my phd advisor

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• CAREER COLUMN
• 10 December 2021

Managing up: how to communicate effectively with your PhD adviser

• Lluís Saló-Salgado 0 ,
• Angi Acocella 1 ,
• Ignacio Arzuaga García 2 ,
• Souha El Mousadik 3 &
• Augustine Zvinavashe 4

Lluís Saló-Salgado is a PhD candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Twitter: @lluis_salo.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Angi Acocella is a PhD candidate in the Center for Transportation & Logistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. LinkedIn: @angi-acocella.

Ignacio Arzuaga García is a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. LinkedIn: @ignacioarzuaga.

Souha El Mousadik is a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

Augustine Zvinavashe is a PhD candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

When you start a PhD, you also begin a professional relationship with your PhD adviser. This is an exciting moment: interacting with someone for whom you might well have great respect and admiration, but who might also slightly intimidate you.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-03703-z

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged .

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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What Makes A Good PhD Supervisor?

• By Dr Harry Hothi
• August 12, 2020

A good PhD supervisor has a track record of supervising PhD students through to completion, has a strong publication record, is active in their research field, has sufficient time to provide adequate supervision, is genuinely interested in your project, can provide mentorship and has a supportive personality.

Introduction

The indicators that you’ll have the best chance of succeeding in your PhD project are multi-factorial. You’ll need to secure funding, find a research project that you’re interested in and is within your academic area of expertise, maybe even write your own research proposal, and find a good supervisor that will help guide you through PhD life.

As you research more into life as a doctoral student, you’ll appreciate that choosing a good supervisor is one of the most important factors that can influence the success of your project, and even If you complete your PhD at all. You need to find a good supervisory relationship with someone who has a genuine research interest in your project.

This page outlines the top qualities to look for as indicators of an ideal PhD supervisor. But before we get to that, we should be clear on precisely what the supervisor is there to do, and what they are not.

The Role of a PhD Supervisor

A PhD supervisor is there to guide you as you work through PhD life and help you make informed decisions about how you shape your PhD project. The key elements of their supervisory role include:

• To help ensure that you stay on schedule and maintain constant progress of your research so that you ultimately finish your PhD within your intended time frame, typically three to four years.
• To advise and guide you based on their knowledge and expertise in your subject area.
• To help you in the decision-making process as you design, prepare and execute your study design.
• To work with you as you analyse your raw data and begin to draw conclusions about key findings that are coming out of your research.
• To provide feedback and edits where necessary on your manuscripts and elements of your thesis writing.
• To encourage and motivate you and provide ongoing support as a mentor.
• To provide support at a human level, beyond just the academic challenges.

It’s important that you know from the outset what a supervisor isn’t there to do, so that your expectations of the PhDstudent-supervisor relationship are correct. A supervisor cannot and should not create your study design or tell you how you should run your experiments or help you write your thesis. Broadly speaking, you as a PhD student will create, develop and refine content for your thesis, and your supervisor will help you improve this content by providing you with continuous constructive feedback.

There’s a balance to be found here in what makes a good PhD supervisor, ranging from one extreme of providing very little support during a research project, to becoming too involved in the running of the project to the extent that it takes away from it being an independent body of work by the graduate student themselves. Ultimately, what makes a good supervisor is someone you can build a rapport with, who helps bring out the best in you to produce a well written, significant body of research that contributes novel findings to your subject area.

Read on to learn the key qualities you should consider when looking for a good PhD supervisor.

Qualities to Look For in A Good PhD Supervisor

1. a track record of successful phd student supervision.

A quick first check to gauge how good a prospective supervisor is is to find out how many students they’ve successfully supervised in the past; i.e. how many students have earned their PhD under their supervision. Ideally, you’d want to go one step further and find out:

• How many students they’ve supervised in total previously and of those, what percentage have gone onto gain their PhDs; however, this level of detail may not always be easy to find online. Most often though, a conversation with a potential supervisor and even their current or previous students should help you get an idea of this.
• What were the project titles and specifically the areas of research that they supervised on? Are these similar to your intended project or are they significantly different from the type of work performed in the academic’s lab in the past? Of the current students in the lab, are there any projects that could complement yours
• Did any of the previous PhD students publish the work of their doctoral research in peer-reviewed journals and present at conferences? It’s a great sign if they have, and in particular, if they’re named first authors in some or all of these publications.

