisors before choosing a grad school, and then really focused on understanding professors rather than professors’ research when I arrived.  In my mind, I had two professors who I thought I’d work well with.

I was very fortunate to be assigned Karen as a first-year doctoral committee advisor when I arrived.  Our first meeting was memorable: she dispensed so much useful advice and showed a welcome and open attitude towards math.  From that point on, I knew I wanted to work with her. I continued to do my due diligence, however, getting to know other professors in the department and talking to upper-year students.  This research mattered a lot less in the end than the non-math components of the advisor relationship. Karen supported her students, cared deeply about advising, and was an excellent teacher.  

While I think that students should consider the broad area that they want to work in (e.g. algebra vs. analysis vs. topology), after that I encourage them to think mostly about how they will work with their advisor and how they will be supported.  You need an advisor that you will be able to learn from and who will support you; a good advisor can supervise projects that lie slightly outside of their research interests and inspire you to become passionate about their research interests!

From Sara Lapan (Math PhD 2013):  I was an undergraduate at University of Chicago and came to UM thinking about going into algebraic topology, but after just a short time at graduate school I realized that I really did not know what area I wanted to study. After about two years of graduate school, I spent some time reflecting on what topics I especially enjoyed learning about, but I still wasn’t sure what area I wanted to go into. It seemed like such a commitment! With my experiences now, I would like to go back to myself and say this choice on a research area is really not as important as I thought. Choosing someone you can easily talk with is much more important; anyway, your topic choice doesn’t have to be “forever” and in fact it is even valuable to stray from the topic to do research in other areas, too.  At any rate, I eventually decided that I was interested in complex analysis in several variables, so I talked with a number of graduate students who already had advisors in the area to get advice on who would be good to work with. This advice from graduate students was extremely useful. From these discussions, I found that some of their advisors would not be a good fit for me and that some of their advisors sounded like they would be. The summer after my second year, I did a reading course with the two professors I was then considering as advisors. From these reading courses, I decided that I could work well with both professors, but I liked one of the topics (complex dynamics) better than the other and so I chose to work with Mattias Jonsson.

From Andrey “Kurt” Mishchenko (Math PhD 2012):  My path through the PhD was somewhat atypical so I won’t draw from it directly here. However, I feel like I’ve learned a lot both during my PhD and afterward in industry and beyond, so I’ll write the #1 thing I feel I would focus on if I were to go through the process again.

Good work means collaboration: you can benefit directly from what others have done (using their results, avoiding dead ends), you can get a sense of what is important to other people by reading their work and talking to them about it, and having a rich and broad mathematical vocabulary has a compounding effect where you simply waste less time bored and spaced out in lectures, seminars, and even informal conversations because you are missing some piece of knowledge that the speaker assumes you have. To write a thesis you will have to understand some narrow field deeply, but I think it’s worthwhile spending some portion of your time continuously broadening your horizons, in math and also elsewhere in life.

I think early graduate students often imagine that the progression is something like (1) learn the basics (alphas) and maybe take some 600-level classes, (2) pick (somehow) a field that looks “interesting” to you, (3) pick (somehow) an advisor, (4) work on a problem under the leadership of that advisor. For a lot of people that’s indeed how they progress through the degree.

Personally, if I were to do it all over, I would try to (not in any particular order) (1) check out a lot of seminars, and try to understand what they will be about by reading some of the papers beforehand , to maximize my ability to actually follow and get something out of the seminar, or perhaps to not attend because I understand that I’m not going to get anything out of it, relatedly (2) try to understand what the problems are that researchers are actually working on, and try to actually make a dent where I can without waiting for the magic moment when I am a mathematician empowered to do so, which leads to (3) collaborate with people and get feedback on my ideas, have joint projects, have lots of informal conversations. Some of the people from (3) will be professors, and one of them (in my idealized world) ends up naturally becoming my “advisor”.

In short, I would jump right in and try to be a mathematician, and try not to worry too much about the technicalities of finding an advisor per se.

Maybe my advice should be prefixed with, “pass the quals, then…”

(Andrey worked with Jeff Lagarias )

From Emily Witt (Math PhD 2011):     Before starting grad school, I had a specific field of interest in mind.  However, as an undergrad, I had not delved deeply enough to have an idea of what research in this area might be like.  During my first year at Michigan, along with the qualifying exam prep courses, I took a topics course in my “chosen” field.  Although it was a good course, I very quickly realized that I was not particularly excited to pursue the area much further.

Since at that point I had passed the qualifying exams, I reflected on my interests during the summer before my second year.  I decided that I was most drawn to algebraic-flavored material, so I made appointments with several faculty members in algebra and algebraic geometry to talk about their research.  Each gave me a brief description on some of the topics in their current research, and at least one leant me a book to look over. Overall, the most effective meetings seemed to be ones with faculty whom I had taken a course with.

The following semester, I asked to take a reading course with a specific faculty member.  Not only was the topic especially interesting to me (that specific topic ended up being the focus of my thesis), more importantly, I felt very comfortable in my working relationship with the professor.  After the course ended, I asked him to be my advisor, and I have been very happy with my decision every since. My advisor is extremely generous with his time and expertise, helped direct me to focus on interesting and relevant problems, and suggested a diverse array of techniques for me to learn to attach these problems.  He is a good friend of mine to this day!

Some recommendations I would give, based on my own experience:  Get to know as many faculty members as possible, as early as possible.  Don’t be afraid to change your research area from what you originally thought you would study!  Talk to faculty about their recent research projects. Consider a reading course with a potential advisor before a student-advisor commitment is made.  Tune into the ways you and a potential advisor are, and are not, compatible: For instance, notice whether there is good communication, on both sides, on math, and on relevant non-math topics.

