Eigen

I disagree, partially. AiCHE membership and the club presidency can help things out, if you go the chemE/Env E route. It's about showing leadership, and while not hugely important it's good to show consistent membership in the main professional society.

When I started my website, it was just an interactive CV. As I've grown (and mainly since I'm out of grad school and running my own research), I have a more fleshed out site. I divide it up into 3 portions- General about me/landing page, my research, and my teaching. I also still have an interactive CV linked through there, and links to all my publications. I use it to showcase what I'm doing- pictures of me taking students to conferences, outings with the research group (general news), my research interests, and I put almost all of my teaching materials up online. I also have a section devoted to my current and past research students. I coded my website ground up in HTML/CSS- I wanted something very portable and lightweight, and used it to teach myself HTML/CSS in the process. I host through Reclaim Media- it's a hosting company run by two professors in the northeast with the stated goal of helping students and faculty improve their web presence. It was initially grant supported (and very cheap), and now is just moderately cheap. The support from the two guys that run it is amazing, and it's lots of storage and unlimited bandwidth. It also let me stake out a claim to my domain name several years ago, and it's been up (and linked to LinkedIn, ResearchGate and Academia.edu) long enough that it's nearly always the first hit when you search for my name and discipline. I use google analytics, but the hosting company I use has a much more in depth analytics package as well that I find myself referring to more and more. One thing to remember about being tied/not tied to your school is copyright issues. I purposefully host my teaching materials not on the school site, since I want to "claim" my copyright to them. There are some interesting cases (and a lot depends on your contract) of schools holding teaching materials when a faculty member leaves, as part of the "schools" IP.

Depends where you are. At the Helm is written for new faculty, At the Bench for senior undergrads and new grad students. I wouldn't recommend At the Helm for grad students, personally, but I give At the Bench as a graduation gift to my undergrads.

I don't know if they help, per-se, but I can see a spike in my website's traffic when review of applications starts, as well as right before/right after phone and campus interviews. I use it as a place to showcase things I might not easily be able to put elsewhere, and direct committees there to see examples of syllabi/course materials if they're interested. The first year on the market is a lot about *having* a portfolio together, imo, more than expecting a lot of success, especially before graduating. The process this year should be much easier for you, and hopefully more successful.

I would consider this a huge red flag, but I'm not as familiar with M.Ed programs as other people might be. I've also never heard of an "admissions counselor", so maybe that's a field specific thing?

Not every missed citation is plagiarism. As you say, frequently things that are "common knowledge" aren't cited. As long as the wording was yours, I wouldn't consider what you describe plagiarism.

Sounds like you confirmed your acceptance, but haven't yet managed your fellowship for next year (i.e., set yourself to tenure or reserve). After you accept, you still have to log on and declare your status, which then has to be approved by your institution's PO.

You should check/post in the officially grads section. There are faculty from other fields around here, and what you're looking for can also be answered by senior grad students.

Depends on the advisor. Mine didn't really want to do anything, but we had a small celebration in group meeting (cake and champagne) and then had a BBQ to celebrate not too long after.

Both of these things are, imo, normal parts of grad school (getting asked random questions with no preparation, as well as feeling like other people think you don't belong), as well as the rest of academic life. You can only prepare so much, especially depending on what your background is. That said, what you should focus on being able to do is, as you say, think on your feet. You can preface it (I'm not that familiar with past project X, but...) and then give what you feel is a reasonable answer. One of the most important things to be able to do, really for the rest of your career, is give reasonable off the cuff answers without having it stress you out. I get this type of random question in campus interviews, I get it when I'm giving seminars at a new school, and I even get it from colleagues. I also get it an awful lot from students, who seem to be able to (with no malice) find the one tangential area to a lecture that I didn't read too deeply into, and asking probing and insightful questions that I have no idea how to answer. For the second part, I think a lot of what you're feeling is what's called "imposter syndrome". It's the feeling like you don't belong, like everyone else is smarter, and they think you don't belong either. It's really common among academics, and I encourage you to read some of the great resources here, on the Chronicle of Higher Education forums, and other academic sites about how to deal with it. A lot of times knowing it's normal and common is one of the crucial first steps.

The vast majority of fellowships are taxable as normal income. The standout difference is that anything used for (a) tuition and fees, or (b) required books doesn't count as income. Filing it is difficult- you won't always get a W2 with your income reported, frequently you have to report fellowship income as if you were self employed. Many fellowships aren't from the university as your employer, but are passed through from another fund. This means you often have to either file quarterly taxes or pay the year end penalty (I opted for the latter). The IRS document on Taxes for Scholarships and Fellowships is surprisingly helpful, but many other resources tend to be more confusing than they are helpful. A lot of tax software does a really bad job of it, as well- I did mine by hand to avoid the headache. Some will try to tell you that your tuition waiver is taxable income (it's not, unless you're employed by the university in some other capacity full time and the tuition waiver is an employment benefit).

To clarify, we don't think there's only one "right" way to train a doctor or a scientist. There are lots of competing approaches. For one small example, take a look at, say, DO vs MD for training. You also have eastern medicine gaining more acceptance in the US, and a (slow) growth of programs following that mindset. Even within the MD pool, different schools take different approaches to training- there is no one, unified "right" way.

Actually, by offering a point in a discussion thread specifically based around this issue, you did indirectly ask for advice (or at least commentary) on your situation.

