Mentoring

Preliminary Advising
Faculty Advisor/PhD Advisor
Graduate School Guidelines for Mentors and Mentees

Preliminary Advisor-Advisee Guidelines

Overview

The preliminary advisor–advisee relationship begins when a student enters the UW Graduate Program and continues until the student selects a PhD advisor. This typically occurs in the second or third year, with a formal deadline in the Winter Quarter of the third year.

The goal of this stage is to support steady progress through coursework, program milestones, and the transition toward a research direction and thesis advisor.

 

Expectations and Good Practices

Course Planning

  • At the beginning of each quarter, the student and preliminary advisor should discuss the course schedule.
  • This discussion should take place before the deadline to change classes.

Meetings and Communication

  • Advisors and students should meet at least once per quarter.
  • More frequent meetings are encouraged, especially when questions or issues arise.
  • Both parties share responsibility for maintaining communication.

 

Awareness of Milestones

Advisors and students should be familiar with program milestones and deadlines:
https://math.washington.edu/milestones

Coursework Milestones

Students must complete core courses on the following timeline:

  • By the end of the First year: 5 quarters of core coursework
  • By the end of the Second year: 7 quarters of core coursework (total)

Courses that count toward this requirement include:

  • Algebra: 504, 505, 506
  • Manifolds: 544, 545, 546
  • Complex Analysis: 534
  • Real Analysis: 524, 525

Exceptions may be granted; such cases should be referred to the Graduate Program Coordinator (GPC).

Writing Milestone

  • Due no later than Winter Quarter of the second year. Students are encouraged to complete most of the work during their first summer at UW.

  • Students should begin discussing potential topics and a mentor for the writing milestone project in the Spring Quarter of the first year.

  • In the quarter when they plan to submit the writing milestone, the student should register for MATH 599 with the writing milestone mentor.

Examples and guidelines:
https://math.washington.edu/writing-milestone

Transition to a PhD Advisor

During the second year, students and preliminary advisors should begin:

  • Discussing possible research directions
  • Identifying potential PhD advisors
  • Encouraging conversations with faculty

The aim is a smooth transition to a PhD advisor by the program deadline.

Faculty Advisor/PhD Advisor

When entering the program you will be assigned a preliminary advisor.  You are welcome to change your preliminary advisor if you find a better fit with a different faculty member.  If all agree to the change, email grads@math.washington.edu to formally request the change.

To change your faculty advisor email grads@math.washington.edu cc'ing your preliminary advisor, proposed new advisor and the Math GPC (mathgpc@uw.edu) to request this change. Your new advisor should reply confirming they agree to the change. 

Advice for Graduate Students on Finding a Faculty Advisor

Once you complete your core course requirement, it is time to start thinking about your writing milestone and about finding an advisor. The process of finding an advisor can be difficult, since there are many factors that need to be considered. Below are some tips that may help you through this process, based on a Career Transitions talk given by Sara Billey.

  1. Make a list of possible advisors (right now!). A list of some of the professors in the department and their fields of research is included below to help you with this first step. While doing so, ask yourself the following questions.
    • What fields are you interested in?
    • Who specializes in these areas?
    • What other fields of math are related?

    • Which professors work in these areas?

       

  2. Do some research on your prospective advisors.
    • Take a class with one of the professors you wrote down in step 1. Go to their office hours.
    • Ask them to do a reading course. If you don’t know what to read, ask them if they have any good books in mind.
    • Go to their website and look at their papers. Look them up on Mathscinet, arXiv, and/or Google Scholar.
    • Set up a meeting with the professor and ask them about their research. Ask them if there are any interesting extensions of their work.
    • Go to their Current Topics talk if they are giving one.
    • Talk to their grad students. Ask them questions like:
      • How much time do they give to their students?
      • Do they look closely at their students’ work?
      • Do they have good problems?
      • Where are their former students now? Do they have jobs? Are they in academia or industry? If academia, do they have tenure?
      • Does the advisor have tenure?
      • Do they provide research assistantships to their students?
      • Do they give good career advice?
    • Don’t be too picky about the topic. Having a good working relationship with them matters more.

    • Make sure the professor’s style of advising works well for you. If you need regular deadlines and lots of facetime to stay focused, find an advisor who is more hands-on. If you like to be more independent, find an advisor who will give you more freedom to explore on your own

       

  3. Start working on a project.
    • To reiterate: ask them if there are any interesting extensions of their work. Or, ask them if there are any papers they have been meaning to read that might be accessible to you.

    • Read a paper. Write code. Ask questions.

       

General advice suitable for all graduate students:

  • Go to seminars and colloquium talks, even if they are not exactly in your area (that is, if you know your area already).
  • Go to Current Topics talks. It's a great way to see what kind of research is going on in the department.
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