shadowclaw

Despite taking a low course load and being pretty efficient with my TA duties, I still feel like I'm insanely busy. I don't really feel stressed most of the time, which is an improvement over last year, but damn! I'm feeling super grumpy today about my quizzes for the course I TA. The quiz was a bit long because there are only two lab quizzes this term (there are three during other terms). However, the questions really aren't difficult if you paid any attention to what was going on in lab. We give out lab points to groups if they can answer some questions throughout the lab related to what they're doing. Probably half of my quiz questions were taken from these word for word. They're printed in the lab manual and I told them to study them. I've graded about 1/3 of the quizzes, and the average is around 60%. So far every student got a question wrong that was on a homework assignment and on their lecture exam. They got the key to both, so how on earth are they still getting it wrong? I keep trying to remind myself that for most of the students, this is their first lab course and don't know what to expect. But I know some of them took the sequence out of order, so this should be old hat for them by now.

My department and teaching situation makes this very easy for me - I teach the lab component of science courses, and the professors who do the lecture component have all made it clear that graduate teaching assistants are the instructors for the labs. We even get our pictures on a wall with our programs, research areas, and fun facts about us. I don't think this has much of an impact on how the students view me or if they are more likely to challenge a grade. However, the lab setting where a large chunk of the grade comes from just showing up and doing the work is a bit different than TAing a composition course where virtually all of the grade comes from writing assignments. That said, I think it's perfectly ok to not say anything about being a graduate student if you don't want to, just as it's ok to inform the students that you are. You might get a few students who won't take you as seriously I suppose, but as previously mentioned, those students probably have some issues of their own. If you do encounter any challenges to your grading, stand your ground. Of course you should be able and willing to explain why you assigned a certain grade, but never feel pressured to change it. One thing that maybe I wouldn't do is mention that it's your first time teaching (or that you're new to the school)... I think that could open yourself up to some grief depending on the personalities in the classroom. Granted, if someone directly asks you in your office or something, I don't think you should lie, but don't broadcast it. As a few posters already mentioned, being female might result in more issues than being a graduate student. Personally, I have seen very little sexism from my students, but others here on the cafe have. TakeruK also hit it right on the nose about women of color, too. My current school is extremely white in terms of the student population, and this past year we only had two people of color on our teaching team of 20 graduate students. One was a woman, and she told us about her first day and all of the whispers when she walked up to the front of the room to load her lecture on the computer. The students apparently had difficulty believing that a black woman would be their TA. Hopefully their attitudes changed over the course of the term!

In the middle of a heat wave with no ac... I'm pretty much melting right now

When I did my masters, classes were mostly in the evening (usually 5 - 8), although there were a few that ran in the afternoon. I did a lot of crockpot cooking so my husband could eat when he got home from work and I could eat when I got home from class. I was really into Thai and Indian dishes that paired with rice, so I also got a rice cooker that had a delay timer. Now that I'm in my PhD program, I don't have many evening classes, but I still do a lot of crockpot and pressure cooking dishes because they are easy to prepare and I can throw food in the pot and walk away. The pressure cooker is amazing for soups and doesn't take long, and I can typically freeze half of it for another time. I also really like doing frozen fish fillets in the oven. A local grocery store sells 2 packs that they prepare in-house with different breadings and they are super easy to toss into the oven while I cook some veggies. As far as eating before, after, or during an evening class, I try to have a late lunch so I don't get too hungry during it and then plan to eat dinner after. However, I have had classes that start at 6 and run until 9, and in those cases, I just eat dinner beforehand. Sometimes I do eat on campus if I'm there all day or at a nearby restaurant. I make sure I don't spend more than $10, though, and usually I spend less.

My husband has been asked many times since we moved across the country why he came all this way when I'm the one going to school. Are long-distance marriages a thing when only one partner wants to get a degree?

I'm doing an internship right now, and honestly it's boring and at times annoying. I'm not yet working on the project I was hired to do and I feel like by the time the project gets underway it will almost be time for school to start. However, as long as I'm getting paid, it's really not a issue. What is an issue is that we are supposed to do public presentations at the end of the season and my supervisor scheduled them during the first week of class. I brought it to his attention, and today one of our team leaders said that they will fall anytime from my school's orientation week to the second week of classes. I already told them that my last day would be right before orientation week (I have many obligations to my program and for TA stuff that week), and I'm certainly not going to have time once the term starts. For real, who tries to schedule summer internship activities after the school year begins?

Just to add an additional comment in case anyone else is wondering about the same thing - in ecological journals, I often see the affiliation where the work was done listed first, and then a "current address" listed second, where you can put your current institution. That's what I did for the manuscripts for my undergrad senior project and masters thesis.

