So I've spent more a couple years thinking about this and it's my first time posing the question publicly: how on earth do people choose a PhD program?
It feels like such an impactful choice, basically shaping my whole academic career (& whether I stay in academia even) but it's so impossible -
Do you go for the lab doing genuinely cool stuff or the established one that's just won 3 large grants? The lovely PI you're familiar with or the one at a much more prestigious university? The country with much larger academia & better academic-industrial integration (US) or the city you love (Melbourne)?
Do you base it on skills you already have so you can iterate + can meaningfully contribute, or what you want to learn so you can build a broader base for future research & more career options?
And choosing the particular topic is even more daunting! How do you do find the direction more likely to break new ground? The topic you're likely to actually enjoy tackling for ~4 years?
I'm in the pipeline myself for a PhD track after I graduate this summer and much of the salient advice I've received amounts to two things:
1) And I'd argue this is the most important one, peer culture and mentors. A lovely PI and a healthy lab culture will do a lot more for your research track than anything else because ultimately, you're still trying to get your bearing together, academically, intellectually and socially. And the rat race is a marathon, not a sprint. Prestigious labs and programs, should they fit the bill outlined above would be ideal, but more often than not run through PhD candidates and postdocs like a chainsmoker running through cigarette butts.
2) As far as research areas go, what I've decided was to focus on programs that would significantly contribute to the skillsets I'd like to have to future interests, therefore adjacent programs with peripheral interests would also be ideal assuming the lab culture is healthy and the program is reasonably structured.
Ultimately, I would settle for a lab, even if the area didn't directly align with my interests, so long as there's some overlap and I get to operationalise the peripheral skillsets I'd need while building on existing knowledgebase. And of course, fostering social connections for the long run. Other considerations include those of a personal nature such as long-term personal plans that might entail family, personal obligations, financial situation, how the migration/settlement pipeline, etc. And of course this varies heavily on the country, the funding scheme, how transferrable your skillset is to industry and such.
