rising_star

Have you looked at job ads in Europe? I have in the past. What I've seen is that some require you to be able to teach in multiple languages right away (e.g., Switzerland in my experience, where they want you to be able to teach in both English and French) while others will give you 2-3 years to attain sufficient language skills to be able to teach and attend meetings in the national language (I've seen this more often for jobs in Scandinavia). I've never applied for a job in Europe so I can't speak to the other aspects of your post.

True. My response above was geared toward the OP here, who is applying to PhD programs in statistics.

Trying to be productive from 8:30am to 10pm with minimal breaks just isn't a good idea. It's a recipe for burnout. It's also worth thinking about whether you can be productive for 3 hours consecutively studying a language or if you might be better off doing something like the Pomodoro technique and doing 2-3 Poms on a topic before switching to another task on your list.

Honestly, if you're only willing to work with someone who does "human-horse relations", you're probably overly limiting your potential programs far more than you should be. There are plenty of folks in animal studies who might use relevant theories for thinking about other animals and from whom you could learn a great deal by studying under. Moreover (and this builds on what @TakeruK has said above), in thinking about the job market, it's worth thinking about whether there will be any jobs looking for someone in "human-horse relations". There are certainly some jobs in animal studies but even that is more of a niche than something like human-environment relations or other aspects of sociocultural anthropology.

I'm also a NFL fan and rarely live in the network area for my favorite team. At one point, I resigned myself to listening to audio of their games (streamed) combined with a cable subscription that included the RedZone channel so I could see all of their scores. But, that wasn't really an efficient use of my time. This fall I'm thinking that I'll probably just try to find a sports bar that will show the games and where I can get by with buying a small meal and a drink or two as I watch the game. If you figure something else out, definitely let me/us know!

I've been away for a few days and boy was this thread a lot to read. @orange turtle, I am SOOO glad you found a champion on your research team. Good luck going forward and I hope that this creepy prof is out of your academic life for good now!

Figure out a time schedule for each. That is, how many hours will you need to spend revising and editing various sections of the manuscript? How long would it you to perform each experiment? If you could make a reasonable (e.g., 8 hours a day) work schedule for the next three weeks, it might shed some light on your ability to complete the manuscript and the experiments simultaneously. It would also be good justification for your email to your supervisor.

I would pick based on where you find the work most interesting in terms of potential supervisors and the coursework you'd be completing. Or, apply to a mix of each and make your decision after you get your acceptances and go visit various campuses.

FWIW, this isn't at all uncommon. It's to be expected by most master's supervisors.

@Sigaba, I don't disagree with this. But, let's be clear. It's not as if the entire application pool is going to be made of people with 3.9+ GPAs who have done significant independent research (including for pay) AND done a thesis AND had time away from school to hone their interests. Or, if it is, I should never, ever advise any student I teach (or have taught) to pursue graduate study. My point was a broader one: women tend to diminish their own accomplishments. See here for an example of what I mean: "Lean In names another, “performance attribution bias,” which is about how women are less prone to claim (and so get) credit for successes. The article points out the downward spiral that can come from this tendency: “Because women receive less credit — and give themselves less credit — their confidence often erodes and they are less likely to put themselves forward for promotions and stretch assignments.” My point was that @Kismine would do well to start thinking about and recognizing that she has done things that not everyone has done. She's first gen and graduated near the top of her class, which is something to be proud of and certainly not something everyone applying to a PhD program has also done (see the numerous threads here about first gen students feeling out of place in grad school, for example). So be realistic but also take the time to recognize where and why one is unique in certain ways.

If they're digital, I'd keep them because there's no real cost to maintaining digital files of papers. I'd probably get rid of the hard copies unless there are comments on them you might find valuable (in which case I'd probably scan them).

I guess my question is one of how serious you and the SO are. Do you see a real future for the two of you together, one where you can pursue your passions/interests plus be together? How will you feel about having delayed graduate school if you and your SO were to break up 3-6 months from now? Thinking about things in this way might help you have a good perspective on your relationship, which can in turn help with making a decision. Personally, I picked grad school when in a somewhat similar situation and I don't regret it. Why? Because the SO that wasn't that supportive of me moving across the country for grad school was being selfish and wasn't interested in what was best for me long-term, which means things would've ended disastrously at some point.

I guess I'm confused. What makes you think pursuing a PhD in English will qualify you to be "professor of education [educational leadership and policy] at a top research university". Have you looked at the CVs of folks working in those departments now? If you do, you'll find that many actually studied education at the doctoral level, not another area...

