happy little pill

I'm a current York PhD student. Feel free to PM me if you'd like. Assuming they're following the same timeline as last year, you're about T-10 days from hearing a response.

I'm seriously wondering if I made a mistake in picking my institution. I ADORE my advisor and they are helpful on so many levels but the institution itself has shown me no support. I was promised things by the old GPD, but the new GPD is... frankly, useless. This has resulted in me never feeling like I have answers to questions - some things aren't in the range of things that my advisor can/should be required to answer - and every time I have a question, I get passed around like a hot potato of "go to grad studies, go to your department, no go to grad studies, no go to your department." The institution that I am at offered me a better funding package and my advisor was the main draw, but I'm honestly wondering if I shouldn't have just gone with the "lesser" school - not by much tbh - that was actually excited to have me and even when I sent them a decline of my offer called me twice to try to get me to reconsider because they really believed in my project and thought that I'd bring a lot to their department just like they could add to my development. I know that every institution obviously has problems, but I'm having serious buyer's remorse right now and I'm a little lost as to what to do.

Read as much as you can as early as you can. Also, write out in Word any quotes that you think will be important and write "around" the quotes. Make sure to take notes about why you thought that those particular passages were important. I cannot emphasize how much time you waste when you're in the thick of things (my draft is due in five days) and you haven't done that kind of prep work. I am kicking myself now because I would be much more productive if I had a running quote document.

I have a shopping problem so what I've started doing is waiting 48 hours before making any purchases that are non-essentials (ie: food, transit pass) and if I feel like I still need it, then I will go out and buy it. This has cut my spending at least in half. Also thrift, thrift, thrift. The number of blazers that I have gotten for cheap is disgusting - if you have a kilo store this works really well. I also wash a lot of my clothes by hand (we don't pay for water). I let stuff soak in the sink, I use the tub, I hang stuff on a clothes line. I only do laundry in my building's machine when I absolutely have no choice. It costs me $5.00 per wash & dry so it adds up quickly. If I'm going out, I try to restrict my drinking to happy hour and I always make sure to top up my drink like five minutes before happy hour ends and nurse it slowly so that when the second wave of friends inevitably come by, I am still "partaking in the fun" without spending unnecessarily. I also bookshare with a lot of my friends. Need Foucault? Great well I have the Missumi that you want so let's trade. This avoids the embarrassing amount of library fines that I used to accumulate as an undergrad for basic things like philosophy books which I just wouldn't return even when they'd be recalled because I needed them for a paper. My friends and I have a google doc with a list of all the books that we own and when we "check one out" we just write our name into the doc and that way we know who has it, etc. Stopped my magazine subscriptions - I don't have time to read them anyways so they were just sitting there collecting dust.

Just in case anyone's interested, here's the committees for SSHRC. From what I saw in the SSHRC Doctoral thread this year it seemed like each of these had a specific amount of money and whether you were successful or not had to do with where you placed in that specific category. As for the original question: I didn't apply based on stipends but it definitely made a difference in my decision making process. I was accepted to a public university with no guaranteed funding beyond the first year but I really liked my POI and we got along really well and she's sent me some freelance work since, so we have a lovely relationship and I'm sure we'll collaborate on something in the future. The school that I'm going to offered me an incredibly generous package and sent me forth for further scholarships (which I received), and so that definitely did play on my mind, but it wasn't the only thing that I considered. Ultimately, a) the field the proximity of being in Toronto to some of the key non-academic players in said field (and the ability to work with them to fix real problems in their system) and c) knowing that the school I was going to would be able to provide me with resources to actually affect change in the communities that I'll be working with were the things that made up my mind (my POI is the PI on a SSHRC partnership grant that I think has four years left to go). Re: Toronto. As someone who was active in the Printemps Érable during 2012, I was so happy to see students both at U of T and York fighting for the right to live above the poverty line and make sure that international students were not hindered from receiving the same opportunities as domestic students. I am a big believer in the power of collective action and from what a friend at York told me, there was such positivity and good will on the front lines. I have to say, seeing undergrads rally around their TAs also made my heart swell a little bit.

