Researching with an assistant professor?

Graduate School
1

<p>I'm currently at a lab where an associate professor manages it, but the stuff they do there are rarely published unless you're a graduate student and the projects they do are too advanced for undergrads so I plan on switching. There's also some guy (research scientist) who makes me drive 20miles out of my way a week to deliver his boxes, that really ****es me off. Now I don't wanna sound like I don't like helping out people, but making me waste money on gas for his own benefit seems like he's taking advantage of me. </p>

<p>This new professor I got in contact with is an assistant professor. On wikipedia I saw that assistant professors stay in that "rank" for 4-8 years and after that they're either dismissed (fired?) or tenured. So if I start working with this professor and they get dismissed, would that be a negative impact on getting an LOR from them?</p>

2

<p>Only if you can’t find them afterwards. Also remember at some schools assistant professors almost always get tenure unless they mess up, and at other schools (particularly very highly ranked ones), assistant professors often don’t get tenure by no fault of their own: those schools just don’t like to give out tenure to assistant profs.</p>

<p>My grad school advisor is an assistant professor. He’s amazing, I like him a lot, and I’m a fourth year. There’s a real (but small) possibility he won’t get tenure, but that doesn’t mean he ceases to exist. You can still get an letter from him, and my dissertation will play on because at this point I only have two years left. The data is collected, I just need to analyze it and I would simply select another sponsor for my dissertation.</p>