(Emily worked with Mel Hochster .)

From Daniel Hernández (Math PhD 2011):   I came to Michigan from a large private university, and I moved to Ann Arbor two months before the start of my first year, with the goal of preparing for the qualifying exams.  It was then that I first got to know my eventual advisor, though our interactions then mostly involved them providing general advice concerning grad school.

During my first semester, I ended up taking a course with my future advisor.  I immediately liked their mathematical style, and I felt that they were someone I could learn a lot from, and also work well with.  I continued to take courses in the same general area, with different faculty members. Though it probably should have been obvious, it took me until the end of my second year to approach them about working together.

Before choosing an advisor, I recommend thinking hard about your values.  For instance, what is it about the people you like working with (on math, and otherwise) that makes you like working with them?  What is it about the people you don’t like working with? What do you think you might need to succeed in graduate school? In fact, how will you measure success in this context?  How much do you value personal fit? Mathematical fit? What types of problems do you enjoy working on? Concrete ones? Ones that require more machinery? What types of problems don’t interest you as much? What might you want to do after you graduate?  What skills should you develop to make this happen?

When figuring all this out, you should be completely honest with yourself, and realize that your answers may differ (sometimes, drastically) from those of your classmates and friends.

Once you’ve thought about this, you will still need to identify someone that you might be compatible with.  One way to do this is to take courses with different people, and also reading courses with a few that you might be more serious about.  You will probably find that there is more than one good fit. You should also keep an open mind, and realize that your ideal candidate may not agree to work with you.  To measure personal fit, I suggest trying to get to know faculty outside of class. A good place to do so is at tea time, or at departmental colloquia and seminars. When I was a student, there were also semi-regular wine and cheese social events, and I met a lot of interesting faculty and postdocs at these events.

(Daniel worked with Karen Smith )

From Kelli Talaska (Math PhD 2010): When I started graduate school, I knew that I loved combinatorics, but I was open to exploring other areas of math.  I didn’t know anything about Sergey Fomin , who would later become my advisor, but I saw him at a conference the summer before my first semester and found him extremely intimidating.  However, after taking several courses with him, it was clear that this was the kind of math I wanted to do and that he was someone whose mathematical values lined up with mine — e.g. finding beauty and patterns and connections in math, communicating clearly, and finding problems that were doable and important. I remember being quite nervous about asking him to be my advisor, but everything worked out fine.  

Personally, I think it’s important to find an advisor you will look forward to meeting with and who will be enthusiastic about mentoring you.  It’s also important to note that your advisor shouldn’t be your only mentor — it’s really healthy and helpful to develop and maintain relationships with other faculty, postdocs, and students.

From Felipe A. Ramirez (Math PhD 2010):   My “How I found my advisor”  story is proof that you can find a great advisor (as I did), even if you are not so methodical and clear-headed in your search for one (as I wasn’t).

 I came to Michigan thinking, or at least saying, that I wanted to study Differential Geometry. It had been my favorite upper-level course in undergrad. But it only took me a short time in graduate school to realize that I was totally underqualified to really know whether I preferred differential geometry over other subjects, or if it just happened to be the most specialized course I’d ever taken. (Now that I’m a bit more qualified, I can report that it was the latter, although I do still enjoy differential geometry.) Indeed, my first year of graduate school taught me that I was underqualified in a host of different ways that I could not possibly have imagined a year earlier. Everything was more difficult than it had been in undergrad, and I noticed that most of my peers seemed to be much better prepared for it all than I was. As a result, I became mathematically reticent; I tended to speak only to people with whom I felt I could hold non-mathematical conversations. I worried that if I talked to anyone too much about math, then they would tell me—indirectly, or maybe through their tone—that I didn’t belong there. Meanwhile, I hoped that I could somehow “catch up” and become “good enough” to belong there. I resolved to persist quietly toward a PhD in Differential Geometry (whatever that meant), and let reality—not people—tell me one way or the other whether I should be there.

Luckily, the professors at Michigan were extremely welcoming, and I felt quite at ease with them as long as I didn’t have to pipe up about math. Eventually the time came for me to overcome my insecurity and approach a potential advisor. By now, I’d taken a number of geometry/topology courses, and I’d read about the research of Michigan’s geometry/topology faculty. Of course, I hadn’t actually talked to any of them about their research (because, well, you know). So I narrowed things down based on how I’d felt in their courses, and whatever I could glean from reading their work. Plus, I still had it in mind to try to become a differential geometer. At one point, I was deciding between approaching Ralf Spatzier , whose survey on rigidity theory I had read and enjoyed, if not absorbed; and approaching Lizhen Ji , whose books on compactifications of symmetric spaces I found intriguing. Not to mention, I loved the courses I had taken with both of them. Still, I didn’t feel qualified to make a truly informed decision on mathematical grounds, and anyway I had long since accepted the philosophy that there are no wrong choices—that I should just make one. So I was basically waiting for something to sway me. The nudge came from Karen Smith , who one day at Tea mentioned to me that Ralf had a good opinion of me. I was surprised, flattered, moved. So I asked Ralf if I could do a reading course in differential geometry with him over the summer, and he kindly agreed.

I got a lot out of the reading course (to this day, I feel like I have some small expertise in differential geometry because of it), and I continued meeting with Ralf into the next semester. I wasn’t sure (and am still not sure) whether I was supposed to formally ask Ralf to be my PhD advisor, and I don’t remember ever doing it. But eventually, he was my advisor, and I was his student, preparing for my prelim exam on Differential Geometry and Ergodic Theory & Dynamical Systems. Ralf had another student ( Dave Constantine , now my colleague at Wesleyan) who had already started working on a problem in differential geometry, and I think it is for this reason that Ralf steered me more toward dynamical systems. In the end, my dissertation was about a part of dynamics that is closer to Lie groups and representation theory (and even number theory) than it is to differential geometry. Since then, I’ve migrated further still away from differential geometry, toward the area of interaction between dynamics and number theory.