This isn’t to say that a potential supervisor without a track record of PhD supervision is necessarily a bad fit, especially if the supervisor is relatively new to the position and is still establishing their research group. It is, however, reassuring if you know they have supervision experience in supporting students to successful PhD completion.

2. Is an Expert in their Field of Research

As a PhD candidate, you will want your supervisor to have a high level of research expertise within the field that your own research topic sits in. This expertise will be essential if they are to help guide you through your research and keep you on track to what is most novel and impactful to your research area.

Your supervisor doesn’t necessarily need to have all the answers to questions that arise in your specific PhD project, but should know enough to be able to have useful conversations about your research. It will be your responsibility to discover the answers to problems as they arise, and you should even expect to complete your PhD with a higher level of expertise about your project than your supervisor.

The best way to determine if your supervisor has the expertise to supervise you properly is to look at their publication track record. The things you need to look for are:

• How often do they publish papers in peer-reviewed journals, and are they still actively involved in new papers coming out in the research field?
• What type of journals have they published in? For example, are most papers in comparatively low impact factor journals, or do they have at least some in the ‘big’ journals within your field?
• How many citations do they have from their research? This can be a good indicator of the value that other researchgroups place on these publications; having 50 papers published that have been cited only 10 times may (but not always) suggest that this research is not directly relevant to the subject area or focus from other groups.
• How many co-authors has your potential supervisor published with? Many authors from different institutions is a good indicator of a vast collaborative professional network that could be useful to you.

There’re no hard metrics here as to how many papers or citations an individual needs to be considered an expert, and these numbers can vary considerably between different disciplines. Instead, it’s better to get a sense of where your potential supervisor’s track record sits in comparison to other researchers in the same field; remember that it would be unfair to directly compare the output of a new university lecturer with a well-established professor who has naturally led more research projects.

Equally, this exercise is a good way for you to better understand how interested your supervisor will be in your research; if you find that much of their research output is directly related to your PhD study, then it’s logical that your supervisor has a real interest here. While the opposite is not necessarily true, it’s understandable from a human perspective that a supervisor may be less interested in a project that doesn’t help to further their own research work, especially if they’re already very busy.

Two excellent resources to look up publications are Google Scholar and ResearchGate .

3. Has Enough Time to Provide Good PhD Supervision

This seems like an obvious point, but it’s worth emphasising: how smoothly your PhD goes and ultimately how successful it is, will largely be influenced by how much time your research supervisor has to provide guidance, constructive academic advice and mentorship. The fact that your supervisor is the world’s leading expert in your field becomes a moot point if they don’t have time to meet you.

A good PhD supervisor will take the time to meet with you regularly in person (ideally) or remotely and be reachable and responsive to questions as and when they arise (e.g. through email or video calling). As a student, you want to have a research environment where you know you can drop by your supervisors’ office for a quick chat, or that you’ll see them around the university regularly; chance encounters and corridor discussions are sometimes the most impactful when working through problems.

Unsurprisingly, however, most academics who are well-known experts in their field are also usually some of the busiest too. It’s common for established academic supervisors to have several commitments competing for their time. These can include teaching and supervising undergraduate students, masters students and post-docs, travelling to collaborator meetings or invited talks, managing the growth of their academic department or graduate school, sitting on advisory boards and writing grants for funding applications. Beware of the other obligations they may have and how this could impact your work relationship.

You’ll need to find a balance here to find a PhD supervisor who has the academic knowledge to support you, but also the time to do so; talking to their current and past students will help you get a sense of this. It’s also reassuring to know that your supervisor has a permanent position within your university and has no plans for a sabbatical during your time as a PhD researcher.

