far_to_go

Hi ekans, I dealt with a similar issue in college- I started at age 16. Since I took 4 years to finish college, did an MA, and then took some time "off" to work, I'm no longer the young'un in my PhD cohort, but I have been there. A few tips: - As others have mentioned, don't draw attention to your age constantly! Ideally, people should be surprised when they find out - "Oh wow, you're only xx years old? Really?" - rather than tired of hearing you mention it all the time. - On social awkwardness: don't just find one person that you're comfortable with and attach yourself to that person's elbow at all social gatherings. The youngest person in my cohort is pretty socially awkward and tends to do this to me- even though I like her, I don't want her shadowing me everywhere. Mingle widely and don't be afraid to stand by yourself and just take in the scene for a bit. You're a big boy/girl now. - Don't worry too much about the alcohol thing. Not all bars card at the door. I'm sure you'll be able to get into plenty of places and just order a Coke. And if you do start drinking, take it slow and easy. And no, grad student social life does not revolve purely around alcohol. In my program, lots of social gatherings do feature alcohol, but conversation is the real purpose of the events. - Since you mentioned that you tend to babble, keep in mind that you have two ears but only one mouth; try to listen twice as much as you talk. Ask others about their life experiences and genuinely listen. This is one of the simplest and easiest ways to get people to like you, no matter what their/your age. Best of luck!

MoJingly, you're going to be fine!! There is NO SHAME in using Wikipedia to get caught up on the hot vocab in your field; I use it frequently for this purpose myself. If you're a fast learner and willing to put in the time to reading beyond what's required for your coursework, you'll be alright. One suggestion: if you have time over the summer, read some of what your profs have written in the past 10 years or so. This will clue you in to the ideas/researchers that your profs think are important. I did this the summer before I started my PhD program and it was really, really helpful for getting me up to speed.

Cruel(la) DeVil

honey badger

Sorry about the earlier broken link! Here's one that should hopefully work: http://www.amazon.com/eBags-Savvy-Laptop-Tote-Eggplant/dp/B001OIQ0B0/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1306456613&sr=8-6. If the link doesn't work, it's the eBags Savvy Laptop Tote from Amazon.

Good idea, qbtacoma! I may use that line myself, if you don't mind. I know that it's going to be hard enough to find an academic job after I graduate- I'd really rather not have to try to coordinate with an SO in the same boat of desperately searching for an academic job! Unfortunately, being in grad school, I tend to meet mostly other grad students, many of whom have ambitions of academia. I should get out more

This is what I like to call "imaginary productivity." So fun :-) Congrats, neuropsych!

eye candy

I have only 15k remaining in subsidized debt from my MA, out of what was originally 17k (had full scholarships for BA). Looking back, I'm not sure that my MA really advanced my career/academic goals all that much, but it was a very happy time in my life and I did learn quite a bit; the most valuable thing I learned was that I did, indeed, want to go on for a PhD and career in academia. Is that worth 17k of debt? We'll see, I guess.

I did get a couple of double rejections as well: e-mail and then paper letters later. Seems like the schools could take care of it with one simple message: "No! And NO MEANS NO!"

copper wire

I've just finished my first year, so I haven't hit any of the major milestones that Strangelight mentioned. But so far, I would say that I love my program. By and large, my colleagues and professors are smart, interesting, and personable people, and our department has a very active social life. For the most part, I have a great deal of control over my research and my schedule (although, as I sometimes tell people, "grad school is great! you get to choose which 60 or 70 hours a week you're going to work!") I still can't quite believe that I'm getting paid to read and write and talk with interesting people. I even like TAing.

under pressure

Mine was kind of sad, actually. I'd been volunteering as a tutor/mentor to some underprivileged middle school kids for about a year and a half, and I happened to be sitting in the computer lab next to one of them when I got the acceptance from the school I eventually ended up going to. me: "Bryan!! I just got accepted to U of X__!!!" Bryan, with sad-puppy-middle-school-kid look on his face: "You're leaving? (even though he knew I'd been applying to schools, I guess it just hadn't sunk in) me, feeling incredibly guilty: "Yeah, well, I mean maybe, we'll see what happens..." Bryan: "Well, are you happy? You should be happy. I mean, good for you." me: *wail* I did leave and go to school, though it was damn hard to say goodbye. I still go back and visit every few months, though, and on my last visit back one of the kids told me that he's thinking about going to grad school someday. Making me so proud :-)

water sports

It really depends on the people involved, of course. Sometimes you get lucky with roommates, and sometimes not. Personally, I am not living with anyone from my cohort, or even anyone from my department. I would have been open to living with people from my dept when I started, but I'm glad things worked out the way they did. It is nice to be able to feel like there's a change of pace and scene between home and school. I like that two of my roommates are in different departments from me and one actually has a full-time job because I get to have conversations that don't revolve around my field of study! In grad school, having those conversations should not be underestimated. Also, for what it's worth, two of the girls in my cohort lived together during the first year, and it did not work out well (mostly because one of the girls is rather needy/socially awkward).

