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On applying for a PhD

 People often ask me advice on how to apply for a graduate program. Questions include, how to select a lab to apply to, what to include in the research proposal, what to look for in a prospective lab? etc. My suggestion usually is to find something that truly interests you. Going through a PhD is not a child’s play. It’s a whole different level than the undergrad classes. There would days or weeks you would be stuck at the same in the problem. There would many a nights you would spend in your lab, frustrated, dealing with anxiety, procrastination, and for heaven knows hunger! You would perhaps work for weeks and months on an idea, only for it to turn out to be a dud or perhaps, only for somebody else to have gotten to the end result a tiny yet significant bit before you!

What keeps the motivation alive and you healthy and sane is the real interest in the topic that initially got you excited and the support and aid from your supervisor, lab members, and your friends. What’s most important here is then to have an actually supportive, amiable and kind supervisor to work with. And people can be really unlicky at times with that! So, in your search for a research lab to apply to, don’t just go after the big-shot Profs or famous schools or the lab this other guy from your class applied to. Find a lab based on interest to work with perhaps a-priori to your application. Get to know the lab culture, your Prof’s work ethics, their mindset, aims and biases if any. Get in touch with the current students in the lab. Talk to them personally, or else on a call. See if there’s a good match between your ideologies, your motivations and targets and this prospective lab’s culture. Try to align your preferences with them, but if they don’t, then don’t just go for it because of the name. Think a bit harder, explore a bit more, sometimes you can achieve much more at a lesser known place, with much less famous Prof, than you can achieve at a big name institute. And then there are the lucky ones, who often get the best of the both worlds!


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