dat_nerd

Guys, I have just received the results from my written qualifying exam -- and I passed it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spellbanisher (2015), nice.

I developed it all by myself. 

The overall lack of structure and uncertainty that lies beyond the second year.  Experimental setbacks, publication rejections, harsh (at times) criticisms, no clear benchmarks for success, and increasingly looser guidance as you progress.  Kind of like walking through fog that thickens before it clears.  That said, it certainly toughens you up.

I just came across this thread tonight and agree with what everyone has been saying about staying low key about age and not assuming things about people of any age. I would extend that to race, ethnicity, ability, gender, etc. Try to be as open to people as possible- they will surprise you the more you get to know them.
 
And a caveat- don't constantly bring up how young you are. I have a colleague who is 22 and she brings up her age almost everyday. When a professor talks about some bill passed during the Nixon administration, she'll say "I wasn't even alive yet!" and she draws attention to it on other people's birthdays, too. It's constant and irritating and probably a sign that she is insecure about something. Which is silly because she's very smart and I don't think anyone would say she shouldn't be there. So there you go. Just be yourself.

can we stop mocking people for their life choices? jeez

STephanie is now my GF we are very happy together. Please lock this thread and move to the Gradcafe Success Stories forum.

It's completely normal to be anxious about quals.  Just remember that your department wants you to pass them.  As the others said, if you've done the prep and you're worried about doing well, I wouldn't worry to much about running out of steam (or focus) on the exam day.  Your nerves will power you through!  It helped me to have a plan on both of my exams.  We had 3 essay questions in 9 hours, so it was 3 hours per essay.  That helped me stay on track, as did doing mock exams (half exams- I could never make myself do a whole one in a day).  Good luck!  Unlike the hunger games, the odds really are in your favor

Your anxiety about the test in general is honestly a pretty good sign.  You sound like you recognize the weight and potential difficulty of it and have taken the necessary steps to prepare yourself.  The people who brush off the quals thinking it's a walk in the park are the ones I worry about

What are the pass/fail rates for your exam? 
 
My written prelim is two 8-hour days in a row (so 16 hrs total) in person, closed book/notes/everything. It covers the first year of coursework, and the covered material is both very dense and difficult to master. When I need something to prevent me from weeping softly under my desk while arguing with an imaginary friend at the mere thought of this exam, I just remind myself how statistically unlikely it is that I wouldn't pass. Any chance you can take the same approach? 

Rehearse the basics of writing and the writing process as works best for you. Be prepared to spend some time making quick and dirty outlines to answer each question. Try not to get bogged down in the details of a question that seems tailored to your expertise and make sure you showcase your knowledge of the area that isn't quite exactly what you do.

First of all, that professor sounds like a dick.
 
I wouldn't apologize again. Just make sure you refer to him by his preferred title ("It was nice talking to you, Dr. Ego-trip"). Apologizing again would just bring the attention back to that issue. You've already apologized; no need to do it again. 

At my current school (private), we are told on the first day that we should expect no privacy with our .edu email address and that if the school wanted to, they can read all of our emails. We are still allowed to send personal emails from that address, but we should just know that the school can choose to read our .edu emails if they wanted to. So it's not just public universities!
 
Also, in my program, a big part of the meeting days is scheduled 15-30 min talks with individual graduate students. This is the best time to ask those personal and well worded questions. I've met with students that asked me a variety of things and some of them were good questions and some bad. 
Example bad questions to ask (i.e. you will get an evasive answer or just useless information): What do you hate about this program? (especially if it's the first thing you ask); Have you heard anything bad about any of the professors? (this is too much like gossip for us to give useful info); What is grad school here like? (not necessarily a bad question, but many people ask this as a way to get information about the negatives but if you ask this, you will mostly get the positives).
 
Good questions I think you should ask: What is Prof X's mentoring style like? (if Prof X is that student's advisor and your POI). Is the stipend enough to live in this city? What other schools did you visit? Why did you choose this school over the others? Why did you pick Prof X over the others? You can also ask specific questions about different aspects of your program, such as quals, candidacy, TAing, RAing, etc. If there are anything bad/dysfunctional about these aspects, it will come up during the conversation.
 