4. Is a Good Mentor with a Supportive Personality

A PhD project is an exercise in independently producing a substantial body of research work; the primary role of your supervisor should be to provide mentoring to help you achieve this. You want to have a supervisor with the necessary academic knowledge, but it is just as important to have a supportive supervisor who is actively willing and able to provide you constructive criticism on your work in a consistent manner. You’ll likely get a sense of their personality during your first few meetings with them when discussing your research proposal; if you feel there’s a disconnect between you as a PhD student and your potential supervisor at this stage, it’s better to decide on other options with different supervisors.

A good supervisor will help direct you towards the best outcomes in your PhD research when you reach crossroads. They will work with you to develop a structure for your thesis and encourage you to set deadlines to work to and push you to achieve these. A good mentor should be able to recognise when you need more support in a specific area, be it a technical academic hurdle or simply some guidance in developing efficient work patterns and routines, and have the communication skills to help you recognise and overcome them.

A good supervisor should share the same mindset as you about finishing your PhD within a reasonable time frame; in the UK this would be within three to four years as a full-time university student. Their encouragement should reflect this and (gently) push you to set and reach mini-milestones throughout your project to ensure you stay on track with progress. This is a great example of when a supportive personality and positive attitude is essential for you both to maintain a good professional relationship throughout a PhD. The ideal supervisor will bring out the best in you without becoming prescriptive in their guidance, allowing you the freedom to develop your own working style.

Finding a PhD has never been this easy – search for a PhD by keyword, location or academic area of interest.

To sum up, the qualities you should look for in a good PhD supervisor are that they have a strong understanding of your research field, demonstrated by regular and impactful publications, have a proven track record of PhD supervision, have the time to support you, and will do so by providing mentorship rather than being a ‘boss’.

As a final point, if you’re considering a research career after you finish your PhD journey, get a sense of if there may any research opportunities to continue as a postdoc with the supervisor if you so wanted.

You’ll come across many academics with PhD, some using the title of Doctor and others using Professor. This blog post helps you understand the differences.

Learn 10 ways to impress a PhD supervisor for increasing your chances of securing a project, developing a great working relationship and more.

Stay up to date with current information being provided by the UK Government and Universities about the impact of the global pandemic on PhD research studies.

Join thousands of other students and stay up to date with the latest PhD programmes, funding opportunities and advice.

Browse PhDs Now

Thinking about applying to a PhD? Then don’t miss out on these 4 tips on how to best prepare your application.

Bethany is a 1st year PhD student at the University of Bath, researching the adaptation of a self-help smartphone app (BlueIce) to prevent self-harm and improve the mood of University students.

Julia is entering the third year of a combined master’s and PhD program at Stanford University. Her research explores how to give robots the sense of touch to make them more useful for tasks such as dexterous manipulation.

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Managing up: how to communicate effectively with your PhD adviser

CEE members Lluís Saló-Salgado, Angi Acocella, Ignacio Arzuaga García (Communication Fellow), Souha El Mousadik (Communication Fellow) & Augustine Zvinavashe published a Nature career advice article based on a September 2021 CEE Comm Lab panel event:

When you start a PhD, you also begin a professional relationship with your PhD adviser. This is an exciting moment: interacting with someone for whom you might well have great respect and admiration, but who might also slightly intimidate you.

They will have their own management style, but ‘managing up’ is important, so you need to identify the style that will help you to thrive academically, and communicate that to your adviser.

In September, we ran a panel discussion for new graduate students in the department of civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. One focus of the panel was how to communicate effectively with your PhD adviser; we based this on skills we have developed since starting our programmes three to five years ago. Our different nationalities, genders, academic backgrounds, research fields and advisers have led to five different experiences. But we agree on the following set of guidelines…

Read the full article here in the Nature Career column .

Ten types of PhD supervisor relationships – which is yours?

Lecturer, Griffith University

Disclosure statement

Susanna Chamberlain does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Griffith University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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It’s no secret that getting a PhD is a stressful process .

One of the factors that can help or hinder this period of study is the relationship between supervisor and student. Research shows that effective supervision can significantly influence the quality of the PhD and its success or failure.

PhD supervisors tend to fulfil several functions: the teacher; the mentor who can support and facilitate the emotional processes; and the patron who manages the springboard from which the student can leap into a career.

