Elizabeth Reed

Try not to be too hard on yourself (easier said than done, of course!) I doubt it seemed as bad to others as it did to you -- we're always our own harshest critic...and even if it really was as bad as it felt to you, no one else is thinking about very much, if at all. We are all much more focused on how we seem to others than they are! Most people are also very forgiving/understanding when it comes to judging someone else's public speaking performance -- most can relate to the discomfort and know that how someone performs in front of a group is not necessarily indicative of how smart/interesting/personable they are in other situations. As an undergrad, I took a course through the law school at my university. The professor was very young, probably in his late 20s, definitely not older than early 30s. There were law students in the class who were his age or maybe even a little older. It must have felt like a lot of pressure. He was off to a good start during the first lecture, talking through the syllabus and whatnot. He seemed composed and confident as he walked back and forth at the head of the class. Then he tripped over an open door at the bottom of the lectern (there was a little cabinet built into the lectern). He was a very tall guy and he fell face-first on the floor. It was a pretty dramatic moment. He got up quickly and was clearly embarrassed, but continued talking as though nothing had happened! That was the most awkward part of the whole thing...we knew he'd face-planted on the lecture-hall floor, he knew we knew, and we knew he knew we knew! A simple "whoa, didn't see that there. Anyway, as I was saying..." would have made it less awkward. But, it didn't really matter that he carried on as though he hadn't fallen on his face, and it especially didn't matter that he'd fallen in the first place. We moved on and he did a great job with the class all semester; everyone ended up really enjoying the class and respecting him. That example is the only one I can remember from all my time in undergrad and later a master's program. I'm sure it's not the only time a professor or TA had an awkward or embarrassing moment in a class I took. It's just that their awkward/embarrassing moments didn't make it into my long-term memory -- I only remember all the times I said or did something awkward/embarrassing. I'm sure no one else remembers my cringeworthy moments, though, because they are all too busy remembering their own! Anyway, all of this is just a long way of emphasizing my point above: don't worry too much, everyone else is too caught up in thinking about themselves to spend much time thinking about you

I've been thinking the same thing! His career in academia is likely over, but I have a feeling this isn't the last we'll hear of Michael LaCour...I predict there'll be a book tour following publication of his "confessional" memoir, followed by a slick political campaign for something like a state senate seat, some sort of meteoric rise toward the top, and then the undoing of his political career due to a scandal that manages to involve mind-boggling audacity of epic proportions. After that....similar pattern repeats itself, only this time it'll be a (new) new career in punditry. I grant that the specifics will likely vary from this prediction, but if Michael LaCour doesn't claw his way back to (relative) fame and fortune in one way or another...well, then my (user)name isn't an oblique reference to Duane Allman's astonishing virtuosity as captured by a certain 13-minute masterpiece recorded live in 1971!

Love the Twofer reference here! I have a feeling you're a fun person to chat with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91VUQGDpN9Y

