bakalamba

Wow, that's a vivid example, and unfortunately something prevalent in academia but also in the field of education. Which is ironic because it's the field which studies the impact of sexism in educational settings, including higher ed. I'm male, and worked on a research project with a two PIs: a mid career female professor and a late career male professor. Both were happy to be referred by their first name, but countless times it would be (for example) Prof/Dr. Smith and Jane. Your cautionary tale really highlights the importance of first impressions by applicants (and also that systematic bias can be fairly transparent).

I think this is an overlooked aspect of doctoral education (at least from the application process): everyone I talk to stresses that it's less about the school, and more about the department, funding, and who you work with. I can testify to this, as I turned down offers similar to yours (higher ranked school, no clear advisor, unclear funding), for one with an advisor, who has been great, decent funding based on active projects and grants, and faculty actively publishing with students. The pros and cons of these situations are a bit weighted to one side, and it seems what you are struggling with is the name and ranking - so you really have to ask yourself (and other people): what's the worth of prestige, compared to the benefits of going to a well-funded and seemingly well supported program?

Hi, congratulations on your acceptance. I stayed in the grad housing for a year, and it was quite expensive, and should have looked for my own housing (it was a Masters program, but I stuck around in LA for a few years). I haven't used it, but UCLA has a roommate search website. I'm not sure if it discriminates between grads and undergrads, but it should give you an idea of where students live, and what the rent is for a shared situation. UCLA is a tricky location, so I would check out all the useful hints on the city guide section of this forum. You can't reasonable stay to the north, west, or east because that's Bel Air, Brentwood, and Beverly Hills, certainly not affordable. Many graduate students end up living south of campus, in Palms, Culver City, or southern Westwood, out of the student housing bubble but still a bus ride or a short bike ride away. Craigslist is the best option. I've known international grads who have stayed at the co-op, and it may be a viable alternative to grad housing, and looks cheaper. Somewhere safe to stay before you can look for apartments in person. I would stick to looking outside of Westwood around campus for a few reasons: 1) you'll pay more and get less, 2) apartments are either luxury or low quality (yet not with the low prices), 3) there can be a lot of predatory landlords or sublease situations. I had a friend who was an international student who was renting a room from a tenant without the landlord's consent or knowledge. Even if they are not predatory, Westwood landlords are used to undergrads, and may require extra down payments, and have stricter rules for moving in, moving out, or signing a lease. Good luck!

Funding differs per institution, per department, per student, per admissions offer. The only way for you to know is to check with the department after you are are accepted, if you don't have funding attached to your admissions letter. The best thing you can do know is to talk to current students who are in a similar position of working full-time and see if they have any type of funding to help with tuition. I'm not sure about a MAT, but generally funding is less common for Masters degrees, as departments prioritize PhD students, who will be around for longer, likely to be teaching the subject at a college level or conducting research, and thus would benefit from TAships or RAships.

Hi, There is no one full scholarship for Universities in the United States, all departments handle their funding in a different way. You will have to find degree programs in your field, and contact them to see what type of funding is offered to international students. Masters degree funding can be very competitive. In addition, many international students are funded by their government, I also know a lot of students who are Fullbright scholars, which works out because funding is usually for a year or two, which matches the length of some Masters programs. Good luck

Great post - it's always good to engage with the field outside of reading books and articles, which, in the end, is only one way of communicating information and discussing ideas. New Books in Education has interviews with authors about their education related books, and it's pretty easy to scour the archive to find people in your field (I'm in Comparative Education, and it's well represented, as usually domestic education issues get priority). It's part of the New Books Network, and I also listen to choice shows from other fields that I'm interested in or overlap with Education. NPR also packages all of their education stories into one weekly(ish) podcast, which I find is a great way to get news about what's happening in education that may be outside of my radar.

Not this year, but I applied for CIE programs last year (now I'm a first year PhD student in one).

