GeoDUDE!
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Posts posted by GeoDUDE!
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So.. fun fact..
People who take offense to broad statements are those who identify qualities laid out in the statement as being identifiers of self..
Just sayin.
We have different definitions of what facts are.
Just sayin.
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I'm not in an MSW program, but a geophysics one. I'll just say this, IF i didn't have a thesis i could probably coast buy doing almost no work and get mostly A's. Graduate classes I've found are substantially easier than undergraduate classes.
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While I want to agree with the sentiment, as it seems it would give hope to many people on this forum, I can't help but wonder If you have ever experienced the research environment at a top tier university AND the research environment at a lower ranked university? I certainly have, and going from an IVY league to a lower ranked public institution was night and day. Prestige itself does not get your paper published in nature, that prestige often brings money to conduct an experiment or project that is of higher quality than ones at lesser universities. Obviously, I am speaking in generalities.
With regards to applications, there is a larger point; Does doing better on the GRE make you any less likely to conduct great research? If there is no correlation between research and GRE, which I think there probably is a stronger one than many would like to admit, because there is a large correlation between competency and GRE scores. Why should a grad school take someone with a lower GRE score ? Is that person with a lower GRE score really that much more special? How can someone call them self a scientist yet not be able to do high school level math ? Maybe you can get through graduate classes if you did poorly on the GRE, as many people in my program did, but graduate level classes aren't supposed to be hard or take up a lot of time. Research is. And if you have to struggle with high school level math in your classes, it's going to eat up all your research time.
Graduate Schools want students to be healthy. If you have to work 80 hours a week to get all your work done, you aren't going to be healthy. There will be weeks where you work a ton, but if every week you are not sleeping and every week you are working all the time you will not be happy. I would bet my left nut that there is a correlation between strong research and happiness.
With poor stats, there is a case to be made. I had barley above a 3.0 GPA in physics with a few conference presentations / REUs and found myself in a fully funded masters program. But don't kid yourself and think that prestigious schools are all smoke and mirrors; Funding can deliver stability, along with many other things. Fusion needs lasers to heat up atoms. It is difficult to find out we are not who we someone think we are; We all can't be great. Somewhat depressing, to confront yourself.
- perfectionist, nugget, SportPsych30 and 8 others
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I think its a bit soon to be worried over this; you haven't got in
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Yes. As long as its on your transcripts it will be helpful. Though, my feeling a A in real analysis (not an easy feat if its given the upper division care that many math departments love to pour on unsuspecting undergraduates) would carry significant weight. I would take it none the less, as it was one of the most interesting and frustrating math classes I ever took.
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Ask yourself the fundamental differences between the Ideal PhD candidate and an MS candidate. Do you know what subfield you want to study ? Do you know what the contemporary problems are in your subfield? Do you know what types of methods are used to solve these problems? Do you know what journals are currently publishing projects based on solving these problems. Could you put down in words what these problems are, what methods are used to solve them, and how those methods have the ability to solve them?
If you can't do all of the above, that doesn't mean you aren't ready for a PhD; but seeing as you don't have any teaching or research experience you might find answering those questions daunting. I think going for a funded MS, especially if you have good stats, is the right way to go. If you are successful in your MS it probably makes you a much stronger candidate than applying directly to undergrad.
- GeoDUDE! and null_value
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While I generally agree, I think we all as colleagues here can also agree, this is to some extent reflective of poor professionalism.
Yes we all are stressed sometimes, but part of not just being a graduate student but also an adult, is keeping things in check and not abusing others.
Graduate student, mentor, friend, or whichever, someone who continually does this to you probably isn't the best person to try and have a personal connection with.
I agree, I don't want to make it seem like i'm siding with the graduate student, i'm just proposing solution and logic behind it. Like I said, I am prone to snapping, but I do apologize after I do it (maybe like once a semester when people start asking me too many matlab questions). Anyway, a person like that isn't a good mentor if you are feeling abused.
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This is really an easy answer. Look at all the art faculty (you say you want to be faculty). Where did they come from?
My advisor recently head a search for a new physics professor. Of the finalists, 2 of the 3 came from a top 10 school. The guy from the lower ranked school did not get hired.
So its certainly possible; but you have to prove more. People want to hire people from top programs, so they can say, look where our faculty were trained.
I am inclined to say take the second offer, because my feeling is getting a facutly position is no guarantee and going into massive debt for graduate school (not including professional school) tends to be a bad idea in general.
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Look at where the publications that you cite in your MA thesis come from. Apply there.
