Hey all, having been a silent observer of this forum for a while, now seems a good time to ask for your wise advice! I am looking to start a phd in september, but my dilemma is do I:
a) go for the department where i have been working with my potential supervisor for the last 6 months and have built up a good working relationship, but where the department does not have any other phd students.
or b) approach a department where I haven't worked with a potential supervisor but where there is an active phd student body for support, advice etc.
I can't find any previous threads along these lines, and am interested to know the degree of importance you attach to having other phd students around you for bouncing ideas off etc. What are your experiences if you moved to a uni or city where you didn't know anybody and there are no students in your department? Thank you!

Personally I would go for the department with other PhD students, although this isn't essential for your completion it is nice to be able to interact with others in a similar position. I would imagine it could be quite easy to become isolated in a department where you are the only student!

The other point is it never does any harm for your future career if you have moved around a bit!

Hope that helps and good luck with the decision, its nice to have a choice anyway

I myself would opt for the PhD where you will have an involved and supportive supervisor. To me that is far more critical than the type of PhD students that are in the department. Your supervisor is vastly more important to the outcomes of your PhD than the students that you might come across. Even if you enter into a PhD department that is devoid of friendly, helpful students, you can make these connections across departments or even across universities, by attending campus events, attending conferences and networking events, etc.

I agree--don't think that the prospect of not having other PhD students in the department is important. To be honest, I don't see the PhD students in my dept anyway, but have instead made friends with PhDers in other departments. As olivia said, you'll have a chance to make friends by attending lectures, seminars, training sessions, events. I think this can actually be an advantage, as sometimes I've noticed that there can be a great deal of politics involved in getting too close to fellow PhDers in your department.

i, on the other hand, have often profited a lot from the other PhD students in my centre/department. we have fun together, which is important - we have sometimes gone to conferences together or presented papers together - and we run reading groups and informal roundtable sessions which are a huge help to test your ideas and discuss issues important to you with people who understand where you are coming from. also, it is inspiring to see them all working so hard and motivates me to get to work, too; and it is great when someone completes an important step (like an upgrade, or PhD viva, etc.)
i think i would be quite desparately unhappy if i didn't have my PhD friends!

Hi missgeorg,

can you combine? : Stay in the department with your supportive supervisor (supervisor is important, and good supportive ones seem to be rare) but contact this other department anyway, see what they do, get to know them and interact with them. You do not have to work there to have good relations with them. What do you think?

I think Shani has the ideal situation!

No doubt with a supportive group of PhD students, you could really do some fun, imaginative and helpful things--and really learn a lot and gain a lot in the process.

I think if you had to choose between the students and the supervisor, I would opt for choosing the supervisor...and if you are able to have both a lively student group and a great supervisor--that is like a lottery win!

I think its really important to do a PhD where you regularly interact with other PhD students. It's a very isolated existence anyway and it's so important to have people around to bounce ideas off, ask for help or have a good moan to. I also think it helps for knowledge transfer purposes and can make you feel like you are part of a research team with lots of interesting things going on (pushing back frontiers and all that!).

its also important to have access to varities of chocolate intake.

I work at a reseach institute where there are no oher PhDers but I find this benefits me loads! I am considered staff more than a student, I can see my Super anytime as he has no other students to worry about and other scientists chat to me about my work and chuck in the odd idea from other disciplines.
I have felt the odd bout of isolation, but I have made friends from conferences etc., and keep up with them through email. It really depends on the sort of person you are and your social situation. I have friends unrelated to PhD life as I lived here before I started the PhD. I think a good supervisor is worth their weight in gold though!!!