DontHate

May I step in here: sometimes these relationships can be both "icky" as in off-putting AND "intimidating" as in, if one were to confront the professor too directly about the discomfort one feels, it could lead to a serious problem in your professional relationship (in terms of letters of reference, funding opportunities, etc). The two feelings are not entirely separate from each other. And it is often impossible to entirely avoid the people who make one feel uncomfortable in this way, because departments are often very small. If there were some magical way to talk openly about these situations, without making a professor feel upset/rejected/angry, that would be great. I just don't really think there is one. And honestly, no one is saying this only applies to white people, or upper-middle-class people. I am specifically referring to women and their heterosexual male profs, but this discussion could easily be expanded to include homosexual dynamics as well. A lot of you English folks seem to deliberately misread things just to get offended about them. Please stop doing that. There are other, much more productive ways of commenting, and you should try to learn a few of them before you get to grad school.

bump

Econosocio: I just mean, more generally, if anyone besides you chooses to add to this thread, please don't chime in just to say everything's sexist. Or even better: Heterosexist! so many lols

Don't neg me bro. I don't necessarily feel disempowered, I just feel like for certain people the sexual (under/over/up/down/strange)tones become a factor that requires mediation/moderation, while for others it's not even a part of the mix. And sometimes it's fun, it can make things interesting, but sometimes it's just frustrating and tiresome. There's also a strange assumption among my non-grad school friends that I'll end up marrying one of my professors. I'm curious what other people think about this -- besides finding it "sexist". I don't think pointing out the obvious sexism in play is particularly helpful. Let's dig a little deeper, shall we?

But Buffalo is fucking ugly!

I'm used to this. It's kind of what I'm trying to talk about here. But I guess I'm being "HETEROSEXIST" lawl

To be fair, I also said something rather snarky one time to someone who was justifying her decision not to apply to Harvard by saying it was "stodgy and boring." (She later admitted that her advisor told her Harvard wouldn't even look at her application). And I called Buffalo an ugly city. These are my sins. I repent, and yet I also don't really repent. Grad cafe makes me feel conflicted...

Saying you're uncomfortable with this, or that the dynamics that exist are inherently sexist, doesn't really answer the question of what to do about these things if and when they happen. You can't just throw up your hands and say "this is sexist, so I will pretend I can't see it." Lots of things in life aren't perfectly fair (most things, I would say). It's not fair that attractive people get more attention than unattractive people, even when they may have less to say. It's not fair that we tend to assume attractive people are smarter than ugly people (or that it even somehow tends to be true: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201012/beautiful-people-really-are-more-intelligent). It's also not fair that women are judged more by their looks than men are. I don't think it "normalizes" any of these things to acknowledge that they exist. I'm not saying that this is how things SHOULD be. The best way to allow an unfair dynamic to persist is, in fact, to ignore it because it's uncomfortable to talk about.

The preface to my post was written because everyone on this board seems to get very angry when I post anything even remotely controversial, so I wanted to respond to my critics before they could even get started. Just check out how many downvotes my posts get if you don't believe me.

While women may indeed be attracted to youthful men, they don't seem to prefer them as long-term partners. Most opt for men who seem older, more established, more mature, with more resources etc... In response to your whole post: I wasn't trying to give a full, accurate genealogy of gendered sexual preferences, merely stating what I perceive about what people tend to like today. Maybe "currency" was the wrong choice of words, but physical attractiveness definitely seems to be a major factor in who men want to date. And most men find it perfectly acceptable/preferable to date someone younger than themselves, whereas women tend to do the opposite. If you think this isn't true, then feel free to say so.

I want to preface this by saying that I'm not trying to be a troll, so please don't read this that way. I feel like many people take things on this forum far too personally. I am merely trying to state facts. Keep in mind that I don't know any of you, or anything about your personal lives, so there's no way that I could be seeking to insult you with my words. Academia is heavily male-dominated. And female sexual currency is largely determined by physical attractiveness. In our culture, much of a woman's physical attractiveness is governed by the appearance of youth. Therefore, logically, sexual tensions and ambiguously romantic situations are far more likely to arise between a professor and a student if the student is an attractive young woman (because statistically the professor is more likely to be a man). Anecdotally, from my own experience and the experience of my friends, this seems to be the case. It also seems to be a cultural truism that older women are not as drawn to younger men, and vice versa, as much as older men and younger women are drawn to each other. We seem, as a species, to be conditioned to pair off in a certain way: older men with distinguished careers match up with younger women with many fertile years ahead of them, due to a mutual attraction between both parties. So, in a way, academia is the perfect breeding ground (pun intended) for this kind of relationship. Which makes it a place rife with sexual tensions -- much more than your average workplace. I know that these assertions may sound sexist, and I'm not saying that they're in any way fair to either gender. They just seem to be true, and they feel true to me. Anyone else have thoughts about this?

I couldn't agree more

Why does everyone want to be a baker? It seems rather intellectually stymying and repetitive. And you have to wake up so early. Also, cooking school is really expensive and every professional chef I know thinks it's a waste of money. You can just get a job in a kitchen and work your way up, learning as you go, and getting paid while you're at it. Chefs have more respect for the apprenticed than the culinary school-educated. The best place to stage is Paris, of course. I may be unique in this, but I will not regret my career choices. I know I won't. Because my career isn't going to be what defines my life. My life is going to be what defines my life.

Seriously, I spend a lot of time drinking wine and talking intellectual talk with my profs. At least once a week. Am I the only one?

I just got an email from my trusted prof/advisor in my Master's program, he says A's & A-'s are fine in grad seminars. While I appreciate all you guys chipping in, it seems that there's a fundamental misunderstanding about my question (probably due to my not phrasing it correctly). I realize that most reasonable schools without horrific grade inflation will award many grades below an A. But the whole point of applying to grad school (and later, being in grad school) for me is trying to be the absolute best. So if only one A is given out in the entire class, that A better be going to me. If I'm not the best then I don't expect to get into the programs I want to go to, and I won't get that tenure track job down the line... etc. That having been said, Rems: I don't know ANYONE from my program or the other PhD programs at my school (a top-5) who had published or presented anything as an undergrad. Your account of having 2 publications by graduation sounds completely off-the-wall to me. Off-the-wall as in incredibly amazing.

I'm a Master's student.

I'm not questioning their existence so much as their prevalence. Particularly in tippy-top programs.

I've heard some mixed things on these here forums about getting an A- in a graduate-level class. Some have said that anything less than an A is cause for concern, and too many B+'s can get you kicked out of a PhD program. Others have made a certain sputtering sound with their lips upon hearing this, and waved their hand in a flippant manner as if to imply "what tosh!" What thinkest you? How much does an A- count against you when applying to a PhD program? Once in the program, will an A- get you negative attention from the powers that be?

I agree, it always seems like people discuss academia as if it's the only career track that has any tough competition, or long training period, or economic trade-offs associated with it. Everything worth doing is hard. Bitter grad student bloggers need to stop whining about it as if they invented job-stress.

so I take it you and the adcom are tight?

No, but for the purposes of this discussion of relative prestige, MIT and Stanford are the same as Ivies

20th C Diaspora stuff in France, Germany and the Southern Cone... I suppose. We'll see

waparys, where did you go to undergrad?

I was referring to the relative prestige of the undergrad programs

Well dartmouth doesn't really have a grad program.