rising_star

It depends on a lot of things, but primarily the instructor and the continuing students. I find that any kind of group-based activity is greatly affected by the people you're around. If you like them, then you'll make the time to go. If you don't, you'll start making excuses about how you're busy or have so much to do and use that to keep you from going. If scheduling info would be helpful, my group activity/hobby met for two hours two nights a week, with an optional 1-2 hour meeting on the weekend. Then, there was another group (same activity) that I met with three times a week for 90 minutes, twice during the week and once on the weekend. There was a point in time in the 3rd year of my PhD (teaching own course, taking a couple courses, prepping for comps, writing grant apps) that I did this activity 5-6 times a week basically every week. Why? I like the activity but I also like the people. I have a friend that pursued aikido throughout grad school on a somewhat similar schedule of having trainings 4-5 times a week at a minimum. That friend had already been doing the activity before grad school but continued it throughout master's, PhD, and now as a professor. And, it's how they met their partner!

In my opinion, no. And I say this from experience. But, it also depends on what else you want to do for your personal time. Martial arts aren't for everyone because not everyone likes the rigidity and formality of the training (though some of this varies by instructor and by martial art). I, for example, would never do well in a formal karate class because I hate not being able to talk and having to do exactly what I'm told at all times. Your mileage may vary, obviously. FWIW, I had a hobby that I pursued for a solid 8ish hours a week formally, plus more informally. I also did trivia night with friends every week for fun. That's in addition to spending time reading books for pleasure (well, a chapter or two a week anyway), relaxing by cooking/baking, volunteering with an animal rescue group, and having some tv shows I like to watch. The work expands to fill however much time you give it. You have to figure out how to work efficiently and not let the work take up your entire life (unless that's what you want but that is definitely not recommended!).

This is like three different things. Is it weird that they don't know how to drive? *shrug* I never really thought about it. I think part of this really depends on both where you live and where you're from. One of my grad school pals, now an assistant professor, doesn't know how to drive but, they are also an international student and have never needed to. They walk/bike everywhere, and take taxis when that's not an option. Seeing someone on public transit wouldn't bother me. I've run into faculty in all sorts of places, including the grocery store, the annual dog celebration day in town, the airport, and more. There was a conference where, no joke, 11 people from my department had mostly independently booked the same flight back with a layover. So, we all hung out together in the layover airport. Knowing where they live? I know where a large chunk of the faculty in both my MA and PhD programs live. It wasn't uncommon for them to have a party for their grad students or course at the end of the semester/year hosted at their house. I actually used to live in my advisor's house (they went on sabbatical and I housesat for a semester). So no, definitely not weird to me at all.

Why can't you do jigsaw puzzles on a laptop?

I feel like there's a third choice: live somewhere close to campus with 1-2 grad students as roommates. You would still have the independence/freedom of having your own room and be able to better integrate yourself into the graduate student community. That would be my own choice. I lived with other people throughout my MA and it was fine. I had my own space (my room) but also shared living areas where I could have some social interaction if I wanted without having to leave home. Plus, it was nice to have people to bounce ideas off of, even though we weren't in the same field. YMMV, obviously, but it's something you may want to consider. Living with others definitely saved me money on rent, as well as the associated bills, like utilities and internet/cable. You didn't list the time driving the 30 miles would take, which I'm curious to know since this varies widely from 30 min to 90 min in different parts of the country. The time spent driving is definitely something you should factor into your decision-making. I know you're not responsible for the cost of the gas or car repairs but, your time is also worth money so you'll need to figure out how much you value it. Depending on the way your courses are scheduled, you may discover that driving those 30 miles at night is exhausting and leads to unsafe conditions. That's why I like the suggestions above to try living at home for a month or two if you can and then reassess. You may find that you have different priorities then. I say this because it just occurred to me that you never mentioned having any sort of quiet workspace at your grandmother's house, which you may find is essential for getting your coursework done. Also, given that you're going into debt for this program, I would do whatever possible to finish in less than 3 years because it will save you money. That may mean living nearer to campus so that you can work in the lab late in the evening or something else that you need to figure out. But, getting out a year sooner would probably balance out the cost of living away from home...

