shadowclaw

Asking the school for clarification is the best bet, but what schools seem to want when they ask that question is your GPA for the past 2 calendar years (in this case, fall 2013 - summer 2015). 60 credits is roughly equal to four semesters, not including summer and intersession terms, which not all students participate in. Asking specifically for 60 credits leads to problems, because in practice, students don't take exactly 15 credits each semester, and some do take summer courses. So they would run into students cherry picking the best grades from one of their semesters to round out the 60 credits. Similarly, asking for four semesters might mean leaving out a semester that they're interested in because a summer session is counted as a semester. Does it really matter? Probably not, but if these different calculations result in vastly different GPA's, it could make the difference between your application undergoing further review or being automatically rejected. Personally, in an instance where an application asked for the last two years, I went with the last two calendar years.

Wasn't your supervisor involved in assigning the mark for your thesis? My masters thesis was given a grade of sorts - I received an A for my 6 thesis credits, as opposed to a pass/fail grade or some other grade that indicates completing a requirement without assessing its quality. The grade was assigned by my thesis advisor and he had the last say... obviously an A wouldn't matter if my committee refused to sign off on it or the graduate school didn't approve it, but the grade was up to my advisor, and I would think that would be normal in a situation where a grade was assigned. But I do agree with GeoDUDE, having your thesis published should be far more important than the grade you received for it.

Getting things packed for the big move in September. While doing so, I've realized that I have so much stuff that I really can do without. I don't need my dragon collection... most of it has been in boxes for several years anyway because I don't have enough space to display it all. Yeah, the new apartment has space, but do I really need 6 big boxes worth of dragons? Then there's my grandmother's dishes, glasses, and Christmas decorations. Sure, there's sentimental value, but truthfully most of it is ugly and I'd rather buy new stuff. I really only want to keep books, movies, music, a small video game collection, and a few assorted figurines and ceramics (maybe a box worth). Most of it can be mailed for under $100 through media mail. I do have some nice kitchen things my mom bought me that I haven't used yet (pots, pans, blender, etc), but these also can be shipped inexpensively via UPS. My canoe and kayak will fit on the roof of my car. All of the furniture can be replaced for less than it would cost to move it across the country. Sounds like I have everything figured out. Severely downsize and go shopping when I reach my destination. One problem. My husband has a collection. He applauds my desire to cut loose from my belongings and is excited about the prospect of getting a more comfortable bed. He's even trimmed down his collection, but it's still rather big. And heavy. It's made up of old telegraph insulators. We need to weigh his boxes, but I estimate that it will all weigh 600 pounds, possibly 700. We can't put that much weight into the car. At most, we can put 500 pounds in after accounting for our body weight plus the canoe, kayak, bike, and cats, and I have a few items that must go in the car. A solution is to ship some of the collection... yes, shipping 200 pounds of glass and porcelain would be expensive, but it would still be more cost effective than renting a moving container for our boxes and furniture (which will be around $2500). So what's the problem? He doesn't trust UPS and he thinks shipping them to himself is dumb. Ugh.

It depends on a lot of things. Do you have a low GPA? If you've taken the GRE, were your scores mediocre? Do you have limited research experience? Do you attend a school that no one's ever heard of in the middle of nowhere? There are lots of things that can weaken your application and get you passed over for admission into a PhD program, but having one or several of these weaknesses can be balanced out by amazing stats in other areas. Also having a potential advisor who really really wants you in his/her lab is also a HUGE help. Getting a masters first can help remedy weaknesses and make you more competitive, especially if you can publish during that time period. I don't know if you have any of these weaknesses, but they are something to think about. It's not true that getting a masters first is useless. For one thing, if you do the masters and PhD at the same school, you generally spend the same about of time there as you would if you went straight into the PhD program and some programs will let you switch to the PhD track after the first year if you do well. This does depend on the school's policies, though. Even if you don't attend the same school for your PhD, you will likely not have to start over unless your school doesn't accept transfer credits (which is also something to keep in mind if there's a program you REALLY want to attend). You may spend an extra year compared to going straight in the PhD program, but depending on your research topic, you may not. Most PhD programs are also funded, so tuition isn't something you will likely need to worry about when you get to the PhD stage. However, many masters programs are not. If you want to avoid paying tuition during a masters program, you will need to shop around for professors and programs with funding who are actively recruiting masters students. I personally did a masters first because I had some weakness (low overall GPA and not a lot of research experience), plus ecology programs are very difficult to get into due to needing to find a potential advisor who matched my interests prior to applying and having them support my application. Funding was the biggest issue, as many potential advisors didn't have funding or openings in their labs. I believe this is also true for marine science programs. While it would have saved me some time going straight into a PhD program, I loved my program and got to do some amazing research that took me across the globe. Given the chance, I would do it again. Also, forgot to add, some programs here in the US actually DO require a masters before entry in the PhD program. So keep an eye out for them!

