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Catria

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Posts posted by Catria

  1. 21 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:

    I have no knowledge that would help here, but it seems to me that it would make more sense to first identify schools that would be a good research match, and then investigate their disabilities office further. Those schools might be easier to identify (at least on this board) because there are more sources of information that could help. In general, no matter how good the resources at a school are, I don't think that going to a school that doesn't actually have a department or advisor to that could support your research would be a good idea.  

    Any schools I mentioned by name in the OP are mentioned for research reasons. I know which professors would best align with my research interests at each listed location.

  2. Since the challenges of autism do not stop once one earns an undergraduate degree, or even at the end of the coursework stage of a graduate program, I wonder which schools may be best for autistic graduate students, at least in terms of disability services. I understand the advisor is a factor (as much as it is a factor for neurotypicals) but, so long as they fit one another, and not just in terms of research interests, the advisor is, unfortunately, not the end of the story as far as life as an autistic graduate student is concerned, even at the research stage.

    For the coursework stage I do not think it is overly different from what's made available to autistic undergraduates. And we know that autistic students look to graduate school for similar reasons to that of neurotypicals, and can be just as motivated to succeed. Oh, sure, some autistic graduate students "master out" if they realize they only really excelled at coursework (when that is the case, it's usually because of the structure coursework provides), while others take advantage of the looser structure of the research stage to be able to work on the topics they want for extended periods at a time.

    If field is important, physics (or astronomy in the case of UChicago).

    Perhaps I'm wrong but I always hear about Caltech, MIT and Carnegie Mellon (in that order; I'm not even sure as to whether I would be applying to Caltech or MIT though, knowing I would assuredly apply to Carnegie Mellon if I tried my hand again) seem to be cutting-edge in dealing with autistic graduate students, whereas other schools may be competent with autistic undergraduates but comparatively clueless with autistic graduate students, with UIUC and WUSTL being in-between (but I would probably think UIUC is better on that particular count, just not at the level CMU is). Notre Dame is decades behind Carnegie Mellon with both groups in that respect.

    UPenn, UChicago and Waterloo (as are Carleton, York, and possibly UVic) are unknown autistic quantities to me even though, research-wise, I know who I want to work with at these schools, and for what.

  3. Having learned that the day-to-day work in two areas of observational (or experimental) work in particle cosmology out of three (data analysis and modelling) share quite a bit in similarities with theoretical work, I've been toying with going for observational particle cosmology, rather than theoretical particle cosmology, at the top-10 schools (potentially Harvard, Stanford or UChicago), provided that the POIs I would then choose actually do work in my area of interest mostly using data analysis and/or modelling (I don't think I have the dexterity to do instrumentation, or I am otherwise not instrumentation-minded). But I am confused as to whether to apply for theory or for observation [at top-10 schools], given what I know about the day-to-day work in each area.

    That, knowing that applying straight up for theory is just fine for non-top-10 American schools (UPenn, Carnegie Mellon, WUSTL, Notre Dame, ASU).

    But what would have made me like a PhD program would have required actually doing research on some level, and I didn't do any at Minnesota before I left.

  4. Let's say that I was given unacceptable conditions for returning from medical leave; basically I had to self-fund at least the following year of a physics PhD. Knowing that doing so would result in a financial disaster, I am definitely withdrawing from the program, with the understanding that, if I still wanted to earn a PhD at some point, I would have to transfer.

    I could always mention, in an addendum (if there is space for one), mental health problems, going to mental health services (on-campus and later off-campus) on a regular basis for 75% of the only semester I ended up attending, and leaving school to take better care of myself. (I feel I did what was right from a medical standpoint) But when there is no space for an addendum in an application, I was advised to just drop a line about "personal problems" or "extenuating circumstances".

    And also, I have two publications on file by now, whereas I had none when I applied to PhD programs the first time around. Because I do not feel my GRE scores were an issue, I do not feel the need to re-take the GRE, general or physics, since they are still valid. But TOEFL, on the other hand, I would have to retake because the scores are no longer valid.

    Is there anything else I should do? (I do not think I aimed too high the first time around, just too wide; this time around, I am willing to consider Canadian as well as American PhD programs)

    P.S.: I never had Ws before that particular semester, but still somehow ended up with 3.80 for what coursework remained. if you need more information about my file or anything else, please, let me know.

