MastersHoping

Hello everyone, I tried to search LOR in this forum but it was mostly about asking professors to write them for us. Has anyone had experience in which students asked them for a reference letter? What was it for? How did you do it? Currently, I am planning to write one for a high school student who wants to go to a college I attended. I served as this student's instructor for a course and was very impressed with the student's caliber, and believe that I can write a strong letter. That said, I am only a 2014 graduate of that college. Does being a relatively young graduate of that college matter at all? Should I include that I'm a PhD candidate as well, or just that I served as her instructor for a course? Thanks!

I'm also in a political science PhD program. It seems that, for most intents and purposes, that should be enough to do research with your target language. I'd recommend you continue studying and practicing Russian even outside of formal training. Watch YouTube videos, talk to people, use Duolingo, etc. Now, the longer answer is that it depends what your goals are for your research. In any case, there is never an "end" to language learning, so even when you reach your target goal for the language, I'd still keep going.

Just to add onto rising_star's comment - if you happen to not get along, I encourage you to seek communities outside your department. Do you have some sort of hobby or interest? I'm a dancer, for example, and I joined a dance group here recently.

Awesome, thanks for the advice. While I never planned to publish in predatory journals, I will now be extra careful to avoid them. Speaking of which, how can I find some lower-tier journals? I'm not particularly ambitious when it comes to publishing in prestigious journals, and would rather just get my work out there than stress about rankings.

Thank you for the advice. I definitely will avoid these journals then. What about low impact journals then? Like legitimate but not very prestigious ones. For someone who is aiming is not aiming to work at large research universities, are such journals okay?

This is an article from the New York Times last year. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/science/predatory-journals-academics.html I have come across it recently and found it fascinating. Although for fields like medicine when people's health is on the line, for some fields, like my particular field (esp. the subfield) have little direct consequence for poor quality scholarship. If an individual does not plan to pursue a high-research career at prestigious universities and would prefer instead to opt for teaching careers at lower ranked places, what's the harm in publishing your work in these? Especially if you put forth an earnest effort in your writing. Sometimes, the distinction between "legitimate" and "predatory" journals are not even that unambiguous. For the record I'm not saying I plan to do so, but was just hoping to get your thoughts.

I'm in Maryland. Damn that's a lot of taxes. What happens if I can't afford to pay my own taxes now? And I don't believe my school withheld tax throughout the year.

Hello everyone, Usually I know people don't like to disclose exact numbers for money, but oh well whatever. Last year I took a leave of absence fall semester and hence only received stipend up till August. In total, I got 19,000$ stipend money, and I earned approximately $7,000 through self-employment, so a total of $26,000 or so. I just filled out TurboTax and it says I owe a total (federal and state) of approximately $3500!!!!! This is about $1500 more than I paid in taxes last year, even though I made 11,000$ in self-employment and I didn't take any leaves of absence. Furthermore, my sibling received a similar PhD stipend as me but only paid $600 in taxes. In fact, she got money back this year. I know I get a little extra from self-employment, but this seems absurd!!! I must be doing something wrong on Turbotax, and I really can't afford to pay $3500 in taxes right now.Thoughts?

Are you a US citizen? Do you plan to get a PhD after this master? If so, perhaps take a look at Harvard Extension for an MLM in government. I looked through the curriculum and syllabi and it looks pretty good, plus it's a relatively good price for a Master's. I paid more than twice that of Harvard Extension tuition for an area studies master's, and I wish I'd gone to Harvard Extension instead. Would've been less debt burden, that's for sure.

That is entirely inappropriate. Does that individual have a supervisor? I would report such behavior to a supervisor.

Hello everyone, I have recently discovered the general direction I want to take my PhD research, which will require research abroad in at least 3 different countries, making particular use of interviews. I will have no problem getting financial support for this research, and I am not exactly a shy individual about interviewing people. However, I am not fluent in any of these three languages, which are unfortunately about as hard as foreign languages can get for native English speakers. I have had succes learning a foreign language to fluency in the past through formal training and self-study, and have self-studied another foreign language to a high level (not fluent yet) completely through self-study. Does anyone have any strategies/experiences to gain working knowledge of foreign languages for research? Thanks!

In the USA, your stipend is attached to your social security number (at least if you're a U.S. citizen and at least at my university), so if you don't file taxes it will be very unusual if the government is not aware that you are receiving a stipend. My university doesn't withhold taxes, but tax evasion could get you in serious trouble. Believe me, I wouldn't pay taxes if I didn't have to either. Although the likelihood of the IRS coming after you for such small amounts (I'm estimating less than $1000 for most grad students) is not very high, they can retroactively charge you plus interest if your'e ever audited in the future.

How hard it writing? Well, judging from the title, apparently very hard XD I kid, I kid. For me, I generally don't find it that hard, but it is a chore so I don't enjoy it despite being fairly decent at it.

In undergrad I had a bad breakup that really affected me in every way. Academically, socially, emotionally, etc. Sometimes there's nothing you can do to get over it, time is the only healer. Indeed, I wish I'd taken time off from school that year, but at the time I was afraid of doing so for fear of either appearing weak or just deviating from the regular path. If this is affecting you significantly, I honestly recommend you consider taking time off from school. School will be there for you when you come back, take care of yourself first.

Thanks everyone! I feel a lot more relieved after reading your responses, and have more strategies for avoiding such errors in the future. Also, at least I didn't do this XD http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/11/11/_crappy_gabor_paper_overly_honest_citation_slips_into_peer_reviewed_journal.html