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Eigen

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  1. Upvote
    Eigen reacted to balderdash in I got my AW score...I could cry.   
    As fuzzylogician pointed out, there are numerous - numerous - threads where people have presented exactly this worry. Also, there are quite a few that discuss the scope of the AWA and how it differs from the ability to "write well." I think the reason some don't believe that your post is sincere is that this concern is so common, it sounds like you're mocking the people who ask it.
  2. Upvote
    Eigen reacted to balderdash in I got my AW score...I could cry.   
    I was just trying to alleviate your confusion over some of the responses you received. Chill.
  3. Downvote
    Eigen got a reaction from JustChill in Contacting professors   
    Technically, the 70s was from 32-41 years ago. Gotta count the s in there

    I mean, so long as we're nitpicking
  4. Upvote
    Eigen reacted to BlueRose in Do I really want a PhD?   
    I'm applying for PhDs now, but I'm several years out of undergrad, and have worked in two very different places (biotech startup, academic lab). So I think I'm going in with my eyes wide open.

    - A PhD is preferable to an MS because you are more likely to receive funding as a PhD, i.e. you won't be drowning in debt after grad school.
    This is true; MS programs can be obscenely expensive. But if you factor in the time difference, it's not so bad. (2 year masters)*(-$40K/year) + (4 years working)*($60K/year) > (6 year PhD)*($25K/year)


    - Earning a PhD is a 5 year investment.
    If you're lucky, good, and smart in your choice of model systems, it's possible. If your PI allows it, that is. Ask around and choose wisely.


    - A PhD will give me an edge in industry job applications.
    - PhD is required to advance into a higher position in industry.
    Yes, it does. Credential inflation is real. I thought I could get away with entering with a BS and working my way up; I saw no particular reason why I wanted to go to grad school when I could do the same kind of work in industry, only with better resources and twice the salary. I went to a startup, kicked butt, and got promoted to a mid-level RA position. Then the startup went out of business, and oh boy did reality set in. I couldn't get hired to save my life. Somebody gave it to me straight: "Look, you can clearly think for yourself. We can't hire you for a BS-level position. And we can't hire you for anything else, because you're a BS." The same thing happened to my former boss, who had his MS (and was the best scientist I've worked for, PhD or no).
    If you don't have a PhD, you'll be doing grunt work. That's how it is. If you stay a grunt, you'll be replaced by people who are cheaper than you are, either fresh grads or people overseas. Good luck getting hired after 40. If you move up, you'd better pray nothing happens to your company, because you won't be able to take the promotion with you. Most people move sideways, into sales, administration, and the like. You'll be competing with underemployed PhDs for those jobs, and will be at a disadvantage (if only because clients are unduly impressed with the PhD).


    - Even if my plans to enter industry fall through, I can always seek to become a college professor/researcher.
    LOL! Good luck with that. Grad students, especially the ones who go straight through, tend to get stuck on the idea of being a professor. They have no idea what it's like out in the real world, and imagine it as some horrible anti-intellectual wasteland (encouraged by their own professors, who they have not yet learned to question). Some people will take *anything* in order to stay in academics. This means that even the horrible jobs, in awful locations, with the dumbest students imaginable, are swamped with highly qualified applicants. It's not as bad as the poor suckers in humanities have it, but still.

    - It's difficult to re-enter academia once you're in industry, so I might as well earn my PhD while my connections with my undergrad profs are still fresh.
    Somewhat true. A few years won't hurt. More than that, and you might have a problem; you'll forget the coursework you don't use (most of it!), and your letters might not be as fresh as they could have been. Also, if you're working in industry, you might have a harder time accounting for yourself, with fewer publications and maybe some of your work under non-disclosure.