Cool your jets, whippersnappers. I like the enthusiasm, but I just finished my first year in a doctoral program and as far as I'm concerned, the fall semester can take its sweet time getting here. I have my own research to do, a language course to take, friends to visit, beaches to lie on... If, however, you are champing at the bit to start grad school (as I was at this time last year): one of the best things I did to prepare over the summer was to read the most recently published books of quite of the few of the profs in my department. It gave me a good sense for what sorts of ideas are floating around in the hallways. Plus, it gave me something to talk about with profs when the semester did start.

In my program, everyone has to demonstrate proficiency in 2 languages other than English (of the person's choice). Stats may be substituted for one of the languages if they're relevant for the person's research; many of the arch people take that option. Of course, it depends on the program- your mileage may vary.

I've been using this for the past semester: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001OIQ0B0. It's a pretty good over-the-shoulder bag; I like how it has lots of different pockets to keep things organized. It could benefit from a little more shoulder padding, though, and I definitely wouldn't ride a bike with it if I had my laptop in it. I also have an REI daypack that I use on occasion (I also use it for traveling/hiking). It's got great shoulder padding and can hold a lot, but it doesn't look super-professional. I also don't like wearing backpacks because I don't like having to take it on and off every time I want to grab my wallet or phone. But I know it's much better for my back than the one-shoulder bag, so I try to use it at least once a week or so.

Inca2011's advice is sound- an MA may be a good option for you. People come to anthropology from all different fields of study, and there are several students (and profs) in my department who have backgrounds in hard sciences/math. On the other hand, though, my cohort and I just finished our first year, and those with at least a solid minor in Anthro had a much easier time of it than those with little to no Anthro background (not that it was really "easy" for any of us...) Good luck to you, notascientist!

Whatever shipping option you use, pay the extra money to get some kind of tracking/insurance/delivery confirmation. I mailed all my books from CA to the East Coast using the Us Postal Service's "book rate" (cheapest option) with none of the extras, and half - HALF - of my boxes of books got lost. When I called repeatedly to try to find out what had happened to them, the post office made a pro forma attempt to track them down, but I never received any of the lost boxes. I was totally bummed. Losing half of my academic and personal library was NOT a fun way to start the grad school journey. Learn from my mistake and pay extra for the peace of mind :-(

That's odd. GPA is calculated in my program.

I did both an honors thesis in undergrad and a thesis in my MA program before starting my PhD program. (At my MA school, everyone else did comps). At both schools, I had relatively little professorial support/oversight from beginning to end of the process; in fact, I didn't "defend" either thesis because the faculty members couldn't be bothered to schedule a meeting for that purpose! That said, I did learn a lot from the process of writing and researching both theses, and I do think it helped me get into my current PhD program. I'm in Anthropology, and the majority of the doctoral program revolves around framing an ethnographic question and then answering it through one's fieldwork and write-up. Being able to demonstrate to the faculty that I've gone through that process before (albeit on a smaller scale) was a definite 'plus' in my admissions decision, I'm sure. As for the writing sample: I submitted the introduction and one of the main chapters of my MA thesis. Several profs asked about it in interviews. It was a good conversation starter, and I'm not sure that submitting a more 'lit-review'-ish paper would have served the same purpose. With a little reframing, I've also been able to present chapters and chunks of both theses as conference papers, and have one under consideration for publication as an article. Overall, I do think that thesis work is helpful for getting into a PhD program and for developing oneself as a scholar overall. But it is not necessary for getting into a PhD program; several of my fellow students have not done thesis work, but still got in. It's also worthwhile to consider how much the research/writing process will add stress to your life when determining whether it's worth it for you. Writing a thesis is a *lot* of work, and if you can still get into a program without it (which you probably can, if the rest of your portfolio is solid), then it may be of relatively marginal value to you. Good luck!

Yes. Well, welcome to grad school, kiddo :-)

Hi OleMiss, Unless you can find a roomie that you know at least a little bit about (maybe a friend-of-a-friend? Try Facebook!), I would recommend living by yourself for the first year if you can afford it and can find a decent place in a not-too-scary, not-too-far-from-school neighborhood. I'm just finishing my first year of PhD, and I can tell you that you'll be dealing with a lot of stress; having a bad roommate situation is not the kind of stress that you want to deal with if you can possibly avoid it. That being said... I've lived in many different situations over the years, with many different people, and my best living situation was a shared apartment with two people I'd never met before the day I moved in. We became really good friends and had an awesome time together. So, sometimes it is possible to get lucky. Best to you!