danieleWrites

I've just found out that I'll be sharing not only an office with a ton of other people, but that I'm expected to share a desk with at least one, probably two people. While I totally get that office space is budgetary issue and people who are only using an office for a few hours a week on a temporary basis don't need to waste department budget and space on their own luxury suites, I still hate sharing a desk. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it! Not in love with office sharing, but good times have been had. Okay, ranting finished. I really doubt I'm alone in the dislike of overcrowding, but despite all my rage, we're still just rats in a cage.
 
So, anyway. What kinds of tips, tricks, etiquette, passive-aggressive whining, Thou Shalt Nots, and/or please do!s might you have for sharing offices? Sharing desks?
 
Here's some of mine:
 
I teach comp and we always have to conference with students. And for some reason, we all seem to schedule conferences at the same freaking time. I learned to negotiate with my office mates from the beginning so we weren't all trying to conference in one office at the same time. I'll conference Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, you take Monday and Wednesday morning.
 
Food. It's a problem. Stinky food, particularly. It's not the food itself, or the act of eating it, but rather what happens to the wrappings, discards, and whatnot. I think that it's courtesy not to use the office trash can for food items after the custodian has been through for the day. It's worse by a factor of a bajillion if the food is tossed in the office trash can after the custodian has been through on Friday. Monday mornings are gross. I take my banana peels to a less enclosed trash can. When eating at your desk, chew with your mouth shut. Seriously. If you're a messy eater, don't eat at your desk.
 
Coffee pots. Make sure it's pot for coffee and not heating water before making coffee in it. Make sure it's a communal pot, Make sure to keep it clean! Coffee drinkers should work out who will empty and clean the pot before everyone goes home for the day. Moldy coffee is gross. Moldy coffee grounds are gross.
 
Don't "borrow" people's candy. It's not cool.
 
Bakers, we're in a sedentary job. Don't get pushy or take offense if someone turns your wares down. You may think you're being nice, but some of us are working off the undergrad 45, or have high cholesterol, or we're allergic, or something. No doesn't mean we don't love you. It means we don't want to eat it.
 
Music: Headphones. Also, I can hear it if you turn it up too loud.
 
Conversation. It's a work space. People in the office are doing work. People in the office next door or across the hall are doing work. Enjoy the conversation, have fun and enjoy the people you work with, but keep it down.
 
Before you coat the walls with pictures, posters, and fun sayings, make sure you remember that you're in an office that you and your colleagues will use to further a professional student-teacher relationship with visiting students. Your credibility as a teacher will be judged by the stuff you have on the walls. Your credibility will be judged by the stuff your office mates have on the walls. You don't have to turn the place into a doctor's waiting room, but don't turn it into a party, either.
 
Be courteous when you're sick. Don't snot on my dictionary and I won't snot on your thesaurus.
 
It's an office, not a quickie day care center. Bring the kids for a visit, but if you want to bring the kids, especially the younger ones that require a lot of stuff and attention, for a long visit, perhaps while the parent or whoever is in class or at an appointment, put a little thought into it. Take them around the department to show them off, then take them outside to play.
 
Don't assume that you should instruct your office mates in how to prepare assignments, syllabi, select books for a course, blah blah blah, even if they ask you. Answer questions, don't lecture. (My tone here is pretty much proof that it will be irritating, not well received.)
 
For your own safety, don't vent about the annoying things your professors may or may not be doing. The walls aren't that thick and voices carry very well through corridors.

You can still do that.
 
I am also very social and find it easy to let my mind wander when alone.  During the course of my graduate program, I met some friends and we formed working circles.  We'd bring our work (laptops, writing, whatever) to a central location and just write/read/do whatever together.  No talking - although sometimes I had friends who liked periodic 20-30 minute check ins - just writing.
 
But the thing is in graduate school most of your work won't be "light work," so a lot of it will require focus and concentration and you may prefer that alone.  Still, you don't have to be in solitude.  You may be granted a desk that is in an open work area with other graduate students and research assistants, so you can work there among people.  Likely your university library will have study carrels and open tables, where you can sit and work - you won't be talking to other people, but you won't be alone, either.  I tend to work really well in a quiet library with headphones in, because I don't feel lonely but there's also nobody distracting me.
 
I've grown tremendously and have come to really value solitary time.  Solitude doesn't have to mean shut up in your apartment - you can go into a public park and read books or articles for several hours, or sit in a coffee shop and work amongst people.  I can't work in quiet, so coffee shops are great - the buzz around me becomes pleasant white noise and I can write for hours!
 
You can also meet people in grad school.  Join a few grad student groups; join a social or professional organization in the city you move to.  You can meet friends in different fields to hang out with during your downtime.

A lot of great advice! Be aware that every class has a different personality. Most people in classes will stare at you blankly when you ask a question because they do not want to speak. Getting student to participate in discussion is pretty much the most challenging part and everyone has to find the way that not only works best with the class's personality, but their own. One of my TA cohort was a happy, outgoing person (still is), and she would bring a camera to class the first day. She'd have each student write their name on the board and take some pictures, which she would use to learn their names, do writing projects, and stuff. It worked great for her; it did not work for me. I'm an introvert with a dry sense of humor and it fit me like bucket of slime.
 
I made them love me right off the bat by bringing out my cell phone and explaining that the number on the syllabus made my portable internet make funny sounds, which eventually produced voicemails and texts. Then I also explained that the alarm would go off 5 minutes before the official end of class. This was not the signal for them to pack up their gear, but for me to finish my lecture, complete any class business, and get them out the door on time. Anyone who has ever taken an English class knows that English profs are the worst at thinking that 10 minutes before the other class comes in is theirs to use.
 
Clear assignments help, too. They want to know what's expected of them. Clear and logical grading paradigms help, too. What are you looking for? Be precise and be clear!
 
I'm easy to pull off track. I have ADHD and I love the bright and shiny. They figure it out pretty quick. I've seen it in the classes I've taken, where the students are bored and someone will ask a question to pull the prof into a more interesting line of talk. I've done it myself. Once I figured that out about myself, I developed a strategy to use that to my advantage. Sometimes, a few minutes on an interesting, off-track thing can bring the class together. I teach comp and lit, so I can pretty much bring any discussion back to the subject, even if it isn't about the specific lecture.
 
