rising_star

It depends on what you're hoping will be in the recommendation letter. What skills/abilities of yours do you want the supervisor to discuss? Would the supervisor at the high-profile place be able to talk to anyone about what you did while there and incorporate that into their letter?

You're either missing my point or I didn't state it clearly enough before so, let me be more explicit about this. The difference between grad and undergrad isn't just about the amount of work but also has to do with the depth of understanding and analysis required in that work. I read more as a senior in college than I did for most courses during my PhD. I also went to an elite institution for undergrad where expectations were high. Still, the work required of me at the graduate level was much more than what I'd done before. I mean, in undergrad, we would discuss theory but not anywhere near as much or as nuanced as we did in grad school. For example, in undergrad, we read parts of Foucault's Discipline and Punish to understand how its theories got employed by others. In grad school, we read the entire book over the course of two weeks (this is for one seminar), discussing not only what Foucault said and meant but also how major theorists (read earlier in the semester) have used that work and how we might use it in our own work. The level of the conversation was very different than what we had in college. When you say you've applied for funding, what do you mean? Are you talking about writing competitive grants for NSF, Fulbright, SSRC, IAF, CAORC, etc.? Have you done all of those things while also taking graduate seminars and preparing for your comprehensive exams and teaching or grading for 20-50 undergraduates? Because that's what graduate school is like. I guess what I'm saying is that it's one thing to think you know exactly what graduate work is going to be like and another to actually experience it. There are many posts on here from people who are shocked by how hard their first year is, struck by imposter syndrome, etc. At any rate, you seem starstruck by the prospect of doing a PhD so I hope it does work out for you. I also hope you have a solid, realistic plan for what you'll do if it doesn't work out (whether that's not getting admitted or having a rough time in the first few years in a PhD program).

Have you figured out what you mean by "a decent living wage" yet? There are certainly jobs you could get that involve travel and would let you earn a decent wage, such as being an au pair, a scuba diving or ski instructor, etc. Plenty of people manage to do it (a google search would tell you this) so why couldn't you? There are lots of ways to make a living, you just have to be willing to pursue them.

I wouldn't address it at all. Maybe one of your letter writers can address it by talking about how you changed majors to follow your passion. But I would leave it out of your SOP altogether.

See, I don't understand this. You are sacrificing 5-8 years you could spend doing other things you're interested in, you're potentially sacrificing a lot of money (in terms of salary but also in terms of retirement contributions), and you're potentially locking yourself into a career path you don't actually want (insofar as many PhD programs don't provide their students with preparation for anything besides a tenure-track faculty position). That you don't even understand this is a real indication to me that you need to take time away from being in school. Also, graduate school is really not like undergrad. My master's program was like my senior year of college in that the courses were intense (200-300 pages of reading per week) and I had to write a thesis. But, in college, I wasn't expected to TA classes, apply for funding, or navigate things like IRB and fieldwork with minimal guidance. If you haven't already been required to read heavily, then that will tax you. Anthropology grad seminars often require you to read an ethnography plus other sources (either journal articles about the same topic/place or theoretical work the ethnography draws on). You'll be writing a 20-25 page final paper for the course, in addition to probably writing 2-3 page weekly responses. And this is in addition to your responsibilities as a TA, the stuff you need to read for your own research, and the grants you'll need to start applying for ASAP to fund preliminary fieldwork in the summers. It's a completely different kind of school than what you do as an undergraduate, even at elite institutions. Okay, this is an actual problem. You really cannot neglect your physical and mental health AND succeed in graduate school.

You might want to look at some of the people publishing in the new journal Politics and Animals.

Why can't you just fake it in Department A? Go to the weekly seminar, do occasional social things, etc. Also, be open to the idea that the geniality and radicality of a department can change as new students come and others graduate. My own department went through a period of time where radicals and anarchists were in the majority, though at the beginning and end of my PhD that wasn't the case. You may find that the incoming cohort brings people who are more your type in Department A (and the inverse could be true about Department B). I would just keep this in mind and not write Department A off entirely. There's some reason you went there in the first place, after all.

If you don't have any teaching experience or publications, it's probably going to be hard to write a strong teaching philosophy or research statement. I recommend looking on the Chronicle's website for advice on how to write these documents. Academic cover letters are their own convention, so I'd read up on that too. Instead of including evidence of teaching excellence, I'd include a statement saying that you haven't taught yet and maybe a syllabus that you would use. You really want only academic references for this kind of thing. I'm honestly surprised that you were encouraged to apply given your lack of experience and lack of a PhD. Good luck!