Looking back, I know it was unwise for me to worry so much about revealing my inexpertise to people. And anyway, maybe I wasn’t as unprepared compared to everyone else as I thought I was. But I also know that these kinds of insecurities are common in graduate students, and difficult to overcome, so I can’t fault myself too much! (At least I didn’t mistake my inexpertise for inability.) One thing I certainly do not regret is having made partially uninformed and naive decisions, and seen them through. I always felt that I was somehow continually lucking upon all the right choices, and eventually I came to believe that there simply weren’t any wrong ones. I still feel that way. On one hand, I’m convinced that if I’d made different decisions, things would have turned out okay. On the other hand, I wouldn’t trade my graduate school experience—least of all my advisor!—for anyone else’s.

From Brian Wyman (Math PhD 2010):  I’ll make a few assumptions:

• Your professional network is incredibly important in life/work/etc.  You may not appreciate this now, but access to people is amazingly valuable. Many of you – like me – are introverts, even if – like me – you’re a pretty social introvert. Building new relationships may not be natural to you. Your advisor can help to bridge that gap, sometimes even outside of academia.
• You’ve got an idea as to whether your goal is an industry or an academic position – or at least which avenues you want to leave open.   Not everyone will want an academic (or industry) position. You need to be clear with yourself about your next step. Or if you’re not sure, you want to consider strongly which doors you want to leave open or closed.
• You have a rough idea of what kind of math you want to do.  If your passion is algebraic geometry and you want an academic career, there may be some combinatorics crossovers, but you’re probably not going to work on signals processing or PDEs.

Someone once said to me that choosing a career is a giant optimization problem: who you work with, how flexibly you choose your geography, salary ranges, what kind of work you do, work-life balance, travel requirements (opportunities?), how meaningful (in a humanistic sense) your work is, and so on. Everyone’s objective function is different, so choosing a career can have many different optima depending on how you weight the parameters.

Choosing an advisor is a similar type of optimization. Here are some of the parameters:

• On a personal level?
• On a professional level?
• How well do our mathematical interests align?
• How quickly can I graduate?
• In which journals?
• Even in industry?
• Are there natural extensions of this work that can form the basis for several papers while I’m junior in my career and need to progress toward tenure?

Some of these answers you’ll know right away. Some you’ll need to learn from other grad students, especially older ones. Some you’ll need to talk to the potential advisor about. Some you’ll want to talk through with a trusted non-advisor faculty member.

Ok, so all of this being said, here’s some general advice:

Understand faculty research areas.  Not “algebraic geometry” – what do they really do? There is a layman’s (or rather, a lay mathematician’s) explanation for every. single. faculty member’s work. Find it out. From students, or talk to the faculty member. Which brings me to:

Own your own grad school career, including finding an advisor.  Advisors don’t just “happen” to you. You need to get informed, set your goals, and work to achieve them. Advisors – official or unofficial – and friends are there to provide guidance. You should listen to them and understand their perspectives. But at the end of the day, your life choices are yours, and you are the one that lives with the outcomes post-graduation. So, when it comes to choosing an advisor, a research problem, a course-load, a career, etc., you need to own it, even if you (appropriately) weigh others’ advice very heavily along the way. This means pro-actively seeking information in order to make an informed decision.

Graduate school is super hard. Find an advisor that makes it better, not worse.  Not the math, although also the math. Your health, both physical and mental, should be your number one priority. Much has been written about imposter syndrome and other difficulties of graduate school, especially in a place like Michigan where all your peers are incredibly smart and successful. I won’t drone on about this (though, spoiler alert: you are super smart and successful also. Your peers and the faculty recognize this, and you should too.), other than to say that your advisor should be a net benefit to your life, not detract from it. You don’t need any more obstacles.

I didn’t go the academic route, so I will leave some of the more academia-specific advice to those who did. But for those going the industry route , my advice is:

• Graduate . Find an advisor that will ensure that you do so quickly.
• Learn to give talks. Good ones. Find an advisor that will help you develop communication and presentation skills.
• As a subset of this, do some math that is easily described to others . They don’t have to understand the math , just the big picture. Back to the “communication” point, if you can describe the impact or result of a math PhD thesis to a non-technical audience, you’re well ahead of most of the technical people applying for jobs.
• Get a job. Seems like a good idea, right? Does your advisor have students who have non-academic jobs? Non-academic friends hiring? Probably these questions are good to know the answer to.

My last piece of advice: 

• Seriously, don’t sweat it too much . I mean, it’s a really important choice. But it’s also one of many choices you’ll make throughout your life. It’s just an advisor. You can even break up with your advisor if you’re not on the same page. And get a new one. At the start of your fifth year. And still graduate in five years. Trust me. I did this. But, I really don’t recommend it.

(Brian worked with Mike Zieve .)

Seven steps to finding the right advisor

Your success as a graduate student in research psychology may depend on it. Here's advice from experts on finding the best fit

By Laura Zimmerman, PhD

January 2017, Vol 48, No. 1

Print version: page 58

Undergraduate students who want to pursue psychology research careers often believe that where they choose to go to graduate school is the most important decision they'll make about their education. While that is one key factor, choosing the right advisor can be even more crucial. Advisors serve as supervisors and mentors who ensure students meet graduate school requirements, oversee research and writing, help obtain funding, provide feedback on papers and talks, and give career advice.

