courtc8891

I'm a first year masters student in a new province and I'm having a bit of a rough go. Classes seem like they'll be incredibly difficult, but definitely interesting and engaging. My problems are mostly social. Most of my cohort seems to already know each other. Many of them did their undergrads at the university and they know the profs, the campus, and one another already. It's hard to penetrate that network and people just don't seem that friendly here. On top of that, I've got chronic depression, which is generally fine, but I've been feeling really crappy recently. I've only lived here for about three weeks now, so hopefully it'll get better, but it kind of sucks at the moment.

Mother, after dropping a travel guide on my desk with pages flagged: "We were just talking to a lady who lived in city x about thirty years ago and she absolutely loved it!" (my emphasis) Yep. Nothing would change at all in thirty years.

poetry anthology

I talked to my honours supervisor and department chair about TAships recently and they both gave the same advice: teach, but do as little as possible. When applying for jobs your work and publications will be weighted more heavily than the amount you teach. The heavier workload at WSU might interfere with your research. If you can get by financially without having to teach much you'll be better off in the long run, according to both my profs. Anyway, just their input in my specific situation, so you may or may not find it useful. Congratulations on your acceptances

Their English department was on the ball; I heard back on February 27th. Mind you, a friend of mine applied to their English MA last year with the same February first deadline and heard back the first week of April with a similar offer to mine. They seem pretty unpredictable.

You are among friends, here (and, you know, fellow procrastinators... ) Anyway, I submitted all of my applications the day before they were due (January 15th for 3/4 apps) and heard back from all four between Feb 18th and 22nd. So I don't think it matters much. Especially since you submitted yours rather early, KenAnderson.

All of my applications have been processed. Now it's just a matter of deciding between University A: less money, but a better fit in terms of thesis supervisor and University B: fully funded, but not really familiar with the work of my potential advisor. I'm leaning toward A.

I declined an offer online and about 10-15 minutes later I got a call with a lovely, "We were really impressed with your application, I'm sure you heard from the dean of graduate studies...." jaunt only for me to say "Uh... I actually have decided to take another offer..." and there was an awkward silence before he said "Oh... so... you've already decided, then...?" So awkward...

Thanks for your insight, NicholasCage. I will certainly keep this in mind. The prof in question at Concordia is what really attracts me to the program, and I think I will be the most productive there in terms of scholarship in my particular niche. Thanks for the helpful response!

To clarify what I said before: he meant that the MA school, regardless of academic prestige, can lead to a reputable PhD. Also: congrats on the PhD acceptance.

Mmm, I talked about it with my current advisor and he said it was quite common to use an MA as a "springboard" into a PhD program. The goal is to be as competitive as possible at whatever institution I accept. Thanks for the insight, selecttext.

I've been accepted so far at SFU, UVic, and Concordia (still waiting on Ottawa U). At the moment I'm leaning toward Concordia because they have a prof that I really want to work with, and we've already exchanged emails with him so I know he's on board (and is also teaching a course on my research topic, so it seems like the perfect choice). However, browsing around this website there are a lot of people (mostly in the US) who are concerned with the ranking of their schools. This may sound like a silly question, but Concordia doesn't seem to be that well known. Do you think that'll hurt my chances of getting into a PhD program...?

The same thing happened to me as well, only it's not my top choice so I suppose it's okay in my situation. Maybe this is common? Anyway, if they have a graduate coordinator listed in the department it might not hurt to shoot them off an email. I approached a grad coordinator (different situation though, I had heard from the department directly) and he was incredibly helpful and friendly. They expect questions this time of year, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to pose some.

platform gap (mind the gap!)

Two of the schools notified me in the morning their time (4 hour difference, so I got them mid afternoon), and another school shortly before 6pm their time, 7 here.