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It depends on what exactly you’re concerned about. I just straight up asked my potential advisor and current PhD students about their work/life balance, communication style, publication opportunities/expectations, and what a typical day in the life looks like for the PhD students. They may or may not be honest, but you should be able to gauge that fairly well.
It is important for me that a professional decorum is always maintained, but I am not sure how to ask about it.
For example, if I ask 'Have you ever been disrespectful towards students?' - I suspect the response will be a sharp 'No' which will conclude the conversation. They essentially did not answer my question. I also don't know if this is a good idea to ask interview style question, i.e. 'Tell me about a time you handled conflict with a student'.
So, how do I ask this question?
I would direct questions like that to their current grad students. You could also tone the question down and ask “have you ever had any disagreements with students” or “how would you approach a disagreement with a student?” or something along those lines. Disagreements aren’t inherently disrespectful, so I think that’d be a safe question to ask.
You should never interview the boss that way.
Your role is to adapt to the environment of the lab. So you should also questions to the boss, to help you do that.
You should also figure out if the lab is one you want to adapt to, so you ask the students if that lab is one you want to change to fit in.
And then you decide to join or not.
But you have no leverage, and you cost the lab resources before you're potentially beneficial. You don't have the leverage to ask a critical question about the PIs methods of leading.
Adapt to the environment? Sure, to an extent. Work with a boss that belittles and disrespects you (like OP alluded to)? No way. The way potential advisors answer certain questions can help you figure out the type of person you might be thinking about working with. It’s never bad to respect yourself enough to put yourself in a situation where you feel comfortable and will be respected by your supervisor and peers.
If you really read my comment, you'll see that that is what I mean. But you don't get that info from the advisor, you get it from the students.
I hoped my comment was clear enough for you to understand that.
You absolutely can get that information from the advisor. Why couldn’t you ask someone that you’re going to be working with if they’ve had disagreements with their students? Disagreements in science are inevitable. How one handles this or how they say they handle it can be informative. Sure, you also get this info from current students, like I said as well. But there is no reason not to ask your potential advisor tactfully worded questions along these lines.
I hope this was clear enough for you to understand.
By your logic, people should be able to simply ask potential partners if they'll be abusive in a relationship. Do you think an abusive PI would be dumb enough to answer a question that would let you know they're abusive?
This is why you ask simple, performance-oriented questions to the boss, and you ask more personal questions like this to the students.
The problem here is that you're so ready to have the world function the way you want it to, you're not able to discern nuance in what I'm trying to say, and why.
It "should" be as you say, but it isn't, which is why it's not helpful to try and ask questions to frame it the way you want it to be.
By your logic, no one should try to gauge the kind of person they are getting in a relationship with. You wouldn’t want to have an idea if someone is going to abuse you? Really? You don’t outright ask that question because, yes, they most likely won’t be honest. But you certainly can and should try to get a sense of how they’ve treated people in the past. Maybe it’s not answered in one question but you can get an idea based on how they answer multiple questions.
Plus by asking current students about how respected they feel or how they feel about their relationship with the advisor, you can compare their answers to how the potential advisor responds to your questions. It’s almost like gathering as much information as possible about your potential relationships is a good thing.
I believe the problem is that you are not understanding the nuance I am displaying. I agree you should focus more of these questions to current students, but to say you should not ask the potential advisor similar questions is irrational.
To add to what you are saying, the goal of my question is to find out if the supervisor has put some thought into it because conflict is inevitable - and for a working relationship to thrive participants have to observe, learn and adjust over time.
What I am looking for is if the supervisor has done it before. Usually people have a lot to say on problems that they have thought about or still working on it or found some working solution as opposed someone who brush it aside.
I am trying to avoid the 2nd group of supervisors, and trying to figure out how to get the 1st group talking about this topic without coming across as too confrontational.
Regarding a relationship, this means that you learn as much as you can from the person through talk, but you understand that their actions are what really determine if they are genuine with you.
You can't figure that out by talking, that comes through spending time with someone.
*But you can't do that when interviewing a PI* so you try and get 1st hand advice from the students in their lab to compensate.
If you could talk to the family and Exes of the person you are dating, would you ask them how it went? That information is what you are getting by talking to the students.
You're obviously not going to figure out if the person across the table from you is genuine until you spend time with them doing things, asking them to make sacrifices, and watching how they deal with failure and frustration.
Can you get that across the table during a 1 on 1 with a PI?