"Your mentor will be a huge factor in the next four to six years of your life," says Ana Hernandez Kent, a doctoral candidate in experimental psychology at Saint Louis University. "[That's why it's important to] really focus on the professors you want to work with, rather than the school or program."

How can students do that? Here are seven suggestions from psychology professors and fellow students.

1. Identify potential advisors 

Start your search by matching your interests to laboratories doing similar work. "I thought a lot about my research interests," says Jenna Cummings, a doctoral candidate in health psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. "I wanted to be where I would enjoy researching a topic for the next five years."

Enlist the help of your undergraduate advisor. "Get to know at least one professor outside of classes by working in a lab or doing a thesis," says Cummings. "When you have a closer relationship with your undergraduate advisor, they are interested in your success and motivated to help."

As an undergrad, Justin Strickland, a doctoral candidate in behavioral neuroscience and psychopharmacology at the University of Kentucky, asked his advisor for research experience. "My advisor lined me up with a former student who is now my grad school advisor. I spent the summer of my junior year in my current advisor's lab," he says.

Research and laboratory experience as an undergraduate will also help you get into a lab in graduate school, says Tammy Allen, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of South Florida. "Having worked on an honors thesis demonstrates you have some familiarity with the research process."

If you don't have the opportunity to work in a lab before graduation, you might consider taking a gap year before entering graduate school to gain research experience by working in a lab and exploring your research interests. You can also apply for a postbaccalaureate research internship, which helps students gain research experience. Many universities offer postbaccalaureate opportunities, as do many medical centers and agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

2. Consider key qualities 

When evaluating possible advisors, consider where they are in their careers. "Assistant professors might have more projects and diverse interests, but might not have much funding," says Cummings. More established professors might have more focused research interests, and more funding, she says.

In the end, it comes down to qualities that best match your needs. For example, Renee Cloutier, a doctoral candidate in experimental psychology at the University of North Texas, was the first graduate student to join her advisor's new lab. "I liked the opportunity to build up a lab from scratch because, ultimately, I want to go into academia, and this let me see how to do it."

Factors such as funding, publishing opportunities and support for conferences are also important to consider. You need to think about how much funding your advisor has and whether he or she will be able to support your research activities, says Strickland. "It shouldn't be your sole determinant, but you have to think about it."

To determine if a lab offers publishing opportunities, "look at faculty CVs to figure out if students are included on publications or if they are first authors," says Cloutier. "This indicates the advisor is mentoring and helping students along with publications."

3. Reach out 

Once you've identified possible advisors, find out if they are accepting students. Email the faculty you want to work with and tell them what you are interested in and why you want to work with them, Cloutier says.

Also ask them about the research they are currently conducting, Cummings suggests. "This is a good way to learn about their ongoing projects because their publications may not reflect their current activities and interests."

But, be mindful of the time it takes for them to respond. "Questions are fine, but remember that faculty receive many inquires so it is best to ask questions that are not going to take the potential advisor a long time to answer," says Allen.

Also, skip sending questions you can answer on your own. For example, don't ask advisors about admission requirements or questions you can find the answers to on department websites.

When it's time to apply to graduate schools, use your personal statement to catch the attention of potential advisors. Personal statements can be very telling, says Linda Spear, PhD, a professor of psychology at Binghamton University in New York, who tries to answer these three questions when she reviews applicants: "Do they seem interested in the kind of work we do? Do they write well? Do they have solid reasons for wanting to go to graduate school?"

In addition, letters of recommendation provide important insights. "I look for indication of responsibility, reliability, creativity, common sense, high ethical standards, dedication and enthusiasm," she adds.

4. Meet the advisor 

After graduate schools accept your application, you may get the opportunity to tour their campuses and meet potential advisors. If travel isn't possible, advisors are increasingly doing web-based interviews. These meetings will give you a sense of compatibility, which may matter more than similar research interests. "An advisor is a research collaborator, as well as a mentor, so it's important to get along," says Strickland.

Lab work conditions and requirements are also important to consider. "Some advisors need you to be in the lab a lot, while others don't care where you do your work as long as you get it done," says Hernandez Kent. "My lab is very communal, with a round table where we bounce ideas off each other. Other labs are less collaborative, with individual offices or no shared space."

You can gather a sense of the lab atmosphere by talking to other students. "Grad students will know the most about what it means to work with that advisor," says Strickland. "Students are the most honest about their advisor's personality, their expectations for students, and how they run the lab."

5. Find a good fit 

Remember advisors are also looking to see if you can work well together. "Most of what one learns in graduate school occurs outside the classroom and in the lab, and a lot of that training involves one-on-ones with others, including other graduate students and staff, as well as faculty," says Spear.

After you meet with faculty and students, they will discuss your social interactions. "Faculty will ask their students about the type of questions you asked and if you seemed collaborative," says Allen. "I want to assess your intellectual curiosity and determine if you will be a good colleague to other students."

To be able to ask good questions, do your homework in advance, says Allen. "Become familiar with the research conducted by the department faculty, not just the advisor you are interested in working with, and have questions ready."

However, beware of coming across as a sycophant. "There are cases where students bend too far and say whatever they believe faculty members want to hear, but a lot of times faculty can see right through that," says Allen.

Also, be sure to talk up your nonacademic activities and interests, which can spark faculty interest more than GPA and GRE scores. "Evidence from applicants' records that they can efficiently balance various interests and competing demands when scheduling their time is a major plus," says Spear.

6. Work hard 

Once you've made your final graduate school choice and have been accepted into a lab, it's time to make a great initial impression. For starters, don't wait until the beginning of the fall semester to get involved. Instead, do some literature review work or volunteer to help conduct research over the summer, advises Allen. "It demonstrates you are eager to get started."