I love the "summer is half over" posts. I'm only about 3 weeks into my summer... I really hate the quarter system. I don't go back until September 21st, but the spring quarter didn't end until June 11th. I enjoyed two weeks of not having too much to do aside from a conference, which was wonderful. This past week I started an internship. I don't care for the hours - it's 7 to 3:30, so I have to get up at 5:30, and I'm just not a morning person. It's also not exactly the job I accepted. I was supposed to be doing riparian plant inventory and mapping with another graduate-level intern for most of the job, but when I started, I found out the other intern took another job so I have no one to work with and am not permitted to do the job alone (liability reasons). So I've been working with the undergrad interns basically doing manual labor while my supervisors try to figure out something else for me to do. Aside from the internship, I'm working on some publications and getting my dissertation project proposal together. I wish I had some time at the end of the break to do a little traveling. I have a friend in Las Vegas I'd like to visit and I'd like to visit some national parks in the vicinity. It's possible I will have a week off before classes start. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Shit. Life happened and my advisor needs to step down as my advisor to tend to her family. The good news is that she will remain with the university and is willing to serve on my committee, and she's willing to stay on as my advisor until I can secure a new one. I'm annoyed with myself though. I wasn't as productive or focused on my dissertation as I wanted this year because I stretched myself too thin between classes, my TA position, and a side project. If I had my proposal complete (or almost complete) and was ready to do my preliminary exams, she probably would have stayed on since I wouldn't need much feedback or assistance. Then again, this could be an opportunity to find an advisor with grant money and I could get on an RA instead of a TA. It's such a bummer, though.

I believe what amethyst is referring to is a PI's ability to secure grant money which will be used for funding the PhD project (and perhaps even the student's stipend and tuition if it is a large grant). This is different from a fellowship which a student applies for and typically covers a stipend and tuition. I think there is wisdom in having a more experienced co-mentor to assist with grant writing as well as to provide credibility and experience through their lengthy CV. Someone who has a history of success with securing grants and lots of publications probably will have a higher chance of winning a grant than an inexperienced faculty member fresh out of a postdoc. That being said, there are plenty of young researchers who are superstars when it comes to getting grant money, as well as many grad students who do all of the grant writing and successfully compete for the grant, even though the PI's name goes on it. So a senior faculty member as a co-mentor might be a good plan, but you could just as well be fine without one. However, if your program suggests it, then you probably should (however, if this just came from some random person unfamiliar with your PI or program, I wouldn't take it as seriously). Personally, I do not have a co-mentor, but one of the programs at my school requires them, so I do know some people who have gone through the process. Some pairings I have seen are two professors who do similar types of work (but with different research goals), or two professors with different expertise that are both relevant for the proposed project. In any case, both PIs should work in an area that is relevant to your research (otherwise, they may not be very useful mentors). As to finding one, I imagine it's quite similar to finding a PI or a committee member. Make an appointment to see them and discuss your research ideas.

@spectastic sucks that you got ticketed for running a stop sign, but that's one of those rules you should follow. I mean, if it was an accident, yeah, that happens, but if you do it consistently, you're asking to either get hit by a car or hit a pedestrian. Things like staying in bike lanes aren't a huge deal when there's no traffic, but there are a ton of cyclists in my school's town who completely ignore stop signs and decide to signal turns after they've started turning. I don't have many issues when I'm driving, but I've come close to being hit by cyclist at least 20 times this year, mainly because they always run stop signs.

Even if you decide to drive, you should definitely wait until you get to your destination to buy furniture and the like. You will save on gas (and can perhaps get a smaller uhaul or shipping container, which may save some money also). For me, I already had a lot of things and my own car, so I needed to drive. However, I didn't get a truck. The cheapest option for me was a shipping container (I used a Upack relocube, but other options include pods and the uhaul u-box) for the vast majority of our things, and then we packed up the car and drove. Uhaul trucks get shoddy gas mileage and they are a pain to drive, and the shipping containers were actually a little cheaper than the cost of the truck (and I didn't have to pay for the gas). However, the pricing will ultimately depend on the distance you travel. When pricing uhaul trucks, it was around $800 to drive one from Pennsylvania to Florida, while it was over $2000 to drive to the west coast (plus gas), so it would have made sense to just get a uhaul truck to go to Florida. When you reserve also makes a difference. When I priced the uhaul u-box in June for a September move, I could get two boxes for $1800 to the west coast, but when I actually went to reserve in August, the price had risen to $2500 for a single box. So I went with the relocube, which was just under $2000 if I loaded it at the terminal. Of course, this actually added about $150 to the cost, since I had to get a uhaul truck on each end to load/unload. Aside from getting my stuff to my destination, driving was nice because I got to see parts of the country I hadn't seen before. We planned the trip to stop at a few landmarks and take advantage of scenic byways. It took 8 days and we actually went about 1,000 miles further than we needed, but it was a good trip.

