Eigen

My wife and I were married before we started grad school, so we were an established couple. We've done a few different combinations now.... She took a year off during my first year, then we were both in grad school for the next 3 years, and she's spent the last year and a half adjuncting full time (5 courses a semester!). I don't think a relationship in grad school is any more doomed than any other relationship, and just because you're finishing early doesn't necessarily mean time apart. We have one car, so we try to keep on a similar schedule, but there are also times when we're honestly just too tired or too busy to do much together, but that happens. We'll have a week where we barely eat consistently, and our primary interaction is mutual pathetic looks when we drive to work in the morning. But this happens to friends of mine not in grad school too! Being in grad school together does mean you have a lot of common ground, and you do understand what the other person is going through, which can help a lot.

Going last in a panel always sucks, no matter how prepared you are- it's too much time to overthink things and psych yourself out. I'm a good public speaker. I do it a lot, and I don't need much prep anymore. I've had to speak in front of the University Senate, at conferences, and to panels of students. But I just got back from a conference where I was giving a presentation. In my field, usually, talks are given by faculty or sometimes post-docs, and usually invited. But I got slated in- it was a great experience. But I was the last one to talk before the break, and the 4 talks preceding mine were by some of the foremost experts in my field! It wasn't the worst talk ever, but I was not my normally articulate self. I'd had the last 2 hours to compare my talk to theirs, think through everything too many times, and was not calm at all! Venting helps, talking to friends helps, but we all do things like this and have to move on. I've made a fool out of myself in front of classes of students many times, and I'm sure I will do so many, many more. Part of teaching is learning how to make a fool out of yourself and move on!

Some of this is a conversation you'll need to have with your advisor. In general, I'd expect them to pay for supplies related to research costs, especially lab supplies. You may need to supply some of your own general goods (paper, notebooks, pens) or they may supply some for you. You can probably ask other lab members what the norm is. If your advisor doesnt have funding for your research and expects you to fund it, I'd consider this a warning sign and look at other groups. For the conference, it depends. You need to talk to them about it. For society memberships, I'd say it's generally something that you personally would pay for, as very few grants can cover these types of memberships. As a general rule, your PI will cover things that are on grants- projects, travel, etc. For most STEM fields, especially lab fields, they should cover the majority of your research related expenditures. In some cases, you may be looking for other funding to supplement that, or give yourself some more ownership of the project, but you should not be paying research costs out of pocket. The only exceptions to this I've seen are computers/software/office supplies, and things vary more there.

Just to add some details to the stages I described, because some are a bit different than TakeruKs: In Prep: Manuscript is together, you're refining writing, working with co-authors, etc. but would be ready to show any interested party a draft and be OK with them reading it. Submitted: It's gone to the journal, but you haven't heard anything from an editor. Under Review: I use this stage when it's been sent out for review. In my field, once an editor has accepted it (i.e., the manuscript was not a desk rejection, which happens to a huge portion of submissions in my field), the authors are notified that the journal is interested in it, and has sen it out for peer-review. In my field, then, all decisions come from an editor, with reviews attached as justification. So there wouldn't be a way to know how many reviewers we're waiting on, we won't hear anything until they're all in and the Editor has made a decision. Under revision: Major/minor revisions, you've been given a deadline to make chances/respond to reviewers, and are working on those. Accepted: I use this if the editor has accepted the manuscript. Sometimes it's a conditional acceptance (we accept the manuscript pending these minor chances), sometimes it's outright (rarely). In Press: We're going back and forth with the copyeditors on proofs. They always screw up something in our manuscript, so this takes a while. That said, most journals in my field publish the draft from the authors as soon as it's accepted on the website with a DOI, so the last one is mostly only used for book chapters or edited collections.

