Hi! So I was recently granted admission into the chemical engineering PhD programs at MIT, Berkeley, and Northwestern, and a few weeks after visiting all of them, I have yet to make a decision. I was wondering if anyone here is working on or completed a PhD in any of these programs. I’m specifically looking for information on where alumni end up (industry, academia, etc.), how your relationship with your PI is/was and how your classmates’ relationships with their PI’s are/were, the work-life balance of PhD candidates, and the general atmosphere in the department. A lot of these questions were answered during the visit weekends, but I’m sure there is information that current graduate students would be hesitant in saying to prospectives in front of their classmates or their professors. Are there any regrets in your decision to attend your program, or anything you wish you had known? I’m not asking you to badmouth your program or your PI, I’d just like to know if there was anything left out during these visit weekends that would help me in making a decision.
Thank you!
I’d be surprised if someone who got a PhD in chemical engineering in one of those programs does come to answer, much less all three. It would be great if they did, though!
Current graduate students, in my experience, are usually pretty honest when it comes to chatting about the program with prospective students. There may be some reluctance to say negative things in front of PIs - but not in front of classmates (we trash the PhD program together all the time). Nevertheless, if you still have additional questions that you feel weren’t answered, why not email one of the graduate students you talked to at the visit weekend and ask them some of those questions via email? Most of them probably wouldn’t mind answering a few questions.
That said, you’re unfortunately not going to have information on every angle and facet before you decide where to attend. Relationships with PIs are going to vary by PI, not by program - even if most of the PIs at Northwestern are warm and friendly, you could get the one crotchety one, or perhaps your personalities just don’t click. That assessment needs to be made after meeting the individuals. For the rest of those questions, whatever the graduate students told you at the visit weekend is probably pretty close to the truth. Grad students on average don’t have a super-vested interest in attracting prospective students to their program, so they have no reason to say that they work a 40-hour workweek when really everyone is pounding out 100 hours a week.
I agree with @juillet on this. Contact the students privately and see what they say. As far as placement, it probably depends more on the advisor than which one of these three schools you go to. I would choose the place where you can find the most potential advisors and then where you have the best financial opportunity.
Thanks for the answers! I’ll contact current grad students at all three to get a better feel. Thanks again!
Can you give some information about your results (i.e GPA, GRE etc)?
Thanks!!
The OP has not been on this site since March 30. You are probably better off starting a thread to discuss your specifics.