Visit Day(s)

When you get accepted by a graduate program in computer science, you generally have the opportunity to travel to the university, with some of the costs reimbursed for you. This is a great time to meet your research lab, your potential advisor(s), and generally get a feel for what it might be like to work with them. You should make every effort to attend if you are invited.

Visit days are unique in that the script is flipped; you probably spent a non-trivial amount of time on your application, trying to convince the school that you have the background and the research potential to succeed in their program. Now, the school wants to convince you that it is the best place for you to spend the next n years doing research. In service of this aim, it is not unusual for schools to impart a very rosy impression. There is nothing wrong with that, it's no different from you attending a job interview and trying to present the best version of yourself. Knowing this, it's good to go in with a set of questions and observations that might give you more insight about the school and people you would work with.

Lab Culture

You will likely spend a lot of time in your graduate program surrounded by many of your peers in the lab. In fact, you might spend more time with your fellow labmates than your advisors, considering you might meet with them in-person just once or twice per week. When you visit, take note of the lab and the people in it. Even better if you can go during an off-schedule time. Are there people actually in the lab? Is it lively or does it seem quiet? (nothing wrong with either, depends on what you're looking for in a lab). Of the people present in the lab, are they mostly students who are early in the program, or are they all senior students? Here are some questions you might ask if you have time to speak with a student:

• How often are people in the lab?
• Do people like to do things outside of the lab? Get lunch, dinner, etc...
• Is there cross-pollination between students? E.g., reading paper drafts, giving practice talks, etc...
• Do you like it here?
• What's one annoying thing about this place?

Some students might not be comfortable answering some of these questions. That is totally fine and you should be respectful of that fact. If you can ask the same set of questions to multiple students in the lab, that's even better, since you can "cross-examine" answers. This should not be an interrogation, and you should thank the students for their time (grad students are busy people). When I went to visit day, I asked students if they wanted to go on a walk or grab coffee, and presented these questions pretty informally. Another thing that a fellow Allen School student mentioned looking out for was: do the students seem happy? Do they smile?

Advisor Fit

It goes without saying, but you want to ensure that you can see yourself working with your potential advisor. Many students apply to schools and advisors based solely on rankings without having done research on how their own research interests might align. This is not a good idea, and is likely to end in disappointment for both you and your advisor. It's better now to ask the difficult questions and make sure there are no surprises down the line if you start working with them. Here are some questions that you might consider asking:

• How do you like to provide feedback?
• How often do you like to meet with your students?
• Can you take me through the steps you take for a research project?
• How do you validate a research idea?
• What are some of the common traits you've observed in your most successful students?
• How does writing a paper look like with you? E.g., do I write the first draft, do we write together?
• How do you know when to give up on an idea?
• Can you tell me about a time when you had to re-frame a project or paper?
• What do you consider an essential part of a tool evaluation?
• Can you tell me about a project of yours that failed? Why did it fail?

You might notice that most of these questions are related more to advising style than research. It might be helpful to ask more questions related to research if you aren't entirely sure of your research fit with your potential supervisor. Additionally, you can ask your potential supervisor's current students the same questions to see if there's an alignment. I also recommend bringing along a notebook to jot down quick notes. Ink on paper is more reliable than your memory of what is going to be a very busy couple of days.

Above all, you should have fun! Talk to the other students who are visiting, see if they have interesting insights from the questions they asked (they will).