rising_star

Try to take some anthropology courses during your master's. That will help you narrow down the list of programs you want to apply to and give you the vocabulary needed to articulate your anthro/cultural studies interests in your SOP. If possible, do your MA thesis on a topic that shows off those same interests. That will give you a strong writing sample for your applications.

One reason to change your registration is that PA has vehicle inspections and most places in Florida do not... Insurance can be higher, which is worth considering but probably shouldn't be the deciding factor. Yes, registering a car in FL can be expensive but, in my experience, not any more expensive than doing it in another state. And the vanity plate options are great, though for many the extra annual charge actually goes to a cause/organization (university, NGO, etc.) so it isn't necessarily another way for the state to make money. P.S. Get renter's insurance. Be careful about where you live to avoid flooding. And, if flooding is even a remote risk, get that add-on for renter's insurance.

If it's an appointed advisor and not someone you plan to actually work with closely in the future, I'd say take the class outside of your department. But, get your advisor's approval first.

Garyon, I recommend talking to more senior grad students to get a sense of when TA opportunities are made available and how to show that you're interested in them. Some of this varies from one department to the next so those in your department are the best suited to give you advice in this regard.

Do you really need a MPH now for your career goals or is it something you could do part-time while in med school? I guess I'm just wondering how much of a difference having the MPH before med school will ultimately make since it sounds like you'll have to take out loans to do the degree.

At some point, you're going to have a long flight over the Atlantic. The flight from London to Miami is pretty long too, though not 13 hours. I would go for the most direct route you can afford, which is the option where you stop in JFK.

Mark Anderson's research on the Garifuna comes to mind, as does Keri Vacanti Brondo at University of Memphis. But those are both for Honduras. Kelvin Yelvington at University of South Florida.* Laura Lewis at James Madison(?) wrote a cool book on Afro-descendants in Mexico. Peter Wade at U Manchester (in the UK). Florida International University also has a few faculty working this area. You may need to narrow down where in the Americas you want to do your research to help you identify potential programs. There are programs that are strong on Brazil but weaker elsewhere in the Americas, for example, which is something you should consider. *This is old but could be helpful for identifying scholars: http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic454352.files/Yelvington%20An%20Rev%202001.pdf

Are you counting summer in your 3 courses a semester? If so, that strikes me as unrealistic. Few grad courses are offered in the summer at most institutions. A thesis doesn't have to take a year. How long it takes partially depends on the project, how much prep work for it you've done in your coursework, the research methods (qual vs quant; primary vs secondary), and your own speed as a writer. The data collection for my MA thesis took over 4 months, for example, but for others that might only be 2 months.

Cite While You Write is an EndNote feature (can also do this with Zotero) that lets you insert citations into your paper directly from EndNote and have them properly formatted. I used it eons ago when I still used EndNote but stopped after a glitch. Basically, I deleted a sentence. Somehow, all my other references got bumped up one place, which then meant nothing was properly attributed. I had to go back in and fix it all manually (in a like 20 page paper). It was so irritating that I haven't used Cite While You Write since then. Zotero, btw, might be another option for you. It's a different program that works similarly to EndNote and Mendeley. If your school subscribes, Proquest FLOW (previously known as RefWorks) could also be a good option for you.

I don't think this is as evil as you're making it out to be. Flying a first year to another country to give a conference presentation is probably something a lot of advisors would hesitate about. (Also, your advisor's explanation is a very valid one. I'm not sure why you describe it as flimsy.) You are still getting credit for the work if you're the first author on the presentation.* In fact, it's likely they'll tell people to email you if they have further questions about the paper's content, methods, findings, etc. So no, I wouldn't challenge them. If you want to make sure people associate your name with this work, then get it published ASAP. * This would be a very different reply if you were not listed as first author on these presentations.

Oh man, this is super interesting and about ethnographic research in sociology: http://chronicle.com/article/Conflict-Over-Sociologists/230883/ The comments section is particularly... interesting. As someone that has done ethnographic work, I totally understand destroying one's fieldnotes. I also understand being reluctant to share them. Still, this is an interesting case because it isn't threatening to destroy Goffman's career (at least not right now) but is raising questions about qualitative researchers do their work.

If you don't love research, then getting a PhD isn't a good idea. That doesn't mean that it's too much for you. It just means that your interests lie elsewhere.

It sounds like maybe you're more interested in public policy or public administration... That could be a route for you to pursue, as you could then have a more direct impact on people's lives and the policies that affect them.

Here's the thing, Lotar. You're the junior person. You don't get to nitpick about what your supervisor does when she starts her day or during her day. That is NOT your place. Not at all. The sooner you stop doing that, the better off you'll be. I mean that completely seriously. You are not her equal. You may be one day, once you have a PhD, a lab, and the funding to support graduate students but, right now, you're years away from that. Years. You need to remember that. To me, what happened is that your supervisor decided to let you know her concerns. She's giving you 3 months to right the ship, so to speak. There's nothing childish about that. If she wanted you gone, she could've just fired you right away. She didn't. So stop trying to make her out to be the bad guy in this and start figuring out what you need to do to make this supervisory relationship work.

