rising_star

In addition to @AP's wonderful list, I'd like to suggest you check out the work of Stuart Elden. He also is a pretty prolific academic blogger, with a number of posts you might find of interest. Of particular note is this one, which is a guide of where to start with Henri Lefebvre. If you're interested in maps or cartography, then read anything by Mark Monmonier. Other potential names of interest include Halford Mackinder, Friedrich Ratzel, Doreen Massey (her quintessential text is For Space), and Carl Sauer. I wouldn't recommend Mike Davis as a starting point, if only because his work has been quite controversial. If you're going to read David Harvey, it's worth reading Social Justice and the City to get a sense of how his thinking evolved before you read some of his later work (Limits to Capital; Justice, Nature, and the Geography of Difference; The New Imperialism). One of Harvey's star students, Neil Smith, is an acclaimed thinker, particularly for his work on urban space (Uneven Development and The New Urban Frontier). This next set of resources will point you more toward geography as an academic discipline, but are still useful for spatial history IMO. Geographical Imaginations and The Colonial Present by Derek Gregory are both great reads (see here for a brief explanation of the geographical imagination). Tim Cresswell's book on geographic thought provides a sound introduction, as do David Livingstone's The Geographical Tradition: Episodes in the Contested History of an Enterprise and Richard (Dick) Peet's Modern Geographic Thought. We could probably add more suggestions if you narrow down what it is about spatial history you're interested in learning more about.

Why? Because the work wasn't A-quality work. Because, to retain some sort of distinction between students of different quality, you don't want to give everyone an A because there's a big difference in a student who got a 97% and one who got a 91% in the course. Because you didn't demonstrate A-level mastery of the material. But I'm going to guess you're asking because you're mad and think the professor is out to get you.

I wouldn't submit your high school grades when applying to graduate school. They typically ask for the grades they care about and those are your undergraduate and graduate coursework grades.

For coats, I recommend outlet malls. Think North Face, Columbia, Mountain Hardwear, etc. It may not be the classic peacoat style but, if you're going somewhere where it will be truly cold (upper Midwest for example), hardly anyone will be wearing a peacoat in the winter because they just aren't warm enough. Also, you're going to want gloves (touchscreen-compatible gloves are typically not as warm), a scarf (think warmth over stylishness), and a hat. For shoes, if you want professional and waterproof, I'd recommend looking into shoes sold by outdoorsy companies like Teva, Keen, etc. or going with non-leather (100% synthetic) shoes and wearing SmartWool type socks (hint: Costco sells their brand of these for like $14 for a 4-pack and you don't have to be a member to buy them online at this price). I think jeans can be okay for the social/evening/happy hour parts of an interview. But I wouldn't count on having the time to change into them every day. They'd have to be nice jeans though, dark in color and maybe even trouser-style.

I think this varies widely, TakeruK. In grad school, I had semesters where the prof I TA'd for let me have basically complete autonomy with grading, semesters where 3-5 TAs had to coordinate amongst themselves to standardize grading between their students/sections, and semesters where the prof would literally hand me a rubric and walk me through how to grade a paper with that rubric according to their expectations. Obviously these are vastly different experiences (and, to be honest, ones that seemed to have little to do with my familiarity with the material or length of time TAing/teaching since the last of those came after I'd solo taught three courses). So, I wouldn't assume that just because you've never had a professor give instructions on grading schemes that it isn't common, particularly depending on the department. It happened to me a lot more when I was one of several TAs each responsible for the grading for 70-80 students in an effort to ensure that some students weren't getting disproportionately higher or lower grades. That said, I agree with the general sentiment on this thread that this isn't one of those things to get worked up about. Students don't always know that they're jumping the chain of command and many are quite apologetic when you tell them this. Think of it as yet another "teachable moment". If students are doing it on purpose though, that's something to have the professor address in class in front of everyone so that no one is singled out and everyone is put on notice.

I dealt with this eons ago when I applied to do my PhD at my current MA program. What made it super hard not to ask is that admitted students were visiting before I heard anything about my application. I can't remember how/why I managed not to ask anyone about it but, I did. At some point, my PI made a point of telling me that they hadn't actually reviewed my application yet, probably when someone asked me in front of some faculty if I was going to stay to do my PhD and I had to honestly say that I hadn't been admitted yet so couldn't count on it. Part of what helped distract me is that I had a MA thesis to complete and other applications I was waiting to hear about... I don't suppose you have a thesis or publication you could pour your soul into?

