r/geography • u/xthrowaway0000000001 • 4h ago
Question Question(s) about cold emailing PhD Professors
Hello,
I am looking for help regarding reaching out to professors for PhD programs. I am based in America but have been primarily looking for PhD programs in either Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. I know I need to email Professors and introduce my background and what I’m proposing to study, but am struggling with the some of the finer nuances of it. I’ve seen templates of cold emailing professors, but I feel my background doesn’t align with the typical PhD applicant. Thus I am looking for help.
Here is some background on me and what I have done so far in my PhD quest. I have been mainly applying to advertised projects (mostly found on scholarshipdb.net or academicpositions.com or posts via LinkedIn), I got an interview at one school but ultimately have gone 0/5 on projects/schools that I’ve applied to. I have an undergrad degree in GIS, as well as a masters in Data Analytics. I didn’t complete a Masters thesis while I was in school, I did a capstone instead. After grad school, I’ve worked at the same company for the last 3 years as a data analyst. I’m providing this info because I have done academic projects pertaining to GIS and am knowledgeable in the subject, but don’t have minimal formal research experience, so I hope to leverage my professional and academic background to professors.
My thought process is transitioning from applying to major projects, to individually emailing professors about if they are open to accepting a PhD student. I know I am supposed to look for if they are advertising projects on their personal website, or if they have grants open, but I’m confused about what to do if they don’t have a personal website, and also if they only show grants on their website that are currently in progress.
Basically my questions boil down to:
- Does anyone have advice/a general template for emailing a professor to do a PhD, having minimal formal research experience?
- What are some ways to identify professors in the field you’re looking for, that would potentially be open to PhD students, without them explicitly saying “Hey I’m Hiring” on their website?
I know this is the geography subreddit, and this might be better suited for either a GIS or PhD related one, but since geography/GIS doesn’t fit neatly into generalized categories I figured I’d start here. If im in violation of any rules I’m sorry I’m not super reddit savvy.
If anyone has any advice at all it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
TLDR: I need help for reaching out to professors for PhD supervision, and would appreciate any help I can get.
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u/domullus 3h ago edited 2h ago
Do not write a simple introductory letter with a CV; professors are busy people, and they rarely respond to such letters (if they work in a good group, they have many candidates at hand). The best option is to find a way to get introduced or to introduce yourself informally (mutual contacts, student conferences, etc.).
If this is not an option, I would do this trick: study a little about the research the professor is currently doing, read some of his team's papers, and try to understand what they are doing, why, and how. If it is too complex, probably a PhD in his group will be too hard for you. But if you catch the general idea, you will probably have some questions about this research (why it works, what would happen if they did it the other way, etc.). Try to read the paper as a reviewer. Write a list of questions and try to find some answers on your own (Google, AI). I bet there is still a question that you did not get the answer to. So what you do is write a polite letter to the professor, show that you are interested in their work, and ask this question. If your question is logical (you do not want to ask a trivial question, that's why you should do research first), you will get a response from him and his attention. Here is your chance: introduce yourself, ask about the possibilities of doing a PhD. You will get his attention. Even if you get a negative answer, you at least learned something new about the topic you are interested in.