silencio1982

Eve is totally on point. It's not that I prefer working with women professors. I have had wonderful relationships with men and women professors and (luckily) don't feel that my gender has ever negatively affected me as a student. However, somewhere along the line from PhD to tenure track, it's clear that being a woman does matter. And being a woman who may want to have children matters significantly and can negatively affect my career. This is by simple virtue of the fact that physically (nevermind emotionally!) having a child will disrupt my career. Therefore, I think it is incredibly helpful to have someone in my corner who totally appreciates this fact, and moreover will provide guidance should I ever be in this situation. As crustaceangirl pointed out, there are indeed men who are some of the best possible advocates a woman pursuing an academic career, and who also wants a family, could have. But it's clear that there are fewer male professors who think these issues are worthy of advocating, or even see the need to make these things an "issue." That is why women graduate students, as future academics, need women role models and colleagues.

moving 400 miles with my husband for my PhD program. he's looking for a job right now and is very stressed out. he's been on 6 interviews so far but hasn't heard back yet. we're also moving with our incredibly rambunctious 1 year old cat. right now we're thinking of either hiring movers and driving down with the kitty, or renting a moving truck, he drives that, and i drive the car with the cat. it's going to be quite the adventure.

my husband is in higher ed admin- so when i was deciding where to apply for grad programs we tried to limit it to cities or areas with many colleges in a 90 mile radius. examples - baltimore/DC/northern Va; greater chicago area/milwaukee. of course there's the greater boston area but we are moving away from boston. basically you have to both be prepared to have a substantial commute in the worst case scenario- but the trade offs are worth it. i think. haha.

i'm guessing yale- they're know to be very generous- i could be wrong though.

i forget where i read this, but since i am also dragging my partner to a new place 400-something miles away where we know nobody so i can pursue a Ph.D., it stuck out to me- the suggestion was that it may make things easier for you and your partner to be on the same schedule-- or as close as possible. thus, treat your grad school duties as a 9-5 job when you can. obviously there will be times when this isn't possible, but the more you can carve out separate time and make non-grad school related friends with your significant other, the less that person will resent when you do from time to time get caught up in the grad student cult. i think you can balance a serious relationship with your grad student friends-- for example, do the happy hour thing with your cohort a couple of times a week, but head home afterwards- try to get your work done during the week or at least save one weekend day for non-grad school pursuits. pretty common sense ideas. as starving pointed out, these are adults, and people should respect you for wanting to put time into your relationship, and it's actually not that difficult if you make it a priority. there will definitely be times when conflict arises- in general, though, i think it is manageable, especially if you have already talked about it and are both aware of the sacrifices. BUT- if the culture of the department is generally negative towards or not supportive of serious relationships, i would be wary. especially when moving to a new place and trying to make new friends, which are hard enough emotionally for the non-grad school person, you getting sucked into the good old boys club (especially when recognizing that you would be tempted to do so) could get old for your partner pretty fast. i think in the end you have to know yourself and know what will work for your relationship. for me i think living a bit of a distance away from campus and trying to separate family from grad school (and having some non-grad school friends) will work to my (and my SO's) advantage. i am realistic and know sometimes grad school will suck me in, and my SO understands that, but it doesn't need to be that way all the time.

hey- soon to be poli sci doctoral student here. i don't feel any apprehension about being a student who may be in the minority as a woman, maybe because i have already had some success as a poli sci student and a graduate student. however, i am concerned that despite the fact that though the ratio of male to female grad students in poli sci is pretty much equal, that ratio significantly changes post-graduate school. i am extremely apprehensive about when the right time in my career will be to start a family... as the study cited above points out there are reasons to be concerned about whether having a family will derail my goal of being a TT professor... which is a wake-up call for sure. it's something to think about! i do take a bit of optimism away from the study though- i think the fact that the discipline is (or at least some departments/schools are) starting to acknowledge these issues signifies improvements. also, i have had several very successful women poli sci professors who have navigated the waters, achieved tenure, and have families, so that gives me hope. we will probably be the ones continuing to test these waters, so its exciting and daunting at the same time... this page is a great resource: http://www.apsanet.org/content_3693.cfm

thanks AnotherRealist and Lenin. very helpful! and, thanks realist, for those tips. i do think the earlier you have your career goals in mind the better.

when i was in my MA program i got a part-time job in a center within the social work school. it wasn't an assistantship (didn't come with tuition remission - i already had that in scholarship form for all but 3 credits), but it did pay $15 an hour. i found out about it via the student jobs website of my university. i am sure you are probably looking for something in the realm of tuition remission though, so that probably doesn't help. but i would just broach the subject to your advisor or the director of your program first, then assuming they are okay with it, email the director of grad studies of the dept in question. i would also check university affiliated centers related to your area of study- for example, there was a center for human rights at my MA university that employed a grad assistant. you never know until you ask. i would just be sure to broach the subject to your program/department first. good luck!

I don't know that it would necessarily hurt you if you had, say, 1 rec from an undergrad poli sci prof, and 2 from law school profs. go with the most glowing recs you think you can get. i used 2 profs from my MA program and 1 from undergrad... others may have different opinions, though.

hey- come on over to the poli sci topic (under social sciences) and ask your question there- there are several in that forum who went to law school and now are applying to poli sci PhDs. (i'm going to be getting a poli sci PhD myself but didn't do the law school thing so don't feel qualified to answer...)

for hopkins- TAing or grading "in a one-semester course each year." not bad.

ha- i grew up in NY and currently live in boston. baltimore seems cheap to me!