Greetings! You may wish to start a separate thread for EEB and related applicants (last year's thread: ). We tend to get lost in the main thread, plus we usually have a different application process and later deadlines! A few comments on your profile - you have a bit of a low GPA for some of the schools you are applying to... if you were aiming for a PhD. Since you're looking for a masters, they will probably be much more forgiving, especially since you have awesome field experience. The biggest thing to remember when applying to Ecology programs is to secure a potential advisor. Almost all EEB programs will automatically reject you if someone hasn't agreed to support your application and be your advisor. Of course, that also doesn't mean you will be accepted if you do secure someone... your POI will likely have several other interested applicants (sometimes a lot), and the one with the best fit and application materials will be selected. Alternatively, even if you are the best fit, the adcomm may still reject you depending on how many students they can financially support (this problem is avoided if your POI has their own funding through grants). The Texas A&M wildlife job board and Ecolog listserv are great places to find professors with funding looking for a student to work on a project.

There is absolutely nothing contradictory about my statement, and I don't follow your logic. Let's pretend for a moment that I actually said that there can't be different interpretations of any religious text. Please explain how that would mean I can't be pro-religion. It doesn't make any sense. It might make me stubborn or closed-minded, but I can't see how it would invalidate my viewpoint that religion is a fine and dandy thing to have. As for the issue of different interpretations, there is a big difference between cherry picking and having a different interpretation of something. Sure, the various Christian denominations have a few differences in interpretation. Catholics tend to view the creation story as a metaphor while protestants take it as the exact story of how the world was made. Some groups don't do mandatory tithing because the new covenant of Christ replaced the old covenant and thus abolished tithing, while others think tithing was something separate from the old covenant and it's still required. However, they do all agree on the points I previously stated regarding sin and salvation. Cherry picking is a whole other issue. Cherry picking is saying something like it's ok for me to be a total jerk to my parents, but you're a terrible person because you lie to people and that goes against God's commandments. We're both violating a commandment, but I'm choosing to ignore one because it makes me feel better about myself or helps me justify my behavior. Another example could be someone who is cheating on their spouse but is very vocal about how terrible it is that somebody got pregnant before they were married and that they're living in sin. That is what is meant by cherry picking. Yeah, there are lots of people who don't agree with all parts of their religion or think that their religious text is out-dated, and that's fine. But once you start doing that, you lose the ability to back up your behaviors and beliefs with your holy text. Besides, if you disagree with the core beliefs of your religion (such as what I previously mentioned regarding sin and salvation for Christians), then you really aren't following it anymore.

Speaking of religion, I really dislike when people cherry pick parts of their religion to follow or support their opinions while completely ignoring other aspects. I have nothing against any religions (well, I admit I have some hard feelings for Baptists) and I think it's great for people to have faith. But I just can't stand when someone says something like "I'm against homosexuality because the Bible says it's wrong," but at the same time are completely accepting of divorce. The Bible says not to do a lot of things, but people do them anyway. If anyone does any real study of the Bible, they realize that any sin, no matter how small or how big, makes you unworthy of God and Heaven. Basically, one person's sin isn't more or less evil/wrong/whatever than anyone else's. Sin is sin, and it can only be forgiven through Christ. There's only one unforgivable sin, and homosexuality isn't it. So stop acting like you are free of sin and better than your fellow sinners. Better yet, stop acting like you are God, because only God can judge you and your sins! Read your holy book and start learning about what it actually says! Ok, so I'm coming down hard on Christians, but I don't know enough about other religions to know if someone is cherry picking. But it really does bug me when someone tries to justify their personal beliefs with random snippets of religion. You don't like gay people? That's fine. You don't like them because you believe it's wrong or immoral? That's fine, too, but don't you dare tell me it's because of the Bible unless you also hate everyone else on earth (including yourself) for their sins.

