far_to_go

Undergrad demographics/experience/culture wasn't a factor in my decision-making. However, once I'd made my decision on the basis of all the factors more directly pertinent to me, I did make an effort to learn about the undergrads here (talking to other grad students about their TA experiences, talking with undergrads, reading up on institutional history/culture/traditions, etc). If for no other reason, TAing puts me in regular direct contact with undergrads, both in and out of my discipline, and knowledge is power.

Hey all, If anyone's waiting for notifications from UVa: the visit weekend for prospective students is scheduled for 2/23-2/25. I don't know this officially, but I'm pretty sure that everyone being invited to that weekend will have been contacted by now. (If you haven't been contacted, there's still hope; UVa often admits at least a few people who don't come to the visit weekend.) Best of luck to all!

The contents of my schoolbag, categorized: Personal stuff: - water bottle - chapstick - umbrella - ibuprofen - wallet - keys - phone - a few Clif bars/pieces of fruit - a warm hat and gauntlets (during cold weather) - gum School stuff: - pens - notebook - whatever books/articles I need for the day Tech stuff: - HP touchpad (for light computing-needs days) OR laptop + power cord (for heavier computing-needs days) - mp3 player + earbuds - my little point-and-shoot camera. I love taking pics, so I try to be prepared. - my digital voice recorder. On days when I'm not going to campus (but am going to a coffee shop to read, etc), I carry the following downsized list in a smaller bag: - water bottle - chapstick - keys - phone - wallet - mp3 player - book - touchpad

I strongly second the therapy recommendation. Also, to help the body deal with stress: here in our town there's a very good massage school where anyone affiliated with the university can get a 1-hour massage for $20. I go every few weeks and it's really helpful. Might be worth looking to see if there's something similar available where you are.

I am exclusively devoted to TUL .5 mm retractable gel pens. LOVE them.

You should try to figure out if they plan on retiring/moving/quitting within the next few years (this needs to be phrased delicately). I asked a few people "What are the qualities that enable grad students to do well in this department/as your students?" The answers can be very telling.

Grad4life, if you make a shirt of this, I will buy it and wear it every single day and give it to all my friends.

andrade831, your offer sounds EXACTLY like the standard offer at my school, which is also a competitive anthro program at a public university in a relatively small town; in fact, I'm wondering if you're talking about my school. PM me if you want more details. Even if we aren't talking about the same school, I think the offer is pretty standard (although of course some of the very top schools offer more than 3 years of funding). At my school, most people get 3 years of guaranteed funding, apply outside for grants, and then get 1 year of teaching money and 1 year of write-up money when they come back from the field. But only the first 3 years are guaranteed. Best of luck to you!

Having a strong social network REALLY helps. Tonight I had two different friends in my program call me, both crying (one's really sick, and one's going through a break-up- on top of the general stress of grad school, of course). I call on them when I need them, too. Don't know what I'd do without good friends.

I waited til April 15th to post my acceptance/decision for 2 reasons: 1) I didn't hear back from one of my schools until early April; I ended up going with a school that accepted me in January, but didn't want to make a final decision and go public with it until I knew all my options. 2) I had become FB friends with a few other applicants to some of the same schools as me, and I wanted to wait til everyone was likely to be settled somewhere just to avoid hurting any feelings. But no, I never considered not posting on FB at all. Heck, all my friends post their major life milestones, so why shouldn't I? I got lots of positive feedback, which felt nice. Good luck to everyone in this app cycle!

I concur with ladybug- an interview is definitely a good indicator that the school is interested in you, but should not be taken as a sign that you're basically accepted. At my program (different discipline, so YMMV), it seems that about half of the people who are flown in for the prospectives' weekend visit and interviews are given offers. Some people who can't visit campus are given offers after phone interviews. But my sense, based on the campus interviews, is that less than 50% of the people who get interviews get accepted.

Haha! I like the straightforward approach of SapperDaddy's recipe. I'm not a ramen fan, but here's my go-to cheap and easy meal: I buy frozen lima beans for a dollar a pack at my grocery store- I always keep a few packs in the freezer for the days when I don't have time or energy to devote to cooking. On those days, I just boil water, cook the beans for about 15 minutes, season with a little butter and seasoned salt, and voila- a relatively high-protein, healthy, cheap, easy meal.

In my program, it's not possible to work full time outside the department. There are rules against it, but even if there weren't, I can't imagine that anyone would actually be able to pull it off! 60-70 hours of work per week of coursework/teaching/research is the norm around here, so throwing a full-time job on top of that just wouldn't be feasible. Your program may allow it, but I doubt that it's the norm at most programs. Good luck to you.

