
Vene
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Everything posted by Vene
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Resigning your job to go to school? I know I am!
Vene replied to Coconut Water's topic in Officially Grads
Depends, if it's for a reason the state decides isn't the fault of the former employee they get unemployment. If the state decides it's based on merit (such as consistently showing up late) then you're not getting it. -
I have a TA position and I have no idea about any sort of deduction for school expenses as being a TA means my tuition and fees are completely covered. I filled out a W4 at the beginning of the semester and this is how it was processed.
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I have my pay stub in front of me right now, I have federal and state tax withheld as well as social security and medicare withholding. All said, my tax rate is a little over 4%. I am also married and have two allowances which means I have a lower tax rate than single students.
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Are there master programs with stipends?
Vene replied to ellen_ai's topic in IHOG: International House of Grads
Here's one I found with a quick Google search. It does require teaching, but it's better than paying it out of pocket. -
There's no need at all for more than one major. Do well in the one you have (unless you're wanting to do a pretty drastic jump to a different field of interest).
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First Year Students Fall 2014 How's It Going
Vene replied to Threeboysmom's topic in Officially Grads
I'm getting frustrated because between the classes I need to take and my TAship I have so little time to do work for my rotation. -
I really advise against quitting your job. The GRE sounds scarier than it is, but it's basically high school level math and reading comprehension questions. I'm going to echo that the money you get between now and when you start will be incredibly helpful. I know I burned through a lot of my savings with just moving. And with you having already completed a masters degree the material on the GRE should be that much simpler for you to do. I would recommend that you ease up on traveling back and forth to New York, use email or phone calls instead. You have other responsibilities and that should be respected.
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I tried to make it with a bachelors, actually. It is possible and I know people who have done it, but I wish you good luck if you try. It is hard and there are a ton of pitfalls and dead ends along the way. The way the job market is right now it's really easy for people hiring researchers (industry, government, and academia) to just hire a PhD level scientist.
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I think there's a selection bias going on here, most regular users at grad cafe are very interested in graduate school and academia in general and so will have stronger than average profiles leading them to at least attempt a highly prestigious university. I could also see it where people who post universities in their signature are also more likely to be the people who apply to the Ivy League.
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What you do for your undergrad research isn't very important, what is important is that you do it. I'm currently rotating in a neuro lab despite having zero coursework in it and my work history is in chemical formulation. Worry less about doing exactly what you want in graduate school and more on getting a solid background in how to do science.
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Could be for any insurance they need to have, it at least wouldn't surprise me if they had to have additional insurance for delivery drivers on top of the insurance the employee has on their car.
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I think you'll be fine. The program I'm in is actually only a few years old, but it combines well established departments from the university. I kind of like it as it brings extra flexibility to what I can do.
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What's the program? As long as the professors are pretty well established I don't think it would be a real problem. Universities are always shuffling around degrees and the details of the degree are far less important and the details of your research and how well you publish.
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Combined with your low verbal it leaves me a concerned about your language skills.
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I think that's a borderline case; your verbal is great and your quantitative is respectable (if you weren't in engineering I'd say it's good). If you weren't looking at top 10 I'd say you're good as a top 100 or top 50 program shouldn't have a problem with those scores. The real risk, in my opinion, comes from if they use GRE as a way to thin the number of applicants and if you're on just the low side. Everything else about your application looks great. That said, knowing people in Purdue is going to help you a lot. Let anybody you worked with know you're applying to their graduate program if they don't know already. You can also ask them what they think about your score as Purdue's professors may have more insight.
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That seems kind of off to me. Unless you can justify it with some sort of procedural difference I'm having a hard time being convinced its not due to statistical noise. And I can't think of a scenario where withholding data is ethical.
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This, absolutely 100% this. It's not that a graduate school cares if you stuck around for an extra year to get a double major, it's that a double major won't give you a meaningful advantage, especially if you do take a bunch of extra math coursework. Also, that's another year's worth of tuition you have to pay.
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Is my GRE high enough for PhD programs in Social Psychology?
Vene replied to ahurst's topic in GRE/GMAT/etc
Doesn't that also include masters students who generally have lower scores? -
First Year Students Fall 2014 How's It Going
Vene replied to Threeboysmom's topic in Officially Grads
I'm so glad my pay period started back in August when we began orientation or I'd be in the same position. -
International students are more expensive, so you can't expect publicly funded universities to take on many of them as the extra output a great international student provides isn't necessarily enough to justify their cost. They should have some internationals and I would be concerned about a program which literally has zero international students in it. Likewise, I'd be concerned about a public university putting international students at the same level of priority as domestic students and I think doing such also deviates from their mission and shows poor fiscal sense. UWM's methodology isn't the best way to screen, I will happily grant that. But, factoring in the cost for interviews and/or for attendance during the application process is legitimate and it is also legitimate to look at the less expensive domestic students before even considering the more expensive international students. As long as they're not exclusively admitting domestic students there's nothing wrong with what they are doing.
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Definitely do apply for the PhD, I don't want it to sound like I'm saying not to do it. But, have a backup plan in place.
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I think the value of a MS is that you'd show you can handle graduate level neuroscience and could help you academically to overcome the lowish GPA. Again, I do think that if you applied to mid-tier PhD programs you'd be a solid applicant. Seeing that you more or less have the equivalent of a minor in biology/neuroscience through post-bac also suggests to me that a subject test is a little less valuable. As for MS programs, I'm sure there are MS degrees in neuroscience, otherwise focus on ones where there's faculty who do neuro-related research. I don't think there's any problem with getting a MS in cell biology when your thesis was on, say, membrane dynamics of neurons.
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There is a subject test both in biology and in biochemistry. Some programs may prefer one over the other, but I would imagine both would be valuable, assuming OP scores decently. I do agree that doing well on it would help the application a lot.
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I know I'd expect to have to work harder to get into a university in the UK or France or Japan. Why should that country invest its resources on me unless I have something of great value to offer them?
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Top universities are tough even with ideal GPAs and it doesn't sound like you've been out of undergrad long enough for yours to stop mattering. As for your major, it's not super common, but I don't think biology programs are against bringing in math majors. Were your post-bac courses in biology? Do you plan on taking a biology subject test? I do think you'll be able to get into a PhD program with those stats, but it probably not a top 10 or top 20 university. If you are set on a top university I'd say look at getting a masters degree first. I know funded ones do exist and other people here may be able to point you at them or your boss at Harvard may be able to suggest some. Also, have you talked to your boss about doing graduate school? I bet they can give you some good advice.