<p>I am going to be matriculating into a top ten history program in the fall. It's currently ranked around 6 or 7 but I have been told by people outside the department that's it is a rising program that produces students on-par with Princeton, Yale, etc and will likely be ranked higher in the future. </p>
<p>I was wondering how graduate students build relationships (of the professional rather than the salacious kind) with their professors. As an undergraduate, most of my relationships with my professors began in the classroom. In graduate school, on the other hand, it appears that most of the professors who will likely serve on my dissertation committee are not necessarily teaching graduate school courses every semester or even every year. How do I begin to build a working relationship with them? </p>
<p>Also, what is the difference between an undergraduate's interaction with their professors and a graduate's?</p>
<p>I think humanities grad students tend to get very little face time with their professors. The result is a cutthroat environment where students must compete for chairs outside professors' offices and wait for their turn in office hour.</p>
<p>Students build relationships with professors the same way employers build relationships with bosses and random people at bars build relationships with each other: they talk.</p>
<p>Your grad school will probably have coffee hours each week in which the department comes together to talk about their latest projects. If not (which would be surprising and somewhat alarming), you can always send emails and knock on doors. Go by offices and say you've been admiring their work and you're available if they need a library gofer--flatter them with insightful questions.</p>
<p>There shouldn't be a difference between undergrads and grads as far as relationships with professors go--it just depends how active you are in getting yourself out there. (There generally is a difference, but that's because undergrads tend to be wusses when it comes to talking to their teachers, not because the teachers react any differently).</p>