return void;

So after months of uncertainty, it looks fairly solid that I now have a new advisor. I have been struggling to decide what to do while I pleaded, prodded, and pondered about my situation.

Apparently, my last advisor all but abandoned me, but I wasn’t the only one. He almost abandoned other PhD students and has apparently done this to other students too. His other 2 PhD students reported success in getting him to respond after complaining to the Dean. I did the same but met with different results.

Some of you may be reading this and wondering more details about what happened, what you can do to avoid what happened to me, and how to identify it might happen. I agreed to work with an advisor but not schedule the thesis hours until the last minute because I needed the flexibility (due to my day job). After a year, this advisor stopped responding to my email or phone calls, was never in his office, and only appeared to teach 1 class twice a week. I saw the signs of this happening earlier when I had to start meeting him outside of the lecture hall after his class was over. Then he disappeared for 2 months around Christmas and 3 months over the summer (did not respond to any correspondence). If he ever responded to any of my attempts to contact him, it would be days or weeks late (he missed reviewing papers for his other students for publication).

My recommendation is to just how fast they respond to an email at 10PM on Monday. The most active professors will respond almost immediately, followed by the professors that will respond within 2 days (give time for lectures/tests), and the least active professors will not respond within a week without a really good excuse (on leave, sick, technology failure that can be verified). If you want to work with a professor and are worried they are not active enough, give them the 10PM test.

I will be working with Dr. Latifur Khan on Datamining. When I originally sent him an email, I sent it at 10:21PM and he responded before I could finish sending another professor an email. I met with 2 of his other students and I now have 2 topics to pick from to assist them in their work (typical for Masters). I even learned that he is technically on sabatical yet is on campus every day from 10AM to 6PM to continue research without having to teach any courses.

Now that it looks like I can actually start on real work, rather than scratching an idea together only to see the focus change with every meeting, I am seeing the finish line. I am slated to graduate this Fall, which means I have to be ready to defend by December.