Andean Pat

Okay, so the closer you are the Canada the more hockey will be popular, as a rule of thumb.  A lot of the original teams (Boston, Detroit, Chicago, etc) are huge draws in their area.  Note however that Americans pay exactly zero attention to the Hockey Worlds that most of Europe loves.  I doubt most Americans even know it goes on, especially since it (for some stupid reason) over laps with the Stanley Cup playoffs.
 
After that it's NFL, MLB and NBA.  Those are pretty much going to be popular everywhere.
 
And lastely, don't underestimate college sports.  For some reason we love that stuff here.  Baseball and hockey not so much, but college football and basketball are huge.  Probably bigger than their pro counterparts.  Come March Madness all you will hear about is college basketball, and everyone you know will be filling out brackets and joining betting pools.
 
You didn't mention what town you were going to be in, but as someone else pointed out, the sport(s) that dominate vary by region too.  Hope you find something domestic you enjoy!

Would I be correct in assuming that the 'well-known' league you're referring to is actually the English Premier League? Big fan of football (soccer) and tennis. Follow the EPL quite religiously, not to mention the Champions League, the Euro's and the World Cup. Occasionally watch F1 as well.
 
As u may know already, EPL has a massive Asian following. My guess is there will be plenty of people interested in watching the games together, whichever university it may be. Albeit, I'm not talking from personal experience here, as I'm an international MS applicant hoping to get in for the Spring 2014 session.
 
As for American sports, not a fan as such. But I feel I might develop a liking for NFL and NBA.

nehs--
 
Bluntly, get off this path of thinking right away. It is not fair to you.   Hypothetically speaking, even if you'd thrown yourself at him, he is responsible and accountable and responsible for his own poor judgement and inappropriate behavior.
 
What you should start doing right away is documenting everything that transpires between the two of you as soon as you possibly can. In your notes, make a point of articulating honestly how you feel and how his behavior is impacting your ability to do your work and the quality of your life. At the same time, start collecting physical copies of all email messages between the two of you while also backing up digital copies off of your school servers. (Ideally, at least one copy on portable storage, another on a cloud account.)
 
Then, figure out if (and how) you want to notify either your department and/your school about this behavior. If your department is an environment where the rules of the old boys' network are still in play, you might want to talk to someone in your school's HR department.  To guide you through this process, you might benefit from finding resources, such as BBs centered around work place issues, on how to handle these kinds of situations and what to expect. (If you have the resources, talking to a HR professional or a lawyer who specializes in this type of situation might be very helpful.) 
 
If you make the choice to finish your thesis as soon as possible, and get away from him (or if you want to fire him and get another advisor), those choices have consequences you will want to think through very carefully.
 
As you work through your options, you may encounter people who want to help. To the extent possible, hold them accountable to the fact that this is your situation, not theirs. That is, the "right" thing to do is what you decide you want to do and nothing else. I urge you to do all you can now so that when you look back on this situation ten or twenty years from now, you will understand that you picked the best course of action based upon the information you had at the time.
 
Above all else, please keep in mind that this situation is his making. It was his responsibility to monitor his own feelings and expectations and to subordinate them to his responsibilities to you as an advisor.

I suspect you'll find your answer once you look at the programs you're applying to...

Grad school is grad school--not much has changed about the process since last year. The advice here is as relevant as ever. If there is anything specific that you are left wondering about, you are welcome to ask here or start a new thread.

One tip I want to add, now that I've completed my first year of PhD work, is that you have to develop a certain level of... I'll call it apathy.  This has been a consistent theme when I speak with others in my program as well.
 
What do I mean by apathy?  Well, at the start of your first year doing PhD work you'll likely be somewhat frantic.  Everything must be perfect!  You must study all of the hours!  If you don't you will fail!
 
For me, the realization hit right after my first midterms.  I was just so tired from the pace I was forcing on myself that I couldn't do it anymore.  I started the second half of the term feeling like I wasn't doing enough, but was too tired to change it.  But as things progressed, I realized I was getting basically the same marks on my work.  Then finals came, and... again, basically the same scores. 
 
