rising_star

car washer

pushup bra

With just the stipend from TAing, I make too much to qualify for food stamps in my state.

Your school can put you in touch with private lenders but the big names out there are Sallie Mae and Citibank as far as I know. You may also see if your local/national bank offers student or personal loans. But, on a more serious note, what are you going to do with a journalism degree and $47K in debt?

The unrelated research project shouldn't be your concern. When are you applying for grad school? If you're doing your junior year now, you should wait until you're a senior/within a few months of applying before contacting professors.

My experience has been that no one cares what you wear to your office and to class, but there are expectations about what TAs will wear when teaching. At my MA program, TAs were not supposed to wear anything above the knee or strappy tank tops (shoulders covered was a must) when teaching, or have visible tattoos or body piercings. This is probably because most of us were 24-28 and they didn't want students viewing their TAs as attractive. It was also meant to keep people from wearing shorts while teaching (mind you, it was HOT for several months here and people would just change into jeans or khakis in their offices before teaching). None of this applied when you were attending class, though it was often cold in the building which would dictate what people wore. My wardrobe has actually morphed in the four years I've been in grad school and become slightly more professional looking. This is a change I made, rather than one that anyone told me to make. As far as what people wear to class, it ranges from pants with holes in them and Chacos to business casual (khakis and a polo) to casual (jeans and a t-shirt) depending on the person and what they wear. At my current program, almost everyone rides a bicycle to campus, so that can affect what's worn (you don't see a lot of skirts or dresses, though that could be for style reasons too).

I cheer for the teams of each of my grad schools. My undergrad is absolutely noncompetitive in most athletics so it doesn't present much of a conflict of interest. It was more difficult when I was an MA student because my MA school is in the same conference as the team I grew up rooting for. Luckily, I used to live where the childhood team is the most hated thing around so it was pretty easy to handle. As I've said before, I'm a huge football and gymnastics fan, so I go to those games and cheer my teams on. I also root for them in March Madness.

There are different schools of thought on this. When I was applying to PhD programs, the profs in my MA program told me it was no problem to email professors during the summer and that I might be more likely to get a reply since they were less busy then. BUT, I wouldn't expect a reply simply because many universities don't pay faculty during the summer so any work they do is essentially for free. Definitely email before September since you want to be able to eliminate schools that are no longer fits and potentially add additional schools before October when applications really get going and applications to external fellowships (ie, Javits, EPA STAR) are due. I totally agree with the first part of this. But, I do think that you can impress someone through a series of email exchanges, even without referencing their articles and their brilliant ideas. What you can do is ask questions about methodology, changes in the literature, etc that will help you know a few things: a) if your POI is up-to-date on the literature, if they are moving in a theoretical or methodological direction you are uninterested in, and c) whether that person can communicate big ideas succinctly. I think all of these things are important to find out. And your command of the literature/field may help you stand out. The best way for those connections to open doors is to have your current or past advisor introduce you to the new person(s) directly. Email introductions are often awkward and useless. As an applicant, you may want to reference your past/current research advisor in your emails to POIs since that will show them that you're serious. But, don't count on those connections alone to get your application a better review or to get your foot in the door. My MA advisor is friends with a prof I emailed when applying to PhD programs. The reply from that prof was the coldest, most sharply worded email I ever got and took both me and my advisor by surprise. Needless to say, I did not apply there.

roibois, I edited the topic title for you. Hope you don't mind! Both times I started a grad program (MA at one place, PhD at another), I didn't register for classes until like the week before. At my current program, there was a departmental orientation, after which students met individually with the DGS, grad program secretary, and their prospective advisor to look at the available courses and choose which ones to take. Personally, I liked not having to worry about that sort of thing in advance since there's already so much to be done with moving, finding the right hangout spots in your new locale, making friends, etc.

There is absolutely no way in which that implies consent to read the letter. What you did was a breach. Given that, there's nothing you can or should say to the person that wrote the letter. Let it go.

I would email the potential advisor. Unlike the common advice here, I don't think you need to indicate that you've read his/her articles or book in an initial correspondence. Just demonstrating that you are interested in pursuing that area of research because it goes well with your particular interests (and say what both of these are) is enough. Or, I should say, it worked for me both times I applied. I had never read any of my current advisor's work when I first emailed him. But I knew enough about his work to know that we use similar theoretical frameworks and methodologies and that my research would fit nicely with the research of his other grad students. All that "I read your paper on X and found it so fascinating" is just sucking up, which I guess could be to your advantage but isn't necessary (do you really want to work with someone that you have to suck up to over and over? I sure as hell don't and wouldn't).

Why are you reading the letters? I assume that, if you're asking this here, you probably didn't have permission to read them and thus can't ask the writer to fix the mistake, right? There's nothing you can do. The letter's sloppiness reflects on its writer, not you, though some may wonder whether that sloppiness is accidental or not.

See this post:

Actually, if they are public universities, they probably just disclosed your email under Open Records rules, rather than actually selling it...

Many journals are electronic now and available through your library for free, which is awesome. The big journal clearinghouses (Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell, ScienceDirect, etc.) will all let you sign up to be emailed the table of contents of each new issue of a journal when it becomes available. I receive email notifications this way for all of the journals I keep track of (which is a lot as I'm in the social sciences doing interdisciplinary research). I find it to be extremely helpful since then I have a handy link to the article when I want to read it in my inbox already.

I would submit the letter from the lecturer as a supplemental (or fourth) recommendation to the schools that allow additional LORs.

