
Anita
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This is kind of too late for those of us who are waiting (in fact, you probably shouldn't read this ) but more for the ambitious juniors who are lurking on this board http://gustavus.edu/academics/psychology/newsletter/20071205.php#majorspot Scroll down to the "Spotlight on alum" article. There is some advice there that goes against most articles written by professors on e.g. Psi Chi, for example, that GRE is actually more important than GPA, and that recommendations may not even be read. But the author is not only an insider, but an insider at a prestigious program as well, so I hope there's more than a grain of truth in them. Hope someone finds it helpful
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Psyc major in college, Ph.D. wannabe: Should I quit my senior thesis?
Anita replied to Anita's topic in Applications
Aww, thanks everyone! I'll continue with my thesis. Your opinion is the same as people I'd talked to, but now I feel safer following their advice because I know for sure it's coming from people who understand grad school. Glad to know I'm not alone in the whole hate-your-thesis thing. I love this board <3 -
Hey all, I heard a couple people are going to the SPSP conference next week, so I'm hoping to meet up there with whoever wants to meet up (I'm going alone). On the fun side, obviously it's more fun to participate in LV debauchery when you have a companion, especially on 1/31 when the conf is over and I'm stuck there waiting for my 2/1 flight. On the practical side, I've had really rotten luck finding people to stay with for free on couchsurfing.org, so I'm open to whoever wants to split hotel/hostel/cardboard box rental costs for 4 nights, Jan 27 through 30. So holler back if your room costs $20 or less after splitting. Yes, I know, I'm a dirt cheap person in general, and the cost of registering for the conference itself has been really unforgiving on my budget. Hoping to hear back from y'all (through PM if you must) because we're all cool people, right? Right?
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Did anyone make a fool of themselves talking to future advisor?
Anita replied to DeWinter's topic in Sociology Forum
Ditto on the above. Interrupting and not being able to find a word while nervous about your interview? Happens to absolutely everybody. From what I see on GC, every applicant is nervous, and your POI does interviews every year - she's probably seen it all. If that's the worst thing you can come up with about your interview, I say you're in terrific shape! -
I would be U, not I I see you're not hearing anything either. Maybe they let people in other countries know first so they can prepare for the trip? Yeah, wild theory, I know
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Who got the interview at Mich State? Who did you apply to work with, if you don't mind?
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I'm applying to grad school to study a handful of topics I'm genuinely fascinated by. Problem is, as my school is a tiny liberal arts college, the psyc department is, naturally, tiny. The profs, in true liberal-arts fashion, don't do much research, and their labs can barely support the surging numbers of senior psyc-major honors thesis writers, which means until senior year when I can write a thesis too, I couldn't get into any lab with which to gain research experience. What's worse, since the department is so small, there is exactly one professor whose work is close to what I'm interested in. So last year, when I applied for a thesis advisor, there was a record number of thesis applications, causing a shortage of advisors in the department for the first time. Through some unfortunate series of departmental decisions that may or may not have involved politics (as far as I know, I hadn't been troublesome in any way that may cause people to have reservations about advising me), I ended up being rejected by all 3 of my advisor choices. Worse, my first choice, a wildly popular professor because of her fun research interests and her being a fun person in general, took 7 out of the 8 people who applied to work with her. As you can guess, I'm not quite over the bitterness of it all. But long story short, I scrambled to secure a spot with one of two, apparently least popular, professors, just so I can write a thesis with which to get experience to apply to grad school. I'll admit, I care very little about the topic. I also admit that I'm still a lucky bastard in that my advisor is much better than your stereotyped PHD Comics type. There's nothing I can blame her about my lack of interest or lackluster performance. The way she works is, I would do a lit review for my intro section in the fall, and run experiments in the spring. So I've somehow scraped together a satisfactory intro section, but the semester in which I wrote it was spent roughly like this, this, and this. The dilemma of the situation is that my heart is in other topics, so I'm continually trying to resist reading papers and books on my "pet topics" although they make me tingle with excitement (there, I said it), because finishing my thesis is a higher priority. That doesn't make me love my thesis any better. All it does