|
Make sure that your supervisor is someone you can work with. In a lot of ways its more important than which phd you choose. The only people I know who have failed are the ones who lost contact with their supervisors.
Ask your supervisor about who they have had working for them in the recent past, if they haven't had a student or postdoc for a while then why not? (this is going from experience with one staff member where I work - work is very boring and he is totally unprofessional)
Have a look at your supervisors papers, how many are there, where they published in good journals and does the work truely interest you? This is the closest thing you will get to the work that you will be doing and the interests of your supervisor.
Find out what your day-to-day activities will be - I was suprised because there was some work I was not prepared for and wasn't really interested in.
I have heard it said that doing a PhD is learning to do research like your supervisor.
One more thing, if you decide that academia isn't for you then make sure that you learn skills during your PhD that you will value later on. Be it programming, electronics, presentation or writing.
|