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Hi everyone! I'm a 3rd year neuroscience PhD student (starting 4th year in August) at a mid-tier program. Over the last couple of years my personal life has changed quite abruptly - roughly one year ago, my partner moved back home to take care of her father who eventually died from cancer not too long ago. She is still living at home and without getting into too many details will probably be there permanently. While the commute is rough, it's not too bad, but it is not sustainable for the next 3ish years I need to finish up my PhD. This issue is also compounded by my graduate experience at my current institution which hasn't been anything less than miserable - terrible environment and institutional resources - just mediocre all around (and lots of graduate students feel this way). Most faculty members I met lied/deceived me about their funding when I interviewed and it turned out that the department was absolutely broke. Additionally, I am a person of color and the resources for people of color at this institution are ABYSMAL. I genuinely feel like I was recruited disingenuously to this institution to increase their diversity profile. As a consequence of these two issues, I am considering mastering out and applying to graduate programs near my partner (my options are strong and would offer the scientific training and support I need). I've been extremely productive, with several publications (one in a very, very high ranked journal). I've read a lot about mastering out and so forth, but I am wondering what my options are at this point. Does anyone have any insight about this? Thanks so much for reading and for any responses!

Congrats all for your interviews! Does anyone know if UChicago Neurobiology and Vanderbilt NGP have finished sending out invites?

No news from Michigan PIBS. Bracing myself for a rejection tomorrow...

I think these are all excellent tips! I would suggest a couple of additional things (forgive me if these are repeated): 1) I generally pair the experiments with its corresponding results. This allows me to do two things: first, it allows me to have a much more "linear" understanding of the experiments. Once paired you can place the methods and results within the context of the rest of the paper which makes the whole thing much more enjoyable to read. 2) I very briefly skim over a review article that is cited in the paper. This allows me to not only contextualize the research, but also see how the author has chosen to expand on the field of interest. 3) Recently, I have started to read with much more purpose. For example, if I want ton try a new protocol, I only read the methods and skim the discussion. This is particular helpful if I'm trying to bridge together several protocols/methods: instead of spending hours reading 5-6 relevant papers and then working to build a new protocol, I can excise the protocols from those papers, build a new one, and tweak as I read the rest of the papers more comprehensively. Also +1000x on Mendeley.

I was the one who posted the interview for UO. I applied for the Institute of Neuroscience. I'm not sure if they hold separate interviews for different departments - the dates I posted where the only ones that were offered to me, though I didn't ask about any others. Hope you got/get good news soon!