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Everything posted by Eigen
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Bringing SO to Recruitment/Interview Weekends
Eigen replied to bandinterwebs's topic in Interviews and Visits
Depends on the social event. When I visited schools it was a solo recruitment event- not a group event. My wife came with me, and we went out for dinner together with faculty two of the nights. For group visits, I would say read into the event. If it's meant for you to network with faculty and/or students, might be better for them to find something else to do. If it's more pure social (i.e., we do post-dinner drinks for anyone interested as an optional affair) then I'd say go for it. -
It's worth noting that this gets even worse when you go on the job/post-doc market. If you get offers, you usually need to make a decision within 1-2 weeks, and timing is rare that you'll get them all at the same time. You get used to having to make snap decisions, rather than being able to weigh all your options at once.
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Grad school is very similar to a full time job. Many schools have vacation or break policies that mirror Faculty/Staff vacation and break policies. You generally get time off when campus is officially closed (school holidays, not class holidays) as well as another 1-2 weeks as your "vacation" time. Many international students I know choose to work through campus closures and "save" time once a year to go home for a longer period of time, which is also perfectly acceptable.
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Worried about a class I'm taking, where avg grade is C
Eigen replied to paulwece's topic in Officially Grads
In my experience, grad classes aren't graded differently (more easily) than undergrad classes. Generally, they're graded more harshly. The understanding that everyone will get an A or B is because everyone is expected to be doing "above average" work. You don't say what discipline you're in, but in my field (and a lot of experimental sciences), you don't "impress" faculty in classes. You impress them outside of classes and in your research work. Do well in the class, but remember that grad school isn't really about doing well in classes.It's an expected baseline, but amazing class performance doesn't usually have the impressive weight in grad school that it might in undergrad. -
It seems pretty straightforward to me. The school had three applicants ranked higher than you, but would prefer someone who commits now rather than waiting and potentially losing all their best individuals. If you commit to going there (sometimes schools call this a priority admission), you'll get offers faster. If you aren't going to commit, then they'll probably wait until they've heard from the three people before you on the list before giving you an offer. You won't be legally bound to go the school if you say yes, but it would be a pretty underhanded thing to do if you say you really want to go there, and then decline if you get a better offer. The school would be committing to you, and probably losing out a chance on some other applicants, and could end up in a really bad place if you reject the offer later. If you want to wait and compare this offer to other schools, then tell them that. If you would take this offer (i.e., it's your first choice) unless something really unexpected happens (i.e., it's a really bad offer financially or something changes at the school), then tell them that, get early offers, and go to that school. Above all, respond honestly.
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We had one prospective student who (I'm not kidding) spent the whole visit telling everyone why he was so much smarter/better than all of the grad students and faculty here. It did not (for some reason) endear him to anyone.
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Council of Graduate Schools Acceptance Resolution
Eigen replied to MaytheSchwartzBeWithYou's topic in Decisions, Decisions
And as a PSA, remember that this is only a "gentleman's agreement" between schools to help prevent poaching. It is in no way binding on the schools, including the signatories of the resolution. It's also important to remember (as mentioned) that this *only* refers to financial offers. A school can still set an earlier deadline for acceptance to the program, just not any accompanying financial offer. Similarly, this resolution also requires applicants to obtain written consent from any school they have accepted an offer from after April 15th if they no longer wish to attend that school. Similarly, any signatory to the resolution is supposed to require the written consent from that other school before accepting an applicant after April 15th. Text here for those who don't want to follow the link: -
The above answer is probably closer than what I'd give you, which is ~2k-2500/month stipend + health insurance for Chemistry.
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You need to give a field to get any useful data.
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Rooming with Faculty at Conferences
Eigen replied to The Wayfarer's topic in Writing, Presenting and Publishing
I guess to me it's no different to me than sharing a room with a manager/boss traveling for work, and that is/was something I've done a lot outside of academia- it may be something that's informing my field's difference a lot as well, due to the strong industry influence on the academic workings. -
Rooming with Faculty at Conferences
Eigen replied to The Wayfarer's topic in Writing, Presenting and Publishing
I guess there's some field-to-field difference in how comfortable faculty and grad students are with one another anyway. My field is pretty informal- I don't feel any different hanging out with a faculty member than I do anyone else I interact with- age would be the only major factor. But I go drinking with a variety of our professors, and my wife and I have double dated with several on occasion as well- both in my department and in hers. -
Rooming with Faculty at Conferences
Eigen replied to The Wayfarer's topic in Writing, Presenting and Publishing
That sounds like an extreme over-reaction to sharing rooms, TakeruK. I understand it from the state of the field, but sharing rooms with a same-sex advisor is really common in my field- almost everyone I know has done it at some point or another if they have an advisor of the same gender. There are even conferences in my discipline that assign rooms and roommates directly- I've roomed with other faculty from other schools as well as my own. -
My program has recently switched to acceptances at/following the interviews. We've had some really bad experiences with applicants who looked great on paper, and were horrible to work with during when they visited- bad mouthed everyone, really bad attitudes, etc. It used to be a case of everyone was accepted, but monetary offers were made after the visit- really good candidates got fellowships, some really bad interviews got no assistantships at all- a soft rejection. But then we had a couple of students come even with no assistantship.... And that was awkward all around. So now everyone we invite will get an acceptance IF the interview visit doesn't go badly.
