Neist

It could be good for the discipline, too. Diverse perspectives can spur diverse, unique research. Being at the forefront of that might be exciting. Also, I agree with you on the admissions records. Curiosity wants to see them, but I'd rather just do my own work without discouraging knowledge of other's opinions. You know, it hasn't been until the last few months that I've realized how slow-as-molasses academia operates. I'm surprised anyone gets anything done. Hopefully, you'll hear something soon.

It's possible, but it's sort of tin foil hat territory unless some school publishes detailed acceptance statistics (some do, actually). If you want, there are legal mechanisms in place to see your admissions documents (http://college.usatoday.com/2015/01/28/stanford-students-discover-how-to-access-their-admission-records/). Some Stanford students figure this out a year or so ago. I'm really tempted to ask for mine. It depends on the university, of course, but you might be able to see the actual comments from the admissions committee. Part of me wants to do it, and part of me doesn't. I'm very familiar with the department and the faculty, and I'm afraid I'd read things that would cause me to forever dislike them. Might be nice to see who believes in me, though. It's especially bad in certain disciplines. I don't know if Chemistry still is, but it used to be very homogeneous, at least at the university I'm at now. Thankfully, the humanities tend to be pretty diverse. I enjoy being in a melting pot.

Of the school I'm attending? http://cas.ou.edu/funding-your-graduate-education I was awarded a standard 10 month assistantship. Nothing overly special. However, I am applying for one of the higher-paid 12 month ones; the one for the Isis Bibliography aligns nearly perfectly with my research, and I'd love to be involved.

Congrats! Much of this entire cycle has made me ponder whether a good deal of this entire process adheres to old boys club mentality.

No problem! I especially liked the section on oatmeal. Oatmeal is super cheap and you can jazz it up for relatively little. Also, I love to share! Sharing improves a sense of diversity, and diversity is something that is always preferable, I think. I've considered calculating the caloric, monetary value of Soylent. It's dropped quite a bit in price. It's hard to find sources of protein that are cheap, and a 500 calorie serving of Soylent has 20g of protein and is less than two dollars a serving. Carbs and good fats are pretty easy to come by, but protein is tricky, or at least protein that isn't incredibly high in saturated fats. I love sausage, and sausage is cheap, but it's not something I should eat daily. Me and my wife have been roasting chickens once ever week or two and simply stretching the meat. It's tasty, but I need to mix up the variety. I wanted to get into yogurt, but all the brands of yogurt I like are too expensive to purchase regularly.

Have you ever tried USDA canned meats? Oh my, those are so bad! We'd sometimes get those from food pantries. Now that I'm older and know a thing or two about nutrition, I sort of wish my parents just made beans and rice a lot. It would have been tastier, and it costs practically nothing. However, we generally had at least something to eat. I grew up in a very small town, and my parents had a pretty large garden. We had no animals (hence the need for canned beef), but there was always veggies to be had. I admit, I had a pretty comfortable childhood, considering how poor we were at times. I've gotten pretty good at making cheap food now that I'm older. Also, while it's on topic, and we're all going to be relatively poor graduate students soon, I thought sharing this might be helpful. https://8b862ca0073972f0472b704e2c0c21d0480f50d3.googledrive.com/host/0Bxd6wdCBD_2tdUdtM0d4WTJmclU/good-and-cheap.pdf It's a cook book designed to function on food stamp budgets. I stumbled across it a year or so ago on these forums.

To be honest, I never knew any better! I played outside. Had fun. Did kid stuff. Did it bother me that we sometimes didn't have a lot of food? Nope! I definitely just "blend in." Occasionally, I'll run into someone who grew up a bit poorer, but I find a lot of people have no clue what poor is. You'll meet someone who states their family can't help them much with college because they are poor (brought up in casual conversation), and their next sentence states how their parents only pay for their living expenses, not their tuition. I've never really knew how to respond to that, so I just say nothing.

I can only comment for myself, but the work I put into my grad school applications was easily equivalent of a 3 credit hour course. Personally, I'd focus on making your applications better. You don't want to submit unpolished materials. Do you really need the language prep? Will it be relevant to your graduate studies?

Yipee! Great to hear. I think most universities under book classes by a few seats, so there's usually some leeway. Glad it worked out!

I used my senior capstone paper. It was a piece of analytical bibliography, so I dodged a bullet a bit on the page limitations. About a third of my paper was charts/graphs, and the bibliography was huge, but the text itself barely occupied 22 pages. To my credit, those 22 pages reflected a metric ton of research.

@rhlabbasinejad, I agree with @nevermind. And I support his statement as someone who is attending one of the programs you were accepted into in the Fall. Funding at OU was rough this year. There were only two funded slots for 18 applicants. I love the program, but I doubt I would have came here if I didn't receive funding. Take the money and run!

