Sigaba

http://transnet.usc.edu/index.php/parking-rates/

Do your due diligence before buying a Lenovo ThinkPad. A number of product lines are having similar issues (e.g. the track/touch pad). If you watch the offerings at the online outlet store, you will see significant numbers of refurbished units and new units at regular intervals.

Yes.

Especially in the winter, when you check the weather in Minnesota .

Your point is well made in general. However, the OP does not strike me as committed to the point where he/she would stake his/her future to a scholar in a different department. Even then, without an established relationship with Professor Lionnet, the OP could be taking an extraordinary risk to assume that she (Lionnet) will work with the OP, or even be at UCLA. (Academic rockstars sometimes pick up and move.)

Your list of pros indicates to me that your evaluation matrix needs significant refinement. You are not focused on what really matters: the training you will receive (chemistry is important, but not in the way you suggest), the available resources (people, archives, library systems), and how you fit into each department (not the other way around). (UCLA should not be ahead of Chicago, Hopkins, or Stanford in your evaluations.)

To add on to the sound advice offered in post #3, I recommend that you add (if not start with) recently completed doctoral dissertations. Dissertations will generally provide overviews of "the state of the art" both IRT the existing literature as well as emerging methods. When looking at articles in scholarly journals as well as dissertations, I recommend that you make sure that Interpretation Z of Topic 23 has traction. Penultimately, resist the temptation to be too focused in your reading. Don't lose sight of the forest for the sake of finding the leaf. Topics that have nothing to do with your areas of interest may actually be vitally important to your discipline over all. Finally, when picking a topic for a master's thesis/report (and some schools make less and less of a distinction between the two), make sure that you develop a clear understanding of the extent to which you may or may not use that topic for a doctoral dissertation. Some professors in doctoral programs will not mind if your thesis lays the foundation for your dissertation. Others will.

@VirtualMessage-- You have done this BB a great service by sharing your experiences. Some will pick up on what you are saying, regardless of what they think of your tone.

This statement is not accurate. Some are in the know, many others are not. The OP successfully calls into question how much in the know many who think they are in the know actually are in the know. Many of the dissenting replies supply the answer.

@kurayamino -- Think about what you just posted. You have been here as a member since 01/15. There are members who have been here longer, who are also seasoned graduate students (some have earned their Ph.D.s) who are agreeing with the OP, who has BTDT-- earned a Ph.D., has gotten works published, and has looked for a job. You are being afforded an opportunity to learn from the hard earned, bitterly won experience of others. Does sparring help you to learn what you can? More generally, I think it is unwise to dog pile on the OP because he/she is presenting jarring information and some find the tone of the message distasteful. The members of this BB who are seasons graduate students, or have earned Ph.Ds, or are professors and administrators are all here to offer support/advice/criticism based upon either personal experiences or directly observed experiences. This is not to say that members of this cohort should get a pass for everything they say or that anyone should follow their guidance no questions asked. This is to say that many of you need to think it through a couple of more times before attempting to shoot the messengers.

I fixed the quotation for you. (But I'm not bitter.)

Your previous post in this thread bears out your good intent, S_S.

What is the deal with your avatar?

Thanks for the clarification. I'm provincial. I see U of T and I think Tennessee.

@JJWS, look me up if you decide you want to give it another go. We could put together a long range plan (picking schools, reaching out to potential PoI's, improving your mastery of the relevant historiography) and/or I would be more than happy to offer short range support on your writing sample and SoP.

While the OP has raised a controversial topic and there's a lot of passion on all sides of the debate, I urge members of this BB, especially those who are well seasoned by the ups and downs of graduate school to think thrice before posting snarky remarks. Please do not say on line anything you would not say to someone's face at an academic conference. (Or in the parking garage behind the conference venue.) Americans who hold dim views of academics are looking for reasons to dismantle the Ivory Tower. Don't give them "ammunition" by being unduly combative.