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Generally (as mentioned) you won't get paid until a few weeks after you start- most letters should mention a specific start date. I'm sure Monochrome Spring has more detailed information on Davis (as provided above), but in my experience for Chemistry, RAships (from a PI) usually pay a bit better than TAships. The difference isn't usually the stipend level though, but rather the source.
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You say the "bubble in which academics live", but I think this is a case of the opposite. Most people offering an interview for a job wouldn't put up with this much rescheduling, not when they have plenty of candidates who want the spot. Frequently job interviews, even on the other side of the country, expect you to be able to drop what you're doing and show up when they want you to. If you can't do that, chances are you won't get the job. I even know companies that assume that about half of the applicants invited for an interview won't show up, and use that as a way to weed out the serious candidates from the non-serious ones. So rather than the professor being in an academic bubble, I'd argue that in this case the OP (and perhaps yourself) are expecting a job interview and offer in academia to be different than a job interview and offer in the rest of the world.
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Why are you really frustrated? The email sounds pretty clear to me. The admissions committee is reviewing applications. After they evaluate applications and select their top choices, the faculty can be more active in reaching out to those students and recruiting/talking to them about admission. You can't get interviewed "again", because it doesn't seem like you've been interviewed at all yet. Stopping by and talking with a professor during applications isn't an interview. The professor isn't the one who can accept you, the department is who accepts you. It's early in the season. If you're this frustrated with a nice letter from someone this early, you need to find a way to think/approach applications differently or the rest of the season is going to be really hard on you.
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We've had a lot of problems with some programs on my campus that push the idea that only women can be effective mentors for female students. I've been told I can't assist at several programs designed to help encourage middle school girls to go into science because I'm male. I understand the place for female mentors for female students, but I also think it can be really helpful for female students to be exposed to male mentors that support and encourage them. I know I would prefer more training on how I can be a better mentor to my female and minority students, rather than told that I shouldn't even try because I won't get it right.
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That assumes that (a) your department has hired recently, and (b) you're applying to a very similar department. Reading letters written to an R1 might help with applying to an R1, but won't do much good for any other school. Similarly, the main help of a consultant is editing. Reading other letters doesn't help much with editing your own. I would also disagree that it isn't your advisors place to help- I think that's part of the implicit advisor-advisee relationship.
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Please someone review this essay for the GRE revised test
Eigen replied to Aarooshi Bansal's topic in GRE/GMAT/etc
This is not the appropriate forum for this post, so moving it. -
How reliable are the placement statistics on phds.org?
Eigen replied to gooddogeverywhere's topic in Chemistry Forum
Placement statistics can be telling, or can be worthless information. From the outside looking in, you have no idea if the people that weren't placed were successful or not. As my department chair likes to say "We will advocate as well as we can for you- but you have to give us material to advocate with". In other words, you can't infer your likelihood of placement from stats alone. -
From grad school on, you have to go into everything with the assumption that there are a lot of applicants with just as good of stats as yours, and decisions come down to much less tangible details. Maybe you were an excellent candidate, but they're looking for more people in a different area. Maybe someone had worse stats, but had an amazing fit with one PI's research. Maybe the admissions committee had a crappy nights sleep before they read your application and were in a bad mood. Grad school, post-doctoral positions, fellowships, faculty positions- even jobs- get tens or even hundreds of applicants who would be great for the position, with usually only one position available. The important thing, in my mind, is that stats (GPA, GRE) are rarely relevant as to why you got accepted. Sometimes, very low stats might be the reason why you were rejected, but good stats rarely do anything more than make the admissions committee look a bit longer at your package. They certainly won't get you an acceptance.
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Some schools (mine included) also budget travel differently than lodging- they might have money for airfare, but not be able to pay that towards lodging. Just something to keep in mind. Just ask, worse you can do is have them turn you down!
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It's hard, the pay is low, and when you graduate you can look forward (likely) to another protracted period of hard work and low pay. On top of that, research is an inherently frustrating field. There are lot of amazing parts of being on the cutting edge of science, but it also means there's literally no one to turn to when stuff doesn't work. If people already knew why what you were working on did or didn't work, you probably wouldn't be doing it. To be honest, I don't think the stresses are much different from any other job I've had, but the hours are longer, and the breaks are fewer. And the pay is a lot lower. Even all that said, it's not a decision I regret at all. I've learned a phenomenal amount during my PhD, even if I never land a job in academia (or even in Chemistry) I'm still glad for the time I spent in grad school. But retiring to open a farm somewhere seems really appealing sometimes.
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About 50-70% of the grad students in my department TA. They're divided up a little strangely- for the lower level labs, some people teach (3 sections) some people grade, some people prep/clean the labs. Usually depending on seniority and how good they are actually dealing with students. But it works out to a ~20 hour week teaching on top of research/classes.
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That's actually not true. There are quite a few PhD granting institutions that are R2 (RU-H) and not R1 (RU-VH).