Eigen

Or, to put it in other terms, the cost per year of the program is less than the amount we have spent on bombing runs in Libya- we really needed that additional conflict. But it's OK, since we're not running the operations, just pumping money into them.

I don't officially TA for my advisor either- but he was able to find classes that didn't normally require a TA, and let me assist in teaching them both as CV additions and for the experience- I don't get paid for it, but I do get the experience.

No. Not really. Assistant/Associate/Full grades of professors aren't usually that big of differences- most universities only have a certain number of endowed professorships, and hence a limited number of full professors. Until one of those retires, none of the others can be promoted. Past that, it's usually a measure of seniority and a measure of pay grade. Generally, associate professors have tenure and assistant professors don't, but in reality you see untenured associated professors and tenured assistant professors.

I was thinking about this again last night, and I had another suggestion- have you talked to your PI about getting more teaching experience? I approached mine at the end of last semester, and told him I felt the extra teaching experience would be really valuable, so he's been trying to help me carve out niches that I can put on my CV- putting me as "co-teaching" courses instead of TAing courses with him, running review sections/subbing when he's out of class, etc. I know other professors have been similarly helpful, if they know that's the direction you're going in. You had mentioned talking to your department, but sometimes talking to a close professor can work too- they can help you get in on whatever they're teaching in a more official capacity.

Depends on a number of factors. First, are you taking it for credit? If so, the number of hours of credit you're taking usually determine the number of hours you should work in the lab. My general rule of thumb for the undergrads working with me is 2-4 hours of research per week for each credit hour you take. Second, are we talking about during the summer or during the semester? Most of the undergrads working with me work significantly more hours in the summer than they do during the semester. The area of chemistry you're in also plays something of a factor, I'd say, as does whether you have a project of your own, and what year you are.

No offense intended, but if your daughter is a junior, and interested in graduate school, shouldn't she be the one posting here looking for direction? I would recommend that she talk to her current professors (or she might have already) about possible electives that would look good for graduate school. By and large, I would recommend against taking things specifically because they will "look good on grad school applications". Take things that you are interested, and help you gain expertise that will be beneficial in your area of research- that interest and solid background in an area is what will look good to graduate programs. You want to have a relatively well defined set of interests, and once you do you will be able to see what courses will best provide background and support.

The only discussion I've heard is in relation to getting hired at the college level for teaching- and there indeed, most schools seem to be of the opinion that TAing is not "teaching experience", and that the real "teaching experience" they're looking for is that you've taken a class from start to finish, and can do that. To that end, the advice I've heard is try to adjunct at their school/another school in the area their last year or so, or taking a "teaching post-doc" position. I would imagine it might be a bit different for the kind of job's you describe, however.

Really? Our department would have loved the initiative of bringing beer. But then, we have alcohol at all of our departmental functions (seminars, etc) so I'm sure the departmental/university culture is part of it.

The only other thing I can think of is that the antivirus trial included a firewall, which is screwing with your ability to access wireless networks.

So you have an idea, and get it started. Your advisor doesn't think you have time to work on it, and would prefer you to focus on what you're currently doing. He then gives you two undergrads that you can use to get the project done, while maintaining that it is your idea, and telling them to report to you. That sounds just about right, to me- he's leaving you ownership of your idea, and even giving you a team to help you work on it since he feels like you're too busy. Learning how to guide undergrads on ideas you come up with is an essential step in transitioning to post-doc and PI- learning how to come up with ideas, make sure they have a decent chance of working (prototype) and then passing them off onto someone under you who you can guide to finish the project.

The advice I was given (and followed) was to pick a few schools you really wanted, that you had a good shot at- and put the time into those applications- personally, I applied to 3. On the other hand, there was an undergraduate last year from my group who applied to somewhere around 15... I don't think you have too many, and honestly I'd say around 6-8 is probably the sweet spot- it lets you choose 3-4 schools that are solid for you, and then throw in a safety school and a couple of dream schools.

Mostly grad students now, although I have a few friends that aren't who live reasonably close, and others I keep up with/who come visit that aren't. They range across a number of fields, though. I don't really have any undergrads I'm too close with- I did, but then they went off to grad school :-D

So now I'm getting a message that I've "reached my quota of positive votes for the day", when I think I've used 2 or 3? Is this new? I don't remember running into it before.

Ok, so today the folders are gone and the dots and stars are back.