There are many styles of supervision that are adopted – and these can vary depending on the type of research being conducted and subject area.

Although research suggests that providing extra mentoring support and striking the right balance between affiliation and control can help improve PhD success and supervisor relationships, there is little research on the types of PhD-supervisor relationships that occur.

From decades of experience of conducting and observing PhD supervision, I’ve noticed ten types of common supervisor relationships that occur. These include:

The candidate is expected to replicate the field, approach and worldview of the supervisor, producing a sliver of research that supports the supervisor’s repute and prestige. Often this is accompanied by strictures about not attempting to be too “creative”.

Cheap labour

The student becomes research assistant to the supervisor’s projects and becomes caught forever in that power imbalance. The patron-client roles often continue long after graduation, with the student forever cast in the secondary role. Their own work is often disregarded as being unimportant.

The “ghost supervisor”

The supervisor is seen rarely, responds to emails only occasionally and has rarely any understanding of either the needs of the student or of their project. For determined students, who will work autonomously, the ghost supervisor is often acceptable until the crunch comes - usually towards the end of the writing process. For those who need some support and engagement, this is a nightmare.

The relationship is overly familiar, with the assurance that we are all good friends, and the student is drawn into family and friendship networks. Situations occur where the PhD students are engaged as babysitters or in other domestic roles (usually unpaid because they don’t want to upset the supervisor by asking for money). The chum, however, often does not support the student in professional networks.

Collateral damage

When the supervisor is a high-powered researcher, the relationship can be based on minimal contact, because of frequent significant appearances around the world. The student may find themselves taking on teaching, marking and administrative functions for the supervisor at the cost of their own learning and research.

The practice of supervision becomes a method of intellectual torment, denigrating everything presented by the student. Each piece of research is interrogated rigorously, every meeting is an inquisition and every piece of writing is edited into oblivion. The student is given to believe that they are worthless and stupid.

Creepy crawlers

Some supervisors prefer to stalk their students, sometimes students stalk their supervisors, each with an unhealthy and unrequited sexual obsession with the other. Most Australian universities have moved actively to address this relationship, making it less common than in previous decades.

Captivate and con

Occasionally, supervisor and student enter into a sexual relationship. This can be for a number of reasons, ranging from a desire to please to a need for power over youth. These affairs can sometimes lead to permanent relationships. However, what remains from the supervisor-student relationship is the asymmetric set of power balances.

Almost all supervision relationships contain some aspect of the counsellor or mentor, but there is often little training or desire to develop the role and it is often dismissed as pastoral care. Although the life experiences of students become obvious, few supervisors are skilled in dealing with the emotional or affective issues.

Colleague in training

When a PhD candidate is treated as a colleague in training, the relationship is always on a professional basis, where the individual and their work is held in respect. The supervisor recognises that their role is to guide through the morass of regulation and requirements, offer suggestions and do some teaching around issues such as methodology, research practice and process, and be sensitive to the life-cycle of the PhD process. The experience for both the supervisor and student should be one of acknowledgement of each other, recognising the power differential but emphasising the support at this time. This is the best of supervision.

There are many university policies that move to address a lot of the issues in supervisor relationships , such as supervisor panels, and dedicated training in supervising and mentoring practices. However, these policies need to be accommodated into already overloaded workloads and should include regular review of supervisors.

• professional mentoring
• PhD supervisors

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Volume 19 (2023), special issue on “subfactors and related topics” in memory of vaughan jones.

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Thinking of Pursuing a PhD in Economics? Info on Graduate School and Beyond

Kasey Chatterji-Len and Anna Kovner

Becoming a PhD economist can provide a fulfilling and financially secure career path. However, getting started in the field can be daunting if you don’t know much about the preparation you’ll need and the available job opportunities. If you’re wondering what it means to be an economics researcher or how to become one, please read on. We’ll review how to prepare for a career in economics research, what an economics PhD program entails, and what types of opportunities it might bring. Economic education is a core component of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s mission to serve the community. To empower would-be economists, this post provides information for students who seek a career in economics research. We hope this information will be helpful to students interested in economics, regardless of their background and economic situation.  This information is most applicable to students applying to programs in the United States.  

