GeoDUDE!

Or you can apply for NSF grants and fellowships! EAPSI for example encompasses linguistics i think.

Fellowships, RAs, TAs ect. The summer is the same for graduate students as the rest of the year just not taking classes. You should talk to your advisor about summer funding. One of the conditions of me attending a school was summer funding for the duration of my program, through one way or another. Even if you have guaranteed funding, you should be applying for summer money (so that previous money can be used else where).

Macs are pretty hard to sell after 3 years, and I think it would probably be more like 700 dollars, but the point being that macs hold their value better is true. PCs don't hold anywhere near that value...

The biggest insight from rising_star is that for most people getting in the ball park of the research you want to do is more important than working on specific projects: if you spend the rest of your life as a scientist, its more likely than not that your research interests and focuses will change. Learning how to be a scholar is more important.

Yes just write the fellowship as you would normally on your cv and the in parenthesis write (declined)

That means you haven't been competitive. Competitive is a relative term. So if MA programs are this hard to get into, do you think PhD programs are any easier? What about postdocs ? and then TT positions? Generally, MA are the easiest and it gets much harder at each level. Sorry to be blunt... but I do not think you are presenting this objectively.

Another perspective: getting a faculty job is tough. If you haven't been competitive for masters programs (or funding) for the last 3 years, what will you do to change that when you finally have your PhD and are on the job market? It is much harder to move up into the top tier of students than top tier students to move down (which most eventually do, because less than 1/4 in stem get a TT position now, even worse in other fields.)

Are you going to be able to find a job that pays more than 15 dollars an hour for 20 hours a week? You will also have to pay tuition. You are not better off. going into debt for graduate school is a terrible financial investment.

I'd probably get the 256 on the 13 inch then, its livable. I keep my computers a long time... I'm still using an early 2011 macbook pro (and truely expensive computations is at the core of dissertation). Power might be a concern with the macbook (non pro). They are about as powerful as 2012 macbook airs, but get better battery life ect. The one problem is they only use USB C (and have 1 port), which means you are going to need to get an adapter to plug in a thumb drive or monitor. I don't think an air is a good value right now, because the 13 inch pro represents a real power improvement over them. ALso the screen is much nicer. I think if you are ok with getting an adapter, and may have access to a desktop at school if you REALLY need power, I would get the macbook. But if you are worried that you may not access to a desktop or more powerful computer, I would get the macbook pro. It also might help, i've been known to make figures right before conference talks ect, and making figures can sometimes need some power, so i think the 256 pro is the best bet. You just need to be diligent in your data management. Maybe down the line get a high speed usb drive that has 128 gb+ or something. Since you are making compromises, the 256 seems like the best one.

It should be good, but I would just upgrade to 512 GB SSD just for longevity. What's the point of having a nice laptop thats thin and light if you have to take a big external with you? In all honesty, you could probably get by on a macbook (non pro) or macbook air.... you don't really need that much power for most things unless you are working with hundreds of gigabytes - tera bytes of data... most people don't do that even in the sciences !

TakeruK... we use box in our lab and like it a lot. Its very good especially since other people can access it and contribute to it.

A quick forum search: Your welcome.

I'm not sure being a graduate student has anything to do with if it would be advisable or not. Right now I have 3 roommates.

Eigen, there is another reason to get a PhD other than getting a job after: what if you enjoy working 50-70 hours a week while getting severely underpaid ? There are sadists out there...

For those who are looking at messanger bags, Mission Workshop bags are really nice. They are a little more expensive than Timbuk2 depending on the model you get, but they are a lot more comfortable and more robust. They can also haul a lot more stuff in a pinch since they are rolltop. I also find they are a bit more professional looking, not that that really matters. The biggest difference is in the strap, which is lightyears better than the Timbuk2 strap.

