mudlark

This is me, too. I love my PhD city desperately. I'm really homesick for my friends, though. Kind of forgot that it took me seven years to build up the relationships I had in my last town, and that it would take some time here, too.

Yes! My guess of April 28th for e-mails, May 6th for letters is looking good! Honestly, I'd be happy to get the results in May. Not expecting them this week or next is going to do WONDERS for my ability to focus on my term papers. Not to mention check my e-mail without having a heart attack. Good luck with the waiting, everyone.

I did eight months of long distance with my then-boyfriend, now-husband before he moved out to join me. It sucked. But in the long run, it was really great for our relationship. Visits were the most romantic time we've ever spent together. We realized just how much we wanted the relationship. Not that I would wish it on anyone, but in hindsight, I can see lots of positives. The only thing I have to add is find a set up that works for YOU and trust that it's right. When we were long distance, we talked on the phone, maybe twice a week. We could go four or five days without talking. Some of my friends who spent 3 hours a day on Skype with their long distance partners were horrified, but hey, it worked for us. You'll get into a groove.

This is a question that you should ask the director of graduate studies at your chosen program. Say how excited you are to be coming, and ask if other students ever pick up funding after arriving, what forms it takes, and how common it is. Not necessarily. Have you run a loan repayment calculator and figured out how much you'll be paying a month once you're done? You can find one on google.

I bought a condo right before my first year started, and it has been AWESOME. Great decision. We've had lots of fun painting and fixing it up, and I love watching our equity slowly creep upwards. We went for a condo over a house for a handful of reasons: they're cheaper, so we could get more square footage; you pay fees instead of doing the maintenance yourself (no snow shoveling! yay!); we can live right in the center of the city instead of out in some suburb with no transit; we both like living in denser areas; and we love our balcony with its amazing view. We were very careful and conservative, and bought at the bottom of our price range with a 36% down payment. If you do your research and get some good advice, I think it can be a great thing to do.

My husband is a high school graduate, and I made more in scholarships this year than he did at his full time job. For us, that's a very very GOOD thing, since it all goes into the shared bank account anyways. One partner's success should be an asset to the overall relationship, not a cause for competition.

I'm sitting at 3 for 5. Got my thesis + committee approved, got into a conference (in Hawaii!), and got a perfect teaching assignment for fall. Now I just need to hear about SSHRC, and the more prestigious conference that I'm a long shot for. I've been so good about not stressing this year, but now that it's mid-April I'm losing it.

I used letters from my MA professors, and so did a lot of folk I know. They're the stronger letters, since they know me. I didn't even have a supervisor nailed down until a couple of months ago! Getting PhD letter writers on such short notice would not have worked. Most lit PhD students I know haven't/won't have published anything until their second or third year. I've heard again and again from people that the projects they *thought* were publishable coming out of their MAs turned out to be nonviable once they learned more about their field through grad coursework and exams. I know several CGS winners without publications, too, so this isn't just me being naive about what the supahstars are doing.

Hah! I deliberately chose my supervisor in part because he has a strong record of buying his grad students drinks. And also of publishing. It's probably more a matter of personality fit than professionalism. I have complete faith that my supervisor will be rigorous, available, organized, and highly competent as well as a total lush. I've been drinking much more regularly with my first reader, but that's because 1) I took a class with him and he knows me better than my supervisor does, 2) he's really young and brand new, so easier to talk to, and 3) he's an even harder drinker than my supervisor. I find going for drinks with him to be really useful, and really calming. He'll tell us about travel opportunities or scholarships we might now know about, talk through our projects and give honest feedback on them, reassure us about our output, clarify what's going to really matter when we're on the job market.... and now I'm making it sound like a professional development seminar in a bar, but this is all scattered through genuine conversation and a really fun evening. Hell, one of my best school friends literally came up with the core idea for his dissertation in a bar with this guy. It was all scribbled on a coaster. All of which is to say that I can totally understand being uncomfortable drinking with supervisors, and I think it makes sense to pick a school and a supervisor who fit with your comfort level. Likewise, there are people who are comfortable with that set up, and can actually benefit a lot academically from it. I don't think there's anything more or less professional or appropriate about the latter. To each their own.

