rising_star

Best advice I can give is to find other people in your department who have had this assignment or a similar one in the past, ask them about dos and donts, get copies of all their materials, and meet with the teaching center on your campus to get their advice (maybe even schedule ongoing meetings so you can follow up with issues/problems as they arise).

You assume that the email actually says who it's from. I have lots of students that email me from the personal (not school issued) email accounts, which often means they don't include their name or any part of it. I don't know who is emailing me from "skatergirl13" if they don't include their name. I even have this problem with school emails because my university has a very odd assigned system that involves students initials plus other numbers and letters. When you have multiple students with the initials JAS, for example, how am I to know whether that's James Smith, Joe Schmoe, or Javier Sanchez that is sending the email? I agree with this. It's not enough to assume that they use more formal correspondence when writing someone about a job. You have to teach them what you want them to know, rather than assume that someone else will do it or that it's already been learned.

I'll start by saying that I moved away for college to a school where I didn't know anyone else that was going there. Moved 1300 miles from there to do my MA. Moved across the country for my PhD. Each time, I didn't know anyone where I was going. Each time, I made friends. Some of those friendships have lasted longer than others (those from my MA were the least developed and have suffered now that we're no longer in the same place but they still exist). That said, I find that my diverse interests both academically and non-academically make it fairly easy for me to strike up conversations with random people about a wide range of topics. If you don't have that ability, it's something you should cultivate. There's a whole podcast dedicated to giving people small talk topics, which could be a good place to start. This list from bedmas is truly awesome. Lots of good ideas here. When I think back to departmental orientation at my PhD program, I realize that I actually didn't end up being or staying friends with the people I met and had lunch with that first time. I did, however, make several lasting friendships in my cohort of people I still keep in touch with regularly even though we're flung all over the place these days (and have been for the past 3 years now). We were different ages (I was the youngest) but we had plenty of non-school things in common, like sports, music, microbrews, and various other things. Also, my friends ended up being the other people that were new to town so we did a lot of the "Oh, let's go to this place people are always talking about" together type of thing, which was fun and helped us bond. Sometimes I did that stuff alone too, and met some interesting people that way. Not all of them were dating material or lifelong friend material but it's nice to have an array of people you can call up to hang out when the mood strikes you. You just have to not be afraid to put yourself out there. Introduce yourself to people at orientation (grad school wide, departmental, etc.). Start with those you end up sitting near and go from there. Talk to the grad students staffing the info booths at the orientation and ask them about places to go, things to do, etc. Again, this is really excellent advice. You really do have to get yourself out there early on or it will be too easy to just stay in, do schoolwork, and watch movies on Netflix. Instead, pick up the local free newspaper, look at the activities (concerts, plays, meetings, events, etc.), and pick at least one--ideally two--to do each week. You may not know anyone but, you will meet people once you're there. Maybe you try an introduction to tango class one week, go see a live show the next week, and attend an improv comedy show another night. Or you go to a bar and play trivia/pub quiz (Geeks Who Drink is popular and could be a good way to meet people, for example). Oh man, this is much fantastic advice. My mom literally showed me how to do laundry the night before I left for college. She did not, however, spend much time with me in the kitchen. Even so, I've figured it out. For laundry, what detergent you buy depends on your budget, available coupons, and any allergies you may have. I can't use the super-cheap laundry soap because it irritates my skin, which is just something to keep in mind for some people. Trial and error, but just start by buying whatever your parents have been using. For cooking, watch your parents and friends in the kitchen for a while. Look for recipes labeled "easy" on sites like Food Network and All Recipes and try a few out while you're still at home if you can. If you have the money, invest in a slow cooker, a Mark Bittman cookbook (How to Cook Everything or How to Cook Everything Vegetarian), and a good selection of spices once you move. For spices, go to a place where you can buy them in bulk so you can try out lots of things in small quantities then buy more once you figure out what you really like and use a lot. Hopefully this helps anyone that comes along, is moving to a new place, and is looking for a way to make friends.