I think the thesis option does make a large difference- for us, a non-thesis option can be as short as one extra year of coursework- and the MS students that take that really don't separate much from the undergrads/4+1 MS students. The thesis adds a research dimension that gets them into the lab, and working with the rest of the graduate students, which helps a lot. I'll also say there's a difference between those that you get to know in your lab, and those that you don't. The undergrads that work in my lab come to happy hours and stuff with us too- we work 8 hours in the lab today, I'm going to invite them to do some of the fun stuff as well. My points were more on the general overview that MS students, depending on their goals/work ethic would either be viewed as more/less serious, and that I found there tended to be a large divide between the two groups. In my department, we have almost no MS students- there's a program, but applications are not really encouraged. I work pretty closely with several other departments (we share lab space, floors, etc), and those are the students I'm commenting on. All the MS students in my department hang out with the rest of us. I think some of it also depends on how many students you have, relatively, in the two groups. If you have large MS cohorts as well as large PhD cohorts, and especially if the two take fairly large portions of different coursework, it can serve to striate the "graduate" population into two groups. For the university overall (combining sciences with social sciences) we don't make any distinction when it comes to social events- when we host "graduate" events, they're for all graduate students regardless of level, and no one seems to care. I think people seem to be taking this from a "general observations" on students that fall into one group or the other, and turning into hard-and-fast "one is better than the other" or "they should be treated differently". I find, generally, the MS students I know are less separated from undergrad than the PhD students. That doesn't make them lesser, and it certainly isn't a rule- it's an observation. Making general observations is a completely different thing from taking those general observations and trying to apply them as some sort of predictive model to that population- something I'm not trying to do. I feel this important to clarify, because it seems like my previous posts have made it seem like we have strict rules against socializing between "ranks"- something that doesn't really happen. As (I think) has been mentioned, you should hang out with the people that you get along with and that you have things in common with... Whether undergrads, MA students, post-docs, professors, etc... You just sometimes have to be careful (as starmaker points out) to be professional and mindful when your personal and professional lives intersect.

Research Section up to date... Publications up to date! Link to available PDFs if you can. Keep the group photo/people up to date- it's much easier to find who you're looking for that way. I recommend having a synopsis of each graduate students project in addition to the overall research sections, but that's my personal preference. I also think a "news" section for announcing grants/fellowships/authorships, etc is good. And I really like the group pages that have updated "alumni" sections- it lets you see where people from the group have ended up.

Borrowed/Library/Amazon. I'd ask older grad students if they have copies you can use, honestly. Some you'll decide you really like and will want a copy of, some you won't.

In the scheme of things, the GRE isn't a "huge" part of the application package- it won't make or break your application, assuming you meet the minimums required for wherever you're applying. I don't think any adcoms look and say "oh, this applicant scored a 1420 while that one there scored a 1400- let's take the one with the higher score". They look and see that both of the applicants have good GRE scores, and move on to the meat of the application. The thing that I would worry about with your scores is that you will not meet "minimum requirements" for admission- either those set by the program as cutoffs, or possibly those set by the college or the school. I would specifically ask schools where you plan on applying- some will be able to tell you that you would not make consideration or not.

It's reasonably common in the sciences for PhD students to be TAs for MS students. Undergraduate classes and Doctoral classes are completely separate for my discipline, while MS students can take a mix of the two (we use a 100-900 class level scale, 100-400 is undergraduate, 700-900 is doctoral, 500-600 are "MS" level courses, often cross-listed with 300-400 levels- doctoral students can't receive credit towards their degrees for anything below 700, with a few notable exceptions). This is even more common depending on the "type" of MS student- 4+1, thesis option, non-thesis option.

