ABSTRACT
Choose a tenured faculty member as your main advisor. When I entered the graduate program, I was “gently guided” towards choosing a bright and upcoming junior faculty as my main advisor. When the tenure review came up after three years, this person did not fare well, was turned down, and had to leave the university. I had decided my dissertation topic with this person, conducted my initial literature review, and had even begun working on a dissertation study proposal. As it turned out, the other faculty members were not too keen on my dissertation topic, and so ultimately I had to find a new topic and literally start from scratch. Consequently, my tenure as a graduate student was greatly lengthened.