I'd agree with the others that there isn't a strict demarcation for funding based on tier, or whether the institution is private/public. And region matters a lot - last application season I found out the stipend offered for a NY institution was almost the same as one in the Midwest. From my applications, I could break the funding down into a few categories: 1) Fully funded for 4-5 years, no strings attached, 2) Funded for 4-5 years, guaranteed RA/GA position, 3) Year-to-year funding, with offer/fellowship for the first year, and strong possibility for GA/RA positions 4) Year-to-year, with little to no support for the first year. With the exception of Number 1, you won't really know about funding until you ask students about it, or receive an offer. Hearing from a department that they may have funding down the line, but no way to support me for my first year, was certainly a red flag. I ended up at a Number 3 because the faculty was so great, and there are ample research projects in my area of interest that provided funding and great experience in the field. Which turned out to be a pretty good choice, as other students who didn't have the fellowship were able to secure GA/RA positions for their first year. Outside of guaranteed funding for the longterm, which is generally rare, and very competitive, it all depends on the department - is this a department that cares about its students' funding, and has a history of providing support? Or does it admit a lot of students, have a few tuition waivers, and make them compete against eachother for funding? This is a picture you can get from current and former students. I'd also add that a research-based PhD, rather than a professional PhD/EdD, would have more chances of funding, as the department would be more academic, as opposed to a more professional one, in which students are employed and bring in their own funding.

I had a great graduate stats instructor, but the textbook was also very helpful, Statistics: Unlocking the Power of Data by the Lock family statisticians. Online Stat Book is pretty great, covers most of the material, although it doesn't always go into the depth necessary.

Touche. That's certainly very constructive.

And your constructive suggestion is ...

I second Kelly's recommendation. Certainly I don't want to dissuade you from entering a graduate program straight from undergraduate, but International Comparative Education is a competitive field, particularly with a focus on Europe (if that's your interest), and your cohort may likely have students who are mid-career in education or international development, or have substantial teaching experience, in the US or abroad. Taking time in between studies will give you more material and experience to bring to your graduate education, and having a credential or work experience is a great fall-back after your degree - particularly since Masters programs can be very expensive, even more so at the private institutions you're looking at. I've seen students do great straight from undergrad, but they generally have a more academic focus (which is natural, considering they have more experience in academics than outside of it). You seem to have good qualifications for entry, but remember you'll also be competing with applicants with those qualifications plus substantial field experience. Like Kelly said, graduate study and admissions is all about fit, fit, and fit. Make sure there is a faculty member in your research area - don't choose a program just because it's at a University with high name recognition, but doesn't have faculty or a program that matches your interests. Unless you're sitting on a pile of money, look into fellowship/scholarship applications that you can apply to concurrently with school applications. Sorry that I can only address your "what are my chances" question into a "should you apply and where" answer - because I really can't say what kind of applications these schools will see that year and how yours will fit in the pile (although these schools get a lot). Last piece of advice is to consider a larger range of schools - these are good programs, but there are also good programs where you'd least expect them, and if you continue on with this field, employers and faculty know where these programs are, irrespective of where the University sits on national rankings (and if you want to study Comparative Education, you should start being very skeptical about these kind of rankings). For example, I'm at a large Midwest school that funds students, MA and PhD, to work abroad on large projects, which I never got to do when I was obtaining a MA at a high-ranked institution.

Do you boycott offices, as well? Lol. You can call them academic cards, if that makes you feel better - I think I may have to order a few, particularly for conferences. Because scribbling your email on the back of a program screams professionalism and organization. I think it's about how it's presented, as well as how you present yourself that defines whether you're seen as a networking academic who's interested in connecting with people over their work, or a shifty entrepreneur trying to shill your wares towards getting a job. I second Moo, I've ordered their minicards before for a friend, they look a little like academic cards. I'm toying around with having quotes on the back of foundational philosophies that structure my word and my relation with the field I'm in.

I wrote a note to my friend, but decided I want to send it instead of driving to his house and handing it to him personally. I can't believe there's a fee for that! How is that even legal? Now, being able to subtract tips from one's salary, even below the minimum wage (legal in CA), that's completely crazy...

Yes, this is the kind of condescension and unhelpfulness that could only be honed and developed in grad school.

