rising_star

Basically, everything Eigen said. Don't suggest someone that has seen the paper, even in draft form before. Instead, suggest scholars who work in that area or a related one, who might be interested in reading your work.

Agreed about talking to her about the problem. And, if you can't resolve it, get a new advisor. You're not going to make it through your program if your advisor constantly destroys your confidence.

You've already gotten some excellent advice. I'd say to make sure you try the bike before you buy it and think about any special needs for your area. For example, you may need thorn resistant tires and tubes if you live in the desert, so that's something to think about when buying a bike.

Duplicate posting. See here to comment:

The best advice I have been given is to try to treat grad school like a full-time job. That is, put in 8 hours of work (actual work, not scanning Facebook and surfing the web) per day at least 5 days a week and you should be at least moderately successful. That said, this varies and you'll find yourself putting in some 80 hour weeks and some 25 hour weeks. Personally, I can't imagine having to work 40 additional hours at a job where I couldn't do some of my grad school work (like reading, editing, writing, etc.) during every single week of the semester, let alone at the busy times at the end of the semester.

Foreign Guy, two things. 1) do not double post. 2) Did you actually look up the cost of living in Clemson? It's a pretty affordably place to live.

I have yet to read an offer letter that is binding and doesn't have out clauses for the school. Better to ask and clarify than try to trick them, since the latter will likely fail.

I second the recommendation to see if current grad students are housing people. Contacting the conference organizers may yield other low cost options as well.

oseirus, about 7 months ago we made a concerted effort to increase the number of people that stay active on the forums once in graduate school by expanding the "Offically Grads" section of the website to include areas of interest to those moving to grad school for the first time and for those enrolled in their programs. It is our hope that many of today's members will stay active through that section of the forum. (As an aside, I'll point out that if this happens, we would definitely consider expanding that section of the Forum to cover more topics of interest to current graduate students.) UnlikelyGrad: 3 years is nothing! I (apparently) was the 13th member of the original site, which means I've been here since spring 2006 or just shy of 6 years at this point. This only partially explains why I've made so many posts, though. That said, it's kinda fun watching how the site has changed over the years (the forums for example have way better software and the survey has way better programming behind it), become more popular, and in general just gotten way more use out of it than I think any of us would've thought 6 years ago. (For those that don't know, this website was designed to be a more functional way of seeing results than the livejournal community who_got_in could provide. Back when it started, an Excel spreadsheet of results data was manually updated and uploaded to the website.)

That depends, Megan. Were you specifically told that a certain professor would be your advisor if you enrolled? Because, if not, and you still have to identify that person then putting your name in front of various profs might not be the worst idea. That said, I'd say whether or not the POI emails you depends more on his/her personality and level of busyness than anything else. I can think of POIs that did and POIs that didn't but none of that factored into my decision-making process.

No one cares. Don't even update them on it. It's not like writing a creative writing thesis is a prerequisite for a MSW anyway.

You don't have to rely on numerical rankings to know which school is better in your subfield. You should be able to find this out pretty easily by asking your professors. The number of faculty members and publications is not enough information by itself. For example, my department has only two faculty members in my subfield but is also widely known as one of the best in the country based on the strengths of those faculty. There are other faculty in related subfields and they sit on my committee. Really, what you need to know is departmental reputation as related to those subfields, which isn't something you're going to find in a list published online somewhere.

I think this really depends on the department. In my department, TAs teach their own discussion sections, teach lab sections, and serve as instructor of record for courses they design. I've done the latter on four occasions and if that doesn't count as "real teaching experience" then there's no chance I'll ever get anything better.

I don't answer student/work emails after 7pm or before 8am generally, so I'd just wait until the morning to even reply to his email. As far as working too many hours, that is a choice you are making. Have a meeting with that professor and explain that working 4x as much as you are supposed to do is jeopardizing your other academic work. If you aren't comfortable doing that, meet with someone else in the department that can help mediate the situation. People can only abuse you as much as you let them.

Well, that depends. If they're busy, what makes you think they are going to spontaneously decide to email you? Also, do you have any real questions to ask or do you just want the person to see your name again?

You should be asking the departments to provide you with this information, not an internet forum.

I need to write a conference paper, make a presentation for it, and write a book review between now and the end of the month. So, I'm checking posts here and replying to old emails and reading journal articles that may be helpful (but most won't be) instead.

What would anonymous grading even look like? I mean, for it to be anonymous, I'd have to not ever send in drafts, never take enough classes with a prof for them to know my writing style, and probably change my research interests...

Just to be clear, this varies by department, even within a university. My department as a rule does not offer top-off funds or fellowships to anyone, even though the Graduate School provides such funds to the department. Instead, everyone presenting at a conference gets an equal share of that pool of money to support their conference attendance.

I think there's nothing wrong with letting location be a factor in where you decide to do your PhD, or even where to apply. I dislike snow, so I didn't really apply to cold weather places for my PhD. That said, I did apply to two for fit reasons, visited them, and realized they wouldn't work even if there hadn't been snow on the ground. In the end, I went with the best PI for me (well known in the discipline and subfield, good track record with grad students) who just happened to be in the location with the weather I thought I wanted the most. Note the past tense in that last sentence. After living there for 3.5 years, I've realized that hot and sunny ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Have to agree with this. A friend of mine fell in love with her grad advisor. She ended up having to find a new advisor and a co-chair from another department. The two of them were working in related fields, obviously, but now their work is a bit differentiated. They actually got married well before she finished her PhD (started dating years before that) and are now lucky that she managed to get a government fellowship that allows her to stay in the city where he's got a job as a full professor for the next few years. They're happy and have managed to work things out. BUT, that was in a department with a history of male profs dating (and in some cases marrying) their female grad students. The story I just told is one of 5 in that department where the male prof married his former student. Key word in that last sentence being former. Agreed. I would love to know what happens.

No, they don't check that stuff.

If you know that particular results are false, you should report them using the option on the results survey.

Why? POIs know that one's research interests change but that doesn't mean they don't want to know that you are capable of developing sound research ideas. I applied to PhD programs to work in the general subfield that I'm still in but with a different regional and topical focus than I currently have. When I go to conferences and see the very people I applied to work with, none of them are surprised at all about how different my research is now from what I originally set out to do. When I applied to MA programs, I knew nothing about my field at all but, even so, the professors I contacted were interested in what my ideas were and how I might develop a project based on them. That's important to them because otherwise, they have to try to teach you that in addition to all the other things they have to teach you in grad school. This is a double-edged sword, imo. Going to ASA (or any other major national disciplinary conference) is expensive plus, it can be difficult to get facetime with people because they're often really busy. When I want to see particular people at the national conference, I email them in advance to get a sense of their availability and try to arrange something. In terms of making it happen, cell phones end up playing a major role in making sure we're on the same page about where and when we're going to meet. I personally have had little success in just going up to people right after they talk but that could be a personality thing. And yes, my conference experience suggests that drinking/partying is a big part of it. Think about it this way. When you're a faculty member, you have all your grad school friends plus all the other faculty you've met (while on the market, because you were on a panel together, of the department you used to be in, etc) that you want to see. The easiest and least expensive way to see all of them is by going to the conference. So, yea, it's about getting together with people you already know as much, if not more so, than it is about meeting new people.

Are you sure that 47 hours doesn't include some of your master's coursework? I ask because my PhD department requires about that many hours before beginning the dissertation but you can transfer in coursework from related MA/MS programs. I transferred in 21 credit hours, which actually didn't include all of my MA coursework.