It only had the lower case version entered as the right answer but, I've just updated it (I think).

What do you mean by this?

Having only two recommendation letters when you're required to submit three will basically guarantee a rejection. You have to do everything they ask for in the application!

When you say "coming from David Harvey", you mean from what he wrote in the second half of Social Justice and the City and after? Because the first half of that book is very different than the second half. If you like Lefebvre, then you should probably also check out Andy Merrifield's work, which includes a book on Lefebvre. All of the books suggested here (intro to geographic thought at the graduate level) are good, as is the Human Geography reader which was first published a few years ago. For intersections with literary theory, check out the new journal Literary Geographies.

To me, that's a major red flag. If multiple professors have recommended that you take time off, CostaRita, then there probably is something to what they're saying. As tmt503 has said, you'll be competing against people who have three overwhelmingly positive recommendations. Because of that, someone suggesting you take time off, rather than begin grad school right away, will definitely stand out to members of the adcom. If I were on the adcom and saw such a letter, I probably wouldn't consider you as an applicant unless everything else was absolutely stellar, particularly the SOP and writing sample. I would need to be able to see from what you've submitted that you are indeed ready to start grad school in a few months, so I'd expect to see evidence of research ability, background knowledge in anthropological theory and history, and intellectual and personal maturity in what you submit. Is that asking for a lot? Absolutely! I tend to put a fair bit of weight on the assessment of faculty (so the LOR portion of an application) because they provide a picture that we can't otherwise know. So, when something is suggesting that the picture is less than perfect, everything else has to convince me that the problem is in the recommender's head, rather than with the applicant. This is sort of an aside but I really don't understand why you think they see you as academically mature if the very same people are recommending you take time off to gain perspective and maturity.

1) My experience is that they won't even know who your undergrad advisor is. Think about it. Unless that person's name is on your transcript, then how would an adcom know who your undergrad advisor is. My undergrad advisor didn't write any of my letters but that's because they were never someone I really talked to but more of someone who signed the things I needed signed. At the large public university where I did my PhD, there are professional academic advisors who do the bulk of the advising. Since these people rarely have PhDs, I doubt many seniors ask them for recommendation letters to graduate school. 2) Get advice from whomever you can get advice from! I wouldn't worry about what people think. If they ask, say you're trying to solicit a variety of opinions and get multiple perspectives as you decide what you want to do. 3) Yes and no. The relationship is much different at the graduate level since that person has to sign off on your research, not just help you register for classes. That said, what makes someone a poor advisor in your eyes may not make them a poor advisor in someone else's. To avoid getting someone you consider to be a poor advisor, you first need to figure out what you want out of an advising relationship. Do you want someone that you can call up to meet for a beer? Someone who returns drafts in a week with line edits? Someone that requires weekly reports on everything you've done? Once you've figured out what you want, you can talk to potential advisors about their advising style. You'll also want to talk to their graduate students to see if what's being said about the person's advising style is the same. Even then, you could still end up with a less than desirable situation since things (and people) change.

I would say food allergies, rather than autoimmune, if you're asked. I have some weird food allergies but always clearly communicate them whenever people ask. People may think they're weird but, no one wants you getting sick on a visit! If you're willing to bring your own food, then tell them that too. Good luck!

PhDApplicant, if you're shy about asking for 6 letters now, then you're going to have serious trouble applying for competitive fellowships or academic jobs after graduation.

I use the generic of Advil Cold and Sinus, with a preference for the one containing pseudoephredrine. It requires going to the pharmacy counter but, at least for me, it's worth it.

What do you mean? In the US, your dissertation ultimately must be approved by a committee of 3-5 faculty, not just your advisor (the person you likely see as your primary POI right now). I contacted multiple faculty at several institutions for a variety of reasons. Let's say that my focus was hairless cats in Northern Africa. There were faculty who studied cats, some who studied hairless cats, and some who worked in Northern Africa but, there were few who also studied hairless cats in Northern Africa. Thus, contacting the other faculty wouldn't have made me seem unfocused. Rather, it made it clear that I knew that there was no expert in hairless cats in Northern Africa but also that I knew the department could help me get there if I wanted to. No one seemed offended by this, especially at the PhD level. A similar thing could be to approach someone that's using the same methodological or theoretical tools that you want to use, even if they're using them to study something different than what you want to do. Does that make sense, y00nsk?

