rising_star

People suggest that it's not. See here: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/68593-do-i-need-a-pub-to-get-into-a-social-psych-phd-program/

Choosing who writes your letters of recommendation is really not that big of a decision. You want the people who will write you the strongest letters and, collectively, you want the three letters to speak to both your research skills and academic ability/potential.

I think you're worrying far too much about who writes the letter and not enough about the content of the letter. You want to build a relationship with whichever one of these people and get a strong letter from them. A mediocre letter from someone won't help you, regardless of whether they graduated from a school you're applying to. You're seriously overthinking this and trying to game the system when you should be focusing on whose research you want to work on, excelling at that, building a strong connection, and thereby getting a great recommendation letter.

UGA? University of Arizona? UCLA? UPenn? UC Boulder? I guess it depends on whether you want someone that definitely does human-animal stuff or someone that does environmental anthropology or political ecology more broadly.

Like TakeruK, I never strategized while answering that question and just answered honestly. When I applied to MA programs, I honestly didn't think anything of the question. When I applied to PhD programs, I knew that everyone would know where else I was applying based solely on my interests, so I had no qualms about stating where I was applying on my applications. I wanted to work in a very specific subfield of my discipline and there were maybe 10-12 programs in the country that could support my interests so it didn't take much of a genius on the adcom to guess where else I'd apply so, I decided to be forthright about it. Sidebar: If anyone ever gets around to writing a FAQ on applications that we can tag, this question totally belongs there. My bet is it'll come up at least 20 more times this application cycle.

Try to get LORs from the labs you're doing research in. Those people will be able to attest to more than just your work ethic because they'll be able to say things about your ability to conduct psychological research, which is something you want in your application file.

I'm not sure about Latino/a literature, but a friend of mine studied ethnic and immigrant literature at Wisconsin-Madison, so you might want to look at the department there. You might also want to look at University of Arizona and UC-Boulder.

If you're going to submit a co-authored piece as your writing sample, it would be best to clearly indicate which sections are your work. If that's not possible, then including a paragraph about what you worked on/contributed to the piece is essential. If at all possible, you should try to have two academic letters, rather than just one. You want people who can speak to your potential to excel as a doctoral student (coursework, comps, teaching, dissertation), not just your research skills. Given your research interests, you might also want to look at anthropology programs...

Which is the better option career-wise depends, at least in part, on what you want to do after you finish the PhD. Do you want to go into industry? Become a professor? Honestly, I'd go where I'm excited about the research and have a good mentor. If you read posts in "Officially Grads," you'll see how much people struggle when either of those things is missing. P.S. Tampa is actually a really fun city with a lot to do. It's not the same as Boston but it does have a cultural scene, hipster scene, craft beer scene, etc.

Don't dwell on it in your head or in your SOP. Actually, just get one of your recommenders to say that you started off unfocused but, once you found your passion (physics), you excelled.

Don't get a letter from a graduate student.

Honestly, where you teach isn't going to matter as much as what you've taught, your syllabi, and your evaluations (both from peers and from students). If you want the money and have the time, take the teaching job now and then do the community college thing later.

You need to talk to a lawyer (or law student). Is there a legal clinic at your institution where you could go for advice?

For a master's, a transfer probably isn't worth it. I mean, you're already enrolled in a grad program, right? If so, any transfer would mean adding a year to your graduation because it's unlikely you could transfer more than ~9 credit hours (3 graduate courses, or what you typically take in one semester). If it's a two year program, you're better off just staying where you are.

I've been through them several times. They don't care about a driver's license, even for US citizens. They have one standard question: "Are you a US citizen?" which you are supposed to answer (though there's a lively debate about whether you actually have to answer). I've also gone through them with non-US citizens in the car. One of those (a UK citizen) was a straight white man, said nothing (that is, he did not respond to the question), and received no additional questions. Another passenger in the car was a citizen of an Asian country. When asked the question, he answered truthfully. He was then asked to produce his passport, visa, and other documentation proving he was in the country legally. He retrieved them from the trunk and, after about a 30 minute delay, we were free to continue our roadtrip. YMMV obviously but that's one of many experiences I've had with the CBP checkpoints. To clarify, when driving through those, you roll down your window and they ask you if you're a US citizen. They don't ask for license, registration, or proof of insurance, which are what most people associate with checkpoints (of course, those are people thinking of highway patrol, sheriff, and police checkpoints). So, I'm not sure what would happen if you tried to show them your driver's license because, essentially, you'd be trying to prove your US citizenship with a driver's license...

Not just in southern Arizona, btw. If you're on, let's say, I-10 driving from CA to Texas, there are numerous permanent CBP (US Customs and Border Patrol) stops/checkpoints where you are asked if you are a US citizen. If you aren't they customarily ask you to produce documentation proving that you are in the country lawfully. This also happens on I-8, which runs between San Diego and Phoenix. See here for more (sorry to use Wikipedia but it lays out the situation pretty well). That said, if you're at one of those, you could decide not to answer (http://www.fronterasdesk.org/content/what-happens-if-you-dont-cooperate-inland-check-points) though I'm not sure if that applies to non-US citizens.

I wouldn't take on more in my first semester, though I might (and actually did) in subsequent semesters.