I think what I observed was probably due to two things:  First, you trade off a little less work for a lot more relaxation, and it balances out.  Second, I think the key is to identify diminishing returns.  For example, I had a professor who assigned really long problem sets of increasing difficulty, one a week, all semester long.  I found I could put in 25 hours or so and get a 9 out of 10... or I could put in 10 hours and get an 8.25 out of 10.  And combined they were only worth 10% of your grade, anyway.  There were way, way more productive things I could use those extra 15 hours a week for than gaining another tiny fraction on my final grade.  Your situations may vary, of course, but I think most PhD programs will require more of you than there is to give over a sustained period, and it will be up to you to figure out how to manage.
 
In short, learn to give up the idea of perfection in favor of doing well + keeping your sanity.  It's not worth the pending emotional breakdown if you try to sustain an unsustainable pace the entire time!

I wonder who that could be.

So so so HAPPY Vt has started this thread! I have missed you guys!!!
 
As somebody said, I am enjoying my last nothing-to-do weeks. It's winter here, I have quit my three jobs (but get paid until the end of July) and now I am visiting my parents farther into the snowy south before flying to the States. I am already packed in two suitcases (just enough what I can carry by plane) and have sold/given away most of my furniture/clothing. So once in the US, it's shopping time! 
 
I know the courses I will take and their timetable, although I cannot register until orientation day (I have three orientations!). I have an apartment and two roommates, one of whom has been living there for a year so I don't have to buy kitchen appliances/dinnerware right away. 
 
I still cannot believe I am actually doing this. 
 
Oh, BTW, I have met one frequent Gradcafe poster who came to do some research. So I am beginning to really "feel" this community as that: a virtual network of colleagues. So excited!

Passed through customs yesterday. I had no problems at all and it was just like it's been the past three years. 
 
I wouldn't worry if I were you

Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but TMP's post definitely has me questioning how many of the admissions decisions I received were colored by any of my comments on Gradcafe! I'd considered the possibility but assumed that most people with the power to make decisions weren't likely to be spending their time lurking around here. I hadn't thought so much about grad students influencing the process so closely...
 
Going back to the geography question -- NorthernLights, I'm a bit confused. The Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and South are very diverse culturally and politically...it's strange to me that you'd find all of these places objectionable. Not to mention that there's considerable diversity within these regions...New York and Chicago are not Smallville, Illinois and Smallville, PA...and most college towns and neighborhoods have fairly similar cultures and politics, anyway - at least, while they're flavored by their regions, they're equally flavored by a sort of national academic culture that make them distinct from their surroundings as well.

I would also add that Sigaba and CageFree are totally correct and very much worth listening to.
 
In closing, I would emphasize, once again, that there is no such thing as a safety school.
 
Late edit: out of curiosity, which professor(s) at Harvard were you hoping to work with?

I'm not even sure how often the cohort from the 2013 thread come around here anymore, but if you're like me you can't believe there is still ANOTHER month left until you get back into the stacks again. Between trying to find an apartment across the country, saving money, dealing with moving dilemmas, I'm just ready to begin the next phase of my career! I'm trying to enjoy the last free month for the next five years, but it hasn't been easy.

Yeeeeaaaaahhhhhhh another historian!!!!!!! Here's my advice:
 
1. Contact the department. Do not start choosing schools by their reputation, choose them by their department. It is nice to apply to an Ivy League school but if your interests do not match, it is stupid. I wanted to apply to Harvard, besides there is generous funding from my country to go there but my interests did not even come close to those of the department.
 
2. Do your research. This is connected to the one before. Really investigate where you want to go, not only for the academics but also for the place. I did not apply to a place I did not want to live in. Check if your hobbies are available, for example, I checked out for field hockey teams. Ask EVERYTHING to grad students, most are happy to help you and to meet you if they have a chance. Many will advice you one the mood in the department, funding, housing, etc. Furthermore, they know very well the departments rankings/interests focus and thus can advice you to also try elsewhere.
 
