Eigen

You might look into a BioInnovation type PhD program- I know our school has one that's interdisciplinary, and focuses on commercialization and entrepreneurship.If you aren't interested in bio, I think there are similar programs in other areas. Also, I wouldn't look at grad school in the sciences as studying one thing for 5 years, necessarily. I've got a range of different projects within a larger field.

Personally, I'd say it is pretty obviously a templated letter. And as such, the chances of PIs ignoring it is much higher. It's also pretty long- short & to the point is more likely to get a read and response. The other general rule I've heard is that no one checks out links and attachments- anything really important should be in the body of the e-mail. If I were sending out e-mails, I'd cut out the part about the undergraduate research conference, and I'd combine paragraphs 3 & 4 together such that they focus on how your current interests would mesh in with the potential advisers work, and what you'd like to focus on moving forward in their group. Conference presentations on the whole aren't as important on a CV, and one that's just at your school will be less so than a national or regional conference. Personally, I'd be more likely to mention that you're preparing a manuscript to submit, and which journal it's going to. Basically, the "best" e-mails will read more like a brief introduction followed by a research proposal- who you are, what skills you have, and how that will fit in with what they have to offer. And it should be, imo, individually written for each potential adviser, and you shouldn't try to send it out too broadly. Pick the people you really want to work with, and focus on those.

Just as a note, my 1098 does not show my stipend, since it's not exactly a scholarship. My 1098 just shows the university tuition waiver. And my W2 shows any extra TAing I do over my fellowship. Generally, my understanding is that a 1098 will only show a scholarship if it's from University funds (I could be wrong), just as a W2 will only show work done for the institution as an employee. Since a lot of fellowships come from external sources, and are just paid "through" the institution, the institution doesn't report those either place. My fellowship isn't reported anywhere, directly, I just have to report it as "other" income, as described in the IRS publication linked above. For the most part, schools don't give out much information- even NSF won't give out any information on the taxability of it's fellowships. The reason being, they don't want to get in the middle of it, or be potentially held liable. So they just say that you should "follow the appropriate tax laws".

Removed personal attacks, warnings issued.

They probably can if you ask them, although you might end up paying more that way. There are a number of decent tax calculators out there, or you could look at the IRS tax tables for your projected income.

Yes, they aren't withheld so you have to pay them on filing. And if you'll owe more than $1000 at the end of the year (likely), you need to file and pay quarterly taxes.

It's interesting, I was getting ready to post the opposite thing. From what I understand, you're in one department (Materials Engineering) and want to transfer to another department (Electrical Engineering)? Or maybe I misunderstood, and both are different concentrations under the same department? If it's two separate departments, you can't just "transfer", or change your major. Most grad school admissions are handled at the departmental level- which means Materials and Electrical Engineering have separate pools of applicants, and separate pools of funding to pay for said applicants. If you were to switch to the other department, you'd likely have to apply to transfer. If might be a bit easier than a fresh application, but I'd highly doubt you could just switch, unless there was a huge excess of funding in the department you're transferring to. If it's two programs or tracks within the same department, there probably won't be any issues. Also, you could look at trying to set up collaborations and stay in your current program, but take more EE classes and do collaborative work with EE faculty/groups.

I can say History and English are pushing 10 years at my school. I got those particular stats from a history prof on the CHE. Debt was counted mostly still accrued from undergrad, but most stipends not being enough to pay it off til post PhD.. But I know a guy that just made full prof (humanities) and still has significant student loans.

Texas has a similar 2-3 years probationary program, but Louisiana definitely doesn't, and I don't think Mississippi or Alabama do either. Nor does Cali, from what I recall.

My current state is ~ 2 years before you can start teaching, from a graduate degree. We had a few college prof's with very good teaching reviews and portfolio's try to transfer to high school teaching, and they were told that they'd need to go back and do an M.Ed before they'd even be considered. I can think of a few states offhand that are much more encouraging, but from all my friends that have tried... It's not a smooth process. Your friends, are they teaching in public schools? Or private/charter schools? Also, in response to listening to your professors and peers: That only works to a point. Temporally, things have changed a *lot* since 2008 or so in terms of the job market as a whole. Talking to faculty who've been tenured for quite some time isn't the best place to get a since of the job market, unless they've been actively trying to place grad students in the past few years. I'll also add that it seems that this discussion keeps growing well outside the bounds of the piece, which was discussing literature PhDs, and a bit more broadly, humanities PhDs. Most of the comments we have are from people in the sciences, and a professional program. I'm not saying the points aren't valid, but picking apart a very specific article when you're not very familiar with the field discussed isn't as useful.