is drive me nuts with guilt because I have, after all, been given an opportunity, and I'm on the fast track to squander it because I failed at self-discipline. But I seem to be simply unable to devote myself to something I don't care about. So now I'm faced with the option of quitting my thesis. My advisor has noticed my lack of interest, although I tried to hide it, and she thinks I should quit because I've acquired some research experience, and since I already submitted my applications, it wouldn't matter whether I get any more experience. I, on the other hand, am afraid of the possibility of having to apply again in the future, and of being asked about my supposedly ongoing thesis during grad school interviews. Also, if I quit now, I won't acquire any lab experience (it's been just library research so far). There may be other repercussions that I haven't thought of too. The benefits of quitting are many: I'll have massively more time to devour the psychology literature that I do enjoy. I'll also get a chance to explore other subjects that I've had to put on hold. I will, hopefully, be happier without an ongoing project continually kicking me in the ass. I have a week to decide. Classes start next week, and if I'm quitting, I need to find classes to replace the thesis. I'm, quite frankly, relying on y'all to point out if I've made erroneous assumptions or limiting my possibilities. I've talked to other people, but none who knows the Ph.D. process well, and they all say I should go on writing it, just to be safe. But the prospect of spending the remainder of my college life being a tool and writing 70 more pages of bullsh*t is terrible. To anyone who's going to recommend volunteering in a lab next year: I'm looking into that too. I'm not a US citizen, so the lab has to hire me as a paid employee, and only for a year at that. That is a possibility, but the chances of there being an open paid position in an interesting lab that people will hire me for are slim enough that I don't know if I should risk it. Sorry I'm incoherent. It's late, folks Anyway, TIA for any advice/insight/recommendation/commiseration
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Yes! This is my thread! Hi-fives to all of the above. If you think it's bad to live in the States as a psyc major, imagine going home in a third-world Asian country where psyc is actually an unpopular major (because science rules). And of course, the psyc that does make it into the few universities that study it is a mix of counseling/clinical/school psyc. And I suspect I can count the nationwide number of people who know what a Cronbach's alpha is on the fingers of two hands. I've actually considered changing majors to something like compsci so if I end up going home, I won't have to repeat the "I majored in psychology" spiel to clueless relatives for the rest of my life. The only consolation to be had is in knowing Freudian theories have yet to catch up in the country, or I'll be given dirty looks/asked to psychoanalyze people's abusive parents next. Here are a few of the more eye-rolling-inducing responses I've gotten as a result of telling people what I study: Me: I'm a psychology major. Clueless new acquaintance (turns to friend who is equally clueless): Oooh, stay away from her! She can read your mind! (yeah, people get matey very quickly in my country) Ex-bf (perfectly serious): So, I think I've been mean to some people lately. You're the psyc major - do you know any cure for meanness? Me: Uhh, there's electroconvulsive therapy... Me: I'm a psychology major. High school classmates: Oooh, you're gonna make lots of money! Lots of people in [Asian home country] are depressed these days! Me: Yeah, and you can bet I won't give you any discounts.
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Gah...I just survived my Wayne State interview. I was 10' late. Wondering if that was all right?
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Wow, you got an interview at Harvard! I'd be hyper if I were you. UMich is silly - they only took 2 people this year, so even if you were the 3rd most awesome of the lot, you're still out. Not much of a bummer other than the wasted money
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...Or they'll just assume your word processor, e.g. Notepad, can't handle accent marks. Or that you're computer-challenged, which obviously isn't true because you know how to put in accent marks, but would be a reasonable assumption for English majors (no offense meant ) In all seriousness though, you guys (especially the folklorists) totally need to get your minds out of the gutter I remember reading an annotated version of Beauty and the Beast or something and seeing an explanation that "rose" is a metaphor for "vagina". Thank God I was a little too old to be traumatized
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Sandra Murray and Mark Seery. I'm not hearing anything from Sandra, but Mark is "very" interested. He's calling me tomorrow for our phone interview. He sounds like an awesome guy! Who did you apply for? Also, updates: U Missouri is flying me out to Columbia, partially funded, and Wayne State wants to have a Skype video chat Anyone else had a video interview? I read somewhere that someone did...