Do you really have any choice? As long as the letter can explain the situation, I think you're fine.

http://www.irex.org/project/individual-advanced-research-opportunities-iaro comes to mind. Estonia is one of the eligible countries. http://www.baef.be/documents/home.xml?lang=en for going to Belgium. BTW, I didn't actually do a google search or anything. I just googled for things I know I've seen in the past. I'm sure your school has some research staff whose job it is to help people find funding. At my university, there's people in the Grad College itself and within the college my department is in who actively do this. They help you search major funding databases and set up alerts and also can give feedback on your application materials. Figure out who these people are at your school and get in touch. Another option would be to contact more senior students in your field and related areas and find out what where they go/went for funding. Again, your professional organization, whether nationally or regionally, will probably also have small funds available, which could be enough to pay for the translation.

It's hard to do this late in the semester. When I teach, I have it in my syllabus that students need to correspond in a professional manner and that I reserve the right not to reply if they fail to do so. I also directly address this in class, telling them the story of a former coworker (back when I was in the workforce) who got fired for his inability to correspond appropriately (poorly written memos, unprofessional emails, etc.). That point usually gets even the more stubborn kids to pay attention. But yes, it's something you can and should address. It's part of their education.

Check the results survey! People forget that it's there (which cracks me up since this whole site was initially just that survey, done manually) and there's lots of accumulated information there on when schools notify applicants.

Where are you trying to do your research? Depending on the where, you could look into IAF, CAORC, or IREX as funding sources. Most of the major deadlines have already passed for things like Fulbright, Fulbright-Hays, and SSRC IDRF. There may be funding available from your professional organization, especially any subgroups it may have.

This post from Vitae, a Chronicle site, is probably also relevant: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/143-what-i-learned-from-ripplesofdoubt

There's lots of studies about this. I did a quick Google scholar search and came up with a few. You can choose which one(s) you believe are most reliable. http://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/34046/1/51436131X.pdf http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/04/focus-3 http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763170.html http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-pay-gap/index_en.htm http://www.aauw.org/files/2013/02/graduating-to-a-pay-gap-the-earnings-of-women-and-men-one-year-after-college-graduation.pdf http://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Earnings&ContentRecord_id=db19df76-9299-4b46-a98c-ef33c21dab3d&ContentType_id=2206321f-9e59-4f98-b972-d78c64abf642&Group_id=51e071bd-07e9-46f2-bb70-cfc28baec8be http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/CP200.pdf http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GenderGap.html I assume those are enough links to get you started.

My experience is somewhere in between yours and Eigen's, raneck. I am single but most of my friends are married. I basically spend a lot of time hanging out with married couples and, you know what, that's okay. For the most part, we don't talk about their marriage. Sure, there are times when I'll be with one-half of a married couple and s/he will vent about something the other has done, but I consider that similar to me venting about something my dog has done.

Not just classes but what will be your fields for your comprehensive or qualifying exams. Will you be acquiring methodological training and, if so, in what areas? That sort of thing is probably what they're looking for in response to the second question.

At this point, I wouldn't make contact until you hear about an interview or an opportunity to visit. It will seem like a blatant effort to influence the admission decision.

I doubt you'll find a SLP here to interview since those here are applying to graduate programs in the field, rather than professionals working in the field.

TakeruK, this is an interesting perspective. I think that it does matter whether ideas come from the department head or a grad student since there are very different understandings of not only what has been done but how institutions, like universities, work given their vastly different experiences. And, to be quite honest, graduate students are not and never will be on the same level as tenure-track faculty. Graduate students are in training. Also, what do you think should happen with undergraduates? Should we have them call all of their instructors, whether tenured faculty or first year PhD student, either by their first name or by Dr X? I get your broader point about not wanting there to be a hierarchy but I don't think that's realistic at all given how academia works.

Just curious but why can't you imagine taking maternity leave as an Assistant Professor? Many people do it and there are often institutional structures in place to make it easier (such as pausing the tenure clock, flexible scheduling, etc.).

If you're planning to use qualitative methods, it would be to your advantage to take courses in that area as an undergraduate, especially ones that have a hands-on/field component. You might need to look into courses in sociology, anthropology, or education to find strong qualitative methods courses.