Overall, in order to get good/useful information, I think you have to ask direct and specific questions. Asking broad and general questions usually results in me saying more good things than bad and unless I know or trust you, I don't volunteer bad information about other people without prompting. The "bad questions" examples are things I feel are too general and I would rarely give you useful "negatives" if asked those questions.

Try asking questions like this:
What was your favorite and least favorite thing about the program?
During the process, did anyone in your cohort become unhappy, and why?
 
That way they will need to give you some negatives as well that will better help you compare.

Maybe unusual - but my main goals would be automation and transparency - making the selection more fair, speeding the process up, and saving uncompetitive applicants time & money. 
 
Integrate some kind of survey-esque/Qualtrics-like software that can quickly and neatly divide applicants based on the most relevant stats, such as GPA, GRE, and years of research experience [if most schools have this, they really have no excuse for their slowness]. If sub 3.5 GPAs don't cut the mustard and/or the university has strict GRE score requirements, auto-email all applicants fitting those criteria w/in a week of their submission with a short message explaining just why they were rejected so that they don't reapply next year.  (related to the above) Have such spoken and "unspoken" stats published on the admissions website. (related to the above) Release stats for the previous five years of admits.  If interviews are required, reject all applicants who are not invited to interview IMMEDIATELY. List whether or not faculty are seeking students on their webpages, preferably 2 month in advance of the application deadline. Indicate in instructions whether students should contact faculty or not; make it clear when individual faculty are responsible for accepting students [uT-Austin is, admittedly, very explicit on this front]. If I were a faculty member, have guidelines for exactly what I would want for a prospective to email me (CV + 1 page research statement, etc.) (related to above) Maintain a separate lab email for this purpose Expunge identifying information like name, race, gender, and undergrad/master's university from adcomm's first read-through materials. Add back in uni information and names only after top 5-10% are chosen based on CVs and SOPs. Publish this exact process as well as any other relevant procedures on the website.

Hello everyone, I thought I'd create a thread where we could share tips for traveling (home or elsewhere) during graduate school.  This might be good for people in long distance relationships, moving away from home for the first time, or just trying to live off a graduate stipend.
 
One thing I recently discovered is great for military families.  You have to be active duty or have a dependent ID card, but Southwest airlines offers EXTREMELY reduced pricing for a limited number of seats on flights.  They're not available during the holidays/peak travel, but I'm talking like, $88/each way.  It's great for when you find out you have a long weekend, one day in advance, and want to go home to hubby/family.  (There's a large military community on this forum, so that's why I included this tip).  You have to call 1-800-I-FLY-SWA to get the pricing, though, and be somewhat forward about stating you want that special pricing.
 
On that note, does anyone have an airline/travel rewards credit card?  Can anyone recommend one?  I am thinking of just getting one with Southwest, since that's the airline I am most loyal to, but I am open to other cards that offer greater travel rewards.
 
And who here has traveled by train (Amtrak)?  Any tips for saving money?

Uh, false.

Update: I found an advisor!
I actually feel very fortunate because I like him and his research area better than any of the other people I worked with.  He just joined the university this year so I wouldn't have gotten to work with him if the other three people hadn't turned me down.

My advice is don't assume that the students who are older than you are somehow fundamentally different from you.
 
Don't assume that you are more energetic and lively than the students who are older than you; don't assume that the older students are less likely to go out and have a drink with you or participate in some kind of social event; don't assume that the older students have families and children; don't assume that you will be more productive because you're younger (or because you don't have a spouse or child, if that's the case); don't assume that you are more driven and/or will work harder because you are younger. But also don't assume that you know less, or are less mature or valuable, because you are younger.
 
I knew some seriously hard-working and productive doctoral students with spouses and children. I had some older doctoral friends who could drink you under the table and would stay out later than anyone. I had some older doctoral friends who were on first-name basis with the night shift janitors because they worked in the lab all the damn time. I had older doctoral friends who had spent years in our field working towards their goal of a doctoral degree.
 
