pears

Well said! I had a student email me in a snippy tone this week regarding a missing grade that was due to a Scantron error, & after the initial wave of rage about the rudeness, I realized they were probably still at a stage of life/academia — one they may never leave — where they blame everyone else for bumps in their road. Obviously, it also wasn't the students fault, but they probably assumed it was a human error on my part, hence the knee jerk reaction of pointing a finger at me. I imagine this is partly the case with your students. If you have the chance to do so, I've found that asking my students for anonymous feedback about my review sesssions has helped immensely, in terms of my performance as a TA, & their performance on exams. They write what they liked, what they didn't like, & ideas for future review on slips & turn them in after a review. Anonymity helps with the honesty, too. I act on their feedback to the best of my ability, & they seem to appreciate it. Having reviews every few weeks about their perceptions of me will probably reduce the surprises in my end of semester evals.

On the other hand, I think this would also be a nuisance; I know my professors now appreciate concise writing more than "fluff" or throwing in as many facts as possible. I would assume that "20 pages" referred to an ideal or maximum. Better to have 15 excellent pages than 20+ pretty good ones, & to spend your time refining what you think is your best piece than picking & choosing a couple or several to throw together.

strike anywhere

This is good advice, & I've heard people (professors, professionals, et al) say the same thing about attachments: they're a minor nuisance. If they want your CV or anything else, they'll ask for it, or they'll see it later when you apply.

Yeah! He does lots of super cool work. Not exactly my area of study, but he was my POI there. I didn't do my undergrad there, but I know a couple of people who did their M.A. there, & my "permanent residence" is a couple minutes away. CUNY is a consortium of sorts, & depending on the program, they also overlap with other NYC schools (NYU, Columbia) for resources.

I don't really think there's a need to bring it up in your SOP. Just try to strengthen every other aspect of your application materials: get a few trusted mentors to look over & give some thoughts on your SoPs, make sure you have strong LoRs, polish up your resume, & so on. My GPA was weak, so I made up for it by doing well on everything else. If you can, of course, retake the test; it sounds like it'd be something you'd have to make time for, but if it were truly the only thing holding you back, it's certainly worth the extra effort.

Eh… not quite. An overall GPA of a 3.0 is the threshold in my department for being allowed to graduate. A lot of grading is based on participation & writing, which can be hard to quantify; if you do the reading, you should have a lot to contribute to discussions & a lot to say in papers. In many instances, it's less about "wrong" or "right," because they're vague concepts; rather, the focus is on encouraging the incorporation of major theories & thinking creatively. The seemingly "lenient" grading may simply be a byproduct of the sources of grades. That said, I don't know what the grading focuses in STEM fields are, but I can imagine it'd be a lot easier to give a B or C because someone's lab results fell short of or varied from the initial expectations; it doesn't mean it's bad or wrong, it just wasn't 100% right. In social sciences — at least in my field & program — you have to be doing next to none of your work if you can't come up with insightful questions or comments, & that's when the "bad" (sub-80) grades happen.

It is very clearly stated in ETS' policies that they don't do free re-scores. Knowing them, I wouldn't be surprised if they still charged a test-taker who fainted or became extremely ill mid-exam. If you study hard enough, & if again, if you're as good a test-taker as you say, minor distractions are a complete non-issue when you've consistently studied hard & made an effort to understood the material. Personally, I think many less than stellar things about ETS & the GRE, but I think most GRE takers are aware that standardized entrance exams are a game you have to learn how to play with regard to your own strengths & weaknesses, & the amount of effort you put into "playing the game" will be reflected in your scores. Writing is my strength, & math is not, but I studied a bit at a time for months before the test. My verbal score was great, math score was stronger than expected, & my writing score was marginally better, relatively speaking, than my math. I did very well because I figured out what I could do within the time allotted, & what I couldn't, & then studied my rump off to make sure I understood those "cusp" concepts that were unclear at first, that were non-issues by the time I took the test. Stop looking for external sources to blame, learn how to accept responsibility for your scores, put in the effort needed to get the scores you want, & try again at another test center. If nothing else, you will find it extremely difficult to thrive in a graduate environment if you fail to see your grades, critiques, etc. as a direct result of your own efforts. You're going to have a hard time of it if you storm into a professor's office, waggling a finger at them because they distracted you or were somehow grading unfairly, every time you get something below an A.

