scarvesandcardigans

Gosh, it sounds like you have quite a lot on your plate come fall! Best of luck!
 
I think that one thing that really helped me was - in addition to having a well-organized schedule - making to-do lists for each day and week. On Sundays, I sit down and write out EVERYTHING that I will be doing in the next week. This includes events outside of my normal schedule, assignments that are due, chapter readings, goals for research papers, etc. I would divide it out by each course or topic, but at the end it was usually a very long list, because then I'd come up with something else like a small grocery list, or just little things that would slip my mind that were important to remember. Looking at this list made me very aware of the culmination of work that I had to do, and the well-kept schedule made me aware of how much time I actually had to accomplish those things. Plus, crossing off things on your list makes you feel pretty good! Doing this really made me feel like I had my life together, and my productivity increased so much.
 
Also, don't forget to take time for yourself and friends/family. Your life may be planned out hour by hour, but you need to sit back and take a breath sometimes and just enjoy your "own time," or free time, should you have it!  Keep up with a leisurely activity that you have always enjoyed, like knitting or casual reading, for example. When you have finished things that you have to do, and you have some leftover time, they are great rewards.
 
Currently, my mental preparation routine in the morning is to wake up, take a shower, make myself some coffee, then make the bed, and get breakfast/lunch ready for the day. It gives me a jumpstart to feeling organized and productive. Picking out your clothes in the evening will save you minutes in the morning, too. Also setting aside workout clothes and keeping a set readily available in your car/office will give you more of a reason to find time to exercise.
 
When I get home in the evenings, I actually have been working on jigsaw puzzles as an "unwind" activity. It keeps my mind going, but it feels really relaxing. I also try to do all of my evening work outside of my bedroom/off of my bed because that is a reserved space where I want to feel relaxed and happy.
 
I feel like a lot of what I'm saying is scheduling/motivational tips, but it's the little things that keep you going, and your momentum! Know how YOU "recharge," as in what makes you feel rejuvenated and ready to face challenges. Allow yourself time for that. Know when you are most productive and make sure that those hours are when you are doing your most important work. Also know that if you are ever feeling overwhelmed you can talk about it to your advisors, fellow students, friends, etc. 

I am so sorry this happened! At least the program director from the first school understands your situation and is still keeping an eye out for you. One of the oddest pieces of advice that I received was to follow the money, which was so odd considering everyone told me for undergrad to "go where I wanted" and that "money was not a factor." Money does suck, no doubt about it. I hope good things happen for you at the second school as well!
 
At least you have a very good chance of keeping connected to that first school - so maybe in the future something good will come of those connections! 

Third.
 
The assumption that the predominantly African-American parts of any town or city are, by default, the Bad Part Of Town. 
 
 
The seemingly automatic inclination to default to chain restaurants rather than supporting local businesses (unless, of course, I want my coffee and people are dithering and asking for frappucinos). 
 
Assumptions that non-standard English implies lack of intelligence. 

Following up on an idea from another recent thread, I am curious to know more about everyone's "30-second" pitch. What is it that you do, condensed down to 2-3 sentences, delivered in ~30 seconds? This would be what you might tell a Dean at a job interview or your friends with non-academic jobs at a party. I'm sure there is a lot of interesting research being done by the members of this board! Mine: 
 
I study how our language faculty is organized, and more specifically how the structure of sentences we say maps onto their meaning. I work under the very general assumption that some characteristics of Language are shared across all languages while some other aspects need to be acquired when we are children, and I am interested in those parts that are shared: What is the underlying system that allows children to acquire their native language so quickly and efficiently, in a way that adults studying a language later in life very rarely do? 

I love this.
 
For my first acceptance, I had just sat down at work. I opened my email on my phone and saw that I had received a decision from my second-choice school (the one I am now attending). I opened the decision letter on my work laptop and just kind of sat and stared at it for a couple of minutes. I had only read "pleased to notify," which was in the first line. I didn't bother reading anything else. Then, I got up and walked into my boss's office and told her the good news. She is an alum of the same university, so she was really excited. Then I called both of my parents at work, texted my boyfriend, who called me on his lunch hour. I was on the phone a lot. Then I just kind of went back to work like nothing had happened.
 
