maelia8

Definitely Buzzfeed.

I attend a UC as a grad student and am in a department with international students, and although domestic students do have to get California residency after one year or pay the difference in tuition, this is NOT required of international grad students (I know this because my roommate is one of them). The UCs do not fund proportionally as many international students as many comparable private universities, but if they do accept international students and offer them funding, they will provide you with a tuition waver throughout your years with the department and not cut it off after one year (since it's completely unreasonable to expect international grad students to become permanent residents just to attend school!).

To be honest, I'm in a field that just isn't really that hirable or trendy no matter WHAT subfield you're in (although some subfields are slightly more likely to be hired than others, it's a very small leg up), and at least in the humanities, I see it as kind of necessary to being doing what interests you, because if you do something that doesn't interest you and then still don't get hired (a likely possibility), you'll feel like you wasted your time doing the Ph.D. period. I'd like to say that I enjoyed the 6-8 years of my life that I spent researching something, no matter how esoteric and unrelated to what i might eventually end up doing, because at least then I will feel like I did something worthwhile. You are expected to specialize highly for your dissertation, and if you have to spend 3-5 years writing a book, it better be on something that really, really interests you.

I'm a lifelong vegetarian, and I really live off grains and beans from the bulk bin, vegetables from the produce section, and organic, local, cage-free eggs and yogurt. I rarely buy packaged crackers or premixed anything, and since I buy in small amounts, I don't need to get frozen stuff (although I do rarely get something frozen if it's out of season, like peas). Of course, that being said, I also have a small "emergency stash" of canned/instant soups in case I get sick and really can't cook, so I'm definitely willing to compromise, and I won't pretend that I've never bought a bought a bag of kettle chips when I was really craving a bit of premade flavor. I think of clean eating as an important thing to aspire to, but hey, sometime you need a little bit of wiggle room.

Don't worry, right now you are the most inexperienced person in the room, and sometimes you'll feel like a small child that has just made in his/her diaper, but think about it - in two or three years, YOU'LL be the experienced student able to look back and laugh at this and rejoice in how far you've come since then

My mentor is the professor in the department who is from (and specializes in) the country whose history I primarily research. I mentioned him as a POI in my application and at visit day, he intimated to me that he had been on the 5-person selection committee and personally advocated my admission because he thought my work was interesting. He's calm, steady, very friendly, chill, and a good communicator, and (this is a very good sign, I think) incredibly popular among his other older graduate students, who all love him and refer to him by first name. Even though he's very busy because he has a lot of grad students and is in the final stages of editing his book, he makes time to see me and even talk about little things like what courses to take next semester

@TMP I was thinking of applying for DAAD language course funding, but they mention in the description that it's aimed at A1-B2 level speakers and I've already been assessed as C2 - do you think it would be worth my time? I also looked into their 1-2 month summer research grants, but they clearly state that those grants are intended for ABD people who are done with orals and have a clear dissertation project (which currently does not describe me). In general, is it possible to get funding for research grants when you aren't yet sure of your exact dissertation topic? Would it be frowned upon to apply for a grant for research on something that may turn into merely a seminar paper?

In my department we spend a lot of time in the grad lounge together, so there's always someone there that you can approach if you have a question. I only go to my prof's office hours if it's for Big Stuff like concentrations or a major paper or discussing my dissertation. It would be inappropriate to go more often as he only holds office hours once a week and he's a popular prof so his 15-minute slots get snapped up quickly.

I third the Pilot G2 as my favorite pen - the cartridges are cheap to replace and the rubber grip is pretty plush for what's essentially a cheap gel pen. I've been using the same 5 or 6 ones for the last five years and simply replacing the cartridges.

I know it's early to be thinking about this, but a lot of scholarship/fellowship deadlines are in November and it's never too early to start planning, so I thought I'd send out a call to veteran history grad students now: What did you do during your first couple of summers in grad school (before orals)? How did you make the time productive? Did you leave your university town, and if so, did you apply for funds to do language courses/cultural immersion/research somewhere else (and with what programs)? If you stayed in town, did you take on a summer job to earn extra cash? At our new student orientation the coordinator was really serious about the need to "put summers to good use," but wasn't very clear about what exactly we should be doing, so I just wanted to hear tales of successful summer activities.

It's funny that you say you have little time as a first-year grad student to participate in department activities - I'm a first year too, and in my experience, it's mostly the first and second years who still have time before their oral exams to actually go to department events at all, and attendance is heavily skewed in that direction (I should mention that I'm in a 6-7 year program). I participate in department activities pretty often, including the graduate student association, working groups in my specialty field, and all-department events, especially those that involve food (because let's be honest, a free meal is nothing to scoff at when you're living on a graduate stipend). That being said, not everyone in my cohort is interested in attending everything, and there are 3 or 4 people that I really only see in class or at events with required attendance. I personally like going to talks as well - my department brings in a lot of good guest speakers, and even hearing upper-division grad students in my department present on their current projects is inspiring. TL;DR: I don't think anyone is going to judge you based on how often you go to department events, so it's really just up to you. If you're only going out of a feeling of obligation, not because you enjoy them, then I don't think you need to be going very often.

I'm in Modern European history, but at the institution I'm at (and several others I applied to), you were discouraged from contacting POIs personally regardless of your field (this was listed on the history department application homepage). Of course you were expected to check and see if there were profs there working on things in your area of interest, but that was as far as it went.