Just...don't assume. Make friends with everyone; invite everyone out for drinks or pastries, chat up all of your cohort. Be mature and act like an adult when it comes to interpersonal matters, but be yourself, too. Nobody is really going to care how old you are. The few who bring it up repeatedly actually don't care, either - they bring it up more because of personal insecurities, but it really has nothing to do with your actual age. They'd find a way to be insecure regardless. With that said, the very vast majority of older graduate students are not going to care about how old you are. They might not even know until you say something that makes it clear ("Last year in college..." or "Oh yeah, I remember where I was during 9/11 - I was in the third grade...")

Age doesn't really matter but immaturity can shine in an awful light and it's more prevalent among younger graduate students.  First years regardless of age come in fairly naive about a lot of things and that's perfectly acceptable.  However, to horse around, be loud or recounting awful Tinder dates (when you say in the same line that you're looking for a relationship) in the TA room are some examples that can annoy others who are treating their PhD as a job and/or meeting with students (who themselves see their TAs as "adults" and not undergrads like them).
 
Within the classroom, no advice as the professor facilitates the discussion and is age-blind (usually....).

Also, no one has mentioned one of the greatest advantages of living alone, which is that you can be naked pretty much all the time. And doing research without a bra >>> doing research wearing a bra.

Overall, I think this email looks good. If you haven't gotten replies, do realize that professors are giving exams, grading end-of-semester projects, getting ready for winter break, and receiving tons of emails from other applicants. Most of the replies I received were canned anyways, but I did receive a few more personalized responses.
 
My only critique is that you directly state that you want to join the professor's lab, but without having met them or emailed them in the past. Some professors prefer to vett their students before accepting them into their lab. Some schools have a formalized advisor selection process in which you would be required to work with other professors first. Others may be interested in talking with you but cannot accept any additional students that year. 
 
Another way of asking is to state that you are interested in X,Y,Z research that they and their lab is doing, that you would like to hear more about their recent projects, and ask if they plan on accepting new students next year. That way, they can respond without making a commitment, while also letting you gauge the response.

Overall, I think this email looks good. If you haven't gotten replies, do realize that professors are giving exams, grading end-of-semester projects, getting ready for winter break, and receiving tons of emails from other applicants. Most of the replies I received were canned anyways, but I did receive a few more personalized responses.
 
My only critique is that you directly state that you want to join the professor's lab, but without having met them or emailed them in the past. Some professors prefer to vett their students before accepting them into their lab. Some schools have a formalized advisor selection process in which you would be required to work with other professors first. Others may be interested in talking with you but cannot accept any additional students that year. 
 
Another way of asking is to state that you are interested in X,Y,Z research that they and their lab is doing, that you would like to hear more about their recent projects, and ask if they plan on accepting new students next year. That way, they can respond without making a commitment, while also letting you gauge the response.

Initiate a conversation with this girl. Instead of only being the person who passively listens to what others talk about, try setting the topic of conversation. You are both interested in social work, you're both at the same university in the same program...there has to be some overlap in your interests, personalities & life experiences. Find out more about her - ask questions and be interested in her answers. Invite her for coffee between classes.
 
The things you said make it sound like some social interactions in general are challenging for you. Not knowing what to say in conversations with strangers, trying to "better" other people's experiences, thinking that colleagues will judge you for being single. If getting to your therapist is an issue, perhaps consider taking part in improvisation/drama classes. Hell, I find it difficult to cope with a large group of noisy friends all at once, even when I like the folk - but in that case I just skip the crowded bar nights and hang out with smaller groups of my friends in a more sedate setting. You don't have to interact with a friends in a way that doesn't work for you.
 
What everybody wants to believe (and trust me, I mean everybody) is that there is some clearly-defined goal that they just need to reach...and BAM! They will be happy forever afterwards after they hit it. Because people want to be happy, and they want to believe that there is some magic way to just "become" (and then stay) happy. In your case you believe that getting in to a relationship will make you happy. For other people it's a new job, their PhD, a nicer house, losing 10 lbs. I've spent this whole semester adamant that buying a car is what I really need to do. 
 
Happiness doesn't work like that. You can't 'unlock a happiness badge' upon completion of any life milestone, nor can you guarantee 20 years of happiness through fulfilling a set of pre-requisites, as it were. Happiness is something that you work upon as and of itself, and it is something that comes & goes (sometimes you can control that a bit, other times you can't). 

