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QASP

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QASP last won the day on April 20 2014

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  1. People who say it's laughing AT nerds or complain about the stereotypes make me roll my eyes. The characters are pretty accurate to people I know in the world. Though, perhaps Geodude is right-- it shouldn't be physicists, but engineers instead. The only thing I find bothersome about the show is how uncritically rapey it is.
  2. People are ridiculous. I am taking a cut to half of what I made in the working world for graduate school, you can bet I'm going to be busting my ass for every dime I can get out of any scholarship/fellowship/work opportunity (within reason and the terms of stipend). I don't think it's greedy to want to live a halfway to decent life. Proving you can attract a lot of funding is super important for after you graduate as well, it can be a real factor in getting a TT or similar research position. That said I agree with Bsharpe's comment about married individuals actually being less in need of funding, not more (what I wouldn't give to have the advantages of a combined income again, le sigh).
  3. The value of this degree is really very low, monetarily speaking. The ROI is basically negative for the type of Psy.D. that you have to pay for out of pocket. Think long and hard about it before considering this. You are better off waiting a couple years and getting solid research experience than jumping in now and having a low paying degree and hundreds of thousands of debt just to be able to start/finish sooner.
  4. I actually do not think you are getting great advice from that professor; 1-2 years of research experience is enough to get into Ph.D. programs. It sounds like you may not be getting the best possible experience though. Programs want to see you are capable of some level of "independent" research and not just performing those simpler lab functions. Publications aren't necessary for acceptance, but having poster presentations or similar is a big boost. Three things you can do, in a year: 1.) try to get more involved in the research, doing enough work to at least be included on a presentation (can be difficult, some professors are stingier with this than others). 2.) improve GRE scores so that they are impressive. 3.) work on "fit" and your personal statements. This is SO important to the application process, and so often overlooked. You want to find professors who do the type of research that interests you, and write a personal statement that is really tailored to them and the program you are applying to. In terms of Psy.D. programs, the reputable programs have the same standards as Ph.D. programs; Baylor and Rutgers are (as I hear) great, but the standards for getting in are high-- and personally I wouldn't risk the possible debt at Rutgers, making Baylor the only real option in my mind for a Psy.D. Many Ph.D. programs are not at all research focused and primarily train clinicians (and prefer students who want to be clinicians), as long as you can express a passion for research in addition to clinical work in your personal statement.
  5. QASP

    Friends?

    Well, my intention is not to insult so much as to challenge you to consider the problem from a different angle and I made it after several more complex and thoughtful post above from various others failed to get the message through (and, given that the implication of your statements is that more than half the world is dimwitted non-intellectuals not worth knowing, I don't feel too bad insulting/challenging just one person). I'm not sure what "evidence" you expect me to have; neither of us has "evidence," this is a conversation on the internet. My evidence is your post. I could cite the many people I know who are intelligent and deep but that others perceive as dull because they don't get to know them well enough to see them open up and talk about their philosophical interpretation of Spike Lee films or whatever else. I also know people who complain constantly about others but who are clearly not putting in the effort or get frustrated too easily about the "banal" nature of much typical human interaction. I'd also say that you and others in this thread are complaining you are unhappy due to the types of human interactions you have; your reaction to others is very much your problem. I could get pretty deep on the nature of gift giving myself. I'd recommend you consider all of this from the perspective of the fundamental attribution error (look it up if you're not familiar). You are saying most people are not interesting, but are you sure it's not just that you don't know them well enough or in the right surroundings? Let me tell you a couple stories. In another life, my boyfriend wanted to introduce me to a couple friends of his who he implied were real academic types, and a bit country club as well. I can be a pretty weird and out there person, so for these friends of his I toned myself down and acted in the way I thought was appropriate for them. I thought we were having a great time, as I put on this sort of act for them. It later came back through a friend of a friend that basically meeting me was "imagine the most boring person you have ever met, and now double that experience." They thought I was dull and banal, because I was playing out what I thought the expected social role was in that situation. Kind of hurt in that situation, but actually in terms of people I work with in an office environment on a day-to-day basis I'd much rather they say that than know some of the stranger things about me. Just this weekend, I went to a party at a friend's house. I've been there before, and had many deep and worthwhile conversations with the friend and the various people who tend to come out for his events. This particular weekend, however, a lot of people who frustrate me showed up, and they ended up monopolizing the conversations with my otherwise interesting friends. But it's not that my friends aren't interesting, it's just that they are also capable of having these fairly boring conversations with people who don't seem capable of going beyond that. It was, in fact, a pretty boring weekend, but hey I rode through it and I'll have deep conversations with the people I do like again. I'm not saying there are no boring people, but I genuinely do not think it is "most people." A lot of the people I know are academics who enjoy intellectual conversation but also are capable of (and appear to enjoy) discussing credit cards, Vegas vacations, and popular television shows. Thus suggesting a piece of the problem is you and your approach to things, not everyone else. I don't know what to tell you about the people talking about baby strollers though. Hang out with homosexuals? People with kids are nuts.
  6. One possibility, refurbished ThinkPad laptops from IBM. Basically they were top of the line 2-3 years ago and still are extremely high quality in comparison to what you could get new at that price. They should be more than up to the task. Even better, they are having a $100.00 off sale right now, through the first week or two of June. http://www-304.ibm.com/shop/americas/content/home/store_IBMPublicUSA/en_US/laptops.html
  7. QASP

    Friends?

