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Advising Guide

Your First Year

This page is meant to help you understand the role of an advisor and how to choose a research focus during your first year.

Your temporary advisor

Before you arrived at UW, you were assigned one or more temporary advisors. Typically, your temporary advisor(s) chose to assume this role because they specifically wanted to work with you. Indeed, your temporary advisor(s) may have recruited you to come to UW. For most students, their temporary advisor becomes their permanent advisor, although this is not required, and there is no stigma associated with making a change.

Temporary advisor’s role

Your temporary advisor provides information, guidance and feedback during your first year of graduate school. This usually consists of two responsibilities:

  • Helping you define your research focus. Your temporary advisor will often suggest a research problem for you to consider either independently or in collaboration with others. There are advantages to joining an existing project, even if it may not be as exciting or groundbreaking as working independently: You will likely get a publication faster, you will learn from multiple researchers (faculty, grad students), you will build relationships within the group, etc. If your temporary advisor is funding your RA, they will expect you to start your research promptly.
  • Helping you choose courses, understand quals requirements, and learn how administrative things work at the Allen School (e.g., who reimburses you for needed equipment, how to plan conference travel). Note that the grad advising team also provides valuable support and are usually more knowledgeable than your advisor(s) about the most current requirements for quals and all Ph.D. milestones, in addition to various other administrivia.

Working with your temporary advisor

  • Brainstorm with your temporary advisor about possible research directions of interest as soon as possible.
  • Leverage your temporary advisor’s knowledge of other faculty members and their research to find the best fit with your interests.
  • It may be helpful to ask your advisor what they expect you to discuss in your regular and long-term planning meetings, especially since you are learning how to do research and defining your professional goals. Advisors may also have specific suggestions about how to conduct efficient meetings with them.
  • Quickly learn your temporary advisor’s expectations of you with respect to communication, work habits, graduation requirements, and work/life balance. You need to understand if you want to and are able to meet these expectations.
  • Discuss and get feedback from your temporary advisor on your career goals.
  • Ask about your temporary advisor’s possible plans for sabbaticals and industry leaves that may affect your longer-term working relationship.
  • Discuss TA opportunities, future funding and conference attendance.

Choosing a research focus

You are unique

Some of you enter the Ph.D. program knowing what research path you want to take, have already published papers in that area, and are anxious to get started right away. Others of you are still deciding, for a variety of reasons. You may have had fewer opportunities to do research in the past, require more background, or be overwhelmed by choice and the difficulty of committing to one topic for what seems like such a long duration. Further, after a few months of working on a project, you may find that it is not a good fit with your evolving research interests and strengths.

You will be tempted throughout your studies to compare your progress to that of other graduate students. While this is natural, it is almost never useful: you will always be able to find others that are further along, apparently smarter, and seemingly more productive and successful in their research. Remember, though, that you are comparing apples and oranges: your research is on a different topic, your background is different, and you have your own unique strengths and weaknesses. Instead of comparing yourself to your peers, think about whether you are learning, whether you are systematically taking steps forward in your research, whether you are passionate about your research project, and whether you are more productive than you were a few months ago. See the Frequently Asked Questions and the section on Having a Growth Mindset for helpful advice on this topic.

The advantages of starting research early

Getting started in research early (ideally in your first quarter) is essential. It will help you determine where your research passion lies, gain confidence, connect with more people at the Allen School, determine if your temporary advisor is a good match for you, and get the ball rolling for future work and milestones. Don’t let that stress you out though! Nobody expects you to publish right away. You may hear the good advice that “a Ph.D. is a marathon, not a sprint.” To train for a marathon, you should run a bit every day.

The advantages of breadth

Some of the most interesting research problems lie at the interfaces between subfields. Even within one field, innovative solutions can draw on techniques or tools from elsewhere. Moreover, breadth broadens your potential teaching portfolio (if you are considering an academic career) and increases your potential collaborations. If you are seeking an academic job, faculty are more likely to advocate for you to be hired if they think they will be able to interact with you.

