If only I'd known!

December 3, 2007 2:26 PM

What intelligent questions can I ask a student in a graduate program I'm applying to, in an effort to determine whether the program's a good fit for me?

I'm planning to apply to graduate programs in art conservation next year. It's a very small field; there are five programs in North America, each with a handful of students. I'm interested in one program in particular, but I doubt I have the breadth of experience necessary to understand whether it's really right for me.

As far as the actual focus of the work goes, I'm starting pre-program work next year in conservation to narrow down my interests. In the meantime, I've been in touch with a friend of a friend who's in his final (internship) year of the program I'm interested in. Our previous conversation covered his background, my background, and the admissions process, and he was a wealth of information. I'd like to ask him some intelligent questions about the program to get a better feel for both what day-to-day life in it is like, and whether it might be a good fit for me.

I've pretty much already covered what I wish I'd known before going to undergrad, for example "How cold does it feel in the winter?" or "How many hours a week will I spend reading?" or "Does your student body fetishize stress?", but I'm sure there will be things in graduate school I'll wish I'd asked about.

So what do you wish you'd asked? (That'll be my first question, definitely.)

posted by moonlet to education (14 comments total)

"How many hours a week will I spend reading?"

That is the key one. My wife is doing an online masters degree right now and although they swear it can be done by working professionals and only takes 18-20 hrs/wk, the required reading alone is taking her, a prolific reader, 20-40 hrs/wk.

Rather than asking how many hours, try asking how many pages. That way you can gage how long it will take at your reading rate.
posted by Doohickie at 2:30 PM on December 3, 2007

I'd have tried to get an honest assessment of the quality of the other students. They will either inspire/challenge or annoy/distress you for the duration.
posted by fake at 2:31 PM on December 3, 2007

Candid stuff that they cannot tell you in writing:
-What's the department culture like? (super-studious, fun-loving, ambitious, cutthroat, collaborative?)
-What are the individual faculty members like as advisors? (especially the faculty member you think you might work with -- who is vicious, who has high standards, who has a great reputation in the field, who is kind and helpful, who is detail-oriented, who is flaky, etc)
-What kinds of people have been successful students here? What kind of people wash out fast?
-Do people in the program tend to know anybody outside the program? Are there good social and academic connections with related departments?
-How is the placement record, as far as you know?
-What kinds of preparation should I be doing now?
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:32 PM on December 3, 2007 [2 favorites]

Disclaimer: I know nothing about the art conservation field.

Things I wish I would have asked before starting my PhD program:

How willing/open are faculty to working with grad students? Who will co-author papers with students vs. simply have students do the grunt work and not give them authorship credit?

What funding opportunities are available? What are the strings attached to these opportunities?

Are the grad students generally competitive or cooperative?

What is the department's track record of placement of graduates of the program? Are grads finding jobs? Where?

Is the department generous with support money for travel to conferences?

What is the REAL average time to degree completion?

Are there unofficial expectations that the faculty have about grad students that aren't in the info packet/website?

What knowledge is do you wish somebody would have given you as a first year grad student?

YMMV regarding applicability of these to your field.
posted by jtfowl0 at 2:38 PM on December 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

How much opportunity is there for networking with others in the field? (i.e. the people who you hope will be hiring you after you graduate)
posted by winston at 2:42 PM on December 3, 2007

Questions To Ask When Thinking About Pursuing a PhD might be a good starting point for you. It distills the advice of ~3500 doctoral students on the question: "Knowing everything that you know now, what advice would you give others entering or in the early years of graduate school?"
posted by raxast at 2:45 PM on December 3, 2007

A very big one is 'how many (or waht percentage) of the program's graduates are actually working in art conservation?'

That tells a lot about the quality of the program, the other students and what your chances are like post-graduation. At least in Egyptian Art Conservation, all the people I met come from very few places.
posted by overhauser at 2:46 PM on December 3, 2007

Did you go to UChicago for your undergrad?