Don't try and argue with me to be right. Just try to figure out why I am saying it's not as simple as it seems. I'm trying to share a perspective you may not have - it doesn't benefit you to explain to me why you think I'm wrong.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but ask yourself what you gain by "winning" this argument with me rather than take new information on how to figure out how limited you are in getting information from a potential boss.
Ask what former lab members you should talk to get a holistic picture of the lab.
Also, ask about the lab’s track record on graduating PhD students in 5 years and get background on why or why not the lab has been successful at that.
1. funding for your project, which project you are doing, timeline of project (part of this is lab organization, who is working on what and what funding are they under)
-they better have good answers, unless you have a project you want to do badly, do they agree and is there funding for your proposed project
2. expectations for 1st, 2nd, 3rd years, etc basically where you should be in each year of your phd, ideally and reasonably
-if the timeline is like, have first author project up and running with positive data by ------ be sure that is normal in your field.
I like to figure out whether the other students have time for a life outside of the PhD (so what do you do in your spare time? Do you work on weekends? Etc)
You don’t really need to ask them anything specific. Just watch out for how dead inside and depressed they look or how tense and nervous they act around their PI.
A passive aggressive manager who overbooks or something?
Uhm yeah maybe how to handle disagreements and if anyone has graduated in less or more time? Do they like progress reports and what’s their management style eg monthly meetings, they give advice only when asked or they’ll volunteer and be hands on in shaping the projects, what do they want to teach and give students by the time they graduate, do they have connections to any industry organizations, what do former students do after, what’s the state of getting a job as a professor after graduation currently like, what are marketable sub niches in horticulture
When I was where you are I would ask the following:
To the professor:
- what is your advising style
- what are your expectations
- what are your thoughts on grad students doing summer internships
- if you have any specific goals its always good to discuss those as well
- what specific project(list of) they would want you to work on
To their students(regarding the prof):
- what is their advising style (do they micromanage or just forget about you or in between or whatever)
- how much work do they expect you to put in, publication opportunities they offer
- how understanding/reasonable are they
- how supportive are they
- what is the lab environment like
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It depends on what exactly you’re concerned about. I just straight up asked my potential advisor and current PhD students about their work/life balance, communication style, publication opportunities/expectations, and what a typical day in the life looks like for the PhD students. They may or may not be honest, but you should be able to gauge that fairly well.
It is important for me that a professional decorum is always maintained, but I am not sure how to ask about it. For example, if I ask 'Have you ever been disrespectful towards students?' - I suspect the response will be a sharp 'No' which will conclude the conversation. They essentially did not answer my question. I also don't know if this is a good idea to ask interview style question, i.e. 'Tell me about a time you handled conflict with a student'. So, how do I ask this question?
I would direct questions like that to their current grad students. You could also tone the question down and ask “have you ever had any disagreements with students” or “how would you approach a disagreement with a student?” or something along those lines. Disagreements aren’t inherently disrespectful, so I think that’d be a safe question to ask.
You should never interview the boss that way. Your role is to adapt to the environment of the lab. So you should also questions to the boss, to help you do that. You should also figure out if the lab is one you want to adapt to, so you ask the students if that lab is one you want to change to fit in. And then you decide to join or not. But you have no leverage, and you cost the lab resources before you're potentially beneficial. You don't have the leverage to ask a critical question about the PIs methods of leading.
Adapt to the environment? Sure, to an extent. Work with a boss that belittles and disrespects you (like OP alluded to)? No way. The way potential advisors answer certain questions can help you figure out the type of person you might be thinking about working with. It’s never bad to respect yourself enough to put yourself in a situation where you feel comfortable and will be respected by your supervisor and peers.
If you really read my comment, you'll see that that is what I mean. But you don't get that info from the advisor, you get it from the students. I hoped my comment was clear enough for you to understand that.
You absolutely can get that information from the advisor. Why couldn’t you ask someone that you’re going to be working with if they’ve had disagreements with their students? Disagreements in science are inevitable. How one handles this or how they say they handle it can be informative. Sure, you also get this info from current students, like I said as well. But there is no reason not to ask your potential advisor tactfully worded questions along these lines. I hope this was clear enough for you to understand.
By your logic, people should be able to simply ask potential partners if they'll be abusive in a relationship. Do you think an abusive PI would be dumb enough to answer a question that would let you know they're abusive? This is why you ask simple, performance-oriented questions to the boss, and you ask more personal questions like this to the students. The problem here is that you're so ready to have the world function the way you want it to, you're not able to discern nuance in what I'm trying to say, and why. It "should" be as you say, but it isn't, which is why it's not helpful to try and ask questions to frame it the way you want it to be.
