Getting Started—Approaching Faculty
Approaching a faculty member to serve as your research advisor requires careful planning and preparation.
We recommend a two-meeting approach, following the steps outlined below, as you begin to make contact with a potential faculty research advisor.
Meeting #1
The first meeting has two purposes:
- Meet the faculty member and find out about the research he/she is doing.
- Help you assess your comfort level in working with the person.
Your goal for this first meeting is not to procure a research agreement, but rather to take away a piece of advice or an assignment that you may pursue further. This may be an assignment for further reading, an appointment to tour the lab or research site, or a suggestion for another professor or graduate student with whom you should talk.
Before Meeting #1
Step 1:
Conduct background research on the professor’s current scholarship, research, and recent publications. Good starting points are the ILLIAD faculty interests database, the professor’s personal web pages (usually linked from the departmental web pages), and library online catalogs and databases. Your goal is to identify commonalities in your intellectual interests and to identify topics to discuss during your initial meeting.
Step 2:
Plan an agenda, a set of questions, or a list of topics to guide your discussion with the faculty member, as well as an idea of what you might like your “assignment” for follow-up to be. Your goal is to go into your meeting with the professor having a clear idea of your interests and a convincing picture of your engagement in the topic.
After Meeting #1:
Take some time to reflect upon whether this faculty member would be a good match for your interests and expectations.
Step 3a:
If you decide this faculty member is not right for you, write a note (or e-mail) thanking the faculty member for his/her time, and return any article or book that you may have borrowed. You should always seek to maintain good relations with the faculty member, even if you know you won’t likely work with her/him in the near future.
Step 3b:
If you are interested in pursuing a research advising relationship with the faculty member, do the assignment you set up at the conclusion of Meeting #1: read the article, talk with the graduate or other students in the lab, read some other work the faculty member has done. Then set up Meeting #2.
Meeting #2
Plan to focus your conversation on the assignment you have undertaken since Meeting #1. Discuss your reactions, questions, and interest in pursuing specific research questions raised in the assignment, etc. Now, the time has come to express that you are very excited about this topic and that you would like to find a way to get more involved through a research assistantship in the lab or working group, a directed reading project, or another research opportunity.
It is possible that the professor will be unable at the time to take on another student. Or you may decide that the professor is not the right intellectual fit for you. You should then ask for a reference to another faculty member with similar areas of interest whom you might approach and begin the two-meeting process again. Be sure to send a thank-you note.