bsharpe269

Stop stressing out. I actually read a similar post on here a couple months ago so this sort of thing happens. Send a second email on the same email thread and say something like "The previous email was sent by mistake. Please disregard all content. I applogize for any inconvenice that this may have caused." This did not destroy your chance of admission and the secretary will proably just get a good laugh today!

I completely agree that this is a great system. I am in US but am doing a masters first just due to timing and location (my fiance couldn't move yet) and also to make up for average/iffy undergrad grades. I have learned SO much and never would have been ready to commit to a research area before my MS. This isnt due to lack of undergrad research experience either... I had a 1.5 year project, a 1 year long project, an REU at a top school, and 5 years lab tech experience. Even after this, the amount that I have learned as a MS student is incredible and my research interests have evolved so much. I would have chosen the wrong schools and wrong advisors straight out of undergrad!

Like everyone else, I use Mendeley. Honestly, I think it would be nearly impossible to keep track of paper copies of everything. I also had to get used to highlighting with the mouse and reading on my laptop but spending the time to get used to this system will be worth it! I can highlight on the screen and write notes for later. It keeps track of the papers that you have and havent read and you can sort by author. For just a normal paper that I read for fun or knowedge, I generally just use the highlight feature. I actually find it really useful for skimming back over papers later. Abstracts cover some of the main points but a lot of times I find something interesting and radom in a paper, even just a minor detail that I didnt know before. I like highlighting this sort of stuff along with main points. Like TakeruK, I also take notes on the more important papers I read. I don't do this on paper though, I use excel. I am pretty much in love with excel though and use it for everything.

I definitely want to be at an R1! My entire goal in going to graduate school is research and I think that I will be able to accomplish more with the recources and students at a large R1 school. I don't mind teaching at all and it can be fun to revisit subjects but if I could avoid teaching entirely and put that time into more research then I definitely would!

I don't really think this is a big deal either way... I mean how would you tell people that you had a boyfriend or child or enjoy a certain hobby? I would tell them that you have a fiance in the same way. You wouldn't go out of your way to tell your advisor that you enjoy running and worry that he wouldnt take you seriously if you spend your weekends racing. I don't see how having a close relationship with someone is any different. I am sure that your fiance will come up in conversation when discussing weekend plans or your move together or whatever, just like your siblings and hobbies will be brought up. I am currently engaged and working on my masters and applying for phd programs this fall. When speaking with people, my fiance often comes up in conversation but I don't go out of my way to tell people that I am getting married either. I think that some people let the fact that they are getting married take over their life which I don't have time to do. We are having a 1.5 year engagement so that we have planning time without stress and are also planning a small wedding since neither of us has the time to plan a huge wedding. In summary, I think that you are thinking too much into this. Youre going to fill your weekends with things like hiking, yoga, painting (or whatever you enjoy), and also wedding planning and you can spend your weekends however you want. If people judge or dont take you seriously due to how you spend your free time then I wouldn't really want to get close to them anyway.

Well I am in a different field but this is something that I have also been giving some thought to lately. I am not sure whether I should contact professors or not. In the sciences (at least my science), you usually do rotations before choosing a lab so its not like you go in commited to one usually. If I am a good enough candidate that they would be interested in keeping in touch throughout the process then I feel like i am also a good enough candidate that they will be ineterested in my application after it is submitted. I have contacted one PI so far and it was because I wanted a copy or a paper that I couldnt get online. He responded really positively actually! He didnt give me the paper until the next week since the was out of the office but responded within a couple hours actually to let me know that he got my email and would get in touch next week to send the paper. I was really happy with the positive response! I will be contacting another PI today (my top choice eeeek im nervous to hit send) because I actually have a legitimate question. Maybe I should continue like this and find reasons to contact PIs... like finding a paper that I cant get online or asking a question about research. This might be better than a standard "are you accepting students" sort of email. What is your research experience expereince like? Do you have skills or experience that could directly benefit the professors who you are contacting? I feel like they might be ineterested in keeping in contact if they are interested enough that they want to try to make sure that you choose their school. I could be wrong... I am just as confused about this!