I've never heard of it, sorry.

What are your long-term goals?

I will say this, I know it's possible because my mom did her PhD when I was growing up. That said, instead of just focusing on bulk meals, you might also want to think about slow cooker meals that are simple. I'm thinking of the kind where you dump a bunch of ingredients in, turn the crockpot on, and when you come home dinner is ready. I do those a lot, just to keep myself from getting fast food. Depending on the age of your children, you might also be able to get them involved with the cooking, which will be useful for them and you. Same with laundry, by the way. Somehow, my mother never made us help with laundry so I didn't learn until college (horrifying really!). You might be able to get your boys to do the sorting and folding, even if they aren't ready to handle the full washing yet. Also, same with doing dishes or other household chores. You can do a chore chart with rewards or something. As for the workspace, you may want to see if you can get some office space on campus, like a library study carrel. That will give you a quiet place to get work done (assuming you have childcare beyond when you're in class that is!). Best of luck to you!

I would talk to your professors about this. It really depends on the field and specific programs you're applying to. In my field, TAships are competitive for MA students but, people do get them. But, it may be that you're more competitive for PhD programs than you realize (though in some fields, going straight from BA to PhD is not allowed or atypical). As for submitting your paper, it really doesn't matter what field it is in. People will be looking at the CV line and care more about the fact that you won an award than they will about what the specific paper was on. Good luck!

Don't do it! Improve your application and go somewhere that offers you funding.

bsharpe, I think part of it is that you're trying to cram too much into one year. It's honestly rather unrealistic to assume/presume that you can do enough original research in an area in one year as a master's student to get a publication out of it, especially one that would be accepted before your PhD applications are reviewed. It might be more realistic if you were planning to apply to PhD programs after finishing your M.S. but that's not what it sounds like from reading your posts in this thread. FWIW, most applicants out of a master's program do not have any publications when they apply for the PhD (and this has been discussed countless times here and for an array of disciplines), so you should not feel like you need to have something published in order to get accepted. A year of solid research experience under your belt plus another ahead and a good M.S. thesis/project should be more than enough for most Ph.D. programs unless you have some serious deficiencies elsewhere. Second thing that strikes me is that you are equating what you need to do as a master's student to what Ph.D. students do or are doing. If PhD students take 6 months to a year to "catch up", as you describe, then why are you pressuring yourself to learn all of this material independently as a master's student? Based on what you say, it sounds like any program would know that you still need to strengthen your background in certain areas after being admitted, which should take off some of the need/pressure to learn those areas now. I think you're actually trying to cram a few years of a doctoral program into one year of a master's program, which is causing some of your stress. You should not be comparing yourself and what you need to do to what current PhD students are doing because you are not in their program. What you should be doing is finding out what they did as master's students to prepare themselves for the PhD. Surely if they're taking a few years to get things going, it's kinda unreasonable to assume that you can do what took them 2-3 years in one year, right? Advisors and admissions committees know this. I guess what I'm saying is that your expectations and pressure on yourself are not the norm for most master's students and may be causing your feelings of loneliness and not enough time for socialization. It might be helpful for you to meet with your advisor, mentor, or trusted senior grad students to find out what you absolutely must do to maximize your chance for successful PhD applications, what would be nice to have, and what is entirely optional. Maybe they can help you understand where and how you can reprioritize. Hope this helps!

Ask them if you can have both schools listed. Some allow this while others do not. But, for the record, it probably doesn't matter where you did the research because people are often concerned with your current affiliation over anything. For example, when I present/publish on my dissertation, I list the affiliation of my job, rather than my PhD school...

