Sigaba

I respectfully disagree with this generalization. One can be in full compliance with the policies of one's academic institution and one's department but still make a professional gaffe. Tenured professors, not policies, are the guardians of the professions we want to join. They can help, hinder, and outright screw you a thousand ways to Sunday's roast chicken dinner without you ever learning how or why. Consider a hypothetical professor that has a specific vision of how graduate students should NOT fraternize with undergraduates. This vision could be rooted in tradition or theory or prejudice or bitterness or the wisdom of hard won experience. So while you might not be doing anything wrong--the relationship is within policy--such a professor could plant a seed in a departmental meeting that bears bittersweet fruit for you down the line. You will likely never know. Consequently, I urge graduate students to manage carefully their risk when considering all social relationships with undergraduates (and, for that matter, with fellow graduate students as well as professors). Make sure you know your department's and your parent institution's policies as well as the underlying sensibilities--especially if you're attending a public institution in a state that takes an aggressive stance on issues of sexual harassment. (If you go through any harassment training, you'll get the sense that you basically can't say anything to anybody--not just because they might take exception, but a third party might as well.) Figure out who (if anyone) in your department could make a stink about such a tryst. While sensibilities have changed greatly the last few decades, there are still professors who are "Old School." Moreover, there are a number of intellectual traditions that ask fundamental questions about the dynamics of power in all social relations. Do what you can to see if there are any bodies buried in shallow graves so that you don't inadvertently unearth a corpse. Professors can get--surly--when things aren't going well at home, who is to stop a grumpy pumpkin from using you as a chew toy because your relationship reminds a professor of something/someone s/he doesn't like? Also, please do your best to balance your short term desires with your over-the-horizon needs. You may find that more and more, you are what you're studying and that time is an increasingly valuable resource. When this realization hits, on which side of the divide would you want to be? HTH.

This thread is a good illustration of why it is important to know the difference between having good intentions and having the expertise and experience to offer useful guidance. Is this thread about a lawyer seeking legal advice from members of this BB who are not practicing attorneys specializing in contracts and/or intellectual property and/or publishing? Is this thread about a trained attorney asking for interpretation of a contract that only he or she has read? Or is this thread about a graduate student asking for suggestions on how to manage the political and professional aspects of a dilemma? Why are those who are not jurists offering interpretations of contract law without (I) the proper training and/or (II) full knowledge of the specifics of the situation--including a copy of the executed contract--which might include clauses that exonerate the professor from any wrong doing? Why are some who are not yet doctoral students advising a doctoral student on how he/she should manage his/her career or her/his relationship with her/his adviser?

FWIW, I'll pass along a suggestion I received from the proprietor of a bookstore on buying used books. If you've seen multiple copies of a certain title, don't buy it. If you've only seen the title once or twice, buy it. And my own experience has taught me time and again, if you've bought a title used and see another copy at a store, do not check the price. For every time I've been please to find that a book I bought for $10 costs $20 elsewhere, I've seen titles going for much less than what I paid.

I think that if you can make this event as scheduled, you don't need funding. You just have to implement Marty McFly's plan, hop into your DeLorean and pick winning lottery ticket after winning ticket. However, if there's a second cut and paste issue involved here, I think TakerUK has given you useful guidance. If you do go to this open house and they've not announced decisions about funding, consider the entire visit as a period in which you're being evaluated by faculty members, administrators, and, possibly, even experienced graduate students.

@Pinkandl-- How are your relationships with the Powers That Be and your PoIs at the program you left? Can you get anyone there to support you with a LoR? In any case, I recommend that you focus the narrative of your SoP on where you want to go and how you want to get there in ways that draw attention away from your initial experiences as a graduate school. I recommend that when you discuss those initial experiences, you find a balance among self accountability, lessons learned, and lessons applied. Also, I think you might benefit from accepting the possibility that, regardless of what you say, there will be those who consider you a "quitter" and that the more time you spend arguing the opposite, the more these people may dig in their heels. So, rather than arguing that you are not what you aren't, focus on developing the argument that you are what you are: a person who is determined to persevere. HTH.

