Hey everybody, I m a first year PhD student and soon will be taking up comprehensive exam, and I just wanted to share this thing that's been bothering me and am expecting some suggestions from all you guys;

My supervisor seemed a great guy at the he begining when checked his publications, and his previous jobs and his attendance in various conference and everything and all, his profile seemed one of the best and so I applied and joined in his lab but as time passed I realised he's never ever ever available to me , we never have advisory meetings frequently and whenever I need him he's not at all available and the few times he was available to me and when I approached him with some doubts and complications with some research methodology he literally complicated the stuff too much that I lost track completely and later had to sort it myself after quite long and the lab sucks, not the equipment but the environment , the people , and all although their projects and research are not that bad:

So my question is where did I gi wrong in analysing the lab and the my supervisor and what do you guys best recomend the way to analyse a research supervisor , a research group , and the lab environment and where to lookthese things up and how to find out???????? Plz someone tell me although I can't change anything now but I still am just very curious to know where did i.go wrong????

Seems like you got back luck. It's not to late - you're only in the first year - you could try and change your lab/supervisor. Either that or I guess you need to adjust - that is, see how other people are getting the support and input they need (e.g., is it coming through more senior PhD students or postdocs) and if that can work for you.

I think you forgot to evaluate yourself! It sounds like you thought that a very successful lab was what you wanted but actually you prefer something more nurturing than that kind of environment.

I'm also not in a nurturing environment and am learning the limitations of my supervisory team. I have been advised to get support from other sources such as other PhD students and emailing other academics. If I had been aware of this in my first year I would have changed, to be honest, as I don't work well in the kind of environment I have found myself in.

But guys that still dosent answer my question, the thing I m still asking is:
What to look in a supervisor's profile, in a lab group's profile, in the lab environment before signing up and where to lookup these things ????????

sashank, here are my thoughts which are purely based on your post.
You forgot to interview your supervisor.
You should have asked him what he expected of you, how frequently he would want to meet up, what support he was going to provide and what he expected you to figure out yourself, what hours he wanted you working, who would write any papers resulting from your work, how long would he expect you to take to graduate and what would happen if you took longer, who would provide support when he wasnt there and a whole host of other questions.
Dont feel bad, its an inexperience thing.

Maybe you were too desperate to get a big name or a big uni on your CV to the point that you lost objectivity. People make these sorts of mistakes all the time.

Its promising that you are even asking the question.

What is your gut feeling telling you that you should do now to fix things?

eng77, I would also let them know that you have interest from other companies. This is all about recognising that they need you as much as you need them. From my days of recruiting technical people and also being a techy person myself I can tell you that really good candidates are very scarce and when you find one who is attracting interest from competitor companies you want to move fast and make solid salary offers.