The Breadth of Economics Research  

Academic disciplines conduct research in different ways, so it’s important to have a basic understanding of the types of questions economists ask and how they approach answering them. There are many definitions of economics, but a broadly useful one is the study of how people, organizations, and governments make decisions under different constraints, and how those decisions may affect their outcomes. 

When answering these questions, economists seek to ground their analyses in models and to be quantitatively precise about the effects they assign to any given cause. The range of topics economists can study is wide, but the accepted approaches to answering questions are stricter. Some examples of what economists might ask: 

• How do different public housing programs affect the children who live there? 
• Does a certain type of law encourage businesses to innovate? 
• How will a change in the interest rate affect inflation and unemployment rates? 
• How much does affordable health insurance improve people’s health? 
• How can poor countries eradicate poverty? 

There are many different subfields within economics, including, but not limited to behavioral, econometrics, energy/environmental, development, financial, international, monetary, public, and urban economics. You can familiarize yourself with the latest work in economics by subscribing to working paper series, such as NBER’s New This Week or the New York Fed’s Staff Reports . To get an idea of the breadth of questions economists can answer, you could listen to Stephen Dubner’s “ Freakonomics Radio ” podcast. You may also want to explore the Journal of Economic Perspectives , the New York Fed’s Liberty Street Economics blog, VoxDev , or VoxEU .  

What Is a PhD Program Like?    

Economics PhD programs typically last five to seven years. Unlike masters programs, they are often fully funded with a stipend, though most require students to complete teaching assistant and/or research assistant (RA) work as part of their funding package. In the first two years, students take classes, many of which are mathematically demanding. The rest of the program can include additional classes but is primarily devoted to original research with the aim of producing publishable papers that will constitute the dissertation.  

Faculty advisors are a central part of PhD programs, as students look to them for guidance during the research process. Economics PhD programs are offered within university economics departments, but there are similar programs in public policy and business schools. You can look at their websites to understand any differences in coursework and subsequent job placements. 

What Can You Do with an Economics PhD?  

Upon graduation, students can obtain jobs in a variety of industries. Many PhD students hope to become university professors. Governments and public policy-related institutions such as the Federal Reserve System, the U.S. federal government, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also hire economists to work on policy, lead programs, and conduct research. Finally, economics PhD graduates can also find employment at a variety of private sector companies, including banks, economic consulting firms, and big tech companies. The pay for these different positions can vary. According to the American Economics Association (AEA), the average starting salary for economics assistant professors in 2022-23 was approximately $140,000 at PhD granting institutions and $98,000 at BA granting institutions. 

Programs often publish the placements of their PhD graduates, so you can look online to see specific employment outcomes. See, for example, the University of Maryland’s placements . Ultimately, economists are highly regarded as authorities on a variety of topics. Governments, nonprofits, philanthropic foundations, financial institutions, and non-financial businesses all look to economists to answer important questions about how to best achieve their goals. Thus, earning an economics Ph.D. can potentially help you to influence issues that are important to you. 

Preparing for an Economics PhD Program  

There are several components to an economics PhD program application: college transcripts, GRE scores, letters of recommendation, and personal statements. Please download the Appendix linked below to learn more about transcripts and letters of recommendation. The Appendix details ways in which you can select coursework, obtain research experience, and develop relationships to position yourself for success as a PhD applicant.  

If you feel that you are too far along in your academic career to take enough of the classes described in the Appendix, this does not necessarily preclude you from pursuing an economics PhD. For example, it’s possible to take some of these classes through a master’s program, or through a pre-doctoral RA job. Some pre-doctoral RA jobs, such as the one here at the New York Fed , may enable you to take classes in preparation for graduate school. If you are concerned about your transcript, reach out to an economist at your university for advice; program standards for coursework and grades vary, and it’s a good idea to get more personalized advice. 