Be reasonable in the work assigned. They have 4 other classes (generally), jobs, friends, family, and so on. The homework should be a reasonable amount, not an overload. I had a prof expect everyone to read 300 pages a week because she couldn't bear to cut any more literature out of the class. It was way too much. The more the work, the less absorbed.
 
Extra credit is pointless. The only people who really do extra credit are the people who are not satisfied with 96%.
 
Be flexible, but be clear and consistent.
 
Don't be sarcastic. Well, amend that. Sarcasm works for me, but only if I don't use it as often as I'd like. Do not every be sarcastic toward a student.
 
You will have bad days when you don't want to herd the cats. They will know that you are having a bad day because you will take it out on them in your own way. You've been in classes where the prof/teach has done that. It helps me (but not everyone), to openly acknowledge that I'm having a bad day and that I am doing my absolute best to not only teach them, but to be respectful of them as students and as people.
 
Unless the department requires me to, I don't give points for daily attendance and participation. Some people do because it works for them (personality!), but it doesn't work for me. I do take attendance and I do excuse absences because a certain number of absences means that a student can be dropped from the course (and the university I taught at wanted to track failure and withdraws based on attendance) and the only way students can make up missed work is with an excused absence. Other than that, I don't want someone to come to class if the only thing they're going to do is sleep or text.
 
I make the academic honesty policy very clear on the first day. In comp, that means explaining precisely what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. I don't go into a deep discussion on the cheater's consequences, but I do discuss the consequences of cheating for everyone. Piper High School makes a great example about how 18 people can hurt 1000s.
 
I do my best to make sure that I'm approachable and contactable. I tell them when I check my email, so they have a clue when they can expect me to respond to them.
 
Find a, well, mentor in the department that you can go to for help. Get copies of assignments from people who've taught the course before or ask them how they approached an assignment or a reading or whatever. You don't have to use it as is, but you can use it to help you figure out how to do your own.
 
If you say: "Any questions?" You won't often get much of a response. People don't want to appear stupid, so they will pretend to understand, and then come up after class to ask questions. If one person has a question, then at least half the class will need the answer to that question.
 
tl;dr: I suppose the biggest thing comes down to respect and honesty. If you treat them with basic respect first (for example, assume that everyone is honest, hardworking, and good), they'll appreciate it and return the favor. The other important thing is to be honest. If you say that they can expect their work back by a certain date, do your best to get it to them. If you have office hours, be there. If you tell them you'll return emails by 8pm, do it. If you must be absent and you've explained your policy on cancelling class, follow through.

I add former work colleagues on LinkedIn, rather than Facebook. They don't necessarily count as my "friends" (nor do I want to share a lot of personal information with them), but I do want to keep in touch and see what they're up to somehow. That might be an alternative method for you to try with your students...

I disagree with this assumption - most of our hires in my location (university and museum) are those whose fields align best with what our objectives were, not their brand name. Out of the 6+ recent hires, only one was from your list  (Yale). Semenza in his book details why hiring from ivies isn't all that appealing.

I thought you guys would be interested in this passage from Getting What You Came For, which is an older (mid-90s) book about going to grad school. It's from a member of the graduate admissions committee in the English department at Stanford University talking about the process they go through. Because of its age, I wouldn't advise you to see it was necessarily what Stanford does now, but as a general description of how adcomms work it fits what I've heard from lots of profs. Just some food for thought.
 

One of the things I like a lot about that book is that it is resolutely anti-romanticism in academia, which I've found to be a real problem for a lot of people; they romanticize the university system so they have a hard time dealing with the inevitable disappointments. But I don't intend to post this in a purely or deeply pessimistic sense. In large part, I think the takeaway is first to forgive yourself if you don't get into that one program, because there is just such variability in readers on adcomms. Relatedly, cast your nets wide both in the sense of applying to a good number of schools (the author of the book advocates 10 as a sensible number) but also emotionally. Don't get overly attached to one department! 
 
Also, I agree with this person in the sense that the system has a lot of randomness and arbitrariness in it, but still tends to produce fairly just results in aggregate. I think an individual rejection or acceptance can be a genuine crapshoot, but that if you apply to a decent number of schools, you should hope to find that your luck breaks out even. I also think that you can trust that several acceptances from good programs are an indication that you have what adcomms want. (Not necessarily the same thing as an "objective" notion of academic value!) On the downside, I think if you strike out at many departments over a few separate application seasons, it's likely that you do not have an academic resume that projects the kind of things adcomms are looking for in the field right now.
 
It's natural for all of us to have a somewhat self-defensive attitude towards our own success or failure in this process. If you got into your top programs, you want to believe that the system is fair. If you didn't, you want to believe that the system is flawed. The reality is probably in the middle. More than anything, I hope people try to maximize their chances for success, but also that they don't get bound up in thinking that any particular acceptance or rejection is somehow indicative of their value as people or as intellects. Sorry to speechify. 

I've been teaching Comp 1 and Comp 2 for several years. As a comp teacher, I would give you a C- on the news program prompt and a B on the national curriculum prompt. AS a GRE scorer: not a clue.
 
The news program response has a few simple fixes. First, your thesis statement is blandly vague and doesn't actually say anything. The sentence prior to that does give you the meat of the argument, but your response uses that as introductory material and never addresses it. You need to combine the idea that correlation does not mean causation with the idea that more evidence is necessary. Your main points do not address causation directly and clearly, or how the lack of correlation between complaints/revenue loss means they need more local stuff. Your thesis statement should be focused. It should make a specific claim with reasoning (more evidence is needed because correlation does not mean causation), rather than just a blank claim (more evidence is needed). Vague. The second problem is a problem in both responses. Your word and syntactical choices. You needlessly complicate your responses with big words and funky structure that relies on passive voice. Example: "There is much that needs to be elucidated." The phrase "coterminal events" is so Talcott Parsons. You sacrifice clarity for GRE buzz words. You sacrifice your credibility for fancy words. As Strunk and White so sagely advise: never use a big word when a normal word will do. Do not say precipitation when rain will do. Worse is passive voice. Passive voice has its uses, but it's difficult to read and, more importantly, it's boring. The GRE graders will be reading reams of these things. Do not bore or confuse the GRE graders for they will downgrade you for it. And they will be correct to do so.
 
