I will say that being an older student with years of work experience and who knows who they are and what they want really helps. With me, having 14 years experience in an academic environment, caught up in the fringes of academic politics and power games for much of it, I get to go in with my eyes that much more open than most students.

I understand what you’re saying in your comments on number 2 “Choose a topic in which you want to be known as an expert.” You don’t want to limit yourself to a certain topic should something better or more lucrative come along. What I’m saying is more along the lines of: use care when choosing your topic. It’s not enough to choose something you love to do. I mean choose an area to work in that is not dying out or already done; that you will not get tired of before you graduate; that has enough to do in it that you can get more than one paper; that other researchers will care about. This is not to say that you can’t change your mind partway through your Ph.D., but this can be very costly.

Fundamentally, getting a Ph.D. is about getting a job, or should be. You’re paying a lot of money, blood and time to get it, so do work that helps you get a job doing something you love. I do think that search committees appreciate experts because then, they know what they are hirinig. I think that you have to be careful as a doctoral student to not appear to be to scattered in your interests.

Once you get that job (whatever it is), that’s another story. Time to be start looking at other opportunities, because it’s more lucrative and safe to do so at that point.

Choose your advisor wisely. Chances are if their life is screwed up, off kilter, chaotic or otherwise incongruous to your “path” it will have a negative, and possibly destructive, impact on your desire to learn, your will to endure years of study and deflate your neophyte optimism.

Just because Professor McBrainiac is an expert in the field and wants you as a grad student it does not mean that he/she is a caring, sympathetic, generous or even “normal.” I have seen faculty use grad students as pawns in department politics, subject field politics, as unpaid or underpaid labor and in one case a scapegoat. Advisors are people and they should be seen as a whole person, not just an “expert.” While they may not be your best friend, they do hold a good chunk of your future in their hands. Rarely in life, if ever, would you give so much power to one person. Choose wisely.

Choose wisely, because this person will be the large bright brand on your naked hide when you skinny dip into “your” research. Never forget that you are also diving into a social, cultural and political world that envelops that subject field. Every field has a swirling vortex of bad history, grudges, pedants, backstabbers, prima donnas, sycophants, lap dogs, schmoozers, groupies, axe grinders, wackjobs and, of course, darn good people. (Some say that academic politics make political politics look like a pillow fight.) When you enter post graduate studies, you are diving into this vortex naked as a jaybird with that brand showing large. His/her history, politics, personality will be thrust upon you for good or ill.

Caveat emptor.

I’m slightly worried by number two, “Choose a topic in which you want to be known as an expert.” I think it’s good advice, except to the extent that it suggests a researcher must become devoted to a narrow specialty. That makes me feel claustrophobic. I think research should be somewhat opportunistic. If you see an interesting problem and you have some ideas about how to solve it, then go for it; don’t worry that it’s not your area of expertise. Have plans, but be willing to abandon them. Being an expert can be a handicap, in that you get locked into certain ways of thinking, which blocks innovation.