TLDR: Check your privilege.

http://career-advice.monster.com/salary-benefits/salary-information/best-paying-jobs-english-majors/article.aspx My peers who have BAs in english and other arts have done very well for themselves. Like I said, you cant compare apples to oranges: you have to compare the most talented BAs and the most Talented BSs

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Degree=Bachelor_of_Arts_%28BA%29,_English_Language/Salary There is an opportunity cost for everyone. And you can't consider the average college student when you look at these averages: you have to consider the average college student that can get admitted to a funded program. Those people typically will get higher paying jobs. Admitting a diversity of people from different life situations: parents, step brothers, ect ultimately will make a better binning process for scholarship. If the real point of graduate school and scholarship is to expand human knowledge (which I don't know if it is) then we as a community should be working to break down the potential life choices that would prevent an otherwise brilliant scholar from attending school. I don't think any of us here are mature or qualified enough to make a decision on what should be studied in graduate school, who should go, and what is fair. Those are loaded questions. Maybe no one is really qualified. It probably takes a community.

I think it is a bit unfortunate that you lost your funding: I wouldn't wish that on anyone! However, you say you carefully planned every move, when you and your once advisor didn't even read the fine print of your funding.... that's really the basics of academia. Money always has something attached to it. You say you are worried about sounding like "some kid of arrogant douche", and tbh you do sound a little entitled, but not because you "crave prestige", but because it seems like you are blaming this entire situation on someone other than yourself. Funding contracts aren't like terms of service agreements where you just click yes: you should always read the fine print. You certainly shouldn't go to any university you feel is second rate. If your goal is to get a position in the US then I would not take second PhD offer. In general, its really important to do your PhD in the country (or area) where you want to do your job because part of your PhD funding is grant writing, and writing NSF grants is very different than writing NRC grants, for example. Another reason why its hard to get a TT position in the US for Europeans (at least in Earth Sciences) is that our PhDs are are 5-6 years as opposed to 3 years. Sure employers know that, but one of the nice things about that length is it allows us to build a longer publishing record: really good European PhD students will publish twice in their 3 years where many american PhD programs require 3 publications just to graduate, plus all coauthorships the student will get from all the side projects they have time to do. Even if you go to places like Oxford or Cambridge, while you won't have the noterity problem, you will still have this time problem, and perhaps, working group problem. Its no coincidence that 6-8 of the faculty in my problem come from the classes of 2000-2002 of caltech. Its also no coincidence that the west coast schools in the US tend to hire more from the west coast and the east coast schools tend to hire more from the east. The reason being: people like hiring people they know. I think you should apply to PhD programs in the US if that is where you ultimately want to live. I would see if your former PhD advisor has funding for a lab tech or something like that in the mean time. You could start your PhD at 30 and age still wouldn't really matter: the average PhD student is much older than 26 btw. You can use your extra time to actually think about what you want. I think there are legitimate reasons to only want to go to a top tier university, but as you might find in the US, the top researcher in your field may or may not be there. For example, I do not go to a top tier university, but my advisor and her lab is at the top of her field. The research landscape is very diverse and I encourage you to figure out who you may want to work with rather then just where you might want to work. Where is an important question, but right now that seems like that is all you care about.

Read.

It could depend. There is a student in my dept who applied twice in a row: got beat out the first time and then reapplied and then got in. Now both those students are in the program!

Not necessarily: what if your POI just didn't have funding/room for a student this year? You should show that you have done something in the past year though. I applied to 1 school twice and got rejected twice. The reason? the POI couldn't get funding for a new student both times. In 2012 he couldn't fund me, in 2013 he got a new student, and in 2014 he couldn't fund me. Sometimes its the luck of the draw. Funding usually is the biggest reason people don't get into graduate school.

I think double majoring can be good, but I also think, depending on what aspects of earth science you want to study, taking 6 math courses than some advanced physics or advanced chemistry courses prepares one better for research in Earth Sciences. I also suggest taking a few (not a) computer science courses. Most earth scientists (even computational) really only need Cal1-3, ODEs, PDEs, and Linear alegebra. A statistics course is also good. Add in python, C++ , classical mechanics, quantum if you are geochem, and a few chemistry courses and your pretty much the idea candidate for any theoretical work.

PhD positions in other countries are treated and regulated like industry jobs - thats the way it should be in the US, that is all I am arguing for. People should get paid parental leave (yes, male and female, raising a child dual responsibility), and vacations. While its a choice to go to graduate school, it is also somewhat ridiculous that the opportunity cost is so much.

I don't think its good to think that just because one situation is shitty another place should also be shitty. That is essentially your argument, in case you want to revise.