Now, you do have some strong things happening in your responses. You have a thesis in both of them, and the thesis statement in the national curriculum is a strong thesis statement. Your main points clearly, logically, and reasonably support your thesis, which clearly expresses the central idea of your response. Your evidence is logical and you give a strong argument with it. You have obviously strong language skills, though you don't apply them correctly to the rhetorical situation. Analyze the prompt carefully. Note that the news program prompt says "our news program", meaning that your response is to be aimed at someone involved in making decisions at a local station, not at the GRE grader.
 
Suggested reading: William Zinnser's On Writing Well (I like the 30th anniversary edition). I think it's better than Strunk and White, though a little Strunk and White goes a long, long way.
 
Caveat emptor: I have never graded a GRE paper and I never will. I know nothing about their grading rubric.

Do not be angry with yourself. You've done nothing wrong. I have no idea what's going on in his head, but he's the one that decided to attempt to initiate a more personal relationship, not you. From your description he sounds inappropriate rather than predatory. He waited until you were no longer his student to start laying down his moves, creepy as they have been. You have the option to report him for being creepy and inappropriate, but as he's been hitting on a former student, not a current student, it's probably a crapshoot. This doesn't mean that what he's doing is okay, because it's not, but it's not necessarily either illegal or against university rules. It's creepy. Well, it might be more. Is his current and future help contingent on your companionship in some way (not necessarily sex, long drives where you talk about non-academic things count)? If you think yes, report him. If you think no, don't report him. You can start the reporting process at the university's counseling center, with the department either the head or a different professor that you trust will work in your interests. You can also go to HR, student affairs, or any number of places. The place to go to is the one that will listen to you, that you trust, and will think of you first, not the university's immediate reputation as predator-central.
 
If you think no and you think you'll need his help, you can salvage the situation by establishing boundaries, which you don't seem to have done yet. Write the summary/abstract to your thesis first. Then contact him via email. Explain that you are not available for a long drive, but you are interested in discussing the summary of the thesis for publication purposes. Arrange to meet him in his office when other professors will be in their offices, and then hold the meeting with the door open. If he asks for your help in rearranging his cabinets or books or whatever, pick up your things, apologize for interfering with his time and offer to reschedule the meeting when he isn't so busy, and then give him two or three times to choose from, times that you know in advance will have other people in the department around. If he asks you out for coffee, politely decline without a reason. No, thank you. If he pushes, explain that computer science is a difficult enough field for women, and that you want to maintain professional relationships with respected members of the field, or something of the nature. You're rejecting him, you both know it, but it allows you both to pretend that he's not a dirty old man and that you still respect him. Every time he offers or behaves inappropriately, rebuff him in a way that allows you both to behave as normally as possible. If he does not respect the boundaries that you're drawing, eliminate all personal contact and find another professor in the department to help you prepare the thesis for publication. If he does not respect the boundaries that you are drawing, then find someone you trust to discuss the situation with, someone that can help you enforce the boundaries and, if needed, use university channels to make him stop.
 
If you do maintain contact with him, do so only in a professional setting, email and in person during business hours only. No more coffee shops, no more helping him with his busy-work, no more conversations that don't include the profession. This will reinforce the boundaries that you have set up. Do not take this to mean that you shouldn't have done these things before, because none of these things say "come get me, big boy". Not a one. They don't mean anything because he crossed a boundary that you didn't know you needed to put up. In your mind, he was still the professor and that boundary still existed. In his mind, you were no longer his student, and the boundary no longer existed. Once the boundary has been re-established with a professional relationship only line, keep it that way by not allowing him to cross it and by not crossing it yourself.

Don't eliminate any of the graduate school. Only eliminate a school if you cannot afford to apply to that school or if you cannot afford to go to the school
 
Visit each school's website and find information for international students. The schools will explain how to apply and what you must do. Find the link for graduate students and look for international students. If you can't find a webpage explaining their requirements, you should contact the school's graduate college directly, via email, asking for information.
 
In most cases, you will have to pass a TOEFL exam. TOEFL, Test of English as a Foreign Language, is a test of your proficiency with English. Universities will require that you have a certain amount of fluency in English because without it, you cannot succeed in an English speaking program. Some universities will require the TOEFL before accepting you; others will require it after they admit you, but you cannot register for classes without passing it. ETS, who also does the GRE, does TOEFL testing. You will find information on the TOEFL on the ETS website. Each university website will have information on what your minimum scores on the TOEFL should be.

I've been teaching Comp 1 and Comp 2 for several years. As a comp teacher, I would give you a C- on the news program prompt and a B on the national curriculum prompt. AS a GRE scorer: not a clue.
 
The news program response has a few simple fixes. First, your thesis statement is blandly vague and doesn't actually say anything. The sentence prior to that does give you the meat of the argument, but your response uses that as introductory material and never addresses it. You need to combine the idea that correlation does not mean causation with the idea that more evidence is necessary. Your main points do not address causation directly and clearly, or how the lack of correlation between complaints/revenue loss means they need more local stuff. Your thesis statement should be focused. It should make a specific claim with reasoning (more evidence is needed because correlation does not mean causation), rather than just a blank claim (more evidence is needed). Vague. The second problem is a problem in both responses. Your word and syntactical choices. You needlessly complicate your responses with big words and funky structure that relies on passive voice. Example: "There is much that needs to be elucidated." The phrase "coterminal events" is so Talcott Parsons. You sacrifice clarity for GRE buzz words. You sacrifice your credibility for fancy words. As Strunk and White so sagely advise: never use a big word when a normal word will do. Do not say precipitation when rain will do. Worse is passive voice. Passive voice has its uses, but it's difficult to read and, more importantly, it's boring. The GRE graders will be reading reams of these things. Do not bore or confuse the GRE graders for they will downgrade you for it. And they will be correct to do so.
 
Now, you do have some strong things happening in your responses. You have a thesis in both of them, and the thesis statement in the national curriculum is a strong thesis statement. Your main points clearly, logically, and reasonably support your thesis, which clearly expresses the central idea of your response. Your evidence is logical and you give a strong argument with it. You have obviously strong language skills, though you don't apply them correctly to the rhetorical situation. Analyze the prompt carefully. Note that the news program prompt says "our news program", meaning that your response is to be aimed at someone involved in making decisions at a local station, not at the GRE grader.
 