I'd been staying out of this thread, but I had a few comments I wanted to make on various portions: As to the generalizations introduced at the beginning: As a "generalization" they hold fairly true for the programs I'm familiar with. That doesn't mean they hold true for every MS student- some are exceptional, and there are definitely those that rival a lot of the doctoral students here. But if I were to make general observations on the students from the programs I'm familiar to: 4+1 MS students aren't very distinct from undergraduates- not in the eyes of the faculty, not in the eyes of the other graduate students I know. Thesis-based MS students hover on the divide between "undergraduate" and "graduate", from what I can see- some socialize primarily with undergraduates, and don't seem to be seen (either by the faculty or other graduate students) as distinct from them as they might. Others take what they do very seriously, and are exceptional students- and everyone I know views them serious, capable graduate students. I'm sure most of you that are posting here find yourself in the latter category, not the former. This, however, is something that I think is much more characteristic of the sciences- MS students and PhD students have vastly different research goals and expectations- research is the primary component of a doctoral students program, but usually not so central for an MS student. In addition, it's not very common to do an MS and then carry on to a PhD. One of the major rifts that exists for some of the doctoral students in my department and the masters students is that the coursework is separated- there are many "MS" level courses that we cannot get credit for, but that we may TA/grade for. Just as we're discouraged (to some degree) from hanging out too much socially with undergrads (who we may grade/TA/oversee), it can make for awkward social situations. As to the more recent question of "do professors of differing tiers hang out"- it depends. Generally, there seems to be a divide (at least in larger departments) between tenured and non-tenured faculty- tenured faculty are "discouraged" from too much social interaction with non-tenured faculty, as they may be asked to sit on tenure review committees, etc- and it can be considered a conflict of interest/difficulty if they are too socially involved. I would say in my department the younger faculty interact, and the older faculty interact- but the mixing isn't so apparent. Different disciplines are, I'm sure, very different- as are different schools. Some have very rigid hierarchies (Undergrad, 4+1 MS, MS, PhD, Post-doc, non-tenured faculty, tenured faculty) and some much less so. I think you should socialize with whoever you want- but I also think that if you're looking for "generally" the people you will be most likely to form lasting bonds with, you can make generalizations for greater efficiency. I also think the OPs question was fair, especially in wondering if what he saw was specific to the small anecdotal experience he had, or was something more generalizable. The one other consideration I'll close with is one of time- and this is something I haven't seen brought up yet. It's more typical for PhD students in my program to socialize with other PhD students, because you're forming more "long term" relationships. You're going to be around for 5-7 years, as are they. With MS students, you can put a lot of time into a relationship that is only going to last for a year until they move across the country- and while that doesn't make it "not worth it", it can certainly be a factor to consider. ::edit:: I also wanted to add, for those comparing this to racism- there's a difference between generalizing on a population based on an intrinsic characteristic- race, gender, etc- and generalizing based on someones life choices (degree of education, hobbies, etc). One is something you can't chose, the other is something you chose. As something you have chosen, the latter can be more useful in forming generalizations than the former.

Not in graduate school, but I lost my dad during undergrad. The first semester, it kinda felt like everything was just a bit set apart- it was doable, but a struggle. But it did slowly get better- never really goes away, but it does get better. I would recommend against dropping out- having something else to focus on can help a lot. I know you said you weren't thinking about it, but I'm reinforcing it. Having something to throw yourself into can really help you get past it. One thing I would recommend, is to let your advisor/PI know that it happened- not asking for slack, per se, but it can help for them to know you're going through a major disruption in your life. I'd also recommend that you might look to your schools counseling services- it can be easy to slip into severe depression after a loss like this, and the earlier you can start working your way out of it the better. Really, though, there isn't anything to do other than coping and letting time pass.

I'm confused... Are you reading papers for tests? Once you make it past the "testing" phase of your academic career (and I assumed that's what we were talking about here), the way you need to learn something changes. Things that you use all the time, you need to be able to derive on your own. Most other work, you need to know where to look back to find the derivation- there's no use learning hundreds of derivations that you will (rarely) use. You need to know what has been done, and where the equation/derivation can be found, but once you finish classes, not only are you allowed to look these things up, it's encouraged. If you're basing a publication off of it, you won't rely on just your own memory of the work, you'll go back and double check it anyway. As you get more familiar with the math, it certainly does become easier to "skim" equations and get a feel for the method they're using without having to slow down and go step-by-step.... My point is just that many people overestimate the number of papers they need to understand inside and out. Most of the papers you come across you just need a qualitative feel for what was done, and then a good reference database that lets you go back and find that paper should you need it in the future. Hence, skimming- 1) What are they trying to do? (The introduction) 2) How did they approach it? (End of the introduction, skimming the methods) 3) Did it work? (Conclusion). You don't often need to be able to duplicate the work done in the derivations, just have a general grasp of where they started, what approach they took, and where they ended up.

I did 2/2 for undergrad, and then 3/3 for grad school. I was still a bit undecided as to the exact area I wanted to work in for graduate school, so I applied to 3 schools with 3 slightly different areas, and then was able to choose between them.

Hmm, so if I open it in IE, I go back to seeing the dots/stars... But in Firefox, I see the folders.

I saw those for a few days- but then it reverted back to this, although I'm not sure how or why.