Cheshire_Cat

0_0 Wow! That is scary! Glad you are ok. I hate idiot drivers.

This is me. And I am really restless so that even when I had a 9-5 job, if I didn't have something to accomplish after work (such as passing my CPA or GMAT), I would get sad. My dad is the same way. He gets grumpy during breaks, and being grumpy is very unusual for him. The best thing for me is to set goals and always have something going on. That doesn't mean I don't take a break and binge on Netflix sometimes, just that I always have something in the back of my mind and that I need to be doing. It sounds stressful, but for me it is actually comforting. And the nice thing about Academia is that there is always another paper to publish.

Me too. I have so many artistic hobbies, and most of them have slipped either because of time, or because theymake my tendinitis worse.

I'm pretty sympathetic towards people who have a hard time with math, but wow...

Thanks! I'm just frustrated with myself because I defriended him on fb, but then he acted all nice, so I forgave him, stopped actively avoiding him, was cordial to him, only to have it start up again. He can be a fun, charismatic guy, so it is easy to do. I should have known better. But I shouldn’t have to actively avoid someone so they won't pick on me, especially if we share the same friends. It's stupid. I read about stuff like this and wonder how it happens, and now I know. And my friends who know him are like "It's not bad, he's just a little immature. " or "he just likes to get a rise, ignore him." which is fine, except that they don't understand how much he does this. It's like I can't get away except by completely changing friend/hobby groups, or walking away any time he comes close. So I chose the former, (but not only because of that, most of the cool people already left.) So I really hope this is the end. I blocked him on Facebook, and he doesn't know the new group I joined. He can still call or text, but if he does, I can block him there too. If he does anything more drastic, I'll get my dad or brothers to take care of it.

Yeah, he's very short, so I guess little man syndrome is apropo. I am hoping that if I just don’t have contact with him except on very rare occasions, that he will stop, but if he doesn't, then we will have a big problem. Harassment may be a little strong of a word. He's just trying to alienate me from my friends and says really mean things to and about me all the time, interjects imself into conversations I am having with others in order to insult me, ect. Oh, and he he hangs out with my bff, and then acts completely surprised that I would show up. (Of course, that means I am following him around, lol) I am pretty sure the police won't be necessary . (Then again, I never thought in a million years thought he would do this) I guess he won the alienation game though, since I am kind of leaving the group. But my bff is coming with me, so that is all that matters. He's just a scheming SOB who thinks everyone else is just like him.

So long story short, this guy I used to date keeps harassing me, and when I confront him and tell him to quit, he says he's doing it because he wants to send a signal that he isn't interested in me. We are in the same friend group, so I tried to tell him nicely several times that I was not interested in him, but he keeps insisting that I am. I've heard stories of how men don't take the hint, but this one... I am at a loss. I am sure that he believes that I still like him. But why, I don't have a clue. Seriously. This is the most surreal thing I have ever experienced. Luckily this friend group is dwindling, so maybe I can avoid him now.

I am about as not-first generation as it gets, and I have problems with speaking up in seminars. My dad has his Ph.D, my grandfather was a doctor, my great-grandmother had multiple masters degrees, and my great grandfather was the chancolor of a university system. My dad is my best friend, so we talk a lot. I have been around professors all my life. I had problems not understanding the way the world works off of campus because until I was 22, life revolved around the university. And yet, somehow, in seminars and workshops, I oftentimes find myself intimidated, shy, and tounge tied when I try to speak up. Go figure. All of that to say, you may feel like it is a first generation problem, and those of us who have been around academia are better at it, but sometimes we are not. I am a stuttering mess, haha! Now, there have been other situations where I have had to deal with my stuttering mess of a brain, so here is what I have learned. Set a goal to speak up a certain number of times and prepare what you want to say before class. Maybe at first you will have the goal to speak up only once, but then you can increase it. It helps with the pressure. You know that you only have to say one thing, but then you can just listen. After a while, it won't feel as forced and you will get better at it. The eventual goal is to not have to plan ahead what you want to say, but at first, planning may help you to organize your thoughts better.

Done! Handed in my last assignment tonight. Let's hope all of my grades are good. In my regression class I had a train wreck of a group project, but the professor says he doesn't give Ph.D students bad grades... Still, it was pretty bad. So I may be the first, haha! But, I think my seminar research proposal turned out better than I thought it would. Overall, it has been challenging, but mostly challenging in a good way. I am excited that this is my life, haha! Maybe because I have the train wreck of a job to look back at and compare with, but it hasn't been as stressful as I thought it would be.