    How naive I was. What I've slowly uncovered since, by reading various forums on the internet and looking critically at what I *actually* see around me:

    - A 50% average attrition rate is not uncommon among PhD programs.
    - Only 70% of new PhDs will find employment after earning their degree, and 70% of those who find employment become post-docs, which pays approximately 35k, which is comparable to the salary of a start-up position in industry.
    - Requiring *7 YEARS* to complete a PhD is the new norm.
    Yes, this is all true. It's not the easiest path, nor is it frankly the most economically rational. Postdocs usually make more than 35K, but not much more.


    - The length of a post-doctorship is indeterminate, and there's still no guarantee that one will enter a tenure track after being a post-doc since the market for professorships is so grim.
    In biosciences, multiple postdocs are the norm. The academic window of opportunity seems to be 5-7 years post-PhD...before that, you don't have enough papers, and after that you've gone stale. The industry window is earlier. This means that you can go for academics, barely miss, and then you're done (and looking at a career change as a broke 40-year-old).

    - MS are actually *more* competitive than PhDs in entry-level industry positions, since a PhD is often seen as "ivory tower" and suggest to the employer than that one has myopic career interests.
    This can be true. It's hard to find a competent MS in some cases; they've all gone off to PhD. But you don't want the academic MS for that. They're looking for specialized technical skills (large-scale fermentation, biostatistics, etc).

    - While a PhD is required for higher industry positions, without several years of entry-level work experience, it does one no good.
    Yeah, you'll get hired at entry-level, even as a PhD. But you'll get promoted much faster.
  5. Upvote
    Eigen reacted to Trin in AWA: Computers don't know jack about wit   
    Wow, this whole thread makes me feel sort of awkward, especially the "the AW portion has nothing to do with reality" comments. I've spent much of the past twenty-five years doing various kinds of writing. I certainly do use the basic 5 paragraph essay structure with regularity in the real world; I use it for essays, for complex customer service responses, for documentation. I used the basic argument style to deal with crap at my children's schools when they were little, to provide information during a legal proceeding, and to respond effectively during a workers' comp dispute.

    To "prepare" for the GRE, I didn't use any prep software other than the crappy thing the GRE provided. I took the test once to see how it worked. I didn't bother to write a practice essay. I read over their scoring rubrics to get a sense of what they wanted. I took it once and got a 740V, 660Q, and 6.0 AW. The 660 is a little low for my standards, but I'm a humanities applicant, so it doesn't matter much, either. When people asked my how I did so well, I responded that I'm an adult, and I write like an adult -- I fit my writing style very precisely to what's asked of me. I didn't find the GRE AW especially tricky or arcane. There's a set of rubrics. You adhere to the rubrics, you get a good grade. Not all of my writing looks like GRE writing, but I can certainly write like that to spec. As for time limits, why yes, I've spent much of my life being expected to grind out writing in a short period of time. The big wide world is full of situations where you don't get multiple re-writes. Of course, that may not be true of grad school, but grad school isn't the entirety of life, either. :-)
  6. Upvote
    Eigen got a reaction from rsldonk in Contacting professors   
    Technically, the 70s was from 32-41 years ago. Gotta count the s in there

    I mean, so long as we're nitpicking
  7. Upvote
    Eigen reacted to lab ratta-tat-tat in Could this ruin my chances for gradschool?   
    And you want to get into graduate school?

    You mean to tell me in the year 2011 where everyone obsessively checks their emails and you check thegradcafe.com X times a day, that you didn't check your email? I do not believe you. There is some flawed logic present that makes me not believe you.

    Second, it is your responsibility to complete the assignment. So lets rewind- you told the professor you sent the assignment in, even though you know you actually did not? That is lying and foolish, it is the type of thing that wont get you far in graduate school.
  8. Upvote
    Eigen reacted to wtncffts in Could this ruin my chances for gradschool?   
    I really don't want to judge because I don't know you or your situation, but quite frankly, I smell the kind of bullshit that used to make me go ARGGGHHHHH when I was a TA. Did you knowingly lie when you said you submitted it? Why didn't you check your e-mail? Why didn't you get the assignment done in the first place? It's your responsibility, not the professor's.

