beccamayworth
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Posts posted by beccamayworth
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Hi everyone! A new season is coming! guess we can talk about everything about applications here!
I am currently a second year undergraduate in a British university and am considering applying for linguistic programs in both American and European universities. My interest is mainly in theoretical linguistics (semantics, pragmatics and syntax) but I have been a RA in a psycholing experimental lab for 2 months, which means psycholinguistics works quite well with me
My problem is "are there any other programs (besides Ahmerst, MIT, UCSC, Berkeley) in US that centres on theoretical linguistics?" Hope this is not a disturbance in your lovely summer vacation.
Hi Nicholassss! Based on your interests in theoretical semantics, pragmatics and syntax, as well as Psycholing, I strongly suggest you look into USC. I am, of course, biased, since that's where I go - so feel free to send any questions my way if you're interested!
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Hey guys, does anyone knows of good resources for looking into this? I know there are very few opportunities (or at least there seems to be...) for external funding for non-US citizens in the US, particularly in our field, and I'm having trouble finding any info on this. Suggestions?
Thank you!
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Any chance professor A is leaving for another University, or retiring?
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Current faves:
Veep (yup, I admit it).
In the past, got way into Jericho, LOST, and a few others. Maude, too.
^ Hey Veep is awesome
Agreed! Veep is awesome.
AND JERICHO! I thought I was the only person who loved that show
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I'm procrastinating by watching Hannibal, but it has been giving me nightmares. I'm pretty sad Garfunkel and Oates only had one season. I've been thinking of starting Twin Peaks once I'm done with Hannibal, although that might not end the nightmares.
What have you been watching? What do you recommend?
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I would start reading up on every single recent article on Topic B out there. I usually get pretty excited about a topic after reading some cool studies on it. See if you can make yourself more into Topic B.
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Overall, I do feel lucky that my field, astronomy, is something a lot of people are already interested in and will have some basic background knowledge. Here's a 30 second pitch of my current work:
I study planets around other stars called "hot Jupiters". They are big puffy gas giant planets that are similar to Jupiter**, but they are very very close to their own star. While it takes Earth one year to go around the Sun, it only takes hot Jupiters a few days!! But we don't know how they got so close. We want to find out if they formed far away and moved closer, or if they formed where we find them today.
(** I do make the assumption that people know what Jupiter is.)
That's a pretty cool pitch. Made me wanna hear more! Have you ever thought about sending a two-minute pitch to PhD comics? They sometimes do animations about people's research (as you probably already know, but now I wanna see one on Hot Jupiters!!!)
The IRB is what makes me learn how to explain my research to the general audience. I need to do it, otherwise they won't give me approval to conduct experimental work. I think that is a great requirement for anyone working with human subjects.
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Most people say that they teach or are a stay at home mom or something though and outside of asking what grade, there isn't much to talk about there.
There's always stuff to talk about!
"What's your favorite thing about doing X?", "That sounds challenging because of Y. What has your experience been like?", "When did you realize you wanted to do Z?". -
That only refers to your eligibility to work in the US. The SSN number itself does not change, you have the same one for life. The only reasons it would be replaced is if you were placed in the witness protection program or if you were the victim of identity theft. You may need to re-apply for authorization for work (I don't know, you'll want to ask the international students office at your school) but regardless your SSN number itself won't change.
I think fuzzy is correct. I received my SSN with a note with DHS authorization years ago for the masters; now I'm at a different school doing the PhD. Same SSN.
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Hi gang,
I'll be attending classes at UChicago for one month (July) and I'm looking for a place to sublet, but I was wondering exactly what area around Campus is the safest (North of Campus? South? How far?). Any other neighborhoods that would be alright to stay at?
Thanks!
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A Battle Royale with cheese
thanks for this.
