Lost in the PhD World: The Quest for Committee Members!!!

One of the most important things I will do as a PhD student is form my committee!!! Yet, I feel so confused on how the heck I should do this. My committee is the group of people that will guide me my entire PhD career as I complete experiments. They will advise me regularly and in the end… GRILL ME with questions in my Qualifying Exam and Dissertation. So basically they OWN ME!!

Can I just put up an ad on Craigslists saying “Nice hardworking graduate student in NEED of available active and helpful committee members!!” That would be nice!!!

So.. what do I do? How do I approach people that have no idea who I am? How do I make them want to be on my committee? Maybe I should bring them cookies/donuts…. mmmm…. Maybe!!

I have found it to be one of the hardest things to determine who should be on my committee… after all these are the brilliant minds that will stand between me and being called Dr. Brown…

Sadly, my research is not very well studied at my school, so my pickings for committee members are already slim…. So who do I ask? In my neuroscience department the focus is on Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease etc… Not so much on HIV and cognitive deficits.

So far I know I need people:

1. Willing to be on my committee with FREE TIME! (Though “free time” doesn’t really exist… so I am mostly looking for people willing to give me an hour or so every month to “catch up”)
2. Credentialed professors at my school
3. Someone with interest in my field and KNOWLEDGE that can help me
4. Someone with tons of cool resources or access to cool machines

What has me mostly confused, is there’s no real way to approach this. There’s no set protocol to follow, and well quite frankly I don’t want to mess up. So, I have talked to a few students that have already formed their committee, and combined some of the things I liked in their approach.

So here is my plan

1. Research everyone I can think of with focus on Alzheimer’s Disease, HIV and natural therapies. (Since no one else focuses on the combination besides my mentor at my school)
2. Read papers they have published in the last 5 years (GREAT… now I have homework over my break!)
3. Send them a VERY SHORT summary of what I have done and hope to do
4. Request a meeting with those who show any interest in my AMAZING PROJECT!! (I think it’s amazing at least)
5. FORM MY COMMITTEE!!! *BOOM*

Will this work, I have no idea. It seems everyone does it a bit differently…

MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN MY FAVOR!!! *Three fingers in the air*

How did you form your committee? What tips can you suggest? Are you looking for your committee now and need help? Comment below… what you have to say may help someone else!

Photo Taken from PHD Comics and CPCache