When you get to the lab, remember that most of your co-workers have been working together for years. "Don't be afraid to ask questions," says Cloutier. "You are coming into a lab with older students who were once new, too, so usually they are more than happy to share advice."

Also, be sure to establish your dependability, says Allen. "Right away work on existing projects, make deadlines and generate ideas for research projects you want to carry out."

Another key to success is to talk to your advisor about your goals and expectations, says Cummings.

"Be clear about what your needs are as a student and voice them to your advisor so he or she can meet your needs better."

7. Watch for a mismatch 

Sometimes students realize they are not a good fit with their advisor or lab.

If you are having trouble with your advisor, first try to work it out with him or her. If it becomes apparent that switching labs is the best solution, talk with someone else in the department to help with the transition. For example, meet with the department chair, the dean of graduate studies, or another faculty member whom you trust for guidance on how to change labs and to learn about any formal departmental procedures. Go to these meetings prepared to suggest possible solutions, rather than just complaining. For example, suggest other labs you could join.

"Students might have anxiety about switching labs, but the people I've known who've done it have had very positive experiences," says Cummings. "I think universities are generally supportive of those kinds of transitions."

The last thing you should do is stay in a situation that is not working for you, says Cloutier. "The advisor really matters a lot to your academic future and your career. If you don't get along, you can't move forward with your master's thesis and dissertation. They are the gatekeepers to your success."

Read more about advisors

Navigating the Power Differential www.apa.org/gradpsych/2016/01/power-differential

Dear Advisee: What Your Advisor Wants You to Know www.apa.org/monitor/2012/07-08/advisee

Mentorship for Life www.apa.org/gradpsych/2013/01/mentorships

Letters to the Editor

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Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research

Senior Thesising 101: Choosing Your Adviser

Everyone has heard of the spooky ~senior thesis~ since the second that they stepped on campus for their official Princeton tour. It may feel far away at the time, but trust me, coming from a second semester senior, it comes around quicker than you expect. I am currently in the writing process, but it has been a long journey even getting to this point. Surprisingly, though, I have loved writing my thesis. It does not feel like work because it is a topic that I am truly passionate about. My goal for my final PCUR posts is to walk you through my thesis journey to hopefully make you feel better about yours. This post will start with one of the first steps of the thesis process: finding an adviser.

     In 2019, Social Sciences Correspondent Andrea Reino listed some advice on how to find the right adviser (see here ). Her advice is comprehensive, so I really suggest checking it out and then coming back here for a few more details and a new perspective. In addition to Reino’s points, here are a few more quick tips for success:

• Think Back to Previous Courses

     Close your eyes and think back to the best class that you have taken at Princeton. Why was that your #1 class? What did you learn about? Who was the Professor? Even if this class was not in your department, you can still use it to brainstorm for your thesis. Two of my favorite classes at Princeton were SPI340: Psychology of Decision Making and Judgment and PSY338: From Animal Learning to Changing People’s Minds . Though I admit that SPI340 is within my major, thinking back to these classes made me realize that I really wanted to write a thesis that changed minds for the better, and that made use of both cognitive science or psychology and policy. I remembered that Professor Eldar Shafir, who taught SPI340 and is a legend in the behavioral policy field, does impactful research on poverty and often combines psychology, economics, and politics in his research. I scheduled a meeting with Professor Shafir at the end of my junior year and the rest was history.

• Meet with your Department Adviser

     Your departmental adviser is an invaluable resource that you should definitely make use of. My adviser, Elizabeth Choe, served as an amazing mentor for me. She walked me through the process of finding an adviser and made recommendations based on what I was interested in. Furthermore, she told me about thesis adviser evaluations. Much like courses, senior thesis advisers are evaluated and these evaluations, though private and handwritten for SPIA, are available to students. I was able to browse through potential advisers and better understand if I believed we would work well together.

• Devise a Game Plan

    I was lucky in the adviser matching process in that I knew that the first adviser I met with was the one that I really wanted to work with. However, one thing that I found really helpful in making my decision was devising a plan with my adviser at our second meeting. I asked him what kind of communicator he was, what deadlines he would have for me, and what his timeline would be throughout the semester. I also asked how frequently he would be able to meet and I even read the theses that his previous advisees wrote to better understand what I was getting into.

      In sum, when looking for a thesis adviser, you should find someone who conducts research on topics that you are passionate about, that you believe can help you reach your goals, and that you believe will work well with. But, in all seriousness, all advisers at Princeton are amazing, and whoever you end up with will help you produce an original and inspiring senior thesis!

—   Ryan Champeau, Social Sciences Correspondent

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• Advising Senior Theses

Every thesis writer and thesis project is unique, and arguably the single most important thing that you can do as a thesis adviser is to get to know your student well and to be supportive and attentive as they work towards their spring deadline. The amount of structure that different concentrations offer their students can also have a significant impact on how you think about your role as an adviser. In some cases you may feel like an extension of the department’s undergraduate office, encouraging your student to follow its well-articulated pathway towards completion and nudging your student to heed (albeit perhaps with some discretion) its recommended proposal or draft deadlines. In other cases you may be the one responsible for translating the concentration’s somewhat vague guidelines into an actionable roadmap of recommended thresholds and dates. It’s well worth establishing a healthy line of communication with the concentration’s undergraduate office (and with anyone else involved in advising your student’s academic work) from the start of your advising relationship.

