A professor tells me he wants me to do a PhD at his department

>a professor tells me he wants me to do a PhD at his department.

>I ask what the requirements are and whether I need to write a proposal etc "don't worry we'll work on that together".

>Ok... well then I guass I'll accept

*1 month later*

>Ok user, you need to apply for a tuition. So, you have 1 month time to write a proposal where you describe in detail what you will be studying in our research lab (biochemistry) for the next 4 years.
>Uh... well what will I be doing?
>It's your PhD, you need to find a current topic and describe every experiment you will do in the next 4 years.

HOW THE FUCK am I supposed to plan such complicated research, (which research are we even talking about?!? How I am supposed to know what kind of experiments can be carried out in that lab?!?!) out of thin air in under a month?

Am I completely fucked?!?
I have 1 month.

>Am I completely fucked?!?
You are if you keep wasting time on this website instead of figuring out your future research path.

also, can I choose to research whatever the fuck I want? I was given no indications whatsoever. I tried to get some info from the prof without sounding like I wanted him to do my job, but the prof wouldn't give me not even a general direction.

I am so clueless. I never intended to do a PhD untill the prof basically begged me to go to his lab.

I thought I would just get a nice project and then be told to carry it out. Not fabricate something out of nothing.

Fuck.

does your PhD program not have rotations? Usually advisers will already have a topic for a graduate research project, not sure what he's doing.

The prof probably wanted to fuck with a student and you got picked.

sorry

No fucking idea man.

I have never been so confused.

When I went to talk with the prof I had the feeling I was missing something huge.

doubtful. He's an ugly ass old man (probably a virgin too), and I am an ugly young man. He doesn't strike me as the perverted gay kind.

I didn't mean it in the sexual way.

He made a prank. You got bamboozled.

just read the literature until you find something interesting and relevant, learn about your professor and the people in the lab and read their work as well, then sit in and check out the resources available to you. Network and just read until your mind poops a question that is relevant(preferably with an answer that will have a high impact, even if the field or peer group is relativity obscure), reach out to other researchers working on the topic and talk about their work. Get the methodology down and you are good to go.
i went to community college for like 12 credit hours and i know what to do better than you, get your shit together. I could do this in like a week in a discipline that im interested in(if they would except high school dropouts into phd programs)

I thought a PhD was something where you joined a research lab and worked in a team while also having an individual project.

But I never dreamed that I would just have to do my own thing without any guidance or even project suggestions.

What the fuck must I do now? Just google about what king of things could be studies in biochemistry? and then read a gorillion articles to get up to date, then plan 4 years of research out of pure speculation and send it to the professor?

That sounds retarded.

I am not good at judging characters, but I don't think so.

thanks user. I just had no clue what to expect. Will consider your advise.

>>It's your PhD, you need to find a current topic and describe every experiment you will do in the next 4 years.

What the actual fuck? This can't be true. I understand having to declare your research interests and pointing out your focus but having to detail all your future experiments?

What?

>What the fuck must I do now? Just google about what king of things could be studies in biochemistry? and then read a gorillion articles to get up to date, then plan 4 years of research out of pure speculation and send it to the professor?
>That sounds retarded.
Thats literally what academic researchers do for a living
>not reading the literature in your free time to satisfy your unquenchable autism
that does seem strange

user should hang out with his professor and bug the other researchers

yes. That's the same thing I was wondering.

WHAT

THE

FUCK

I asked "ok, how do I know which experimental instruments are available? can I get a list". Then the professor ticks himself on the forehead, "the list is in here".

That didn't help me much.

Furthermore, he would whisper. I sat 1 meter distance and still could barely hear him.

It was like a fucking dream sequence I swear.

EDIT:

in the OP I meant "you need to apply for a grant"

Shit man. Well, I hope that you know what to do. Storm his office tomorrow and ask him personally to aid you in writing your proposal. And if he can't then pressure him into assigning one of his underlings to help you. His underlings will either be other professors, postdocs or PhD students who must know how to write the proposal.

this is some kind of test

shiv that motherfucker and take his spot, old school shit nigga

just come to him with your goals thought out before the deadline and annoy the piss out of him until you know what the fuck you are doing

>next four years
surely you're exaggerating
Check your professor's research group's website, maybe they have something helpful there. Check the discussions of his or his group's published papers for things like "future questions". Check out the marketing material for your university, they love to talk about "our scientists are doing x,y,z..". Get a subscription to "biochem today" or whatever your biggest journal is and read some papers. Ask any existing PhD's about what they plan to do.