You have such a great application.... I really would work on getting that score up. If you can do well in all of your math classes then you can score >165 on teh GRE (or even 160-165 would be fine). Yeah, that score would hurt your application and its not worth hurting your application over a GRE that can be retaken. Really, you have a few months, not a few weeks.

Hmm this is a complicated situations. There are my thoughts, if they help at all. I think that in your siutation, I would feel a bit of obligation to your current PI as well, especially if you feel like he helped get you into the program and secure you the fellowship so that you could work in that lab. I do think that this should factor into your decision. If you were to leave, do you think that this would create future tension? The last thing you want is to create an unpleasant situation for youself right away. Also, if your current PI really likes you this much then you definitely want to be use him as a contact in the future and the amazing LOR that he would write would be really helpful for postdocs. I really don't think you need to worry about having only worked in 1 lab. That is the whole point of a postdoc since most students work primarily only in their phd lab. Yeah, they do undergrad research too but many people lose contact with those professors anyway. You can get to know other professors well enough for LORs from classes and callaborations. Can you just have an honest talk with your PI about this? Explain to him that you love the work but are worried about the limited exposure and are torn? I agree with biotechie that you should do a rotation in the other lab and see how you like it. This would help with your "Ive only ever worked in 1 lab" worry since you would be in the other lab long enough to build a connection with the professor, learn new techniques, and possibly get a publications. You could try out the other project and see if you would really like it more or not. It sounds like a perfect situation.. you can basically stay on the fence about which lab you want to committ to and take some time to figure out whats best for you. Edit: I also want to add that if you discuss your honest thoughts with your current PI then he also might be willing to work with you to make you more happy with your work to keep you in the lab. For example, maybe you can suggest that he hire an undergrad to do some of the mice work that bothers you. Maybe he would let you take on a different project instead. There are lots of options that you can explore with your current PI after the rotation!

You will be fine!! I am the same way and did well on the GRE anyway. Since I don't normally work well under pressure, it was really important that I remained calm during the test and didnt put any pressure on myself. I kept convincing myself that this was just another practice test and reminding myself that I would just retake if I needed to. I also tried to keep my normal routine the night before and morning of the test which helped keep the pressure off and let it just feel like I was doing a practice test on a normal morning. As far as the time limit, yeah that can be intimidating both for the essays and questions. Since I am bad at working under time contraints, I just had to get familiar enough with practice questions that I could answer them quickly and was not constrained on time. Let us know how you do but plenty of us who study the same way were successful on the GRE! It sounds like you are doing everything you need to do well.

To offer a different opinion than Taeyers, I cannot cram for anything! I don't study well like that at all the my scores would drop simply due to the stress of needing to cram. I am the type of person who writes 1 paragraph of a paper a day for a week, not the type who cranks out the essay the evening that it is due. My fiance on the other hand works best under pressue and does much better work right before deadlines. Despite our different study methods, we do equally well in school and are both A students. I don't think that one study style is better than the other but you have to know the one that works for you and keep to it. So which way do you study best? I think that answering that question gives your answer to this question. I also did pretty well on the GRE. I ended up with 168Q, 162V. I actually studied for 4 months to get this score. I probably did not total any more study hours than the people who study in a couple weeks, but I consistantly studied a couple hours a week for 3-4 months. This process worked really well for me and took the pressure off. I used magoosh to study and REALLY recommend it! The quant is harder than the actual test and prepares you well. I also memorized some vocab with their iphone app. I memorized their 250 most common words. One alternative solution that might be worth considering is that many people freak out a bit on test day and let their nerves negatively affect their score. It could be helpful to study a bit between now and your current test day and then take the test as a practice "real" GRE. Familiarizing yourself with the test center and system may make you more comfortable on your real test day and could result in a better score in the end. This idea has the added bonus that if you end up studying enough between now and the 1st test to improve your score then you may not even need to sign up for the second test!