Research Experience   

If you’re interested in becoming an economics researcher and applying to PhD programs, it’s best to get research experience as soon as possible. Working as an RA is a great way to learn how to conduct research and get a better idea of whether it’s the right career path for you. Additionally, it can help you obtain a letter of recommendation for graduate school applications and improve your qualifications.  

All types of academic research can be enriching, but it’s beneficial to gain experience working directly with an economist. To find a position, you can reach out to professors whose work you find interesting or find an RA program at your school. Typical RA tasks may involve data collection and cleaning, as well as running analyses and creating charts to represent results. This is where coding skills become crucial; having taken math, statistics, and econometrics courses will also enable you to take on more responsibilities. 

You may also have the opportunity to conduct your own research, possibly under the supervision of a professor at your university. This research could be self-initiated or part of a course such as a thesis workshop. Self-directed research is a great opportunity to learn about all stages of the research process. It’s also an excellent opportunity to create a writing sample for graduate school applications. Ultimately, though, your motivation for conducting your own research project should be that you want to answer a question.  One thing economists have in common is a love of answering questions using data and theory. 

Research experience is also often obtained after completing an undergraduate or master’s degree. Taking on a full-time RA position before applying to PhD programs is very common and can make you a more competitive applicant. You may either get an RA job working for a professor or participate in a pre-doctoral RA program.  

Research assistant programs are more structured than positions with individual professors or projects, which could be helpful. Universities, parts of the government, think tanks, research organizations, and the Federal Reserve System are all good places to look for research assistant programs. To help you decide which opportunities are most desirable, you may want to ask potential employers : Where do people in this program tend to go afterward? Will I be working directly with an economist? How much of my time will be spent on academic research work? Will I be able to take classes as part of this program? Considering whether an economist will be able to evaluate your performance is an important factor for recommendation letters. The ability to take classes, either through tuition reimbursement or waivers, can also be an important benefit. 

The Research Analyst program here at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is one example of these programs and you should check it out here . The Federal Reserve Board of Governors also has a large program, and many other regional Federal Reserve Banks have similar programs. In addition, the PREDOC website and the  NBER post listings of RA opportunities. J-PAL and IPA also tend to recruit RAs for economic development projects. Another source of RA opportunities is the @econ_ra account on X. 

Who Should Get a PhD in Economics?  

A PhD may not be for everyone, but it is for anyone—people of all genders, religions, ethnicities, races, and national origins have PhDs in economics. Many economists majored in economics, but others majored in math, physics, or chemistry. Because economics is such an integral part of policymaking, it is important that economists come from a wide range of backgrounds so policy can be stronger and more effective. The inclusion of differing perspectives helps ensure that the contribution of economists to work in public policy, academia, and beyond effectively serves the broadest range of society. 

• Coursework Appendix

Kasey Chatterji-Len is a research analyst in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Research and Statistics Group.

Anna Kovner  is the director of Financial Stability Policy Research in the Bank’s Research and Statistics Group.

How to cite this post: Kasey Chatterji-Len and Anna Kovner, “Thinking of Pursuing a PhD in Economics? Info on Graduate School and Beyond,” Federal Reserve Bank of New York Liberty Street Economics , May 31, 2024, https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2024/05/thinking-of-pursuing-a-phd-in-economics-info-on-graduate-school-and-beyond/.

You may also be interested in: AEA: Resources for Students

PREDOC: Guidance for Undergraduates

RA Positions-Not at the NBER

Disclaimer The views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the author(s).

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Liberty Street Economics features insight and analysis from New York Fed economists working at the intersection of research and policy. Launched in 2011, the blog takes its name from the Bank’s headquarters at 33 Liberty Street in Manhattan’s Financial District.

The editors are Michael Fleming, Andrew Haughwout, Thomas Klitgaard, and Asani Sarkar, all economists in the Bank’s Research Group.

Liberty Street Economics does not publish new posts during the blackout periods surrounding Federal Open Market Committee meetings.

The views expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the New York Fed or the Federal Reserve System.

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Statistics and Actuarial Science

Information for new graduate students in actuarial science, data science and statistics at the university of iowa..

Welcome New Graduate Students!