We're having a BBQ tonight for everyone in my program. I volunteered to organize it, but asked for volunteers to host it since I have a small apartment. Someone volunteered, said they had tables and a canopy, but just needed people to bring some camp chairs. The details of all of this were settled over a week ago. It's now about 3 hours until party time, and the host emailed me telling me to bring a few tables with me because she forgot that she loaned hers out. So now I have to go searching for some cheap tables in the next hour or so, on top of finishing up food prep.

No, it's still finals week for me, too! I only have one thing left - a 4 to 6 page paper. It's been a busy term, but I've mostly managed to keep on top of things.

I am in an interdisciplinary program that isn't associated with any one department, nor is it part of any of the colleges. There are a few programs of a similar nature, and they are all just officially part of the graduate school. As a result, we don't have our own TA positions and we take courses in a myriad of departments (and are advised by professors in a bunch of departments). Ultimately, it works out fine, because the departments we work with typically provide us with some TA positions and many students have RA positions with their advisors, and we get to put together a pretty amazing course plan tailored to our own needs and goals. The really annoying part: there is a complete lack of central identity or unity among the graduate students. Some students very strongly identify with their advisor's home department and go to that department's seminars, parties, and other events. That would be fine, except that they completely ignore our program aside from making sure they register for thesis credits and take the core courses . They won't come to any meetings, don't respond to e-mails related to the program, etc. Some other students do identify with our program, but they don't seem to care very much about it. They show up to the more important program meetings, but if anything social is ever planned or the program coordinator needs volunteers to help with something, they ignore emails about it. I get that people are busy and things like end of term get-togethers aren't high priorities, but they can't even bother to say that they're busy and can't make it.

This may be more common than you think. My school requires TA's to registers for a certain number of credits (12 during the regular school year, 9 during the summer), and of course there are all the fees (of which most are based on how many credits you take). The department I TA for covers all of those fees, but not all departments do. A few of the other schools I applied to had similar setups. Personally, I don't get why my school requires a minimum of 12 credits every term. If anything, I would expect a cap on the number of credits so you don't overload yourself (my masters program did this). Perhaps it's to encourage students to progress through their program at an appropriate pace and not try to stretch it out as long as possible (which I don't see why someone would do that... it's not like the salaries are that good).

This! I don't know if they are young or seasoned grad students, but I've noticed a few students who do this crap. In one seminar-type class, a girl would be on her laptop looking like she was taking notes, but a few times I sat close her, she was writing emails and working on assignments for other classes. In another class, one student would be on her phone through the entire lecture and then wouldn't have anything to say during our discussions.

Not so much an annoyance, but I couldn't believe that a first-year masters student in her second term thought it was a good idea to do a presentation in short shorts and a sheer shirt under which we could clearly see the brand of her sports bra.

Another vent: why are people unable to do basic math anymore? I proctored a biology exam and the professor made it a point to tell every TA that calculators were not allowed. There were three questions with basically 4th or 5th grade math. One of the students asked me three times to use a calculator. He wanted a calculator to find out what 30/100 was as a decimal and what the square root of 0.09 was.

If there's anything worse than a cheating student, it's a lazy cheating student. Students had to write a press release about an experiment we did in lab. It was a really easy assignment, there was an example in the lab manual along with really great instructions on how to do it. Students also had to submit their papers to Turn It In and they get a similarity score instantly. They also have the ability to modify their paper based on what Turn It In tells them and resubmit as many times as they need before the deadline. I was grading the papers over the weekend and one student had an almost identical paper to someone from another lab section. Pretty much the only differences were that my student plugged in some different numbers into the paper based on what our lab section's results were. I looked at the submission time and the student submitted almost 24 hours before the deadline - meaning the student could have easily looked at the score and switched enough words around to get it down to a number I wouldn't have been suspicious about. Then again, it's not as obnoxious as a different TA's cheating problem. There was a 2 point assignment due a few weeks ago which basically consisted of reading an experiment protocol and coming up with a potential research question, hypothesis, etc. that could be answered with the data we would collect. One of the fraternities apparently keeps a drawer full of past assignments for its members to copy, so these two guys copied one of these word for word. Not only that, but what they copied was complete nonsense - it had nothing to do with the experimental protocol. So these two guys basically are going to have an academic dishonesty mark on their record now over an assignment worth about 1% of their lab grade.