You're not completely fucked, don't worry.

I am not exaggerating.

I am supposed to request a grant from the government for my research. That means that the people with the money want to know exactly what they would be paying for.

He showed me an example proposal. It's 20 pages long and contains a 4-year projection and planning with accurate descriptions of each experiment and the instruments.

In september I must send the finished proposal and will then have to undergo an oral questioning about it.

It's like you enroll in the army, some dude gives you a rifle and says "good luck soldier, kill those fuckers!"
Then you ask "which fuckers? I didn't know we were at war"
And the dude answers "Well, study the current geopolitical environment and then go to war for 4 years. You choose whom and how."

This is not what I expected.

Kek. Seems like it's going to be a challenge after all.

>one credit hour
i meant 5

What did he mean by this?

I mean, you are looking at an advanced degree, dude. It may be unconventional to have it introduced this way, but you aren't exactly presnting at a middle school science fair.

When I did undergrad research I had a prof like this (strangely in chemistry and kind of exactly like the person you described only he was from pakistan but old and dumb). Begged me to work with him even though I was in physics.

Ended up being a miserable experience where I was stressed by his lack of any input and general "you pick the direction you go in but it has to be a direction i want you to go in". Makes you feel weak. My research experience has been tainted because of it.

My advice is don't go home with the first girl who talks to you. Find a prof who is as serious as you are about it. Back out, find a better prof to do the PHD with, if you have to wait a year then take some courses online to build some skills or find a research topic and spend as much time as you can reading and learning more about it.

Thank him for the offer and make up an excuse so you don't look assblasted.

Well idk fuck about bichemistry but it seems like you don't either. I mean it seems if you knew what the hell they were talking about and read like journals or some shit you'd have at least an idea of what the hell goes on in a lab.

I'd pick something that requires a lot of time. Like.. Dealing with some plants or bacteria that need to grow. Using multiple humidities or temperatures, and then like uh idk I like drugs so let's say uh you give rats meth and some rats no meth then infect them with disease after disease and giving them all different kinds of medicines but trying to determine the effects of meth on illness recovery.

Why is it so hard to even have an idea? Are you lost in the specifics? Or do you not even know what a lab is? lol

>Am I completely fucked?!?
yes, because your advisor is shitty. stay away at all costs.

I know what they do.
And I have a fairly good idea about project proposals.

But even then, figuring out the current global know how, the structure and equipment of the lab, then predict how long the experiments would take over a course of 4 years seems like quite a loaded task for a masters holder.


I am starting to get the feeling that this is all a test. A "mission impossible" of sorts.
He wants to see how I deal with a strict deadline under stress. Perhaps.

I already moved to the city ;_;

>I am starting to get the feeling that this is all a test. A "mission impossible" of sorts.
He wants to see how I deal with a strict deadline under stress. Perhaps.

no he's not. he's just a bad advisor. that's what bad advisors do. who would even do that?

>I already moved to the city ;_;
congrats on spending a shit load of money for 4-5 years of being an old mans bitch

grant money flows like water these days that's probably why he's so casual about it all

half ass half a dozen experiments about whatever into your proposal and see what happens, it will probably get approved

I've heard there's all kind of fraud involved with grants too with profs outright pocketing grant money by cooking the books or spinning it off into companies they own and having grad students work at them practically for free

it's a wild world out there I'm telling you man

to be fair, the pay he's giving me would put me at the top 30% wage in my country (by family).

And for a firt-job-year solo guy like me that's pretty sweet.

the success rate is 30%

this. i am working in a lab making 18$ for american red cross and the research team is begging the grant writers for more money.

in reality its to increase their own per hour pay.

they just give a bunch of fairy tale reasons like 'its nobel prize worthy !!!111' and 'it will bring in more revenue !'

rofl they arent smarter than they were a year ago when I got hired.

oh yeah theyre asking for 4M ROFL

>grant money flows like water these days that's probably why he's so casual about it all
bull-fucking-shit

grant funding levels are at an all time low