I've always been a fan of spider plants. They look nice in a hanging basket, they don't seem to be finicky about light, and can take a lot of abuse. When I was 16, I didn't water mine for 6 months while we were in the process of moving into a new house my parents were building. It didn't look pretty at the end of those 6 months, but one I returned to watering it, it flourished and gave me many years of enjoyment and several babies.

Looking for apartments cross country. Arrrg! I was trying to avoid apartment complexes because my husband hates people and thrives when he has a lot of space outside. I found a few really great houses and duplexes with fantastic rent and sizeable yards, but the owners were uncomfortable renting to someone who currently lives far away. There's also a rental company that manages a ton of properties around the area, and I found some pretty good apartments and houses listed... but they won't rent to someone without viewing it first. Ugh. I don't have the money to fly out to Oregon and spend a few days looking at places. I finally did find a few places that wouldn't mind renting to me, but they have awesome $40 per person application fee. At least one said they'll apply it towards rent if we're accepted. It's a pretty nice apartment from the photos, but a little more than I wanted to pay in rent.

Definitely read, read, read and take some notes. I was a full-time masters student (not part-time like you), but I started reading and thinking about methodology before I even started my program. I had my proposal pretty much complete at the beginning of my second semester, and a pretty thorough annotated bibliography written up by the end of my second semester. Granted, I kind of had to get it all together in order to do my research over the summer (and it involved international travel, so I had to get that stuff planned well in advance), but I was definitely ahead of the other members of my cohort by a long shot. And guess who was the only person to graduate on time in the spring! Yeah, you have 2 years left, which is a good chunk of time, but that also means you have more time to collect more data. I would have been thrilled to have two years of data instead of just one. Even if you don't want/need extra data (or maybe your project is more literature based), getting whatever you can get done as soon as possible will make your life so much easier down the road when you're writing it up and have a deadline to meet to graduate.

Hello all. I'll be making the move from Pennsylvania to Oregon in a little over a month. I originally had a good plan together for transporting our stuff, which included renting 2 u-haul moving cubes. It was plenty of space for our things and only cost $2500. I priced this back in the spring and had checked the online pricing as recently as May. Now that I am looking for an apartment and actually trying to get everything together, I've found that the price has doubled. So now our only affordable option is to get a single relocube from a different company for $2100. Which means we'll be leaving furniture behind. It also means that I now have to transport both my canoe and kayak on my car. It's hectic enough with just one. I can't imagine going across the country with both. The good news is that I'm getting a Subaru Forester in a few weeks, and it actually has roof rails and cross bars, unlike my current car which has nothing. So instead of hoping the foam blocks hold out on the 3000 mile journey, I can get a proper carrying system that attaches to the roof rack. However, I have no idea about carrying 2 boats. I've seen 2 kayaks on cars before, and a saw a shady photo of a kayak kind of bungee corded to a canoe, but I don't know the best options for long distance transportation of them. Anyone have any experience or suggestions?

I was assigned a review paper for one of my classes during my masters. The professor told us she would love if we persued publication after the course was over, but we weren't required to. It ended up being an excellent way to get a really good background on research related to my thesis topic, and I actually used a lot of it when I wrote my thesis. It made an excellent introductory chapter. While writing a review isn't the easiest thing in the world, getting all of that information in your head and on paper for future reference is invaluable.

Finally decided to just make plans for moving and just deal with a year of student loans if my TA position doesn't work out. Found a great small house with a yard about 2 miles from campus with decent rent which will hopefully work out. Went on the uhaul website to double check pricing on moving containers, and the price doubled since I last checked at the end of May. Blech. I was planning on 2 containers, but it looks like I can only afford 1 now. Which means I'll probably have to leave several pieces of furniture behind.

I just want to know if I have a TA position or not. Maybe the e-mail will come this week, but probably not. They said they'd let me know in the summer, once they have solid numbers for enrollment for the fall. Orientations for incoming freshman go from late June into September. Almost all of them will be done July 21, so maybe I'll find out the last week of July. But maybe not. I have a fellowship that would cover almost all of my tuition if I was a resident, but I'm not. That means taking out a loan this year if I don't get a TA, which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Then tuition would definitely be taken care of the following years. I would need a job, though... I have so much that needs to be done between now and mid-September if I am going to move across country. I need to start making plans, at least for housing. Ugh.

