Eigen

Great post, Juliet. A few things I wanted to mention after seeing you mention them: Citations- you can put citations in size 10 font. Every little bit helps. Additionally, you don't *have* to use a "known" citation style. I slightly edited the ACS style that is common, to cut down on space a bit. Also, you don't have to delineate your references by line- I did, but I noticed afterwards some other essays that listed them one after another, which saved a few lines. This may be different between social science and the hard sciences, but I found 2 pages not nearly enough- it took me almost a month to edit down to 2 pages, and by the end I was to the point of an additional word or space pushing me over the limit, and some very creative space saving techniques.

I'm in biological chemistry, and I enjoy mine. I don't find it absolutely necessary, but it's nice to have my entire library of papers with me on the go, and being able to easily annotate them and sync them back to my desktop. It's not a replacement for a desktop or a laptop (or both), but it's a very useful portable device. I don't use mine much around the lab, or for notes- I prefer data and ideas in hardcopy, non-crashable formats. I use mine for storing papers, books, grants, etc. It's a more robust e-reader with some other nice connectivity features. I also find it useful for marking up/editing manuscripts I'm working on, as opposed to printing them out and going after it with a red pen. Some things are just a bit easier to read and markup that way as opposed to tracking changes in Word. I did toy around with it as an electronic lab notebook, and it worked fine- I just prefer an actual lab notebook.

I think as long as it's apparent that you were working hard and gaining something the entire time, it's not that big of a deal. For instance- in your case, you're sticking around to gain research experience. I took 5 years to graduate, as did several others in my cohort- most of us did it for the extra year of research experience, and I think it put our applications in a lot better stead. A year is a lot of research! My wife took 7 years (and did two degrees), and she didn't have it come up during her application (to answer your question about longer than 5 years). I think it's just important that they see constant improvement/work being done throughout.

I don't correct all of them, but I do correct a few. It really depends if they're someone I'll be corresponding with a lot or not- someone I'm just exchanging a few e-mails with, it doesn't really seem to matter- sales reps, etc. I figure it'll take time to correct them, possibly embarrass them (depending), and they likely won't remember when I e-mail them again in 6 or 8 mos.

I'm assuming they have a masters, since they were adjuncting, in which case I would say it's reasonably acceptable.

You're a graduate student now. Not an instructor, not an adjunct, and not a professor, for sure. All three are hired positions *separate* from teaching duties as part of a graduate school assistantship. That makes your official title "Graduate Student" or "Graduate Teaching Assistant". If you want to be formal, you can have your students address you as Mr./Ms., but that's about it. Even if you used to be an adjunct, I'd think it would be worthwhile changing the page address so it doesn't look like you're overreaching.

I think that's less different than the real world than you might expect, depending on exactly where you work. If you're working a salaried (non-hourly) position, you're most likely not working strict 8-5 hours, but rather working as necessary to complete the projects on your plate. Add that to the fact that you may (or may not) be working only with people from your company, division, etc.... And scheduling times to work on projects gets even more important. What I'd suggest is trying to find a "real world" solution- use shared dropbox folders to work on projects, send e-mails, IM, etc.... Rarely do you actually physically need to be together to work on a project. Meet up for 10-15 minutes after class and divide up the work, then meet for another 20-30 minutes before class to make sure it all fits together. With all of the online collaboration options that are available these days, you really shouldn't need to do the majority of the work in one place at one time.

My experience (at the universities I'm familiar with) is that if the highest degree the program offers is an MS, the chance for funding is decent. If the program also offers a PhD, the chance for MS funding goes way down. Since an MS and PhD student cost the same, most programs would prefer to fund someone they can get multiple years of productive work out of (especially since they have to pay way less after the first couple of years of coursework are done).

I use one of the Acase 2nd generation styluses, and I find it works quite well. Also note that the 1st gen iPad is selling for $299 refurbished from Apple, and is quite a good deal at that price.

For molecular biology, the Q isn't as heavily weighted as for other fields, from my experience. I'd think it would be great if he could get it above 600, but my point was more that of his application, I don't think it's the GRE score that would hold him back. This obviously depends on where he's applying- some schools have 1100 cutoffs, some have 1200s... For a 1200 cutoff, he might not make it.

As easily as Outlook is searchable, I don't split much off. The only folders I have are Schedules and Cumes. The former I use for the few schedules I get sent- group meeting schedules, departmental seminars, etc. The latter contains the results (we get e-mailed) of all the cumulative exams I've taken, and it's nice to have them there as verification that I'm done with them all. Otherwise, I find it really easy to search my inbox and find what I need.