Sigaba is right! Usmivka, my point isn't to shut down discussion but, there's really not much value to having the larger discussion in this particular thread because it will be lost to future users (who will assume that the thread is about the question in the topic title and not a discussion about adjuncts, graduate students, and research staff and their pay). Feel free to start a new topic about this as I'm sure many will contribute. For the record, Usmivka, I wasn't trying to shut down discussion of the topic. If I believe a topic/discussion should be shut down, then I will clearly state that in my administrative capacity. I'm sorry to hear that any comments I make about whether something is "on-topic" will be interpreted as a desire to shut down the discussion. Trust me when I say that when I want discussions to stop or move elsewhere, I am very explicit about that.

I'm a social scientist who does qualitative research so I deal with people all the time whether it's collecting data, planning data collection, collaborating, etc. I have spent a lot of time dealing with logistics (including coordinating a conference!), so I can understand why that might be frustrating. But, it's also a necessary part of life. Learning "how to deal with people" as you put it is part of being a working adult, regardless of your field. McDonald's cashiers have to learn how to deal with people and so do researchers. If you can, take a course on intercultural or group communication, management, etc. to help you get more comfortable with these interactions and their ubiquity.

TakeruK, I think you've missed my point entirely at least twice at this point. So, I'll just address a couple of things and then move on because this discussion is completely derailing the original post. First, yes, adjuncts with PhDs are being paid $2K per course in the USA. There's a reason the previous chair of my PhD department made a point of telling graduate students that it would be cheaper to replace us with adjuncts for our instructional responsibilities and that they were not going to allow that to happen. Yes, adjuncts are being underpaid but this is in part because they are willing to work for their wages. If no one applied for those jobs, then maybe they would have to either raise the pay or lower the qualifications in order to attract qualified candidates. (Also, for reference, there are teaching postdocs with 4/4 loads paying less than $30K, which you can find on the Academic Jobs Wiki.) I think many agree that grad student wages might rise if people were unwilling to accept the wages currently being offered. But, you're talking about broad systematic change, which I don't think is what the OP was asking (unless I misunderstood). As for work hours, I'm not doubting that you or anyone else work 40 hours per week. I am questioning why you think you should be paid for all 40 of those hours when some of those hours are for your own work (because really, it's not like you get to include someone else's research in your primary dissertation). I'm not sure why you're contesting this so strongly. There are people in my field who have included co-authored publications in their dissertations. I checked with one of them today. He said that while yes, he worked more than 20 hours as a RA, he considered that fair because some of that work advanced his career while some of it benefited the lab more broadly. But what you're saying is that your 40+ hours of work per week should be paid as a FT employee. But, here's the thing, the FT employee might get their name on publications but wouldn't get to compile and submit them to receive a degree. Even if you don't want to see that as a difference, it most definitely is in the eyes of institutions and funders. To the OP and anyone else: I was browsing the Chronicle and saw this article about a collective of Duke graduate students: http://chronicle.com/article/To-Make-Do-These-PhD/146851/. It's behind the paywall (sorry!) but hopefully your institution subscribes. The students (9 so far) are pooling their funds and anyone can take from the pool as needed. Maybe you could suggest something like this in your program, MorganStar, and see if there are any folks interested (even if you're not). It strikes me as an awesome idea with the potential to really help everyone. Even better, it could help even out the income inequality between graduate disciplines (so maybe there's some social sciences students but also some students in physics, biology, or chemistry earning higher stipends). I wish I'd known about this while I was a student! MorganStar, don't let other people's jealousy keep you from applying for things. I always apply for travel funding if I'm eligible because it really, really helps with conference attendance. Getting those travel grants allowed me to attend and present at more conferences, expand my network, and learn about related and interesting areas of research. Plus, the line on your CV looks good!