I feel your pain! I'm waiting on TA funding myself at OSU. I was told that I was on the waitlist for a position, but positions wouldn't be finalized until the summer after the end of the spring quarter (which I think ended last week) when they have more concrete enrollment numbers. So I'm hoping I'll hear about our soon! However, one of my committee members from my masters program said that every year in her PhD program she didn't find out until about 2 weeks before classes start (including her first year... she had 2 weeks to pack up in Vermont, head to Florida, and find someplace to live). She even lost her TA position her last year due to some weird rules about having to be part of a department in order to TA in it (and she was in a multidisciplinary program with no actual home department). Luckily, someone found a job for her.

Almost finished with a summer job and I'm really getting cranky about one of my coworkers. We're both crew leaders, but for different but related projects. She hijacked some of my responsibilities and essentially made herself the boss of the entire field crew. She would even butt into some of my training sessions with my crew when I was in the middle of explaining something and just start talking like I wasn't even there, repeating what I just said and then continuing with what I would have said next. She wanted a lot of things done her way that weren't even part of her project (because she had more experience and therefore knew better), and it was annoying as hell, and any attempt to disagree was met with the phrase "I'm going to have to insist on it." After a few times, I just gave up. We did extra work for no reason, but whatever. Her project was a lot shorter than mine, so she and her partner joined my crew when they were finished. They screwed up a lot, especially with making sure mist netting locations were 300 meters apart. I gave her maps and gps coordinates of sites already done, and she just ignored it and did what she wanted. So we have a fair amount of useless data now. I also went out with her on the last day of netting and found out that she and her partner weren't following proper protocol, and when I told her to do it the correct way, she told me no. Right to my face. It didn't result in bad data, but it could have. I also discovered that they didn't put up their nets correctly and it would be very easy for a bird to get extremely tangled and injured the laborious extraction process that would follow. I asked them to fix it. Again, a no. Now we're doing vegetation surveys and she again didn't follow the protocol. This time it did result in bad data, so several sites have to be redone. She now wants everyone else to split the work with her (and it's not a request). We've also been working for a month and a half and have had 5 days off the entire time. We're getting done 2 weeks ahead of schedule. This week is rainy, especially today. It poured all day. She refused to let us take the day off (even though our supervisor told us we could take any day off this week and not to work if it's doing more than drizzling... however, she denies that conversation took place). It was so cold and wet... I'm just really frickin annoyed with this person and I can't wait to get home after this week. I love my crew and I'll miss them, but getting away from her will be a dream come true. I don't think I would be so annoyed if I wasn't in a leadership position, but the fact that she has been stepping on my toes the entire field season and making more work for MY crew really gets to me.

I'm still waiting on 2 PhD programs. I broke down and finally emailed one. I'm on the wait list and they have two pending offers out to students who haven't replied yet. Should one decline, there will be space for me. They indicated that it will still take a couple weeks to get the cohort finalized, so I imagine the students who haven't replied still have a little while left to respond.

Really? I'm a 10 and it's almost impossible to find "nice" shoes larger than a 9. Sneakers, sandals, and plain dressy shoes are fine, but every time I've wanted something fancy for a wedding, prom, etc. I had to go 10 stores or shop online. Having internet shopping is great, because when I was a teenager looking for nice shoes for dances, online shopping was just getting started and my parents didn't trust it. Sometimes I had to drive an hour away to find shoes.

Interestingly, UTK is still on the table for me. I finally decided to ask about the status of my application (website says it's still in review) and found out that I am still on the waitlist and that the department is still waiting on some people to accept our decline offers. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I still don't know about funding for OSU (and won't until sometime in June or maybe even July), but thankfully there's no deadline to declare my intent to enroll to the graduate school. However, I'm quite excited about moving to the west coast (and especially the Pacific Northwest) as well as attending OSU. I don't know what I'll do if I get an offer from UTK now. It was my top choice because the research opportunities are absolutely amazing and I feel like I would regret it forever if I passed it up. However, OSU is a better choice for many other reasons, and is the only school my husband was actually excited about. Good thing I'm really busy with my summer job... I don't have much time to dwell on it!

