Eigen

Even for a first year application, you'll want at least one reference from your current school, ideally two. Applying in the second year makes good references from those people more likely.

I think you're again significantly overestimating (a) the maturity, and (b) the homogeneity of graduate students. For instance, your point 3 above- starting a family. I came from a rural area, my wife and I dated in high school and got married in undergraduate. It was common to get married around that age for our high school friends, but was an oddity in college. That said, we still had some other friends from college who did get married within a few years. Then we started grad school, and in the last 8 years during and after grad school, I haven't had another friend get married. I use this as a counter argument to "graduate students are more likely to be family focused". Maybe more than undergraduates, sure, but a lot less likely than the average person their age, from my anecdotal experiences.

As a good general resource on teaching, I *highly* recommend the Center for the Integration of Teaching, Research & Learning (CIRTL). They offer webinars and online courses in a bunch of areas related to teaching theory and practice at the post-secondary level. The CIRTL network is a grant-funded "center" that's made up of a bunch of particular schools centers for teaching and learning, but they also allow students and faculty at "non-member" schools to enroll in most things, assuming there's room. The last one I took from them was a 1 credit/1/3rd semester course taught through Vanderbilt's Center for Teaching and Learning, and it was fantastic. I'm now on their mailing list for short courses and seminars, and while I don't have the time to do most of them, they're really varied and interesting topics, and I know several recently have covered grading (and general assessment) strategies.

You don't give enough information for anyone to be able to usefully help you. MS or PhD? Related research experience/work experience? How are your letters? How do your research interests fit with the specific schools and programs you're applying to?

I think you're severely overestimating how many people had some traditional middle/high school "typical" relationship. And how impactful that experience is on the rest of us.

This hasn't been specifically brought up, but the way he structures problems sets (40+ sets worth less than 1% each), it seems like these are formative rather than summative assessments. As such, at the graduate level, it's perfectly appropriate to have the feedback (and some reduction in points) used as a valid teaching method. Give an open-ended question that might be a bit beyond your students. See how they do. Provide feedback that they can use for the next assignment. In this case, he told you all that you need to include general observations. So the next problem set, include general observations. This is an iterative process that helps you develop into the norms of your field. You seem to be looking for things in a class structure that, as people have said, are not common in graduate level classes, and certainly not universally expected. You are focusing on small grades (when grades don't really matter, as your instructor/advisor told you) rather than learning, and are using ratemyprofessors (a site with so many issues of response bias it's not worth getting into) to judge his teaching. RMP, if anything, is dominantly a site for undergraduates upset about grades to rant. You should not be using it as a graduate student to judge the efficacy of one of your graduate instructors.

Lots of good advice, here, I just want to add one other thing, since it hasn't been explicitly said: If you're a grad student, don't date undergraduates. They may be right for you in some ways, but the potential complications (and legal or ethical issues from your school) are not worth the risk. Take the time to find someone closer to your age that is in a similar position. I also think you're maximizing your uniqueness in this area. You don't sound that different than other friends of mine when they started grad school. You are used to setting yourself apart, and you see very clearly where you developed differently or slowly in these areas- I think you're underestimating how many other people they are with unique but parallel trajectories in graduate programs.

This. Also, use language to describe your BI and IM that mirrors the solicitation. NSF has guidelines on what it considers BI and IM- look up the phrasing, and make yours match.

FWIW, you shouldn't ask straight up "how much should I focus on getting As?" The question you should ask is what your advisor suggests for a balance of your time between research and coursework. The general expectation isn't always that you should or shouldn't be getting As, it's about how much time you should be putting into your coursework. Sometimes that goes along with the grade, but in some programs (my graduate program, for instance) it was expected that a reasonably prepared student could easily get As without putting in too much time.

I think some of this (and I know we've talked about similar issues before) also depends on how structured (and over-arching) things end up being. I'm a huge fan of departments having specific protocols (i.e., vacation time should be included in your contract or handbook), as well as allowing it to be specified by the particular employer (i.e., you have a contract with your PI who is paying you). Even with those in place, pushy students will still get more vacation time, as almost every contract (including union contracts) will allow "bosses" to grant exemptions- i.e., vacation time- directly or indirectly. In some cases this might be not calling it "vacation", but allowing Pushy Student to work remotely while "writing up data" on a beach in Hawaii for the summer. What it does is set a minimum for vacation time- but most schools I've seen, the written policy is 2 weeks per year, at times approved by the "boss". Same for staff, same for faculty. This post, on the other hand, is arguing that those two weeks, that the school does have set aside as a policy in writing, aren't enough, which is a completely different argument.