Regardless of the precise structure and obligations surrounding your position as an adviser, there are a number of things which you can do to help just about any student have a meaningful, and successful, experience with the senior thesis. Here are five key contributions which you can make:

Manage expectations

In an ideal world, every student would enter the thesis process fully prepared for every aspect of scholarly work. They all would know how to ask an analytical question suitable for a 60- or 100-page paper, how to find relevant data, how to draw lucid figures, how to format every footnote or methods section, … . Likewise, we might wish that every thesis topic lent itself equally well to the particular constraints of Harvard’s resources and academic calendar. If only that essential cache of Russian manuscripts existed in a published English translation in Widener! If only this experimental protocol took two weeks rather than four months! In reality, however, every thesis involves some compromise—perhaps significant compromise. One of your most important jobs as a thesis adviser is to roleplay your student’s future audience, and to help your student understand that the most successful theses ask questions that are not only meaningful, but that can be answered at least somewhat plausibly by the set of skills, resources, and time that is available to a Harvard undergraduate. Insofar as a student is determined to tackle a dissertation-sized question, the adviser can at least remind the student that it will be important to frame the results as a “partial” answer or a “contribution towards” an answer in the introduction.

Encourage self-knowledge

As with the previous point about managing expectations, it is important that an adviser be able to remind their student that the senior thesis is not, and will not be, the moment when students magically become “better” people than they already are. Students who have been night owls during their first three years of college are unlikely to transform miraculously into the type of scholars who rise at 6am and write 1000 words before breakfast—no matter how much they yearn to emulate some academic role model. Students who have participated actively in a sport or other extracurricular are unlikely to be able to simply recoup those hours for thesis work—cutting back three hours/week at The Crimson is at least as likely to translate into three more hours spent bantering in the dining hall as it is into three hours spent poring over the administrative structure of the Byzantine Empire. The point is that students can benefit from being reminded that they already know how to do the kind of work expected of them on the thesis, and that it may be counterproductive—if not downright unhealthy—to hold themselves to new or arbitrary standards.

Motivate to start writing early

With relatively few exceptions, most of the writing projects assigned in college are sufficiently modest that students can wait to start writing until they have figured out the full arc of what they want to say and how they want to say it. It’s possible, in other words, to plan and hold the entirety of a five-page essay in one’s head. This is simply not true of a senior thesis. Theses require the author to take a leap of faith—to start writing before the research is done and long before they know exactly what they want to say. Students may be reluctant to do this, fearing that they might “waste” precious time drafting a section of a chapter that ultimately doesn’t fit in the final thesis. You can do your student a world of good by reminding them that there is no such thing as wasted writing. In a project as large as a thesis, writing is not merely about reporting one’s conclusions—it is the process through which students come to figure out what their conclusions might be, and which lines of research they will need to pursue to get there.

Model strategies

While academic research and writing can and should be a creative endeavor, it is also undeniably true that even professional scholars draw upon a relatively constrained set of well-known strategies when framing their work. How many different ways, after all, are there to say that the conventional wisdom on a topic has ignored a certain genre of evidence? Or that two competing schools of thought actually agree more than they disagree? Or that fiddling with one variable has the power to reframe an entire discussion? Students may struggle to see how to plug their research into the existing scholarly conversation around their topic. Showing them models or templates that demystify the ways in which scholars frame their interventions can be enormously powerful.

Keep contact and avoid the "shame spiral"

As noted above, the senior thesis is a long process, and while it’s rarely a good idea for students to change their work habits in an effort to complete it, it is important that they be working early and often. Occasionally students do become overwhelmed by the scope of the project, and begin to feel defeated by the incremental nature of progress they are making. Even a good week of work may yield only a couple of pages of passable writing. Ideally a student feeling overwhelmed would come to their adviser for some help putting things into perspective. But for a student used to having a fair amount of success, the struggles involved in a senior thesis may be disorienting, and they may worry that they are “disappointing” you. For some, this will manifest as a retreat from your deadlines and oversight—even as they outwardly project confidence. They may begin bargaining with themselves in ways that only serve to sink them deeper into a sense of panic or shame. (“I’m long past the deadline for my first ten pages—but if I give my adviser a really brilliant fifteen-page section, he won’t mind! Surely I can turn these four pages into fifteen if I stay up all night!”) One of the best things that you can do as an adviser is keep contact with your student and make sure to remind them that your dynamic is not one of “approval” or “disapproval.” It is important that they maintain a healthy and realistic approach to the incremental process of completing the thesis over several months.

For more information...

The Art of Thesis Writing: A handout for students

Harvard's Academic Resource Center on Senior Theses

Senior Thesis Tutors at the Harvard College Writing Center

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Research thesis and research distinction.

An undergraduate thesis is an official, academically-integrated undergraduate research project with a formal written outcome. Completing a thesis is permanently recognized on a student's diploma as graduation with "Research Distinction" or with "Honors Research Distinction."

The requirements for graduating with research distinction vary by college, but generally include submitting an application to complete a thesis at least a semester prior to graduation, enrolling in thesis course credit hours, submitting a written thesis manuscript and completing an oral examination or defense to a faculty panel. Students should discuss their interest in completing a research distinction project with their research advisor and academic advisor as early as possible.

Theses are permanently stored in the University Library's Knowledge Bank ; so, they are also considered to be a published material.

Research Thesis and Distinction by College/Program

Please contact your academic advisor if you are interested in completing a research thesis or distinction program.

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Students should contact their academic advisor for information on graduating with Research Distinction or Honors Research Distinction.

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• Honors Distinction and Thesis
• Undergraduate Research, Independent Study, and Honors Program
• Research Pathways
• Research Distinction Guidelines
• Honors Research and Thesis Requirements

Honors Undergraduate Thesis

Honors Undergraduate Thesis (HUT) is UCF's most advanced undergraduate research program. It is designed to assist juniors and seniors to develop their own independent research project under the direction of a thesis advisor and faculty thesis committee. Students do not need to be Honors students to take advantage of the HUT program; it is available to all qualified UCF students. Over two to four semesters, students work closely with a faculty committee to research, write, defend, and publish an original thesis that serves as an honors capstone product of their undergraduate career. This thesis is published through the university library,  UCF's STARS Repository , and is available to researchers worldwide through electronic databases.

