rising_star

I worked while writing my MA thesis and it was fine. It helped that I had a desk job that wasn't too busy so I had time to do things like look up more articles, edit chapters, or make outlines. I didn't do much writing at my job but, having it helped because it meant I had to more carefully schedule my writing time to ensure said time actually happened. I was actually really productive the spring of my second year of the MA, taking a grad seminar (and I might've audited another but I can't remember now), working part-time off campus, and fostering two dogs, all while dealing with crazy roommate drama. The craziness made it easier to write in some ways since I knew I had limited time to get that done. I also highly recommend setting clear deadlines with your advisor and not missing those (mine was crazy early, Feb 1 for the first draft). Again, that helps you stay on task.

It really depends on where up north. My sister lives in Chicago and has the same 2-door sedan there that she had when she lived in a sunny, warm place out west. I have friends that live in Maine and drive things like a Nissan Versa. Other friends, however, live in places up north where roads aren't maintained as well and swear by all wheel drive. It's a matter of your comfort, road maintenance, and how often you'd really be driving. You can definitely survive in lots of places up north with FWD, provided you have good tires (snow tires or all season are highly recommended) which you keep inflated. You might also have to add some sandbags to the back of your car in the winter, depending on how snowy or icy it gets (I have friends that do this, one of whom drives a Honda Fit). Hope this helps!

Every time I see you post those numbers, TakeruK (and this goes for Eigen too, btw), I think that I'm in the wrong field. Stipends approaching $30K are unheard of in my field. The highest I know of right now is in the low-20s, and that's in a place with a fairly high cost of living. At any rate, you turn down an offer for financial reasons the same way you turn down any other offer. You just tell them that you're going to decline and you do it politely. If someone inquires for more information, then you could say that the stipend wasn't going to be sufficient for you. I actually did tell a school that once and they basically said that they already knew that but were hoping I'd find a way to make it work.

Oh, I didn't just mean set a higher radius. I meant list yourself as living in one of those nearby cities, rather than where you actually live.

Could you switch your city to a nearby larger city? That might net you a bigger pool of possible dates. Also, screw that professor. For all he knows, you could land a TT position at a swankier institution than the one he works at now, and bring him on as spousal hire. But, whatever. Totally his loss! FWIW, post-grad school doesn't get any better since you may end up in the middle of nowhere (2-4 hours from a major city) while working at an even smaller institution. I have several friends in that boat now.

The university-wide fellowships at UGA pay much more than that. You can find the amount on the Graduate School website.

What TakeruK said. Having a fellowship is more prestigious and can make you stand out when applying for other funding opportunities in the future. There's also the possibility that the fellowship comes with fringe benefits, like money for conference travel, health insurance, or to do your own research.

You can definitely say no after visiting. I said no to every single PhD department I visited. It was fine. There have been no hard feelings.

I know of several top programs in a variety of fields where this is not the case. A friend is in a PhD program at UCLA where grad student reps are part of the admissions process, read and review all the files, and meet with the faculty on the adcom to discuss who to extend offers to. That friend is in a top 10 program...

dwight, if they're nominating you for a fellowship, they are in all likelihood prepared to offer you departmental funding if you don't get the fellowship. I say this because departments are only allowed to nominate a certain number of people for the fellowships each year, so there's no reason to waste a nomination on someone you wouldn't fund otherwise. Good luck! Athens is awesome.

Before November 1 if your deadlines start in December. No need to ask this spring.

It really depends on your interests and the availability of the professors and course you need to succeed.

They really aren't going to care.

I felt this way too when I finished my master's. The feeling passed during PhD coursework though.

Way Out East, I got to teach a sports class a little while back and it was awesome. Got to use sports to talk about Latino immigration to the USA and it was super fun. Not quite a dream class but it was a good time. This is a fun thread though.

Yea, it really is about the person. My mom finished her PhD 20 years before me and her acknowledgements section was longer than mine. I wrote mine to be read by my committee and my family, so everything was targeted to that. The goal was to make my mom cry (achieved!) and make my committee feel valued and helpful. I think I achieved the latter. I got to watch my mom tear up when she realized she was the very first person I thanked, and that was awesome. The rest was mostly thanking people I interviewed for my research (as a group because they're anonymous), close grad school friends who read grant applications and chapter drafts, and the various funders for my research. No thanking of bars or barristas or coffee shops or anything like that. *shrug* You just do what you want is my feeling. I don't know that I read the acknowledgments written by anyone else when I pick up dissertations, though I often do for books. I just realized that's kind of weird.

I tend to tell people about things in waves. As in, notifying them of several acceptances at once. If there's only three total, then an email each time wouldn't be out of line.

You have definitely violated your ethical responsibilities. At my current institution, anything romantic with a student is grounds for dismissal. At a previous one, TAs and professors could date students if they wanted but they could not grade the work of a student with whom they were involved. So, it seems like you have two options here to me. Option 1 would be to dial things back completely with the student saying that there can be no further contact until the course is over (you should still notify a supervisor in case things go sour and the student decides to file a harassment complaint against you). Option 2 would be to let things flow as they will with the student but notify your superiors (DGS, supervising professor, etc.) and ask for the student's work to be graded by someone else.

It really depends on you (as in, how fast you are at revising/editing) and the level of revisions you're asked to make. I think I made my MA thesis revisions in a week, and it was just over 100 pages long.

In my department, a lot of grad students TA in the summer. Others work as RAs, go out and conduct field research, or head home (international students in particular tend to do this). You need to see before you go if the stipend is enough to live on all year long. If it's not, then you'll need to ask other grad students what they do in the summer.

I'm going to disagree some with Eigen and TakeruK here. My PhD program doesn't fund visits. Yes, as Eigen points out, it is a line item in the budget. But, the department uses that money in other ways (primarily because it's a travel budget so they use it to fund graduate student travel). I'm in the social sciences where many students aren't on research grants that would pay for travel to a conference to present. As a result, those reallocated funds are many people's main source of travel funds (you can also apply for funds from a couple of places on campus depending on the focus of your presentation and of the conference). So, in that case, there's actually more support for admitted students than for prospective students. YMMV obviously but it is not unilaterally true that not paying for you to visit means the program doesn't want you or want to support you. By contrast, I visited a program that gave me an all expenses paid trip after accepting me. Flight, private room at a B&B, provided every meal, paid students to take me out on the town, drove me around, etc. That program offered me the lowest stipend, by far of any program I applied to. So, they had money to woo me, but I would've gotten less money each month had I gone there. There is no universal rule that willingness to pay for a visit = well supported students throughout the program.

This doesn't seem like enough money to me but that's because you'd be losing two months of pay to tuition.

It really depends on the school. I've been at a bunch of institutions. Some took 6 weeks to reimburse after receiving receipts whereas others take 5 business days. I realize it's frustrating but there's not much to be done other than hopefully getting a 0% interest credit card.

Start applying for external funding as soon as you get there. Some programs are limited as to when you can apply (like NSF GRFP). As for the 3 years part, my guess is that they're expecting you to find TA or RA positions, or have external funding for the remaining years. Make sure that other students have been successful doing so before committing to anything.

I enjoy living in a nice place. In grad school, I never lived more than about a 10 minute commute, though the mode of transit varied (car, bike, or walk, depending on when we're talking about). I had roommates for many years and it was fine most of the time. I'm also one of those people that likes having some separation between where I work, relax, and sleep, so a studio would be hard for me. This really is incredibly personal though.