Okay, you need to stop trying to rationalize about your lateness. It doesn't matter what time your supervisor comes in or that she is always the first one to leave. (For all you know, she puts in 2-3 hours of work at home in the evening, just like you say you do. Not that it matters whether this is the case, btw.) She has the PhD and the lab and the credentials that you are working hard to obtain right now. You should be adhering to a more typical lab schedule, which in my experience means coming in by 9 or 9:30am and leaving when the work is done, though ideally around 6pm. 9am-6pm with a lunch break is a standard 8 hour work schedule. I agree with fuzzy about your language, you trying to explain away each thing, and your failure to recognize that this is a pattern. Think of it this way. If you were teaching a class and a student was sometimes late but sometimes wasn't, what would you think? You'd likely conclude the student has a problem getting up in the morning and you probably wouldn't count on that student to start class. (I'm speaking entirely from my experience teaching students who claim 9:30am is early and are late more than a couple times a semester. Yes, to me, it's a pattern. And it irritates me and means that they miss part of class, which then means I have to repeat stuff just for them, which is irritating to me.) I can understand why your supervisor is irritated with your performance based on what you describe. It is not childish to expect students to be on time, to work productively, and to set up reminder lists so they don't forget important things like conference discounts. To me, you need to change your behavior. Show your dedication to the work you say you love by getting to the lab before her and leaving after her. If you are too ill to come in, let her know that as soon as you know it (but also don't expect any special accommodations for being sick). It is not childish to expect students to be on time or to tell you if they cannot come in as you expect them to do.* I think it would behoove you to start thinking of and treating this like a job. Your supervisor is your boss and your boss needs to be pleased with your performance. Right now, she isn't and has provided you with some concrete reasons why. What are you going to do to modify your behavior so that she is no longer displeased? *Quick aside. If a student ever said to me that it was childish to expect them to be on time or let me know when they can't come to class, I would laugh out loud. You know why? Because only someone that is acting like a child would ever say that to their supervisor/professor/boss. There are expectations and you either meet them or you don't. It really is that simple.

This is a duplicate post. To reply, go here:

If there aren't any TA/RA positions, that means that it's going to be difficult to secure funding to do your dissertation research, to find a postdoc, and to obtain a faculty position. There aren't that many marine mammal experts or openings. That's why I (and a few others) have suggested that you consider potentially broadening your focus and interests. If the PIs don't have funding, then that isn't a good sign for the future of funding in your field. Labs without funding is a bad sign. And, given Congressional budget cuts, it's hard to say whether there will be more federal funding for research and university labs in the future. Again, it's something you should take serious note of as you think about your future career. P.S. I would double-check and make sure that none of those PIs actually accepted anyone new into their lab. I have heard (on here) of PIs using funding as an excuse to take 1-2 students but not others. Sure, you have a high GPA and research experience but probably other applicants do too. When a PI has a choice between you and someone else with similar experiences and background, what can you do to make sure they pick you and not the other person?

It looks like both of those. Your department may have TA positions available. You may find that a professor has a grant and needs a summer RA. You may find that there are GA positions in other departments. Or, you could just set aside money from each paycheck all year so that you have money available for summer.

It's noteworthy as TakeruK said because it's a sizable increase happening all at once. It's also noteworthy because unlike some funding increases at other schools, it isn't going to reduce the number of years of funding available to students. And, it's not like other top schools with decently sized endowments are making similar announcements.

Reviving this just to share some news out of Northwestern University: http://chronicle.com/article/A-University-Banks-on-PhD/230659/ So at least one university is trying to close the Ph.D. pay gap. It'll be interesting to see if any others follow, especially given how much the increase is going to cost the university.

There's a nice piece in the Chronicle about what to do in the wake of this: http://chronicle.com/article/What-Social-Science-Can-Learn/230645/ It's interesting to me that there's so much talk about replication. As someone who works more in the realm of qualitative social science, replication isn't even something that often gets talked about. It's so hard to replicate qualitative studies since it can be hard to find the exact same people they surveyed/interviewed and because people's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors change over time. That is, I could go to what was a rural area 25 years ago and try to do someone's same study but get totally different results because of things like the internet, cell phones, and suburbanization/exurbanization leaving rural areas less isolated. But the author does have a point that grad students are often told not to waste their time trying to replicate findings, especially since that isn't what gets one slick publications or a TT job...

16 credits in a semester? Yea, that seems like way too much at the graduate level. You need to figure out what can wait until later. My guess is that it's going to be the research methodology class. I say this as someone that took 3 seminars and a stats class in one semester in grad school. It sucked. I survived it but, it also really, really sucked and I didn't get as much out of anything that semester as I could have. And for the record, I was not teaching a class then. If this is your first time teaching, you may be underestimating how much of your time teaching will take up.

I would definitely defer to the spring because there's no guarantee you'll get the GTA if you go in August. Given your lack of luck with the NSF and TA/RA positions, you really need to either find a way to beef up your application (stronger SOP/rec letters, better research experience, publications) or consider getting a degree in a related field if you want to be successful. It's clear that what you're doing now isn't enough. The question is really what you decide to do to remedy that. Because, at least in my mind, getting a MS in Environmental Science from GMU isn't going to be a terrific springboard into a fully funded PhD program studying marine mammals unless you do something outstanding while there (I'm talking landing articles in high-impact journals or scoring a major grant, which you've not been successful with thus far).

This might also help:

compscian, stop worrying about what everyone else thinks you should have done. They are not you. They don't have to live with your decision or move to School A where you already believe you'll be unhappy. Go to School B and give it a chance. Stop second guessing yourself. It's easy to do, especially in the summer when you don't have anything else to do, but you really need to just stop worrying about it. Get excited about moving to School B, figure out where you'll live, what nearby activities you can get involved in, etc.