Finding a good fit is a question I've thought a lot about, having had a disastrously bad fit in my graduate program. It caused me to leave after a year and contributed to my decision to quit the field entirely. My best advice, which should be taken with a large grain of salt, is to try to talk to students off campus. Take them out to the local bar and get them talking about what they really hate about the program. Figure out which faculty you're most likely to be working with and ask about how they are as advisors. When I went to prospective students' day, the faculty and the students who were running the program were good at making everything seem a lot more palatable than it ended up being. I heard some dissenting voices, but dismissed them as being the cranky rants of the unsuccessful. Perhaps they were, but it's worth considering how many of the people in a top-flight program are "unsuccessful" by the standards of the program -- and what the risk is that you might be one of them.
Also, if you know any academics (even if they're out of your field) you may be able to get some reputational information from them. One of my dad's friends told him that my graduate school was notoriously "theory-bound". I don't know if I would have known what to do with that information before I went to the program, but I now know that was one of the chief points of conflict between me and it.
All in all, I don't know how one can know what their fit will be like before actually trying it out, but I wish you the best of luck in finding a good one.
posted by katemonster at 3:46 PM on December 3, 2007

Art conservation is far from my field, and others have made good points already, but I wish I'd talked to a whole bunch of students before I started grad school. My department had a policy of taking candidates out to lunch, hosted by one or 2 grad students, and eventually I figured out that the candidates they really wanted went to lunch with one of the 2 or 3 happy students. The candidates they didn't care about went out with the disgruntled majority. (I always knew, when my turn came up on the lunch rota, that this was a candidate who could go hang himself for all they cared.)

So you should grab students at random in the hallways and grill them to get a better sense of the true life of a student in your prospective program. Good luck!
posted by Quietgal at 3:57 PM on December 3, 2007

"Who here is doing work in [big mainstream theoretical framework]? How about [marginal but interesting framework]? Are there any approaches that aren't welcome here?" Listen to the tone of the answer as much as the content. Do they seem to respect other perspectives? Are they perpetuating one of the Big Ugly Holy Wars in your field?

"What do you do for housing? Are you happy with it?"

"What do people do here if they find themselves without funding?"

"Under what circumstances do people tend to leave the program without their degree?"

For what it's worth, I've heard people suggest that you should talk to recent graduates as well as current students. The idea is that recent graduates are less beholden to the department, and so more likely to tell the truth. Graduates are also more likely to know if the department mishandles placement or prepares people badly for the job market.
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:04 PM on December 3, 2007

I found it maddeningly difficult to get placement information from humanities grad programs. Most don't really track the data and tell you "we have graduates working at A, B, and C places." That obviously doesn't tell you much about your chance at future job prospects. I also heard a lot of, "it's tough, but the best people always get jobs." Right. Try to find out how many students have entered during the past 3 or 4 years, and find out how many left, why they left, how many finished and how many actually got jobs in the field. If they just placed 3 people at great places, but those people are among 15 that entered, then it helps you be realistic about your future.
posted by underwater at 5:25 PM on December 3, 2007

This seems small, but it can save you some embarrassment: confirm how to pronounce faculty member's names and whether they like to be called Dr. or by their first name.
posted by pluckysparrow at 9:33 PM on December 3, 2007

Thank you all! You're all Best Answers.

katemonster- no, a women's college in New England. Does UChicago also fetishize stress?
posted by moonlet at 5:36 PM on December 4, 2007

OH, yes, it does. In January they have a day off from classes for undergrads, which is popularly known as suicide prevention day. As I recall, there are all sorts of events and booths on campus that day -- basically aimed at keeping the kids from offing themselves during the darkest part of the year. They have some of the finest mental health facilities I've ever seen, but they also have more need for them than any place I've ever been, and not nearly enough people making use of the services.
posted by katemonster at 8:38 AM on December 5, 2007