I second Duolingo, but if the language you're interested in isn't there, you can use Memrise.com for vocabulary and pick up a grammar book for reference. Reading is a lot about making connections and piecing things together, so there's skills like sentence structure and pronunciation that you won't have to focus much on.

There's always the Hipster PDA.

Since classes started, I've been using the app "My Study Life" (also an app-free online version), because I quickly realized it's confusing to have a dozen weekly class assignments clogging my to-do list which I normally reserve for important stuff like getting oil changes, running an important paper to some University office, etc. It works pretty well, and can also keep a calendar of your class meetings. And each task has a scroll bar, rather than a checkbox, so you can feel somewhat fulfilled when you complete a quarter of a final paper, I guess.

A friend gave me Korean soup packets before I left. They're intended to make Sundubu, spicy tofu soup, and essentially are seasoning packets with separate chili oil to add later on. Add a block of tofu, an egg, and whatever I have in my fridge in the way of meats, vegetables, or fish. I basically did the same thing with instant ramen: save the noodles or keep them in, and add extra spice, meats, or produce. If you live in a college town, or anywhere, you can get these for really cheap from a grocery store or, better yet, an Asian supermarket. Big salads are great: you can buy the greens for cheap and throw egg, meat, bacon, beans, or whatever in for protein. I guess you can buy generic salad dressing, but I prefer a dash of vinagrette and olive oil, and maybe some fresh parmesan. Makes a great lunch because leaves can be stuffed into a small container, and you won't have to worry about a microwave.

Google Calender - like everyone noted, it syncs to everything. It also lets you put addresses on stuff, which is handy if your campus is big. You can also repeat events, which is useful for planning ahead when you have scheduled classes. I also use Any.do - it has good features to annoy me into staying organizing, and following up with tasks. Currently it asks me every morning to organize my day, if I have any tasks to do. It's a great digital appendage to a memory that I barely have. They also make a beautiful front-end to Google Calendar called "Cal". For tasks outside of a time schedule, I use Evernote.

Oh, and stretch wrap is amazing. Holds everything together and doesn't leave a residue on your cheap furniture like packing tape.

It actually was. It was kind of a pain packing the pod, since I elected to save $500 and not have it dropped off in front of our apartment - we had to drive to two different Uhaul locations to pack the pod. They shipped it as soon as we were done packing, and it ended up arriving there a day earlier than scheduled. Didn't want the hassle of another unloading by car, so I rented a pickup and towed the pod to the new place. It moved from California to Minnesota, and no evidence of things shifting around inside (but I like to attribute this to our expert packing skills, using cushions to protect valuables and flat boxes in between layers of boxes to keep things from jumping around). So a pretty good experience, and Uhaul has more money saving options for those who want to do things themselves. Didn't find a competitive offer from other companies, and for the distance we traveled, it would have been more expensive to rent a truck and drive it ourselves. Their pod comes in one size, and it was enough to transport our disassembled Ikea furniture. We probably would have needed two pods if we had a couch, a box spring, actual real adult furniture, etc. Now that all the stuff is in the apartment I have to do something with it ... :/

That's understandable. I hate asking for LORs because I don't like to impose. But think of it as karma, and that in a few years you'll be on the other end and get a chance to write more LORs than you ever had written for you.

I'm not in HESA, but every program I applied to last year required three letters and all used forms. In the Midwest this includes MSU, U of Minnesota, and Wisconsin-Madison. Do you have a third LOR writer, or just want to minimize their/your work? I totally agree, it's a huge pain to put together applications and gather LOR - some of my writers found the forms more time consuming than letters, since at their University there is a LOR letter sending service that will copy one and send it to jobs and grad programs. Again, I'm not in HESA, but I was really impressed with MSU's program and faculty when I visited there, after being accepted into the Ed Policy program. Good luck!

This seems like a very specific software that you're advertising as discounted ... why not just download Handbrake for free? A less specific tip, but it never hurts to ask for a student discount wherever you buy anything. If you buy hardware or software from companies, always Google them to see if they have a separate academic purchasing website (Apple has one which most people know about, but I just found Lenovo has one as well). I just signed up for Amazon Prime student, and have six months of free shipping for all the textbooks, supplies, and random crap I need before the semester starts.