3. Take your time to prepare your app. I was working full time so I started in July with the contacting the department/POIs and preparing GRE. I finished my applications in December. Take your time to write your SOP, show it to professors/friends in grad school. Many grad students I had met were happy to read it for me, even though I did not apply to their school. Take time to prepare for GRE. Although it's rubbish, expensive and almost pointless, it is necessary and you cannot fight the system. I had an excellent private teacher who started with the writing section and because I could write logically, I could also read logically. I got excellent results. My advice here is DO prepare it, and choose your course wisely. Work on your letters of recommendation, do not just ask for them. Meet your professors/employers, tell them about your ambitions, be clear on what is expected from them. Your SOP and CV should show the adcomms how great you are and why making you an offer is the best decision they will ever make. Now, I understand that you Northamericans are quite skillful in "decorating" your accomplishments, especially (I envy this a little bit ) because ALL your accomplishments have names. So you won the "Robert Smith Senior essay of the Year on how to dehydrate an amphibian's limb". So, do not put yourself down here.
 
4. Narrow your choices. Many people may not agree with this. I believe you shouldn't apply to more than seven schools. First of all, its loads of money. Second of all, if you did points 1 and 2 thoroughly then you will not be able to apply to more than 6/7. I had an EXCELLENT fit with a program I really really wanted to apply to but the POIs responded my e-mail very late and then he did not answer again. I could have applied, but how much do I want to be accepted in a place where they did not show any interest? Mmmm, I don't know. Another example, I was a great fit with a professor in a program on the west coast. He acknowledged that and was happy to talk about my application, but advised me that there was no funding and it was almost pointless for me to apply. Finally, one professor directly told me he was not taking any students this year. So, communication is basic and although I would have applied to, say, 10 programs, I ended up with 5. Which programs? The ones that are best for you. 
 
5. Be confident. You will have an offer from a place that really really wants you. It doesn't matter how badly you wanted to go into another program. They just don't want there. I mean: be prepared for rejections but be confident that a rejection is not a bummer, it just means you did everything you had to do and the department had to choose. This is difficult because you feel stupid when someone else gets into a top school and you don't. In the end, all that matters is the acceptance, not the rejection. 
 
6. Be realistic. Do not yield to emotional stress and drama. If you get in, great. If you don't, it is not the end of the world. Be an adult in your application, show your real potential as a historian. Be prepared to make decisions. Save money. Have a plan B (a master's elsewhere? Year abroad? You name it). Listen to those who praise you and those who criticize your work. Learn from mistakes. Get yourself published, it's awesome. 
 
Mmmmm I sound to motherly, don't I? You get more or less what I mean right? 

Well put, lafayette. When I left my job recently I had a lot of older colleagues tell me they wish they could have done this, or that they actually had planned to (get a PhD in history specifically) but could never work up the courage. I'm glad that I won't wind up the person who, late in life, is embarrassed to explain that they didn't go through with it because they worried what their parents would think.

I've been blogging quite a bit in the run-up to my move: what I'm looking forward to about the PhD (Pt 1 and Pt 2) and what the challenges will be (socialising with people once more after some very quiet months). I think my apartment is coming fully-furnished - Ikea will have to wait for a couple of months!

I have 28 days before I leave for the U.S and about 6-7 weeks before I start. All I can say is this is the stage of obsessive list-making! 
 
There is one required course that is filling me with dread so that does temper my excitement. Despite having heard so much about what grad school life is like, I still feel like I have no idea what's in store for me. Moving to a new country is a big deal and my programme is going to stretch out over 7 maybe even 8 years...I don't think this has entirely sunk in.  Still, excitement definitely continues to trump nervousness  

I moved to the new city, I finished un-packing, I registered for classes....and now I'm counting down the days until school starts, like a 7-year-old, because I'm so excited about getting the ball rolling on classes and research (and meeting my cohort). Is anyone else like this?

rising_star simply said that students in the physical sciences don't necessarily work more than students in the social sciences.  Since you aren't her, and you aren't in her program, I'm wondering how it is you think you she's "kidding herself" by thinking she works more than those in the physical sciences.
 
I know some English lit and history PhD students who work hours as long as, or longer than, some students in the physical sciences.  They spend hours and hours in the library or archives.  Some anthropologists spend years doing fieldwork hundreds of miles away from home, sometimes thousands.  Being that you're a psychology student, you already know that many psychologists spend many hours in the lab doing experiments.  I'm in the health sciences and our journals, just like physical science journals, have a wide range of acceptance rates.  I've also helped write a grant and have planned 2-3 new studies here.
 