There is a difference between having a project that synthesizes ideas from multiple fields and having n different projects. The latter can be dangerous if you spread your attention too thinly. Your dissertation demands of you a laser focus on a specific area rather than generalism.

Discovering what kind of research excites you

  • Attend colloquia (CSE 519 & 520): Often, a world expert will give a talk that could captivate your interest and sway your future course.
  • Register for the department’s seminars (CSE 590), colloquially known as “five nineties.” Most of these involve students leading informal discussions about papers each week. Sign up to present a paper on a topic that’s new to you.
  • Attend quals presentations, generals presentations and dissertation defensesof other students in the research areas you’re interested in. In addition, attend practice talks and give feedback.
  • Take classes in areas you’re curious about.
  • Read recent papers by the faculty members in the areas you’re curious about. Ask your temporary advisor about what other (non-UW) papers would be good to read, or where to find the best papers to read (e.g., which conference proceedings, etc.). You can find advice on how to read academic papers here.
  • Show up to the poster sessions and talks for the school’s industry affiliates research days, which usually happen in October. Other students will be showing off their current projects, so it’s a perfect time to ask them about what’s going on in their groups. Attend the school’s industry affiliates research day, where Ph.D. students share their work and connect with industry researchers.
  • If you can get funding (here is one option), attend a conference in an area of potential interest. This will help you learn about current work in an area while meeting people from its research community. There may also be opportunities to attend conferences remotely, which saves time and money; however, remote attendance greatly diminishes your chances to build networks, exchange research ideas, and socialize, which are some of the most important and valuable activities at a conference.
  • Brainstorm with your temporary advisor and other graduate students and faculty about research projects and directions.

Ramping up your research program

  • Read research papers. Read closely and often. You cannot do great work unless you can recognize it. Reading and discussing with others will improve your knowledge of how to frame research results, express and assess contributions, define analytical approaches, and document findings. It may also help you identify unexplored avenues for further research. If the topic is new to you, ask your advisor to suggest background resources (textbooks, course notes, videos, etc.) that can help you catch up. Your job is to work your way towards becoming a scholar and an expert!
  • Collaborate. Your advisor may suggest a research project that’s underway that you can participate in. Pairing with someone more experienced will help you learn the ropes. Even doing some “manual labor” for another student’s project can help you to gain momentum.
  • Choose work that excites you. You cannot do quality research when you’re not passionate about the topic. (If you have several passions, you may have to pick one to focus on, at least for a while. This does not mean that your first topic, or even your Ph.D. topic, will define you forever.) Communicate openly with your advisor about what you like and don’t like about specific research topics; advisors can’t know you’re unhappy if you toil in silence. Consider yourself underwhelmed or uninspired if: you are not genuinely curious about the answers to the questions your research is trying to solve, you don’t take some pleasure from the process, you’re not learning much, or you don’t find the high level goals of the project compelling.
  • Accept that drudgery is part of panning for gold. No research project worth doing is easy (or it would have already been done). No matter what you work on, you will have to spend some of your time collecting datasets, writing tests and documentation, fixing bugs, or pushing through proofs of less interesting lemmas. This is the nature of research.
  • Find Ph.D. students/friends to serve as sounding boards for ideas. Explain your research project to them and get their feedback. Do the same for them. The mere act of articulating what you’re doing and why you’re doing it can help you clarify your own ideas. Such sharing could even be the start of a beautiful research collaboration.

Embedding yourself within a research group

Once you have identified a research area, it is important to become integrated with that research group: Attend all the 590 and 591s that the group runs. If the group has a retreat, workshop or other activity, participate fully. Volunteer for group tasks, such as updating the website or whatever else is needed. Investment in your research group can pay great dividends, ranging from collaboration opportunities to a sense of belonging.

