rising_star

You need to be thinking more specifically than just "may be able to give some details about me". What kinds of details can this person provide? Will they be able to talk confidently and strongly about your ability to succeed in graduate school? I ask because that's what you're really looking for in a recommender. Based on what you've said, the letter from the head of the department will be a fairly generic one, which won't necessarily boost your application.

If we're talking about grad school, things like early action and early decision don't really exist. In most cases, all applications received by the deadline are reviewed at the same time so there's no advantage to applying early.

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In addition to fuzzy's suggestions, I would recommend googling for syllabi for courses similar to yours at other institutions to get a broader sense of how courses in your area tend to be structured and the workload assigned. I vary the amount of reading and length of assignments based on what year students are, the level of the course, and the department I'm teaching in. At my current institution, there are departments where 50-75 pages a night is the norm and others where it's 15-20 pages. You can't know the specifics for your department unless you ask.

It really sucks that you can't take a leave of absence. I don't even understand the conditions of your admission. Have those ever been put on paper anywhere? I don't know what your PI meant by that last statement you included but I would ask them directly if you really want to know what was meant. Outside of winning the lottery or finding an assistantship in another department (student affairs? the library?), I'm not sure you really have any choices here.

I only went to grad school at state universities that don't have unions (and where we were threatened with contracts being axed or not renewed when we began to lobby as a group for better treatment) so I didn't get too excited about this ruling. I do hope it helps students. That said, I also wonder about the tax ramifications of students being labeled employees because most students currently don't pay FICA or SS but as employees, even part-time ones, it seems like you may have to.

It's not perfect, of course. But students can and do google their instructors before the first day of class. If you're at a big state school, students begin to expect that their classes won't be taught by full professors because that isn't the norm at those institutions. Or, you know, they figure out really quickly if they ever come to office hours because they find that you're in a cube farm or sharing with 1-3 others, unlike the professors. Like I said, if a student wants to know your status (grad student, postdoc, TT/tenured faculty), there is ample information available, either online or contextually, to enable them to do so. Given that, why lie and say you're not a student when you are? Also, I tended to refer to everyone as instructors when dealing with undergrads at big state universities (I taught at three of them) because they're not always aware of what all the distinctions are or mean. Saying you've never taught before is probably not the way to start but explaining that you're a student, so you understand deadlines can be tricky and that sometimes you have a lot of things due all at once, can make you more human in their eyes. Is that a bad thing?

Why? Because your university probably has a website and students could very easily see that you're not listed under faculty? The students that are going to challenge your authority are the same ones who will google you to find out your background. Also, it's pretty clear to most undergrads because the faculty with PhDs at most schools, esp with first-years, introduce themselves as Dr./Prof. LastName. If you're a TA going by Ms./Mr., then it's going to be pretty obvious that you're at a different level than faculty. @klader, I don't think you've mentioned any sort of faux pas. As you have in class discussions, it's likely to be plenty clear to them that you're new to campus/the area just based on things you say. It's never good to lie to students about things like this because they can find out the truth, in which case you've lost integrity in their eyes (which then can make it harder to do things like nail them on academic integrity violations). You are probably overthinking this, which is understandable when it's your first time in the classroom. My strategy when it comes to how much personal info I let into the classroom is to decide in advance what I am and am not comfortable with them knowing. So, I talk about my dog a lot and walking around town with her. I don't talk about my relationship status, sexuality, gender identity, etc. Last semester, I showed my undergrad transcript to help them get over the idea that without a 3.8+ GPA, you can't get into grad school. I tell a bunch of anecdotes (e.g., when teaching them how to read a journal article efficiently, I talk about people who read the end of a novel first) and pretty much always use "my sister" or "my brother" as the person who does that kind of thing. They don't need to know that she stopped reading the end of the novel first in high school, you know? As a result of controlling what personal info I release, I've found that I don't get a lot of questions about my personal life from students, which is my goal with all of this. And, for the record, students questioning your status/credentials can and does happen to women (particular women of color) even after you get the PhD if you're teaching as a postdoc or VAP or adjunct. So, this is something you may have to grapple with for the next decade, just fyi.

@Paloma, that's fantastic news! Congratulations and thanks for the update!

I've been thinking about this for a while. My car is 15 years old, has ~122K miles on it, and is still going on it's original clutch. Were people learning to drive a manual transmission vehicle and driving it roughly? Do you ride the clutch (intentionally or not)? When I say riding, I mean leaving your foot on the clutch pedal even if you're not really pressing it in. I'm honestly surprised you'd need a new clutch at 50K! That said, if you really needed a new clutch, you would know. I drove a previous car until the clutch was actually shredded and it got progressively harder to get the car to actually "catch" in a gear until it became impossible, which was when the clutch was completely gone. Was your car at that point, @ScienceGiraffe?

@vitabrevis, one of my colleagues worked on Wall Street (or at a hedge fund? I can't remember right now) for years before going on to get a PhD in English. They're now a TT English prof. So, it's definitely possible!

1) Yes, you should try to repair the relationship. Can you ask Prof A what went wrong, for more information about what was expected of you as a RA that you didn't do, etc.? I suggest asking because this could help you avoid similar issues in the future. 2) It's your job to think about whether/how a recommendation from long ago can improve your application, not ours. We'd have to know way more about you, the recommender, and their knowledge of you to answer that question. So, how would you answer the question? You didn't ask about this but, who is your other recommender and what do they have to offer to your application file?