Several universities have degree-granting programs in Recreation, Parks, and Tourism, which sometimes have a focus on sports and/or sports management. See, for example, the following: University of Florida; UIUC; and Texas A&M. You might want to look into programs like these and see where the faculty earned their degrees to get a broader sense of graduate programs that might meet your needs.

I agree with everything that UnlikelyGrad has said, except that I would talk to the Director of Graduate Studies, rather than starting with the department chair. I might also contact other, more senior, grad students in the department to solicit their advice on how to handle the situation. Good luck!

Wake Forest. An MA program is what you make of it.

The best thing you can do is get into a PhD program that offers funding to its grad students and then live below your means. Live with roommates, don't eat or drink out, etc. Use the difference between your stipend and what you spend to pay on your loans.

I second the Clark's endorsement. I have Clark's slide ons that I wear all the time. Other options: The Mary Jane style Tevas. I rock those all the time and people tell me they are very cute (in addition to being comfortabe). Born and Sofft are also known for making comfortable shoes that come in a variety of styles. Or, you can bring the nicer shoes with you and wear other shoes for your actual commute. I know a bunch of people that do this.

Honestly, that sounds exactly like the TA load for one of the gen ed classes in my department, except that we're on semesters rather than quarters. Each TA has four discussion sections, with an enrollment cap of 25 in each section. We hold 50 min discussion sections once a week, are required to attend lecture twice a week, attend a mandatory TA meeting once a week with the instructor, and then grade the exams (multiple choice only), essays (1 4-5 pg, 1 6-7 pg), and weekly discussion assignments (length varies, but often 2-3 pages of answers per student) on our own. Oh, and minimum of two office hours per week. And, because the class is for first-year students, we are required to give detailed feedback on their essays and be generally available to meet whenever they want. Yea, it's annoying but it also pays the bills. That said, I've also had a TA assignment where I did all of the grading for 150 students. The grading included 3 short answers and an essay on each of three exams; two papers which they wrote in groups of 3; in-class assignments almost every week; and short exercises that each student submitted individually. Though I was not responsible for writing the assignments, I did still have to attend lecture, keep up with the reading, and hold office hours to explain grading things to students (which, btw, takes forever because first years want to know why they lost every single point they did on their exam). At any rate, what I'm saying is that your workload doesn't seem unreasonable to me, mostly because it resembles my own, as a second year PhD student, this past school year. As far as corresponding with students, do it on your terms, not theirs. I only reply to student emails around 8:30 or 9am, and around 5pm as I'm heading home. I reply on Sunday for anything that's arrived from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning. All of this is stuff I tell students in class, so they aren't expecting rapid replies. If the answer can be found in their syllabus or other course materials they already have, I tell them that in one line and that's the whole email. If it's something that needs a more involved response, I encourage them to make an appointment or come see me during office hours. Oh, and I never discuss grades or anything grade related over email. That's a recipe for disaster. Often, they'll have cooled off about the grade enough by the time they come to your office that you can have a reasonable conversation about their work. I basically refuse to write emails longer than 3-4 sentences to students because it would take up too much of my time. You should try adopting a similar policy. It's basically what most of my department's TAs do. Granted, students find it incredibly annoying but it keeps us from using 10 of our 20 hours just on emails each week. And, as the semester goes on, I find I get fewer and fewer emails because students learn to check their syllabus or the assignment sheet first before asking me. I think they get annoyed with getting replies like "The answer to your question is in the syllabus" over and over.

Honestly, mail the books using USPS media mail. You'll pay about $0.50/pound, maybe less depending on the distance, and it'll take about 10 days to reach the destination, sometimes less. That's how I've moved books around the country and it's been pretty easy and very cost effective each time. If it were me, I would sell the things that don't fit and use the money you get to buy stuff at your destination. What's the likelihood that you'll ever get it out of storage from your parent's garage anyway, you know? I had no trouble having a mattress delivered, and I imagine a couch wouldn't be too difficult either if you buy from a furniture store. If you go the CL route, I would email your department's listserve and see if anyone has a truck/SUV you can borrow. I borrowed my friend's Suburban for a recent move (just the vehicle, didn't even use their help), and it was incredibly helpful. This is basically what I did, except I moved way further away. One of the first things I did was buy a quality mattress. It was expensive but, as my mom pointed out, you're going to want to sleep easily and pain-free when you're writing your dissertation, not be tossing and turning because you can't get comfortable. Another thing to keep in mind is that you don't need to acquire all of your furniture at once. Start with the essentials (bed, bookshelves, nightstand, desk, lamps), and gradually add the other things as you get paychecks.

I definitely have to buy books outside my course reading lists and I'm in the social sciences. For example, I like owning the classics in my subdiscipline because I know I'll need to cite them for comps, even though I never had to read them for a course, and that I'll have/get to teach them as an instructor one day. This can work well if you don't ever need to reference those books again. But, I find that I often have very little time to read books from week to week, end of skimming for seminar, and then returning to the book later if I need it for my research. If the class is totally outside your research area and subfields, then I would just ILL the book. And, here's something I haven't seen mentioned yet: you could share your books with a classmate. Maybe each of you buys half the list or does ILL for half the list then you swap. I've done this a few times in grad school and it's mostly worked out well. I probably spend about this on books, though less because sometimes I have article-based seminars. I also think the advice above is spot-on with my experience.

Out of state tuition, especially in a state where you can never be considered a state resident for tuition purposes, isn't that cheap either. My tuition is about ~$26K/year, waivered of course.