Suggested reading: William Zinnser's On Writing Well (I like the 30th anniversary edition). I think it's better than Strunk and White, though a little Strunk and White goes a long, long way.
 
Caveat emptor: I have never graded a GRE paper and I never will. I know nothing about their grading rubric.

I've been teaching Comp 1 and Comp 2 for several years. As a comp teacher, I would give you a C- on the news program prompt and a B on the national curriculum prompt. AS a GRE scorer: not a clue.
 
The news program response has a few simple fixes. First, your thesis statement is blandly vague and doesn't actually say anything. The sentence prior to that does give you the meat of the argument, but your response uses that as introductory material and never addresses it. You need to combine the idea that correlation does not mean causation with the idea that more evidence is necessary. Your main points do not address causation directly and clearly, or how the lack of correlation between complaints/revenue loss means they need more local stuff. Your thesis statement should be focused. It should make a specific claim with reasoning (more evidence is needed because correlation does not mean causation), rather than just a blank claim (more evidence is needed). Vague. The second problem is a problem in both responses. Your word and syntactical choices. You needlessly complicate your responses with big words and funky structure that relies on passive voice. Example: "There is much that needs to be elucidated." The phrase "coterminal events" is so Talcott Parsons. You sacrifice clarity for GRE buzz words. You sacrifice your credibility for fancy words. As Strunk and White so sagely advise: never use a big word when a normal word will do. Do not say precipitation when rain will do. Worse is passive voice. Passive voice has its uses, but it's difficult to read and, more importantly, it's boring. The GRE graders will be reading reams of these things. Do not bore or confuse the GRE graders for they will downgrade you for it. And they will be correct to do so.
 
Now, you do have some strong things happening in your responses. You have a thesis in both of them, and the thesis statement in the national curriculum is a strong thesis statement. Your main points clearly, logically, and reasonably support your thesis, which clearly expresses the central idea of your response. Your evidence is logical and you give a strong argument with it. You have obviously strong language skills, though you don't apply them correctly to the rhetorical situation. Analyze the prompt carefully. Note that the news program prompt says "our news program", meaning that your response is to be aimed at someone involved in making decisions at a local station, not at the GRE grader.
 
Suggested reading: William Zinnser's On Writing Well (I like the 30th anniversary edition). I think it's better than Strunk and White, though a little Strunk and White goes a long, long way.
 
Caveat emptor: I have never graded a GRE paper and I never will. I know nothing about their grading rubric.

"Safeties" do not exist in grad school. I applied to doctoral and MA programs, and I was rejected from the MA program but given 6 years of guaranteed funding and stipend from the PhD program I'm going into. 
 
Find the best "fit" (an adviser who specializes in your field, and a school that meets your theoretical and methodological goals). You'll have a better chance at the school you are most excited about if the fit is right, than the school you begrudgingly apply to because you can't just apply to one (haha) 

It's the Mastery v. Pedagogy approach. Up until recently, in most fields, it was assumed that a mastery of a field made one competent to teach in the field. Actually, there's still a lot of people who believe that. There's just no pedagogy. TAing in English for my masters was as enlightening as it was horrific. We had one day of orientation, half of which was filling out forms and browsing through the table of contents on the books we'd be using that semester (and we were only using them because they'd been ordered for those sections, later semesters book choice was up to the TA). After that, we took a 1 credit hour course called Topics in Teaching. We met for an hour each week to pretty much complain about how people spent too much time texting. It was totally run in the mastery paradigm.
 
It wasn't until last spring, as an adjunct, that I got any help on creating an assignment sheet so the student could understand the assignment clearly and deliver it. Mastery paradigms just assume that this kind of things is common sense. It's not.
 
My doctoral program promises to be helpful. In addition to three intensive TA orientation days by both the graduate school and the English department (my department), I have to take a 3 credit hour pedagogy course that will include writing essays, taking exams, and readings from the big guys in composition pedagogy. We'll also be assembling a teaching portfolio that includes a teaching philosophy. So I'm beyond excited about this.
 
For TAs with little or no support, I recommend hitting the library for pedagogy books. Find some pedagogy texts in your field, in a field that logically supports yours, and in general. There's tons upon tons of composition pedagogy out there. English comp is huge with the pedagogy these days because universities are churning out students without any aptitude in writing. You can also look through past line schedules and find professors (not TAs) that taught what you're teaching and ask them for copies of syllabi, assignments, or general advice. It might seem weird for, say, a chemistry TA to read English comp pedagogy, but assignment design and assessment in composition is en vogue so there's a lot of info on it. There's also a Writing Across the Curriculum program in practically every university. The WAC people may not have time to help out, but it doesn't hurt to ask them if they have any sample assignments or assessments that you can have. That would be a generic "you", not at any specific person on the thread.

If you are quitting smoking, you do not want to move into a home where other people smoke. It helps to find a quit-smoking buddy, too.
 
As far as mooching off of your parents? There's this American ideal that once a person graduates college or high school, that person should be entirely self-sufficient. In today's globally off-shoring economy, that's pretty unrealistic. While I'm not saying that you should stay in the more expensive place because your parents are willing to help, you shouldn't discount that help out of a misguided notion of pride or what others consider to be the mature thing to do.
 
I suggest this: go and have a discussion with your parents before you make a decision. Talk to them frankly about money. How much of a burden are you financially? How much are they invested in your education? Caring parents might equivocate, and pass off the money as if it's nothing when it is something. As a parent helping a kidlet go through college right now, I want him to stand on his own financially, as much as possible, but not if that means he spends so much time working he can't get in the learning he needs, or that he comes out the other end so saddled with debt, he has to move in with us again just to pay his bills. While you should make sound, financial decisions, you should do that with information on how much your parents are able to help you. A PhD is more difficult than a bachelor's, and that help might be important.
 
