How to Ensure Graduation: Only the "Smartest" Survive

When obtaining your PhD we all know classes must be taken, exams must be passed, etc. But the key to graduating is your advisor, so choose wisely. Yes the Professor who has innovative research is cool, but ask yourself how long does it take his/her students to graduate?, does he/she travel a lot?(if they do they can't be doing all of their research, so their postdocs and students must do a lot of it, and they aren't readily available for research help), oh and most importantly do they have funding? (while I encourage getting your own funding, this is a great back up plan). These questions should be asked upon initial decision of your advisor because you don't want to wake up as a 4th year graduate student with the realization that your advisor is not well vested in your graduation (ie Holy Crap, I'm 30 and still in grad school) or even worst your advisor is trying to keep you in school for his/her own benefits.

Here are some warning signs:

1. Your advisor will only meet with you to discuss new ideas, and not your dissertation research.

2. Your elder graduate students with the same advisor are in year 7.

3. You don't have contact with your advisor for a month and it is normal.

If you are experiencing any of these warnings don't fret, you can still graduate in 2 years at maximum by doing the following:

1. When your advisor asks you to work on new problems do it, but for every hour you spend on the new problem spend 2 on your dissertation research. Then when they meet with you to discuss the new work you have something to show but then you have more to show with your dissertation work.

2. Start Job searching, if you get a job that requires you to be done by a certain time usually your advisor will get on board, especially if it's with a good company or school because your success= your advisor's success especially if they aren't tenured.

3. Bother them by scheduling bi-monthly meetings, stalk them if you have to because graduating is of the utmost importance.

Remember graduate school is nothing but a academic hazing game so if you take everything and don't push back you will be in school forever so be "smart."