Why do you think universities would prefer a PoCo candidate from South Asia? Have any professors at universities you're considering apply to actually told you this? If not, then I wouldn't worry about it. And, perhaps more importantly for thinking long-term about your career, if you want to do Early Modern Studies then you have the opportunity to bring diversity to a department without having to study minority literature or postcolonialism, unless you want to that is. Yes, you should be as specific as you can in your SOP. You don't need to cite things but you should give the readers a sense of the kind of research you're going to do, the theorists you'll draw on, the types of texts you're interested in (poetry, drama, fiction, etc.), and the skills you have which have prepared you to undertake this research.

If someone has a PhD, then "Dr." is the most respectful title to use in my book. Don't differentiate by rank.

I deleted your entire dilemma because it's not actually a dilemma (or at least I'm not treating it as such for the purposes of replying). Some additional information would be helpful. How many sections is each TA responsible for? Is it common for TAs to be scheduled to teach multiple sections back to back? Now, for a more realistic answer. If I were the Prof in charge, this is what I would be considering: 1) How to minimize the number of back to back sessions people teach because it necessarily means that students have less time to ask questions before or after class than they might have otherwise. (If you haven't taught back to back [I've done it the past four semesters], you may be underestimating the amount of time it takes to get set up, answer questions students have, and have some of that informal conversation with students which helps on end of course evals. 2) Which other TAs have pressing needs/requirements that must be met. Is there someone who can't do certain sections because it conflicts with a required course? Is there someone who has specific needs due to an ailment or childcare needs? 3) Is there a way to meet the above while still covering all of the sections, even if people don't get what they want? To be quite honest, if a student came to me and said they couldn't do certain TA sections because of their cat or their 15 minute commute, I would chuckle and probably roll my eyes. If you're really that concerned about your cat, hire someone to come over and play with your cat on that day. In my mind, this isn't unreasonable because I have a dog walker come on my two long teaching days for my dog. If money is the issue, then you can probably find a petless grad student who wouldn't mind the chance to hang with a cat. Or, you know, it's 15 minutes each way, so even if you only have an hour, you could spend half an hour with your cat. Great idea! Please do!!

There's some good advice and info in old posts about the FLAS in "The Bank":

You should not go for a PhD unless there's a job you want to do that requires a PhD. In what ways do you want to help community college students? Do you want to teach classes like "Introduction to College" or "College Success"? If so, then you may want to pursue a counseling degree. That would also give you the option of student affairs type positions, such as academic advising, career counseling, etc. If you like the field of sociology, want to teach classes like "Introduction to Sociology", and want to have more of a faculty role, then you should pursue the master's in sociology. If you're unsure about which path you want to follow, you should do some more informational interviews to learn more about the various career options.

Which professor can write you a stronger letter? That's the one you should go with.

I always vote for saving the money. I mean, what's your backup plan?

Definitely reach out. How else will you know if people are accepting students or even interested in supervising the kind of research you want to do? Do NOT mention your grades at this stage. The ideal thing with grades is to have a recommender bring up any issues, but there have to be real reasons (e.g., pecmsyx struggled during X semester while caring for a dying parent/dealing with a serious medical issue) and not something about struggling with the material in a difficult class.

If you're thinking about cross-registration, then consider the consortia that many schools are a part of. For example, if you went to Princeton, you could potentially take classes in the education school at Rutgers or UPenn. I do think you'd be limiting yourself if you only applied to education schools, just because of the kinds of classes you'd then be asked to teach as a faculty member.

FWIW, I'm not sure the traditional kisses of death apply when it comes to the MSW since it's not a research degree AND it's a field that has a clear social justice orientation. Within that context, I think that acknowledging your own privilege by showing awareness of it and how it will affect the work you want to do as a social worker could be to your advantage. This of course assumes that you do so well and are tactful in your approach.

@Unique Talents, please do not make identical posts in multiple subforums. Your other posts have been deleted.

If you think the application process is too tedious and boring, you may not be cut out for pursuing a PhD, to be blunt.

I never said anything about the OP getting an incomplete or plagiarizing. I presented those as examples of reasons why a professor can change a grade after it has been submitted. If you read what I said, you'll see that I was speaking in general and never referenced the original post at all in my comment. That said, @Bumblebea, I highly doubt that you and I have worked at the same universities so I appreciate that you're presenting another perspective for the OP to consider. But, when you get down to it, is there anyone that actually doublechecks to verify why a professor changed a grade for someone? When I've submitted grade changes, no one has asked to see the graded work or my gradebook to verify why I submitted the grade change. And, without such a system for verification in place, I don't think any one of us can say that a professor couldn't submit a grade change because they changed their mind. Should they do that? Maybe, maybe not. But we can't say that it doesn't or couldn't happen. (I actually can think of an example where one of my colleagues did change a bunch of grades after the fact. But, that's because they decided to curve the course grades, resulting in higher grades for a group of students, who they then submitted grade change forms for. Does that amount to a professor changing their mind about a grade? Yep. Did anyone do anything about it? Of course not.)