The hours in any field are influenced by how "smart" you work, but there's no denying that there IS a minimum amount of work that you have to put in.  Physical and natural scientists may have to be in the lab whereas I may be able to do that work from the comfort of my home or in a coffee shop.  But there are also many physical scientists who DON'T have to go the the lab (math, theoretical physics, perhaps computational sciences…)
 
We all have our own struggles; there's no need to devalue any one field's.

I'm not even going to respond to the rest because whether or not your work hours reflect your smartness is really field specific. I will say that we must be in different social sciences because in addition to doing research and teaching and taking classes, I also write grants, IRBs for research, and publish both book reviews and manuscripts. So, how is that less work than someone in the physical sciences? I'm asking in all seriousness. We all have to do the same tasks to be successful, as you've already pointed out. So why is that you believe that someone in the social sciences can get those tasks done in less time than someone in the physical sciences? Is it because sometimes work in the physical/lab sciences doesn't work the first time? Well, same thing happens in the social sciences. Ask anyone that's ever come up with a questionnaire that's flopped, had trouble recruiting enough participants for a sample, or run into the countless other roadblocks that can affect research and its progress in the social sciences. It's not like I just sit at the computer and make up data. I go out into the "real world", ("waste" loads of time trying to schedule appointments, help people with transports, etc.), ask questions, get answers, transcribe and code those data, revise the questions and my thinking, and then repeat the whole thing over and over and over and over. Oh, and unlike my colleagues in the physical/lab sciences, I do it while teaching my own course (from scratch; they don't hand us syllabi here) AND for less money than they make.
 
Like I said, I work hard. I'm being defensive because I hate being told that somehow my work isn't as meaningful because I don't spend hours upon hours and days upon days locked in a lab. Maybe I would if my research could be done that way but it can't. My "lab" is a community in the real world and, especially if you do participant observation as I did, you end up spending several months literally living in the lab. I doubt anyone in the physical sciences actually does that and certainly not for months on end.
 
To me, this hits the mark. My advisor is a workaholic but I'm not. I don't feel pressured to work as much as I can (unless there's a grant due or a manuscript deadline) but, I do work when I want and how I want. For me, that means working smartly and not wasting time on stuff. I don't have the "downtime" of cleaning equipment, waiting for an experiment to run, etc. All of my work involves me and my brain and being on task, whether that's reading, writing a lit review, writing a grant app, creating an assignment for students, making a lesson plan for class, writing a manuscript or dissertation chapter, etc.
 
When I work, I work. I don't check facebook, read email, chat/Skype people, etc. I put in dedicated hours of work (50 min work, 10 min break for food, drink, bathroom, email each hour). And when I'm done, I'm done. Now, I can't work this way for 12 hours a day without experiencing declines in productivity. When I start seeing those declines, I take a break, do something else, and then come back to it if I still have energy, but not always. If I've already put in 8-9 concentrated hours of work, I don't necessarily feel pressured to go back to it at 10pm for another hour just because I still could (in theory). There's no sense in spending 2 hours at night doing what I could do in 30 minutes during the day when my focus is there.
 
Gotta go! Break time is up!

You bring up a point that really resonates with me about working with other disciplines. Personally, I have found that I enjoy my work more and more as I moved from fields that were more or less its own discipline (e.g. Physics) to fields that are much more multidisciplinary (Planetary Science is a combination of Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, Geology, Geophysics!). Granted, these are all still science disciplines, but I'm much happier having a breadth of skills rather than extreme depth in just one or two things.
 
 
This is also an interesting point! I haven't thought of our natural parks as a way to separate society and nature. I'm not sure if I am in 100% agreement that this is analogous to social vs. natural sciences, but it is interesting to think about nonetheless. But this made me think of my undergraduate school, which was actually located in a Provincial Park. The whole campus is pretty far removed from the rest of the city of Vancouver -- so much so that the few residents that live on or near campus actually vote in a separate electoral district. I always saw this as the University being removed from the city -- i.e. academic independence and freedom -- as a good thing, but now I'm thinking that isolating academia is probably a bad idea in terms of outreach and getting people interested in our work etc.

