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FWIW it's not impossible to move into a new field for your PhD. I am starting an academic PhD after doing a vocational undergrad. I think my saving grace was having a few big conferences under my belt, which showed that even though I lacked the coursework of most other applicants, I had the requisite skills and research abilities in my new area of study. Some schools are more into interdisciplinary work than others. Usually looking over a departmental course syllabus will give you a strong indication of whether that's the case or not. Good luck, sounds like a fascinating area!

If you still have a year left of your MA, I would suggest attending some conferences in your specialist area during that time. It's a great way to practice interacting with other academics, without them having any preconceptions about what kind of person you are. Also a fantastic learning opportunity. I too was in the situation of taking a big change of direction for my PhD - in fact I've so much as never taken a class in my PhD subject. My approach was to put in a bunch of papers (written without guidance) for conferences, and when a good number got accepted I suddenly had a lot of support from my undergrad institution including funding and mentorship, which was incredibly fruitful. At the conferences I was able to meet other students in my own area, and make contact with professors too. It gave me a nice sense of the community, especially when faces popped up at multiple conferences. It was also a great boost for my CV going into application season, not just because of the conference listings, but because I could write knowledgeably in my SoP about current developments in my area. As for the friendship issue, have you tried looking into school (or external) clubs - sports, music, art, yoga, hiking...? Sometimes it's nice to make a divide between work colleagues and friends who you know for other reasons. Organised activities can be easier, since there is a limit to the amount of social interaction, but enough opportunity to meet new people if you are willing to take it and make the effort. My school offers study groups, for example - great if you don't want to be too far out of your comfort zone. It's great that you identified these problems before starting your PhD applications. Hopefully you can work on them this year and have a nice fresh start ahead of you

i.am.me makes a good point about how your race/age/gender may make a difference as to how you choose to dress. Personally, as a very-young-looking 24 year old female in a PhD program, I will be making sure to be well turned out, even if I'm wearing casual clothes. During my undergraduate degree I would rarely wear any make up at all and not bother doing my hair. I carried cheap/free tote bags and would wear tank tops and shorts, or scruffy jumpers and oversized jeans. I guess I feel like there are minimal standards of personal presentation that apply in grad school, since it's effectively a job. If they're paying me to be there, I will happily get up 5 minutes earlier to put on a little make-up. It also helps me to be in a better mindset for studying if I present myself like I'm going to work.

I am from the UK where we use a similar system to SA (for us, an A is 70%). I simply submitted in the original format and included our grade descriptors alongside my transcript. References will make it clear where you stand relative to other students too.

It's in no way contradictory. I personally don't look up page numbers that I've come across in other peoples' citations. But I understand that it's important to give due credit in a way which is considered within the bounds of normality in academia, ie the exact page number in some contexts. Would I personally care if people referenced both ebooks and hard copy books with different line/page numbering systems? Nope. Would other people, who, as an early-career researcher I don't want to piss off? Yep.

It's called "freshers' flu" in the UK, it's just expected that new students get sick when they're suddenly exposed to people from all over the world who might be carrying illnesses they've never been in contact with. Along with a generally stressed body and mind, minor bugs are bound to take hold.

I'm back in my home country for 5 weeks over Christmas, taking an extra week to attend a conference. I plan to take the odd day off here and there, but otherwise stick to the same working hours that I keep during term time, i.e. 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Since my partner has a regular person job, he will be out at work most of the time which will help me stay on track, and my family are pretty used to me working during holiday season from my years as a music performance major. That being said, I'm totally going skiing during Spring break, and wont take any work with me.

Honestly, I so rarely look up the precise page reference. The issue is when it's you doing the citations, and following correct etiquette of giving adequate and specific credit to the original author. By using a non-standard reference (eg line instead of page, or ebook instead of print copy page) I'd be concerned that I'm risking being pulled up for lazy/imprecise/incorrect citations, which is absolutely not acceptable in academia.

