Eigen

I share an office with one other grad student and my undergrad(s) as they rotate through for research. Each of the grad students has a full sized desk, and the two of us share a bookcase, dividing up shelves. We've got a mini-fridge/microwave that we split use of, and we have one desk that we have stocked with snacks for when we forget to bring in food. The other desk has a permanently set up lab computer that we can either use for long-term simulations we don't want to run on our PCs, or can let our undergrads use for specific software. Personally, I find in/out boxes and binder racks to be especially useful for me, and I'm a fan of music in the office so we've got a nice set of bluetooth speakers.

Closing this thread, as it's devolving into a multi-year request for copies of copyrighted material.

This is something you should discuss with your advisor.

At my school, overhead is around 55% of grant income, and that's considered fairly good. We actually see a bill of the charges, and it's amazing how much the yearly rent per square foot on our lab space is... Not to mention the fact that our tap water must be special for it to cost that much.

I'm not exactly sure how this relates to what I said. I said nothing about salaries, I was talking about the percent they make up of grant funds. As to where the funding is coming from, I don't know any departments in the physical sciences where the school or department pays for the RA- it all comes out of grants. That's not to say departments don't fund graduate students, they just don't generally fund them as RAs. It's either fellowships or TAs.

Depends on how many people are getting paid off of it. You have the PI's salary, usually lower salaries for Co-PIs, maybe collaborators (I've even seen down to 1/16th month salary per year) staff, admins, graduate students, etc.

I'm just wrapping up my 5th year, and have only two. Both of which are reviews- peer reviewed, but still. But looking at my field, it's a slow start and ramps up fast. I've hopefully got two I can try to push out this Fall, and a bunch of second authors. Try hard not to compare yourself. Are you doing good work? Progressing? Some projects just throw you roadblock after roadblock.

My bet? Your potential advisor wanted you, but either there was some area of your application that scared off other committee members (or the graduate school), and he couldn't swing your admission through the committee. You mentioned his e-mail outlines a plan to reapply, does this perhaps include some specific pointers on things that would make your application stronger? It's also possible he's recently come into some funding (or other forms of inter/intradepartmental power) and would be able to better push your application this year.

Ignoring the "who can reply to this post" bit at the beginning, since those things tend to put me in a bad mood.... For a PhD, especially coming from a masters, it's all about the research fit. Find research published that you like. Identify researchers working on that research. Apply to those schools. All of the other concerns about location, funding, etc. are secondary- they're things you consider when you're deciding where to go, not where to apply. When you're deciding where to apply, it all comes down to finding people who are experts in the specific sub discipline you're interested in.

The application fee was for processing your application. They did so. There was not a contractual obligation on the part of the school to notify you in a manner that pleases you that you were not accepted. Quite honestly, you come across as exceeding self-centered and antagonistic in your emails to the department, and I would imagine they are breathing a sigh of relief that they did not admit you. Especially if that was indeed your first email to them, and you had not politely inquired about your status previously. Most of us in higher education fight every day against education being considered a business, or students being considered clients.

Getting a non terminal degree with the outlook to teach is not a good idea. The market is flooded with communication, sociology and political science PhD's who want to teach that you are competing against, and even if the market recovers (which it's not, really) you'll be competing against those. Getting a second MA instead of either getting a PhD or getting out of the game sounds like a bad idea, to me. It's not impossible to find a job. Lots of things aren't impossible. It's more like hoping to win the lottery, though, and that's even with a PhD.

Entry level TT in the physical sciences strongly depends on geographical location and school rank. Entry level TT at say, a state R2? You're probably looking at 45-50k per year. At a good R1? Probably closer to the 70-80k mark. SLAC's will fall between the two, depending. Now with the R1 or any research job, you can also supplement your income with grants. Stated income is traditionally for a 9 month salary, September-May, with June-August not included. You can either pick up summer teaching gigs, or pay yourself out of your grants if you're doing research. Some schools also have summer research salaries available, but most of these won't be reported in yearly incomes. But yeah, professors don't make much. You take moderate steps up from grad school making about 30-35k to a post-doc making 40-45k to a faculty member making 50-60k, and then go up from there.

I've been here for some time now, so I'm not exactly a new grad student, but please feel free to PM me if you have any questions about getting started here- some departments and programs have much better orientations than others! I'd suggest looking at the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (OGPS) as there is no graduate school, and also at the Graduate Studies Student Association (GSSA), which is quite active. Also, my sincerest sympathies to you for living in Deming! Especially being in a program on the uptown campus.

