Full Description
This guide is a lively chronicle of the intellectual and emotional experience of obtaining a Ph.D. in a scientific field. Readers will learn what to expect from professors and advisers, and how to prepare for oral exams, simplify the dissertation writing, reap the long-term benefits of the Ph.D. process and acquire strategies for survival and success. Tips on applying, and information for foreign students, are included.
Contents
1. Deciding to go to Graduate School ; 2. Selecting an Advisor: Whose Lab is Right for Me? ; 3. Stages of Graduate School ; 4. Classes, Journal Clubs, Lab Meetings, Seminars ; 5. The Absent Professor ; 6. How You Learn ; 7. Deciding on Research Projects for Your Dissertation ; 8. Networking ; 9. The Scientists as a Specialist ; 10. Picking a Dissertation Committee/Defending the Proposal (The Preliminary Oral Exam) ; 11. The Life of a Graduate Student ; 12. Lab Notebooks ; 13. Lab Etiquette ; 14. Competition ; 15. The Role of Luck ; 16. Do I Belong Here? Insecurity and Stress ; 17. Foreign Students: Unique Problems and Stresses ; 18. On the Art of Scientific Writing ; 19. What Should Your Goals Be While in Graduate School? ; 20. Times They Are a'Changing ; 21. The End's in Sight: Writing the Dissertation