Hi all, Do you have any end-of-semester practices to make things easier and smoother for yourselves and your students? I have a few that tend to work well: - On the last day of class, as students are coming in, I play "We Are the Champions." Never fails to get people smiling; it's nice to start off the last class well. - I don't offer extra credit during the semester, but during the last week I usually offer a very small and simple extra credit assignment- something that will take students less than 20 minutes to complete, worth only a miniscule number of points, easy for me to grade, emphasizing some important take-away point from the course. The psychological effects on the students are great, because as they approach the final they want every little bit of reassurance they can get. - I always buy myself a new CD to listen to when I'm grading a huge stack of exams. Helps to keep me in a good mood :-) What are your tips and tricks for making the end of the semester more bearable?

In my program, as in many others, the norm is for grad students to call professors by their first names. I think robot_hamster's boss analogy works well here. Just because you're on a first-name basis, it doesn't have to mean that the relationship is informal or unprofessional. If you are uncomfortable with calling profs by their first names, it should be fairly easy to avoid calling them anything (in directly addressing them). For instance, you could start e-mails with just "Hello" rather "Hello [name]". My guess is that you'll get more comfortable with it in time.

Sheesh! Sorry about what you're going through, cranky. I'm wondering how this might work: insist on scheduling a defense sometime in the near future, maybe 6-8 weeks from now. During the remaining time, do as much as you can to incorporate whatever feedback that you've received from faculty (realizing, of course, that you'll never please anyone 100%, especially not a group of academics). Having the actual deadline of a defense date approaching will (hopefully) signal your faculty that you're really serious about getting done and moving on, and will motivate you to just finish the damn thing, bearing in mind that "a good thesis is a done thesis". My guess is that, when the defense takes place, the faculty will pass you, and you'll be free. If not, at that point you can consider whether it's worth it to try to revise and re-defend, or whether you are ready to cut your losses and quit. Best of luck.

Not very much. I was moving into a house that was already furnished, and I had a lot of my own furniture already (I did buy an awesome desk at an antique store for $17!) All in all, I paid 1st and last month's rent, groceries, and some cleaning supplies and random odds and ends... about $1,000, I'd say.

At my school, MA-level (500 level) classes are usually open to advanced undergrads along with grad students. IME, as long as there are more grads than undergrads, the classes are fine. If there are more undergrads than grads, it's usually less productive/interesting. Nothing against undergrads... but you should check to see how cross-listed courses are handled at your school.

I think the main draw of having an off-campus person on your committee is that it can help you to build up your professional network beyond your own university. I would not prefer to have an off-campus person as my main advisor, if I could help it. Not to self-promote too much, but I recently wrote a blog post about all the factors I considered in choosing my committee chair (a mix of academic, professional, and personal considerations): http://marginalia84.blogspot.com/2011/09/chair-choosing.html.

Hi, 1) Congrats on those scores- they're pretty good. Schools vary in terms of their cut-off scores, and many schools don't have official cut-offs. One way to get an idea of how your scores measure up is to check the websites of schools you're interested in applying to. I remember, for instance, that the University of Texas at Austin anthro program had average combined scores of around 1300. 2) I can't help you here- I only applied to US programs. 3) I hear you on funding! That's a concern for most applicants, of course. As you'll hear many times on this forum, your "fit" with the department that you're applying to is the #1 factor that determines whether you get in, and whether it's a "good" school for you in the long run. So, I can't really offer any advice without knowing what's you're interested in studying and what you're looking for in a department.

Oh, and I did apply at both UC Irvine and UCSD, but I ended up on the East Coast. At that time, the UC schools were in a real financial crisis and not in much of a position to make substantive offers to anyone. I didn't actually get an offer from either school, but if I had, I probably wouldn't have taken it (mostly for financial reasons). Maybe things have changed since my app season (Fall 2009). Best of luck to you!

As the others have said, it does vary from school to school. However, here's a rule of thumb that I've heard from various sources: If you're any good, and the school's any good, then you should expect to be funded for at least the first 3 years (through TAships, fellowships, etc). So if the school can't put together that kind of funding package for you, then it's probably safe to assume that you should keep looking. Remember, new anthro PhD's can't expect to make lots of money (or even to get full-time jobs, let's be honest) immediately after graduating, so you'll probably be setting yourself up for a huge financial mess if you try to finance your PhD through student loans.

One thing that I do to help manage my money: I have a $10k chunk of money that is paid to me at the beginning of each school year (it's a fellowship in addition to my usual TA salary). As soon as I get that big chunk, I pay my rent for the entire year, August-July. It's really nice to have the convenience and peace of mind that comes from knowing that I don't have to pay rent every month. Obviously, not everyone will have this luxury, but if you can do it, I highly recommend it. I also have an INGDirect savings account into which I automatically transfer $100 from each paycheck. It's got great interest rates, and it's separate from my normal bank account. That's my "emergencies/summer" fund. I haven't started any sort of retirement savings plan yet, and I'm 26... I should get on that.

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