    I understand sometimes not being able to get papers in right on time, but at this point, your paper should already be late enough as to be worth nothing. At least on the occasions in which I had to deal with late papers, there was some kind of reason or excuse. You say that "I want to tell him I honestly didn’t check my email and only figured that something was up when I checked my grade" but that really isn't the truth, since obviously you knew that you didn't submit the paper. The grade appeal process is supposed to be for circumstances in which there was actual emergency, error, or substantive disagreement about grades. Again, I'm sorry if I'm sounding too critical here, but this really irks me. I hate people trying to game the system.

    Edit: Ok, I didn't read your last post before posting my comments originally. It's laudable that you say you're going to discuss this with the prof honestly. I hope you get some resolution, though I still maintain what I say above.
  9. Upvote
    Eigen got a reaction from BadgerHopeful in Contacting professors   
    Technically, the 70s was from 32-41 years ago. Gotta count the s in there

    I mean, so long as we're nitpicking
  10. Downvote
    Eigen reacted to nepisodes in Frustrating!   
    Well, I think what you are experiencing is not as stressful as waiting for application results...

    But I hope you can get assigned soon.

    And which school are you in?
  11. Upvote
    Eigen reacted to cherubie in I got my AW score...I could cry.   
    Wow...you're kidding, right?
  12. Upvote
    Eigen got a reaction from Riotbeard in If you can give a starting Grad one piece of advice...   
    It's interesting, the programs I know are so not like this. There's almost no intra-departmental competition, and most of us were the "we had no wild days as undergrads" types... But we go out drinking with our bosses/colleagues/visiting lecturers more now than we have at any prior time.

    There's always gossip and intrapersonal tensions, but not competition... Our program, and even the other programs at our school are in the "we're all in it together, lean on each other to get through it" grouping... I don't know how you'd make it through grad school without a close network of peers for support. Who better understands the frustrations you're experiencing than those going through it with you?
  13. Upvote
    Eigen got a reaction from waddle in Usefulness of a car in grad school?   
    It also depends a lot on the school you're planning on attending, and the area around it- is it very walking/bike friendly? Good public transportation?

    I have a few friends that do 13-16 hour drives home for the holidays, and don't think it's too bad... All depends on your point of view.

    I find having a car very useful, even though I live in an area where I could bike/walk to everything I really "need". There are still a lot of places outside of that I want to go, and having a car gives you a lot more freedom than having to rely on public transportation schedules.

    Also consider, if you're living off campus, what times you'll be going home/to school... It's pretty regular for a lot of us here to be going/coming around midnight or later, and even though we're in a pretty good part of time that's not idea for walking/biking home alone. Much nicer to walk and bike during the day, and drive late night/early morning.

    I'll add.... I don't currently know any grad students in our department that don't have a car... Even most of the international students got a cheap one (or went in together on one) within 5-6 mos of being here.
  14. Upvote
    Eigen got a reaction from dant.gwyrdd in Is it corny for grad students to wear their grad university's paraphernalia?   
    http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1402

    Seems to apply here.

    I think it all depends on the grad student, but I wouldn't think it particularly corny.
  15. Upvote
    Eigen got a reaction from shepardn7 in Is it corny for grad students to wear their grad university's paraphernalia?   
    http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1402

    Seems to apply here.

    I think it all depends on the grad student, but I wouldn't think it particularly corny.
  16. Upvote
    Eigen got a reaction from repatriate in Does your advisor help you network with other academics or get your stuff published?   
    Your field would be a great help here. Otherwise, journal recommendations are going to be pretty hit-or-miss.
  17. Upvote
    Eigen got a reaction from aginath in Does your advisor help you network with other academics or get your stuff published?   
    Your field would be a great help here. Otherwise, journal recommendations are going to be pretty hit-or-miss.
  18. Upvote
    Eigen got a reaction from greysquirrel in If you can give a starting Grad one piece of advice...   
    It's interesting, the programs I know are so not like this. There's almost no intra-departmental competition, and most of us were the "we had no wild days as undergrads" types... But we go out drinking with our bosses/colleagues/visiting lecturers more now than we have at any prior time.