Information for NEW graduate students in Actuarial Science, Data Science and Statistics at the University of Iowa. 

Last Updated, May 31, 2024.                                   Additional  updates will be sent this summer!

Important Information for International Students

The Office of International Students and Scholars does an incredible job helping you settle into Iowa City and the University of Iowa.  They have webinars to help with:  

1. Getting Started and Making Travel Arrangements

2. Achieving Success: On-campus Involvement and Cultural Adjustment (undergraduate students)

3. Graduate Student Professionalization and Support

4. Understanding Orientation Expectations, Responsibilities, and Placement Tests (graduate students)

5. On-campus Housing Assignments and Move-in Tips (undergraduate students)

6. Student Employment

7. Money Matters - University Billing

Do you need to take the SPEC (Spoken Proficiency of English for the Classroom)?

All students for whom English is not a first language (as self-reported on their admissions application) and who have first-time appointments as graduate teaching assistants (TAs) are required to go through a testing process to assess their effectiveness in speaking English before they are assigned assistantship responsibilities. Beginning in Fall 2024, there will be a new test to assess communication in English in a classroom context called SPEC (Spoken Proficiency of English in the Classroom).  This is replacing ESPA and ELPT.  Details will be coming soon.

Any graduate student who is included in the following categories needs to have their oral English proficiency tested by the TAPE Program:

• Students whose first language is not English (i.e., learned another language first) as self-reported on their admissions application, and
• Have been appointed as a Teaching Assistant

Exemptions (may change):

• Students with an official valid (within the last two years) iBT Listening score of 25 and an iBT Speaking score of 26.
• Undergraduate degrees and/or     
• Continuous attendance of English-language schools since the age of 12 (or younger)
• Students who served as teaching assistants at other institutions of higher learning in which the language of instruction is English, if they were listed as the instructor of record for a course or led a discussion section in English for at least one year, with a year defined as either two academic semesters or three academic quarters.
• Requests for exceptions regarding the SPEC  can be submitted for evaluation to a committee consisting of the Director of ESL Programs, the Associate Dean for Administrative Affairs in the Graduate College, and a representative from University Human Resources.

Requests for exemption and exceptions must come from the department by the deadline, not the student.   Deadlines to register students for the SPEC are:

• March 1  

NOT Exemptions:

• Students who come from a country where English is one of the official languages.
• Students who are U.S. permanent residents or U.S. citizens whose first language is not English.

Testing Procedures & Results

 To be announced soon!

Graduate/Professional International Students Important Dates

July 12, 2024:  Earliest date you may enter the U.S. in F-1 or J-1 status. August 11, 2024:  Latest date by which you should arrive in Iowa City August 12 - 16, 2024: International Student Orientation August 26, 2024:  Classes begin.

Housing Information for All Students

The department has a housing webpage, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. If you are looking for a roommate, please let us know and we can update this web page!

Looking for housing options ?

All US citizens that are financially supported (TA, RA) need to be here on August 21.

All students will register for classes the week before classes start.  International students must complete the required Orientation Program before  they can register for classes.    

____________________

Fall Classes Advising will be August 19-23

All NEW UI students must meet with their advisor prior to registration.  There is no worry about getting into any of the classes we teach.  

• IF you are an Actuarial Science MS or PhD student you will need to meet with Professor Shyamalkumar.  Email him after August 12 at [email protected] to set a time to meet to discuss what classes to take, it may be on Zoom or in his office (233 Schaeffer Hall).
• IF you are a Data Science MS, Statistics MS, or PhD student you will need to meet with Professor Boxiang Wang.  Email him after August 12 at [email protected]  to set a time to meet to discuss what classes to take, it may be on Zoom or in his office (261 Schaeffer Hall).

New Graduate College Welcome and Orientation, August 21

The Graduate College Fall 2024 Graduate Student Orientation event will take place on Wednesday, August 21, 2024.  A registration form will be sent to your UI email sometime this early summer from the Graduate College. All new doctoral and master’s students are invited to attend.  