That's annoying. Super annoying. I have a great spider story. My best friend is terrified of spiders. One day we were in the kitchen and her cat kept batting at her feet and acting strangely. At some point I looked down and the biggest spider I've ever seen was on her shoes. It was about the size of my palm. I told her not to move a muscle, and of course she looked down and saw it as it scurried off her foot. She made an incredible sound, jumped over it, ran into the living room and stripped naked while screaming "it laid eggs!" Eventually she decided it didn't lay eggs, put new clothes on, and we captured it in a Tupperware container and walked about half a mile away and tossed it into the woods.

Still haven't heard back from 2 programs. I got really freaked out about one... I logged into the system and it was completely different and looked like I may have been accepted. Then I found the link to the application status and I'm still under review. Still on the waitlist at the other program. Maybe I should shoot them an email. A friend of mine was waitlisted at one of her top choices and was actually offered admission on Wednesday. So there's still hope for those on waitlists. I wish I would find out about funding at my acceptance already! I really want to know if I can go! I'm actually a little bit terrified that my top choice will suddenly accept me. I'm pretty stoked about moving to the west coast, plus my husband is excited, too. The timing is great, too, as OSU starts about a month later than most places, giving me extra time with my family. Getting accepted to UTK would completely change everything.

Even if I had called him out on it back when he got that internship, I doubt it would have made a difference and I'm sure mutual friends and acquaintances would have said I was the jerk if he lost the position over it. It's definitely not worth it now. He is apparently good at his job and I don't really want to try to screw up his life. Taking credit for my work was probably one of the only positive aspects of his resume. His GPA was on the low side (3.2ish) and he had zero research experience aside from that project. Calling it research is really stretching it. We were really just collecting data for a state agency, and had the option of using the data for our senior projects. He chose to, but then didn't actually do anything with the data. He just kind of reported some descriptive info and when a faulty member asked him some questions about the project, he gave some bs responses. I'm getting off topic here. It's turning into a rant about how my peers sucked at research. I don't want to confront him about it, it just annoys the hell out of me that someone out there is successful because of me and I don't get credit. Kind of like someone on here posted about how they helped a friend write a book, and they enjoyed doing it and wrote several chapters. When it was published, they didn't so much as get mentioned in the acknowledgement.

I was looking at my undergrad school's website for some reason a few days ago, and I decided to click the link about alumni careers to see if anyone I knew was featured. Then I saw this kid from my major program listed who graduated with me. He was really into GIS even though he didn't seem to be very good with it. We worked on a project together and he was supposed to be in charge of mapping and getting us to field sites. He printed off some maps from Google that ended up being pretty useless once we parked. After two days, I took over and actually put together useful maps in ArcGIS and did all of the mapping after that, along with collecting all of the water quality data. After we graduated, he couldn't find a job, so he applied for a part-time internship with a local environmental organization. I read the write up they did on him, and they basically said they hired him because of the GIS work he did on our project (the work that I did) as well as his experience with working with water quality techniques (again, the work I did). He later got a good job also claiming my work as his. Even though I don't plan to ever work in his field, it pisses me off that he passed off my hard work as his. Now it pisses me off even more that he is featured in the alumni careers section.

For current shows, I watch the Big Bang Theory and Vikings. I also need to catch up on the latest season of Trailer Park Boys. I've been very slowly working my way through Andromeda, but it's not that great and I've been too busy to binge watch too often. Everyone told me to watch Firefly next, but did I listen? No... I binged on Babylon 5 over winter break. That show is amazing. I've been thinking of watching Deep Space Nine again (my fave Trek) after I do Firefly, but I'm really curious about Battlestar Gallactica... I've seen it at the top of several SciFi lists, but I did enjoy the original and I know it's very different.

This happened to me frequently when I worked in food service, especially my last job at a pizza hut. I took 20 credits a semester and then worked 40 hours a week in a combination of waiting tables and making pizza. There were days when I worked completely alone, doing everything (waiting tables, answering phones, making the food, cashing out the orders) because my entire scheduled staff claimed to be sick, no one would cover them, and the general manager wouldn't come in because her four days of work were too much. If I had something come up that I needed a shift off, I couldn't get someone to cover it if I started asking several days beforehand, but I could never bring myself to be a dick and just call off. There were days when I was a food safety hazard because I was so sick. My grandmother once found out that a friend passed away in a very awkward way. Her friend had written up Christmas cards to everyone but hadn't put them in the mail yet when she died. So her daughter opened them all, slipped in a small note that she passed, and mailed them.