I live with a smoker, as well, so I understand the financial drain (not to mention health) that smoking is on the pocketbook. An artist friend was a heavy smoker in New York City and decided to quit her 2 carton a week habit. She put all of the money she normally spent on cigarettes and cigarette products into a saving account. A decade later, she used that money to move to Alaska, pay her bills for a year, and pay cash for a new SUV. Smoking is not cheap. It might be better for both your health and your finances if you remained in Spider Central until you've quit, and then found a situation among non-smokers, than to move into a place that's okay with smoking, and not quit or have the quitting sabotaged.
 
Since you're in the UK, you should check into smoking cessation programs. Nationalized health care systems tend to offer these for free or at greatly reduced cost.
 
As I've said, talk with your parents. No matter what you decide, sitting with them and having an adult conversation about handling money will make all of you feel better.

If you are quitting smoking, you do not want to move into a home where other people smoke. It helps to find a quit-smoking buddy, too.
 
As far as mooching off of your parents? There's this American ideal that once a person graduates college or high school, that person should be entirely self-sufficient. In today's globally off-shoring economy, that's pretty unrealistic. While I'm not saying that you should stay in the more expensive place because your parents are willing to help, you shouldn't discount that help out of a misguided notion of pride or what others consider to be the mature thing to do.
 
I suggest this: go and have a discussion with your parents before you make a decision. Talk to them frankly about money. How much of a burden are you financially? How much are they invested in your education? Caring parents might equivocate, and pass off the money as if it's nothing when it is something. As a parent helping a kidlet go through college right now, I want him to stand on his own financially, as much as possible, but not if that means he spends so much time working he can't get in the learning he needs, or that he comes out the other end so saddled with debt, he has to move in with us again just to pay his bills. While you should make sound, financial decisions, you should do that with information on how much your parents are able to help you. A PhD is more difficult than a bachelor's, and that help might be important.
 
I live with a smoker, as well, so I understand the financial drain (not to mention health) that smoking is on the pocketbook. An artist friend was a heavy smoker in New York City and decided to quit her 2 carton a week habit. She put all of the money she normally spent on cigarettes and cigarette products into a saving account. A decade later, she used that money to move to Alaska, pay her bills for a year, and pay cash for a new SUV. Smoking is not cheap. It might be better for both your health and your finances if you remained in Spider Central until you've quit, and then found a situation among non-smokers, than to move into a place that's okay with smoking, and not quit or have the quitting sabotaged.
 
Since you're in the UK, you should check into smoking cessation programs. Nationalized health care systems tend to offer these for free or at greatly reduced cost.
 
As I've said, talk with your parents. No matter what you decide, sitting with them and having an adult conversation about handling money will make all of you feel better.

Do not be angry with yourself. You've done nothing wrong. I have no idea what's going on in his head, but he's the one that decided to attempt to initiate a more personal relationship, not you. From your description he sounds inappropriate rather than predatory. He waited until you were no longer his student to start laying down his moves, creepy as they have been. You have the option to report him for being creepy and inappropriate, but as he's been hitting on a former student, not a current student, it's probably a crapshoot. This doesn't mean that what he's doing is okay, because it's not, but it's not necessarily either illegal or against university rules. It's creepy. Well, it might be more. Is his current and future help contingent on your companionship in some way (not necessarily sex, long drives where you talk about non-academic things count)? If you think yes, report him. If you think no, don't report him. You can start the reporting process at the university's counseling center, with the department either the head or a different professor that you trust will work in your interests. You can also go to HR, student affairs, or any number of places. The place to go to is the one that will listen to you, that you trust, and will think of you first, not the university's immediate reputation as predator-central.
 
If you think no and you think you'll need his help, you can salvage the situation by establishing boundaries, which you don't seem to have done yet. Write the summary/abstract to your thesis first. Then contact him via email. Explain that you are not available for a long drive, but you are interested in discussing the summary of the thesis for publication purposes. Arrange to meet him in his office when other professors will be in their offices, and then hold the meeting with the door open. If he asks for your help in rearranging his cabinets or books or whatever, pick up your things, apologize for interfering with his time and offer to reschedule the meeting when he isn't so busy, and then give him two or three times to choose from, times that you know in advance will have other people in the department around. If he asks you out for coffee, politely decline without a reason. No, thank you. If he pushes, explain that computer science is a difficult enough field for women, and that you want to maintain professional relationships with respected members of the field, or something of the nature. You're rejecting him, you both know it, but it allows you both to pretend that he's not a dirty old man and that you still respect him. Every time he offers or behaves inappropriately, rebuff him in a way that allows you both to behave as normally as possible. If he does not respect the boundaries that you're drawing, eliminate all personal contact and find another professor in the department to help you prepare the thesis for publication. If he does not respect the boundaries that you are drawing, then find someone you trust to discuss the situation with, someone that can help you enforce the boundaries and, if needed, use university channels to make him stop.
 
If you do maintain contact with him, do so only in a professional setting, email and in person during business hours only. No more coffee shops, no more helping him with his busy-work, no more conversations that don't include the profession. This will reinforce the boundaries that you have set up. Do not take this to mean that you shouldn't have done these things before, because none of these things say "come get me, big boy". Not a one. They don't mean anything because he crossed a boundary that you didn't know you needed to put up. In your mind, he was still the professor and that boundary still existed. In his mind, you were no longer his student, and the boundary no longer existed. Once the boundary has been re-established with a professional relationship only line, keep it that way by not allowing him to cross it and by not crossing it yourself.

It's the Mastery v. Pedagogy approach. Up until recently, in most fields, it was assumed that a mastery of a field made one competent to teach in the field. Actually, there's still a lot of people who believe that. There's just no pedagogy. TAing in English for my masters was as enlightening as it was horrific. We had one day of orientation, half of which was filling out forms and browsing through the table of contents on the books we'd be using that semester (and we were only using them because they'd been ordered for those sections, later semesters book choice was up to the TA). After that, we took a 1 credit hour course called Topics in Teaching. We met for an hour each week to pretty much complain about how people spent too much time texting. It was totally run in the mastery paradigm.
 
It wasn't until last spring, as an adjunct, that I got any help on creating an assignment sheet so the student could understand the assignment clearly and deliver it. Mastery paradigms just assume that this kind of things is common sense. It's not.
 
My doctoral program promises to be helpful. In addition to three intensive TA orientation days by both the graduate school and the English department (my department), I have to take a 3 credit hour pedagogy course that will include writing essays, taking exams, and readings from the big guys in composition pedagogy. We'll also be assembling a teaching portfolio that includes a teaching philosophy. So I'm beyond excited about this.
 