Yes, this reminds me of the infamous "I went to college in Boston" euphemism for "I went to Harvard" (not trying to pick on Harvard specifically - this applies to plenty of elite universities, just substitute New Haven/New Jersey/the Bay area/etc. for Yale/Princeton/Stanford/etc.) I suppose this is supposed to make the other party feel more comfortable, but it tends to accomplish the exact opposite. It tells the other person, "I am minimizing the awesomeness of my educational accomplishments to spare you discomfort because I know that you can't handle the truth." Regardless of the speaker's intention, this implication is condescending in the extreme and, more often than not, is perceived as such by the listener. I have a feeling something similar may be taking place in cases such as the social situations described by the OP. People are generally pretty good at picking up on how the subtext of interactions. Moreover, the self-consciousness that motivates, e.g., the line "I went to college in Boston" (or an awkwardness, however subtle, in responding to a version of the "what do you do" question") is highly contagious and can easily spread to the other member(s) of the conversation. Depending on the situation, they may or may not sense the reason behind the strained quality of the exchange; either way, detecting some discomfort in the response can throw off someone who otherwise would have remained perfectly at ease. If you're feeling self-conscious about your answer, you may be infecting the other person with that very same feeling simply because you had it in the first place! With respect to questions one can ask in a conversation with a teacher, stay at home mom, construction worker, or any other occupation: it helps, I think, to start with basic questions and let the conversation flow from there. For example, if Mary tells you she's 3rd grade teacher, maybe ask a follow-up like, "how many students are in your classroom?" When Mary says, "This year, it's 30." You can say, "Wow, I have trouble TA-ing 20 college students some semesters, that sounds like quite a challenge!" Maybe Mary's reply to that will be, "Oh there are definitely some trying moments! But most of the time I enjoy teaching that age group," in which case you can ask her to elaborate on what aspects of the job she likes and so on and so forth. Stay at home mom? Start with, "That's wonderful! What are their ages? ... Oh my, a 4 year old AND a 2 year old!? They must keep you very busy! What sorts of things do you enjoy doing with them? ... Cool! I loved dinosaurs as a kid, I would have loved to go to that museum every day, haha." Construction worker? Try, "What type of construction do you do? ... Ah, interesting! Are you working on a project like that right now?" I guess the point I'm trying to make is this: the best way to connect with someone you don't know well involves (1) feeling at ease and (2) expressing genuine respect for & interest in the lives of other people. That's not an easy stance to achieve (I personally struggle with it, especially the first part, all the time), but small talk is a skill just like any other - practicing helps!

I'd recommend checking out Porter Square. It's easily within walking distance to the Divinity School (about a 10-20 min. walk depending on where exactly in Porter), extremely safe, and very convenient in terms of proximity to a decent grocery store (Shaws/Star Market), hardware stores, pharmacies, etc. It's also close enough to Harvard Square to take advantage of the restaurants, bars, etc. but also far enough to be reasonably quiet and not so constantly jam-packed with tourists/undergrads/teeming masses of people in general. Porter also has some good restaurants, bars, & misc. shops of its own, but Harvard has a ton all densely concentrated in a small area and tends to be more "happening" so it has a different feel. Davis Square in Somerville is also a fun place to hang out -- Porter is in between Davis & Harvard, which is nice because it's really easy to get to either Davis or Harvard but it's also easy to escape the crowds. In general, Porter tends to be more expensive than, e.g., Union Sq., but since you mentioned that you're not overly concerned about price, I think it's a great location for you (it's also not uniformly more expensive than other areas of Cambridge -- though not all, Harvard is usually as or more expensive -- might take some serious looking to find the good deals, but they do exist!)

I'm not particularly interested in questions about the GRE's validity or lack thereof - no dog in this fight, so to speak - but I have been following the discussion a little here and there. I must say, when I read your original post earlier (before anyone had responded to you), I found the tone of your remarks to be both abrasive and patronizing. Having not posted in this thread previously, I didn't take it personally in any way, and I actually agreed with many of your points. Nonetheless, the tone was off-putting, albeit in a borderline comical way (well, well, someone put their admonishing-lecture pants on today!) I try to err on the side of being charitable when interpreting the intent/tone of internet comments, but your responses to TXInstrument11 have annoyed me. First of all, you seized on TXI's mention of "selection bias" without actually responding to the larger point TXI was making, namely, that a correlation between GRE scores and future academic success could be explained by the fact that high scorers are more likely to be accepted into top programs. Attending top programs may lead to greater success for reasons having to do with quality of instruction, greater resources for students, etc. If this is the case, the relationship between GRE scores and later outcomes is spurious. Of course, this is an empirical question. I don't know if there's any research that tries to tease this apart or not, and I don't actually care. My point is that you were quick to dismiss TXI's point without, apparently, giving it much thought beyond noticing that the term "selection bias" was mentioned. Whatever happened to engaging with an empirical question based on careful thinking rather than just looking for ways to bolster your own point of view? You know, engaging on a deeper level, intellectual honesty, and whatnot? Also, with respect to TXI's comments on how he/she perceived your tone, your reply doesn't make much sense. For one thing, it seems the point of TXI's criticism of you personally was meant to be just that -- a judgment about how you chose to word your original post. I don't see where he/she tried to undermine your claims by attacking you personally, so "ad hominem" is a strange response. The "sanctimonious ass" bit was intended as criticism of your tone, not the argument you made. If Mary turns to Sue and says, "My God you're stupid" and Sue shouts, "ad hominem!" in response, well... Your second reply to TXI was similarly odd: "So your argument amounts to re-assertion of your point?" This is a puzzling response given that there's no argument involved. There's an impression/perception/judgment/etc. involved. TXI read your comment(s) as sanctimonious and condescending. This is a subjective matter - thus, there's no argument to be made. Suppose Sue says to Mary, "It's clear from your tone that you're just kidding." Is her response to Mary's comment an argument, replete with underlying premises by which she reasons to the conclusion that Mary was kidding? Or is the statement functioning as a description of how Sue interpreted what Mary said and what conclusion she has drawn based on that impression? If Mary responds, "So, you claim that it sounded like I was kidding, eh? Prove it!" Well... Finally, have you considered that, for people who are at the applying stage of grad school and score poorly on the GRE, dismissing the predictive validity of the test may be adaptive?