I have three papers due this week. I've finally started on all three. Unfortunately, I've only finished one. Also, the one I finished is only 9 pages long. The limit is 10, but I feel like a slacker not getting it right up to the limit. My brain is so tired of writing!! When I was in my undergrad and masters, I had maybe one paper the entire time which was longer than five pages. Now I have three 10 page term papers due the same week. I don't know how to handle it.

Just applying to grad school is expensive. With the application fees and GMAT, I was probably out $500, and I'm a US citizen who only applied to 3 schools. You need to find someone you personally know to help you through the process.

I’m definitely not a first generation student, but I'm shy, so I struggle with this as well. There have been several workshops where I have had a comment, but I was getting up my courage to speak when someone else brought up what I wanted to say. It's frustrating, haha!

My bff started school at around 16 and graduated at 20. She then decided to get a master's degree. I graduated at 21. The nice thing about graduating young is that you can take a couple more years to figure things out if you need to. At 20 and 21, we both decided to get advanced degrees, and both of us ended up in the classroom teaching freshmen while we were getting them. So, if you just want to avoid students eating you alive- good luck! Continuing my education was right for me. I needed to grow up some more, and having an extra year helped. But it isn’t right for everyone. Don't do it because your dad wants you to. You have to be self motivated or else you will be misrable. You can do anything you put your mind to. But you have to choose and the choice can't just be to please the people you love, it has to be because you have an inner desire to continue.

My dad is a Ph.D, and research active in business, but not my field. His parents weren't educated, but both of his brothers have advanced degrees, and all my cousins on that side have at least a bachlors degree. My grandfather on the other side was an MD, and I think his mother was very well educated as well. Needless to say, college wasn't an if, but a when. I have been very privileged to have everyone in my life appreciate academics. But it is still it's own experience. I decided to work for a few years just so that I knew I wanted to be an academic, and that it wasn't just my dad wanting me to be one. The job search was actually kind of hard. My dad has had tenure for over 15 years, and my mom has never worked outside the home. My other close adult friends were either academics or entrpenures. So everyone in my life was kind of clueless about the job search process. It ended well, and I'm not complaining, but I did have to figure it out myself. I'd say overall, having a dad in academia does help. I can bounce research ideas off of him and he has a good ear for an interesting study. But it will not make or break you. My dad can't write my papers, or force me to study for statistics. The main help he provides is just being a positive voice in my life. Sometimes he believes in me more than I believe in myself. (He is convinced that I should be able to complete my degree in three years. Hahaha!) But I think that is something that any parent can provide for their children, and if they don't, find someone who will.

Ok, confession time: I am a certified professional accountant and I just filed an extension on my taxes. I HATE taxes!! Also, too much to do! There is a little bit about my healthcare savings account that I have to sort out. I'm a CPA, I should be able to figure it out in six months...

My state used to pay for 100% of tuition if you maintained a 3.0 GPA average, but budget cuts, so now it is not quite that. When they started offering it, our schools grew dramatically, and the quality of the schools increased as well, because the top students we not going out of state to better quality schools. However, to get around the tuition being held low by the government, the fees were inflated. Also, my dad is a professor, and he says that they have started to get pressure to pass people. I think this is a very good discussion about this issue. I don’t think the general populace understands that if free education is provided, it won't be for everyone. But, hat brings us to another problem, if state schools provide free education to the deserving, will unscrupulous schools prey on the students who just want a degree? I think they will, and thus we will still have a problem with student debt and such. And, even without tuition and fees, living expenses for four years can still add up to a good chunk of change that may still be unaffordable to some. I think, getting back to the original discussion, that grad school is not a neccesity or a luxury, but rather a privelege given to few in order to benifit the many. (Hopefully)

@shadowclaw I think that schools will expand if they are given the opportunity to do so by free education. Unless the number of students was capped, they would just keep expanding. And, since the government is paying for it, they won't want to pay for students who fail out, so there will be pressure on faculty to pass people who don't deserve it. Maybe money shouldn’t be the determinate of who gets a college degree, but I don’t think it is for everyone and making it free has so many unintended consequences. @NoirFemme On the other hand... http://fortune.com/2015/12/02/presidential-candidates-promising-affordable-college-tuition/?xid=simplereach&sr_source=lift_facebook "In a 2014 study, two economists affiliated with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that since 1990 at least 30% of all workers (aged 22 to 65) with college degrees have been consistently employed in jobs that do not require a college degree for the required tasks, even 10 years after graduation."