Today I got my first grad written assignment (a 1000-word book review) back from the prof, and he said that he liked my "independent and intelligent approach to an difficult comparison" and that I do "an excellent job avoiding simplification and producing a clear message"!!!! So relieved and happy Good luck to everybody else there writing their first "grown-up" work and hoping it passes!

Since I have an Amazon Kindle, I always buy ebooks or download PDFs and read them that way if I possibly can. My Kindle lets me highlight texts and add marginal notes and bookmark pages the same as a physical book, and since i often read 4-6 books a week as a person in the humanities, buying physical books is simply not feasible due to cost, and getting all of them at the library is impractical due to weight (although sometimes I get them at the library, scan PDFs of the chapters I need if we aren't reading the whole book, and then download the PDFs onto my Kindle for reading). I love the searchability of ebooks, as well as their weightlessness, and, after experiencing pain in my wrist from reading a 600-page book this week that I could only get ahold of in hard copy this week, I think that for me at least, ebooks are the healthier way to go.

@Fuzzy I actually had the opposite experience - my department-internal orientation was pretty pointless, but I learned a lot of really useful things at the graduate-wide orientation, especially about campus-wide stuff like health insurance, establishing residency, using the fitness centers and libraries, campus performances and events, etc., although I didn't really meet any new friends. I honestly found out about things I was really glad to know but would probably never have taken the initiative to find out on my own, so for me it was definitely a win.

A few of the schools I applied to stated specifically on their department website NOT to contact POIs because the profs get so many emails that it's only a bother to them (unless you have a really, really good reason for doing so). These were institutions that get more than 500 applications per year for less than 20 spots, so I could understand the reasoning behind it. Be sure to check very carefully on the website to see whether contacting POIs is discouraged, encouraged, or not mentioned, because frequently there is some text about it on the FAQ or info page for applicants.

It's still very warm right now where I live, so I wear a lot of sundresses and dress them up with grown-up accessories like scarves and hats and nice shoes. I see a lot of the undergrads wearing spaghetti-strap tank tops, tiny shorts, and flip flops, but I don't dress like that on days when I have seminar, though I have worn such things on campus (at the library, cafe, etc.) and people mistook me for an undergrad. I should mention that I am at a VERY casual institution where only one grad student in my cohort wears suits and everyone else thinks it's hilarious … a few of the cohort guys wear collared shirts sometimes … but almost everyone usually wears jeans and t-shirts, and none of the professors wear full-on suits and ties (though many wear slacks and blouses or collared shirts).

Hmm, based on that time frame, it sounds to me as though he has probably abandoned the dating option (for reasons unknown, and I don't want to speculate). I understand why it might be awkward to see him after two months of no contact - is there any chance that you could switch the time you work out (if it makes you uncomfortable to see him)? In any case, I'd say it's probably time to move on and look for other prospects if dating is what you'd like.

My sister, who is now 22, started dating her boyfriend (then 27, now 29) when she was 20. Sometimes it works just fine with that age range, so I wouldn't discount the possibility of a relationship between the OP and this guy purely based on that. OP, I'm curious as to exactly how long it's been since he contacted you, and how often you'd been FB chatting before. If you were chatting pretty erratically before, could it be that he just hasn't gotten back to you because he doesn't think it's important to respond quickly, or did he usually answer every message from you within 24 hours? In any case, if you didn't get the vibe that he was ever flirting with you (in person or over chat) and you've been in contact for more than a month, then he may have just been being friendly.

There are other threads that discuss this subject across grad cafe (run a search and see if they are helpful). The best series of books that I can recommend to you (they offer them for a large number of languages) are "English Grammar for Students of _________," which helps you to quickly understand grammar, and "__________ for Reading," which helps you to learn how to prep and pass a reading exam in a language you want to read for research.

Since I'm in the humanities and just beginning my program (and my family is only 6 hours' drive away), I'll be going home fairly frequently, possibly even on long weekends. The kind of sources I work with are portable (mostly), so I'll probably just gather up a good stack of books and PDFs related to a seminar paper and read some while I'm at home to at least get something done while I'm there

@St. Andrews Lynx that's exactly what I've been drinking over the past few days, and I've been getting better! It also tastes utterly delicious

Another tip: make use of the free or low-cost resources that your school may offer! My university offers a semester-long gym subscription with unlimited use of facilities of 4 different campus gyms and over 100 exercise classes - for $10! My department also has frequent dinners and luncheons attached to presentations that provide free food if you register in advance, and our student health care covers all immunizations, basic health care, and preventative dental for free. If your health care and gym membership are basically free, then it's easy to stay happy and healthy. I also second the public library - as a humanities person, I hate having to shell out hundreds of dollars for books each semester that will be relevant for one class meeting (without even knowing if they will be relevant to my future research), so I get a lot of them at the public library when the university library copies are checked out already and ILL won't get them to me fast enough.

I just got legitimately sick on Monday with a bad cold This happens to my every fall when I go back to school (even when I was working as a high school teaching assistant), and always hits me within three weeks of classes starting - it doesn't seem to matter what city or continent I'm located in. I attribute it to my exposure to a whole new set of germs in all of the school buildings and classrooms, and it's just sort of an ordeal that I have to get through in order to build up the necessary immunities. It stinks, but hey, I'm used to it at this point.

To echo others here, I almost always cook enough for dinner to last me for two lunches on following days - I just portion it into to tupperware containers and voila, lunch. I make a lot of stir fry dishes and pasta bakes, as well as stews with lentils and veggies.