secret garden

I think we applicants have a different definition of "soon" than our POIs and adcoms. To us, soon means days or maybe a week at most. To them, it means...well, I don't know what it means, but it seems it could be anywhere from days to a month (or longer!) I have a feeling this is especially true with "ASAP" (I don't know what exactly needs to happen between when the decision is made and when the official offer arrives in the applicants mailbox/email inbox, but to me "ASAP" implies it might take a little while). My point is, no, I don't think you should be concerned - it hasn't really been that long.

Since this thread got revived recently, figured I'd post this link for anyone who's interested in questions related to foundations, assumptions, etc. and/or embodied cognition: http://mindhacks.com/2015/03/05/radical-embodied-cognition-an-interview-with-andrew-wilson/

flat affect

^This There are advantages and disadvantages either way, of course. For me, the costs of living farther out are worth it to be in a place I really love and can afford. Commuting is a drag sometimes, but at the end of the day I'm home and so glad to be there. I'd way rather that than a short walk to a home that feels "meh" and is outrageously overpriced to boot (everything in this area is overpriced, but the less popular/student-filled areas are correspondingly less overpriced). To those who feel the same, I'd add these towns to the ones CarloGesualdo mentioned: Arlington (can be as high as Cambridge/Somerville, but there are more/better deals if you stay on the lookout for them), Medford, Waltham, Belmont (another town that can be as much -- or more -- as Cambridge etc., but has some better deals if you are vigilant about checking listings), and Watertown. Most important factor, I've found, is being really aggressive when looking. Check the listings constantly and call right away when you see something promising. You've got 100s of thousands of students and young professionals all looking for those few nice-place-at-a-decent-price offerings that are scattered amongst the many rip-offs -- in this market, he who hesitates is lost! (I don't mean you should necessarily sign on the dotted line for the first decent option you see, it depends. Just know that if you don't, someone else will, so if you do feel good about a place it's best to act as quickly as possible).

I think your answer is less of a non-answer than you think it is. For someone like me, who doesn't have a particularly strong background in biology, your answer sounds pretty sophisticated. I suspect it's hard for you to see it that way because you understand the subject on a waaaaaay deeper level than I do. It's hard to evaluate how much knowledge/understanding is built into an answer when it's something within your own field -- we lose perspective on how much we've learned because we recognize just how much there is to know about a particular area. My guess is that one's perspective on this just keeps getting further out of touch (in this particular way) the longer one studies something. When we first begin to learn about something, we gain a little knowledge and start thinking we know a lot -- by the time we've been at it for years, decades, a whole career, we see that there's way more to know than any one person ever could! I digress, but my point is that your answer probably isn't anywhere near as shallow or superficial as it seems to you. I also think it's a *good thing* you see it as less sophisticated than I do because, if that weren't the case, you probably wouldn't be a good candidate for graduate study in biology (someone with my perspective on the field definitely isn't prepared for it!) Also, I don't think even the foremost expert of X can say why he finds X so exciting if 'why' means something like, "what profound meaning does X have that explains your fascination with it?" Unless the aforementioned expert is a religious man, he can only offer reasons along the lines of what you've said. Sure, as THE expert, his answer might be more nuanced or deeply informed, but if you just kept asking him "so what?" after every reason he gave for his interest in X...there would eventually be an impasse at which point the expert would give an exasperated response. He'd say something like, "So!? That's an extraordinary phenomenon! How do you not see that, person who doesn't find X interesting!?" (At which point you'd shrug and say, "meh, different strokes for different folks. I didn't mean to upset you." That's how I knew I shouldn't pursue a career in my undergrad major -- I found it really interesting (interesting enough to happily major in it), but at some point, I started to find myself wondering who cares enough to keep arguing about this? Other people do care enough to argue about it for decades; they have a good answer to the question why do you want to study this? -- their answer is, "because it's so cool!"