For TAs with little or no support, I recommend hitting the library for pedagogy books. Find some pedagogy texts in your field, in a field that logically supports yours, and in general. There's tons upon tons of composition pedagogy out there. English comp is huge with the pedagogy these days because universities are churning out students without any aptitude in writing. You can also look through past line schedules and find professors (not TAs) that taught what you're teaching and ask them for copies of syllabi, assignments, or general advice. It might seem weird for, say, a chemistry TA to read English comp pedagogy, but assignment design and assessment in composition is en vogue so there's a lot of info on it. There's also a Writing Across the Curriculum program in practically every university. The WAC people may not have time to help out, but it doesn't hurt to ask them if they have any sample assignments or assessments that you can have. That would be a generic "you", not at any specific person on the thread.

If you are quitting smoking, you do not want to move into a home where other people smoke. It helps to find a quit-smoking buddy, too.
 
As far as mooching off of your parents? There's this American ideal that once a person graduates college or high school, that person should be entirely self-sufficient. In today's globally off-shoring economy, that's pretty unrealistic. While I'm not saying that you should stay in the more expensive place because your parents are willing to help, you shouldn't discount that help out of a misguided notion of pride or what others consider to be the mature thing to do.
 
I suggest this: go and have a discussion with your parents before you make a decision. Talk to them frankly about money. How much of a burden are you financially? How much are they invested in your education? Caring parents might equivocate, and pass off the money as if it's nothing when it is something. As a parent helping a kidlet go through college right now, I want him to stand on his own financially, as much as possible, but not if that means he spends so much time working he can't get in the learning he needs, or that he comes out the other end so saddled with debt, he has to move in with us again just to pay his bills. While you should make sound, financial decisions, you should do that with information on how much your parents are able to help you. A PhD is more difficult than a bachelor's, and that help might be important.
 
I live with a smoker, as well, so I understand the financial drain (not to mention health) that smoking is on the pocketbook. An artist friend was a heavy smoker in New York City and decided to quit her 2 carton a week habit. She put all of the money she normally spent on cigarettes and cigarette products into a saving account. A decade later, she used that money to move to Alaska, pay her bills for a year, and pay cash for a new SUV. Smoking is not cheap. It might be better for both your health and your finances if you remained in Spider Central until you've quit, and then found a situation among non-smokers, than to move into a place that's okay with smoking, and not quit or have the quitting sabotaged.
 
Since you're in the UK, you should check into smoking cessation programs. Nationalized health care systems tend to offer these for free or at greatly reduced cost.
 
As I've said, talk with your parents. No matter what you decide, sitting with them and having an adult conversation about handling money will make all of you feel better.

Do not be angry with yourself. You've done nothing wrong. I have no idea what's going on in his head, but he's the one that decided to attempt to initiate a more personal relationship, not you. From your description he sounds inappropriate rather than predatory. He waited until you were no longer his student to start laying down his moves, creepy as they have been. You have the option to report him for being creepy and inappropriate, but as he's been hitting on a former student, not a current student, it's probably a crapshoot. This doesn't mean that what he's doing is okay, because it's not, but it's not necessarily either illegal or against university rules. It's creepy. Well, it might be more. Is his current and future help contingent on your companionship in some way (not necessarily sex, long drives where you talk about non-academic things count)? If you think yes, report him. If you think no, don't report him. You can start the reporting process at the university's counseling center, with the department either the head or a different professor that you trust will work in your interests. You can also go to HR, student affairs, or any number of places. The place to go to is the one that will listen to you, that you trust, and will think of you first, not the university's immediate reputation as predator-central.
 
If you think no and you think you'll need his help, you can salvage the situation by establishing boundaries, which you don't seem to have done yet. Write the summary/abstract to your thesis first. Then contact him via email. Explain that you are not available for a long drive, but you are interested in discussing the summary of the thesis for publication purposes. Arrange to meet him in his office when other professors will be in their offices, and then hold the meeting with the door open. If he asks for your help in rearranging his cabinets or books or whatever, pick up your things, apologize for interfering with his time and offer to reschedule the meeting when he isn't so busy, and then give him two or three times to choose from, times that you know in advance will have other people in the department around. If he asks you out for coffee, politely decline without a reason. No, thank you. If he pushes, explain that computer science is a difficult enough field for women, and that you want to maintain professional relationships with respected members of the field, or something of the nature. You're rejecting him, you both know it, but it allows you both to pretend that he's not a dirty old man and that you still respect him. Every time he offers or behaves inappropriately, rebuff him in a way that allows you both to behave as normally as possible. If he does not respect the boundaries that you're drawing, eliminate all personal contact and find another professor in the department to help you prepare the thesis for publication. If he does not respect the boundaries that you are drawing, then find someone you trust to discuss the situation with, someone that can help you enforce the boundaries and, if needed, use university channels to make him stop.
 
If you do maintain contact with him, do so only in a professional setting, email and in person during business hours only. No more coffee shops, no more helping him with his busy-work, no more conversations that don't include the profession. This will reinforce the boundaries that you have set up. Do not take this to mean that you shouldn't have done these things before, because none of these things say "come get me, big boy". Not a one. They don't mean anything because he crossed a boundary that you didn't know you needed to put up. In your mind, he was still the professor and that boundary still existed. In his mind, you were no longer his student, and the boundary no longer existed. Once the boundary has been re-established with a professional relationship only line, keep it that way by not allowing him to cross it and by not crossing it yourself.

Do not be angry with yourself. You've done nothing wrong. I have no idea what's going on in his head, but he's the one that decided to attempt to initiate a more personal relationship, not you. From your description he sounds inappropriate rather than predatory. He waited until you were no longer his student to start laying down his moves, creepy as they have been. You have the option to report him for being creepy and inappropriate, but as he's been hitting on a former student, not a current student, it's probably a crapshoot. This doesn't mean that what he's doing is okay, because it's not, but it's not necessarily either illegal or against university rules. It's creepy. Well, it might be more. Is his current and future help contingent on your companionship in some way (not necessarily sex, long drives where you talk about non-academic things count)? If you think yes, report him. If you think no, don't report him. You can start the reporting process at the university's counseling center, with the department either the head or a different professor that you trust will work in your interests. You can also go to HR, student affairs, or any number of places. The place to go to is the one that will listen to you, that you trust, and will think of you first, not the university's immediate reputation as predator-central.
 