TakeruK, Canada and the USA are vastly different. If you check out the Chronicle, Inside Higher Ed, etc., you'll see that adjunct wages in the USA aren't typically anywhere close to the wages found in Canada. Most schools in the US aren't paying anywhere close to $7800 per course. The average (which I can't remember offhand) amount per course is in the 2-3 thousand dollar range. Which is where my original point comes from. Graduate students are paid more (not just in salary but also through their benefits of health insurance and tuition) than adjuncts are for teaching courses. Your point about the nature of research in the lab sciences is interesting. I would guess that since you will ultimately derive benefit from the research, you might need to count more than just the specific time you spend editing and formatting for the dissertation. I worked primarily as a TA (though also as a RA) while in grad school so I was specifically being paid to teach (when I was an RA, the project I worked on was completely unrelated to my research so none of it was usable for my proposal, fieldwork, or dissertation). My research time was thus uncompensated except when I had a fellowship to collect data in the field. But, even so, if you were to double my teaching wages (you say you do research 40ish hours per week), then my stipend would actually approach yours. So, in that sense, the wages being paid in the social sciences and the lab sciences aren't all that different... Except that I do research at my own expense in that sense and you don't. It's interesting to me that you feel entirely justified in getting paid based on a 40 hour work week when the reality is that graduate students aren't and can't be full-time employees. There was something else I wanted to add but my brain is telling me to go to bed.

gingin, carrying an extra outfit would be fine. People did this in my grad program due to bike commuting. As far as what's appropriate attire, this does vary by where you are and the type of department you're in. People in my field tend to do a lot of outdoorsy stuff, which is reflected in much of their attire. My MA program was in a warm area of the country where people were expected to dress more formally. We basically weren't allowed to TA in tank tops or shorts (or flip-flops), though people could and did attend class in those and it wasn't a big deal at all. In my PhD program, there were no such expectations. People TA'd in shorts, flip-flops, jeans, t-shirts, tank tops, and whatever else. I generally went nicer than that, though still less formal than business casual.

