beccamayworth

I'd go with the advisor you like best. You're going to be there for a lot of years - go to the place where you'll be happier. The happier you are, the more productive, too.

Can anyone expand on those horror stories? I've only heard good things so far and I was considering it even though I'm pretty happy with the pill. I have to say, to me, one of the annoying things about being child-free is communicating with my friends. I'm 29 and almost all of them have kids, are pregnant or really want to be. Most of their conversations are about motherhood. Don't get me wrong, I actually do like talking to them about it, and I love their children, but I often feel like my problems (e.g., getting into grad school) aren't "real problems" compared to theirs.

I, too, hope my brother will have kids so that my parents can be grandparents. I can't say I am 100% decided on not being a mother, but I've never really felt the desire to have kids, and I can see myself living a fulfilling life without children of my own... I think academia is a good field for that, because you get to bond with your students. Also, this is AMAZING and many of you might enjoy it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/31/not-having-kids-parody_n_4703338.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

I think a good idea would be to contact the faculty you're interested in that place and talk to them about it. Before I applied, I emailed a few Professors to ask if they would be interested in a specific line of work. They'll give you useful answers.

Yeah, maybe it varies. Did it not state the time on the offer letter? I only know my deadline was set for today at noon PST.

I think (not sure) that the deadline is at noon on 04/15. But yes it would be nice if they had been more clear...

Oh that does sound complicated! Participants... one of the many tricky aspects of experimental methods... I'd say the only "downside" of the credit thing is that you have to run everyone - even the people who will not be a part of your sample. :/ But hey, in the end you get some data.

I think it probably depends a lot on where you are. I'm at an MA program in the CSU system - so everyone is pretty much completely broke. I don't think MA students here ever get any funding for their research at all. Even small travel grants are extremely rare. However, in some departments there's a pretty smart system in place to get participants for experiments. Some classes require students to participate for mandatory course credit, for example. So even though I have no money for my research, I get participants from those classes because they're required to participate in something, and my study is one of their options.

this is really not my area so I only have very vague advice to give you: I met a Professor at Maryland who does language and music, I can't remember his name now, but he's in the Psychology department. I also know there's someone doing Lang Evolution at UC Merced in the Cog Sci department. I think a good way to go about this is: go to your favorite journal articles on those topics, see who wrote it, look them up. Also look at the references, find more articles that you find interesting, see who wrote those, etc.

Oh I mean not a university-operated housing... If I need to, I'll just get a room somewhere around campus on a month-to-month lease until I find a nicer studio/1 bedroom

Yeah I'm sort of gambling on this one... I plan on just arriving there in the beginning of August and looking for a place! If I don't find anything I like, I'll just do some sort of temporary housing until I do....

Omg PhDerp I'm so sorry, somehow I missed your last message!!! I do psycholinguistics! But I'm more into the syntax/discourse side of things... I'll be happy to see you there!!!! yay!

On a related note... how hard is it to rent a studio or 1-bedroom being an international student, and therefore having no rental or credit history?

Currently they're 24/7 in San Diego! But since you rely on the availability of drivers, it would probably be wise to have back up plans... I have the apps for Lyft and Uber, and I also have an app called "Gofastcab" which I used only once, a year ago (before I knew about Uber). I also know that (619) 444-4444 is the number of some cab company in San Diego - I've never used it, but I know it just in case. Also - I know Lyft often has groupons available for first-time users... it might be worth looking into! (I know you said that you don't want to walk the 3 miles - but now that you've mentioned that you're arriving at midnight, I definitely recommend not walking it. The area around UCSD is pretty safe, but still, after midnight, best to be cautious )

Well, I've talked to several of the Lyft drivers - they're definitely not random, there's a *relatively* strict process they have to go through to become a lyft driver, which includes having a car not older than X (can't remember the year) and going through an interview/quick training. The network isn't too large yet - there's around 300/400 lyft drivers in the city. And lastly but most importantly, they work on a rating basis - that is, they rate you as a passenger and you rate them as a driver. So you can chose to accept a lyft only from someone who has, last say, 5 stars. (it works the other way around, too... they might refuse to pick you up if you only have two stars) But the choice, of course, is up to you. I just don't have any recommendations of cab companies to give you, since I only take lyfts. Sorry.

Hi! So, I go to SDSU, so take all of this with a grain of salt - but my friend at UCSD has been there for a year now and she decided to get rid of her car because she just doesn't use it enough, and parking permits are really expensive. She says there's school shuttles that go around. It will become hard to leave the La Jolla area, but you'll have most of things you need within reach. If your train station is Old Town, I know there's usually cabs there. If you wanna call a cab, I actually recommend using LYFT or UBERX. I've been using Lyft for a while now (just download the app to your phone) and I believe it's not only cheaper, but also safer than cabs.

Thank you!! And all of your options sound really great - congrats!!! - so I'm sure you'll get lots of opportunities wherever you go! Good luck deciding!! Another advice: look at people doing research in other departments as well. Like I said, the lab I work at is not at the ling department... There's a lot of great psycho/neurolinguists in psychology, cog sci and speech language departments. You might be able to work or take a class with them, or attend their lab meetings - either way, it increases your chances of networking with researchers in your field, and maybe getting a nice rec letter in the future. Also, check out the CUNY website for the last few conferences (CUNY is the largest annual conference for sentence processing, so that's where all the psycho and neuro people tend to present their work). See if you can spot your POIs names, and try to see how often they present, who they're working with, if their students are presenting... Hope that helps!!

I was in the same boat two years ago - rejected from PhDs, accepted to two Masters. Since I didn't get any funding for the MA offers, I went ahead with the cheaper one (which also happened to be in the city I liked the most). Definitely not a prestigious university, but I really really enjoyed my program and I was very proactive about improving - got As in all my classes, got a research assistant gig at a lab that focused on the kind of research I wanted to do (in a different department), etc. Now I am finishing my MA and got accepted to five of the PhD programs I applied to, with full funding. It's hard to give you advice without knowing what your options are, but I guess my main advice is - wherever you go, just work really hard at it and it'll pay off. And if you can go to a place that won't cost you much money/put you in a lot of debt, that's always a plus.

Sarab - not at all! Feel free to ask away

It's definitely a good thing! If they weren't interested in you, they wouldn't bother contacting anyone. They're probably just trying to get more information on you, specially since you're an international student (I'm assuming, I saw your location says Brazil).

congrats!!!

thanks so much you guys!

I just found this post - pretty cool. Bump it up!

I completely understand! It is very stressful, but it's always good to remind ourselves that "this is a good problem to have". Something that really helped me was to discuss all of the factors in making this decision with several people, including various Professors. Talking about it is very helpful in terms of "unveiling" how we really feel about something - a lot of reactions I got were "well it sounds like your choice is clearly university X!". So in spite of all the confusion, I kind of had made my mind already. I also laid in my bed at night and imagined myself accepting each of my offers. In 3 out of 4 cases, I felt this horrible feeling of regret about not going to school X. So that made it easier.

Alright, I've made my decision! I'll be joining USC in the Fall! Extremely happy about it.