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ExponentialDecay

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Everything posted by ExponentialDecay

  1. ehhhhhhh I appreciate that this is an attempt to warn recent Sarah Lawrence graduates that the real world works differently off campus, but imo all this kind of rhetoric accomplishes is entrenching young people in their idealistic notions and avoidance of "corporate drudgery". I really wish people would stop portraying the private sector as this monolithic, vaguely kafkaesque entity where everyone has to bend over and take it from the boss, who is in cahoots with Trump and probably has a pointy tail. That's not the case. 1. The private sector is really diverse. Evil corporations and investment banks are only a tiny fraction of the private sector. The majority of private sector entities are small and medium enterprises, like organic farms, mom and pop stores, restaurants, or small companies that make shit like some niche design software or imitation mini cacti. Most of these companies make little if any profit and are just trying to provide a good product and stay in business. Ultimately, being private just dictates how you file your taxes. An entity isn't evil just by virtue of being private, just as it is not good just by virtue of being a non-profit. 2. Most Americans work in the private sector, so, statistically, about half of them are Democrats. Some industry sectors are more right or more left than others - oil companies tend to be staffed by Republicans and startups tend to be staffed by Democrats - but just that you work in the private sector implies exactly nothing about what your workplace environment is like. Your coworkers may all be uberliberal, ubercool millennials who went to similar liberal arts schools. Your company may put up a booth each Pride. Your boss may host weekly #withher rallies. And you still, by the way, would need to STFU because that's part of being a person that other people want to work with and promote, whether in academia, non-profits, government, or a pre-language hunter-gatherer society. 3. Because of how diverse the private sector is, you can find a lifestyle similar to the academic one at a private company. It's not all navy suits and 9 to 5. Some companies have flexible scheduling. Some have work from home options. Some have cool childcare perks, amazing office amenities or big vacation time. Some companies have better employer protection than the antiquated, calcified and politically fraught grievance systems endemic to most academic (and other large, complex and old) institutions. How feasible any given option is depends on what industry you're in, what role you have and where you are geographically (just as what your daily life looks like will depend on your discipline and the type of institution you're at), but it is possible, and, what's best, you don't need to sacrifice 10 years and be a department superstar in order to get a slim chance at it.
  2. It rather depends on what the degree is. An MBA from Harvard is a very different thing from a cash cow humanities MA from Columbia.
  3. This was a really long and meandering description of your life so far. An SOP should be a statement of research interest, not a diary entry.
  4. List what math classes you took and your grades in them. the GRE is good but tbh unless that 3.43 is weighed down by Cs in humanities classes, that's a worrisome GPA. It's a worrisome GPA even if it's not weighed down by humanities classes. It also depends on what your research was and who your supervisor was for that (whom you should ask about your chances btw). If you want a realistic shot at MIT and Stanford, I'd get a master's from a program that places at MIT and Stanford (LSE, Bocconi, BGSE), kill it, do research with Giacomo Ponzetto, and then you'll have a good chance of getting in.
  5. 1. I'm not sure why it's a good idea to incentivize superfluous posting? The point of this forum is to provide and retain information. Would anyone find it helpful to wade through dozens of "what's your favorite cat color?"-type postings in order to find what they're looking for? 2. I am likewise sure that ~no one is intentionally giving bad advice that they know is wrong just to watch the world burn, but as in legal parlance, ignorance of the law excuses not: whether they're giving bad advice intentionally or not, they're still doing harm. And it's not realistic to expect experienced members to monitor this BB for n00b answers. We have full time jobs and real lives and stuff.
  6. 1. What do you want to do? 2. Does program x place students into positions doing what you want to do? 3. Go to the program that does (2) most successfully People so often forget that graduate school is a means to an end, not the end itself. Either prestige or reputation are only meaningful insofar as they help you get the outcome you want. Getting the world's most prestigious history degree won't help you if you want to be a physicist.
  7. People do do that. There isn't an epidemic because, one, most people doing PhDs want to get the PhD, two, a master's in the American job market is this weird limbo degree that implies you're more qualified than a BA (therefore the company might have to pay you more), but you're not an expert/fully fledged research professional with a PhD. In a lot of fields a master's basically doesn't qualify you for anything beyond what a BA qualifies you for, so mastering out basically means wasting two years. Of course it's stupid convention and I don't know who came up with the nonsense that you need to sacrifice 5+ years to academia in order to learn to do research, especially at the non-PI level, but academia is slow to change and the labor market is slow to change - so there you have it.
  8. Wrong forum. You're looking for Government Affairs in the Professional Programs section. But, since I'm here... Your internship experience doesn't really set you apart from other direct from undergrad applicants because they all have internship experience, and most have exactly the same experience as you. The typical direct from undergrad applicant is a political science major who has studied abroad, taken intro micro and has a bunch of summer stints on the Hill/congress/some think tank or other. Your GPA is low for direct-from-undergrad, but probably good enough for second tier programs. Your chances of getting serious money are low because of the combination low GPA + no work experience.
  9. That a handful of people did x and received outcome y is not robust evidence that x causes y. I will remind you that the view of government as a profession and professional policy schools are very new, and as recently as 50 years ago, upper echelons of American government were given to sons of prominent families whose qualification was that they studied at Harvard, not what they studied. Like I said, I'm not a current American diplomat, but where I'm at, a bullshit degree from an Ivy is not considered an acceptable qualification by employers. I admit the possibility that in diplomacy it may be different, but I wouldn't draw that conclusion from the life story of some wizened emeritus, no matter how spectacular his company. That said, if you think differently, you should let OP know, not me. I'm not applying to grad schools. I don't care what you think.