I'm also in the social sciences, and I'm telling you that you are kidding yourself if you think that you work more than those in the physical sciences. You're also acting as if those in the physical sciences aren't publishing (where acceptance rates are often times much lower than our journals) or helping write grants and plan new experiments. You are also making it sound like it's a 9-5 where they punch into the lab and are done. 

This is the problem with advice threads. Everyone wants to believe they are suffering through it equally just like everyone else. Social scientists are the worst. Let's face it: Our field has a rich tradition of following the lead of the physical sciences, in many ways to get broader credibility. There's no need to have a chip on your shoulder about it. 
 
Also, I can say that within my department I'm someone who is moving through the program at one of the faster paces, and I've been a solid producer of work. Our hours are really influenced by how smart you work. This includes knowing how your advisor works and being able to anticipate what you will need to do, but also knowing what you want to get out of the program you are in and what experiences really deserve all of your attention. Too many people I work with are stuck in a state of paralysis because they are trying to make everything perfect or trying to solve all problems at once. Those kind of things will keep you up at night and unnecessarily working. In the social sciences your hours are really a product of how smart you work. Again, not as much of a luxury in the physical sciences. 

After having to hunt down the good people at Sussex to find out about my scholarship status, I finally received an answer. No funding.
 
So, I'm back for round two Fall 2014 and I've decided to concentrate on US schools this time. I'll settle for research trips or a nice post-doc in the UK. :-) I've got about six schools in mind, but I'll reveal those as app season draws near. I decided to take my time and finish my MA thesis this fall while I find a job to hold me over.
 
@oseirus - Nice to see you hanging around again!

change "noticed some of your interes includes ____" to "am extremely interested by your research areas in _____" <or similar sentiment>.
 
get rid of "Unfortunately............internet search".
 
change "I was wondering...." to "I will appreciate if you could point me to resources where I may be able to find further information on........."

I agree with rising_star -- presumably you are in the Masters program now because you want to improve your credentials to get into a doctoral program later on. But, if you are applying this fall, then you won't have any benefits of the masters program yet (you would have just started!). It would make more sense to wait a year, then you can use the Masters program to help improve your application. It would be very strange for an applicant who is in a Masters program to not have a LOR from their masters program, and you wouldn't be able to get a strong LOR from just a few months in your new program this fall.
 
I'm assuming this masters program would help you gain more experience or whatever you feel that you were lacking in your doctoral applications the last time around? If you think that your current qualifications are good enough to get into doctoral programs and that maybe you were just unlucky, or didn't apply to schools in the right range, etc. then you don't need the masters program -- there's no point enrolling at all and having to take out loans for living expenses etc.
 
What I'm saying is that if you are confident of your ability to get into a doctoral program with your current qualifications, then why do a Masters for 1 year, drop out, and be in debt? If you want to use the Masters program to help you develop your experience and improve your chances to get into a doctoral program, then you should probably wait another year before reapplying!

When I interviewed for my MS program, some people told me they had tried to do that and they had all gotten rejected. It was awkward and a waste of an application cycle and a large amount of time. I also imagine explaining yourself in a PhD interview could be a bit awkward and that it would strain your relationship with your master's mentor.
 
Honestly, 2 years for a master's program (which is really like a year and a half) goes INSANELY quickly. Focus on getting great experience (getting your name on posters/publications, getting new research experience in different areas, having a fantastic thesis you can talk about on interviews, making connections, going to conferences, etc.) and growing as a researcher. PhD applications are so time consuming that if you do it both year 1 and year 2, you're really limiting the amount of time you actually have to learn and wasting your master's program. Also, I think it's good for someone's long-term career to have experiences working with different people, both from the viewpoint of learning new things as well as forming new connections. You worked with profs in UG, now in your master's program, and then eventually in your PhD program. Think how much better you will do in a PhD program with the extra "grad school" experience that you will have.
 
My advice would be to slow down, learn and grow from each experience, and don't try to rush each step.