I would think it would be more likely that instead of revising a thread from 2012/2013, people that have felt this way recently have started a new thread. There have been lots of threads in the last few years on this topic! I would suggest that you'd probably get more support and feedback for your particular topic if you started a new thread on it. Many of the posters from this one are no longer around or active.

The general reason most advisors want you in the lab 9-5 is so they can easily find members of their lab when something comes up, and you're available for those things. There's also, depending on the school, the very common need to have people in lab so administrators don't come by, see an empty lab, and decide the PI needs less lab space. It's a small price to pay for the (general) flexibility in a graduate schedule, and good headphones aren't that expensive. It seems like this has morphed a bit from your original topic (vacation time) to the ancillary topic of how much you're expected to do your work in lab vs out.

You mention switching, but is the new PI going to be any different? The norm, by far, in most experimental sciences, is that you work "at least" a 9-5. Some PIs are a bit more flexible, many will also specify weekend hours and evening hours. Same with what you discuss in vacation time- 2 weeks is typical. Some allow more, some less. Being funded by a TA had no real bearing on this. For you to be outside the realm of a "job" with your advisor as the "boss", you would need to be completely externally funded (i.e., fellowship) and even then it only helps so much Basically, what you describe is by far the norm, and I'd be cautious bucking the norm so much as a first year before you've proven yourself. Grad school is not like undergrad, it's more like working for a small startup

I could be wrong, but isn't this assignment paying for your stipend and tuition? If so, it's not really a pointless assignment. It's work you do to support your schooling.

Since lots of posts for this next application cycle are going in last years thread, I'm making this and moving those posts here to consolidate. Good luck to all this year's applicants!

It might, it might not. No way for us to tell you what they're thinking, and there's no universal secret code for getting kicked out of a lab.

Sadly, I wish I could say that this was uncommon. I know stories similar to this at almost all of the major (i.e., top ranked) institutions in my field, where the pressure is immense. On the plus side, it seems like it's just one person! Some labs can get so toxic, everyone ends up following the bad apples example and sabotaging/stealing results to get ahead. I don't know that I can give you advice, but I'm really glad you're through (what seems like) the worst of it.

The answer will depend somewhat on the institution and department, but generally no.

I ran across "Letters from Grad School" today, which is an attempt by some graduate students and fellows at Harvard University to collect stories about grad school- successes, failures, leaving, graduating, everything in between. I think open discussions (as are on forums) are important, as is a place for graduate students to share their individual paths. They're primarily focused on biology/biomedical sciences, but are accepting submissions from any discipline. There's a form for people interested in submitting, all final essays (post editing) will be posted on the website, a subset will be published as a book. Anonymous submissions are allowed. http://lettersfromgradschool.org Thought some people here might be interested- lots of people with unique stories.

This is important. Keep in mind that a large part of the lunch portion of the interview is to help the post-doc decide if this is a lab they would fit in with, as much as you're deciding if you think they will fit in well with you.

Be careful with this. Like any other hiring decision, it's really important to stay professional during all phases of the hiring process. Questions that seem innocuous can make someone else uncomfortable. You don't have to grill them constantly about their presentation, but keeping the discussion professional is usually a good idea. Give the post-doc chances to bring things up, and let them volunteer information about personal things (hobbies, art, etc.) rather than asking directly.

It's not even true in academia that your thesis topic has to be similar to what you want to do long term. One of my colleagues did a PhD in inorganic chemistry, a first post-doc in biological chemistry, and a second post-doc in metabolomics at a medical school. Your research program as a scholar, once you finish all the training, is what you have the skills and background to propose. It pulls from what you've done, and what your dissertation is on, but that does not define you as a scholar.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that graduate school is about learning skills and developing abilities, rather than getting to pursue the research you've always dreamed of. I've had too many peers not end up with degrees, or end up taking years longer getting to the stage where they are independent researchers because they kept only wanting to work on projects that they "loved". Especially for a MS, where you'll only be there a couple of years, I'd buckle down, find a lab with funding, and graduate. You aren't tied to what you do as a grad student for the rest of your career, and getting a degree and moving on is the important part.

When I had to do this, I just went over my undergrad notes/texts from each class. I figured that was the way I'd learned the material, that would be the easiest way to review it. I can't tell from your post if you're saying you aren't going to try the PChem exam- if not, do- I found it the easiest of them.

CRISPR is not generally considered a chemistry technique- it's more molecular biology or chemical biology, and you would come at it from that background more than a background in (what sounds like) organic and physical chemistry. You seem to be talking about specialized courses, I'm referring more to *basic* courses that give you a strong foundation in a field, particularly the research approach predominately used in that field.