16k + health insurance at hopkins (5 years). pretty reasonable for baltimore!

most american grad schools are parties to an agreement that states april 15 is the deadline for a student to accept or decline an offer of admission- therefore most schools need to notify you by april 15 at the latest.

ouch!!! i can't even imagine that... can they legally retract an acceptance letter once sent?

i agree with what's been said above- go with your gut. you wouldn't be rich in any case, so if you can deal with the thought of living slightly more frugally in order to be happier, i'd say it's worth the trade off. the no guaranteed funding past year 3 is kind of worrisome, but if you're happy there and the faculty lives up to your expectations, it sounds like you'll do really well and probably be funded. you can always apply for outside fellowships as well, and work part-time if you need to. i am a big believer in following your instincts. best of luck!

any difference in fellowship packages? what about faculty you would most like to work with? that would probably be the deciding factor for me.

haha, i know, i know. hence the wink. no offense taken anyways maybe we will work together some day- i think that would be fun. i suspect we have vastly different views but we would still get along because we don't take ourselves too seriously!!

i applied to 3 PhD programs and 1 MA program overseas my senior year of college. Looking back on it I can't believe I was so cavalier about the process- I picked some really tough schools and was just convinced I was going to get in. So, I didn't get into any of the PhD programs- one of them accepted me for MA only, the other 2 rejected me. I did get into the MA program overseas but decided against it. So I went to the MA program in the US thinking I would continue on there to the PhD. But, my interests changed fairly dramatically and I also wanted to get into a higher ranked school if possible that had more people working on my interests... So, I completed the MA program, then took 2 years off, worked for a non-profit, and reapplied- this time to 6 PhD programs. Also all incredibly hard to get into, but this time I got into one, fully funded! I think it depends on your field- but it does seem like in my field people are prepared to go 2 rounds. Or- at least to get into an MA only program then re-apply for the PhD.

Hey VandyCandy- I do have some info on this because my husband in in higher ed admin and has one of those "Programs of Fluff" degrees you mentioned (haha- he would be so mad if he read that and would probably retort with something like preppy, elitist, ivory tower snob ). Anyways, people with higher ed admin degrees are usually in the Student Services field- so when they become deans they become Deans of Students or Dean of Residence Life or Student Services or Student Affairs-- and that is usually the terminal position for them-- they do not become NOT dean of the college, first year class, school of arts and sciences, etc, and certainly don't become presidents (for the most part these positions seem to require a Ph.D.). It seems (from knowledge of my college and MA program and faculty experience there) that to get to be in a dean/provost position you start out by being TT in your field, make your way to Professor, take on a lot of committee work and possibly do a rotation as department chair, and generally distinguish yourself at that school. From there, as far as I can tell most Dean-type positions are appointed within University or College. (One of my LOR writers was appointed to one of these types of positions within the University- he taught there for 25 years, was an assoc director of a center on campus and headed the undergrad fellowship committee, for example.) Other times there are searches for dean positions- these usually would go to full professors who have been in their field for a long time, have distinguished themselves in the ways I mentioned above, and who have long, solid experience at a similar type school. Hope this helps!

The only way I could see it working is if you were in a terminal MA program-- or at least only accepted for an MA and not a PhD. This happened to me- got in for an MA only at a PhD program, graduated with an MA, took 2 years off to work and now I'm going back to a higher ranked school for a PhD. There were a lot of MA only students in my program- I believe they accepted 17 the year I started. Most, if not all, of those people either left academia entirely after their MA or ended up doing a PhD somewhere else (in many cases, at a higher ranked school). So, though I was almost completely funded by the department for my MA, there wasn't this sense (at least that I know of) that I was somehow snubbing them by moving on. I would have had to reapply there to get into the PhD program and I think the MA program was structured for the majority of people to leave after 2 years. So, with this story in mind, perhaps there is some way you can leave with an MA- do either of the departments award MAs terminally? If they do, and students are leaving in droves with MA in hand, perhaps you can just jump ship along with them and it won't be as big of a deal... especially if you still don't have funding at that point, I think professors would be more sympathetic for you trying to go somewhere with funding. I'm going to generalize here and say that professors are for the most part nice human beings, I think they would sympathize and help you out. But- there is a lot of feeling out the situation that's necessary- if the programs DON'T award terminal MAs I can see it being more taboo to leave. Here's another suggestion, though- if you don't have funding anyway, why don't you try being a graduate student at large at a better school? You can take a few classes to beef up holes in your app, get a new writing sample and still stay in touch with the discipline- you could even start taking courses this summer if they're available and be ready to re-apply next winter. Then you wouldn't have to deal with this potentially sticky situation, or end up being stuck somewhere you're really unhappy.

by the way guys- i totally want to have a DC/baltimore grad cafe meetup next fall.

Hooray!! Congrats, lenin. I am happy for you!

yay!! congrats zephyr. hope funding works out for you.

In my field if you are accepted to an MA it probably doesn't come with funding- that is to say- you can't assume you are going to get it- but that doesn't mean you won't. When I was accepted into a MA program I was prepared to take out loans, and that summer before the Fall Semester began, I got a call from the Director of Grad Studies offering me an RA position (full tuition + stipend). My second year, again, I was prepared to take out loans but I got a scholarship for all but 3 credits of my MA. I had to take out loans for living expenses and those last 3 credits, but all in all I probably ended up with 1/3 of the loans I would have had to take out otherwise. And, now I got into a fully funded Ph.D. program! So, that's my story- take it for what it's worth. I would ask your program if Master's students EVER have a chance to get funding, maybe through TA or RA positions, and see what they say. This way they'll know you're interested and hopefully keep you in mind. But yeah, I would say it's worth it to go if your goal is getting a PhD.