  Joining a research group is one of the most important events on a graduate
student's path to becoming an independent physics researcher and earning a PhD.
However, graduate students' perspectives on the experience of finding a
research group are not well-documented in the literature. Understanding these
perspectives is crucial for evaluating whether departments are providing
students with adequate support while they search for a research group, and how
difficulties during this process contribute to attrition. Semi-structured
interviews with N=20 first and second year physics PhD students reveal that
incoming graduate students see joining a research group as a significant
decision, and recognize that it may impact whether they will be able to
complete the program. We found that students who struggled to find a group felt
isolated and worried about falling behind their peers, whereas students who
were able to immerse themselves in a positive group environment reported
increased sense of belonging in their programs. The process of finding a
research group often held differential importance for students identifying as
women and non-binary, who at times reported having to deprioritize their
preferred research topic in order to be part of a more inclusive working
environment. Although incoming graduate students characterized joining a
research group as a significant decision, they often felt unprepared to make
it. Moreover, they perceived an overall lack of guidance and structure from
their departments, and characterized coursework as a barrier to searching for a
group. Our findings suggest that providing students with better support during
their group search process could help improve retention, particularly for
traditionally underrepresented students, and improve students' overall
satisfaction in their graduate programs.
