St Andrews Lynx

I would guess that the stress and depression don't help your exam scores. It is probably also the case that the more you notice your unexpectedly bad grades, the more anxious you become about the tests, so the worse you do on the next one, etc. Maybe allowing yourself to relax about the tests would see your scores go up - you don't have to revise everything and know all the material off by heart. If you are willing to settle for imperfect scores then you will probably make fewer mistakes overall.

I'd wait until you get a chance to meet them in September, at which point you can thank them in person. You've still probably got a lot more questions to ask before then anyway. No point in prematurely thanking 'em.

In this situation I don't think it would be possible to change the advisor's mind. It sounds almost as if the PI knew he was unlikely to take the 5th grad student in when they first discussed the matter, otherwise he would probably have said "Come and do your second rotation with me" instead of "Email me back after your first rotation is over to check in." From what I've seen of the most popular labs, it really is a first-come first-served system for getting a place in them. The way that you typically demonstrate commitment to a powerhouse lab is to start research in the summer before 1st year begins (unpaid, often), then do your first rotation with that PI as well. At this point if you've made good progress on the research and integrated well with the group, the PI is going to prefer to formally admit you over any "unproven" students. Which is harsh, but just the way it is. The limiting factor for most successful science PIs is not funding...but space. Every student needs a desk and a fumehood - that kind of space is always finite. Four students is a hefty advising burden - if your university has things like quals or research proposals, then the PI has to read & edit & re-read all 4 proposals, and then organise their schedule around 4 afternoon-consuming defenses...all within the same semester. Most PIs are really busy people.

Were there problems occurring before the final draft was submitted? My guess is that the other group members assumed early on that you weren't as involved as them in the project, so when the final draft came back they decided to go ahead and edit it without you. Another explanation is that they thought your contributions were poor (maybe the professor's edits had focussed on in your parts), and so decided to do the rest of the work without obtaining your input. That doesn't really make their behaviour excusable... ...BUT... ...I think you could have been a lot more proactive in getting involved with the group and pursuing the edited draft. If you saw those guys in class then it would have been better to ask them about the draft in person, rather than by email. And keep asking. At this point I wouldn't even bother confronting them. There's also little point in holding on to resentment towards them (it's just going to be to your detriment). Just chalk it up to a miscommunication and move on.

A roommate will save you a lot of money. I bet there are plenty of individuals out there who are "would prefer to be alone" roommates (but are sharing apartments to save money). Those roommates are good about respecting privacy, minimising drama, keeping quiet and demonstrating a certain amount of maturity - I'd prefer one of those over the "Want to be BFFs with me" kind.

Quit and start anew. Or take a leave of absence and really make an effort with the therapy/get a better therapist. Dealing with the sexual abuse & eating disorders is really important. They may be affecting you both directly & indirectly, and they may lead to a greater emotional pile-up if suppressed for too long. The poor concentration and depression probably stems from the crap you've had to deal with this semester - I would guess that it has less to do with the grad school itself.

The earliest you can enter the USA on an F1 visa is 1 month before the official program start date. I came as early as I could - which allowed me to explore the area a bit before it became over-run with students. Maybe 1-2 weeks - give yourself enough time to recover from jetlag, too!

Don't worry OP, you'll end up hating your PI at some point during your PhD. Everyone does.

It's also a case that the younger professors will get lumped onto the time-consuming service duties such as the AdComm. So they will often have been the ones who read your application and decided to admit you.

I'll ask who they are and what do they do. Then I'll ask follow-up questions. Hopefully at some point it will morph from just me asking questions to the 2 of us having a dialogue.

It also sounds like this professor is bad at responding to emails. A lot of faculty are (and it isn't anything personal). Perhaps part of the reason he isn't responding to your requests for meetings is because (i) he doesn't read his emails (ii) he thinks emailing is a waste of time when you could just discuss something face-to-face? If you want to set up meetings with him in future, perhaps either call or knock on his door and ask if/when he's available for a 30 min chat. Part of the problem could also be that he expects you to work things out by yourself a lot more than you are currently doing. If all the PhD students in his group only meet with him once a month, then that is probably the frequency he expects to meet with you too. I can understand that it is frustrating to have an advisor who is a lot less invested in your project than you are. You might need to accept that you will have less face contact with this PI than you'd like until you finish your Masters.

Just be aware that most graduate roommates will be different from your undergraduate ones. They will often be more concerned with their work and jobs than hanging out and doing stuff together, and require more privacy/personal time when they are at home. If you advertise on Craiglist as being a [suitable adjective] graduate student, my guess is that you will attract plenty of graduate students. If there are other larger universities near to your school, perhaps you can explore their official websites and message boards for prospective roomies.

Phrase it more as "I've been thinking about my academic career, and I have decided that I would rather take time out/find a job/transfer to another program than go straight into a PhD here" than an "I-never-told-you-I-wanted-to-continue-onto-a-PhD-where-did-you-get-that-idea-from" accusation. Your supervisor might have thought that your silence implied an intent to continue with the PhD (if there aren't a lot of terminal Masters in this program then that might be a reasonable thing to suppose), or he may have misunderstood something you (or someone else) said. I don't think an indirect approach is going to work - you will need to come out and explicitly tell him that you want to leave. Articulate the decision as being in your best interests: you want to explore different avenues or research, you think that a break/change will help you become more successful in your future PhD program. Be polite, diplomatic and remember to thank your supervisor for their support and assistance (even if that's a lie). Good luck! Hopefully the meeting will take a load off your mind.

