kaijura

Recently, the Atlantic ran a couple of articles describing the ongoing conundrum of the PhD market and how employment opportunities are falling short, especially from the STEM field perspectives: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/the-phd-bust-americas-awful-market-for-young-scientists-in-7-charts/273339/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/the-phd-bust-pt-ii-how-bad-is-the-job-market-for-young-american-born-scientists/273377/ What are your opinions about this issue, do you currently have or are going through a PhD and feeling the same way?

This happens with the Cornell TA faculty all the time, and I don't think it's really reported. If it's a FwB (Friends with Benefit) thing, I think most people tend to keep it under the wraps.

You should be fine, with all the USB/digital download options these days there's really not much other need for a built in optical drive that doesn't get used a good 3/4 chunk of the device's lifetime. You can directly copy from a dvd or load a Win7 install on a usb stick/sd card provided that I believe the minimum capacity necessary to do this is 8GB. And if you ever really need to use CD's, just grab an external drive. It's a pain lugging around, so hopefully you can clone it to ISO or not have to use that CD often.

The "how-does-my-purchase-affect-me" philosophy is a little something I've been instilling into everyone's minds that has came to me with this question, as I was former IT. In the end I try to give them the options so they can make the choices themselves. Weighted impact(s) of buying Apple: - Supports Apple slogan - follow popular/trending culture - efficient unrivaled battery technology - aesthetically pleasing & notebook ergonomics - Good support; this is actually in fact due to a controlled selection of peripherals - company profits greatly from underpaid/underage/illegal labor (those premiums at work as a collateral damage) - other? Weighted impact(s) of buying non-apple: - Supports a nobody (let's face it, really, no other PC company has a rivaled amount of influence that embossed apple logo has) - Get ridiculed socially for not choosing mac, being 'uncool' - More control room for DIY enthusiasts: Can swap/change some parts efficiently, upgrade to an extent, etc. - Less -than-stellar support; But in reality it's not exactly the fault of the company, it's due to the vast hardware/driver differences, the same challenges Linux faces. (DIY's are generally not affected by this) - company profits marginally from underpaid/underage/illegal labor - other?

The OS should not be the determining point these days, as you can now dual or triple boot, or clone a VM (virtual machine) an instance of Win/Linux/OSX with compatible hardware. Running a VM instance is not a hassle, but it really depends on how you feel about it. Personally, I don't really mind that I need to take 3-5 minutes to reboot from Windows into Fedora. On the contrary, some IBM based counterparts might not have the compatible hardware with running 'hackintosh' builds (official term for OSX on IBM architecture) It's probably safe to say, most software are native with windows due to their long standing monopoly. The only real benefits I see with an OSX machine is that the battery life is substantial with notebooks, but this is not always a considering factor with everyone. In the end it's really up to you. Pay a premium for a Macbook, or pay a realistic price gauge of the hardware with the ThinkPad - economically, both probably affect the negative labor practices in some way or another, however Apple makes more $ over it.

Personal opinion, but I think it's going to be really much based on what career you are looking to go into, and how proactive you are in getting into that career during your transition in education. Not all positions require a PhD, and it is definitely major based. Say for some examples, PharmD vs Architecture vs Biology vs CompSci vs Engineering vs History vs English vs Psychology: Which of the above positions require PhD and what are they being used for? Only the person getting the degree can really attest for it.

One aspect with the cost of living in CA is that if one wants to be closer to the beaches, the more $ is needed. This is of course, real NorCal (past bay area) not withstanding. Once you start going further east in the mid-cal/socal area out in the boonies, you get cheaper COL standards comparative to eastern states (OH, WV, VA, PA, Upstate NY, NC/SC, etc). But generally these places are not exactly desirable habitats due to the hot summers and potentially cold winters. Granted, there are not many schools available out in those areas anyway. Recognized CSU's like Modesto, Chico, Bakersfield, etc east or northward past the majority of saturated civilization in some cities. Assuming one being a grad student and living on a $20k/year stipend, it is sort of teethering on the bottom edge for decent living standards. Rent in LA and SF can reach ~$1000's easily and is comparative with NYC, Boston, or other major locations. This in effect downscales a rent choice into some possibly less desirable conditions (who really wants to share a complex with some undergrads or out in unsafe areas?)

Both in regards to the state itself, or the condition it is in current budget crisis times. Anything goes. Seeing how this is a forum targeted for specific audiences, I would imagine grad programs are the top interests pertaining to it. This is a home state state, left it for awhile during the budget problems and came back again to seek more programs. The budget problems initially led me to leave in the first place, but second thoughts about giving up residency made me think otherwise. Based on another thread, I've somewhat came to the conclusion why this state is so late in giving the admissions decisions every year is due to the crisis itself. I mean, jeez, it must really suck to wait till June to wait for a decision because the department needs more time to allocate funding...

Interesting reply, I do see merit in your comments. Initially I didn't think to correlate the budget crisis impact on gradate programs, but it all makes sense now after seeing your post. Schools are probably delaying in order to extend funding renewals, grants, new sources if possible, etc. While that impacts the CSU moreso than the UC's since UC's are able to develop different methods of funding to be able to re-allocate their assets, while the CSU's are likely to be bottlenecked by state allocations and such. Thanks for the insight (terrible story on the grad classes), and I'm also feeling the gloom coming in for future waves of students. It isn't going to look like it'll get better anytime soon.

Just curious of this, and maybe it'll serve future reference for the next waves of grads. I'm starting to notice that the April 15th deadline is not at all consistent. CA (both state and individual UC institutions) seems to barely follow this pattern at all. Are there other colleges (outside of CA) that still have their applicants on pending?

Thanks for this topic. I liked the replies and found some solace in them, but I'd like to see more opinions from any others. What are the pro or con's of doing a master's program in Sociology with a crim concentration or just Crim alone? Would this hurt employment prospects in say, with a legal line of work that may utilize those degrees? IE: city law enforcement agencies (police, correctional prison), federal agencies (DEA, FBI/CIA, etc)

Question for those who applied to SJSU, you guys had the application due date by the end of Jan 2012 right? I'm not applying for MSW, but seeing how this is the only real topic going on for SJSU online I thought I'd like to check otherwise. I'm with the Sociology department and in the same boat as most of you waiting to hear back.