TLDR version: Grad students make more than adjuncts. If universities are reliant on grad students (and they are), their teaching tasks could be easily replaced by any number of adjuncts and cost the university less money. Most grad students don't make $30K/year. Apply for all the grants you can and celebrate your successes with those who are happy for you. Ignore the haters. I'm just choosing a few parts of your long comment to reply to. Okay, so this is probably a field difference but my school does NOT own the research work I have done. While teaching is something we do for the school, we are also paid to do that teaching. The alternative might be to pay PhD students as adjuncts (which really is the job that many PhD students are being trained for these days whether or not people want to admit it). If that were the case, the $30K/year you suggest is definitely way more than they would be making without a significant increase in their teaching load. Also, for the record, that $30K/year is definitely NOT common in most of the humanities or social sciences, at least outside the Ivy League and elite private institutions. I don't think there's a single program in my field with a stipend that high, unless you are being externally funded via NSF GRFP or NSF-IGERT. A few examples just to illustrate my point. University of Washington Political Science: "Full-funding awards, regardless of the categories of funding, amount to over $45,000 for the 2013 - 14 academic year. This consists of a 3-quarter tuition waiver; a quarterly stipend of $5,034 per quarter ($15,102 per year with three quarters of funding); and health insurance http://www.washington.edu/admin/hr/benefits/insure/gaip/index.html with medical, dental, and vision coverage for each quarter of fellowship or employment as an RA or TA." That is in Seattle, certainly not an area known for its low cost of living. Arizona State University Department of English: "$13,000 for students with a bachelor's degree and $15,000 for students with a master's degree, or 30 hours towards the Ph.D." University of Colorado Boulder Political Science: "This year’s stipend is $16,881.55 (50% appointment) for teaching assistants. The department also provides in-state tuition and subsidized health insurance ($1,350/term of the $1,515.00) for those offered teaching assistantships." Anthropology at the University of South Carolina: "A typical assistantship for M.A. students pays $4500 per semester and students work 14 hours per week. Assistantships for Ph.D. students pay $5500 per semester and require 20 hours of work per week." I assume that's sufficient to demonstrate my point. At my PhD university, the only students with stipends above $25K were in the sciences and engineering. Those in education, humanities, and social sciences were making $13-18K/year depending on the department and the availability of summer teaching. That said, I know plenty of graduate students who had children before or doing grad school or dealt with serious medical expenses (long-term illness in several cases that I know of) or various other things. There's no rule that says unless you make over $30K/year, you don't have enough money to raise a child, you know? So I agree with the first part of this. It's always great to apply for funding. That said, my PhD program was one where getting the NSF GRFP or EPA STAR did almost double one's income over those on a departmental stipend, which definitely leads to vast differences in what is affordable. Those people were the ones able to buy houses in our grad school city or live in nicer places while the rest of us rented. Now the point about entry-level stipends is an interesting one. Entry-level stipends vary widely and, in some cases, don't really exist because there aren't jobs available with a BA. Plus, that stipend wouldn't account at all for the classes grad students take and the time spent advising them (though you could argue that the latter is equivalent to having a mentor at work or an on-the-job training program). Also, while yes, universities do need us, they could also continue to hire temporary labor for much of the same work. At the institutions I've been at (3 thus far post-bachelor's), all have admitted that hiring adjuncts is cheaper than admitting graduate students. Why? Not only do TAs make more money, they also require that faculty teach and train them (so teaching and service on the part of faculty). Adjuncts don't require that. So I don't know that it's fair to say that graduate universities need us since most grad student TAs could be easily replaced by adjuncts. That is probably part of what keeps graduate stipends low. Devil's advocate: Here's the thing are graduate students really being asked to live below the poverty line or are they choosing to by accepting those offers? I say this as someone that accepted an offer close to the poverty line for where I was and based on my household size but I did this knowing that it would require budgeting and being careful about what I spend. Is that so different than people in many other occupations, especially entry-level ones? Not really. I see lots of full-time entry-level jobs that pay $23-32K/year. Those are full-time, so theoretically double the number of work hours as a grad student puts in. In fact, I was encouraged to apply for one such job during my PhD and decided not to because the salary for the FT job was not quite double my FTE rate as a grad student. And I'm in the social sciences in a field where no one is making $30K. Other part of course is that most of academics working these days are adjuncts not making $30K/year. Most of academia is contingent labor, so it may be useful, at some point, to remember that grad students often make more than adjuncts. At my current university, the English grad stipend is around $13.5K/year for teaching two sections of freshman comp per semester. Adjuncts in English make $1550 per course. So the grad student gets $13.5k/year (and gets health insurance) while the adjunct gets $6200 pretax for the same amount of teaching. And that's ignoring that the adjunct is paying social security and medicare taxes while the grad student is not. Okay, this post is now super long. Apologies for the length. What I want to say to the OP is that you should keep applying for grants. You never know when you will get one and when you won't. Improving your CV is one of those things you have to do for you to maximize your chances of success. My graduate program had some people who try to diminish or make you feel bad about your successes so I stopped talking to them unless absolutely necessary. Good luck, OP!

The university orientation is totally skippable. I went to them for both my MA and PhD schools. All I got out of it was two semi-friends at the PhD school's university-wide orientation. A lot of the TA training stuff is online these days, so they can ensure everyone receives and takes a test on the same material. If you can't go, you should be able to get the agenda and other materials from someone since they know not everyone can attend. I doubt the OP is talking about their department's orientation, if only because those rarely last more than a day.

Hi remsta, This forum is a place for people applying to or attending graduate school, not a place to get help with your homework. I hope what Flandre Scarlet has said helps you. Good luck, rising_star

You could start with pencil first and then move on to pen or other writing instruments later after you get more comfortable.

Caveat: I'm in the social sciences so there's no lab or anything where I regularly interact with my advisor. And also, I work fairly independently most of the time. My PhD advisor had a ton of students when I started, maybe 9 total. I think the only times I've met with him more than once in a month were when I was working on grant applications to fund my dissertation research and when I was his TA. As his TA, a lot of those meetings were about the class but were also very brief (5-15 minutes) and sometimes held while walking back to our offices after class. I've spent the past 3 years living thousands of miles away from my advisor. While we email sometimes, we Skype or talk on the phone probably once or twice a semester. Not even joking, by the way. I met with my master's advisor more often, but probably not ever more than twice a month before I was in the serious thesis writing stage (my last semester).