For the second acceptance, I was waiting to hear back from schools toward early March, and had not received any other emails since the aforementioned. So I logged on to the application portal of one school, which had said that a decision was reached on Feb. 19, even though I had received no email about it being posted! I opened it and thought first, "Oh okay, rejection - I can handle it." I skipped the first paragraphs and skimmed the words "intent to enroll," and my heart skipped a beat, or five, and I read the rest of the letter. It was definitely a surprise. 
 
Kind of mellow, now that I look back on it. I wish I had done some kind of neat happy dance.

I am really against the idea that one should only give out X A-grades, Y B-grades, and Z C-grades etc. That is, I don't like the idea of grading students based on their performance relative to each other rather than against a well published and clear standard. There are some places where "relative" grading is useful, usually when there is a standard to grade against and a need to compare students performance relative to each other (e.g. GREs or other standardized tests). However, for most college classes, I don't see a need to grade in this manner and I don't think it's a fair way to grade. 
 
In my courses, I always tell students exactly what I expect for each grade. That way, they know what I want to see and they can perform accordingly. I'm happy to give every single student an "A" if they meet my standard for the "A" grade. 
 
But another point of debate, which is relevant to the title of this thread (note: from SIX years ago, so many of us commenting today might be part of the undergraduate cohort that article was talking about ), is where to set these standards. 
 
In my own grading metric, "effort" is never directly considered. However, there are enough ways to gain partial credit that someone who tries hard enough but still fail to get the exact right answer can still earn enough for a B- or so. I usually grade each problem out of 10 points and I usually only award 2 points for the right answer. The other 8 points are usually for things like 1) correct approach to the problem, 2) clear description of what they are doing, 3) clear statement of assumptions in their calculation, 4) demonstrating correct conceptual understanding of the system. There is certainly value in actually computing the right value, but if they simply made a calculation error in the first step that carried all the way through (so all actual answers were wrong but they demonstrated correct understanding of the physics), then they can still get up to 8/10. 
 
This is where "effort" comes in, indirectly. I find that students who have tried hard on the problem will take more time to explain what they are doing, which will result in more points for "clear description of steps/assumptions". They might have also thought deeply about the problem, and perhaps they make some critical conceptual error that only gets them part of the way, but the time they spent thinking probably results in a few initial steps being correct. So, someone who didn't fully understand every bit of it can still manage to get something like 6 or 7 out of 10 points. On the other hand, someone who saw the problem and decided to just give up without thinking very hard about it and just scribbling down the most basic of steps will probably only score between 0 and 2 points. 
 
Overall, I do think that in classes, more effort does (indirectly) translate to higher grades for my students. But that effort needs to be demonstrated in a concrete way and in a way that shows actual understanding to earn points. I never award points for things like "but I worked 10 hours on this!". Students that complain to me about grades with this reason are shown the grading rubric and I explain to them how to earn points for the problem. I also talk to them about why they took so long (usually problem sets are designed for 5-6 hours of work) and try to help them by identifying the point of confusion and helping them learn the material they need to get past the places they are stuck on. Sometimes it's just a misunderstanding of a theorem or equation in class or teaching them a method/technique that they somehow missed from a pre-requisite class.

Very thought-provoking response.  
 
I agree that no one is “entitled” to a good grade. One thing I might add is that effort is also relative. For one student, a real effort might be found in camping out in the library all night to research and write a paper, whereas another student might see a couple of hours’ worth of time for that same paper to be sufficient. Professors and lecturers have their expectations and should be clear on the level of effort that they deem appropriate for earning an A, or at the very least a passing grade.
 
