First-year students are assigned a temporary advisor based on their academic interests. For about half of the students this temporary advisor ultimately becomes a permanent advisor, but sometimes the student’s interests shift and the student changes advisors. Furthermore, the Chair of the JSP Admissions Committee is a general advisor for the cohort. At the end of the second year, students also have a review with two faculty members where they can discuss what the students have been doing during their time in the program so far. The students also work closely with faculty members and their cohort peers in order to prepare for two written doctoral exams, one of which is in a discipline and the or in an interdisciplinary field that is chosen and created by the student themselves. In the third and fourth years, students in the program choose their primary dissertation advisor and form a dissertation committee.