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Well unfortunately these are not often things you do consciously or that you can actually influence. But, for example, the paper topics you have in your first year and second year seminars will probably determine to some significant extent what your qualifying papers and ultimately dissertation will be about. The people you choose to talk to will inform the theories you will think about. Some of this will be determined by the topics the particular instructors you had in your intro courses chose to cover in the particular year you took the class (and topics and instructors change from year to year) and who was accessible and available to advise you on these projects when you were just starting out. Not to mention the school you chose over other acceptances you didn't take when choosing grad schools. The luck of the draw will determine that some abstract will get into a conference and another might not, and you might pursue the one that was accepted at the expense of the one that wasn't. You might study language X for your field methods class, but if you'd done it the year before/after you'd have studied language Y, and the project that would come out of it would be very different. A lot of projects come out of work in these field methods classes, sometimes leading to whole dissertations and research programs. Same for experimental methodologies - you need to decide very early that you want to be trained in that, and have the luck of having the right courses offered at the right time, and the right advisor being around and available (for example, not on sabbatical or busy with a sick family member), and even the right research question that is amenable to being asked experimentally using the tools you have available.
In the 1-2-3 year most people are not in a position to articulate their research program -- which is ok and makes sense, because to a large extent that is determined by your research experiences. But by the time you get to 4-5 year and go on the job market, there is not too much you can do to "invent" parts of your profile that don't exist but you wish were there. Not too many advisors will actually have a conversation with you once in a while about how your profile as a scientist is developing (and a lot of people may not want that or may be too intimidated) but as it turns out, my profile now as a 1st year postdoc is determined almost exclusively by what I've done in grad school, which in turn was determined to a very large extent by accidents of topics and instructors that happened in my first year. That determines to a large degree the broader research questions I can formulate that encompass (most of) my previous work and the work I want to do in the future (or at least, the work I tell hiring committees on job interviews that I want to do).
This all said, I am of the firm belief that although my research might have been very different had I gone to a different school or had a different independent study advisor in my first year, or if I had not stumbled onto experimental work, etc., it would have been just as good. My character is my character and my abilities are my abilities, so my productivity would have been similar, just that the actual papers and topics (and methodologies, languages of interest, etc) would be different. I think it would have been good either way, just.. different in ways I can't imagine, which is what I mean when I say that early choice points lead to very different possible outcomes.
Thanks so much!! A lot of food for thought.
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That it ends too quickly.
How much decisions you make (often inadvertently) early on affect who you become by the time you go on the job market.
How many opportunities you are not aware of.
Hi fuzzy, I got super interested in your answer. Could you expand a little, particularly on how early decisions affect who you become later on? What kinds of decisions? (First-year student here, trying to absorb as much knowledge about this process as possible
)Hi OP! What surprised me the most was the stress/anxiety that came along with my first semester in a PhD program. I had already done an MA, and I'm slightly older than the average student, so I thought I was 'prepared'... well, now I am actively trying to find more balance in my life (eat healthier, exercise) to make this whole experience more enjoyable.
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Thanks for the congrats, this doesn't feel real at all. The only evidence that I didn't actually hallucinate the whole thing was that my phone has a call from Massachusetts in its history. I just need to like, go to bed or something.
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I was originally going to go, but I'm visiting 7 places this month and I think I'll just be too dead to travel even a little bit
hahah you're right! Enjoy all your trips! You'll have all the next CUNYs to go to
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So convenient for CUNY this year!!! I'm jealous
Yes! Super exciting!
You should come, SD isn't that far - Early Registration ends tomorrow....... (and also, the program is now available online) -
Anyone going to USC?
Hi waitforme, I am currently a student at USC, feel free to send me a message if you have any questions
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The prospects of that are unfortunately kind of dim.
Hi Chiki, could you explain why you feel this way? As far as I know, there are lots of research in that direction. I myself worked in a lab that mainly focused on syntax and neuro (mostly with impaired populations).
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It's way too early in the game to feel like this. I'm in a different field, but last year I heard of my first admission on Jan 25th. Be zen.