This comes up a lot. The short answer is what @AP has said. You need to have things outside of your degree program to help yourself manage the stress of grad school. Here are a few threads you might find helpful: I hope this helps.

Have you considered applying for funding to get yourself to the field sooner? NSF DDRI, NASA Space Grant, and/or other grants and fellowships might be an option as a way to get yourself to the field to do data collection regardless of whether your PI's grant gets funded.

Given your GPA, if you want to get into a psych PhD with funding, I would study for and retake the GRE if I were in your shoes. But that's because I wouldn't do a PhD without funding so I'd need to make sure I'm competitive for money and not just admission.

Email in advance if you want to have more than a handshake meeting. That's my advice.

I feel like there are other options besides the three you outlined. If you need the assistantship for the income (and/or tuition remission) it provides, then definitely don't resign your position. Listen, we've all worked for terrible bosses who make our lives miserable, whether that's in graduate school or elsewhere in our lives. I'm definitely not saying you should suck it up but, there are ways to protect yourself such as getting the requirements for your assistantship listed in as much detail as possible (you could even write it up for both of you to sign so you have a record). That said, politely asking the dept chair (or whomever makes assistantship assignments) whether there are other openings is probably what I'd do first. If indeed others are aware of the conflict you've had with that particular prof, then there may be things going on behind the scenes regarding your assignment that you aren't privy to. At any rate, it can't hurt to ask if you ask professionally (that is, based solely on facts, no accusations, no begging or pleading, etc.). Good luck!

This is going to be field dependent and depend on where you are in your program. But, really, you can make time for anything you want to prioritize. I spent 5-10 hours a week training in a martial art for most of my PhD and it wasn't a problem.

Why are you dead-set on studying at U of Chicago if they don't actually offer a degree in the area you're interested in? If you want to be in Chicago, there are other options in the area like Northwestern and UIC to consider...

@rheya19, good to know, thanks! If your interests cross into the social sciences (anthropology, geography, sociology), then you will likely be able to find review papers in journals like Annual Reviews in Anthropology or Progress in Human Geography.

The best place to find people who have gone from PhD to teaching high school would be to go to VersatilePhD.com and look through the posts and profiles there. If you're lucky, your PhD institution might be a subscribing member, which will give you a chance to read profiles of PhDs working outside academia in various fields, including K-12 ed. (As an aside, I'll note that if you're only halfway through your PhD, you probably have time/opportunity to do what you'd need to do in order to be eligible for a teaching certificate, which would greatly expand your options. It's worth looking into, as are various provisional certification programs where you'd be able to teach while completing the work for full certification.)

Honestly, I never look at RMP for anyone (including myself). Only the most angry/upset students will go to RMP to vent and such one-sided narratives are difficult to assess without additional information/data. Also, it's likely that those leaving RMP reviews are undergraduates and there really aren't that many parallels between an undergrad's experience and what you'll have as a graduate student. I mean, are undergrads really leaving reviews about a prof's ability to serve as a mentor, help one with fellowship applications or identifying relevant primary sources/data sets/archives, or feedback on manuscripts? Probably not since few undergrads have those interactions with a faculty member and those that do are probably not the ones ranting and raving on RMP. You're better served talking to someone's current graduate students or recently completed PhD students if you want to get a sense of their personality, how they work with students, etc.

Well, I'm not in grad school anymore and we had a faculty reading group around the Slow Professor movement this year... It requires a broader mindset change, similar to the idea that we shouldn't haze junior faculty anymore. Personally, I'm no longer interested in working for a place that isn't willing to push back against the idea that we should all be working 60+ hours a week every week, plus work in the summer when we're not on contract. (Also, it's worth keeping in mind that tenure requirements vary widely. At several LACs that I know of, social scientists need 2-3 peer-reviewed publications total [ideally at least one with a student co-author] for tenure but there are ways around even that if you're engaged in high impact work in the community. That's not to say that isn't time consuming still but it is very different than jobs which ask for 2-3 peer-reviewed journal articles per year or a book published plus another in progress to get tenure.)

There's no reason to apply early, just FYI. All of the applications will be reviewed at one time, after the deadline, and I can't imagine anyone even bothering to look at when an application was submitted. I'm also not sure I'd visit as an applicant and not as an admitted student, even if it is easy for you. Maybe if you do visit you could schedule your visit to coincide with a colloquium, special invited guest speaker, or some other departmental event so that it's clear why you're there. FWIW, you can just write tweak your SOP with one sentence/phrase. After pointing out why this program is a perfect fit for you and your interests, you could add something like "For these reasons, X is my top choice for graduate studies".