  5. Suppose that you want nothing to do with academia or cannot work in academia. (The consensus here with respect to academia is, in a nutshell: in humanities or social sciences, you would be lucky to find an higher-ed employer where prestige is considered "just a job skill like another", other than maybe a community college, whereas in STEM disciplines, higher-ed employers seem to treat prestige mostly as simply just one job skill like another, but in K-12 it may not even be a consideration) But nevertheless you know that all alt-ac jobs are neither open to interview you for this, nor will all of them care about prestige.

    And, of course, even though not many here dream of practicing law, even less in the current state of the legal job market, law is an area where prestige is considered at least as some sort of job skill.

    I understand that each field has different prestige standards, so please, be specific about the field you're talking about. And also regions may be more prestige-sensitive for a given field than others.

    East Asian countries (Korea, Japan, China to a lesser extent) have long been considered areas where prestige is a job skill that can often trump more substantive job skills, whereas prestige is relevant to a handful few non-academic jobs in Canada at most.

  6. I often hear about how a leave of absence often ends up being the kiss of death for a doctoral student's graduate career. Even though family or medical reasons are perfectly legitimate reasons to ask for one. But I know that, even if a LOA is asked during the coursework stage, the department takes a big risk. Admittedly it is easier to calculate the risk of a LOA when the student is still in the coursework stage, especially if it is asked before any research is actually conducted by the student.

    One can easily imagine that often, students who take a leave of absence during the research stage of a research-based degree (esp. PhD but also happens at the MA/MS level, albeit less frequently) will have a lot of catching up to do in their research upon return if they did return.

    But how often do graduate students actually return from a leave of absence? I would understand if undergrads return from LOAs more often than grad students did...

  7. On 8/6/2015 at 5:44 PM, rising_star said:

    To the original point of this post, I'll just say that I hadn't heard of any school letting the children of postdocs claim legacy status until I read this thread. It's a bizarre idea to me and I certainly wouldn't make any major life or career decision based on it. If we were talking about the tuition benefits for the children of tenure-track faculty, well, that's a whole 'nother ball game, especially if you have children nearing college age.

    The only school I know for a fact where postdoc legacy actually counts for anything is not for undergraduate admissions, but for law school at that particular school.

    It surprised me that Saskatchewan Law would treat a postdoc legacy the same as having a relative work for the same amount of time in another capacity within Saskatchewan... and the latter somehow gives a bump to an applicant. (Any claim to legacy status has to be mentioned on one's personal statement for law school there)

  8. On 12/8/2015 at 11:20 PM, Eigen said:

    Did your advisor ask you to come up with a research idea, or a research paper?

    To start off with, you say they asked you to come up with a research idea that you weren't able to come up with. I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask a new PhD student to come up with a project idea at the start of their first semester, that's what you're there for. 

    Papers usually don't come that quickly, however. 

    9 hours sounds like medium load, not too heavy and not too light, and TAing (grading) two courses is about the norm in my field- maybe a bit on the light side depending on the size and number of homework assignments. 

    The expectation in my program is that you're generally in lab when you're not TAing or in class during the week (it's mostly lab TAs) and that grading/class work is evening time. For a non-lab field, I'd sub research in in place of "in the lab".

    How publishable your work is is different from how productive you're being. We want all our first year students to be spending the time in the lab, because even if the projects they come up with don't work out (and most of them don't), they learn a ton about the field and developing research from those failures. If they wait until they're done with courses, or have a light TA load to get into the lab and dive into research, they don't fail all that much less and then are a few semesters behind in becoming productive. 

    I know some programs in other disciplines would rather wait until 2nd semester or 2nd year even, to even get lit review started (however when that occurs, one picks the remaining coursework based on lit review and what would otherwise be relevant to their research).

    But are you really saying that there aren't really not that many failures that occurs because of errors that can be traced back to a lack of grounding in the basic knowledge that is taught in the coursework or due to a lack of time?

    Doing research when you do not master the basics at a sufficient level can slow you down to a crawl and even grind to a halt.

  9. You would have asked me during my first two months in Minnesota, I would have said my PhD institution without hesitation.

    Whether it will end up being that way in the long run, of course, will depend on 1) if I ever return from my leave of absence and 2) the research I will get out of my degree if I returned.

    But I know the departmental receptionist once said that she knew few, if any, people who would feel more strongly for their graduate institution (or any of their graduate institutions if there are more than one) than for their undergraduate institutions - and every single of these people she suspected that would be the case held jobs that required an advanced degree to hold, and maybe even require a specific advanced degree to hold.

  10. That might be a crazy wish of mine but I wish I could get 4.0 in my coursework (and an insanely high score on the written comps) at the cost of complete inability of doing research... then again I would take the masters and run by that point; I would then try to take my career in another direction.

  11. The reason why I mentioned PGS-D specifically was because I hold a Canadian masters... in which case I know there are Canadian supervisors that I would be able to work under, with a PGS-D in hand, that I wouldn't be able to otherwise. 

    This means I have 2 years of PGS-D eligibility. If I start in Fall 2017, and I obtain it for 2017 I will have 3 years, but if I obtained it in 2018 then I have 2 years of PGS-D.

    The decision to drop out was made before NSERC awards for future application cycles even entered the equation. I know fixing the kind of mental health issues I am afflicted with is a long-term enterprise.

  12. 2 hours ago, Oshawott said:

    Are you Canadian? You still need Canadian citizenship/permanent residency to qualify for PGS-D.

    Yes; for one of the schools I applied to during last cycle I was the only Canadian applicant for that particular cycle (at that particular school, I was waitlisted and rejected on Apr. 15 off said waitlist due to the class size having been shrunk)

    There's also the

    eligibility criteria

    with regards to how long you've attended graduate school (which includes programs you dropped out of):

    • you must have completed, as of December 31 of the year of application, between zero and 24 months (between four and 36 months if admitted to the doctoral program directly from your bachelor’s program) of studies (full-time equivalent) in the doctoral program for which you are requesting funding; and
    • you must not hold, or have held, a scholarship or fellowship from SSHRC, NSERC or CIHR to undertake or complete a doctoral program.

    I believe there's also a section with regards to any difficulties that may have impeded your research progress in the past (unless they don't have that at the doctoral level), so this would be your opportunity to explain why you dropped out of your previous program.

    I will have attended a doctoral program for just one full-time semester...

  13. Yay for the Libs actually fixing the scientific damage done, which may render a PGS-D (and also a FRQNT B2) within range.

    I'm about to drop out of my current PhD program due to mental health concerns. Suppose that I could get my mental health fixed before I go for yet another round of applications, in which case I would:

    1. Spread my applications between Canadian and American schools (within reason) which probably means less US applications
    2. Applying for funding such as a PGS-D

    Before I go around asking potential (Canadian!) supervisors for potential projects for PGS-D purposes, is there any advice for applying for a PGS-D if one started a PhD but dropped out for personal reasons? (Said advice would likely be applicable for FRQNT B2)

  14. I don't feel like I am a failure for leaving, only that having the intellectual ability to carry out the intended project to completion (I'd like to think that I could complete the project to completion since I worked on a closely related topic as a masters student) would not have meant that I can't be driven insane the way I have been.

  15. I won't sugar-coat it: I'll leave my program once the semester is over.

    Because I knew that, if I stayed, I would have to retake these courses I dropped at some point, and that would just add fuel to the fire. Even that confidence-boosting gambit (retaking undergrad-level statistical mechanics, then take the grad-level one afterward) could also have been just as stressful; said gambit needed As in both the undergrad-level statistical mechanics and the grad-level one to work. Failure to obtain an A in either course would have signaled that the program just wasn't for me either.

    And also, there's only one thing that could have saved the entire deal: if I did better on these accursed midterms!

  16. On 11/4/2015, 12:58:49, fuzzylogician said:

    You are having so many negative thoughts, you are pushing yourself into a downward spiral. I absolutely hope you are seeking help from mental health services at your university to deal with it. You can have severe anxiety and be successful, and you can have serious doubts about your abilities and be successful. I repeat, you can be successful. But you have to fight and you have to want to work on yourself and get past this. And you need help to do it. I hope you are getting it.  

    DGS, mental health services both said that the stress was too intense for me to keep taking these stress-inducing courses...

  17. I would expect the median to also fall within that range (~80-85%). Except that I now rue the day that I first had that crazy idea that I would have what it takes to succeed... now I know I don't (if only psychologically) and I hate myself so much by now, so much so that I even think teaching some kids with learning disabilities would beat my current predicament (I actually thought of that as a backup plan if I gave up on physics as an undergrad since I knew the subject matter would probably play a major role in why I would have been unhappy with it back then)... and Jackson will only make it worse next semester, if I somehow stay beyond this semester.

    Also the only thing I could possibly have fooled the adcoms about is the very issue I am complaining about: mental health concerns...

    One last thing: is it advisable to be sent back to undergrad-level stat-mech due to the issues I'm having, and the concerns I have regarding the second half of the course?

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