“I didn’t want a graduate student because I didn’t feel like they could advise me properly,” he says.

He eventually found a professor in the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) who was willing to take him on, but finished his thesis by himself because, he says, his adviser stopped responding to e-mails after intercession and he was unable to reestablish contact.

“He could be dead for all I know,” Wootten says.

“Unfortunately,” he adds, “[being advised by a professor] back-fired and I found a professor who didn’t help me at all. Who knows if a graduate student would have been more helpful?”

PRE-ADVISING ADVISING?

What Wootten does know is that departmental advising can be limited due to professors’ workloads: teaching multiple classes, writing books, and doing other jobs such as advising companies.

But, “because the issue is so real,” he says, “you would think the Gov department would not allow that to happen; it would go above and beyond other departments to help students find advisers.”

Wootten believes the process should begin even earlier.

“What the Gov department fails to do is help you in junior year to locate professors whose interests or field of study are compatible to your thesis,” Wootten says.

He says this is why it took him until October of his senior year to find an adviser. He began his search by going to the professors that he knew, but says that if the department had informed him of professors who were compatible with his topic, he would have gone to them first.

In fact, he says that departments should provide guidance at the start of the advising process, “giving initial tools, directions, suggestions to go here and there.”

Big departments often utilize their tutorials or seminars for upperclassmen as channels for finding thesis advisers.

“Students now versus ten years ago are much better equipped to write good theses,” Williamson says, citing these seminars, some of which are relatively new, as a factor.

“About eight years ago, we were a basket case,” says Williamson. “Being a big department is hard and we’ve often used that as an excuse.”

EN ROUTE TO OPTIMIZATION