Eh, it's okay. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. For example, I read as slow as molasses. Not a good weakness to claim when one's major is history. My reading comprehension speed is one of the primary reasons why I listen as much as I do in audio form.

I think I'm going to have to be diligent in taking breaks. I know I'm going to work myself into the ground if I don't. Insane, right? At one point I was working 70 hour weeks, and I still managed a 15 credit hour semester. I'm not sure how I'm going to manage not being insanely busy. I'm going to get anxiety, I know it. People say that most graduate students only skim their require reading, but I'm not sure why I'd ever do that. At most, looking at previous syllabi in my program, there's only going to be 20-30 hours of reading a week. Sure, that's a lot of reading, but it's not a lot of reading when I don't need to be doing much of anything else. I've pulled that much reading a week when my daughter was one years old and I worked full-time. Even if I take the weekends off, I doubt I'll need more than 10 hours a day. As it stands, I'm pulling a few hours more than that, and a Saturday with only six hours of homework is a luxury.

I tend to be the same way. I've only done one independent study, and it was through a faculty member who gave me no strict deadlines. Without deadlines, I flew. It's easy to exceed expectations when there are none, and deadlines imply that a certain amount of work is sufficient, if not desirable. I burned through close to 600 pages a week in reading, and I finished the majority of my project halfway through the semester. I spent the rest of the semester polishing the paper and considering feedback. This was accomplished while working full time. I'm sort of terrified how fast I'm going to burn through research when I'm not working full-time. If I have a light GA assignment, I bet I could burn through two books a day.

This is how I feel now that this cycle is over.

Congrats! I avoided applying to any program in NYC for the simple reason that it's just so expensive. I have a wife and kid, and I can't imagine taking on that much debt. Also, good luck on the funding search! I don't know the environment at UCLA, but a lot of schools have out-of-department funding, as long as you seek it diligently. It couldn't hurt to contact them and ask! People in the IS/MLIS word tend to be fairly friendly, I find. I can only comment as to what I would do, but if I were waiting, and I hadn't contacted them recently, I'd probably send a friendly, polite email.

I'm a little bit glad I didn't get into a more conservative program, even if it was more 'prestigious'. I'm not an overly conservative person, and I'm not sure how well I'd mesh into a less-than-casual environment. If anyone from these boards saw me, initial impression probably would be that I'd be more comfortable running a farm co-op rather than attending graduate school.

You can get a PhD, but it's usefulness of arguably limited, similar to how people rarely go beyond a JD, even though there's several steps higher. Basically, unless I want to teach library or information science, it's not really necessary. If want to be a research librarian, I can do that with only a MLIS.

Burnt through Obsessive Genius in a day, and I've tackled The World's Strongest Librarian since. Both were good. I think I'm going to track down a copy of Marie Curie's biography on Pierre as I've always thought he was a fascinating individual. I've now started The Cosmic Cocktail: Three Parts Dark Matter by Katherine Freese. I'm liking it so far. Go books go!

I gave my official notice at work today that I'm leaving in the fall to accept the funding I was offered. I think everyone expected me to accept it, but it didn't make the conversation any less uncomfortable. Just had to pull that band-aid right off.

Congrats! Wow, they bind your senior thesis? That's official!

Congrats! Not sure! You might checked to see if their ALA accredited. I'm not sure if non IS or LIS programs can be ALA accredited, but a lot of job postings in the LIS world ask for a degree in an ALA accredited program. I hope everyone's decisions went smoothly! Be sure to let us know where you're going.

Congrats! Ahhh.. the feeling of resolution. It's sweet, indeed.

Have you ever calculated how much each class period costs? After I did that I never missed a course. It's like burning gigantic piles of money every day. Thankfully, a lot of the feedback I've given has been listened to. Many of the students have corrected their previous essay's faults, be it through serendipity or dedicated effort. Either way, I won't complain. The faculty member I'm grading for told me he's only given out a handful high A papers in a decade. At first, I was shocked. I mean, I've gotten high A papers, although not from him (I've never had a class with him). I don't consider myself an amazing writer, but it's surprising how well one can polish bad writing; it's amazing what some elbow grease can do. Now that I've graded papers, I'm pretty sure that 90% of the class never expends any real effort. Most of the papers I grade could have easily jumped a letter grade if they just let someone who was good at writing revise it. Would have taken all of an hour's effort.

Unfortunately, no! At least not in the US. http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/librarians.htm That claims the average salary 56k a year, but it's more realistically in the 45k range in most locations. Personally, I think that's a lot of money! I grew up and live relatively poor, so I'd be happy with that wage, but it's sad that the highest paying jobs (academic jobs) not only require a MLIS, but they often prefer a second advanced degree in another subject. Two masters degrees for that salary isn't great, but it's what I want to do, so I don't care.