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So there's this hilarious "negatives thread" where people who are applying this year list the atrocious things about their apps. However, I'm more curious about the ones who actually beat the odds, aka YOU What was the worst thing about your app, what did you think would ruin your chances, and what made your acceptance seem "against all odds"? I'm hoping this topic will be a source of perspective/inspiration/just plain "calm-the-hell-down" for the rest of us nervous wrecks
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Yay for innocent minds!
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My psychobabble-tinged advice: if both you and your SO have a secure attachment style, do it. Otherwise, maybe you'll make it if you try, but you'll be miserable. Find out what attachment style you have here. Having a secure AS just means you're OK not having your SO around all the time. My personal experience was dating a dude from my home country who also goes to college in the States for 3 years (I'm in MA and he's in OH). The two most important bummers was 1. I'm insanely insecure, attachment-wise (I'm so insecure that I'm applying to grad school to study close relationships so I can figure out ways to be more secure ) and 2. we were both terribly childish and inexperienced. Saying goodbye after each visit was a terrible, terrible experience, and when we were not together, I would miss him constantly, but when we were together, I'd end up fighting him just to be a prima donna (yeah, guess what, I'm still embarrassed ). The thing about not being able to resolve issues when you're together because you have so little time together is totally true, which puts a wrench in the whole thing too.
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I'm such a good girl, I had to Google "T&A"
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So far I have 3 interviews (U Missouri Columbia, SUNY Buffalo and Wayne State) and 1 rejection (UMich). I'm international w/ US degree btw. Pretty happy about the interviews, but would be even more psyched if they were higher-ranked schools, and if they're flying me out for the interview (all 3 are email/phone). Also the UMich rejection is kind of a bummer. I'm a little miffed about the school because of the money it took from me, but then it was my own damn fault I didn't contact professors beforehand. Also, someone on the results page said they're taking only TWO this year - how insane is that? Oh well, I might as well tell myself the rejection really didn't have anything to do with me.
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Hey, how's this? There's this huge conferencefor social psychology folks at Las Vegas (yes, Las Vegas!) in late January, and I suspect some other poor SP snowflakes might be there too. I'll be there until 2/1, and have nothing to do on 1/31 when conf. is over. Anyone? Anyone?
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I spent two days completely, obsessively rewriting my SOP for TAMU. Then I sent it away, and while recycling it for another school I discovered that toward the end I said I really wanted to go to "Texas T&M". FML.
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I'm in. Anyone in Western Mass?
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See, every app has a section where you're supposed to list all the other schools you're applying to. I remember them doing that for college apps too, and back then nobody knew what that was for either I presume this time it actually has a purpose though, which I guess is so schools can see what other schools can scoop you from under their nose. I imagine in that case, there must be an optimal, game-theory-backed way to fill out that field based on what other schools are most likely to make them nervous, but...well, what do I know about game theory?
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I wonder how old we have to be before people stop watching and judging our every step, and we get to watch other people?
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That reminds me! When I applied to Brown for undergrad 5 years ago, the country list had "Democratic Republic of Vietnam" and "Republic of South Vietnam". Uhh Brown, we're not in 1968 anymore...
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Whoa whoa. People here amaze me. I want to interview y'all I actually find it kind of heart-warming to hear some soul out there shares my supposedly unique quirk. It's a tiny (but possibly very deep) human connection! I can imagine feeling "scooped" if you've always been proud of your uniqueness, but that's not really how I feel. As a psychology dork, I like to explain that according to the Self-Determination Theory, my relatedness needs are stronger than my autonomy needs