orangeglacier

Look on the bright side - the other direction is way worse. I went from one of the top 5 undergraduate schools for my major to a rank 40ish graduate school, and whenever people ask me where I did my undergrad, they always give me a "wow!" followed by either a spoken or an unspoken "so how'd you end up here...."

I don't know much about healthcare or Canada, but I just wanted to comment that you probably wouldn't be stuck in Hong Kong for life if you did a masters there. The fact that your friend hasn't seen many Asian masters probably means that most people who get their masters in Asia choose to live and work in Asia, not that the degree wouldn't be able to get you a job back in Canada if you chose to.

I'm going to disagree with the prevailing opinion here and say to go for it and skip class. Of course, this entirely depends on what type of class it is. It might be different for humanities, but at least in my computer science program, classes are largely disconnected from research and your advisor usually encourages you not to spend too much time on classes, so missing them has little impact on your success in the program. One of the courses I took last quarter, I only attended once or twice, and still ended up with an A. I would say to go to the concert and make a lasting memory with your friends who you only get to spend so much time with. Of course there are circumstances that can make skipping it a bad idea - if attendance is graded/if there aren't online notes and you need to show up to learn the material/if it's your advisor's class and you don't want to offend them by skipping it. But on the whole the only downside of skipping class is that you'll have to study the material a little more on your own, which is worth having a fun night with your friends IMO.

There's really no reason not to appeal assuming you still want to continue the program. If they turn you down, you're in the same situation you were before, and if they don't then you're golden. Especially if the program director is on your side and you have out-of-class explanations for the spotty record you certainly stand a solid chance of succeeding in an appeal.

I would imagine at most schools, the number of summer classes offered changes a lot more from year to year than the number of fall classes, since every enrolled student takes classes in the fall, but students choose whether or not to stay over the summer and take more classes.

You keep mentioning "how do my students feel with him in my class" but what is the alternative? You can't kick someone out of class because they've been accused of a crime before they're convicted (or even if the university can, it's certainly not your place as a TA to). Your options appear to be: 1. Teach the class as normal ignoring what you know about the student. 2. Teach the class, but tone down the aspects of the curriculum relating to sexual violence in case someone would be more affected by such material with someone accused of such a crime sitting near them. 3. Specifically bring up the incident in class discussion. 4. Somehow get rid of the alleged perpetrator by not letting them attend the section or pressuring them to drop the class. Both 3 and 4 seem wildly inappropriate, especially as a TA and not an administrator, so I would go with option 1 or 2. Also remember, you keep talking about the other students. It's entirely possible that this student is innocent, in which case they will also be feeling equally alienated, unprotected, etc., if not more so than your other students when such matters come up in class.

Lot of early morning people in this topic. I generally wake up around 10 or 11, eat something, then work until evening from my bedroom, going to campus if I have a meeting with someone and taking a break to go for a run if I get restless with whatever I'm working on. I keep a strict schedule of "I need to get this done on Tuesday" or "I need to work for a few hours on this on Wednesday" so that I get things done, and as long as I'm meeting my schedule, I can relax and play games or whatever with extra time without worrying about what I should be working on.

I don't think the TAing thing is a big concern, both because it's unlikely (they have to be in the same major as you, and even then they're probably not taking an intro course if they're an upperclassmen, and upper level courses usually have smaller enrollments making it unlikely that you'll happen to TA the course they're in) and because it's not a big deal. As TA, you're essentially in the role of their boss - learning to manage a personal friendship with someone when you also have a work obligation with them is an important life skill to pick up. I would say that if you think you're a compatible roommate with someone after talking to them, I wouldn't let the fact that they're an undergrad dissuade you. After all, they are only 2-3 years different in age from you.

So if OP's husband doesn't want to live 9 hours away from his wife for 5 years, he must be "selfish" and "lean toward old-school gender roles"? Not wanting the terms of his marriage to suddenly, dramatically change means that he isn't "supportive"? I'm not saying long distance relationships can't work, but it's something both people have to work out. OP, looking at your other posts it sounds like accepting the program is likely the right decision for you, but I really had to comment on the judgmental tone of pinkdragon's post.

20 hours is usually the maximum they'll expect you to work and not an average (they probably tell you 20 so that if there's a crunch week you don't complain about the 20 hours interfering with the rest of your classes). My TAship here is technically 20 hours a week, but it's essentially 1 hour of teaching section, 1 hour of preparing for that, 1 hour of meeting with the professor/other TAs, 1 hour of typing up homework, 2 hours of office hours, and 4-5 hours of grading a week. And grading is not quite every week either, so some weeks it's 5-6 hours total of work.

It's probably going to be more work and different work than you had as an undergrad, but you don't necessarily have to think of it as a sudden big transition to adulthood. Moving somewhere new is intimidating and there will be changes, but you don't have to suddenly become a responsible adult. Personally I went with a school-run grad student apartments so that I wouldn't have to buy a ton of new furniture. I've met new people and found some new hobbies, but overall my life here is very similar to my undergrad life - I work all day on the weekdays, with maybe a bit of videogames at night, and then on the weekends I work in the afternoon and drink and play board games with friends at night. The only difference is that the work involves less classwork and more research.

I moved from Massachusetts to Southern California, but I just fit all I needed in a duffel bag and a backpack - laptop, phone, 2 weeks of clothes and some random assorted small stuff. The furniture I had before probably cost less than it would cost to move it, so it was easy to leave behind or sell.

Similar to the negative ones listed so far, most grad students seem to have very limited interest in any fun social events/hobbies and just define themselves solely by their work, which is depressing. Also most people try to avoid teaching work, when I find it one of the most rewarding parts of being a graduate student. I'm also surprised how easy grad school is. All of the classes seem to be less rigorous versions of classes I took as an undergraduate. Then again, a lot of my free time comes from the fact that I'm not very invested in research (ultimately the reason I'm leaving with a master instead of staying for a PhD)

I had one of these visits and then wasn't admitted even though I was the only applicant to a particular professor. I would avoid it, no point in having a chance of somehow leaving a bad impression. (When I emailed the coordinator later, they said that they wouldn't reject people just because they didn't go to the visit, so basically there's no point in risking your enrollment)

I don't think trigonometry or calculus has too much relation or use to political science. I would instead maybe take a statistics/data science course, that can both be useful to your future studies and help you appear quantitative to admissions committees. Just make sure to review the material that appears on the GRE before you take it.