Hmm I doubt it. I'm in biophysics so quant is important for me too. I am a perfectionist sort of person (sounds like you are too!) so if I scored a 163 I think that I would also be on the fence and would slightly want to retake. Honestly, from an outside perspective though, that is a great score and there are so many other parts to the application that I don't think retaking would be worth it, especially for MS programs. If you think that the $200 is worth the peace of mind to not worry about the score during the application process then go ahead and retake so that you don't have to worry about it! Honestly, I think that a 170 really wouldn't even make any difference in the application process though.

I never cheat. It is unethical to cheat and this is of course one reason that I avoid it but it might not even be the main one. I honestly don't trust anyone else's answers enough to risk my points on them. If I lose points then I want it to be because I could not figure out the question and therefore deserve to lose points, not because a friend in my class couldn't figure it out.

I used magoosh's app flash cards to memorize 250 words and many of them showed up on the test. I recommend magoosh's program to study. My score improved 12 points after 4 months of studying with their program. The more questions you practice, the more familiarity you get with what type of answers the test takers are looking for.

I think that retaking would be a waste of time and money. Thats a great score!

If I were in your situation, I think that this is what I would do: 1) Would it be worth it to go to the director again and make it clear that this is bothering you enough that you will apply elsewhere if you can't switch advisors? Maybe if you are that straightforward then he will work with you. 2) I agree with geodude that you need to tell your advisor that you are applying and I would even ask for a LOR if I were you BUT I would ask for them from 3 other people too. Many schools require 3 letters but let you select letters from up to 5 people. If you dont ask your advisor then she might be insulted and give you a bad recommendation if they call. If you ask her and she just doesnt follow through then she cant be insulted and you can just say that there were 4 professors who you wanted letters from. This would also show prospective schools that are willing to have them speak with your current advisor and then when you are asked about this at interviews, you can just be honest and say that she doesnt follow through so you asked for hers in addition to 3 others.

In situations like these, I like to reply to the previous email so it shows up underneath and write something like "Hi Dr blah, I wanted to follow up on my email from last week. Please let me know if you have any questions about my experience..."

OP, Im glad your enjoying R! My one bit of advice is to not just go with GUI stuff like R and matlab. It is a great place to start and matlab is great IF you actually program with it (as in .m files where you actually open and write to files, manipulate vectors, you can even do parrelization stuff with matlab), not just make plots and multiply numbers and all on the interface. Python is my go to scripting language and I at least write a few scripts a week with it and I had never heard of ipython until you mentioned it. Maybe I am just out of loop but I would challenge you to focus less on stuff like the ipython GUI and actually just open up the terminal, emacs a .py file and write a program. Honestly, you probably will not find good tutorials and I dont think thats the best way to learn programming anyway. I would find a website that has python program assignment ideas for beginners and learn by doing those. They will take a while and you will have to google every fucntion at the beginning but you will slowly learn. Please feel free to PM me if you need help getting started. Programming is one of those things that seems REALLY hard to start and as soon as you write your first few programs, you will feel much more comfortable and will be able to learn it on your own. Also, there will be a coursera on python starting next month which might be a great way to get started! There may be other programming courses on there as well which could help. Here is the link: https://www.coursera.org/course/interactivepython

I've always taken it to mean 2 semesters.