One of my professors had his students do multiple evaluations throughout the semester. He would ask us to grade ourselves on our participation, assignments, attendance, etc. He would then provide his own grading of each student and return it to us so that we could see how our efforts were aligning with his expectations. I thought that was a very effective way of helping me get on track with where I should have been and where I was as far as my experience in the class. Those courses ended up being some of the most engaging and interesting during my college career.
 
I also agree that students without extensive background knowledge should be capable of doing well in lower-division courses, but then effort comes into play again. How many students will actually follow through by being attentive at all of the lectures, by taking good notes, doing the assignments, and engaging in the material? An upper-level course of majors will obviously (and hopefully the majority of students will) be interested in content, because that’s what they worked hard to get to, but will a lower-level course of the same topic warrant the same amount of interest? I am sure that it’s possible for most people, but is it probable? An amount of accountability should indeed be placed on the student, as mentioned, but there is a responsibility on the instructor to step back and evaluate whether or not they are being as effective as they can be. There should be a sort of evolution that takes place.
 
Often I have worked with students that just don’t care about the material for a certain course because those lower-level courses are normally outside of the desired field of study. It hurts me, and I’m sure it hurts the instructor when a student says (and demonstrates through effort, or lack thereof) that they just don’t care and don’t understand why that subject has to be taught. I think there needs to be an effort to try to make content in all courses relevant and interesting, especially when there is a variety of interest within the classroom.
 
 
Regarding “playing it safe” with courses, one of the best pieces of advice that I ever received was to branch out and take the more difficult courses. This came during my freshman year with my academic advisor. I was more interested in taking a biology course because it was the “easy science” at my university, and he suggested that I try something different that I really wanted to do, like astronomy. He said that future schools would rather see that I put myself out there in an unknown or difficult situation and that I tried my best than see that I had stuck with general courses gave me good grades, but nothing interesting. It sounds like you, brown_eyed_girl, kind of have a regret of not doing that, and I agree that it is definitely one of the pitfalls within academia. I have had that same fear over and over, but that one slice of advice really overpowered whenever it came time to choose classes. And because I branched out, I did earn a couple of Cs, but I also learned the value of my own work ethic in the process. I would take those grades any day over an A in a course that I didn’t have to put effort into earning.
 
I have to say that the advice from your last paragraph is really striking. I like it a lot. So much so that I’ll probably end up writing it down to remember it later in time, or when things get difficult. After a rough semester during which I earned one of my C grades, I spoke with the professor (I ended up taking 3 of his courses actually) and told him about my grade. He looked at me, and then just asked, “But did you LEARN something?” I thought about it, and about how I couldn’t stop talking about his course material weeks after it had ended, and it made me feel a lot better. I did learn a lot, and his philosophy was very much the same as your professor’s: realize the standard to which you should hold yourself and that it’s about us and our education.

Very thought-provoking response.  
 
I agree that no one is “entitled” to a good grade. One thing I might add is that effort is also relative. For one student, a real effort might be found in camping out in the library all night to research and write a paper, whereas another student might see a couple of hours’ worth of time for that same paper to be sufficient. Professors and lecturers have their expectations and should be clear on the level of effort that they deem appropriate for earning an A, or at the very least a passing grade.
 
One of my professors had his students do multiple evaluations throughout the semester. He would ask us to grade ourselves on our participation, assignments, attendance, etc. He would then provide his own grading of each student and return it to us so that we could see how our efforts were aligning with his expectations. I thought that was a very effective way of helping me get on track with where I should have been and where I was as far as my experience in the class. Those courses ended up being some of the most engaging and interesting during my college career.
 
I also agree that students without extensive background knowledge should be capable of doing well in lower-division courses, but then effort comes into play again. How many students will actually follow through by being attentive at all of the lectures, by taking good notes, doing the assignments, and engaging in the material? An upper-level course of majors will obviously (and hopefully the majority of students will) be interested in content, because that’s what they worked hard to get to, but will a lower-level course of the same topic warrant the same amount of interest? I am sure that it’s possible for most people, but is it probable? An amount of accountability should indeed be placed on the student, as mentioned, but there is a responsibility on the instructor to step back and evaluate whether or not they are being as effective as they can be. There should be a sort of evolution that takes place.
 
