Eigen

Did you check the specs? My guess is it's an older built to order computer with a list price higher than $999, probably a larger SSD. The refurbished base 13" goes for $809. I'm leery of buying second hand used computers, but direct from Apple has served me well. Same warranty; and well refurbished/new battery.

Windows/Mac mostly comes down to OS and programs, honestly. You pay a premium for the hardware, but the OS is free and most software cheaper (from my experience). But yeah, I buy refurbished models and rarely upgrade them. My 2011 Air I got for $600 in 2012, and it still does everything I need.

Unless you're doing a lot of heavy work (intense video editing, modeling), it's very unlikely that you need a Pro, and that a MacBook or MacBook Air would suffice. IMO, most people overestimate how much "computer" they need for their work.

You say you've looked for sources, but what have you tried? What have you found? Quick googling found this book chapter (http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/abop/abop-ch8.pdf) on fractal plants, and showed me that there's tons of information out there. You seem to have found a driving reason (bigger surface area), what are you looking for that your reason doesn't explain? What type of "more in depth information" are you looking for, and what have you found so far? As Fuzzylogician said, you need to be specific about what information you've found, and what you don't understand or what else you're looking for.

Or use it for schools that need or allow a 4th letter. Better for your.career would be capitalizing off of your relationship with this person by staying in touch and trying to build something more.

I would still say no. Has this person read any of your work? Given you feedback on your work? Have you worked on a research project with them? If not, then they aren't in a position to write you a good letter. Even if they thought you were amazing, they have nothing substantive to write about.

I wouldn't say he has had enough to contact with you to be able to write a wot hail letter, personally.

How do you know this person? What can they speak to about you? A big name is good, but it needs to be someone that has known you professionally and can speak to some aspect of your abilities. A big name that hasn't interacted with you professionally just seems like name dropping. Especially if they're outside your field.

FWIW, I don't know any faculty who routinely answer their office phone. As for timing, the one right before the end of school got swept up in the end of semester whirlwind, and it's only been two days since the last one. If you haven't heard back in a week, try again. Pare these professors you were particularly close to?

How long ago did you email? Especially over the summer, response times can be quite a bit longer as many of us are out of town/not regularly in our office.

Depends where you published the dissertation and what agreement you entered into with whoever published it.

Having lived in a place that averages 64 inches of rain a year... A waterproof bag was a must. I swear by Chrome bike bags- I got one second hand, and in the last 8 years it has shown zero signs of wear, and is completely waterproof. It's also made for cycling, and is really comfortable for that purpose. Their repair policy is also amazing. The previous owner to mine had cut down one of the straps- was still useable, but caused some problems when I wanted to wear it over winter coats. I happened to be in Portland for a job interview, and went into one of their brick and mortar stores. They gave me a loaner bag for the time I was there, and charged me $10 to remove and replace the strap with a brand new one.

This will be highly school dependent. In my field it would be really unusual for a TA to attend lectures or hold office hours if they're grading.

Depends on your personal style, and if you'd prefer to work a few full days or more partial days. Personally, I'd probably work it in 3 days, then have longer chunks of time off. 21 hours is 3 7 hour days (M,T,W), or 2 8 hour days and one 5 hour day. For me, a constant schedule helps, and I like to work in large chunks. You might be different.

If you know what your assignment is, what exactly are you asking here?

Yeah. The real shocker for me is one school that's starting to review applications on July 2nd for a position starting next September. It's the arms race to get people on one end, and re-run searches multiple times when you don't get anyone on the other. One school in my field last year had 3 successive failed searchers- August Deadline, Feb Deadline, March Deadline, and then re-ran the last time with a June 1 deadline for a position starting in August. Never saw if they filled it.

I think standing up for yourself about grunt work is important, but time is a factor. If you've put in several full time weeks and are still doing grunt work, that's a problem (imo). If you've been there 1 or 2 days? Not so much of a problem. 20 hours of work is really quite little for a new undergrad in a lab, and unless I was really sure that student was reliable and passionate, I wouldn't start putting a ton of time into training them until I was reasonably sure they were going to stick it out. If a student came to me within the first week and was upset about not getting to do anything "important" yet, they likely wouldn't be staying in the lab. A lot of this (from my perspective as a PI) also depends on what work the student is putting in outside of the lab. A student that has read all my papers, and all the papers those cited, and is really going above and beyond to learn the basis behind what we do will get given a "good" project and more mentoring time than one that's showing up less and only doing what is directly given to them to learn. In your case, CavityQED, it seems like the grad student working with you was relatively sure you were going to be sticking around for a little while, and you were obviously willing to put in very regular hours to learn. If you consider all of those hours the grad student was working with you as time they weren't going to be able to produce results for their dissertation, it's a lot of time devoted to training you, specifically. If there was any question of your dedication to the lab (and, say, a good chance you weren't going to stay more than a few months), then spending over a month training you would have been a lot of lost time relative to what you might (eventually) produce. Ideally, labs only take on students that are in your situation, and then spend the time training them. But sometimes there's a borderline case, and seeing how well they can do basic maintenance tasks is a way to have them (a) free up graduate student hours that can then be spent training them in a few weeks, and (b) see if they're likely to stick around for the long haul.

I really like that article, thanks for sharing. It's one of the things I pushed really hard when I was in grad school and headed our GSA- that happy hours needed to be balanced out by some morning coffee and doughnut gatherings, or meal/snack gatherings that did not include alcohol. It's not that one is better or worse than the other, but they put people in different situations, and different groups of people will feel more comfortable or outgoing in one situation than the other. Having a mix allows everyone to have a time they feel comfortable.

Depends on your contract, the course, the discipline and the department.

Did the other RA start the same time as you? Do you have the same experience they do? Are you both working the same number of hours per week? Complaining about nepotism (which would imply they're related to the supervisor) without any indication of their background comes across poorly. And again, you've been working for less than a week of full time work.

Just going to add, someone has to do it. You say you've put in less than 20 hours. For my undergrads, that's barely enough time to get though ruined training, much less do much actual lab work. Starting on trash and disinfecting surfaces rather than working with reagents that are both dangerous and cost thousands of dollars isn't that uncommon. Everyone has to pitch in to do grunt work, and when you're note yet able to contribute in other areas, you're likely going to get a larger level of grunt work. I'm faculty and I still do all the things you're complaining about, fwiw. If after a few weeks or a month your not getting into anything more interesting, perhaps rethink it? You might also consider attitude. Your post here comes across like they should be going out of their way to convince you that immunology is more interesting, so you don't switch to psych research. If they detect that, then it's less likely they'll want to invest time training you when you're likely to jump ship. And if after 20 hours (half a week for my students) you're already thinking about leaving, It doesn't come across like you were that committed to it in the first place.

Well, it's officially begun for me. First F18 start date jobs posted today, deadlines in July/August/September. Earlier than last year.

Turbotax one year told me I owed 20,000 in taxes, because it refused to not count my tuition waiver as income, no matter how I answered it. Granted, this was back in 2009 and I'm sure it's gotten better sense then. Compared to the ~30 minutes it takes me to do my taxes by hand, not worth the trouble.

You need to specify a field here. In most STEM fields, working 12 months is pretty common. 2 weeks of vacation or so is the norm in my field, with the rest of the year being full time work.

Either wait for the funding decisions, or decline because you don't have funding. Not sure what advice you're looking for? If you won't accept without funding, then wait and decline if you don't get it. Or if you're just upset that they gave you an offer without funding even though you said you didn't want it, decline now?