Karoku_valentine

Not to get all nerdy up in here but I was just reading a book last night in the bookstore that has an interesting take on this conversation: http://www.nurtureshock.com/.

The first chapter discusses how excessive positive reinforcement trains the child brain to expect immediate reward for all effort. Once the brain forms these receptors that process reward = effort it makes it difficult to change that later in life. The result is an adult with no concept of persistence -- that is using failure as a learning experience. I think we're seeing the first adult generation with brains wired for immediate reward. Why wouldn't they think they should get an A for trying? That's what they got at home. That's fine for self-esteem -- although the science also debates that, long term -- but it's not so good for ingenuity. Learning has a built-in failure component. it's that moment in your research where you have seemingly read everything in the world, can't figure out up from down and, if you're me, you drink while crying. But if you are accustomed to occasional failures you think this is a normal, or at least a familiar, process. You persevere and then one day you get your light bulb moment, or you just work like a pack mule and cobble something together reasonable. Either result never happens if your brain shuts down the first time an expected reward doesn't materialize.

So, I've been thinking about what this means. I'm sure there are some workplace and productivity consequences. But, for the more immediate future I'm thinking this is my competition in grad school...and I'm feeling pretty good about my odds.

This is what happens when large portions of the population to go to college.

College is the new high school.

That does not change my post. Even after finishing your PhD, you will face that dilemma in the UK and their crappy immigration system. In Germany you might be able to collaborate with more researchers and might land a better academic position (or industry). Overall, Germany is better than the UK.
 
If your goal is to get an academic in your home country, you should consider the reputation of your university in your home country.

Apply for a funded terminal masters. Most masters are unfunded by default, but many offer some funding for exceptional candidates. Since you are aiming for low-ranked programs anyway, you might as well apply for one where you are at the top of the applicant pool so you have a shot at funding. The funding would look good on your CV too.

This is a difficult question for me.
 
I grew up in a politically moderate, perhaps even slightly forward-looking suburb--more forward-looking with regard to sexuality than race, at any rate and unfortunately. (I am white, so that's not part of the difficulty here--I'm just trying to give you guys an idea of the place.)
 
My problems having grown up gay never really involved direct persecution for sexuality. My mother could have handled it better, but now she makes blowjob jokes all the time so I guess she's okay with it. My friends said, "good, now no one can accuse our friends group of anything"--strange response, but not bad for me personally.
 
However, there were indirect stress factors from it. I was never persecuted, as I said, for being gay, but I did certainly miss out socially on not being "one of the guys." I was clearly different, and being different meant being marginalized to some extent, especially in my early teens and then again when I went to a Jesuit university. (It is odd, by the way, to be able to identify easily the biggest mistake of your life.) Everyone has social difficulties growing up, but mine were kind of part of a larger system of things that sucked: clear but difficult to diagnose mental illness, very rough family situation, extreme social anxiety. Together those things really alienated me for much of my life and so a lot of the time I do not have very good emotional supports, and the whole sexuality thing just seems like another level of being different, another way of not fitting in, and when I finally did embrace my sexuality, I found no one to embrace it with--I was in a gay vacuum throughout high school and undergrad. It is extremely frustrating to watch all of your straight friends go from relationship to relationship while you think of other gays as either evil nemeses or fantastic unattainable unicorns, and even though you might tell yourself that you shouldn't blame yourself for essentially being a victim of statistics (if there are no gays there are no gays to date), you somehow do end up blaming yourself sometimes anyway.
 
So: my main "diversity" focus is mental illness because that is what really bothers me, what really has put me through some difficult times, but it certainly has been inflected by my sexuality. I do not reveal or even hint that I'm gay in any of my applications except for the one for UC Santa Barbara because they basically straight up ask you what categories you fit into, yet I have the distinct feeling that someone reading my writing would guess that I was gay anyway.
 
I am interested in queer theory and gay literature, but all of my forays into each have fallen rather flat. There aren't many gay novels I enjoy, and while I've read some theory, it's mostly the extremely common, at this point basically canonical stuff.
 
I will, however, recommend Yukio Mishima's Confessions of a Mask. I read it earlier this summer and really went crazy over it. It's very dark though, and not very romantic. I also recommend reading about Mishima's life (his Wikipedia entry suffices) along side it--very strange, very tortured, very talented man.

Guys, thank you so much for your input. I decided to go on the natural route and not make a big deal.

So here it's how it happened: i was at petsmart with my boyfriend looking for puppies to adopt. Suddenly, one of my labmates calls me and introduces his fiance -- well, i did the same! My boyfriend was with me so I just introduced him to my labmate and his fiance and everything was cool.

This was the first seed, and now i won't hesitate in mentioning my boyfriend in casual conversations in the lab :-)

Thanks again!!

GUYS, THANK YOU SO MUCH for all those suggestions/advice/experience-sharing!!
 
I am actually seriously thinking about this now-before starting this thread I am just trying to postpone the decision as much as I can and avoid the talk between me and my bf (sounds very childish I know).
 
Our situation is a little bit different...because 1) we are both international student; 2) we are gay and still in closet. Those two things together make me feel that it will be easier for both of us if we can just simply stay together. But just as some of you have said, I am starting to realize that this is probably not the way things work. As international students we need to fight together, but each towards my or his own career goal, so that we can ultimately stay in this country, where we can have equal rights and actually get married. I have come a long way to get where I am now, so probably shouldn't give up so easily.
 
So I will definitely talk to him when I can meet him in person, and make a team decision as soon as possible.
 