Often the 30-day licensing requirement is waived if you are a full-time student. It's worth investigating. As for where to buy a car, that would depend on prices for the vehicles you are interested in.

FullCircle, no, we didn't misunderstand. We all know that it's basically the same letter, with maybe a few details changed, for each school. That is also the case when you apply to fellowships or academic jobs. That said, 13 letters by December 15th perhaps a bit of short notice...

Whether or not 18 is a lot really depends on field. Folks in English Lit and Clinical Psych are notorious on here for applying to double-digit numbers of programs, even when they aren't international students. As for the letters thing, I would only go the Interfolio route if your recommender requests it. It's expensive and it will cost you several dollars ($5?) per application that you have Interfolio upload letters for. And that's notwithstanding that some schools won't allow you to use Interfolio at all. I would just ask the person if they are okay with it. In my field, no one uses Interfolio. I'm on the market and my advisor has already sent off more than 18 letters in support of my job apps. I asked about Interfolio and he said "No." Yes, it's more difficult to manage for both of us but, I'm doing what he said. So ask, then do whatever the person tells you.

I'm with fuzzylogician. I would absolutely make the request and frame it as politely as possible. Because, realistically, people make requests about TA time slots for lots of reasons unrelated to their class schedule, like child care or religious services/obligations. In my graduate department, there's basically no way someone would do a 10am class and also a class that didn't end until 10pm. The conventional wisdom among the English adjuncts at my current school is that being willing to teach early in the morning makes you invaluable. That said, if you're most productive in the morning, I would request afternoon/evening slots for teaching. If you have classmates with children, you can frame it as wanting to make the overall scheduling easier and/or free up the daycare's open hours for those with childcare needs. Yes, in my grad department, you'd be looked at as a pain in the ass by some. But, back when I cared about that, I didn't speak up and ending up teaching 4 discussion sections in a row and then going immediately to a 75 minute class, a 15 minute break, and a 3 hour grad seminar. It was the longest and worst day of every single week of that semester. I especially hated days with exams in the class because it meant I taught for four hours then had 10 minutes to mentally prep myself for an exam. It was dreadful and my performance in the class and the seminar both suffered because I was brain-dead about halfway through the seminar. Here's the real deal: Research takes priority over teaching pretty much everywhere. If your research is suffering because you have to teach late at night and early in the morning, you're going to have big problems as you go into comprehensive/qualifying exams and write your dissertation. The only person to advocate for you is you really. So do it. P.S. St. Andrews Lynx, while neither of those times is late nor early for most jobs, it might be useful to think of retail or restaurant jobs that are open 24 hours. Employees rarely work second shift one day (getting off around 11pm) and then open (5-9am) the next day. While this isn't exactly the equivalent, it's fairly similar in terms of why that may not be the best idea.

Three things: 1) It would NOT be appropriate to have "What are my chances?" posts under a Rejection forum because there's no way to know whether or not someone would be rejected. 2) There are plenty of places where you can find the stats of people that have been rejected. Usually in the application thread for whichever discipline and year you're interested in. 2a) That data is also on the results survey and thus readily accessible. Far more people record their results, whether admit, wait list, or rejection, there than post on the forums. 2b) There is lots of evidence that the statistical data is meaningless anyway. 3) People already post about their contacts with departmental staff about application status in the field-specific threads and in "Waiting It Out". As far as I can tell, what you want is to further subdivide existing conversations but not in what will be a very meaningful way to most.

A rejection forum would be so depressing. I'm definitely not creating that!

I wouldn't address it directly in SOP but maybe address the perceived weakness by focusing on your quantitative, data analysis, and writing skills. But, this is application specific. If there's place for a supplemental statement, then leave any discussion of the GRE out of your SOP and use the extra space instead.

I'm not in the sciences but it doesn't strike me as bad form. Because really, if the PI isn't taking new students, it would behoove you to try to make different arrangements for your 3rd rotation so that you are in a lab that will be taking students, rather than spending your time in one that won't.