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I guess what I was really trying to say is nobody is perfect. Just like every other relationship in life, you need to evaluate if the pros outweigh the cons. I'm willing to be if she went to her advisor and said, man I have all this work, I have no time to teach this UG or help this UG, the advisor would tell her to get her own work done. That's how grad school is. my first semester I complained about my teaching load, and they told me to stop spending as much time teaching and essentially do a shitty job. This is why small liberal art schools can get away with costing so much; they don't have any of these problems. Research universities will always focus on research and teaching 2nd. Thats just the way it is. There are some distinct advantages to your situation; not everyone has them. Remember, what you have here is truly a "first world" problem.
Have you ever thought about talking to her about it? It probably won't change anything though.
- GeoDUDE! and fancyfeast
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graduate students have deadlines that undergraduates do not have. she might be unloading her stress in a mature way, but you should just get out of her way. It isn't a graduate students role to be friends with you, or mentor you. I've been known to snap at people close to deadlines.... its just something that happens.
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if you are worrying about grad school this early, you aren't having enough fun in college..... and geology graduate programs want to accept people... not robots.
Are you working for David Marchant by any chance ? He's a great guy... and a good scientist. make sure to take his classes
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Absolutely, its often why many refer to telescopes as time machines. And by many, meaning only me.
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The speed of light = 3 * 10^ 8 m/s.
Since Time = Distance/speed, we get on the order of 10^-7 seconds. which would make it on the order of a 10 millionth of a second. Though, the speed of light is different on earth than it is out in space; light moves faster or slower in different mediums. This really isn't a big deal though.
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How are you going to fare when you are in graduate school and you fail at something difficult? Dealing with failure is pretty much key to getting through any program. Every graduate student fails at some point in their career, some just start early by sucking on the GRE.
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I think the lack of science courses will make you a tough sell, but i'm not really too sure. I went into grad school with no geology classes, but I was a Physics major. I've only met one or two people that weren't science majors, and they ended up in geography. Those are very competitive schools, perhaps it would be wise to also apply to lower ranked programs.
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Statement of Purpose; Ie the statement of what you want to do during and with your graduate education. This includes the problems you want to solve, how you want to solve them, and the evidence that you are capable of doing this. A well written SOP with supporting Letters of Recommendation can make up for poor grades or poor GRE, but I think you will find it difficult to get past a poor GRE and poor grades. Many programs just cut off the bottom 50-60% of scores in GRE/GPA. So you really need to find a way to get past the automatic rejections.
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You will most likely have to do a masters first. The best thing you can do is make a VERY focused SOP. That means reading journals, knowing the type of problems you want to solve, and the methods in which they are currently solved, and their implications for your field. your quant GRE is super low, for chemistry or biophysics. I think 154 is barely above the 50%. I would retake the GRE.
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The one thing im curious about is what types of papers are you reading? Shouldn't be the type of math needed be obvious from reading these papers? If you haven't started reading a few papers in the field you are interested weekly(beyond your interested POIs), now would be a good time to start. Not only will it reflect in your SOP, but your overall preparedness for the next step will be that much better. The best way to get into and be successful in graduate school is know the types of problems you want to solve and know how they are solved as best as possible.
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That's even longer then I send, I send about 6 sentences and stick a 1-page version of my CV with the message. Its something along the likes of.
Hello I am X, going to X, and my current work is X. I am interested in pursuing PhD at your program, because i found the "specific result" from "specific" paper (they wrote) interesting, because it means "some slightly meaningful insight". Are you taking on graduate students that work on X?
Thank you for your time,
Name.
I've gotten very good responses from that email. You don't need to be long, you just need to show them that A)your worth it
it isn't spam and C) you think about problems that are being solved in his lab/your field.You would be surprised at the number of PhD applicants that haven't done a literature review on their POIs.
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whenever you want ?
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That Q score is abysmal, disregarding any major considering the math required for the GRE is at hardest secondary school. While structural engineering, in class and in practice is one of the least quantitative engineering, that score would probably get your application automatically rejected by software unless you have an IMMACULATE supplementary package. Seeing as you are international, your application must be much better than that of a domestic student; There are plenty of domestic students with less than desirable test scores that they would rather take than an international student whom did not perform well on the GRE. This is just the case; international admissions is tougher. You realistically need to get a 162+ on the quant for a top 10 program... but I would shoot for even higher.
MFA - the outcast of graduate students!
in Arts
Posted
Loric, inductive reasoning is very natural. You are guilty of it all the time........ be it right or wrong assumptions. Since most people on here are a form of scientist, its natural to assume the highest probability. Yay logic.