I'm also getting ready to apply to NLP schools and have been discussing it with my advisers. So what I say here is a combination of their recommendations and my own broad-reaching research, done over a very long period of time (a few years, no joke). Caltech, UCI, and UCSB don't have much (if anything) in NLP. UCSD does somewhat, as with Roger Levy and Andy Kehler, but their research is on the psycholinguistic side (though Levy graduated from the NLP group at Stanford). UCLA used to, but their researchers in NLP either are adjuct or have left. The most I could find at Princeton was the WordNet project, but that's under cognitive science and isn't pure NLP. Harvard has two people--Stu Shieber and Barbara Grosz (but her research has diverged a bit); Shieber's a well-known name though.

As others said, the best places are CMU (LTI) and JHU (CLSP/HLTCOE). I really disagree that USC and UMD are second-tier--some of the most well-known people are in the NLP/CL groups at ISI and UMIACS. While Stanford doesn't have a single center for all that it does in the field, I'd say it's easily as good as JHU or CMU--the big names now are Dan Jurafsky (co-author of most widely used NLP intro book, also the only one to receive the MacCarthur Fellowship for work in computational linguistics) and Chris Manning (AAAI fellow and author of two widely-used books in NLP and IR). But also Stanford is the only university to have claim to two ACL Lifetime Achievement Award winners: Martin Kay and Lauri Karttunen. The former is going emeritus really soon but still teaches. The latter is a consulting professor but still teaches and does research with Stanford, though he's at PARC. Other PARC members that do NLP research with Stanford are Annie Zaenen, Cleo Condoravdi, and Ron Kaplan. Daphne Koller (also a MacCarthur fellow) and Andrew Ng in the CS department do work in NLP. Chris Potts, a linguist, does some work in computational semantics. And then there are the other affiliated organizations: the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), which has a computational semantics lab with many NLP folk, including Stanley Peters (a linguistics professor); and SRI International, which has an NLP group of its own and which collaborates with students and faculty at Stanford. Related work in AI is important for a strong NLP program, and the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) has other people working in machine learning, knowledge representation, etc.

Phew, enough plugging. Other great schools in NLP are

*Columbia - recently took Michael Collins away from MIT; has Julia Hirschberg and Kathy McKeown, among others working in related fields at CCLS
*MIT - Regina Barzilay is the only one left, though CSAIL has a lot of awesome AI people; also there's Robert Berwick who does similar work
*U Penn - soon to lose Aravind Joshi, and Fernando Pereira is pretty much indefinitely MIA; still has Mitch Marcus and more recently Ani Nenkova -- though I honestly don't see how U Penn could be considered anywhere near "the most important"; maybe it was before but not anymore
*Berkeley - the main person is Dan Klein, but come on--one glance at his CV and you'll see why he's one of the biggest names now; also Marti Hearst (iSchool), Jerry Feldman, and Robert Wilensky (one of the latter two was Jurafsky's adviser, can't remember which); ICSI does interesting related work
*Cornell - surprised nobody's mentioned it before; Claire Cardie, Lillian Lee, Mats Rooth, John Hale, Thorsten Joachims...
*UIUC - LOTS of people, just search for its NLP group
*U Washington - Emily Bender, Fei Xia, recently Luke Zettlemoyer, among others
*UT Austin - haven't looked much into it but was told it's one of the top ones--I'm not much interested in the South, though

Some other schools who have people that do work in the field: CU-Boulder (Martha Palmer, who left Penn a long time ago, and James Martin, co-author of the NLP book with Jurafsky), U Michigan (Dragomir Radev, secretary of the ACL now I think), U Rochester (James Allen and Lenhart Schubert), Ohio State, and Northwestern (Doug Downey, Larry Birnbaum). A recent PhD graduate of the Stanford NLP group suggested UMass to me, but I can't find much in the way of NLP/CL, at least not online. Anyone have an idea about that?

Here are a few interesting rankings of papers/people compiled from data in the ACL anthology--basically, the most cited researchers who publish in the typical venues in the field. Take it with a grain of salt, because it isn't all-inclusive. Notice, though, that three of the top-10 researchers by citation are at USC ISI.

http://clair.si.umich.edu/clair/anthology/rankings.cgi

That's about all I know. Hope that helps