Thank you all again for your kind advice! I would still appreciate further discussion/ideas. It looks like this is a common issue so I hope this thread can help other people with their decision as well!

To quote the awesome Christina Yang “Don’t let what he wants eclipse what you need. .... but he’s not the sun. You are.”
 
If this is your dream school, you should go for it.  You mention that the other school isn't the greatest research fit, that should play a big role in your decision. You have no idea about funding/PI Personalities/Lab environment till you are at the other school. Some of the PI's you like might actually be douches, they could loose grants and not be able to support you. If those are the PI's whose research you are interested in what will you do? Would you really be happy having to settle for a lab/mentor you are kind of interested in just to live with your bf?

To me, no, that doesn't make it more viable. You'd still need loans/saving to cover 1/2 to 2/3 of your tuition, plus there's also the living expenses to pay for. It just seems like a lot of debt to take on for a one year degree that may or may not make you a stronger candidate in the long run.

I would say CMU is very strong in Stats, especially since Machine Learning is merging with the field.
 
My rankings for Stats (with top to bottom gradient in each tier):
 
Tier 1
Stanford, Berkeley, CMU (Stats + ML), Harvard
 
Tier 1.5
Columbia, Duke, Washington, Wharton, Chicago
 
Tier 2
Michigan, UW Madison, Yale (tiny program)
 
Tier 2.5
UCLA, UNC, NC State, Cornell, Rice
 
Tier 3
Penn State, Ohio State, Minnesota, and a lot of others

Hi everyone,
 
I have a question for those of you who happen to use Stata and SAS. At my company, they requested a SAS license for me, but it is being delayed and I have to work with databases. Until now, the actuary normally downloads the databases for me and hands them using a USB. But this takes a lot of time; he told me that I should try to figure out if I can access those databases using Stata.
 
So, basically the command he uses to "directly connect to the server" is this:
 
Libname LAC ORACLE user='XXXXXX' password='XXXXXX' path='XXXX_exadata'  schema='GORAPR';
 
I was wondering if  could do something like this using Stata or even R, but mostly Stata, I am relatively new to R.
 
Greetings.

If you are offered funding, take it. That either means they think you are one of the strongest incoming students, or it's a small program and you're going to have the opportunity to work closely with faculty (e.g. as a research assistant or on a master's thesis). In either case you are being set up to get good advising and have nice references for employment or for a PhD down the road.
 
Remember that rankings of departments are based on their faculty and PhD programs, which won't necessarily mean you get a good master's experience. As a rule of thumb, the larger the program, the more you're competing with other students for attention. Being one of the top students in your classes is the main way you distinguish yourself in a non-thesis MS program, and that's easier said than done in a big program with many other smart and hard-working people. For PhD applications, it matters that you get faculty enthusiastically on your side. To do that, I would guess that you're better off being one of the top couple of students in a smaller less-known master's program than being outside of the top few students in a large master's program that just happens to be linked to a highly ranked PhD. (The exception would be if that program happens to recruit a lot of its PhD students out of its master's cohorts.)
 
For jobs, this doesn't really matter, because employers mostly care about whether you have the experience they are looking for and come off as quick-learning and competent. I'd pick the program primarily based on the geographic area you want to be in and what kinds of jobs its graduates get, maybe with debt as a tie-breaker. A fancy name will open more doors nationally, but a regional job search is logistically much easier. For local job hunting, the added value of the fancy name is smaller since there is more of an awareness of the non-fancy programs nearby.

I forgot that this is for MS applications. I would suggest that you contact the departments you want to go to but haven't yet heard from and explain to them that you've already heard back from a few schools but you are more interested in attending school X and that you're wondering if they can expedite the decision process. Couldn't hurt at least. Although I'm sure you'll find that Columbus is a better city to live in than West Lafayette. Good luck to you.

I'm pretty sure Purdue is more highly ranked than Ohio State (at least according to USNWR). They also have a lot of professors that research time series. At any rate, at the end of the day it's about where you want to go and where you find to be the best fit.

Current second year biostats student chiming in.
 
Many (most?) biostat programs won't require a strict measure theory course. Casella & Berger would be a good bet if you wanted to jump start your statistical theory, although it'll probably be what you use through the first couple theory courses. 
 
I think my best advice for anyone getting ready to enter biostats PhD in particular is to 1)Brush up on and/or strengthen your linear algebra skills, 2) ditto with calculus 3) learn a bit of R if you don't know it. 

Poli92 - Great advice.  I think I will be seeking out opportunities and networks to keep that option alive while at the program. There are not a TON of opportunites for electives, but it looks like I may be able to work in some comparative politics courses and some methodology.
 
Karoku - That is great news to hear.  I'm feeling pretty excited about IR/PS right now.  I would love to pick your brain in the near future about the program.

I was in IRPS and some of my classmates were admitted into Poli Sci PhD's, and I might be admitted to a Statistics PhD (though I took tons of extra requirements at the Math Department). Let me know if you have any questions, I just finished the master this year. So I can give you more insights.

As a fellow international student, I will tell you that most international students go back once their MBAs are over. So, you need to consider if you would like to go back to Pakistan after your MBA, since an MBA is a very basic and general degree. In order to be hired and sponsored, you need to prove you are better than an American with a MBA. There are plenty of American MBA's with excellent working experience, social skills, etc.
On the other hand, the US is increasingly demanding more MS and will facilitate immigration processes for those with STEM degrees. Additionally, a MBA is very expensive compared to a regular master.