@displayname-- Until the global financial crisis hit America and changed the rules of a sector of the construction industry that had, up to that point, been "recession proof," my skill set as a historian served me well as an analyst for a boutique consultancy. My division dealt with issues of urban policy. In addition to having a pretty good set of research skills, the ability to write, to think critically, and to facilitate discussion helped me to boil down complex policy issues into more accessible thumbnails for clients and stakeholders. On the other hand, the "historians' mindset" can be a burden. We are trained to ask "why?" and to us that question is an indication of intellectual engagement. In other places, that question can be read in other ways. As noted, the recession has changed the job market for this type of work. Now, firms and municipalities are looking more and more for "real world" experience that on can quantify in Granny apples to Granny apples terms. That is, they are less interested in hiring educated applicants who can be trained up over several to do the work. Instead, they want to hire people who have "been there and done that" and can do it again from the moment they walk into the door. They want people who will work backbreaking hours with little complaint and who will ask few (if any) of the types of questions trained historians ask. (This is to say that right now, it is about making money and lowering expenses. Private firms and governments want both.) Consequently, my recommendations to you are that you manage your expectations and that you maximize your opportunities to get hands on experience in the industry in which you'd want to make a career. I also recommend that you get training/take classes in skills that have "real world" value and will jump out at a person in HR who is skimming resumes. Examples of such skills include: marketing, business development, communicating with stakeholders at a variety of levels, technical writing, project management, financial analysis, and advanced expertise in using specific software suites. HTH.

@New England Nat-- I really do wish you'd post more often.

@danmacg-- That you consider my response an exercise in "tough love" adds evidence to my interpretation that your situational awareness is the central cause of your dilemma. As for your perception of my tone as "patronizing," I think you should take the chip off your shoulder and do a better job of engaging with those posts in this thread that do not agree with your positions. Moreover, I think you should consider the utility of: STFU and not arguing with, or trying to correct, everyone who doesn't see the situation the way you want. You believe that you're a victim of "unethical" conduct. Others aren't so sure. How about that. Working to understand the answers that you've received from the department in question. (And these answers include the silences.) Doing the necessary introspection to accept those answers in the spirit they were given--like it or not. (The bottom line is that the department in question--for what ever reason or reasons--just wasn't that into you.) Taking another look in the mirror and figure out the mistakes you have made and continue to make. IMO, the mistakes center around unvetted (if not also unsustainable) assumptions about: Your understanding of how an academic department works. Your understanding of the "ethics" of the Ivory Tower. (Have you received formal training and/or informal mentoring on how things get done in an academic department? Do you have work experience that would give you insight as to the ethical issues involved?) [*]Focusing on how you might handle similar situations in the future. This process includes: [*]Being better prepared to answer questions like "What kinds of other offers have you received?" (Why weren't you ready to answer this standard question in a way that advanced your interests?) [*]Understanding better that there's a big difference between interacting in a way that is "friendly, patient, and polite, and so on" and actually being "friendly, patient, and polite." (IMO, "so on," as well as some of your other word choices and turns of phrases--to say nothing of this thread you've started--are tells. There's nothing wrong with not being a "people person." However, difficulties and confusion can follow when a person who isn't a "people person" thinks that he/she is.) [*]Understand better the differences among a promising conversation, a verbal commitment, and an executable contract. [*]Not making allegations of "unethical" behavior on an open internet forum. [*]Confining one's ranting to a password protected document on your personal computer. Or a journal. Or both. [*]Erasing your posts in this thread, asking an administrator to deactivate your account, coming back with a different username, and then using the advanced search function to study the posts by experienced graduate students in your field as well as the posts of Eigen, ktel, Sparky and fuzzylogician. [*]Scrubbing the internet so that a cached version of this thread can not be tracked back to you. (A great way to beat the competition is to find ways to hoist them on their own petards. Or so I've heard.) [*]Accepting the idea that sometimes the best revenge is living well. Later, I suggest that you consider the feasibility of reaching out to the department in question and the scholar in question and mending fences. As things stand, you have nothing that they need or want. Down the line, you might need their help. In subsequent conversations about the institution in question, I recommend that you phrase your experiences with the kind of understatement that screams "trouble" to those versed in the hidden language of the academic world.

