“If you have $100-150k saved up and just want the experience of thinking big thoughts around like-minded individuals”
Wow, I wish I had the kind of money lying around!!! But I dont think I would pay that kind of money to do a PhD, its like 1/3rd of a house! Unless I knew my PhD was going to earn me at least that kind of money after the 4 years or whatever it takes. O_o

1) funding. If you are in the humanities and can’t get funding that at least covers your entire tuition for a ma/phd program, you should reconsider why you are planning on going. If you have $100-150k saved up and just want the experience of thinking big thoughts around like-minded individuals, that’s another matter, but if you are actually pursuing this as a career, you will be in deep doo-doo if you graduate with a sizable amount of debt. If you can’t get funding this year, don’t go quite yet: instead, work hard on your own to get a publication, conference paper, website or similar professional thing together to make your application “funding-worthy.”

2) the right advisor. The right advisor has 3 attributes: he/she does work you and others admire, he/she is interested in your project, and he/she is known to be a good mentor for students (his/her former students have gone on to do great things). Defining good mentorship varies – some people like the sadistic kind of mentor that makes them cry every meeting, others like the nurturing type of mentor. You need to reflect back on who helped pull good work out of you and realistically assess what kind of situation you would be comfortable being in for the next few years. When you find the right advisor, tackle them in the halls between classes and use whatever paranormal mind-control tricks you have to convince them to invest in you as an advisee. On the last point, it may take a few months for the mind-control tricks to take effect, so plan early.

3) a library with a good ILL (interlibrary loan) program and online access to all the humanities journals you actually need. I’ve found that it’s less important that the holdings are sizable.

I think all the stuff about location, time-to-graduation, the strength of the department in your *specialized* research area (as long as they are strong in something, that’s fine, typically) is ultimately less important or even irrelevant. In fact, the worse the location, the less likely you’ll go out or find distractions, and the more work you’ll get done.

1. Have some coherent idea of what your project will be on (especially where your supervisor isn’t going to decide for you (this can be very frustrating, disheartening and depressing, but IMO they want you to make a decision you can stick with.
2. Make sure your supervisors have some interest/experience with your project, there is nothing worse than being the only PhD in a department who is dealing with a specific topic (e.g. Internet studies) and your supers and all potential others dont know/care either. This can either make or break YOU and your project (trust me).
3. Surround yourself with as many people as you can to have catch up for coffee/lunch, who are going to be able to relate to your anxieties/stress and help you to vent when you need and to give positive ideas. My office mates are fantastic and TBH my office mate is of more use than my supervisors.
4. Ensure you have a regular communication schedule and your supervisors earn their keep by helping you, not “go away and think about it”. If you need constructive criticism or more than just the dismissal, say so! They are PAID to be your supervisors, its the plus on their academic resume, so work them. This I am finding the hard way, my Supers were both really busy/are really busy and so I’m left meandering from idea to idea kinda keeping on track and getting no feedback. It is totally demoralising.
5. Realise that when you become a PhD the rapport with your super will change, sometimes not for the better: I got on pretty well with my Super in Honours, but as soon as I started my PhD he turned cold. I spoke to an academic counsellor who said that some academics give some hard love to their PhDs because they expect them to be adult academics now, not spoonfed undergrads or Honours students. Yet, in some cases, some treat their PhD students more like equals. And dont compare PhD experiences between completely different faculties, like Science to Social Science. It will only serve to upset you more (unless its better on your side).

Alright, my 2c from a frustrated, mortgaged and orphaned PhD student. At the worst I’m sorry for repeating anything previously said and thanks to danah for letting me Aussie rant/advise on her blog. ^.^

…And then I noticed the “Choosing the Right Grad School” hyperlink.

I was awarded a scholarship to do a PhD at a uni (sitting somewhere in the top 150, thank god), primarily guided by a senior academic (A) and the earlier-mentioned management driven supervisor (B). I thought I was getting the best of both worlds (A being theoretically-driven; B being the management-driven – corporate-ish). This was before realising the meaning of the word “office politics” – being an international student in a foreign country, u do not only grapple with trying to adapt to the local culture, but also anything that happens within the dept is ‘new’ to someone like me too.