PhD programs seem to fall into 2 categories. 1) They only admit students they fund or 2) They fund some/most of their students but do admit some other good students who can afford the tuition. For the first category of schools, your financial situation is irrelevant. For the 2nd category of schools, my guess is that many universities just assume that international students (and maybe domestic as well) cannot afford to attend and reject applicants they cannot fund unless they have a reason to think that you can afford tuition and cost of living. I don't think this is a case of universities being unfair to wealthier students, just being logical in their decision process. For example, If a program has 20 great international student applications that they would love to admit but lack funding and one applicant shows that they can attend without funding then why not admit the student? I don't see a good alternative to the current process. Not many international students are admitted, especially when compared to the number that apply. Although this makes the process more competitive for international applicants, public universities are funded by US tax payers and foreign students cost programs more money. I don't think the majority of tax payers would be willing to pay higher taxes to fund more international students when there are plenty of qualified applicants from the US as well. Additionally, the parents of US applicants have been paying taxes towards these universities for many years and my future income will go towards paying for public universities. Alternatively, international applicants have never finanically contributed to these schools and unless they permanantly move to the US, its possible that they never will. This is the reason that less international students are admitted. International students basically get a free ride to phd the parents of domestic students have paid for their student's fellowships through taxes and the domestic students will "repay" the stipend in the future through taxes. This is an issue that domestic students also deal with when attending colleges in other states. If I wanted to go to college in a neighboring state instead of my home state then I would be less likely to be admitted and I would have to pay higher tuition since my parents have not been paying taxes in that state to fund my tuition.

Based on what my PI has told me, I would actually say no. I think this really varies by PI but my current PI even gets annoyed by 1 email from students like this and I think that 2 emails might put a student in the "too needy for my lab" category for his lab. Do you have a serious question about the application process that you can't get form the website or department coordinator or do you just wnat to know if they might take students? Honestly, whether or not professors would be willing to take students can change a lot in a year so even if they say yes, they might not get an expected grant or they might like another student in the incoming class more so there are no guarantees. My PI told me to not consider any schools with less than 3 or 4 people who I would be interested in working with. I agree this is a very important rule to follow or else you may end up in a situation where you have to transfer because the PI you want cant take you. If you are sticking to that rule, then your decision to apply to that program would not be swayed significantly by this particular lab anyway. If your applicaiton to this school hinges on availability in that particular lab then I would rethink applying anyway!

I agree with spec that your roommates probably will not care at all as long as you don't come off as judegemental of their current system. I wouldn't sit them down and throw everything at them at once like "hey these are all the things that I would like to change about the apartment." I would just say it like "Do you guys mind if I buy a bathroom organizer and X (whatever you want for the kitchen) so that we all have some more space for our things." What roommate would say no to that!? For the kitchen, just do a deep cleaning at some point and improve the organization as part of it. I think that most people would appreciate this, not be upset by it.

I agree with geodude that you would be better off switching advisors. Maybe find a history topic that overlaps better with your interests and get a new advisor that fits with that project better?

I am in a completely different field so take what I have to say with a grain of salt. I think it might be applicable though so I will share my thoughts! I have found my perfect research area, the one that I want to stay in for my entire life. It even takes effort for me to put my computer at dinner because I don't want to stop working! This perfect area for me leverages my experience, my interests, my skills, everything. This says a lot because like you, my experience is all over the place. My undergrad degree is in math but I did biomath and bioengineering research. I really enjoy mathematical modeling but also love chemistry and programming. I also almost pursued medical school or biomedical science research instead because I really enjoy wet lab/medical sort of work. My current research area combines all of this! For you, I think you may be asking the wrong question. Instead of choosing one or the other, is there a way to combine all of your interests? I think your "perfect fit" research area would lay at the intersection of all of this. Anyway, academia requires ridiculus hours and pays little in return. I dont think you can get through it without passion so if you have to choose then I vote passion. I am sure there must be some way to apply your expeirence to this passion though. Edit: I clicked on this from the the side bar and then realized it was in the anthro thread.... not trying to hijack the thread but I still feel like more advice can never hurt!

Interestingly, I had the opposite experience where I took a year and half off and worked and then went for the masters and taking the time off made me realize how much I missed academia and I have come back a much much better student because I know how badly I want this. In the end, like astrological said, everyone is different and you just have to decide what is best for you. He/she also made a good point that there is little harm in applying for phd programs now and if you don't get in then you can always do a research position and reapply.

i used magoosh's app and they have about 300 words that they consider "common words" on the test. I ended up memorizing 250 of them (didnt get to the last 50 in time!) and memorizing those words combinded with doing practice problems, brought my verbal score from 153 to 162. I felt I knew most words on the test, just from those 250 words.