As you sort through the "whys" and "why nots" of your predicament, don't neglect the opportunity to take a long look in the mirror. From the information you've provided in this thread, your situational awareness and your ability to navigate the human terrain may doing you a disservice. IME, if a graduate program wants an applicant to attend, it will find a way to fund that student. Is it only because of the alleged ethical defects of others that you went from having an opportunity--not a guarantee nor a promise--to receive a prestigious fellowship to being the guy who can't get his calls and email returned, or did you play some part in the dynamic? You assumed. You inferred. You concluded. You surmised. You planned. All without documentation that made it clear that you indeed had received the fellowship you wanted. So, is your dilemma the department's fault? Or did you simply make a terrible (and avoidable) series of miscalculations? In post #16, you make a point about career management. You say political science is a "VERY competitive and difficult field." Okay. How does drawing a bull's eye on your back by airing a department's (allegedly) dirty laundry help you manage your risk and advance your career? To be clear, I get it. You are frustrated. You feel like you've been burned. You want answers. You want vindication--if not also justice. However, having been around the block a few times in both the Ivory Tower and the private sector, it is my view that this angle of approach (i.e. venting in a public form and offering specific characterizations of established professional academics) may not be the way to go. My $0.02.

No. However, I do not use battery saver power options nor turn off background applications that use a lot of power when I'm unplugged. So if I cannot sit near a power outlet, I generally will not bother taking my machine out of my pack or my satchel. (And to be clear, it is a satchel, not a murse. ) So when I'm at the local coffee house, I sneer with green-eyed envy at the MPB users who can sit where they want and (apparently) not worry about running out of juice. But I'm not bitter.

SG-- Given the price points of SSHDs, you might get more bang for your buck by getting a large 7200 RPM HDD and applying the difference to a features. When the price points and sizes of SSHDs become more, ah, accessible, you could swap out HDs. For example, if you were to purchase a Lenovo ThinkPad T520 with a 160 GB SSD, that option would cost $320 more than a 500 GB HDD at 7200 RPM. (Or just $170 if you were to buy this machine during Lenovo's Memorial Day sale.) With that $320, you could instead get twice as much RAM (from 4 GB to 8 GB), and/or a more powerful CPU, and/or an upgraded warranty, and/or an extra power cord. (IMO, an extra power cord that stays in one's computer bag is a crucial piece of equipment. YMMV.) A potential advantage of this suggestion--in addition to getting the most for your money--is you'd have a larger HDD to run a Final Cut-type program on your ThinkPad and not need to get additional external storage as quickly. Just two more cents worth of free advice.

Jarky-- I suggest that you start by taking a look at the following threads. The first thread listed is very informal in tone. However, it will offer many rewards to the careful reader. HTH.