The Burnett Honors College partners with all colleges in sponsoring HUT Scholarships. These $1,000 scholarships are awarded every fall and spring on a competitive basis within each college and are available to all students who are enrolled in HUT credit hours.

• Visit The Burnett Honors College Honors in Undergraduate Thesis for additional information including deadlines.
• Join our Facebook group.
• Contact Dr. Sherron Killingsworth Roberts for additional information.
• Learn about the benefits of participating in HUT.
• First, find out if you are eligible and meet the basic requirements by visiting the Honors Undergraduate Thesis admissions page. If you have questions or you almost meet the requirements, stop in and see the great folks in the Office of Honors Research (OHR), now relocated in Trevor Colbourn Hall, Suite 248 (Phone: 407-823-0851). Email [email protected] with any questions. The HUT Coordinator will help you (1) apply for the Honors Undergraduate Thesis program and then (2) help get you registered. Remember you will be taking the Honors in Undergraduate Thesis project credit hours in the following semesters. You need a minimum of two semesters to complete the program. Additionally Dr. Padmini Coopamah Waldron, Director, is a valuable resource to your thesis chair and you.
• You will need to gain the permission of a professor to serve as your thesis chair and work with you weekly as part of an independent study or Directed Readings . By the end of the semester of Directed Readings, you should have a 15-20 page proposal (with 15-20 references) outlining the Honors in Undergraduate Thesis project that is approved by your thesis chair, a committee of one additional person, and the Honors in Undergraduate Thesis Coordinator, Dr. Sherron Roberts . If you need help identifying a chair, Dr. Roberts can help.
• Obtain all the necessary signatures on your application form and get the ball rolling. Even though you can now use HelloSign to obtain your chair's and Dr. Robert's signature electronically, please go introduce yourself to Dr. Roberts (ED 315T) in person, and seek her help to get started. Congrats!

For resources, videos, and PowerPoints, visit our Student Learning & Licensure (SLL) .

Requirements

Honors in Undergraduate Thesis (HUT) is the oldest and most prestigious undergraduate research program at UCF and provides students from all disciplines the opportunity to engage in independent and original research as principal investigators. Over the course of at least two semesters, students work closely with a faculty committee to research, write, defend, and publish an original Honors thesis. Upon successful completion of the program, students earn Honors in Undergraduate Thesis distinction on their diplomas and transcripts. Contact Dr. Sherron Roberts.

At a minimum, the following criteria must be met for admission into the Honors in the Major program:

• Sixty (60) completed hours of college credit
• Twelve (12) completed upper division hours of college credit
• At least a 3.4 UCF or Overall GPA
• At least two semesters remaining prior to graduation

This GPA is calculated based on all college-level course work regardless of the institution. For the Honors in Undergraduate Thesis program, all GPA's are calculated without rounding.

If you are close to the above requirements, contact Dr. Sherron Roberts .

Application deadlines are typically three weeks prior to the beginning of a semester to give students time to obtain faculty signatures .

HUT Thesis Titles

Briand, C. S. (2016). A grounded theory study of the impact of Florida school report cards on high school English Language Arts teachers’ self-efficacy and perceptions of student writing .

Foresman, D. B. (2016). Representations and impacts of transgender and gender nonconforming ideals in children’s literature for young children.

Greuel, A. L. (2016). Exploring preservice teacher attitudes toward black students.

Parsons, C. (2017). Metacognitive coaching as a means to enhance college and career success for students with executive function disorders.

Quintero, A. M. (2016). A qualitative assessment of preservice teachers’ perceptions of the at-risk student.

Rawles, L. S. (2017). Introspections of an African American preservice teacher’s growth: An autoethnography.

Rusoff, B. G. (2016). Exploring attachment behaviors in urban mothers and their infants.

Shimada, M. M. (2017). Third grade science teachers’ perspectives on implementing sentence frames and word banks during science lectures to increase the writing levels of English Language Learners.

Smith, D. (2017). The integration of music in an ELA classroom: Creating pedagogical parodies for elementary education.

Van Westering, J. (2016). Implementing Growth Mindset principles for girls in STEM elementary classrooms through the creation of a children’s book.

To access more thesis titles, search the STARS Digital Repository.

FAQs about Honors in Undergraduate Thesis

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Senior Thesis

• Resources and Form Library
• Funding, Research Assistant, and Career Opportunities

Through their Senior Thesis, majors learn to identify interesting economics questions, survey the existing academic literature and demonstrate command of theoretical, empirical, and/or experimental methods needed to critically analyze their chosen topic.

All seniors are encouraged to browse the Senior Thesis Database for examples of past work.

To see examples of papers that won Senior Thesis Prizes, see this article about Class Day and the Class of ’24 Award Winners .

Senior Thesis Coordinator Professor Andrea Wilson [email protected] 

Key Resources for Seniors

Senior Thesis Handbook Senior Thesis At-a-Glance Senior Thesis Advisors and Their Advising Interests Senior Thesis Proposal/Advisor Request Form Senior Thesis Advisor Assignments Exit form: Senior Thesis Research Integrity Form Exit form: Senior Thesis Advisor Evaluation Exit form: Departmental Survey

Senior Prizes

At the end of senior year, the department awards several prizes to acknowledge the best Senior Thesis projects from each class. Available awards are listed below.

