Questions You Should Ask Before Enrolling in a Graduate Program
Once you are accepted into a few programs, the programs will often go to some effort to get you there. For PhD programs, for instance, you are very likely to get a few phone calls, and you will probably be invited to come out for a visit. The process of trying to choose a graduate program after you've been accepted to several of them can be very stressful. To help you decide, there are several questions that you should ask. You may want to ask the faculty some of these questions, but it is even more important that you ask the graduate students, because they'll be able to answer from the students' perspective. Here are a few questions that I strongly recommend you ask:
- How would you describe student-faculty relations in your graduate program?
- Is your potential advisor friendly? What's he or she like?
- Where have recent graduates of the program recently been employed?
- Are students in the program publishing? Where have they published?
- Are students expected to buy their own computers, or are there enough computers available in the campus laboratories to get work done there?
- What do students do for fun?
- How many students in the program are married? How many are single?
- How expensive is it to live in the area?
- These are just a few important questions--think careully about what else you'd like to ask before you make a decision about which program to enroll in.
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