If you think no and you think you'll need his help, you can salvage the situation by establishing boundaries, which you don't seem to have done yet. Write the summary/abstract to your thesis first. Then contact him via email. Explain that you are not available for a long drive, but you are interested in discussing the summary of the thesis for publication purposes. Arrange to meet him in his office when other professors will be in their offices, and then hold the meeting with the door open. If he asks for your help in rearranging his cabinets or books or whatever, pick up your things, apologize for interfering with his time and offer to reschedule the meeting when he isn't so busy, and then give him two or three times to choose from, times that you know in advance will have other people in the department around. If he asks you out for coffee, politely decline without a reason. No, thank you. If he pushes, explain that computer science is a difficult enough field for women, and that you want to maintain professional relationships with respected members of the field, or something of the nature. You're rejecting him, you both know it, but it allows you both to pretend that he's not a dirty old man and that you still respect him. Every time he offers or behaves inappropriately, rebuff him in a way that allows you both to behave as normally as possible. If he does not respect the boundaries that you're drawing, eliminate all personal contact and find another professor in the department to help you prepare the thesis for publication. If he does not respect the boundaries that you are drawing, then find someone you trust to discuss the situation with, someone that can help you enforce the boundaries and, if needed, use university channels to make him stop.
 
If you do maintain contact with him, do so only in a professional setting, email and in person during business hours only. No more coffee shops, no more helping him with his busy-work, no more conversations that don't include the profession. This will reinforce the boundaries that you have set up. Do not take this to mean that you shouldn't have done these things before, because none of these things say "come get me, big boy". Not a one. They don't mean anything because he crossed a boundary that you didn't know you needed to put up. In your mind, he was still the professor and that boundary still existed. In his mind, you were no longer his student, and the boundary no longer existed. Once the boundary has been re-established with a professional relationship only line, keep it that way by not allowing him to cross it and by not crossing it yourself.

It's the Mastery v. Pedagogy approach. Up until recently, in most fields, it was assumed that a mastery of a field made one competent to teach in the field. Actually, there's still a lot of people who believe that. There's just no pedagogy. TAing in English for my masters was as enlightening as it was horrific. We had one day of orientation, half of which was filling out forms and browsing through the table of contents on the books we'd be using that semester (and we were only using them because they'd been ordered for those sections, later semesters book choice was up to the TA). After that, we took a 1 credit hour course called Topics in Teaching. We met for an hour each week to pretty much complain about how people spent too much time texting. It was totally run in the mastery paradigm.
 
It wasn't until last spring, as an adjunct, that I got any help on creating an assignment sheet so the student could understand the assignment clearly and deliver it. Mastery paradigms just assume that this kind of things is common sense. It's not.
 
My doctoral program promises to be helpful. In addition to three intensive TA orientation days by both the graduate school and the English department (my department), I have to take a 3 credit hour pedagogy course that will include writing essays, taking exams, and readings from the big guys in composition pedagogy. We'll also be assembling a teaching portfolio that includes a teaching philosophy. So I'm beyond excited about this.
 
For TAs with little or no support, I recommend hitting the library for pedagogy books. Find some pedagogy texts in your field, in a field that logically supports yours, and in general. There's tons upon tons of composition pedagogy out there. English comp is huge with the pedagogy these days because universities are churning out students without any aptitude in writing. You can also look through past line schedules and find professors (not TAs) that taught what you're teaching and ask them for copies of syllabi, assignments, or general advice. It might seem weird for, say, a chemistry TA to read English comp pedagogy, but assignment design and assessment in composition is en vogue so there's a lot of info on it. There's also a Writing Across the Curriculum program in practically every university. The WAC people may not have time to help out, but it doesn't hurt to ask them if they have any sample assignments or assessments that you can have. That would be a generic "you", not at any specific person on the thread.

Do not be angry with yourself. You've done nothing wrong. I have no idea what's going on in his head, but he's the one that decided to attempt to initiate a more personal relationship, not you. From your description he sounds inappropriate rather than predatory. He waited until you were no longer his student to start laying down his moves, creepy as they have been. You have the option to report him for being creepy and inappropriate, but as he's been hitting on a former student, not a current student, it's probably a crapshoot. This doesn't mean that what he's doing is okay, because it's not, but it's not necessarily either illegal or against university rules. It's creepy. Well, it might be more. Is his current and future help contingent on your companionship in some way (not necessarily sex, long drives where you talk about non-academic things count)? If you think yes, report him. If you think no, don't report him. You can start the reporting process at the university's counseling center, with the department either the head or a different professor that you trust will work in your interests. You can also go to HR, student affairs, or any number of places. The place to go to is the one that will listen to you, that you trust, and will think of you first, not the university's immediate reputation as predator-central.
 
If you think no and you think you'll need his help, you can salvage the situation by establishing boundaries, which you don't seem to have done yet. Write the summary/abstract to your thesis first. Then contact him via email. Explain that you are not available for a long drive, but you are interested in discussing the summary of the thesis for publication purposes. Arrange to meet him in his office when other professors will be in their offices, and then hold the meeting with the door open. If he asks for your help in rearranging his cabinets or books or whatever, pick up your things, apologize for interfering with his time and offer to reschedule the meeting when he isn't so busy, and then give him two or three times to choose from, times that you know in advance will have other people in the department around. If he asks you out for coffee, politely decline without a reason. No, thank you. If he pushes, explain that computer science is a difficult enough field for women, and that you want to maintain professional relationships with respected members of the field, or something of the nature. You're rejecting him, you both know it, but it allows you both to pretend that he's not a dirty old man and that you still respect him. Every time he offers or behaves inappropriately, rebuff him in a way that allows you both to behave as normally as possible. If he does not respect the boundaries that you're drawing, eliminate all personal contact and find another professor in the department to help you prepare the thesis for publication. If he does not respect the boundaries that you are drawing, then find someone you trust to discuss the situation with, someone that can help you enforce the boundaries and, if needed, use university channels to make him stop.
 