• John Glover Wilson Memorial Award: Awarded to the best thesis on international economics or politics.
• Walter C. Sauer ’28 Prize (joint eligibility with Politics, SPIA): Awarded to the student whose thesis or research project on any aspect of United States foreign trade is judged to be the most creative.
• The Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies Prize: Awarded annually to the best five policy-relevant theses.
• Burton G. Malkiel ’64 Senior Thesis Prize in Finance: Awarded for the most outstanding thesis in the field of finance.
• Elizabeth Bogan Prize in Economics: Awarded for the best thesis in health, education, or welfare.
• Daniel L. Rubinfeld ’67 Prize in Empirical Economics: Awarded for the best thesis in empirical economics.
• Hugo Sonnenschein Prize in Economic Theory: Awarded for the best thesis on economic theory.
• Wolf Balleisen Memorial Prize: Awarded for the best thesis on an economics subject, written by an economics major.
• Halbert White ’72 Prize in Economics: Awarded to the most outstanding senior economics major, as evidenced by excellence in departmental coursework and creativity in the Junior Paper and Senior Thesis.

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Should I Serve as an Undergraduate Thesis Advisor?

I was asked by a former student if I would supervise their honors thesis. The research paper that they want to develop pertains to a paper they submitted for a class last year on a topic I specialize in. I want to say "yes," however, I am an adjunct in a different department. Usually the supervision of the honors thesis paper takes place by a full-time, salaried faculty member who is not paid additionally. As a part-time adjunct in the U.S., I am paid by the course. I would really like to supervise the student, but I do not want to do this for free as it also requires meeting with the student throughout the year regarding edits and revisions. (In addition, at my current university, I am not expected to meet any service requirements as a part-time employee; neither would this help me to get a full-time job with them as their resources are quite drained.) When I have held positions as the supervisor of independent study courses or theses at other universities, I have received at least a small stipend for performing such service. My questions are:

• If you've served as the supervisor for undergraduate theses before, what is the range of stipend you've received, if any?
• If you've been an adjunct or part-time faculty, have you encountered any similar issues with advising?

Update: Good news! I sent an email to my chair and my department is going to offer a nominal stipend for me to supervise the student's thesis. It doesn't hurt to ask!

• adjunct-faculty

• 4 I served as thesis advisor for an undergraduate during my part-time years, without pay. That student was the President's Scholar when she graduated. When a full-time position opened up, I got it. During those part time years, a vice president of the university asked my dean, "Who is this guy? He volunteers for everything." I might still have gotten the full-time position if all I'd done was meet my classes; I'll never know. –  Bob Brown Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 19:21
• 2 That's good to know. Service! But yes, I was just told that there is no pay for this volunteer position to mentor students (unless my department can find money/provide a stipend). However, it is a project that I do like. We'll see -- I'll also talk to my union. Thanks! –  Parrever Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 21:02
• 6 @BobBrown For any one case as yours there will be thousands where it does not work out like this. I think it is not right to expect from people in academia (and anywhere else) to do unpaid work. If it is "morally better" to work for free and be intrinsically motivated, than we should all be paid an unconditional basic income (which I am totally down with). Unfortunately we live in late capitalism, which puts us into dilemmas like this one. :/ –  Nico Commented Oct 18, 2022 at 18:45
• @nico Agreed. I'm actually surprised I was given a stipend. –  Parrever Commented Oct 20, 2022 at 17:25

2 Answers 2

I suggest you approach both chairs (your department and the student's) to say that you would like to do this and ask for some compensation, even if it's only nominal.

When I was chair I always pushed for fairer compensation for part timers, who often did more than just meet their classes. Sometimes I was successful.

Good for you for wanting to do this in spite of the unfortunate working conditions.

Ideally, since you are paid by the course, this is worth a course stipend, which I suspect is very low. I don't know if it makes any sense to ask for that, but that is what its value is to the college.

Hopefully the college pays its faculty a living wage already, so advising is just part of that contract, but adjuncts don't get the same consideration.

I know one or two adjuncts who might do it for less, or even for free, but they are long term adjunct faculty with very good salaries at research institutions and they might just do it as a sort of hobby, but those people also are otherwise connected to the regular faculty and so have some intangible benefits (collaboration and such) that makes it worth their time.

But, talk to the chair and explore options. The college has a responsibility to cover fair compensation for its faculty. It also has a special interest in treating its advanced students well. Maybe the chair has some options other than stipend that would be valuable to you.

Note that for regular faculty, while there may not be an additional stipend for advising such projects, the chair has options such as a future course reduction or paying for a distant conference. These aren't normally open to adjuncts, but something might be available.

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I'm starting to think about my course load for next semester, and I'm wondering if most colleges require an undergraduate thesis to graduate. If so, how does it work typically?

The requirement for an undergraduate thesis greatly varies by institution and by major. For many programs, an undergraduate thesis is not compulsory for graduation. Instead, these programs may offer it as an opportunity for students interested in conducting in-depth research on a particular topic within their field of study.

When a thesis is required, it's often in programs where research is integral to the profession, such as in the sciences or in social sciences like sociology or psychology. It can also be common in humanities disciplines like English or History. Additionally, Honors Programs, which provide an enhanced undergraduate experience for academically talented students, may require an honors thesis or project.

The process typically involves choosing a topic of interest, seeking approval from the department, and then working closely with a faculty member (often acting as the thesis advisor) throughout the project. The thesis is usually completed in the student's final year, and its length can range from a long essay to a short book, depending on the discipline and the scope of the project.

The thesis often culminates with a presentation or defense in front of the thesis committee, which usually consists of faculty from the respective department.

Therefore, I would recommend checking with your academic advisor or department to determine if your program requires a thesis. It's also important to note that even if it's not required, completing a thesis could be a valuable experience if you're interested in going to graduate school or planning a career in research.

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