Gut feeling is a perfect valid way to make a decision! Go with it. People always say "trust your gut" and that's for a reason. There are things you may have only picked up on subconsciously, or which you would not be able to rationally articulate, but which form a "sense" of whether something is a good idea or not.

I've been on and around the UPenn campus a lot...and it ain't dangerous. 10 or 20 years ago "West Philly" was a really rough area - now gentrification is spreading West from University City (where Penn and Drexel are located) into the residential areas. A personal piece of safety advice. If you're walking by yourself late at night, don't talk on your cell phone or listen to music. Firstly, because a smartphone is something valuable that a mugger will want to steal. Secondly, because you aren't remaining aware of your surroundings when you're talking/listening into the phone. That makes it easier for somebody to sneak up on you, and you won't realise you're being approached until it's too late. From what I've seen of the reported muggings in my area - they usually happen late at night in areas that don't have heavy traffic, and the report usually begins with the line "The victim was on their cell phone when..." Getting shot is unlikely. Simply because the consequences of murdering somebody are a lot more severe than mugging them (especially for the amount of money/valuables that the average person would have on them - i.e, not much) and I think most muggers appreciate that.

Broaden my search. There is more available to Chemistry PhDs than R&D positions.

Yes, I am getting enough sleep. It is a lot fewer hours per night than before I began grad school....but it is still enough. "Specifics" will depend on the individual. I'm a morning person, so I will wake up at 6.30am. That gives me plenty of time to get a healthy breakfast, do my personal grooming and perhaps get some studying or work in before my 9am work day begins. As others have already said, you can work things like exercise, dating and sleep into your schedule around the things that you are already doing. Because I think that sleep is important, it means that I will stop whatever I'm doing at 10 pm and get ready for bed. If the work isn't finished I'll just do it in the morning instead. Usually I will have had whole night to digest the work, so in the morning not only will I be refreshed, but I will probably have thought through what I need to do and just generally make a better job of it than if I'd stayed up until 2am to get it done. If you want to meet new people, then schedule in organised social events into your calendar. Student residences usually organise some kinds of events (BBQs, movie nights) if you are living on campus. Attend interesting talks organised in your department (or outside) and chat to people at the wine reception afterwards.

The Chemjobber blog has a lot of information about big pharma growth/layoffs, news, employment stats for chemists (not just ACS members), useful job hunting tips as well as humorous stuff (www.chemjobber.blogspot.com ).

Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon." and David Gray albums are what I put on when I really want to write. Vangelis or classical music works well for me, too.

...And multinational pharmaceutical & petroleum companies aren't pure evil?! There was a big scandal recently with GSK in China, who were bribing doctors to prescribe their medicines. Meanwhile big chemical companies are spilling their waste into American rivers and oil production often promotes hideous wealth disparity and corruption in developing countries. Not all companies do bad things...but if you are doing science purely because of morals, I think you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Regarding the professors. Most of them are fairly blunt individuals. They are busy people who have a lot of meetings to attend, courses to prep and their own students to deal with. As a result, if they think you are unprepared or taking too long to get to your point, they will probably become impatient and express said impatience somehow. To be successful in grad school you have to come up with strategies to communicate with these individuals: you need to brief yourself beforehand, say what you want to say politely and concisely, and respect their social cues (do they look like they are in a rush to be off somewhere?). As Fuzzy said, that's how you deal with people in "work" and academia. It takes time to learn how to do that - but by watching others and being willing, a few false starts with some professors shouldn't mean that you will be forever unable to communicate with any of them.

Not uncommon. Not ethical...but really not uncommon.

Visit your campus store on Day 1 and just buy the hoodie then! Or buy lots of university crap and ship it all at once. $15 shipping for just one hoodie is a little silly.

Grad school anywhere is composed of the smart people who want to be there. So in that sense you are likely to face imposter syndrome where-ever you attend university. As a note about UK universities (it sounds like you're talking about Oxford/Cambridge) - they really aren't that traditionalist. You wear the weird robes only once or twice - most people think it's a bit silly, but also kinda fun - the rest of the time it will be quite ordinary. In some ways the hierarchy within British universities is less rigid than in their American counterparts (no tenure system, grad students are better-protected, the moderately cynical British attitude towards authority).

Oh YES. In the UK instant coffee is kinda the staple and as a result tastes quite good. American instant coffee is pure nastiness...but that doesn't stop me drinking it. * Singing along to 80s power ballads. * Eating cold baked beans straight from the tin.

I commiserate, and acknowledge that there probably isn't much you can do as a TA. The department higher-ups probably feel similarly to you, but I think there are fewer things harder to get rid of than a close-to-retirement tenured white male professor. Getting on the wrong side of this somewhat obnoxious bore won't do you any good either. My advice would be to sympathise with and advise the students as best you can. Minimise the contact you have with the professor - cc-ing them into emails or trying to tell them that their teaching style is atrocious doesn't seem to have done anything constructive, and just leaves you feeling more frustrated. You almost certainly have the experience and knowledge to guide the students in the assessments without needing to approach the professor for clarification. Most grading rubrics I have encountered as a TA are broad & vague: it is up to me as the grader to decide what I'm really looking out for, and how strict I'm going to be.