Risingstar and Telkanuru, that's what I was getting at. Frustrating and a little backward, but not worth the risk at least in the early stages of an academic career. I guess I will stick to indirect quotations where possible, and track down hard copies where necessary. Boo you, academia.

My google-ing did come up with a few things like that but it doesn't seem like there is really a firm consensus/rule about it. I guess my real question is whether it's ok to cite e-books at all as a source, or whether it's safer/wiser to always cite a hard copy until e-book citations become standardised in academia. My field (ethnomusicology) does require me to cite some funky sources, and get creative with formatting in that regard, but I am just really surprised that e-books don't seem to have found their way into the mainstream of academia yet...

I have a Kindle, and for whatever reason I read more often, and for longer, than with paper books. I'm hoping to use it quite a bit during grad school, also for the financial savings and reduced load on my back. I take notes straight into Mendeley, and feel like an eco-goddess for so doing It's a new departure for me, since I have always been a hardback and notepad type of girl. However, I have a Kindle 2... and there are no real page numbers, only the Kindle page numbers (apparently this got updated for a limited number of books for the Kindle 3). What is the standard way to cite an e-book in this instance? Or am I obliged to go and dig out a hard copy of everything I want to read to add in page numbers for the citations?

Yeah I think it was the 'cleaning' joke and the fact that you strongly implied that your observations were representational of all women when you said 'they always stick around the floor mats or treadmills, and only really wonder towards the free weights with their guy friends or bff'. Whoops. I'd strongly recommend you keep those kinds of misinformed and sexist ideas in your mind and not express them to anyone IRL/on the interwebz.

Having a limited outlook on life is no reason to stereotype. Just because you go to a gym where people tend to subscribe to gender stereotypes, doesn't mean you are incapable of realising that this isn't necessarily the norm. Do you think it's helpful to perpetuate stereotypes or something? Like I said, I am 3x national champion in powerlifting and I am a female. I can squat my boyfriend for reps, and I bench the same as him. I can clean my bodyweight. No need to make assumptions. Lifting is great for your health regardless of gender, and its ability to limit osteoporosis might even be particularly useful to females.

Just FWIW, I am a chick... fitness preferences are not gender-exclusive.

I'm trying to figure out how to fit training around grad school commitments. I'm a competitive powerlifter and weightlifter (3x national champion and national record holder) but will probably put competing on hold for at least the first academic year. Boo. My plan right now is to lift weekends, and at 7.30am on my two class-free mornings, and after my last Thursday class, which should work out just fine. I'm in touch with some trainers at the U about starting a strength-training club, so that my training can contribute to finding a social circle In terms of more general wellbeing, I also practice yoga and try rack up another hour of physical movement (walking/cycling usually) each day. My intention is to do yoga at stupid-early-o'clock on mornings when I don't lift, and to break up my working days with short walks. Since I am living a 25 minute walk from my department's building, that will be a help, and being at UChicago I have easy access to the lakeside cycle trail. That said, I'm a bit nervous about the winters, and whether it will be plausible to do any outdoors physical activity. At that point I might look into the free university classes in kickboxing or whatever else, and swim more often. Yoga and lifting will go into my planner as relatively non-negotiable events, since I consider fitness to be an extremely important factor for my physical and mental wellbeing, trumped only by good nutrition and quality sleep. My experience is that my work quality is severely compromised if I am limited in my physical pursuits. I guess I aim to move my body for at least a couple of hours per day, and since I have never owned a TV, I feel more than justified in claiming that time for myself

Thanks Takeru Turns out I am insured from Sept 1 (yay). But some great ideas for anyone else who doesn't get pre-term insurance.

I'm taking $5k to cover start-up costs which I really hope wont all be needed, but already spent around $3k on things like flights, GRE, application fees, international removals... So long as I have enough left for a UChicago hoodie it will all be ok.

What is the best thing to do about health insurance during that awkward time between moving to the US and the beginning of term, or whenever health insurance kicks in? Presumably if you're on a J1/F1 visa, there might be complications if you try to claim on regular traveller's insurance. Hopefully nobody would ever need it, but I'm thinking it would be wise to know the best plan of action for those three weeks, just in case.