I'll play. A woman asked me out and I got to spend a great deal of time listening to her talk about her cat's experience in the feline equivalent of ICU. Evidently, someone had kicked the cat (barely this side of being a kitten) and caused a profound amount of internal trauma. I like dogs. So after a while, I felt like George Costanza in the episode of Seinfeld where he gets to take care of a squirrel. (This is the same episode in which Kramer finds the set of the Merv Griffin Show.) As I'd picked the meeting place, I spent the balance of the encounter planning where I'd go in the area the moment the date ended. (Of course, my first stop was Borders Books--how I sort of miss that place. Second stop, Tower Records.) Another woman who asked me out showed up on the first (and only) date with all ten of her fingernails caked with grime. After making some off putting comments, she admitted that she hated white people and had done so for most of her life, even though she herself was biracial. Me being me, I pointed out that she'd gotten her B.A. at University of Notre Dame and asked why she went there. "There are a few white people in South Bend, Indiana," I said encouragingly. This cheerful observation led to opportunities to activate further what ever was driving her increasingly obvious sense of self loathing. Make no mistake. I believe that we all have our share of petty hatreds buried at various depths in our unconscious. I believe that everyone is, at one level or another, a racist. But in my book, I simply cannot excuse an educated person for allowing such a character trait to spiral into a character flaw. (Yes, of course, I'm talking about her fingernails. ) By this time, we were already seated and I was hungry so we proceeded to order our entrees. She expressed a degree of surprise Oh, I still get dinner? For me, it was a no brainer--I hadn't eaten all day, I liked the restaurant, and I had picked it because it was close to places I wanted to go if things went South. So I tuned her out and planned what I'd do after I was done eating. After the meal, I walked her to her car as quickly as possible and gave a thoroughly non responsive answer when she asked me to call her. I felt sorry for her two dogs that were waiting for her in her car. Next stop, Borders Books. (I kind of miss that place. I suppose.) Second stop, Tower Records. Another woman who asked me out said "I hate history" soon after we sat down. I surprised myself by responding pleasantly. Again, I'd picked a restaurant I liked in an area of town that I wanted to re-explore. So plans B and C were already in place. For what ever reason, the banter went on much longer than I intended so I didn't make it to Barnes and Noble. (Had a Borders Books been nearby, I'd like to think I'd have been out of there a lot sooner.) In regards to the OP. IME, there are few secrets in an academic department. If someone in that department knows something about you, chances are that others do as well. As I'm someone who zealously protects the boundaries of my privacy, I'd be very reluctant to put myself in a position where professors would know just how afraid of spiders I actually am. Now, if she is in a different department, that's another issue altogether.

Lenovo's ThinkPads are designed for enterprise use and, therefore, tend to be rock solid--my machine has emerged unscratched from a few falls--and its users can rely on robust support starting with the touch of a blue button. OMG, knock on wood! / Knock on wood.

Send your strongest writing sample. If you think it is necessary, rephrase the differences between your position and that of the POI in question but do so without changing your central argument. To determine ways you might rephrase the differences, consider the utility of finding works in your field where a political scientist widens the focus of a previously published work. Note carefully the tone and word choice. Seek to emulate the more diplomatically phrased passages. While you're at it, make sure that you've read the POI's piece backwards and forwards. Look for examples of where she may have qualified or hedged her argument. It may well be that the two of you are not as far apart as you think. (If she's saying "it is a duck" and you're saying "no, it is a goose," you are talking about different birds but you're both talking about waterfowls.) More generally, make sure you proofread your writing sample very carefully. Your OP has some, ah, clunkiness. Do not put yourself in a position where anyone can use your writing skills as cover for denying your application. HTH.

FWIW, my decision would center around (i) the availability of timely support in a SHTF scenario, and (ii) what my department and POIs are using. In regards to the latter, although OS interoperability is increasingly seamless, I would want to be in a situation where I'd lowered the odds of something going wrong to as close as zero as possible. The last place I'd want to be is handing something off to someone without a lot of technical expertise (such as a departmental secretary) and making that person wait while the kinks were ironed out. What might take an experienced user ten seconds to fix (like font substitution and pagination) might take a less experienced user a lot longer. IME, one wants to be on the good side of the admin types and a good way to stay on that good side is to waste not their time. In regards to the issue of support, IMO, Murphy's Law is especially prone to manifest itself at the worst possible moment. If disaster were to strike, I'd want to be in a situation where I could get either next day on-site support or take the machine to a certified shop and get prioritized service. FWIW, part two. Each of the last three times I sat down to pick a new laptop, I've gone with a PC so that I could apply the premium I'd have paid for a Mac to buying peripherals (e,g,. extra power supply, external drive for back up, cable lock, fancy dan keyboard and fancy dan mouse, new computer bag, and an extended warranty). For my last purchase (early 2008), I scored an incredible deal on a ThinkPad R61 at Lenovo's on-line store. (IIRC, my savings was in the area of 40%.) My greatest regrets are that I didn't spend a bit more to max out the RAM and that I failed do a better job at researching the care and feeding of the battery. If you do want to do additional research on Lenovo laptops, each month that company publishes the specs of machines that are currently available as well as those that will come to market in the near future. That document is available here. Just my $0.02. HTH.