Anyone else waiting on multiple pieces of news this month? While I'm sitting here writing my term papers, I should be getting responses to two conference applications, my teaching assignment for fall, news about whether the grad committee passed my thesis proposal, and SSHRC. Off to a good start so far, with one conference acceptance and the perfect teaching assignment... hopefully the other pieces of news will continue the upward trend.

Yup, that's right. Forwarded = A list. I hadn't heard anything about business SSHRCs directly taking money away from the regular pool. It might be that the regular pool got cut a bit while the business funding, as part of the economic stimulus package, had a set amount committed to it when that package was passed. I mean, don't get me started on the business related bullshit, but I haven't heard anything like what you heard.

I know that my school actively forbids doing two different programs at once. The reasoning is that you're in a full time program, and they're supporting you, so they expect you to use the bulk of your time working on that program. Two full time programs at once means that neither is getting your full attention. You can check with your school about the regulations.

Actually, May would really work for me. That way I won't have news (good or bad) distracting me from finishing my term papers.

Thanks for letting us know.

They were right: it doesn't make a difference if you're still a student. I am completely baffled by your anger. SSHRC isn't a lump sum thing, it's more like an ongoing paycheck to support you while you're in school. Of course no longer being in school means you no longer get your payments. Sounds like defense stress is taking a toll on you. I don't see why it would affect your eligibility if you get the doctoral SSHRC. To answer the question above about reasons why I want SSHRC: Prestige, flexibility, and mat leave! If you're not working enough to be eligible for EI, you can get four months of mat leave from SSHRC, paid at the level of your scholarship. That would definitely make (maybe) having a kid during my PhD slightly less insane in a still crazy kind of way.

Dude. Suck it up and get a roommate. Actually, I take it back. Pile on tons of debt and dig your own grave. You're not even attending yet and your username is gradschoolstinks? You feel entitled to a solo place... for what reason? You can't stand the thought of rooming with someone? The negativity! It burns!

Love your optimism! Yes, SSHRC is usually later. I have a handful of SSHRC-applicant friends with NSERC-applicant partners, and the science geeks tend to know before the lit dorks. SSHRC and NSERC are both part of the Tri-Council granting cluster along with CIHR (health research), but that's the extent of their connection. One timeline is unrelated to the other. My understanding is that once you reach Ottawa, everything gets thrown into one big pool. Unlike MA SSHRCs, there is no university quota system for wins, only a quota for how many you can forward. The 230/825 stat sounds like it's just for internationally based applications. If you go look at the spreadsheets (http://www.sshrc.ca/site/winning-recherche_subventionnee/stats-statistiques/tables-tableaux-eng.aspx) you'll see that 1,835 PhD students were forwarded last year, and 1,018 won. Sadly, I know some people with really intriguing projects that have been repeatedly unsuccessful while the more traditional ones went forward (ie, Shakespeare project got funded, rhetoric of mental health diagnostics didn't). There's such a random element to it, though, that all you can do is send off the best project you can. If your heart is really in something crazy, I doubt you'll be able to pull off a 'safer' version with the same passion and flair. Oh, and STOP WORRYING. You have months and months ahead of you for that! Stressing out won't affect the outcome. Almost April, people! We'll all know soon!

I'm 25 now, and I've never been able to pull all-nighters. It's just not something I'm built for. These days, I go to bed ridiculously early, too, since my husband starts work at 7:00AM and if I stay up too late, he's asleep before I get any *ahem* cuddling. Setting up my work around his regular schedule has been AWESOME for my productivity and my health. I start early on assignments, plan out reasonable work days, and then chip away at them. My stress levels are way, way down from when I did the last minute scrambling thing. All of which is to say that it might end up being a very good thing that you can't pull all-nighters any more. It'll force you to think ahead and learn better time management, and will cut down on your stress. Overall, it'll probably make you a better grad student.

Good for you, TokuGirl! You're making a clear-headed decision about the cost of grad school in the humanities. That's awesome. You might have a hard time finding a job for a while, but that's much better than being burdened by unbearable levels of debt for the next few decades. Not everyone has the strength of character to take on short-term disappointment and struggle for long-term benefit. You should be proud you got in, and proud that you had the courage not to go without funding. Very, very far from being a loser.