Often I have worked with students that just don’t care about the material for a certain course because those lower-level courses are normally outside of the desired field of study. It hurts me, and I’m sure it hurts the instructor when a student says (and demonstrates through effort, or lack thereof) that they just don’t care and don’t understand why that subject has to be taught. I think there needs to be an effort to try to make content in all courses relevant and interesting, especially when there is a variety of interest within the classroom.
 
 
Regarding “playing it safe” with courses, one of the best pieces of advice that I ever received was to branch out and take the more difficult courses. This came during my freshman year with my academic advisor. I was more interested in taking a biology course because it was the “easy science” at my university, and he suggested that I try something different that I really wanted to do, like astronomy. He said that future schools would rather see that I put myself out there in an unknown or difficult situation and that I tried my best than see that I had stuck with general courses gave me good grades, but nothing interesting. It sounds like you, brown_eyed_girl, kind of have a regret of not doing that, and I agree that it is definitely one of the pitfalls within academia. I have had that same fear over and over, but that one slice of advice really overpowered whenever it came time to choose classes. And because I branched out, I did earn a couple of Cs, but I also learned the value of my own work ethic in the process. I would take those grades any day over an A in a course that I didn’t have to put effort into earning.
 
I have to say that the advice from your last paragraph is really striking. I like it a lot. So much so that I’ll probably end up writing it down to remember it later in time, or when things get difficult. After a rough semester during which I earned one of my C grades, I spoke with the professor (I ended up taking 3 of his courses actually) and told him about my grade. He looked at me, and then just asked, “But did you LEARN something?” I thought about it, and about how I couldn’t stop talking about his course material weeks after it had ended, and it made me feel a lot better. I did learn a lot, and his philosophy was very much the same as your professor’s: realize the standard to which you should hold yourself and that it’s about us and our education.

This is a really fascinating topic, and one that I have mixed feelings about. On one hand, I agree that no one is entitled to a good grade. Effort sometimes is not enough; I certainly observed that with international students who struggled to write a coherent humanities paper. On the other, though, I think a lot of times in academia we put a premium on things being hard. Of course material should be challenging and people should be held to a high standard of work, but at the same time, if a professor is an effective and caring instructor, I think it should be possible to succeed in a class without being an expert.
 
I totally get the arguments about not wanting to dumb-down materials or lower expectations, which I believe to be a problem in many educational systems. That said, while upper-division or major-restricted courses should certainly hold people to a high standard, shouldn't students without extensive background knowledge of a subject be capable of doing well in a lower division course if they pay attention in class, take good notes, do all the reading/assignments, and engage with the material? If that's not possible for most people, shouldn't we consider whether perhaps the instructor and educational system is also failing? 
 
I also think we need to acknowledge how much pressure is put on undergrad students to do well, especially for the ever-increasing numbers of students interested in graduate school. I maintained a 4.00 at a good college, but I'm a bit ashamed to admit that because I wanted to go to a top tier graduate school, I was very risk-averse with my course load. Yes, I challenged myself within my field and did honors programs and all that, and I branched out to other other humanities and social sciences fields, which have always been my strengths. I even excelled at earth sciences. But I largely avoided taking classes outside of my wheel house because I was scared of taking a class where I didn't know how to succeed; where I might get a B or a C that would hurt my chances of getting into a great grad school. For example, I think physics is fascinating and love listening to TED talks and reading articles about it, but I never would have signed up for a physics class in college because I knew I couldn't compete with people in the hard sciences. I knew I wasn't entitled to a good grade in a course like that and that I probably wouldn't get one... but because of that, I missed out on challenging myself in that way. I think that's a real pitfall of the way the grading system is structured. 
 