Would you mind sharing your experiences in securing competitive funding for graduate fellowships for a department/program that differ from mine? I'm sure not everyone does it the same way, but I'd be shocked if metrics change enormously from state to state. The NSF grad fellowship (which is competitive across disciplines) doesn't even allow the submission of GRE scores, and hasn't for a while. Your ideas are interesting, but I not seeing evidence to back them up, anecdotal or otherwise. For instance, you state that GRE scores are a "large portion of your application", but you are providing no support for why you think that is the case, in direct opposition to many, many other users on this board who have provided anecdotal evidence for why the GRE is primarily used as a cutoff. I can tell you not everyone who gets these University wide fellowships have high GRE scores. That's not considered as important as their evidence of research potential, as evidenced by research experience and letters of recommendation. GRE scores are used past application in fellowship decisions, sure, but I've never seen them used as a major component of those decisions either- they're usually, again, a cutoff (albeit a higher cutoff). And usually, from my experience, anyone up for a university wide fellowship would be funded by a TA or an RA regardless, the University is just putting them up for additional funding. That means that the GRE score isn't playing an additional role in applications (with respect to admission), but can have some minor role in securing additional funding. That doesn't, however, mean that the GRE comes into play "multiple times during the application process". To take this off on a tangent, you make a statement in your original post that GPA cannot be compared across disciplines, and this seems curious to me. Why would you not say that a 3.8 in psychology is equivalent to a 3.8 in math? The whole point of the GPA system is that it does compare you to the other students in a major in such a way as to be relatively normalizable across disciplines (and even schools, to some degree). To make an argument that it's not, you'd have to be able to argue that grade inflation is more prevalent in some disciplines than other, or that a given discipline is objectively more or less difficult than another, which would be a really controversial point to make.

It's a good point, but I agree that you're overgeneralizing. I've helped our department write grants to secure funding (fellowships) for incoming grad students the last couple of years, and GRE scores are one of the smallest sections. Usually, departments are allocated funding based on their past success with picking graduate students. The department argues the success of the students it's funded in the past, and where those students have gone as a predictor that whatever algorithms they're using are working. GRE's are a good measure that equalizes applicants across a wide variety of backgrounds, sure. Generally, I see them used as a small piece of a much larger picture. They can help to counterbalance a low GPA, or can help to make a really high GPA look like perhaps it's just an easy school. I don't know anyone on admissions committees (in my field) that over-uses them- they are pretty honest with what the GRE scores, and are just another means of assessment.

In my field it's common to list such a paper as (In Preparation) along with the rest of your publications. If you have the paper to the point that you would show it to others, and are clear about what stage it's in, I think this is perfectly kosher. It also helps put together a trajectory, showing what you've written and where it's published, with the newest (In Preparation) manuscript at the top of the list (reverse chronological order is usual). For me, I list manuscripts starting at (In Preparation) which is when I'd feel comfortable sharing the draft if asked. Then it's (Submitted), (Under Review), and either (Accepted) or (Under Revision) followed by (In Press). As soon as it has a DOI prior to appearing in print, I switch to that. I'd personally suggest checking the CVs of people in your field, and see what they do- some are stricter about this than others.

I wouldn't worry as much about them not having the PhD if you're applying from out of the US, and they're an assistant professor, then.

I'm a little curious here- is the school you're currently attending in the US? I ask because it's rare in STEM fields for someone to have an Assistant Professor title without a PhD. Being from another country where it's more common would put things in a different context. As others have said, if it's your best choice it won't get you rejected straight out, but it will not be as good as someone who knows you well and has a PhD already.

Can be, depending on the school. I know people who've saved electives to the end if there's a course they want to take. It's discipline and school dependent though. Lecture courses that late in the PhD aren't as common, but something like the OP described isn't exactly a traditional lecture course. That said, there's not usually as defined of a "writing their dissertation" phase for many STEM fields, which is why I'm assuming the OP isn't STEM. A week to a couple of months to compile everything and get everything together after you find a job/post-doc.

You might give a field for context. In STEM fields, for instance (I'm assuming you're not in one of those), nothing really changes while you write your dissertation.

I'm assuming you mean you're interested in photochemistry? Electromagnetic energy conversion, while correct, isn't something you'll find anyone in the field use much if at all. Particularly, I assume you're interested in metal based photocatalysts? Catalyst design overlaps with photochemistry in Inorganic chemistry. While imaging is used in a number of fields, it's not all that common in chemistry. Some in materials science, some in biomedical applications, but not much in the fields you're interested in. It's not bad experience, but it doesn't prepare you for what you want to do. I understand wanting a new perspective in grad school, but that makes a hard sell to an admissions committee- they're looking for someone that knows they want to build off the perspective of the field (chemistry), not someone that wants more exposure to it. It's generally a time to refine and focus interests from undergrad, rather than to broaden them. As to edits, there's a 30-60 minute window after a post that you can edit, after that it's permanent.

