maelia8

My colleague got 8.5/10 and was also rejected, so if there's a cut-off, it must be higher than that ... kinda weirded out by the timing though, as it was apparently after 8pm on the East Coast and around 1 am in Germany when he got the notification? Maybe they had it on timed release?

Heads up, another person in my program got an email about a research grant earlier today (rejection), so fingers crossed that the rest of research applicants hear back soon! Hopefully the fact that I haven't heard back yet is a good thing if they sent out rejections earlier? Mine still just says "selection made."

Oh, did they already release Germany ETA? When? Congratulations to the successful ETA applicants!

My advisor is a foot shorter than me and male, so a hug would be ... weird ... to say the least. The only prof I've ever hugged is the sole female member of my qualifying exam committee, after not having seen each other for a long time over winter break. In my opinion it's very gender-socialized - I'd feel super weird getting hugged by any of my male profs, but female profs hugging me wouldn't bother me at all.

since Netherlands already released last week, Germany seemed tantalizingly close, but it seems there's been a move away from Western Europe to Latin America today ... all bets are off!

Hope you remembered to wear green, @Horb! Otherwise you might get pinched

I was an ETA in Mainz, Germany and had a wonderful time! Best of luck to you, I hope you get it! Now I'm in it for research and hoping my luck hasn't run out with Fulbright just yet

Good luck today, all! I'm genuinely surprised we haven't heard back from Germany yet, but who knows. At this point, I've stopped making bets and predictions.

Due to a series of unfortunate events, I ended up being to go-to person to buy the food for our working group for this term. I've spent over $300 on food so far and promptly submitted receipts, but the accounts secretary is incompetent and every time I go in there, she seems surprised that I'm requesting reimbursement at all, and can't figure out what account to take the funds from! About to buy another $100 worth of food today and hoping I see some of this money again before the end of term ...

@LibbyCreek You deserve it, knock 'em dead!

In my department, there are too many graduate students for all of us to have offices all of the time, so instead office use rotates based on who has a teaching assignment. This means that at the end of each term, we have to clean out our stuff and turn in the keys, so this discourages anyone from accumulating anything in there and the offices end up looking pretty bare. Most folks just bring their things in every day and leave with them at night, as though it were a classroom. People are likely to accumulate things in their lockers, which are in the graduate lounge area.

What state are you in? I think it depends a lot on state laws. I live in a state where recreational use has been legalized, so I don't know much about enforcement in other states. Even before it was legal here, everyone smoked, often in the open.

So basically unless the results come out in the next two or three hours, we're looking at a wait of three more days due to snow in NY, is that correct? Assuming the office hasn't already closed?

I think that for many people in grad school, it's the motivation and ambition that they are attracted to, not necessarily the shared academic experience. I've spent a lot of time hanging out with both artists/creatives beyond academia (my sister is in an MFA program) and with really productive Silicon Valley tech types, many of whom only have a bachelor's degree, and although they are not precisely the same as academics, they share a sense of motivation and ambition within their chosen field that I personally find very attractive, and suspect that it would appeal to other graduate students as well. TL;DR, those might be some fields to look for potential partners in, as they share a lot of the same values as academics.

Congratulations to those who have heard from Czechia (still feels awkward to write, lol) and Slovakia!!

@Adelaide9216 Really glad to hear that! I'm glad that you are confident in yourself, and assertive about what you want

I was told the opposite - but who knows, YMMV.

Don't know if this is applicable in this case, but OP, please don't feel pressured just because so many of your friends are in LTRs/married/having babies. I know too many people who put lots of time and energy into suboptimal dating experiences because they felt they just had to catch up to the curve of their friend circle, and ended up really disappointed a few years later after the low-quality relationship(s) tanked.

Yeah, ETA for sure is not as good as a research grant in terms of prestige, especially for Germany since so many ETAships are awarded. However, on top of an undergrad degree only, I think it can give a big leg up on getting into a humanities PhD especially.

Fingers crossed for Monday then! Hard to imagine here in sunny CA that it's still snowing other places, lol.

Having the ETA Fulbright in advance of applying for a PhD really helped my application in comparison to my stats right out of undergrad, especially since I got the second year renewal from the PAD in Germany after my first year of service.

Research in Germany! It's gonna be tomorrow or Tuesday, I can just feel it!

Could it be that this is a humanities/sciences difference? We do not work in labs, so most people take off from campus for the summer and research or do language learning on their own time. Our advisors do not expect research done by deadlines from us really until we are in the dissertation writing phase (year 5+), so our summers are really up to us to define unless we are taking a foreign language course. I know lots of students in my department who have other jobs as freelancers or doing summer teaching at the city college, and nobody ever had to agree not to work as long as we don't go over the arbitrary earnings threshold (I think it's around $35,000 per year).

@Horb, I really hope we hear from Germany on Monday or Tuesday! Not sure if I can wait much longer

I had no idea that so many institutions forbid work for graduate students! In my department, as long as we stay under a certain earning threshold, we are allowed to work up to about 10 hours/week on the side (in addition to TA/Researcher/Reader jobs that are part of our funding package). Most graduate students I know work for research institutes or libraries on campus for a little extra cash, and I did data entry two summer ago for a nice wage, also for a campus entity. Have you checked whether the issue is the amount of money you'd be making at this job? If so, maybe you could negotiate a salary that is more in line with your department's understanding of "internship"?