It's hard to say. The professor could be on leave due to medical reasons, disciplinary reasons, or a sabbatical. In any case, it's safe to assume that she may not be checking her work email regularly. I would recommend phoning the department office to see if they have any insight on whether she's reachable and, if so, how you might go about getting in contact with her. Good luck!

I also recommend doing this in person. Have you checked the university's calendar to see if there are certain dates when the entire institution is closed? I ask because many schools in the USA are completely shutdown for the week between Christmas and New Year's, for example.

What aspects of spatial theory are you interested in? I generally recommend people read Doreen Massey's For Space and the reader on Foucault, space, and power, as initial forays into spatial theory. If you look at the reading lists for geographic theory courses at the graduate level, you'll find some good recommendations for texts on spatial theory.

How can one homework assignment due at the midpoint in the semester be the determining factor in your grade in the course? Is this assignment worth >50% of your final grade? Take a look at your syllabus because you might be putting more weight on this homework assignment than it deserves. Also, you seriously need to talk to the professor of the course. You may be able to redo part of the homework or previous work in order to boost your grade. No one wants grad students to drop out in their first semester, especially not mid-semester over something like a problem set. That you are willing to act so rashly just reiterates why you need to talk a professional psychologist or therapist ASAP and before you do something like drop out of your program.

If you really want to do something with animals, then why are you looking at PhD programs in anthropology? I don't really see the connection. Loving school and loving a discipline aren't really good reasons to pursue a PhD! If you love anthropology, you could read anthropology books and open access journal articles on your own, discussing them on academic email lists in your field. Or, you could do a master's if you really just want to be in a classroom. But, I'm not really sure how your vision of working with animals and doing a PhD in human-animal relations fit together.

Wait, is this your first semester? Definitely do not drop out yet. You need to find a therapist to talk to if receiving a homework grade is causing a nervous breakdown. I mean that in 100% seriousness. Call the student health center and make an appointment to talk to someone ASAP. Next, talk to the professor about your homework and find out what specifically they think you need to improve upon in order to succeed in the class. And finally, keep in mind that grades are semi-meaningless in grad school, especially at the PhD level. Good luck! Keep us posted on how things are going.

I don't think that's the claim telkanuru is making though. You'll never know enough about a program to be able to predict if you'll be happiest there. That's true even once you're there (see, for example, the numerous threads in "Officially Grads" of people seeking to transfer or switch to another PhD program). You will never have perfect information about all of the above, even if you apply, are accepted, get funding to visit, and spend 2-3 days there conversing with graduate students and faculty. Like, you really can't know all of those things, even once you're done. I often wondered what my path through the PhD would've looked like if I'd gone to two other schools I strongly considered and, again, there's no way of knowing. I might've gotten better mentorship or published more, but I also might not have gotten as many grants or fellowships. If you're applying to 15 or 20 schools just to hedge your bets on where you might be happy or where you might find the best mentors, then that doesn't really make sense. People (faculty) move from one institution to another and many people think that will happen more as state universities face additional budget constraints in the coming years (that is, people are predicting that senior faculty will move from public to private universities in the US and there's evidence that this is already happening). You will change and what is the perfect fit now may not be once that happens. For example, my MA program was a perfect fit for me. I mean, perfect. In a grad seminar there, I had my eyes opened to a subfield I wasn't really aware existed and decided to make that my specialty going forward, which meant that the MA program was no longer perfect for me. Luckily for me, this happened as I was doing PhD applications, so it made leaving for another institution a great idea. Had you asked me before then, I would've told you that staying there for my PhD made the most sense. For the record, I'm more like telkanuru than most of you in terms of total schools applied to. If you count MA and PhD applications, then I did 14. After applying to, getting accepted at, and visiting some of those programs on the school's dime, I decided that several weren't for me (1 at the MA level, 3 at the PhD level). I honestly wish I'd saved the ~$250 (apps used to be cheaper) that I spent on those applications and had the weekends back I spent visiting those schools. They were a good fit on paper only. Oh, and definitely get multiple eyes on your writing sample. It's good practice to have people outside your niche read your work since they will see things those within your subfield may not (e.g., you may not explain something because everyone in your subfield knows it but, those outside of it, may be confused when they read the exact same passage). Good luck!