eikko

Sure they have no magical powers, but they do tend to improve wages, granted more for low-wage workers than for higher-wage workers. I don't know where you work; I was thinking of the grad student strikes in 2005 at Yale, Columbia and NYU: "Those [university employees] who are not unionized include laboratory research technicians, officers of administration (who hold supervisory and managerial positions), IT workers, adjunct faculty, and graduate student teachers and research assistants." (from the Columbia newspaper) Anyway I suppose it varies from institution to institution. Maybe a public/private split?

I check my email constantly (when I get up, when I get to work, after the first cup of coffee, before the second cup of coffee, and so on). And I check the results search almost as often. It was all I could do to work on the non-internet-connected computers in the secure computer lab today for like an hour (no internet because of privacy concerns about register data). Anyway... every time I get an email, even in my spam box, my heart starts racing. This is sick. All that coffee probably isn't helping...

It is, yeah. I have a recommendation for people who need to take their minds off of waiting: the Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson (Girl with the dragon tattoo, Girl who played with fire, Girl who kicked the hornets nest). I am not usually into crime/detective novels, but these are awesome. I can't vouch for the English translation, but my dad and brother thought they were good. The author was a big anti-fascist feminist. Too bad he died before the books got published.

Just found out my undergrad school has a research center in exactly what I want to study... gah! How could I have missed that when I was looking for schools??? But maybe it's better not to go back to the same place again anyway-- I'm looking forward to a new environment.

I basically wouldn't bother checking the website status, unless there's info specifically directing you to look for your reply there. They will email, call, or send you mail. Good luck!

Nu vill jag sjunga dig milda sånger (Let me sing you gentle songs), Linda Olsson. Gotta keep practicing Swedish! Maybe I will read some JD Salinger next, in memoriam.

I moved to Sweden because my girlfriend is Swedish, so I debated how to put that in my statements. Eventually I think I went with "my partner" from Sweden, because fiancée and girlfriend both seemed wrong. I really dislike 'partner' though-- it has such a middle-aged tone to it. In Swedish there's a very useful term that is gender-neutral and means 'partner you live with'. It's called sambo, short for sammanboende (roughly: samman = together, boende = home). It's convenient because you don't have to decide whether to out yourself or not. But there's no need to be in the closet around here, anyway. ... plus I'd have to propose in order for her to be my fiance... not to mention the complications/impossibility of being a gay, bi-national married couple in the US.

I don't know about France, but this doesn't apply to all of Europe-- definitely not the university I go to in Sweden! Very few people go straight from high school graduation (18/19) into a university program. The people in my MA program, 2nd year, are 25-30, and several (most?) PhD students are in their 30s. I'm sure it varies by department, university, and so on. Anyway I will be 25 next fall, when I might start a PhD!

This is a tricky question for me. I'll be 25 when I start, if I get into a PhD program with some funding for fall '10. I'd like to have kids when I'm 29 or 30ish, just because it seems like a nice age to become a parent. Also, I'd like to have 3 kids, ideally, so if I'm not gonna be too old when I (or my girlfriend, yup I'm gay) have the kids. Right now I'm doing an MA at a Swedish university, where the doctoral students are considered employees. They get parental leave up to 16 months, to be shared between the parents (at least 2 months must be taken by the dad/other parent). I don't really have much of an idea of how this works for PhD students in the US-- is there any sort of leave allowed? Or do people just continue studying after the baby is born? I assume if you take leave, you don't get any sort of paid leave as you do in Sweden. It would be helpful to hear from someone who has gone through this!

yep, i'm with waylance. i have also gotten a master's degree in sweden for free (yes, of course i pay taxes, not high ones since i don't make much as a research assistant.) the doctoral students in my department make $33k per year to start. it's a good salary, the same as a first-year middle school teacher. it makes the american ta/ra funding deal look pretty bad, which is why they should unionize.

Yep, don't worry too much about it. Just say you liked meeting the prof and hope to be in touch about research in the future. You don't really owe him a reason for not applying, just let him know.