Personally, I'd make this a game-time decision. I think it would make sense for you to think about how you'd explain the mistake/why it appears on your statement, along with the manner in which you'd communicate a self-deprecatory (not overly so!) stance. But I wouldn't go in with a firm commitment to bring it up or not bring it up. I'd see how the conversation goes, whether there's an opportune moment to insert mention of the mistake without "forcing" it, what the vibe is like, etc. etc. etc. If you go in thinking you definitely must/mustn't bring it up, you may ignore in-the-moment instincts that tell you to do the opposite, and having good interpersonal/conversational instincts -- it seems to me, at least -- is arguably the most important factor for successful interviewing. It sounds like you have a strong social "sense" so I say trust it! Read your audience, go from there

power play

This isn't something I'd normally want to weigh in on -- which option is the "right" one depends so much on the individual making the choice. Like a lot of the others who've posted, I like/need alone time. I'd also way rather be lonely than irritated, so the risks of living alone are more palatable to me than the risks of living with roommates. With such a strong personal preference, I'm not really in a position to advise someone who doesn't feel the same way... That having been said, it sounds like you're leaning toward living alone, which makes me think it's probably the better option for you. Some people can't stand the thought of living alone - or at least have very strong reservations about trying it - but it doesn't seem like that's true for you. You can always find people to be with, but, if you have roommates, you can't always find a quiet comfortable solitude. Also, the fact that you have 2 dogs makes me think you'll be less at risk of major loneliness on your own. Obviously dogs aren't the same as people (sometimes they're better!), but they definitely take the edge of loneliness, at least in my experience. I've lived with roommates who were friends (undergrad), alone, roommates who weren't friends (during one year MA program), and with my SO. College was a blast but I didn't care about much other than partying (I was very immature in that way); even then, some roommate situations drove me nuts (e.g., one year the kitchen sink was *always* full of dirty dishes that my roommate "didn't have time" to clear - he was way too busy sitting around in his boxers playing video games - and the living room was *never* empty because, with 4 of us living there (plus the two nomad friends we hosted on and off most of the year) someone was always hanging out with a friend or two or twelve). I really hated living with the not-friend roommates - it was a large apartment and I had a private 1/2 bath which was great, but, while two of the roommates were wonderful, the third was an overbearing, excessively chatty control freak. He was also a total jerk who sublet the rooms to us and ripped us off every chance he could get. I've *loved* living alone (with a cat) and I'm currently very happy living with my SO. We're engaged and have a great relationship. Still, although I definitely wouldn't want to live apart from my fiancee, I do sometimes miss certain aspects of living totally on my own. It's worth the sacrifice of things I miss because I get to live with a wonderful SO as a result, but no way would I consider the trade-off worth it in any other circumstance. I'm also 31 and fairly, well, curmudgeonly At the risk of rendering my response too muddled to help, I will add that I also think there's some wisdom to the point others have made about trying a roommate situation first since you can always switch to solo after the lease is up. It might make sense to reassess your feelings about the decision after you know where you'll be located and can get a feel for the housing options near the school. Some areas may feel sort of cold and impersonal or have quiet spread-out neighborhoods, whereas others may feel...cozier. Even in the same city, the particulars make a big difference: living on a block with a lot of, say, clothing stores and banks may have a very different feel than living on a block with welcoming-atmosphere coffee shops and low-key pool-table-equipped bars.