You're assuming you'll be the only one who isn't the traditional age, or that doesn't fit in easily to the culture. Graduate school is largely a bunch of people with really divergent backgrounds and interests and experiences that can make for some really great friendships, or at least acquaintances. Not always the case, and there's definitely a slice of grad students that are "traditional" heavy partiers just out of undergrad... But I can guarantee that anywhere you end up that will not account for all of your cohort. So find the people that are unusual or interesting, and make friendships there. My officemate was ~10 years older than the average grad student, and married with kids. We had one guy in our cohort that had been a professor in Russia for quite some time and was swapping fields, and another that was in his late 50s.

FWIW, even though I had a number of friends already in the city where I did my PhD.... the very close friends I made in my cohort are at least 30% of the reason I made it through sane and graduated. Even with my wife as a grad student at the same school, people in my cohort were going through what I was, when I was, and I trusted them to give me advice about what I was going through. Your cohort mates (in a non-dysfunctional cohort) are the people who should act as a safety net. The people that will know when you're going to have a bad day, or who can read the signs part way through and make sure you take time off in the evening to blow off steam. Also, as mentioned, they are your future colleagues. Not all of them are people who you want to keep up with after grad school, but getting to know your department enough to know which ones you do is key. My two close friends from my cohort and I still try to get together a few times a year (conferences or otherwise), and have gone on vacations with our significant others now that we're out and actually making decent salaries. They're the people I trust to look over manuscripts, give feedback on grants I'm working on, and help me through tough career decisions. I definitely saw people who got "over involved", but I think keeping a healthy balance of fun intermixed with grad school is crucial. For you, that may not be with your cohort or going out to bars (not really my thing either), but making sure you have time that you spend doing things that are not productive is important.

Computing depends a lot on what you do. For my work that is heavily computational (or graphics intensive), I don't even try to use a laptop. I have a desktop in my office for that (two, actually, one mac and one PC). For a laptop, I wanted something light and easily portable, so I went for a Macbook Air as well. Got it in 2010, and it's still running fine for me today. May think about upgrading it this year or next, but not in a hurry. That said, I strongly recommend waiting to get a computer until you know exactly what you'll need for graduate school. Having the same OS choice as your PI (if in STEM) can help a ton, as programs will be the same. I had a nightmare when I started (back in the dark ages) when I was using a PC and my advisor was using a Mac. Word files didn't directly transfer perfectly, and some of our manuscripts would completely reformat going between us, to immense frustration. Once you start grad school, you'll know what's available (in terms of software) and you can ask people in your program for recommendations that work with the school infrastructure well.

You wouldn't want to take a screenshot, that's always going to lose resolution. Just print the slide normally, and in your printing options select the paper size you want to print to (i.e., not a full-sized poster). If you want just a portion, then you can save a powerpoint slide as an image, and insert that into your word file- File ⇒ Save as Pictures... That will save each slide as a picture, but since you only have one slide should be what you want.

My field is really active in, as you mentioned, temporary positions. We're hiring for a visiting position now. That said, I'm eternally surprised at the TT positions that will continue to be advertised, at a trickle, all through the summer. Last year they were searches ongoing 2 weeks before semesters started. I think of this time of year as when I start looking to get my materials in order. What in my research directions is changing, do I need to update my teaching portfolio with new stuff from the year, and if I want to redraft anything else.

I'll say I agree with everything Fuzzy said (and especially echo that taking jabs at other fields is not kosher), but I also want to take a bit of time to dig into the "not everyone has the same skills" line of thought. While not everyone has the same strengths, there are some skills that are integral to doing a job, or getting a degree. To me, oral and written communication are at the top of the list in STEM fields. As an adviser of mine once said, it doesn't matter what you know, or how groundbreaking your work is if you can't communicate it. You are tearing into other people's writing skills (something you're good at and they struggle with) and saying how important writing is, but then turning around and saying that just because you don't see the importance in oral presentation skills, it must not be important. Would you be as willing to say that someone who couldn't write, even passably, shouldn't have to write a dissertation if doing so caused them high levels of stress and anxiety? i understand you a frustrated, and at to the process is getting to you. That doesn't mean it's OK to lash out, and it doesn't mean it's good to say "what I'm good at is hats important, and I shouldn't have to do the rest".

The problem with these policies is that it's class specific and doesn't track cheating across multiple courses. If a student gets "one chance" in every course every semester.... There's a lot of incentive to try to get away with it.

Guess it's field specific then. I would check with an advisor, as it would be really out of place at any conference I've been to.

What do you mean by handouts? Is this something specific to your field? I've never seen people with handouts at a poster session. I know some other posters talk about using them, but I'd definitely check with your advisor, as it would look strange at any conference I've gone to.

So after some of the recent discussion elsewhere on the board, I thought it might be nice to start an (admittedly early) job market support thread for those of us going on (or back on) the market in this upcoming cycle. For people on for the first time, I thought it might be nice to start early as a place to ask questions as you're preparing materials, and give those of us on for multiple years a place to commiserate and soothe our souls by helping someone else out. Since we have such a relatively small group of people at this stage, lets start with a combined thread for all of our woes, and can split it into disciplines if we want at a later date if the crowd grows enough. From conversations with friends, the application process isn't so different that there isn't a ton of overlap.

A lot of this depends on class size. A class of 150-200 I work differently in than a class of 20. I let them bring whatever to desks, but require that it all be put away and they don't reach into things. I pace for larger rooms, but I find it can really bother some students to have me lurking as they work- as Fuzzylogician mentions, however, some shy students won't raise a hand. I announce times- half left, 1/4 left, and then the 10/5/1 minute warnings.

Congrats!