victorydance

The ivies value sports? Their teams mostly suck.

It's a combination of climate change and complex macro-trends of usage and allocation. It's happening all over the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Brazilian_drought http://www.insidescience.org/content/climate-alters-mongolian-past-and-present/1581 http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/05/us-thailand-drought-idUSKBN0L917F20150205 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26478240 http://www.unocha.org/top-stories/all-stories/somalia-extreme-concern-over-deteriorating-drought-situation

I think it's a bit unrealistic to expect to publish an undergraduate thesis (despite revisions or whatever) in a top journal. You will be competing with papers that are submitted by professors who have a lot more experience and training. That doesn't mean it's not possible, but just keep that in mind. This paper is primarily going to be for getting admission to Ph.D. programs, it doesn't really matter where you publish it for the most part. Obviously crazy obscure journals aren't as highly regarded as more renowned journals, but at this point a publication is a publication. Even the best grad students don't usually publish their first solo paper in top journals. I think what is more important at this point is to target the right journal that it's a good fit for rather than how known they are.

What is exactly wrong with secondary data?

I feel pretty happy that I never want to have kids in my lifetime. Don't ever have to think about that or make any significant sacrifices.

This is normal for a RA. I worked for a prof and one of the tables I did ended up being a part of his published paper. How does this in any form mean plagiarism?

The point is that you get relatively the same amount of money but you don't have to work for it; i.e. work as a RA or TA which can be major time sucks.

3.75 is not on the lower end, its probably pretty close to the median. Tonnes of people get accepted with GPAs from the 3.3-3.7 even. Listen, you can't change your GPA, what is done is done. Work on the things you can control.

Yes, you are missing something because we were discussing the Yoga 3.

Yeah like I said, people have differing opinions about this. I carry around my laptop everywhere and my laptop weighs approximately 5 lbs, it doesn't bother me at all.

Why don't you apply to some jobs and see what happens?

^ If you are interested in the 2 in 1 type of laptop you should take a deeper look at some or all in this article: http://www.ultrabookreview.com/2218-top-ultrabook-convertible/

Their website? http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/landingpage/promotions/yoga-family/

General advice for buying a laptop: You need to first identify what you want and need. Do you want something more portable or something more powerful? Do you want something that is more all-purpose or excels in a particular category? For me, portability is not a concern. I don't personally get it...if you have a backpack, the weight and size difference really doesn't make much of a difference at the end of the day. But that is me. Some people feel differently. What are your needs? You're specific needs are not that great. Writing docs, surfing the web, and downloading things can be done on pretty much any modern lap top. No sense breaking the bank for something that you don't need. There are three main categories of specs to look at: - Processor (engine of your comp) - RAM (ability/power for your computer to run applications concurrently) - Hard drive (storage) Your average mid ranged lap top these days are going to have an i5 processor, 4-8 GBs RAM, and a 500+ GB hard-drive. 2 in 1 comps and tablets have low ram, worse processors, and small storage. Higher end lap tops are going to have i7s, 12+ GBs RAM, and either SSD or high GB hard-disk. Brand names have no relevance. People seem to have loyalty to certain brands for whatever reason but in the grand scheme of things, none are particularly more reliable than others or produce 'better' computers to the average consumer. The only difference is MAC vs. PC and only because they have different operating systems (although I would argue MACs are overpriced for their general specs). My advice? Forget about brand names and go through each company and what lines of lap tops they have in accordance to what you are looking for in terms of design and functionality. Compare their specs and their prices. Try and buy the best computer based on specs in the price range. That's it. For example, like I said before, there is absolutely no point in buying a Yoga 3 for $1200 when you can get pretty much the exact same computer from Dell for almost half the price. These types of discrepancies exist throughout the market and unfortunately people fall into the trap of what is popular and don't realize they are paying a premium price for a similar or inferior product.

I turned down University of Chicago to go to University of Texas, Austin. Why? Because of the actual two programs I applied to, UT Austin was better. I too liked the prestige of UChicago but turned it down because it wasn't a better choice academically for that I wanted to do.

I think that's a bit of a logical leap. It's not surprising to see many partners who are both involved in similar or the same field in any profession. We meet people largely due to our proximity in interests or interception of day-to-day life. In other words, you will see lots of people dating or married to people in the same profession just because the chances of interacting and hence getting involved with someone who you bump into more regularly are greater.

I can't imagine paying $1200 for a Yoga 3 when you can get similar computers with the same or similar specs for like $700 (for example, a Dell 13 7000 Series). What a rip off. I mean I bought a laptop three years ago for $1000 that kicks the living shit out of the specs of Yoga 3s.

Yeah, you could easily just slip into Mexico, then return using your I-20.

I don't see where he is upset? Seems like a pretty normal case of a prof wanting you to attend his institution and trying to persuade you...

One method that hasn't been suggested yet is to make your coursework an effective workshop(s) for your research. If you take substantive and methods classes, make sure they line up with your research interests. If you are in a methods class and one of the projects is a statistical analysis assignment, run a regression on your research variables. Or if you have to do a research design, do it on a project you are doing/plan to do. Most substantive seminars will have a seminar paper, write it on the project you are working on. This method brings two benefits: 1) It gives you an opportunity to get unsolicited feedback on your research by a prof and the opportunity to revise and improve your research and 2) it decreases your course load (i.e. its more efficient) because you already know the subject matter and are working on these projects concurrently. Every grad seminar you take should be used to submit and improve your already existing research work that you are doing.

Yeah, I decided to decline all my Canadian admits.

Ideally you should have both, but a publication in at least a decent journal is always worth more.

I did. I'm an alternate. I already declined their offer of acceptance though.

Being more inductive doesn't really have to do with being detailed or in-depth or whatever. If you are basing all your research on qualitative analysis, the inductive method is to develop a theory based on your underlying qualitative data and the specific observations therein. I don't know what your discipline is like, but you definitely need to develop an original theory. Without a theory or hypothesis, it's not really a thesis but rather more of an analysis or report. So for example, say that your research is based on surveys. You would look over your survey transcripts and/or data and begin to develop a testable theory based on that material. Then you would use X methods/evidence/case studies at your disposal in order to prove that thesis. Qualitative methods can result in just as rigorous hypotheses and support of those theories as quantitative methods, it's just a different process of how you get there. That being said, it's entirely possible to use qualitative methods but a deductive process as well, neither approach is set in stone.

Yeah. Not entirely sure how many hours I'll get yet, but there is some work for me for sure. Looking for other positions as well. Pretty crazy though, I had three completely funded offers in political science MA programs (and half tuition at UChicago), but turned them all down to go to UT Austin without any guaranteed funding. Whatever, that's how much of a fit it is.