    No, a lot of people (well, me at least) are saying that if you are writing off most people as dull and boring and have trouble finding worthwhile companionship, the problem is probably you.
  8. I could tell you some horror stories of in-laws, but I had the advantage that they lived a few states away. They told us when they were coming, no regard for our prior plans or anything, and every second we were with them they made my boyfriend miserable and acted horribly. Honestly my advice would be to just stop showing up, and get your partner to do the same. After about a year away from that nonsense, maybe she'll decide that she values having the two of you in her life more than she values controlling your lives. More practical for those who aren't dependent on family for a support network, though. I hate toxic family members, they convince others that because they're family there is no escaping them.
  9. Gosh, I hardly remember posting in this thread. In the end, the solution to my problem is to live without a car. Frustrating, but Zipcar should manage for those times I absolutely need a car and the rest is just the necessary sacrifice of getting this degree. Can't speak for anyone else, but for me there are a lot of differences between grad school and undergrad: in undergrad I worked and went to school full time, which my schedule allowed; my stipend is less than half my current salary and there is going to be no real time for working outside the program. In undergrad I lived in a city with viable public transportation that made driving unnecessary, not so for the city my grad institution is in. In undergrad I had a partner splitting expenses with me. It's a pretty drastic financial shift, for me. Basically I'm living on 1/4 of my undergrad income, with additional expenses. Hard to compare the two, really.
  10. QASP

    Friends?

    No, I think the point I (and GC) were making was that we can do deep and meaningful things with non-academics, that seems to be the two different groups (those who are too good for non-academics and those who are not). I'm also reading a bit of "I don't even own a TV" snobbery in various posts from various people here (in case you are wondering and too cool to know, this is partially a reference to an Onion article), which presses a lot of my buttons and really frustrates me (and believe me I am not a TV person at all, it just angers me when people look down on others for acting differently than they do). I was actually going to mention this earlier, I feel like this is a divide I have experienced elsewhere. People who live in certain parts of the deep south or rural/deep suburban Ohio have these negative experiences with the people around them being so culturally removed from them (e.g. the only subject discussed in real depth being the Bible), that they tend to speak in fairly negative terms about people outside the academy or "mainstream society" as a whole, when really they are discussing their frustration with the people they interact with on a day-to-day basis (who may not actually represent the "average American," though they and certain politicians imagine that they do). I promise, most of the country has really fascinating and worthwhile people who never went to college.
  11. QASP

    Friends?

    Calling them my 'normal' friends and the "normies" thing was a joke (a joke ripped off from popular culture), I was poking a bit of fun at the divide you seemed to be creating between the 'normal' and 'everyday' vs. academics. There is no such thing as the viewpoint from nowhere, imho. You can't step out of these things, I would argue people who think they can set themselves apart from their objects of study are fooling themselves and are more likely to commit tainted research (in the social sciences, anyway). Of course, many disagree. I'd love to do an experiment on this someday.
  12. QASP

    Friends?

    I don't know, I think it's pretty clear some people are saying we can only take so much normal everyday academic 'stimulation' and instead we seek out interaction with people who don't have to limit themselves to topics that would be covered by the BBC and/or The Chronicle of Higher Education. A lot of my "normal" friends (I call them normies) analyze their friendships and the type of people they hang around with, and why. I get a lot of insight out of my friends who dropped out of college, just as much as I do from others who are in or went to grad school. I find a lot of people within academia denigrate mainstream culture ("the outside world" apparently) without seeking to understand it, and make odd blanket statements that don't hold up to my experience (like your last sentence here). As Woody Allen expressed it in Annie Hall: "What is fascinating [about sports] is that it's physical. You know, it's one thing about intellectuals. They prove that you can be absolutely brilliant and have no idea what's going on."
  13. I'm a couple generations behind and still play PS2 games. They're finally releasing solid sequels for some of the games I love, so I may have to pick up a PS4 eventually. I'm a reluctant computer gamer, mostly strategy games via Steam. Civ V is exactly as addicted as all the past Civ games.
  14. Usually you need a main advisor who is in the department you are going into, but I know a lot of people who work more heavily outside of their department with someone else than they do with their main advisor. It is somewhat dependent on the university and departmental culture whether this is acceptable. I'm very interested in the intersection of Communications and Psych. If you would be willing to PM me this person's name so I could read some of their work, I'd be grateful for it.
  15. Yes, it's normal, I'm going through similar "if only I had taken a different approach to applying" thing, because I am not thrilled about the physical location of the school I am going to (specifically I dislike cold weather and would like to not experience it ever again). But I see you're in psychology, which is a very competitive field for funded PhD's, and schools in desirable locations are often flooded with applicants who are a poor match for the program (because we all want to live in those locales). I think it's important/worthwhile to embrace the possibilities of exploring something new, which offers distinctly different opportunities from what you're used to. Don't let stereotypes of the "landlocked Midwest" get you down. Good luck!
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