A few comments: You must not have paid very close attention to the CHE forums if you think people there think you need to go to an R1 university. The vast, vast majority are teaching focused faculty, everywhere from community colleges to SLACS and mid-tier state colleges. In most states, you will need, at the very least, 30 credits or a M.Ed on top of whatever graduate degree you have to teach. The exception will be private schools, but even those are getting stricter. If you don't have a B.Ed, M.Ed or Ed.D, you will not be teaching at a public school, almost anywhere. Again, I think it's a very striking contrast that almost everyone I see saying "Hey, it's not so bad out there, you just need to take the right path" are people who are early in grad school, or applying to grad school, while the opinions are much different from those at the end of grad school looking for jobs or people who are out on the market. Also, to me, shutting off a GREAT resource like the CHE forums, which are probably some of the best regarded academic discussion forums around, just because you didn't like the message of some of the posters seems really foolhardy to me. The majority of the people I've met when talking about the academic job market, etc. have all recommended regular reading of the CHE and forums as excellent preparation for academia, whether grad school or not.

TakeruK has some great points. I'd say I'd put it in terms of flexibility- you want to show that you have defined ideas, or can come up with original and new research ideas related to work being done at the institution- but then you don't want to make it seem like if you can't work on those projects, you won't fit in. Definitely a bit of a delicate balance.

Oh yeah, it's pretty much only applicable to the humanities. Social sciences are much different, and sciences very much so. And otherwise, I agree with the overall hyperbolic tone of the post. The points would probably go over a lot better without it. The average Humanities PhD, currently, takes 9.5 years, results in an average of ~60k in debt, and has about a 5-15% chance at an academic job. And, those academic jobs don't pay all that well. And the non-academic market is almost non-existent. Those aren't stats to be taken lightly, at all. Sciences, on the other hand, even with the doom and gloom about the job market- PhDs are employable. Maybe in academia, and maybe elsewhere, but definitely employable. And while there's an opportunity cost vs. a full time job, it's not usually a complete financial black hole like a humanities PhD frequently is. As to the other points... There was a post about someone contemplating suicide just prior to graduate due to lack of job options in the humanities on the CHE forums a few days ago.

If you notice, the author is a VAP- not a full time prof. And hasn't been able to find any other work, even with that. Which is why they're looking at having to leave academia. It's really interesting that the parallel discussion thread on the CHE forums, mostly faculty in this area, are really supportive of the message as a whole. And very happy that it's getting out to a wider audience via slate, even through it's been written about in CHE for quite some time. And that they keep trying to tell their undergraduates, but just get told "Stop crushing our dreams! We're different!" when they try to caution them against grad school.

5 years. And the 5th year probably did more to strengthen my application than any of the previous years. I took full semesters, and graduated with close to 200 credits. It let me try a wide variety of coursework, and while I didn't do a second major, I had a lot of coursework in several related disciplines to what I'm studying now. It also gave me an extra year of research, a much stronger BS Thesis, and a couple of leadership and TAing opportunities that I wouldn't have otherwise had. I also think my maturity relative to my work and field increased a lot over that year, and I was a lot more prepared for grad school.

Discuss it knowledgeably in your statement of purpose along with how you would see yourself integrating into their research workflow.

Also worth noting that I've never found it worth going through the official audit process. I'm sure it's university dependent, but all the classes I was interested in, I just dropped in on the teachers office, and said "Hey, I'm a grad student in XX department, and the class you're teaching really interests me, but my research is keeping me very busy. Do you mind if I unobtrusively sit in as I have time?" It's worked every time for me. Rarely do they mind another interested student sitting in, unless there are some severe space issues. I've sat in on several classes in different departments this way. This has even worked for friends in my program with language classes- they want to hone another language, but don't have time (and their advisors wouldn't want them to) take the class full time. Most of the language instructors are happy to have someone that's just really interested in learning the language, and usually grad students make polite students.