    There's always gossip and intrapersonal tensions, but not competition... Our program, and even the other programs at our school are in the "we're all in it together, lean on each other to get through it" grouping... I don't know how you'd make it through grad school without a close network of peers for support. Who better understands the frustrations you're experiencing than those going through it with you?
  19. Upvote
    Eigen reacted to StrangeLight in Instead of Graduate Program "Rankings"   
    i mentioned this in another thread, but thought it merited its own topic. a lot of people on thegradcafe seem to be pretty consumed with graduate program rankings. i think the prestige or national recognition of a given graduate program is important to our future career prospects, but i firmly believe that the US news and world rankings system (which is what most people are referring to when they mention "top 10 in my subfield") is deeply flawed. the rankings are built upon the opinions of other historians, but those historians are ranking all subfields and usually only have a real knowledge of the movers and shakers in their own subfields. as a result, the big name schools tend to make it into the top 10 by default because profs will just say, "penn's a great school, they must have a strong african history program."
    the US department of education hands out lots of funding to different schools and designates them as national resource centers for given geographical regions. schools have to apply for this designation and funding and they go up for review every 3 years, so the centers are usually located at the schools with the strongest area studies programs in whatever region for which they receive funding. the schools that become national resource centers are usually (but not always) the schools that receive title VI funding and the ability to grant FLAS fellowships to graduate students.
    so, while the NRC and FLAS designations are built around "area studies" programs and not necessarily "history" programs alone, i think they provide a pretty strong indication (at least stronger than the US news and world rankings) of which school is strong in which geographical focus.
    so, for the rankings obsessed, here is the funding situation for 2010-2013: (schools with slashes means they're in consortium, which means they're splitting the funding)
    africa: boston university, harvard, indiana, michigan state, ohio, UC berkeley, florida, kansas, UNC, penn/bryn mawr/haverford/swarthmore (undergrad only), wisconsin, yale.
    canada: maine/SUNY plattsburgh, washington/western washington.
    east asia: columbia, cornell, duke, georgetown, harvard, ohio state, stanford, UC berkeley, hawaii, illinois/indiana, kansas, michigan, oregon, southern california/UCLA, virginia, washington, wisconsin, yale (no FLAS), michigan state, colorado (no NRC), utah, penn.
    international: columbia, duke, indiana, michigan state, penn state (no FLAS), illinois, kansas (no NRC, undergrad only), minnesota, UNC, pittsburgh, wisconsin, washu.
    latin america: columbia/NYU, florida international/miami (no FLAS), indiana, ohio state, stanford, tulane, arizona, UCLA, UC berkeley, florida, illinois/chicago, kansas, michigan, new mexico, UNC/duke, pittsburgh, texas-austin (no NRC), wisconsin madison/wisconsin milwaukee, vanderbilt, yale (no FLAS).
    middle east: arizona (undergrad only), UC berkeley, columbia, george washington (no FLAS), georgetown, harvard, indiana (middle east), NYU, ohio state (undergrad only), princeton, UCLA, chicago, michigan, UNC/duke, penn, texas-austin, washington, yale, indiana (islamic studies, no NRC), portland state.
    russia/eastern europe/eurasia: columbia (no NRC), duke/UNC (undergrad only for duke), georgetown, harvard, indiana (inner asian and uralic), indiana (russia and east european), ohio state, stanford, UC berkeley, chicago, illinois, kansas, michigan, pittsburgh, washington, wisconsin.
    south asia: columbia, cornell/syracuse, UC berkeley, chicago, michigan, penn, texas-austin, wisconsin, washington.
    southeast asia: cornell, northern illinois, UC berkeley/UCLA, hawaii (pacific islands, no FLAS), hawaii (southeast asia), michigan, wisconsin, washington.
    western europe/europe: cornell (no NRC), UC berkeley (no FLAS), UCLA, forida, illinois, minnesota, UNC, texas, washu, wisconsin, yale.
  20. Upvote
    Eigen reacted to Count de Monet in Is it possible that professors might mention bad things in a rec?   
    Is it really so bad if a professor mentions something negative in their LOR? I mean, let's say your undergrad adviser has taught you in a couple of classes and is writing your letter. He/she, however, knows that you are shy and don't speak up as much as you should in class. Your adviser knows that in grad school classes are small and seminar style courses which require students to engage and discuss with each other and the professors. He/she mentions this in the letter as something that is a weakness for you.