ToldAgain -- At the risk of sounding even more cryptic, there are "lessons" in the Ivory Tower that one can only learn through first hand experience. Only after going through those experiences will you have actionable knowledge of the underlying institutional reality. As a TA, the experience may be finding the distance between an institution's policies on topic X and the actual "real world" enforcement of those policies. As a student preparing for qualifying exams, it may be finding out that no matter what you do, you may never be ready for qualifying exams. It may be the moment when you are shown where a department's skeletons are buried as you're given a shovel and a lump filled burlap sack that is squirming. It may be when you realize that your adviser doesn't give a fuck about you. At all. (And that could just be your February.) Take another look at the OP and VM's subsequent posts, as well as the posts by rising_star, and a couple of others. Notice how members of this BB are reacting/responding to them. Group B, comprised of members who are farther along in the pipeline are saying "Yeah, I get what you mean. That's happened to me." Members of Group A, those who haven't been through the same types of experiences are saying "What are you saying?" and "Well, that's not going to happen to me," and "Well, that might happen to me, I don't have blinders on, so I have a back up plan. (But it isn't really going to happen to me)." Here's the thing. Every member of Group B was once a member of Group A and as members of Group A, we in Group B said "I will never be in Group B." Yet here we are.

I am going to drift from my lane for a bit. I strongly recommend that aspiring graduate students focus on VM's point about institutional realities. There are wheels within wheels and curtains behind curtains. As a doctoral student, you will get to see behind the next curtain after the knowledge beyond would have been most helpful. The disquiet that follows may not just be "If I knew Y years ago what I know now!" it can also be "If I knew W weeks ago what I now know." The salt on the wound will be the non verbal communication you have with your closest advisers. Why didn't you tell me? you will implore. At best, the unvocalized reply will be Because professional ethics would not allow me to say anything. Worse, the response will be a shrugging How about that. Worst of all will be the realization that, in fact, you were warned--by people like VirtualMessage, or by professors via subtle remarks and cryptic comments. (FWIW, I've received all three categories of replies. But I'm not bitter.) IRT the question of developing "back up" plans. Remember--you are writers. Writers write in the public sector, too. Maybe do an outside field in the basics of technical writing/corporate communications. Learn about industries that are recession proof--e.g. healthcare. Maybe take a class or two on how to count beans and/or interpret a P&L statement. Keep out of trouble and your credit in order so you can get a security clearance. There's money to be made thinking critically and writing well.

Have you considered getting an AS in nursing, working for a few years, and then pursuing a MS in nursing?

Please don't neglect the library nor the proximity to archival sources related to your primary field of interest.

@HistoryMystery. I am not sure why you voted down this profoundly helpful post by a member of this BB who is in a top flight program,

My recommendation is that you start thinking of yourself as a historian who is going to make contributions to the profession and communicate as such. In your OP, you spend much more time talking about metrics and tickets punched than about your interests as a historian. Can you find ways to be more specific about your interests and your research focus? Which trajectories of historiography do you see yourself advancing with your scholarship? How does your vision of yourself as a medievalist fit into the broader profession? IRT your metrics and tickets punched, I think you could rework the information you've provided. It isn't about answering the question "Am I even good enough?" It is about making a statement on how good you are. Consider the following questions to get you on that pathway of thought. Can you provide a more concise narrative that tells how your academic experiences as an undergraduate have prepared you for graduate school? Can you make the argument how those experiences are good indicators that you will be a productive, contributing member of a department as a graduate student? Can you talk about your health issues in a way that addresses potential concerns and doubts? Have your health issues made you a better historian and person?

I recommend that you get some sense of the direction your intended profession is headed IRT the balance between general knowledge and specialization. Are the rock stars focused on the forest, a tree, or a leaf on a branch? Then figure out if you want to fit into that pattern or be part of a change of direction. In any case, you may have some catching up to do this summer in building your foundational knowledge.

@shakeitoff - - Before you talk to anyone about this issue, I strongly recommend that you understand the difference among what you need, what you want, and what you will accept. Managing your expectations in situations like this one is pivotal to your peace of mind.

@shakeitoff Can you get copies of other students' theses as well more of your professor's published works to see if there's a pattern? Until you can verify a pattern of conduct, the professor can chalk it up to "oops."