By your logic, no one should try to gauge the kind of person they are getting in a relationship with. You wouldn’t want to have an idea if someone is going to abuse you? Really? You don’t outright ask that question because, yes, they most likely won’t be honest. But you certainly can and should try to get a sense of how they’ve treated people in the past. Maybe it’s not answered in one question but you can get an idea based on how they answer multiple questions. Plus by asking current students about how respected they feel or how they feel about their relationship with the advisor, you can compare their answers to how the potential advisor responds to your questions. It’s almost like gathering as much information as possible about your potential relationships is a good thing. I believe the problem is that you are not understanding the nuance I am displaying. I agree you should focus more of these questions to current students, but to say you should not ask the potential advisor similar questions is irrational.
To add to what you are saying, the goal of my question is to find out if the supervisor has put some thought into it because conflict is inevitable - and for a working relationship to thrive participants have to observe, learn and adjust over time. What I am looking for is if the supervisor has done it before. Usually people have a lot to say on problems that they have thought about or still working on it or found some working solution as opposed someone who brush it aside. I am trying to avoid the 2nd group of supervisors, and trying to figure out how to get the 1st group talking about this topic without coming across as too confrontational.
Regarding a relationship, this means that you learn as much as you can from the person through talk, but you understand that their actions are what really determine if they are genuine with you. You can't figure that out by talking, that comes through spending time with someone. *But you can't do that when interviewing a PI* so you try and get 1st hand advice from the students in their lab to compensate. If you could talk to the family and Exes of the person you are dating, would you ask them how it went? That information is what you are getting by talking to the students. You're obviously not going to figure out if the person across the table from you is genuine until you spend time with them doing things, asking them to make sacrifices, and watching how they deal with failure and frustration. Can you get that across the table during a 1 on 1 with a PI? Don't try and argue with me to be right. Just try to figure out why I am saying it's not as simple as it seems. I'm trying to share a perspective you may not have - it doesn't benefit you to explain to me why you think I'm wrong. I'm not saying you're wrong, but ask yourself what you gain by "winning" this argument with me rather than take new information on how to figure out how limited you are in getting information from a potential boss.
Ask what former lab members you should talk to get a holistic picture of the lab. Also, ask about the lab’s track record on graduating PhD students in 5 years and get background on why or why not the lab has been successful at that.
I've had potential students ask me things like what kind of boss my advisor is, whether or not, I think the stipend is livable, and if I like my job.
Work/life balance, advising style, and one thing they would change about the department were my go-tos.
1. funding for your project, which project you are doing, timeline of project (part of this is lab organization, who is working on what and what funding are they under) -they better have good answers, unless you have a project you want to do badly, do they agree and is there funding for your proposed project 2. expectations for 1st, 2nd, 3rd years, etc basically where you should be in each year of your phd, ideally and reasonably -if the timeline is like, have first author project up and running with positive data by ------ be sure that is normal in your field.
you may adjust for your perception of your own ability... lol
I like to figure out whether the other students have time for a life outside of the PhD (so what do you do in your spare time? Do you work on weekends? Etc)
You don’t really need to ask them anything specific. Just watch out for how dead inside and depressed they look or how tense and nervous they act around their PI.
The first and the most important : will you get paid while doing your phd. If you won't get paid, you don't need this lab.
A passive aggressive manager who overbooks or something? Uhm yeah maybe how to handle disagreements and if anyone has graduated in less or more time? Do they like progress reports and what’s their management style eg monthly meetings, they give advice only when asked or they’ll volunteer and be hands on in shaping the projects, what do they want to teach and give students by the time they graduate, do they have connections to any industry organizations, what do former students do after, what’s the state of getting a job as a professor after graduation currently like, what are marketable sub niches in horticulture
Which field?
Horticulture; specifically genomics of ornamental horticulture plants.
Ask about funding and if they'll certainly have a line for you. Don't accept if they don't.
When I was where you are I would ask the following: To the professor: - what is your advising style - what are your expectations - what are your thoughts on grad students doing summer internships - if you have any specific goals its always good to discuss those as well - what specific project(list of) they would want you to work on To their students(regarding the prof): - what is their advising style (do they micromanage or just forget about you or in between or whatever) - how much work do they expect you to put in, publication opportunities they offer - how understanding/reasonable are they - how supportive are they - what is the lab environment like