I'm spending 44% of my post-tax stipend on rent+bills in Hyde Park. Tbh, working by proportion of salary when you're a grad student seems a little redundant, since most of us are not going to be managing to save any money or supporting dependents etc. So long as you can make ends meet and maintain a suitable standard of living by your own standards, I'd value the quality of an apartment (quietness, location - things which will enhance your ability to study/sleep) above the cost. @Themmases, do those cable promotions tend to be a 12 month tie-in contract, so you get screwed over for part of your contract? Or do you just have to be smart enough to remember to opt-out and switch company after the promotion is up

I still have a month before I relocate from London to Chicago. Aside from the practical stuff like shipping, furnishing an apartment (ok, *finding* an apartment first), money (or lack thereof, and a warning that my first stipend might not arrive for over a month after I arrive), not accidentally wandering into dangerous areas at night etc, my daily fears are about being the least capable grad student in my cohort and leaving behind my SO, family and friends. I've got precisely zero experience in the field I'm going into, and did a non-academic undergrad qualification, so this is kind of a lot going on at once. I also am saying goodbye to all my private students, and entrusting them to new teachers, which shouldn't be stressful, but somehow is. Trying to replace fear with excitement and/or denial is the current strategy

I use the Mac Calendars on my iPhone and MacBook Air. There's less of a chance I'll ever find myself without my phone than there is finding myself without a paper planner I like the colour coding too, so I can see where I have university commitments, sports events, social plans etc. There's also the ability to view by day/week/month/year, which I find helpful when trying to visualise longer term plans like holidays or travel. I miss the coolness of Moleskin, but they always ended up so messy since schedule is constantly changing.

Yes, but be careful about state schools. I ended up not applying to UCLA and UC Berkeley because they weren't able to offer international students a full package, since it costs them more to educate us than it does a US citizen.

The funding situation in the UK is abysmal for *everyone*, not just international students. That's why I opted to apply to the US for grad school, even though in many ways I would have preferred to stay in the UK. It's worth bearing in mind that in the UK, we specialise very early on. By age 16 most students are taking only 3-4 subjects, and we specialise in one subject (which can be very specific in itself) for undergraduate. You also need a (generally completely unfunded) Masters to apply for PhD programs here, unlike in the US. After 4+ years of highly specialised university-level study, students are expected to be adequately prepared to undertake a 3 year PhD. Again, I personally did not feel like I wanted to get into the situation where my PhD was basically just writing a dissertation without any courses, languages, etc, which pushed me away from staying in the UK. I don't really understand why there's a desire to get through a PhD program quickly. It's your last opportunity to study - I want to get as much out of it as possible and if that means 6 years, I'm completely ok with that

Just thought I'd add my experience applying for a J1 from London. Two questions: 1. 'Who's paying?' (Didn't ask for proof although I had taken some in case, as well as my flight details as recommended) 2. 'Ethnomusicology...is that a real thing?' The whole thing took around 4 hours including a security queue, a ticketed wait to get fingerprinted and hand in forms, and a further wait for my 'interview'. I had my passport and visa returned 6 days later. A lot of paperwork but fairly painless if you tick all the boxes.

You could try emailing your department's co-ordinator and see if they would put an email around the current students to see if anyone needs a roommate or subletter. Often this works in the department I'm going into (apparently) because of fieldwork commitments for current students who don't want to lose their apartment. I'm also an internatinoal and rather than deal with staying in a hostel, credit rating issues, only being allowed to enter the US 30 days before my program begins (which is not ideal with 2 weeks of orientation during those 30 days), I opted to go into grad student housing. Even though it's inconveniently located and potentially bad value for money compared to renting any other way, it seemed to be the best short-term solution. Check whether you can move out of GSH quickly, if you wanted to. My school expects you to stay for at least one quarter, which is really not that long at all. By that point you'll be settled in the area and able to apartment-hunt in person. Much less stressful