Formalizing your advisor relationship

The permanent advisor requirement

One of the requirements for passing quals at the Ph.D. level is that you have a permanent advisor: a faculty member who is willing to advise you through to the completion of your Ph.D. and who enthusiastically endorses your quals research project as sufficient to pass at the Ph.D. level. Commonly, students formalize a permanent advising relationship early in their second year.

Changing your temporary advisor

If you need to find a different advisor, start looking for a new one as soon as possible. Your time with your original temp advisor was not wasted: you learned about your interests, and you learned about one particular research style.

Should your temporary advisor become your permanent advisor?

While this is the usual course of events, it is a consequential decision that takes time. Start thinking about this issue during your first year. It is not always an obvious decision, and there are many factors for you to consider. Crucially, there should be solid matches in terms of both research and advising style.

Sealing the deal with your temporary advisor

Once you determine that you would like to make your relationship with your temporary advisor permanent, initiate a direct conversation with them to confirm that they are willing to accept this responsibility; the decision must be mutual. Your advisor will also need to be confident that there is a good research and personality match, convinced that you are motivated, diligent, and productive, and that the two of you communicate effectively. Your first year in the program is your opportunity to make a good impression, including seeking out and acting on constructive feedback.

How permanent is a ‘permanent’ advisor?

On occasion students do change permanent advisors. Act immediately as soon as you determine this is necessary. The process is the same as choosing your first permanent advisor. Again, here is the advisor change form.

Other aspects of the first year

Funding: RAs and TAs

When you were admitted to the Ph.D. program, you were guaranteed three years of academic-year (autumn, winter, spring, but not summer) funding in the form of an RA or a TA. A faculty member may have offered you an RA for your first year or part of your first year if your research interests and skills match and that person has sufficient funding. However, many students’ funding comes from TAing. If a student prefers an RA, but is unable to get one (e.g., because their advisor does not have sufficient funding), a TA position is guaranteed to be available to any Ph.D. student making satisfactory progress for the first three years of their program. For more on funding beyond the first year, see the funding section of Ongoing Conversations with your Advisor.

TAing is an excellent way to build a teaching portfolio, hone your technical communications skills, and firm up your foundations on technical topics. It is also a proven way to show leadership within a course community and develop mentorship skills.

For these reasons, the Allen School requires you to TA for at least two quarters while you are in the Ph.D. program. We recommend that you get your advisor’s advice about what courses might be the best choices for you to TA. You should TA at least once for someone who is not your advisor. This exposes you to a different teaching and course-management style, and it can be useful for letters of recommendation when you go on the job market.

As you develop a closer relationship with your temporary advisor and transition into a permanent advising relationship, you will probably want to have a discussion about funding in the future.

Juggling multiple responsibilities

During your first year, you will typically be taking courses to fulfill your quals requirements and possibly TAing. This means that you will be busy juggling many responsibilities in addition to conducting your research. An important strategy is to carve out time specifically for research, at a minimum of two half-days per week to start. Then, respect that commitment: don’t let it slide when there is a class deadline, social event, or some other conflict. Your goal is to do quality work in all aspects of graduate school, and starving any part of it will impede that goal. You may need to learn how to be more efficient at taking classes and TAing while still doing a good job on your research..

If your career goal is to teach at a 4-year college, then you may want to give TAing a slightly higher priority (though you will get more benefit from being the instructor of a class, for instance in the summer). However, you will not graduate without writing a dissertation on your original research, so it must remain a priority too.

If time management is not already a strength, you might want to check out some of these articles.

Cultivating skills

No matter how well prepared you were when you came into grad school, you will need to further develop a wide variety of skills, including time management, presentation skills, and academic writing. You will need to learn how to read research papers in your area deeply and effectively. You will also need to learn how to skim a broad cross-section of research papers so that you understand how to place your own research within the wider context, and properly build on and cite prior work. Here are some resources on all of these topics and many others. In addition, you should ask your advisor for help learning these things, or for suggestions on how to get such help and what to prioritize.