Will it be in a good journal? If so, even without a long history of research experience, a good publication could definitely help.

What Rising_star said. As you mentioned, however, you'll find it most beneficial if your letter writers have some background/experience with the topics you're interested in studying in EE, so they can talk to your proficiency in those areas.

I wouldn't see your GRE scores holding you back (although they're on the low side), but only having 6 mos of research experience between both a BS and an MS is quite low- many people you'll be competing with have 2-4 years of research experience from their undergraduate program alone. That said, depending on the topic of your MS Thesis/any publications, those might help you show fit with some programs. How many publications did you get out of your MS?

I wouldn't worry too much about it for CS in general. That said, you should probably check specifically with programs you're interested in, and ask- it may not be important for all programs, but some (as mentioned in the above thread from last year) may have cutoffs that a 3.5 would negatively effect.

A couple of things: First, what exactly do you mean by medicinal chemistry? Do you want to do synthetic work? Biopharmaceuticals? Pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics? Pharmaceutical chemistry/medicinal chemistry are fields made up of several more common subfields, what departments you pick depends on what you're interested in. Definitely don't pigeonhole yourself by only looking at schools that advertise graduate programs in those two areas. As to your stats, what exactly do you mean by "2 research experiences"? Are you talking like 2-3 solid years of research experience? 2 summer programs? That's what will really make or break your application, along with your letters of rec. Your GPA is so-so... What's your coursework background? Mostly chemistry, I assume?

What Balderdash said. To add, usually schools will want you to list each institution you've attended, along with a transcript- not just the "most prevalent" school, or the most recent one.

Also, lest you think this is just a grad student thing: First Week: Survival Stories from the Hardest Week of the Term from the CHE forums... No one likes the first week.

Even though I never left school this summer (and I'm done with classes, so my routine doesn't really change starting a new semester), I always find the first week of the semester a drag- part of it is the campus that was so nice, empty and peaceful being clogged with tons of undergraduates. Part of it is doing orientations/events for the new grad students, setting up meetings with undergraduate researchers who're back from the summer, etc. But I think a lot of it is just psychological, at least for me. It passes pretty fast, and I find a new rhythm for the rest of the semester. Give yourself a while to adjust, and I think you'll find it a lot better.

Does your library have a non-student card policy? All the universities I've attended have had a policy allowing members of the community to get cards- they're more restricted than for students, but for a (usually) modest fee you can get access to the library materials and database. Your undergraduate institution may have a similar policy that would allow you to keep using their resources.

Honestly, I wrote a completely new SoP for each school- it took longer, but it meant that I was presenting myself in the best possible way for that school, not just trying to present a generalized picture of myself. You don't have the room in most SoPs to talk about all of your background and experiences, so you want to carefully choose those that best show why you're a fit for a particular school/program.

I've always had success just using the school's library server as a proxy. Usually instructions on how to do this on the library's website. Note that not all journals allow remote access, nor do all schools.

Meh, maybe in a few more years I'll have enough of a grasp on Chinese to make it work

This isn't "taking advantage of the system" as pointed out, it's fraud. If you applied for a "PhD" program, there's the implied intent to finish a PhD. You were giving funding based on the fact that you would finish a PhD. If you only intended to do a masters, then you got that funding through lying in your application. You mix, in your posts, reasons that are legitimate for someone to leave (family issues) with reasons that really aren't legitimate at all (you finish your MA and get offered a job). As to your Goldman/JP Morgan example- if you left a job at Goldman within a month because JP Morgan offered you higher pay, you'd get a really bad rep in the business world quite fast. Of course, in this case, you likely would have had to sign a no-compete agreement when you started at Goldman, which would prevent you from leaving to work at JP Morgan. The reason most universities don't make students sign a contractual agreement is that there are good reasons why students might have to leave- illness, family issues, difficulty with the work, etc. They don't want to penalize someone who's giving it an honest try. But there's an implied commitment to give it your best shot to finish what you started- that you will have the dedication to see it through.

Yeah, mine is an unusual situation in that I'm sandwiched between 3 senior grad students and 2 younger grad students of the same nationality- when we had a bit more evenly balanced group, people spoke English more in the lab, but now that I'm the only native English speaker that's stopped for the most part. We all have good working relationships and do things outside of work, though- I was just commenting that the higher the proportion of international students, especially if they're largely from one country, can reverse the insider/outsider phenomena a bit.