    Does this admission by your adviser help or hurt you? By acknowledging your weakness, I would argue that it helps you because now not only is the committee reviewing your application able to trust this letter as fully honest (I mean, come on, how many times have they gotten letters claiming the applicant is God-like and perfect? Believable...hardly!), but they can fairly evaluate you and see whether or not you and your personality will be a fit for the school you have applied to.
  21. Upvote
    Eigen reacted to rising_star in How intense is grad school?   
    I know lots of people that say they work 70-80 hours per week and can't think of anyone that actually does. I can't write during typical business hours, so I reserve writing for late at night (10pm-2am). I do put in a few hours of work during the day as well. I don't typically do lots of work on the weekends, particularly not in the fall. This has worked well for me, though I'm planing to tweak it this coming semester. Graduate school can consume all of your time if you let it. I personally refuse to let that happen.
  22. Upvote
    Eigen reacted to Roll Right in GRE topics across disciplines   
    I don't think its because of sociology's reputation for easiness. Why would we see history, poli sci, etc scoring much higher then? These are all majors that are considered "easier" than non-liberal arts majors. I think this understanding of easiness is just a stereotype. I think those who are studying sociology because of it's "simplicity" are not likely to pursue a graduate degree as well.

    I'm surprised to see that sociologists do better in the quant section. I didn't realize undergraduates were getting a lot of quantitative experience in their BA sociology studies. I expected higher schools in the analytical writing and verbal sections.

    Sociology is not pursued by a large number of students....could our small pool of applicants have something to do with it? Most people outside of sociology don't even know what it is.
  23. Upvote
    Eigen reacted to suspechosa in Do you work while in grad school?   
    The best advice I ever received and did not take: DO NOT GO TO GRAD SCHOOL UNFUNDED!!!

    I just finished my first semester unfunded and it is the worst. The work is demanding and thankless and it sucks to put your heart and soul into it all and not have a dime coming in for all of your efforts. It sucks having to choose between eating or heating your place.

    It's just not worth it. Try again next year, apply for more grants and such but it's just not worth it. I thought i wanted this more than anything and I didn't care what it took to get here and here I am miserable I did not accept good advice 6 months ago.
  24. Upvote
    Eigen reacted to Ishtmus in AWA: Computers don't know jack about wit   
    Frankly, I think the reasons people are troubled by the AW section are different from those they cite. Let's look at some common criticisms:

    1) "The AW section does not test any real-world skills! How often in your academic life will you need to write a 5-paragraph essay in 30 minutes? Never!"

    This is equally valid for more or less any standardized test. How often in your academic life are you called upon to complete an analogy "upbraid : reproach :: ? : ?" picking from 5 different alternatives, without the help of a dictionary? Certainly you must agree that, prima facie, the "write an essay in 30 minutes" is more connected with skills you will actually have to use in academic life than completing analogies. And yet, people do not complain nearly as much about the verbal section.