Thanks for the replies! @fuzzylogician and @TakeruK, I think I will I consult the editor on his opinion - seems like a good person to ask anyway since editors are in charge of what's being printed! @ShogunT I don't think it was double-blind and I'm not sure there's an actual requirement for the reviewers to remain anonymous (for this journal anyway). When I initially began studying biology, I assumed that blind review always meant double-blind, but when I actually started submitting manuscripts, I quickly figured out that this was not the case when reviewers made reference to my gender (not in bad way, just using the she pronoun to refer to me). In fact, I've only noticed one or two ecology journals that specifically advertise double-blind reviews. Also, the reviews passed through the hands of two editors in this case - a geography-specific editor and the editor-in-chief. I'm sure they both noticed at least that the reviewer identified himself as being one of the authors on the paper I cited. Also, TakeruK, I actually requested this reviewer for my manuscript. Not just because our studies are similar, but because he's probably the biggest expert in my area of interest.

So I'm in the process of revising a manuscript based on reviewer comments and I need to update the acknowledgements to thank the reviewers and editor. In the first paper I had published, this was easy. Two anonymous reviewers, a subject editor, and the editor in chief. However, one of my reviewers on this current paper is most definitely not anonymous. I cited one of his papers and made some comparisons between my study and his. His very first comment was "this is a nice followup to our pilot study" and then gave the citation. His last comment was to correct a typo in one of the in-text citations where I misspelled his last name, and he literally wrote "you misspelled my last name" and gave the correct spelling. So there is no mystery whatsoever as to who he is. So my question is: should I thank him as part of the "thanks to two anonymous reviewers" line, or should I actually write "thanks to Dr. X for his reviewer comments" since I know who he is?

I think everyone who said they'd take the gym membership missed that it's offered at faculty rates, which might be a good deal I guess, but you'd think it would be free.

I'm a first generation student, although 3 of my 4 siblings did go to undergrad (and one got a masters). My immediate family is a bit of an outlier when compared to my extended family. I have a three aunts and three uncles and a ton of cousins and second cousins on my mom's side, and none have gone to college (several didn't finish high school). I don't really know my dad's side of the family well (many of them don't speak to us because they're pissed off about stupid things that happened a long time ago), but of the relatives I do know, only one went to college. My siblings weren't very helpful in terms of what to expect as an undergrad... they are quite a bit older than me and I'm not close with any of them, so they didn't exactly provide me with any pointers. My brother who got his masters had his employer pay for it, so he didn't have any advice on finding fellowships and other funding anyway. So I've very much been on my own for grad school aside from some excellent mentors at school. I don't really find it awkward being the only family member going for a PhD. My family thinks it's pretty cool, although my parents were definitely unhappy with my decision to go to grad school when I was accepted to my masters program. They wanted me to get a job and stop being a career student. What is more awkward is that my husband didn't go to college. A lot of professors and grad students assume that I would have married someone I met at school or something. They always say something like "oh" when I tell them he's worked in warehouses and as a maintenance man.

If anyone is looking for a good sturdy moving box, ask grocery stores for banana boxes. They do have a hole in the top and bottom, but they usually have a thin cardboard layer on the bottom to keep anything small from falling through . Then just stick a piece of newspaper on top before you close the box to keep dust and dirt out. They stack really well (we packed a relocube with a ton of them - stacked them to the top of the cube which was something like 11 feet tall, and they held up great, even though there were some so heavy I could barely lift them). You might have to visit a few stores, though. Sometimes they're out, sometimes the teenagers don't know if they're allowed to give away the boxes. My advice for moving long-distance: if you're going to rent from afar (and not visit in person to apartment hunt), start early. I had a hard time finding a place because of two things. 1) the two biggest apartment management companies required me to see the apartment before I could apply for it, which didn't work. So that really cut back on the number of apartments I could consider. 2) all of the regular people renting out places (that weren't affiliated with a management company) were really weird about renting to someone who lived across the country. I received lots of replies that said, "sorry we only want to rent to local people" or "I'm uncomfortable renting to someone who is far away. Call me when you move here and maybe something will be available." I finally found a place that didn't care but the security deposit was obscene ($2300) and the rent was about $200 more than I wanted to pay. Utilities also weren't included, not even water/sewer which is fairly common to include back in my home state. I found out why - the water/sewer bill has about $75 of flat charges each month before the actual charges for water use are added. My necessary utilities (water/sewer, garbage, electric, natural gas) run me almost $200. On the plus side, I do have a garage and a small yard. If I can find a good apartment for less once my lease is up, I'll probably move. I'm not even in the same town as my school - it would be really nice to walk, bike, or take the bus to class instead of driving 20+ minutes (plus wasting time to find a parking spot and ride the bus up to the buildings where classes are held).