New Teaching Assistant Orientation, August 22- required for all new supported students

Sponsored by the Center for Teaching

This event will introduce participants to the role of teaching assistant at the University of Iowa and prepare them for the first week of classes and beyond. 

Participants will discuss evidence-based teaching strategies for lesson planning, inclusive teaching, and more with Center for Teaching staff. Participants will also choose two workshops of interest to them out of several options; these will be facilitated synchronously by experienced TAs.  This is a virtual event for 9-noon.

• Sign up before August 21!

New Student Department Orientation, August 23 at 9 a.m., Room to be determined.

• All New Student Orientation —Group Introductions and General Policy Procedures.

New Supported Graduate Assistants Orientation, August 23 at 1 p.m., Room to be determined.

• Our Director of Graduate Studies will have a department review of expectations and your specific roles in our department. Teaching and grading assignments will be explained, as well as preparation, teaching tips, problems and questions, quizzes and exams, weekly meetings, grading, appropriate office use and the Sexual Harassment Prevention Education

Mailbox in 241 Schaeffer Hall 

All graduate students will have a mailbox in our main office.  The faculty do as well.  Please check your mailbox at least once a week!

Office Desk Assignment

Nearly all supported students will have a desk in one of our offices.  The assignment priority (in this order) includes Ph.D. and Fellowship candidates, research assistants, half-time teaching assistants, quarter-time teaching assistants and lastly graders.  Having a desk is a privilege and should be used only for university business.  Office assignments will be given to students on, August 23.  Keys are checked out ONLY after that time.  Please remember to keep the rooms clean and take out all trash to the large bins in the main hallways.

Set-up your University of Iowa Email

All University of Iowa students are required to activate their assigned uiowa.edu email address, as all official communication from university offices are now sent via email, rather than hard copy. This address usually follows the pattern [email protected]   (However, often a number is also attached.) 

To activate the account:

• Log on to  MyUI
• Click on My UIowa / My Email / Request Email Account
• Complete the specified steps.

Students who prefer to maintain only their work or home email addresses can do so by routing the uiowa.edu email to a work or home account. To do so, follow these steps:

• Click on My UIowa / My Email / Update Email Routing Address

Important Notes:

• If your uiowa.edu email address is routed to a different account, you will  not  need to change your address in ICON, as your messages will already forward to your routed address.
• Log on to MYUI.
• Click on My UIowa / My Email / Email Account Filter bulk mail.
• Make sure that none of the categories are checked.

Required Graduate Assistants Teaching Courses:

• ONLINE CLASS Requirement: Sexual Harassment Prevention Edu.  Use your HawkID and password to log into Employee Self Service. Click the Personal tab, next (under Learning and Development) click on Sexual Harassment Prevention Edu., follow instructions.
• ONLINE CLASS Requirement:  Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Use your HawkID and password to log into Employee Self Service. Click the Personal tab, next (under Learning and Development) next click on Available Online Icon Courses, next FERPA Training, then click on View Details twice and the last click will be to Enroll in this ICON Course Session.
• A six-hour orientation program will be required of all students who are certified at level A or B and are teaching for the first time.  This orientation helps new teaching assistants understand the culture of the U.S. classroom and treats topics such as student expectations, teacher-student relationships, and understanding and answering student questions. Discussion focuses on suggestions for maximizing comprehensibility in spoken English. This course meets twice for 3 hours early in the semester. Both meetings are held in the evening.

Administrative Department Staff:

Professor aixin tan (until july 1, 2024).

Director of Graduate Studies, Statistics and Data Science Graduate Advisor: [email protected]   (319) 335-0821.

Professor Boxiang Wang (beginning July 1, 2024)

Director of Graduate Studies, Statistics and Data Science Graduate Advisor: [email protected] (319) 335-2294.

Professor N.D. Shyamalkumar

Actuarial Science Graduate Advisor:  [email protected]    (319) 335-1980

Margie Ebert

Academic Services Coordinator ,  [email protected]  (319) 335-2082

Heather Roth

Administrative Services Coordinator  [email protected]   (319) 335-0712

Tammy Siegel

Department Administrator ,  [email protected] , (319) 335-0706