So this is kinda late for the original topic, but a few comments: First, be as up-to-date on the research in the lab as possible. Personally, I read the last 3-5 papers published by the group. That lets you come across as knowledgeable in your area, and also lets you avoid a bunch of the common questions. Instead of asking "what research methods are commonly employed", you should be able to say "I noticed you've used research method X a lot, is it your plan to continue basing your research around it going forward, or would you be interested in branching out into Y?" I personally took most of my meetings with faculty during the day to discuss their research with them, and especially where I would fit into it. Asking if they'd be open to new directions, or if they'd considered looking at certain related areas moving forward. I saved most of the general questions for meeting with the DGS and department chairs, neither of whom were in my area, as well as meetings with the graduate students, or as general discussions over dinner.

Please don't double post topics. As a reply, income from grants isn't, technically, "additional" income. Most professors that are being paid in a supplemental fashion from grants are only getting part-year salaries from the institution where they work. IE, you have a 9 month salary, the grant pays for the last 3 months. If you're looking for commonly used terms, grant income is considered "soft" money and the regular salary is "hard" money. Some institutions, especially medical schools, have way more "soft money" requirements than others- ie, they may only pay a few months of your salary each year, and you're expected to find the rest elsewhere. As to allocations- it's not "rules" so much, as what's requested when you write the grant. Each written grant will have an exact budget of funds, per year- how much is going to salaries (the PI, any co-PIs, other collaborators, post-docs, research techs, grad students) how much is going to regular supplies, instrumentation, equipment, conference travel, etc. And then you have to spend accordingly from the grant. You can't budget for a ton of equipment, decide not to buy it, and then spend the surplus on hiring another grad student.

All you mention is your GPA, which is probably the least important part of your application. Was your statement of purpose good? Did you discuss research that fit in with groups in the department? You have an MS, do you have any publications? International conference presentations? How many years of research experience? Most people with an MS in the US will have somewhere between 4-6 years of research experience, with several independent projects (see publications, above). How were your letters of recommendation? Are your writers well known in the US or world research communities? Were they able to say you were a strong and independent researcher?

Please don't double post. Second topic deleted.

I usually cook on Sundays, and try to put stuff in dishes for the week. I use a lot of pyrex! It depends on what I feel up to, but I usually cook 1-3 large one dish meals that my wife and I can grab in the morning depending on our mood- usually something light, something heavy. Chili's, pasta dishes, baked pasta, lentil soup, french onion soup, bean soups, roasted chicken, pot roast, etc. We aren't on as tight of a food budget as we used to be, but our first two years we fed both of us on a bit under $70 per week, for 3 cooked meals per day. If you're really trying to be budget conscious, go with a whole chicken, roasted with a ton of veggies. For about $15, you can get almost a weeks worth of meals out of it. Roast it on the weekend, have it hot for dinner that night. Then section out some of the chicken to re-heat as roasted with veggies (usually legs and wings), and some (breast meat) for sandwiches. Then take the non-sandwich scraps and put them aside for a one-dish meal later in the week- chicken pasta usually works for me, or chicken and rice. Then take the carcass, and use it to make stock for a soup at the end of the week.

I have a lot of bags. But primarily, I use two- a Chrome Messenger Bag, and a nice soft-sided briefcase/shoulder bag. I use the messenger bag when I'm biking, and the other when I'm not. I do have a few backpacks, but I generally prefer my Chrome bag, the way it sits, and the balance. Most backpacks sit too far out from my back for me.

I'm kinda getting two different goals from your posts. One is that you really want to do a PhD because you want to do research. The other is that you want to go to grad school because a BA in Psych isn't employable. The second one is a really bad reason to get a graduate degree, imo. I would prod a bit more about doing research while not a student- that's not how it's been any of the places I work. As mentioned, maybe there are other schools nearby where you could work without being a student. If so, then I would suggest cutting out the classes, and split your time between research and working. It will let you get more research experience, and more time working will let you breathe easier financially. Then take the GRE and apply for MS programs. You can probably even apply late now, if you want to. While you will get an MA/MS on the way to a PhD, I would think that with your background, getting an MA/MS would be the best way to show that you can do well in grad school as well as get significant research experience.

Yup, I'm getting -14 too. Not sure where you think the worked problem is wrong, each step is quite correct. Maybe you should clarify your question and work?