The advantage of taking both the MA/PhD and PhD only theory courses would be that you'd get a deeper grounding in and understanding of the theories being read and discussed. The more opportunity you have to engage with theory, the better you will become at understanding it and using it to enrich your work. For example, I took a similar combined MA/PhD course during both my MA and PhD (at two different institutions, mind you) on the history of X thought (where X = my discipline). Though the courses had similar titles, they did vary in their content and emphasis and I learned different things in one than I did in the other. It's made me a better scholar in the discipline. As for the theory vs methods, the answer is always both. Always, always, always. You want to be strong in your methods but you also want to have a strong theoretical background. As a criminologist, you will probably want to take both qualitative and quantitative methods courses, as well as theory courses in criminology and related disciplines (anthropology, sociology, political science, psychology, public policy) as appropriate. My understanding is that criminology can be a bit interdisciplinary so you'll want a thorough theoretical grounding in the relevant areas.

Actually, one of my most productive stints of writing in graduate school came just after taking two new foster dogs in, neither of which had lived in a home before. They didn't know how to climb stairs, had to be housetrained and cratetrained, etc. Having them on a housetraining schedule meant that I had clearly defined chunks of time in which to go to class, go to my part-time job, socialize with friends, and write because I was taking them out every four to five hours except between midnight and 7:30am to ensure they didn't have any accidents in the house. That meant that every four to five hours, I went on a 15-20 minute walk (longer walks once in the morning and evening). It meant that I had blocks of time during which I needed to be home and keeping an eye on them but also blocks of time where I had to be as productive as possible because of them. And these weren't even my permanent pets but they did me a world of good. Like I said before, I'm not the kind of person that can do my research/teaching tasks for 15 hours a day. I need time to think about other things, to exercise, to watch mindless tv, to hang out and relax with friends, to cook dinner, etc. These, to me, are non-negotiable. You know why? Because in grad school you teach one class, maybe two, a semester. But, when you become tenure-track faculty that number is 2-5 per semester depending on the institution. You may not have a TA depending on the institution so time management will become even more pressing. The pressure to produce research (two pubs per year in my social science field if you're at a R1 and want to get tenure) or excel at teaching (if you're at a R2/R3/SLAC where teaching is priority and the provost and faculty pride themselves on teaching excellence) will require you to expend time on these tasks. You'll be advising students, whether undergrads or grads, something you never have to do as a grad student. So, if you can't figure out some sort of work/life balance (by which I mean, something that isn't all work all the time) now, you're going to get burned out very quickly assuming you become a faculty member after graduate school. Some of the most productive scholars I know have really interesting ways of relaxing, ranging from homebrewing to watching sports to playing guitar to being in a bowling league to martial arts training to online gaming with friends. Criminologist, if you're serious about avoiding all "distractions" as you call them, I'd suggest you be proactive and make an appointment with a therapist/counselor to avert problems before they begin. Actually, that's reasonable advice for everyone and now I wish I'd put in my original post. A counselor/therapist can help you understand why it is that you want to focus so intensively on your work and make suggestions if that approach starts to fail you at some point in your studies (my experience is that it will). You (criminologist) will probably see these meetings as a "distraction" but I'd suggest it as an important way for you to be able to bounce your concerns (academic, research, personal, etc.) off of someone without having to engage in the social activities you seek to avoid. Seriously though, good luck. Grad school is tough, regardless of how smart, talented, and driven you are.

You could take a look at conferences like Kalamazoo or AHA and search for keywords in the abstracts/papers and use that to narrow your search. Even if you're finding graduate students, you're still identifying programs where your research interests would be supported.