Hello, I am in the process of reaching out to potential graduate advisers (in the U.S.) and have a rather long-winded question. I have been advised to tailor my emails to potential advisers by tying their interests in with my own, and, ideally, proposing a potential research topic. I am NOT pursuing a graduate research project because of one fundamental or applied question that I am dying to research. I think that earning a graduate degree is the best option for me to gain the data management, managerial, and research skills that I need in order to continue my career as a conservation biologist. When I have reached out with a specific research topic, the response has been, “Sounds great. If you get your own funding for that, I’d love to have you in my lab.” When I have reached out and expressed a more general interest in the lab without a proposed project, I have rarely gotten any response (though that’s often the case no matter what I do). Hence, my question: are PI’s only looking for students that have done their own research before and know exactly what they want to do going forward? I thought that a component of graduate school was figuring that out (this seems to be the norm for other disciplines where you apply to the school and choose an adviser only once you have been admitted and enrolled in classes for a semester or two). Thank you for your time,
Toni