I looked at the staff page at UCL because I don't know much about that program and there are people studying a plethora of periods, countries, etc. I mean there are people doing the Renaissance all the way up to the contemporary period. Just because you're doing specific coursework modules doesn't mean that you'll never interact with those people. As someone who has two art history degrees now and is going to a PhD, I will just say that I didn't do a methods class in either degree and I'm doing just fine - Art History is a bit of a mixed bag and as long as you have some of the important names for your period/country/area of specialization then you're fine. Something I'd look at is the ranking of the program. I noticed right away that UCL has a mix of 3's and 4's in its educational analysis and you really want to be aiming for a school with all 4's. As St. Andrew's is a top five school, I'm guessing that it got all 4's. Not only is this crucial for you in having the best educational experience all around, but this is the type of thing that can make a difference between two candidates if it's down to the wire.

I don't have one particular TV show, but this is my watch list: Veep, Silicon Valley, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Chopped, New Girl, HTGAWM, OITNB. I'm behind but I'm also enjoying Jane the Virgin. I firmly believe that everybody is entitled to liking one CW show without judgment.

The course that I'm TAing in the fall has a Twitter component to it, so it's going to be mandatory for all TAs to have an account and for my students to follow me and @reply me as they live-tweet the art fair that they're attending in order to get points. It's kind of annoying that a platform I use for my own personal enjoyment/as a way of communicating quickly with my friends who are on other continents when we can't skype is going to get co-opted for grading purposes. I think that following professors on Twitter is okay though - most of them seem to use it for academic purposes anyways. FB is where I cross the line. I waited for my supervisor and department chair to add me, which is how I knew it was professionally okay to be FB friends with them. I still, however, have them in their own separate group and they can only see about 30% of everything I post on Facebook.

Hi all, I'm in a very "world's smallest violin" kind of situation but I was hoping to get advice nonetheless. My school allows for a maximum of 40K of support per year between scholarships, TA/RA/GA work, etc. - I should probably mention that I'm in Canada since PhDs are shorter here, I think, than in the US (typically 4 yrs). I won the top award at the university, which totals 30K per year of support for four years. I wasn't expecting to also win SSHRC (category B, 20k per year times four years). I cannot defer the start date on either award. Obviously this totals 50k of support per year, more than the allotted 40k. I e-mailed my GPD to ask how it works and she said that I would have to decline SSHRC since 30k plus a half year TAship comes out to 40K. When I e-mailed the woman who actually deals with awards, she said it's up to me what to do. My dilemma is this: I don't know whether it's better to accept SSHRC knowing it will dock 10k from my other scholarship and prevent me from TAing at my institution, or whether to decline SSHRC and take a TA job. I eventually want to teach in an institution (surprise surprise), so I'm worried that if I don't TA for the next two years until I reach ABD status, it will make sessional teaching jobs at other institutions more difficult - I don't have the opportunity to teach classes as a PhD student at my own institution so I have to automatically look elsewhere. I have two years of TA experience at my current institution, but it's been solely marking papers, no tutorial leading whereas in my future institution you absolutely get to lead a tutorial session. I don't, however, have a guarantee of TAing every single year because the written guarantee of TA/RAship was nullified by this larger award and the GPD made it clear that students in our program usually TA for other departments in other years but that it's kind of up to us to facilitate finding those TAships. This uncertainty worries me. At the same time, SSHRC is such a make-it-or-break it career award that I'm hesitant to turn it down. I know that I can put declined on my CV and probably explain it, but I'm paranoid about how that is going to look at other institutions who are just glancing at my CV and may not know me personally. Thanks in advance - like I said, this is a world's smallest violin situation but I appreciate any input!

Art History & Visual Culture!

Successful! Category B, first round. Could not be happier!

For the OP: all of the programs in Canada have their deadlines around January 15th so I don't think that that would work. They also tend not to fund international students at the MA level so you'd be required to foot the bill for most of your schooling.

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