  10. I mean my only input is that doing divinity school to work in foreign policy seems like a supremely stupid decision, but I wasn't going to post that seeing as I'm not a current American diplomat. Generally, you work in the field in DC, half your school's alumni work in the field in DC, so I don't understand why you're even wasting your time fielding these questions to French majors from Oklahoma and other internet people of unverified expertise. You most likely are able to ask this question to the people who will literally be hiring you into your dream job. Do that.
  11. What other professors you asked isn't anybody's business but yours. But also you're spending way too much time thinking about this. Just send the damn email.
  12. I think it's a pretty standard situation: person does other things for a while, then considers going back to academia. Half the forum is in this situation. You're not that important. Maybe, maybe not. Why guess when you can easily find out. Call the department or send an email and ask this question. How would we know what master's a specific program considers equivalent? Do you want to be a history professor? Do the PhD. Do you want to do something besides being a history professor? Don't do the PhD.
  13. If it's from another country, it's less of a problem. There's a perception that people in e.g. Europe do master's as an extension of undergrad - plus, a lot of people repeat master's they already have in the US because the system is different.
  14. You need to demonstrate an current visa stamp and current I-20 in order to enter the US. To remain in status in the US, you just need a current I-20. I'm not sure what you mean by a separate process so I can't answer that question, sorry.
  15. Not that you're implying otherwise, but as a general note, in the US, the visa and right of stay are not the same thing, so the length of your visa and your duration of status don't necessarily have to match up. In the US, your visa stamp is just needed to enter the country, whereas the document that permits you to legally be in the US is the I-20. So as long as you're not exiting the US, you don't need to renew the visa. Also, you can definitely renew an F1 after 5 years. There is no limit to how long you can be in the US on F1 as long as you are in status (i.e. your I-20 is current).
  16. The thing with humanities degrees is that they're neither very portable nor very much in demand. Maybe you can hustle and beat the odds, but I woulnd't count on that as my immigration strategy. It may actually be easier for you guys to immigrate via your husband's job, if he can convert fire sprinkler engineering into something that is on a given occupation shortage list. You should also consider teaching at international schools. If you want to try the academic route, your best bet is to make professional contacts in your field in those countries. They will be able to answer questions like what their universities look for and what your prospects are.
  17. *pursue. peruse means to read carefully. - be an RA under a professor and hopefully get the research published with your name on it - do an independent study, a thesis, or some other large independent research project (again, under the guidance of a professor) - attend a professional conference, maybe present some research at it - post this in the sociology subforum, or at least read the sociology subforum. reading journal articles in the field isn't a bad idea, but I don't know if that's the most pressing concern, nor do I know that it's a good idea to do read them in a directionless kind of way (but perhaps because I struggle to do so myself). Reading widely inside your field, and deeply in your area of concentration, is important to develop the kind of contextual knowledge that will help you produce good research and good written application materials; but it's more important to demonstrate that you can produce research rather than just consume it.
  18. The reason MPAs aren't good preparation isn't that they're not quantitative enough. There exist MPAs that are as quantitative as an econ PhD (the MPA-ID and, lowkey between us here, the MACRM at Chicago) and MPAs that give you access to as quantitative a curriculum as you want to make it (Chicago, Columbia, CMU). The issue is that they're not professionalizing you as a researcher. They're not structuring your time in a way that privileges research, they're not introducing you to researchers as a future researcher, they're not teaching you the minutiae of a research life. They're doing all of these things, but for policy, which is a totally different thing. And, like, I know people who have gone on to non-policy PhDs after an MPA - but the MPA for them was a waste of time. Any worthwhile policy program, by the way, will tell applicants two things: not to apply unless they have at least 2 years of relevant work experience, and not to go if they are considering a PhD afterwards. But they'll still take your money if you choose to not heed these warnings, so don't take acceptance to policy programs as silent confirmation that they think your goals fit in their program.
  19. Domestic students are eligible for in-state tuition. Departments waive the tuition for you (i.e. you don't have to pay it), but that doesn't mean that money doesn't exchange hands inside the university. Teaching you, maintaining your lab, your office space, etc. actually costs the university money - and they have to pay it to the graduate school or whoever. Public universities are being subsidized by government (mostly state) money, and the justification for that support is that public universities exist to educate the residents of that state. That's why they have in-state tuition and out of state tuition, and why tuition at most publics is lower than at equivalent privates. As a non-US citizen, you're technically not eligible for that support.
  20. Oh my god I love @Sigaba. He's so ruthless. OP, read the damned site. There's 10 years' worth of application discussions here. You'll get more from conducting your own reading and forming your own opinions based on what discussions prior users have had than you will from posting naive questions and relying on whoever answers. I've started to dislike people directing OPs to the search bar, especially in pompous form, but for a budding scholar (or adult), it really is useful to develop the instinct to first attempt to resolve your problems independently rather than immediately asking for help.
  21. This is a bit late for OP, but for any prospects reading along, when going on your visit, don't just talk to the plants (the student who is taking you around the department, the student that a professor introduces you to, or any student who is at the visit in an official capacity). They're probably not straight up lying, but they're under more pressure to present a positive image of the department, even if it's just internal pressure (don't show off your dirty laundry and all that). Go for a stroll to the far away bathroom, look into the lounge when everyone's left, and try to strike up a conversation with someone who appears to be in the building to work. There's a chance they'll be more candid.
  22. If you want to do research, an MPP is not a good fit at all. A PhD is viable, though I don't know your area well enough to tell you what it should be in. That said, even though you can do a PhD out of UG, if you envision interacting substantially with the policy world in order to execute your projects, do yourself a favor and take a year or two to see how it actually works first. It'll make you a more effective researcher and, from a lifestyle perspective, it'll let you know if you can actually stand to exist in the policy world long enough to build a career. You don't want to be the idiot who quits to do marketing after investing 5 years into a degree.
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