Simple question about the dissertation process for people who have been there: Were you left to your own devices to pick a dissertation topic, or did your adviser hand you a specific topic and say "you're doing your dissertation on this", or somewhere in between?
It might also help if you say what kind of program you were in.
I'm asking this because my master's thesis adviser pretty much left it up to me (which was, frankly, a bit of a nightmare for me), while others in my program had advisers who said "You're doing it on this" and handed them a very specific topic and a list of 50 journal article references to get them started. So I know it is pretty variable at the master's level, but not sure about the PhD level.
Or maybe it is just specific to the program/adviser, and in order to know what it would be like to work with someone, I really just have to contact his/her current grad students.
It might also help if you say what kind of program you were in.
I'm asking this because my master's thesis adviser pretty much left it up to me (which was, frankly, a bit of a nightmare for me), while others in my program had advisers who said "You're doing it on this" and handed them a very specific topic and a list of 50 journal article references to get them started. So I know it is pretty variable at the master's level, but not sure about the PhD level.
Or maybe it is just specific to the program/adviser, and in order to know what it would be like to work with someone, I really just have to contact his/her current grad students.