- Garyon, lab ratta-tat-tat and smg
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Ten?! Wow! The positive side is that in such a way you should be able to personally meet lots of super interesting people in your field!
But I was wondering, what are interviews about? How do they work? What kind of questions do they ask?
Should I study for them? Clearly I did study the work of my POIs at each Univerisity, and researched the work of their labs and of the people they collaborate with but...should I be ready to asnwer questions about that?
Sorry If I ask silly questions but here in Italy Ph.D admissions don't work this way. We usually have titles' evaluation, then a written exam followed by an oral exam mostly focused on evaluating the candidate research proposal and how strong his/her former academic background is.
Since I'm interested in collaborating with other departments, I ended up also interviewing with some faculty in Pysch (which is why I got so many interviews!)
I think you already did the most important part - you definitely should know what your POI's work. I would say it's a good idea to familiarize yourself (at least superficially) with everyone you think you might get an interview with, just so that it's easier to make conversation.
From my experience, however, they're not really testing how much you know about them; they will mostly ask much more about you - the work you've done so far and the work you want to do during your PhD. They might ask you a few questions such as "why did you do your research this way and not this other way?" or "how do you plan on researching Y?". A really good question they often ask is "why?", as in "why is topic W interesting?" or "why is topic Z worth researching?".
The main idea behind the interviews is not assessing if you're a good enough candidate (your application package should take care of that), but mostly if you're a good match to their program.
And of course, you should use the interviews to think about the same thing - are they a good match for you? A lot of people change their minds about programs during the interview stage.
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From your list of schools: Maryland, NYU and UPenn do interviews. Unless things have changed since my application cycle, NYU/UPenn do phone/skype interviews and Maryland does an in-person interview/open house combo. And yes, it means you're on a shortlist--typically around 15 candidates are interviewed. MIT, and UMass don't do interviews. I have no clue about Yale, CUNY, Stony Brook, or Delaware.
I went to Maryland's last year - there were about 20 shortlisted candidates, we did a bunch of interviews (some people interviewed with 4-6 faculty - I interviewed with 10! it was intense), and it was A LOT of fun. Truly great.
For anyone else interested in these schools: UCSD and Brown also did interview weekends last year; USC does an open house for admitted students. I heard though that some schools are trying new approaches this year...
Good luck! Don't be nervous, do your homework, have fun.
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Also, I know it is kinda early, but any of you have any idea of how long will it be for us to start hearing something back from them (like, interviews and so on)? I know I should be ashamed! I just finished submitting my applications and I am already anxious!
The best way to find out that kind of stuff is looking up information from previous years in the "results search" section of grad cafe
And then when you get your invites, report them there so that next year applicants can have that information! For example, do a search for "Yale linguistics" and look at the self-reported results from previous years!
- Garyon and fuzzylogician
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Ehh maybe I should be more modest but I totally go braless around roommates (if same sex).
I do too! But then roommates have boyfriends/dates, and I'd rather not go braless in front of them
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Also, no one has mentioned one of the greatest advantages of living alone, which is that you can be naked pretty much all the time. And doing research without a bra >>> doing research wearing a bra.
- Page228, dat_nerd, ion_exchanger and 3 others
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Feeling lost + adviser is angry at me
in Coursework, Advising, and Exams
Posted
Hi MonstersU-Terp!
I'm sure others will chime in with great advice, but meanwhile I just wanted to say: don't panic. Seems to me you might be worrying too much about this, which is totally understandable and most of us do it all the time - but often the situation is not as bad as we think.
Like you said, they don't know you yet - so perhaps they were upset that you took time off without letting your advisor know, which is indeed a mistake but one that you apologized for. Just carry on, work hard, and keep being friendly. Over time they will get to know you and your work ethic. You can't really control what others think of you, so don't worry too much about it - just focus on doing good work and being a good person, and things will find their way.
Best of luck!