I wouldn't say that people go to grad school to get romantically involved with faculty but, it definitely happens. I know a number of faculty who are involved or married to (former) grad students in the same department.

A response addressing 10 Steps to PhD Success is also quite interesting. I disagree with this author's assertion that it's okay to do an unfunded PhD because you can find sufficient support

Whether or not you have a chance depends on several things: Finding a good research fit. It's great that you want to stay in a particular region but, that's going to severely limit your options. You'll need to go through the faculty at every graduate degree-granting institution in your target region to see if any of them even study the stuff you want to study. You're going to need at least one person who does something very close to your interests and, ideally, another person who is knowledgeable in your region of interest (it likely won't be someone who studies the exact same country but you need some familiar with the region).Corollary: If you're studying a less common country, will you be able to continue your language training in grad school? If you're going to need to, you might want to look at which schools have Title XI funding and/or FLAS centers where you could get money to support language study. Also, when studying a less common country, library resources/holdings can become even more important. This is also something you need to look into. Given all of this, it could turn out that Rutgers or another "top" school actually isn't a good fit for you. If it's not, it may very well be a waste of your time and money to apply. There are competitive candidates who get rejected for no other reason than poor research fit. Don't put yourself into that position.Can you write a senior thesis? That would give you more research experience plus a good writing sample to submit with your applications. If not, think about other ways you might gain experience. Are you currently using NVivo or another QDA software package? If not, try to gain experience with one of those. Have you had a chance to present at a conference? Do so if you can. GRE scores. You'll need good verbal and writing scores to be competitive.Letters of recommendation. Who are you planning to get these from and how strong will they be? If your advisor isn't being helpful, then you probably don't want a letter from them. The quality and strength of your references matters!NSF GRFP. If you're applying to grad school, then you should at least think about applying for the NSF, as well as any other fellowships you might be eligible for (Ford Predoctoral Fellowship for example). Funding is important for grad school. You didn't say anything about wanting funding but that's probably something you should be looking at when you're considering potential programs to attend. This is just to get you started. There's more obviously, but this will get the ball rolling for you. The question of MA vs PhD is one I didn't address because there aren't many terminal MA programs in cultural anthropology and even fewer that offer full funding to MA students. If that's not an issue, then by all means apply to both MA and PhD programs. But most cultural anthro programs allow you to earn the MA en route to the PhD.

It depends on what the foot/end notes are about! I usually glance at them early on when reading an article to see what they cover. If I'm reading an historical book and the endnotes are all about where to find stuff in the archives, then I ignore them. But, if I'm reading a sociological/anthropological text and the endnotes cover theoretical or methodological stuff, then I'm more apt to read them. I have no standard way of treating them but I do at least glance at the them to see if they are relevant to my interests or will further my understanding of the text.

Are you geographically restricted in where you can work? I ask because there are tons of jobs on the TAMU wildlife jobs board... Here's a link to it: http://wfscjobs.tamu.edu/job-board/ There are a lot of full-time jobs, but also seasonal and temporary ones if you're able. Doing something like that would definitely help you gain experience.

Times Higher Education has an interesting post about 10 steps to PhD failure. Several of these are things you hear and see around here often (like not doing an unfunded PhD, not staying at the same school for all your degrees, and not expecting others to understand) but a few others are pieces of advice that probably aren't shared enough. I can't say that I agree with all of their advice but, it's food for thought. What do others think?

I'll answer your questions in order: 1) Yes, it is feasible. You probably don't need an entirely new bachelor's degree. BUT, have you looked into employment with the state environmental agency? That would be a good way to gain experience and possibly get tuition benefits from your job that you could use to help pay for the science courses you need. 2) It's hard to say what you'd need to do next without knowing exactly what science courses you took and what the expected prerequisites are for the program at NC State. You'd need to look at their entrance requirements to see what you'd need to take. If those aren't explicit, look up the first year courses and see what, if any, science prereqs they have listed in the course catalog (or academic bulletin or whatever they call it there). It's way too early for you to be contacting faculty members, especially since you might not even have what you need to be admitted. If you don't know what area you want to specialize in, then yes, you should probably seek out volunteer experiences, internships, or temporary employment. The Wildlife and Fisheries Job Board hosted by Texas A&M has lots of great opportunities you might want to look into. Another idea would be to look at the AZA (for zoos) website or the SCB (Society for Conservation Biology) website and their employment listings. You could then take background courses you need part-time while you're working in the field and gaining experience. Having additional work and research experience will help compensate for your GPA when you actually apply to MS programs. 3)Your best bet is probably going to be 2 academic and 1 employment (internship/job/volunteer experience) letter. For the academic letters, you can try emailing profs from UC Davis to see if they remember you OR you can use those science courses you're going to take before applying as an opportunity to get to know professors and then get a good letter from them. 4) The director is referring to faculty having external grant funding from agencies like the EPA, DoD, or NSF which they can use to pay graduate students to do research for them. It will be very difficult for you to find scholarships or fellowships for a master's program, though it never hurts to look and see what's out there. Even if you do secure your own funding, it doesn't mean that you'll be automatically admitted. I hope this helps!

That's generally fine to do. Just make sure you aren't misrepresenting your interests in your emails to them.