We bought a condo this last summer, and are over the top happy about it. I just started my English PhD, and my husband works at Ikea. First home for both of us. How it looks money-wise: We bought a place for $180,000, with a loan of $121,500. We have a 35 year mortgage, which is idiotic and should be illegal, but it's what the mortgage broker had to do to make some formula work. What they think you should spend on housing and what normal people actually spend on housing are completely different things. So with our ridiculous mortgage, our payments are $550 a month. Our condo fees are another $550. Add on about $100/month in property tax, and our housing costs are $1200, which is exactly what we were paying to rent less than half the space in our old city. We're being really aggressive and doubling our payment each month, though, to pay it down while the interest rates are still low. Extra money (tax returns, etc) can also be thrown on our mortgage without penalty up to 15% of the initial loan. Running some spreadsheets that are easily googleable, I've made an extra-payment plan that cuts our total interest paid down to a THIRD of what it would be otherwise and turns our 35 year mortgage into a 15 year mortgage. By the end of my PhD, we should have built up about $35-40,000 in equity. We bought the place in the worst housing market imaginable from a very motivated seller, so our odds of selling for more than we bought for are very good. How it looks time-wise: We were lucky and got the first place we put an offer in for. Still, it took SO. MUCH. TIME. It was insane. I had no idea. I was unemployed that summer, and it was like having a part time job. Stipends and mortgage approval: TD Bank in Canada accepted my offer letter as proof of income, but I know other people who were turned down in the same situation. I think mortgage lending is way less of a science than we tend to think. In my case, my husband had a record of very steady employment, but not enough income to qualify for the loan. My income pushed us over that barrier, but wouldn't have been enough on its own. I think. Why we love it: Stability, quiet, the dorky joy of figuring out how much money is potentially going into your own pocket instead of to a landlord, the ability to paint the walls bright green if we want, and tear out ugly lighting fixtures and curtains, not having to worry about landlords objecting to our cats (and hypothetical future kids)..... it's a nice life.

Yay, fun distracting speculation! You can dig up last years' stats thread and look at the publication/conference record of winners and losers. I think this is highly field dependent. In fields like English and philosophy, publication seems to start later in your grad career, and it's practically unheard of for grad students to get second, third, or fourth author status on a project they RAed for. In geography and other more quantitative fields, the structure is different. My best friend is working on a health geography project, and will finish his undergrad with more pubs than anyone had in my incoming PhD cohort. I think proposal and reference letters are probably more important. I hope that the fact that I'm clearly active and engaged in my department (lots of teaching and service, strong awards record) will compensate for the fact that I have just one "grown-up" conference on my CV. More importantly, though, we need to start a Results Timeline Pool!!! [assumes over-serious prognosticating tone] Two years ago, notifications came out mid-April. Last year, they were mid-May. I believe it was the fact that they had two new initiatives to administer last year--the business related projects and the Vaniers--that made the results so late. This year, they have no new initiatives, so you might be optimistic and expect a return to 2008's promptness. However, SSHRC may have waited to see how the federal budget shook out before moving forward on some parts of the decision making process. So I'm going to call early results for April 28th (e-mails from grad chairs, things like that) with the first letters arriving on May 6th. [/over-serious prognosticating tone] Anyone else want to take a guess?

I agree. My old grad chair described the MA SSHRC vetting process in Ottawa as "Going down a list and making sure that you're actually Canadian and a graduate student." Of course, the year I won mine, I wouldn't believe it until the letter actually arrived.

I highly doubt that this will happen. The number of awards has been going down in the past few years, not up. The "business related" funding is a separate pile of money from the general awards budget, and will go *poof* when the rest of the economic stimulus plan is finished. Where would the money come from to give 80 more people $80,000 - $105,000? (Assuming all external applicants are applying before their first year, and will win full awards.) That's potentially eight MILLION dollars. If the SSHRC grad awards budget went up that much, we would have heard about it.

Neither. Reapply and hope to get full funding at a middle-ground school in the future.

Big changes are always scary, but you'll feel a lot more in control, adult, etc if you take personal responsibility for figuring out how to make them. Your original post has a lot of blaming in it: nobody taught you how to do this, your mother only helped you do your paperwork after a fight... Not a helpful mindset, IMO. If you have the tools to do grad level research, then you have the tools to go and read up about credit, renting, and student aid. This isn't something that other people have failed to teach you, it's something that you now get to teach yourself. Want to feel like an adult? Fake it til you make it, starting with shouldering responsibility for major financial decisions.