Takeruk-- If one likes a coastal climate, Pasadena is one of the last places in the L.A. area one would want to live. (I lived in Pasadena for more than five years.) In the early spring, the temperature typically goes from warm to hot and basically stays there until late fall, if not longer. If you do live in Pasadena, or anywhere else in the SGV or the SFV, you might benefit from factoring in to your budget calculations the additional costs for running your HVAC. To save money, you might consider the advantages of renting a room or rooms inside of a house. There are plenty of listings for rooms on craigslist. As your rent money would most likely be used to help a homeowner cover the mortgage payments, I recommend strongly that you have a straightforward conversation about the status of said mortgage. You specifically want to avoid moving into a house that is 'under water' and the homeowner is stressed out about that situation. (You might increase your savings if you live west of Pasadena. You might find a copy of the map and schedule for LAMTA's 780 bus line and look for places close to its route. ) In regards to the politics, bluntly, as a native Angeleno, I think your own preconceived notions and your own attitude are going to cause you more heartache than anything else. From my reading of many of your posts, your situational awareness when it comes to the nuances of politics is less than it might be. When get out here, you'll find that you're going to meet all different kinds of people and that conventional notions of left and right are not always applicable to state and to municipal issues--especially those issues that have impact people's everyday lives (such as traffic, parking, the Industry, the work place, and teaching). When you get out here, I strongly urge you to consider the advantages of taking the "I've got it all figured out and know how things should be" chip off of your shoulder and getting a better (and closer) read on situations, the human terrain, and the local conditions before you dive into a conversation. HTH.

unforth-- Please split the hair again. Are you an Americanist who focuses on the military and political history of the United States during the antebellum and Civil War era? Or are you a military historian who focuses on America's military experiences during the nineteenth century with an emphasis on the American Civil War? Or are you a hybrid of both? Or do you see yourself as a bird of a different feather altogether? However you address the above questions, I foresee that your single greatest challenge as an applicant will be to craft SOPs that make convincing arguments regarding the relevance of your areas of interest to readers who may be profoundly disinterested in military history (regardless of how one approaches it)--especially if your focus is on operations. My $0.02.

I've been doing the housemate thing for the last twelve years or so. For me, this type of situation works well because I get more bang for the buck and, with one exception, I've had spectacularly nice and likeable people as housemates. I think posts #9 and #11 provide extremely useful guidance. With one exception, I've been very successful finding housemates by being very up front about what kind of person I am, what kind of environment I want to maintain in the common areas, what are the "deal breakers," and asking a prospective housemate the same questions. The goal is to build positive rapport and a common vision of what type of environment one wants. In my experience, a good way to find housemates is through word of mouth (friends of friends) and careful research on craigslist.

@buddy16cat-- If you do decide to reapply to graduate programs down the line, please consider the advantages of looking inward rather than focusing so much on who knows whom, a program's rankings or its prestige and rationalizing that such matters beyond your control are the only factors in one's acceptance or rejection. I specifically recommend that you ask yourself questions about (i) your ability to express yourself clearly and articulately, (ii) your ability to present yourself as a person with whom professors--and graduate students--would want to work, (iii) how you manage your expectations, (iv) and how you react to set-backs and to dissenting views. My $0.02.