I can't recommend one right away, but I can say beware of printers that advertise things like "manual duplex"! That's just a fancy way of saying you half to double-print by printing odd pages, then print the even pages after you've removed the printed sheets & fed them back in. Check carefully when you're looking at specs for printers, especially the presence or absence of language about "duplex" or "double sided" printing. I didn't, & now I've mastered the unrefined art of odds-then-evens & accidental tree killing. That said, I have a little Epson "3 in 1" printer/scanner/copier, & it's worked very well so far, although the WiFi capabilities are a little bit touchy. I invested in a $5 USB cable that I use instead of the WiFi. Epson has very good customer service &, on occasion, great sales on their ink, so I can give them a general thumbs up as a company.

Have you contacted anyone at CUNY (I'm assuming Hunter) yet? Dr. McGovern is so nice & friendly, & I think some of his work is really cool. It didn't start popping up for me until I began my first semester of grad school, when all of my new courses moved in roughly chronological order, beginning with the late Pleistocene & early Holocene. He's a great point of contact for CUNY/Hunter.

If you're really dedicated to going into a grad program & having strong GRE scores, you should be using your time to put in your "full effort" to study, instead of taking it to court (which, I strongly suspect, will be a waste of time & money on the part of both parties involved) because you're having trouble accepting that you are the one who has the greatest control over your test results. Is it horse-poop that ETS forces you to choose to cancel your scores before you see them? Yes, obviously. This is something anyone who's taken the GRE has dealt with & been frustrated by. But you knew that was the policy before taking the test, & if you didn't, ETS makes that quite clear in their publicly listed policies, & you chose to "accept [your] scores because [you] felt in spite of the distractions [you] still did ok." I'm failing to see how it's logical to take the testing center to small claims court; they wouldn't be in business if they truly fostered an environment so distracting their patrons couldn't successfully take tests that play a large role in what their futures hold. At the end of the day, it's not the test center's fault you performed poorly. They're not the ones being tested; you are. Study harder, take the test again at a different center, and hopefully you'll get a score you're satisfied with next time that reflects your renewed, more dedicated efforts. If you are as good a test-taker as you say, the added effort should show the next time around.

i'm super jealous of you folks with fall breaks! my next chunk of time off is the second weekend of november, a whopping 3 days total; my more bearded half & i will be spending it in glacier national park looking at views like this:

OP: what field of study/work are you in, & where? i'm in the social sciences, too (archaeology), in a very "crunchy" small city in the states, & the standard mode of dress is very casual. dark jeans, carhartts, corduroys; hiking boots, cowboy boots, sneakers, flats; t-shirts, sweaters, casual sweatshirts. it gets gnarly-cold & snowy here in the winter, so the expectations for heels, skirts, dresses, or thin dress shirts and blouses seem to have gone completely out the window. nobody wears "field clothes" with holes or stains, but sometimes, it's just a step above. personally, i like it, because i think it keeps all the focus on the academic stuff, & insightful comments are worth a lot more than a personally tailored, newly dry cleaned outfit. that said, i work in a very casual field, at a very casual school, in a very casual city. carhartt, woolrich, scarpa, patagonia, & ariat seem to be the brands of choice around here.

the first time, i wouldn't even use the wording "unacceptable" or "inappropriate." when my students ask me similar questions, e.g. "is this test hard?," i just try to sidestep it, tell them i can't really say, give them an honest but vague assessment of the test's content vs. the last, & so on. in the case you mentioned, i'd probably do the same: sidestep, tell them i can't say, then give an honest assessment of the draft as it is, & explain that students who take the time to write a draft & revise it at least once tend to do well (don't say "better" or suggest any qualification vs. others' grades). any time after that, i would be more firm & straight up say "i can't give you a grade until after you've handed me your final draft on (due date), but if you want some suggestions, we can go over them now, but please don't ask for a grade again."

dirty water

i'm not sure if this will help, but you may want to familiarize yourself with boolean searching vocab (click for link). i'm fairly certain the "AND" function is automatic in google, i.e., it'll yield only results containing all of the terms, as if you had added "AND" between each. apples rabbit food = apples AND rabbit AND food.

wriggly grub! (ick)