Everything @TakeruK has said is true. I just wanted to add that in many fields, word of mouth is the only way to rank programs/departments. In my field, rankings are basically garbage because there are so many differences in areas and a school that's strong in Apple Studies may not be strong in Basketweaving, even though both are key parts of the discipline. Consequently, word of mouth is the way to go. Though I'd point out that you want to pay attention to word of mouth about the advisor and the department. A department's reputation and strength in a subfield can be dramatically affected by the reputation of just one or two people. If those people are well-known in the subfield and you're considering academia, it may not be a problem if the department as a whole is ranked 10-30 because you're working with the person to work with in that area. Does that make sense?

There have been some good discussions about this in the past: I know plenty of folks in academia with tattoos. A lot of them are in places that can be easily covered, like the back, upper arm, or calf area. But others have half sleeves or even full sleeves. Some of those with the sleeves wear long-sleeved shirts most of the time at work to cover up the tattoos. Also, it might depend on how connected the tattoo(s) is/are to one's field. Here's two discussions about field related tattoos: Hope this helps!

Definitely take your advisor up on it. If they really are a big shot, it's likely that a bunch of people will stop to say hi and you'll be able to meet them. You might also get tips on navigating the conference you otherwise wouldn't get. I wouldn't even hesitate but would totally jump at this offer.

I'll just add that a number of my colleagues have moved jobs even with tenure/endowed chairships for a variety of reasons, some personal (two body problem, ailing children, health issues which require being closer to a big city and its specialists) and some professional (toxic department, lack of support from college admin, conditions of work being changed repeatedly with little notice). But, I also doubt most of them would tell any of those reasons to a graduate student. So while you may desperately want to know why, I completely understand why a professor wouldn't divulge those reasons to a student. At the end of the day, you go with your gut when it comes to choosing a grad program.

There are also threads about having a dog in grad school, FYI. To answer your question, none of us can tell you how likely this is because it varies so much from one place to another in the US. There are also lots of places which will accept one cat but not two, which is something to keep in mind. One thing you might consider is looking for a roommate who already has a cat so you can have the advantages of having one around until you get a better sense of what the options are for you personally to adopt one.

The lease terms one is interesting and I think depends a lot on the rental market where you live. I've lived in the same place for almost 2.5 years and only ever signed an initial lease for 12 months. One could argue that I'm technically violating that lease because I have two dogs, rather than the one dog listed on the lease, but that lease also expired last year. We never made a formal agreement about month-to-month but I just keep paying the same amount I used to pay and it's been fine on both ends. I don't know that I'll get much of my security deposit back but I didn't pay a pet deposit at this place either and there's definitely some stuff in need of repair/replacement at this point. It's worth noting that i don't live in a college town and there's a fairly weak rental market here so that is probably why I'm able to do a month-to-month lease with no change in terms. As for pet rent or deposits, almost every place I ever lived before this required either or both pet rent or a pet deposit. The most expensive pet deposit I remember paying was $300, which was whether you had a cat, a dog, or one of each. Another place I lived had a $250 pet deposit. I've never lived in a place with pet rent (I've looked at them but they never worked out for whatever reason) but I've seen rates of $10-50/month depending on the landlord, location, type of pet, and number of pets. I would agree that you may not want to get a pet if you know you're making a big move soon. Traveling with pets, even ones who travel well, makes everything more stressful (also usually more expensive). There will be plenty of animals in need of a good home once you get to the USA so if you do want to have one, you'll be able to find one.

Have you considered using MS Access? It's a database program where you could basically make lots of individual cards which would then be searchable. You could also do something similar in OneNote. Neither of those handles bibliography (maybe just keep the bibliography info in Mendeley, which isn't hard to do if you download it directly from WorldCat, your library catalog, or the journal's site) and use either OneNote or Access for your more detailed information? Those are the first ideas which came to mind when I read your question (and before I read everything @Sigaba wrote, which mostly confused me about what the original question and post were about). If it's more of what @Sigaba was getting at that you're interested in, then that's a quite different conversation but one which exists in both discipline-specific forums and over in the "Coursework, Advising, and Exams" subforum of "Officially Grads". I recommend searching through those if you're looking for specific tips on how to prepare for qualifying exams. Also, FWIW, I like the idea of keeping track of what someone is responding to or working within the context of because it gives you another way to search for and sort all of your notes at exam time. It might also make it easier to see where a particular person's line of research hasn't been followed up on, which leads to questions about why, which could show an entire dead end in the field or an area ripe for future research depending on what it is. Which is to say that if you like your system and it seems like it can work from convos with your professors and more senior grad students, stick with it. What is useful and productive for you is not going to be the same as it is for other people. Knowing yourself and how you work best is a key part of being able to successfully complete the PhD.