From your interests, I'd say a chemistry or neuroscience PhD would be up your ally. You seem primarily interested in neurochemistry, and if I understand you right both studying the cause & effect as well as developing treatments? Pharmacology is primarily directed towards studying the mechanism of action of drugs, and pharmaceutical (more typically called medicinal) chemistry is more organic synth/structure activity relations. If you want to probe the neurobiological/biochemical processes of diseases and look for routes to treat them, that's more neuroscience/neurochemistry/biochemistry. For interdisciplinary areas like yours, I think more traditional programs (and degrees) will suit you better and give you more flexibility down the road. You can likely find people doing research that interests you in Chemical Engineering, Neuroscience, Cell and Molecular Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Biochemistry and Chemistry labs, and you will likely end up with a committee with people from more than one of those disciplines.

IMO, it's going to be very hard to do the work you want without working in a wet-lab environment. Electrochemistry is inherently a wet-lab field. You might want to refine your research interests to something that more suits the work you want to do? Also, if you want to lead a team for developing technology, you will likely need to go for a PhD. Even in Industry, R&D heads are usually PhDs.

I don't think engineering is all that different from Chemistry, and we've had quite a few openly gay guys in my department, and in my group, all of whom have been very well accepted. I would agree with St Andrews Lynx- don't try to hide it. You don't need to "come out" to them, just act like they knew you were gay and it's natural, and bring your boyfriend along to something, imo. I know a number of out, gay engineers in grad school that also have no problems. Unless you've caught a strong vibe that your lab wouldn't respond well, or your department is particularly problematic, I would just assume it's not going to be an issue.

I may be wrong, but are you sure on your numbers? The way they're phrased, it seems more like they're offering you half of the assistantship stipend (7.5k) you first year, and a full assistantship the next year. The other two are both fellowships, and wouldn't normally be considered your average full stipend.

I personally recommend taking some time off and doing something unrelated to school so you're fresh when you start. This will be the last break you have in quite some time.

Just go to Citibank and close the account. I doubt there will be any notice given to your parents, and it will solve any future problems.

Just curious, if you're worried about your full name being out there and searchable, what about online reprints of publications? Those will have your full name, are searchable, and have your institutional affiliation. Also, it's not uncommon for review articles to have a picture of the author and a bio of said author.

Likely, the year off means you're working off a different set of degree requirements, which means some of your past credits don't count. I know my undergraduate school, if you finished in 4 years you were "locked in" to the degree requirements that were in place when you started. If you took time off and came back, your old courses counted, but you had to satisfy any new requirements for degrees that had changed in the intervening years. My guess (especially since you mention the transfer courses not counting) is that degree requirements have changed, and you will now be obligated to meet those new requirements to graduate. The degree requirements on admission are only "contractually" good for so long, and you can probably find out how long explicitly spelled out in your student handbook.

Craigslist! And a good mattress. I'm getting old enough that I can really tell the difference, and a good nights sleep is oh-so-important. But really, it's a very personal thing. I've been married for 8 years, and so we've had quite some time to accumulate stuff, we have a full house worth of books, bookshelves, furniture, kitchen items, etc. I have friends who are the same age that have maybe 2 boxes of stuff they'd move with them when they leave grad school. If you cook a lot, and enjoy cooking, then a fully outfitted kitchen can be worthwhile. If you like to have people over, and want places for them to sit, then plan around that. But I'm a huge fan of buying good quality furniture second-or third hand on craigslist- we've bought almost nothing new, and all of it is solid, non-particle board, wood furniture that we like and got really cheap.

You don't mention what area you're in, other than social science, but I think you may be fundamentally confused about what an Ed.D will let you do. The only area an Ed.D will qualify you to teach in at the college level is educational administration/education programs. And even then, you won't be as competitive as you would with a PhD. While you can get jobs with an MA teaching at CCs, landing a full time or TT position without a PhD is quite difficult- in some fields it's almost impossible to get CC teaching positions even with the PhD. Generally, in higher ed, the EdD degree is for someone who *doesnt* want to teach, but wants to be a full time administrator- dean of students, student affairs, assessment, etc. The PhD is the terminal degree you want if you want to teach at a post-secondary level: CC, 4-year university, small liberal arts college, etc. While the PhD is a research based degree, you don't just pursue it if you want to do research- you also pursue it if you want to teach at the college level. Also, I would expect yourself to have to do research as a full time faculty member at a CC. The research is different, but every CC instructor I know has to show they are a productive scholar (i.e., research). Bottom line, for what you seem to be interested in, the Ed.D and PhD are not comparable degrees- one is a professional degree for administrators and K-12 teachers, the other is a degree for university educators.

Fourthed. It's very common to list former students (grad, undergrad, post-doc) as well as collaborators on the website. It gives you a small, but positive web presence, and that's a good thing. I've been working on a website I can keep more up to date than our group one, and almost every career workshop I've been to has recommended something similar.

At least in my field, I highly doubt anyone cares what you have on your linkedIn, ResearchGate or Academia.edu pages, as long as it's not wildly unprofessional or controversial. I can't see that the lack of a fantastic page would get you knocked out of consideration, or that the presence of a fantastic one would get you in. You do have to market yourself, but you can do that just as well in your application materials and not need an external (web) source.