Hello, friends! This is a question for MA and PhD students, professors, or anyone who's been up to their waist in anthropological & archaeological research longer than I have. My (tentative) MA thesis topic is going to involve revisiting an old data set with a fresh set of theoretical eyes. The data comes from a site that's part of a well documented, thoroughly researched site with an established cultural chronology. I want to use that old raw data, or another preexisting data set, as an example of potential applications of a few main theories to bioarchaeology, with my greatest emphasis on a relatively new perspective that I feel goes perfectly hand-in-hand with it. I don't intend to discuss methodological or ethical problems within the sub-discipline; supporting the usefulness of the new theoretical perspective by way of the preexisting data set is my focus. So, I've got two main questions: How common is "scooping" in anthropology/archaeology? i.e., should I be worried about rushing to publish a new theoretical perspective as it relates an up-&-coming sub-discipline first? Does it matter? I intend to publish & continue refining my thesis after it's done, but I'm nervous about "theory wars" & how to respond to published critiques or criticisms. How do I find the "holes" in my arguments? How do I respond to criticisms, particularly with regard to the age of the data set & potential methodological flaws? Thanks, y'all!

if you do end up contacting ASU, will you shoot a message my way about whom you talked with & how it went? i'm really interested in their PhD program, but i'm in an MA program right now, & i have major "nerd crushes" on a lot of their faculty, but no idea what their personalities are like. i'm intimidated & looking for some schmoozing advice.

memory foam

girl talk

personally, i think both of these are good options, & i took the route that i've put in bold. i lacked field experience & had a mediocre GPA, but i intended to enter a program & field of work that require strong field skills alongside very strong academic skills, so i made up for it by working my rump off for a year & a half. doing so really helped me mature in terms of time management, communication, work ethic, etc. — which have already paid off immensely — & gave me a chance to network with some mentors who wrote some of my great LoRs. if i hadn't taken the time off, i probably would've still gotten into a couple of programs, but maybe not my first choice program (where i am now), & certainly not in a mature enough state of mind to be fully equipped to tackle heavy loads of coursework, a part time job, &, y'know, having hobbies & fun.

some school's health centers have on-staff nutritionists, or can at least refer you to specialists nearby; that might be a good place to start! i really enjoy cooking, but i have a bad habit of being a super lazy eater, and i am perpetually mega-broke. i try to set aside 2 hours every sunday to cook 5-7 lunches for the week that i can carry in a container in my bag. that way, i know exactly what i'm getting in terms of calories & nutrients. i bulk-buy produce with my housemates through a CSA program, & i bulk-buy whole grains & dry goods (quinoa, lentils, beans, bouillon, oats) to save money. i'm a pescatarian, so for meat (fish), i just buy whatever fillets are on sale. only cooking for lunches gives me more freedom for breakfast & dinner, & knowing what to expect calorie-wise means i can get lazy & buy things on campus when i'm way too busy to stop for food at home. we have sushi & salads for sale on campus, so i stick with those, especially the ones with full nutritional labels. i also try to separate my foods into portions as soon as i buy them, so i don't just measure out random stuff all willy-nilly when i'm cooking in a rush, e.g., pouring loose dry goods into 1/2 cup sized reused sandwich bags. i try to switch up my ingredients weekly & find very filling foods so i can nibble on in throughout the day (instead of snarfing down one huge meal): curried lentils cooked in veggie stock, herbed roast veggie hash, broiled fish with fresh dill & lemon, homemade veggie soup, all sorts of fruit salads, & so on. i prefer to make meals that have a variety of flavors & textures so i won't get bored of grazing on it throughout the day, & i won't get painfully full right away or really hungry later, because i have a tendency to over-eat if i go from snack to snack. aiming for 4 small meals a day (an hour after i wake up, late morning, mid-afternoon, mid-evening seems to work for me) makes me feel more full than 2 big meals or grazing on very small snacks nonstop. in general, i agree with the previous: nutrition & calorie tracking apps, & what you eat, rather than how much, are key. self magazine has a great app of sorts on their website that's also very helpful for figuring out what you need nutrient-wise, instead of taking a broad-spectrum multivitamin. that may help with the tiredness & cravings. also, it seems counter-intuitive, but when you're tired or exhausted from working, exercise for 15-30 minutes: run, bike, walk, do calisthenic (weights-free) circuits at home, whatever you want. you can follow up with lots of water & a shower. it's like hitting a "refresh" button on your brain & body!