(A) later passed me on to another co-supervisor (he was promoted to manage a sub-division of the uni, hence was too busy to give me the attention required). Now, I’m stuck with (B) who’s hardly ‘there’ for me, and boasts of having the supposed IT expertise dating back 10 years ago. Oh, did I mention that (A) is the head of department (HoD) – so busy is his middle name. In no way has my supervisor done what @Flip has mentioned – “sending you to conferences, putting you together with colleagues, etc; or through a good list of industry contacts).” Amusingly enough, it has been ME who did all that(eg. recommended a journal TO my supervisor for a paper that I was working on; suggesting conferences TO my supervisor and asking him if it was fitting for me). But to be fair, having him as the HoD has its benefits (eg. funding opportunities, industry contacts), etc.

So everything has to be taken with a pinch of salt. I’m now in my final year of the thesis, and I always tell new grad students that it is YOU who manage the rship with ur supervisor, and not the other way round. Students have to take ownership of their talents, skills, knowledge, and not be intimidated by supervisors. THis is especially hard for me, coming from an Oriental culture – we’ve been taught to ‘never question seniority/authority’. It was extremely hard for me to manoeuvre my way around (A), losing sleep sometimes trying to work out a way to ‘talk’ to him and bring some attention to my problems (eg. not reading my stuff, despite constant reminders and printouts), without affecting the delicate balance btwn us. So I’d have to disagree with @Katy – to me, the final year is the most difficult one. I was led to believe that I had an awesome supervisor, but his true colours showed as time passed, further confirmed by claims by other disgruntled supervisees under his wings.

At the end of the day, supervisors should be the one who are pleased to have YOU on board as a PhD student (it amps their academic CV for having students ‘completing’ the programme), so with all due respect – we are their bosses, and not the other way round.

Moral of the story: Despite all that u can do at your end of the bargain – some ounce of faith is needed in hopes that your PhD journey is a smooth one.

Speaking as a professor at a university that has an MA but doesn’t have a PhD program in media studies, I’d like to add that once you’re in a program, you can always consider asking someone outside your university to serve as an “outside” or “external” reader or 5th or 6th committee member. Most universities allow this and it’s a great way to work with someone you realize you’d like to have in your scholarly network but who isn’t at your university, if they’re willing to take on the extra work. I work with 2-3 students a year in this way and always welcome the opportunity to talk with promising grad students via Skype, email, and/or chat. I’m sure there are many other profs who would enjoy that, too.

An added bonus is that contacts outside your university can be important references for you once you’re on the job market.

- “What is the student retention rate?” is one obvious question. However, this statistic needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Students “on leave”, even for several years at a time, are typically not factored in. Or, if a student graduates with a M.S. from a Ph.D. program, this may be counted as a “graduation”. It’s better to look at this just for the advisors you’re considering. Current students of an advisor may be able to point you to former students who switched or left.
- Is it generally expected that you’ll leave with a Ph.D., or are there “weed out” mechanisms? It’s expected to stress about quals, but most programs still have a pretty high success rate, or at least don’t automatically boot you out if you don’t pass the first time.
- “When students have left, what were their reasons?” Again, you need to read into the response. If faculty (or especially other students) answer is along the lines of “they couldn’t hack it”, that’s a warning sign.
- “How easy is it to switch advisors?” Even if you do everything right in choosing an advisor, sometimes it doesn’t work out. In some programs, this is taken in stride and the department does its best to try to find a better match. In others, it’s considered to be the student’s problem alone, and it becomes difficult to find a new advisor (since other professors may think you’re just too risky, either academically or politically).
- Try to seek out nth-year students, and not just the “stars” that people talk about. Students who have been around longer will probably have seen/heard the worst and can usually afford to be honest. If prospective student weekends are well-attended by 4+ year students, that’s often a good sign. Students who don’t like it there aren’t going to try to sell you on the school, and if students are still positive about their experience even in the depth of thesis hell then the school is probably doing something right.

It’s expected that visiting students ask the tough questions, so don’t be shy about it (even if students do look uncomfortable answering). Every school will have some degree of politics, bad advising experiences, funding issues, etc. The important thing is that there is a way of handling these things such that the number of times students get screwed over is minimal.