In my field, you'd probably list papers you did not present, when it's clear you did not present them. You were acknowledged as an author on that material for a reason.

How so? I've found it quite helpful.

Here are a couple of threads from the CHE discussing her work, including some anecdotes of people who've used her services: http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,187243.0.html http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,158259.0.html

I'm guessing the response would be highly field specific- I know a lot of her advice draws myriad opinions, mostly along the lines of different fields and subfields. She seems to over-generalize her experience (take her recent piece on research statement vs research philosophy). As an example, probably half of her advice would get someone in my field tossed out in the first round from the criticisms I've seen. You're in English, however, which is a lot closer to her wheelhouse, so I'd assume it would fit you much better. There are some great discussions of her and her advice in the Chronicle Job-Seeking forums, and I think there are a few past reviews of people who have paid for her service as well. If I have time, I'll look them up.

I didn't say our department was so drinking heavy that someone who doesn't drink would be uncomfortable. As I said, we have a number of non-drinkers. I said someone who isn't comfortable being around others drinking might not find it a great fit. I was commenting that I've never run into anyone whose beliefs prohibit them from going into a bar, not whose beliefs prevent them from drinking. We have a decent slice of people who are religiously opposed to drinking, as well as those who just don't like to drink. I fell into the latter category for my first year of the program, and never felt any pressure, but I can't speak for everyone. That said, our visits don't officially have any late evening activities, so it's all informal and optional. Breakfast, lunch and dinner (faculty do dinner, grad students do breakfast and lunch) are paid for by the department, and are supposed to be alcohol free. For those who are interested in some evening activity, we usually have a get-together at a low-key bar and invite anyone that wants to come. Some of this is school culture, some of it is department culture. Most department seminars at my school, for example, have alcohol served, either wine or beer. My department has a particular focus on brewing science. Either way, if someone is uncomfortable being around alcohol or others drinking, then they would not generally be comfortable in our department.If they just do not want to drink themselves, they'll be fine. I do stand by my point, though- if something is a large part of departmental culture, hiding it during visits leads to prospective students getting a different feel of the department than what they will find when they come there, and I don't think that's a good thing. All that said, I completely agree that we (as universities) need to move to being as inclusive of diverse individuals as we can, and there have been great suggestions here to help with that.

I've never run across that before, personally. We have lots who's religious beliefs prevent them from drinking, but never one that prevented them from going. And since we have enough non-drinkers in the department that go along with us, no one not drinking feels like the odd one out. But also, from a department "fit" standpoint, the faculty and most of the grad students are drinkers, and I feel like it would be selling someone a "bill of goods" if the visit had non-alcohol involved items, and no other department event would. It's nice to know that exists- it's something I'll mention when this years crew is planning our events.

I've never been a fan of a bar crawl, but the thing I do like about including a bar option (we usually pick something low-key) is that frequently the visiting students feel more comfortable asking the current students questions. We have several nice bars that are not such a heavy bar/alcohol environment that it makes anyone particularly uncomfortable- we have some that are nice coffee shop/bar combos.

I'm probably just overthinking the use of philosophy. In my field, research statements are third person, passive. Proposals like you'd write for a grant, usually 12-15 pages. What I have is probably fine, I just hate the off the wall phrasing relative to any other add, since it makes me think they want something drastically different.

My vent: I really wish search committees/HR departments would stop trying to come up with new, inventive ways to name the documents they want. "Statement of Research Plans" is standard. I know what you want when you ask for that. "Discussion of Research Philosophy that Addresses Plans for Undergraduate Researchers"...... Now I can think of a dozen different documents that you might want, all of which are varying lengths.

I like Calibri as a sans-serif font, but Myriad is also nice. I've been using the former for most of my job materials, as the spacing/size is pretty similar to TNR, but I find the san-serif makes reading on a screen so much easier, and most materials are read as PDFs.

It's good, but it doesn't guarantee acceptance.

To the above, I would also add things that are competitive on a state/regional/national level, rather than something internal to a school. Given the examples they have, I'd say only things that are competitive on a national level, really.

I've only ever seen it for the latter- asking if you're in academic good standing (ie, eligible to re-enroll).