@AP, oh no! I'm so sorry to hear about this! It's unfortunate that your belongings were stolen but I'm glad that it wasn't a huge setback to your research overall. It also sucks that your credit card didn't cover anything. I'm sorry you weren't able to find any insurance to cover what you thought might happen because that's really weird. It might be helpful, if you ever have the time, to provide a brief list of what you looked into so that others know what some of the useless options out there are. I definitely agree with you that people underestimate the importance of backing up their research. There's a reason I know have that automated, mostly because I know I'd forget to actually do it otherwise.

None of us can answer this for you because we don't work for the rental agency. You'll need to ask them what they'll accept.

Kicking the 19th century person off your committee isn't the same as giving up studying the 19th century. You can still study something tangentially, whether now or in your future career, that isn't the main focus of your work now. If you really want to be prepared to teach and write about the 19th century, you could keep that person on through your exams, then drop them for the dissertation. That would enable you to include the 19th century as one of your minor fields when framing your research and teaching abilities in job applications. Grad school can be quite depressing at times. You just have to keep going until you get through it.

There may be some schools that would admit you in the late spring but it would be very difficult to get funding at that point. Is there any way you could use the GRE scores you used when you applied to your MA program? Alternately, have you checked to see when the next available date for the GRE is? It's possible that you could take it in time that you could apply to programs with deadlines of January 15... P.S. You may find the advice on this similar recent thread helpful:

This is impossible to answer without more information. Why not just ask your professor what they meant?

Short answer: Yes, something like what you've written is fine. Even if you don't have access to journals, you should be able to find the abstracts for free and read those to get a sense of both the topics and methods faculty are using in their research

Did you do a MA thesis? If so, you may be able to ask one of your thesis committee members since they'll be familiar with your research interests and abilities. Alternately, did you ever work as a TA or RA? If so, you may want to get a letter from that person. When choosing who to ask, think about what they can contribute to your application and what they can add that wouldn't otherwise be in your application file. In that sense, what can the professors from your BA offer if they aren't familiar with your current research interests or your graduate work as a MA student?

Honestly, I would spend more time shadowing and talking to PAs and PTs to get a better sense of what your education and future career will look like in either of those roles. Many PA schools require 80+ hours of volunteering or shadowing to be considered so you'll need to do more of that anyway. Hopefully, in the process you'll get a clearer sense of whether you'd be happy being a physician assistant or if you really want the MD/DO. Med school is a huge commitment in terms of time and money (and that's not even counting the application process). I have several friends who actually dropped out of med school to go to PA school because it takes significantly less time, costs less money, and allows you to do many of the same things at work. YMMV obviously.

I wouldn't rely too much on the course catalog, particularly at the graduate level. A lot of courses will have vague titles or descriptions plus it gives you no sense of whether the course is actually offered, particularly at state universities where course numbers may be shared across multiple institutions. Also, having now seen this a lot, it's much easier to keep a course on the books even though there's no one in the department to teach it than it is to add a new course later. Consequently the catalog may have courses in it which haven't been offered in several years.

If I had to guess, OP, the reason you didn't get much help is because your post is so vague. Lots of geography departments are strong in geospatial technology (Ohio State, University of Buffalo, University of Washington, UBC, University of Wisconsin, University of Minnesota, University of Colorado-Boulder, University of Georgia, Arizona State, and many more) but it will depend in part on which technologies you want to work more with (ArcGIS, ERDAS Imagine, etc.) and finding professors doing innovative research in those areas. Also, are you more interested in furthering the technology itself or in applications for the technology? Most geography PhD programs will offer full funding to everyone they admit, though it'll vary by department whether that funding comes from a teaching or research assistantship. My advice to you would be to narrow down the kind of work you want to do with geospatial technology and what kind of career you see yourself having. Once you have that in mind, it might be easier to identify programs which will be a good fit for you.

No one can tell you this except perhaps the third party who sent it or FedEx. You could call the Office of Admissions and ask about whether they've received it. It could be that they're able to track it down via their internal mail system.

Double-posted. To reply, see here: