jlee306

I LOVE THIS THREAD!! I have never been so excited to buy a book self and a filing cabinet! Oh, the luxuries of grad life here I come, lol.

I LOVE THIS THREAD!! I have never been so excited to buy a book self and a filing cabinet! Oh, the luxuries of grad life here I come, lol.

I LOVE THIS THREAD!! I have never been so excited to buy a book self and a filing cabinet! Oh, the luxuries of grad life here I come, lol.

I LOVE THIS THREAD!! I have never been so excited to buy a book self and a filing cabinet! Oh, the luxuries of grad life here I come, lol.

I am full time....I want to finish my degrees asap!

TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS!!! You are not making something out of nothing. Something about this man is making you feel uncomfortable, and that is not "nothing". As women, we are too often taught to dismiss our instincts and not to "rock the boat" or let anyone be upset with us. Well, guess what? You don't owe this man anything; there is no need to put his feelings ahead of your own! Even if he's just looking for friendship, and you tell him you aren't interested, so what if his feelings are hurt or he thinks you are rude? Not the end of the world. But it seems that you sense something else is going on; you owe it to yourself to take this seriously and take steps to protect your personal safety.

I agree with the suggestions that you speak to someone about this, someone you trust to give you sound advice and not just dismiss your impression as a misreading or an overreaction. Together you can develop a strategy for dealing with this man appropriately. You can plan exactly how you will react the next time you see him, "script" and everything. You can determine whether it is necessary to report his behaviour to someone, or what would make it necessary to report. If, God forbid, things should escalate, you will want an ally who knows what's been going on and a plan for the next steps to be taken. Even if he leaves you alone, it's comforting to have support in your corner.

Ok, I'm starting to feel really blessed. We have functional office space. I mean, it's not my friend's incredibly awesome corner space in a new theater department building with room for an office and a sitting area and floor to ceiling windows but for grad students I think it's nice. We have around the clock access and after a $10 donation at the start of the year we can print to our heart's content. It's kind of decorated like a grad student apartment, sure -- lived in sofas -- but we don't share desks and it's clean and comfortable. HOWEVER, I do have my eye on that B-school building right across the walkway. Judging just by their lobby and atrium? They've probably got leather massage chairs and dogs trained to bring you slippers.

Man, if we were at the same school I would totally join you in that game of tag. Although you know what you could do to get your grad school friends into it would be to start up a game of Paint Monster. We used to play this at an English Camp I worked at and it was the most fun thing ever.

It's basically a combination of tag and hide and seek. Three people (maybe more or less, depending on the size of your group) are given a jar of paint (each a different color) and a paintbrush. They are then told to hide in different places while the rest of the group covers there eyes. Once they have hidden themselves, one, two or three (again, depending on the size of your group) "paint monsters" are chosen. These people are each given a damp washcloth.

Once the paint monsters have been chose, the remaining people are allowed to run around freely looking for the painters. Once they have found a painter, the painter then uses the paintbrush to paint a stripe on the person's face. The goal of the game is to be the first one to return to the starting point with all the colors on his/her face.

However, once you have paint on your face, you are vulnerable to the attacks of the paint monsters. If they see you with paint on your face, they can chase you and try to tag you. Once they have tagged you, they use the damp washcloth to wipe the paint off your face. You must then start over.

Yet starting over might not be as easy as you thought, because the painters are allowed to move from their spots at any time, meaning that you have to start the whole process over again.

This game is a lot of fun . . . and maybe I'll just start a game on Berkeley's campus for an afternoon of stress-relieving fun and exercise!

You have to know your own study habits. It takes some time, but once you've understood what works best for you, you can tailor your studying to fit that pattern.

Here is what works for me:
- I never work at home, there are just too many temptations there. So, either I go to the office, or to a coffee shop, or I sit in a park or at the riverbank.
- If possible, I disconnect from the internet.
- If I'm in a noisy place and can't concentrate I put on headphones with some work-music: monotonic, wordless, not too loud (jazz, instrumental, classical).
- I work in the afternoons/evenings/nights, when I can concentrate the best.
- I arrange to have snacks, water and coffee at my desk so there's no excuse to get up and go to the kitchen.
- I try to decide on scheduled breaks. It works best for me to have short work-sessions and short breaks. e.g. 15 mins work, 5 mins break.
- If I'm concentrated and on a roll, I don't stop for my scheduled break. If, however, I'm really not being productive, I quit for a longer while and return to work later.
- I break up the work to small bits and set realistic goals, so I'm never faced with a huge ominous task.
- I make up deadlines for each bit for some time before the actual deadline. I keep those deadlines.
- I take the time to make a large to-do list on a whiteboard at my desk every week. I cross off every task I've performed; it's very fulfilling to see crossed-off lines.
- I sometimes work in small groups with like-minded grad students who also need someone to watch that they're not wasting time surfing the internet.
- ...and I embrace my procrastination. It's unavoidable. I'm happy if I can just manage it.
- When the deadline is over: I celebrate my success, and if possible - take some time off.

For larger projects, for me it's all about getting started. That is much easier to do if I break the project down to small parts and start with something easy, just so I have something already written. I always start by writing an intro that details what I plan to do (which always gets completely rewritten by the time I finish the work), and an outline of the sections+subsections I plan to have in my paper. I write down a rough summary of the results I want to report in the paper and move on to the lit review. That way I have a few pages written down before I get to the hard parts. If I'm having a bad day, a realistic goal can even be "write one page today!!," it depends on the work load and deadlines. But if that's my goal for the day then I (try to) do it, no matter how much time I spend on forums and blogs in between.

If you approach your life with a checklist in hand, it's not going to be very satisfying. So, I offer you a list of useful things I have learned from my own experiences dating a successful academic, seeking my own success, and abandoning my former inclinations to accomplish everything according to an arbitrary idea of a schedule.

1. You seem to be overly caught up in the details of right now. He's not an academic superstar pre-grad program, so he'll never be an academic superstar. You're hot shit in your program right now, so you'll always be hot shit. No one's fate is sealed until that dissertation boldly declares the truth to the world: either you're capable of brilliance, originality, creativity, insight, and clear thinking, in whatever combination, or you're not.

2. Your world will not fall apart if you miss the deadline for a few stops on your itinerary. It will never fit together. It will never be perfect. You have no idea what sorts of things may happen a few years down the road. You plan the best you can, and you try to make decisions that will make you happy.

3. When you were accepted a few years ago, the job market in academia was flush with opportunities for grad school applicants. That feast has withered into famine. Programs across the board are having problems supporting their current faculty, let alone taking on new grad students. So, your acceptance to more programs doesn't necessarily make you that much more of a superstar, it just makes you luckier to have applied for PhD programs at a time when the market was more promising.

4. I dated someone who went to schools recognized as the best in the country for high school, college, and his doctorate, which he completed straight through. He immediately became a tenure-track professor at a university with a fantastic reputation in an awesome city, working under a pioneer in his field. I'm sure he's brilliant in his field (it's a little esoteric), but he was not someone who most people would assume was brilliant upon meeting him. They only learned about it when he mentioned his background. He grasped things quickly and thoroughly, but he approached those things as if he were studying them - he was obviously a great student. But he had a difficult time making innovative leaps and intuitive connections. He wasn't interested in literature, he couldn't hold a conversation about music, and if he saw a great movie, you generally had to explain why it moved you and why it's considered so incredible. There wasn't a ton of passion in his pursuits. He couldn't translate the ideas of his field very well into language that wasn't within its jargon. His research, in his own words even, was solid, but it wasn't groundbreaking. After the breakup, friends shared what I had suspected: they found him dull.

In short, being talented academically does not necessarily make you smart. (Now, no one twist that into a reverse syllogism - that doesn't mean that not being talented academically means you are smart. There are smart people in academia, there are morons in academia, there are smart people in the working world, there are morons in the working world.) He's incredibly successful in academia, which I have a huge amount of respect for. We both got our dream jobs early on, and we both do them very well. We both achieved big titles at young ages. His is in the ivory tower; mine isn't. Neither is better or worse. So, basically, what I'm saying is, outside academia, no one cares about the minute nuances of your status as a scholar. It's who you are, how global your intelligence is, whether you have a work ethic, whether you can hold your own in a provocative conversation - not how many papers you publish a year. It makes about as much sense as saying, "I qualified for the Boston Marathon, but my boyfriend only runs a 10-minute mile. How will he cope?" Just cheer each other on and enjoy the fact that you both like to run. (With me and my ex, it was more like, proverbially, he liked to swim and I liked to garden. Neither is better, they're just too different to compare.)

5. If you're worried that he's going to go to a program that isn't his first choice and that you'll feel guilty for any potential fallout (especially if you suspect you may want to break up with him), then make sure he's making his choices for himself, not because it's what he thinks you'll want. That way, clear conscience no matter what he does.

6. Don't be caught up in the rankings. I went to a large public research university, and I was always a little insecure about it. But my ex-bf who went to these fancy schools is the one who taught me that the people in his department, the best in the field, had equal respect for colleagues in the ivy league as professors at more ordinary schools. The reputation wasn't staked on a name, it was staked on the level of the work people there were doing.

7. The problem doesn't seem to be his; it seems to be yours. View it through the filter of your own feelings, not your conjectures about what he feels. It sounds like a cover.

8. The title of this post is telling. "Finding and keeping a male partner?" It sounds like you're still keeping an eye out for something better. If you are, break it off, because the longer you prolong it, the more painful it's going to be.

9. If it's a chore to see him, then you shouldn't be with him. It's not love if you have to convince yourself that it is. It should not feel like a burden to see someone you love. If it is, you're probably making excuses.

10. You have a whole life ahead of you. Don't feel stuck at this age. If you feel constricted, figure out a way to break out of it. You're not trapped. Opportunity doesn't have an expiration date, but rushing could lead to serious mistakes.

11. If the worst problem in your life right now is that people will resent you for how awesome you are, that's pretty badass.

Here's my male perspective.
I would personally resent being with a spouse who thinks I am a failure.

My boyfriend and I have been long distance for the past year, we see each other 1 weekend a month. Here's what I've found works:

Skype, no pesky long distance bills, plus some face to face time every day. Sure you are going to be busy but you will take time to eat or fold laundry just do it in front of the computer.

Plan visits in advance so you have something to look forward to.

Make the most of the time you have, which means getting enough work done in advance to enjoy the time you have together.

Have active stuff to do together as well as time to sit around and do nothing.

The biggest thing is communication, be willing to talk if there's problems, it's too easy to ignore things when you don't have to face the person every day.

Im kinda in this same position, but Im applying for School Psych Ed.S programs. Im under the impression from the school psych's Ive talked to that as long as you have the appropriate certification, then your good. They both said that in interviews no one has ever asked them what school they went to. If you have a chance to spend less Id do it. But Im curious to hear what other people think.

I personally think it's a bit foolish not to choose Purdue. It's a GREAT university and it's ranking speaks volumes. The Midwest is a great area to study and it makes me sad that people automatically think it's in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do. The program is only two years and they're offering you so much financially that you'll be able to sleep easier knowing that you won't have to burden yourself with so much loans from grad school.

Only you can know what you may want in life, but to answer your question: my friend that graduated with a BA in English in December started grad school in Jan for Library Science.

Only you can know what you may want in life, but to answer your question: my friend that graduated with a BA in English in December started grad school in Jan for Library Science.

This line of reasoning almost convinced me... until I realized it still lacks a hood. I mean, what kind of person has arms on fire, doesn't have a head surrounded with flames? I mean seriously, think about it for a second, it just doesn't make sense.

I refuse to comment until I see the hats.

This is as good a place as any to voice my frustration about this. Here is a conversation I've had wayyyy too many times.


Person: What do you want a PhD in?
Me: English. Hopefully a cross-disciplinary study in British lit and gender and women's studies.
Person: Oh. What are you going to teach? Elementary school?
Me: (Resisting an eye roll, because who the hell teaches British lit and GWS to first-through-fifth graders...) No. I'd like to become a professor and publish books and articles in those areas.
Person: Do you like to read?
Me: Yes.
Person: I hated English in school.
Me: "Uh..." (Thinking: Aw, fuck it.)

Me: I study Psychobiology
Them: So what, you analyze dolphins?

*facepalm*

true story

Person: What are you going to graduate school for?

Me: Theatre and Performance Studies

Person: So you want to be an actor?

Me: No. I want to be a professor.

Person: Of acting?

Me: No...of performance theory/dramatic literature/theatre history.

Person: So you can eventually work on Broadway?

Me: No...so I can be a professor.

Person: Of acting?

(Repeat).

For the six schools I've done so far...

Application fees: $634
Postal fees (Tracked and guaranteed applications, stamps for recs): $92
Transcript fees: $99 (Curse the schools that want two sets!)
Paper, envelopes and ink cartridges: $62
Case file to keep it all organised: $7
Countless hours of effort and worry: my sanity

Getting an acceptance letter in the mail: (hopefully) priceless. Or $894. Depending on how you slice it.

Oh, I hear ya and the others who have said this. My concern is that the director will know when she reads my cover letter that I didn't follow her direction if I leave it out and I don't want that to look bad. She will remember me b/c this is a relatively small school and program. The point of this is because the rest of my application is totally opposite...making awesome grades and all. The GRE just seems to be my weak point and she wanted me to point out that I really tried my hardest, despite all that is going on in my life that could have prevented me from studying at all.

I am retaking the GRE this Wednesday (the 21st) and I need advice on the reading comprehension portion. I know what you may be thinking: "That is the easiest part of the verbal because the answers are practically given to you." Well, it is not so easy for me. I am a slow reader and I think that maybe I stress out that I am wasting so much time reading that I am not even paying attention to what I am reading. Any tips or advice on how to do well on this section would be greatly appreciated!! Thank you!