    2) OMG, I got 800 on the verbal test, but only 3.5 on the AWA, the AWA must be bonkers!

    a) It seldom crosses people's minds that it could be that the verbal section is bonkers.

    b ) More seriously, really, AW and verbal sections are meant to test two very different skills. There is really nothing that says that a person with a good vocabulary and reading comprehension must be a good writer. It's kind of like saying "OMG, I got 800+++ on verbal, but only 320 on quantitative, the quantitative section is obviously rubbish", but nobody does that, do they? And while I agree that you should expect a higher correlation between verbal section and AW section than between quantitative and verbal sections, say, that correlation certainly is not high enough to make "800V, 3.5AW" statistically unexpected.

    3) "The SOP and writing samples are much better judges of writing capacity anyway, so AW is positively useless."

    This is true to some extent, were it not for a fact that it is way too easy to have someone else heavily edit your SOP and writing samples, or indeed write it for you completely. The AWA does not suffer from that. And I this a glowing SOP and writing sample combined with a low AW score will raise some eyebrows, as it should.

    4) "The type of writing required on the AW is nothing near anything you'll ever need to write in real life. They just require a long, dry 5-paragraph essay, with lots of stock transitional phrases. Nothing like the style of a good writer."

    a) I'd like to see some hard data on this. It seems to me that this is the kind of myths that companies like Princeton Review perpetrate for their own benefit ("There is a secret formula that guarantees a 6 on the AWA, go to our classes/buy our books to find out!")

    b ) As people have pointed out, good writers should be able to adapt their style depending on the circumstances.

    5) "But how can people adapt, if ETS does not publish what criteria they use to assess the essays?"

    a) See a) above. Also, if ETS have never said anything about what they want, how come there is such a strong consensus on these boards and others about the type of essays that will earn a high score?

    b ) Admissions committees seldom publish what they want to see in the SOP. And yet nobody complains. Commercial publishing houses rarely make explicit what kind of texts they want. And nobody complains. People just seem to be able to figure out anyway, just like they do with the AWA.

    6) "Not to brag, but I'm a truly great writer, and yet I got a low AW score. The AW section is just crap.

    a) See 4b)

    b ) I think that more often than not, people are bad judges of their own writing abilities.

    c) Even if there is anecdotal evidence of great writers who don't get high scores, this is statistically expected for any imperfect test, just like there could be great mathematicians who receive a bad score of the quantitative section. Anecdotal evidence like that does not prove that the whole test is invalid, only that it does not have 100% validity.

    7) The test is scored by a e-rater. Computers don't know jack all about wit.

    I agree that this does hold some merit. But

    a) See 4b).

    b ) There is still a human grader too. If you get a low score on an essay, at least one human grader has assigned it a grade within 0.5 of what you received.


    So, going out on a limb here, I think the real reason people complain so much about the AW section is because it is subjectively black-box scored. This makes it very easy to start rationalizing away low AW scores by declaring the whole process to be invalid. Which we all do, because of our human nature. The reason that we don't see as many posts similarly complaining about the other sections is that the scoring is much more transparent, which makes it harder to come up with those rationalizations.

    But what many people forget, in my opinion, is that there are two parts to whether or not a test measures what it claims to measure: validity of the test quations, and validity of the scoring. I think that, compared to the other two parts of the GRE, the task the AW section sets us is in fact closest to anything we will need to tackle in real life. The scoring on the other hand, might or might not be completely rubbish, but I do not see hard data either way.
  25. Upvote
    Eigen reacted to DrFaustus666 in AWA: Computers don't know jack about wit   
    I studied classical music at a medium music school for years, played chamber music and in parttime professional orchestras, but am very much a dilletante when it comes to jazz. But I ABSOLUTELY AGREE with you that human eyes OUGHT to grace the AW write-ups. Also I'm 100% with you on the romantic notions of perception.

    And I knew you were messing with me, and I was messing with you back. If I thought I'd get a minus point from somebody, no idea from whom, for encouraging encouragement and discouraging discouragement I wouldn't have posted at all.
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