Economically, an education is worth more to society than it is to the individual, which is why it is subsidized. Personally, I am a big fan of programs that pay for education, as long as the students are held to a GPA standard and scholastic rigor is not deminished. (AKA no grade inflation ) However, instead of paying for *everyone* to go to post-secondary school, we should improve the quality of a K-12 education. Currently our workforce is overeducated, but lack the real world skills to be productive members of society. People are having to spend more time in school for ever diminishing returns for doing so. I do think that some undergrad degrees should be considered a luxury instead of a necessity. I think that people should consider their economic future before they get to self actualize in some philosophy program somewhere. (The real problem with Bernie is that his plan increases the supply of college educated students, while placing hiring pressures on the employers (in the form of mandatory healthcare provision), which reduces the demand for said students. I wouldnt mind paying for it if I thought it would help, but it is a recipe for disaster. Also, I personally am a fan of universal healthcare, but that we should remove the burden from companies and have the government itself provide the healthcare coverage.)

Being denied a privilege is not the same as being punished. The first amendment speaks to punishing someone for their speech. So i don’t think it applies here. That being said, there are schools or programs that are biased. Research has shown that. If you are in a program where your religious background may change something, then I suppose it is fair game. Anything in your SOP is probably fair game as well. Interviews are generally done to see how well you can express yourself and communicate in person, so getting flustered probably didn't help matters. But the truth is, if a school really is so biased and antagonistic towards whatever you said that they were petty enough to deny your application for it, do you really want to learn from these people? Is it really a program you want to be a part of?

The nice thing about an MBA is that it is very broad, so it is less likely that you will be cornered into a disagreeable career. But I agree with the poster who said that you may want to get some work experience first. Unless you are an accounting major, then you need at least 150 hours for your CPA and you want to get that asap. There are two types of MBAs, from what I can tell. The type you will generally get at a balanced school is traditionally a degree for non-business undergrads to teach them business. If you have a business degree, this really doesnt add much to your knowledge. It is basically your junior yeal all over again and gives you a basic overview of finance, accounting, econmics, ect. Then there are executive MBA programs for business leaders, which are deeper and more useful for those with business undergrads, but they usually require 3+ years of experience.

I don’t think most people know enough about both topics to give you an answer. Ask your IS professors, they may be able to give you a few ideas. In accounting, get a CPA first and foremost, and make sure you are very competent in Excel. Other than that, what you need is context specific.

My regression class is driving me nuts. I have to learn the programming language and the regression concepts at the same time, and I'm not doing well at that. I'm usually good at programming languages, but we are using SAS and their "help" is bad and confusing. And I can listen and try to pay attention to my professor, and still not get it because I have a hard time with his accent and these other people keep asking stupid questions that throw me off. I get the concepts when I read them and when I listen to a different professor talk about them, but I can't do the SAS programming well enough to do anything. I am having a really hard time making the leap from the concept to what I'm supposed to be doing in SAS. And he just points to the SAS help website, which is no help at all. I want to do my best at everything, but I feel like I'm just wasting my time here. And I feel stupid that everyone is getting it except for me. I want to quit this class. From what my classmates have told me, I'm doing better in our theory development class than them, but this regression class sucks.

Accounting, finance, risk management... Anything that uses economics as a base, really. So look at various business programs. My GMAT math score was a lot lower than yours and I got into a decent accounting program. Plus, the pay is better. But a lot of programs require a master's degree. So if anything, I'd go for a statistics masters at a decent school and then try for a Ph.D.

Well, I walk past homeless people every day on my way to school, so that is a reality check. Academia really is a socialist utopia. (Unfortunately funded by rising student debt) I didn't realize how many resources were at my disposal until I went back to school. But public transit, bad coffee, and the occasional armed robberies that occur on our campus sure bring me back to the real world. OTOH, the other day an aquaintence randomly gave me money to treat myself to dinner, and I was shopping at Walmart yesterday and a nice older lady helped me with my groceries, and today there was a cute kid and her dad eating lunch at the table beside me, and it was adorable. These things remind me that sometimes reality isn’t that bad.

Omg, I know! My office staff is wonderful, but there are some many people who act like that. I mean, we do it too, occasionally complaining about students or professors and stuff, but the Internet has made an art out of it. Some people even seem like they think they are being righteous by complaining about actually having to do their job, especially in the service industry. What a world we live in.