Comment by colonel_panic

I had no idea you could get faculty from another institution to be on your thesis committee. More importantly, I had no idea PhD students could do summer internships to supplement their measly stipends. If I knew that I might have applied to grad school already. It seemed like the only people in my undergrad program who had a good idea of how to plan out their academic careers were the ones whose parents were university professors. I felt alienated and left to fend for myself and I still don't know how to break back into that world.