If you do maintain contact with him, do so only in a professional setting, email and in person during business hours only. No more coffee shops, no more helping him with his busy-work, no more conversations that don't include the profession. This will reinforce the boundaries that you have set up. Do not take this to mean that you shouldn't have done these things before, because none of these things say "come get me, big boy". Not a one. They don't mean anything because he crossed a boundary that you didn't know you needed to put up. In your mind, he was still the professor and that boundary still existed. In his mind, you were no longer his student, and the boundary no longer existed. Once the boundary has been re-established with a professional relationship only line, keep it that way by not allowing him to cross it and by not crossing it yourself.

Do not be angry with yourself. You've done nothing wrong. I have no idea what's going on in his head, but he's the one that decided to attempt to initiate a more personal relationship, not you. From your description he sounds inappropriate rather than predatory. He waited until you were no longer his student to start laying down his moves, creepy as they have been. You have the option to report him for being creepy and inappropriate, but as he's been hitting on a former student, not a current student, it's probably a crapshoot. This doesn't mean that what he's doing is okay, because it's not, but it's not necessarily either illegal or against university rules. It's creepy. Well, it might be more. Is his current and future help contingent on your companionship in some way (not necessarily sex, long drives where you talk about non-academic things count)? If you think yes, report him. If you think no, don't report him. You can start the reporting process at the university's counseling center, with the department either the head or a different professor that you trust will work in your interests. You can also go to HR, student affairs, or any number of places. The place to go to is the one that will listen to you, that you trust, and will think of you first, not the university's immediate reputation as predator-central.
 
If you think no and you think you'll need his help, you can salvage the situation by establishing boundaries, which you don't seem to have done yet. Write the summary/abstract to your thesis first. Then contact him via email. Explain that you are not available for a long drive, but you are interested in discussing the summary of the thesis for publication purposes. Arrange to meet him in his office when other professors will be in their offices, and then hold the meeting with the door open. If he asks for your help in rearranging his cabinets or books or whatever, pick up your things, apologize for interfering with his time and offer to reschedule the meeting when he isn't so busy, and then give him two or three times to choose from, times that you know in advance will have other people in the department around. If he asks you out for coffee, politely decline without a reason. No, thank you. If he pushes, explain that computer science is a difficult enough field for women, and that you want to maintain professional relationships with respected members of the field, or something of the nature. You're rejecting him, you both know it, but it allows you both to pretend that he's not a dirty old man and that you still respect him. Every time he offers or behaves inappropriately, rebuff him in a way that allows you both to behave as normally as possible. If he does not respect the boundaries that you're drawing, eliminate all personal contact and find another professor in the department to help you prepare the thesis for publication. If he does not respect the boundaries that you are drawing, then find someone you trust to discuss the situation with, someone that can help you enforce the boundaries and, if needed, use university channels to make him stop.
 
If you do maintain contact with him, do so only in a professional setting, email and in person during business hours only. No more coffee shops, no more helping him with his busy-work, no more conversations that don't include the profession. This will reinforce the boundaries that you have set up. Do not take this to mean that you shouldn't have done these things before, because none of these things say "come get me, big boy". Not a one. They don't mean anything because he crossed a boundary that you didn't know you needed to put up. In your mind, he was still the professor and that boundary still existed. In his mind, you were no longer his student, and the boundary no longer existed. Once the boundary has been re-established with a professional relationship only line, keep it that way by not allowing him to cross it and by not crossing it yourself.

Do not be angry with yourself. You've done nothing wrong. I have no idea what's going on in his head, but he's the one that decided to attempt to initiate a more personal relationship, not you. From your description he sounds inappropriate rather than predatory. He waited until you were no longer his student to start laying down his moves, creepy as they have been. You have the option to report him for being creepy and inappropriate, but as he's been hitting on a former student, not a current student, it's probably a crapshoot. This doesn't mean that what he's doing is okay, because it's not, but it's not necessarily either illegal or against university rules. It's creepy. Well, it might be more. Is his current and future help contingent on your companionship in some way (not necessarily sex, long drives where you talk about non-academic things count)? If you think yes, report him. If you think no, don't report him. You can start the reporting process at the university's counseling center, with the department either the head or a different professor that you trust will work in your interests. You can also go to HR, student affairs, or any number of places. The place to go to is the one that will listen to you, that you trust, and will think of you first, not the university's immediate reputation as predator-central.
 
If you think no and you think you'll need his help, you can salvage the situation by establishing boundaries, which you don't seem to have done yet. Write the summary/abstract to your thesis first. Then contact him via email. Explain that you are not available for a long drive, but you are interested in discussing the summary of the thesis for publication purposes. Arrange to meet him in his office when other professors will be in their offices, and then hold the meeting with the door open. If he asks for your help in rearranging his cabinets or books or whatever, pick up your things, apologize for interfering with his time and offer to reschedule the meeting when he isn't so busy, and then give him two or three times to choose from, times that you know in advance will have other people in the department around. If he asks you out for coffee, politely decline without a reason. No, thank you. If he pushes, explain that computer science is a difficult enough field for women, and that you want to maintain professional relationships with respected members of the field, or something of the nature. You're rejecting him, you both know it, but it allows you both to pretend that he's not a dirty old man and that you still respect him. Every time he offers or behaves inappropriately, rebuff him in a way that allows you both to behave as normally as possible. If he does not respect the boundaries that you're drawing, eliminate all personal contact and find another professor in the department to help you prepare the thesis for publication. If he does not respect the boundaries that you are drawing, then find someone you trust to discuss the situation with, someone that can help you enforce the boundaries and, if needed, use university channels to make him stop.
 
If you do maintain contact with him, do so only in a professional setting, email and in person during business hours only. No more coffee shops, no more helping him with his busy-work, no more conversations that don't include the profession. This will reinforce the boundaries that you have set up. Do not take this to mean that you shouldn't have done these things before, because none of these things say "come get me, big boy". Not a one. They don't mean anything because he crossed a boundary that you didn't know you needed to put up. In your mind, he was still the professor and that boundary still existed. In his mind, you were no longer his student, and the boundary no longer existed. Once the boundary has been re-established with a professional relationship only line, keep it that way by not allowing him to cross it and by not crossing it yourself.