I'll also say, one of the college classes that I found most rewarding and that has stuck with me the most was a class where the professor said from day one that if you showed up and turned in the assignments, you'd get an A. He told us: "Life is not about grades. You should do your best in my class because you want to, because you should realize that the standard you hold yourself to will follow you through all that you do, and there are no grades in the real world. I want you to do the kind of work that you are proud of, whether or not you think I'll like it. This isn't about me, it's about you and your education." I think about him often. 

I love this.
 
For my first acceptance, I had just sat down at work. I opened my email on my phone and saw that I had received a decision from my second-choice school (the one I am now attending). I opened the decision letter on my work laptop and just kind of sat and stared at it for a couple of minutes. I had only read "pleased to notify," which was in the first line. I didn't bother reading anything else. Then, I got up and walked into my boss's office and told her the good news. She is an alum of the same university, so she was really excited. Then I called both of my parents at work, texted my boyfriend, who called me on his lunch hour. I was on the phone a lot. Then I just kind of went back to work like nothing had happened.
 
For the second acceptance, I was waiting to hear back from schools toward early March, and had not received any other emails since the aforementioned. So I logged on to the application portal of one school, which had said that a decision was reached on Feb. 19, even though I had received no email about it being posted! I opened it and thought first, "Oh okay, rejection - I can handle it." I skipped the first paragraphs and skimmed the words "intent to enroll," and my heart skipped a beat, or five, and I read the rest of the letter. It was definitely a surprise. 
 
Kind of mellow, now that I look back on it. I wish I had done some kind of neat happy dance.

With all the above points, I will also say the following: luck and determination. While 4 years is a good typical number, how well you design your experiments and with some luck and how promising the results are - you may be able to finish faster. Also of course brute determination - if you're willing to work like a crazy person coupled with the "luck" situation I previously mentioned, one can finish quite quickly. The shortest PhD completion I've heard was 2.9 years - which is almost ridiculous IMO, but hey some people got other plans.
 
Overall, I would say enjoy the ride and try to not focus too much on how long it'll take you. Set a realistic goal (4-5 yrs) and work diligently to achieve it, but understand that life sometimes throws you curve balls, so be flexible and try to honestly push the bounds of your field. At least, that's how I'll approach my PhD - at this level, what's a couple of years of my life? I'm still relatively young and I got plenty of time to enjoy my research and career. 

Gosh, it sounds like you have quite a lot on your plate come fall! Best of luck!
 
I think that one thing that really helped me was - in addition to having a well-organized schedule - making to-do lists for each day and week. On Sundays, I sit down and write out EVERYTHING that I will be doing in the next week. This includes events outside of my normal schedule, assignments that are due, chapter readings, goals for research papers, etc. I would divide it out by each course or topic, but at the end it was usually a very long list, because then I'd come up with something else like a small grocery list, or just little things that would slip my mind that were important to remember. Looking at this list made me very aware of the culmination of work that I had to do, and the well-kept schedule made me aware of how much time I actually had to accomplish those things. Plus, crossing off things on your list makes you feel pretty good! Doing this really made me feel like I had my life together, and my productivity increased so much.
 
Also, don't forget to take time for yourself and friends/family. Your life may be planned out hour by hour, but you need to sit back and take a breath sometimes and just enjoy your "own time," or free time, should you have it!  Keep up with a leisurely activity that you have always enjoyed, like knitting or casual reading, for example. When you have finished things that you have to do, and you have some leftover time, they are great rewards.
 
Currently, my mental preparation routine in the morning is to wake up, take a shower, make myself some coffee, then make the bed, and get breakfast/lunch ready for the day. It gives me a jumpstart to feeling organized and productive. Picking out your clothes in the evening will save you minutes in the morning, too. Also setting aside workout clothes and keeping a set readily available in your car/office will give you more of a reason to find time to exercise.
 
When I get home in the evenings, I actually have been working on jigsaw puzzles as an "unwind" activity. It keeps my mind going, but it feels really relaxing. I also try to do all of my evening work outside of my bedroom/off of my bed because that is a reserved space where I want to feel relaxed and happy.
 
I feel like a lot of what I'm saying is scheduling/motivational tips, but it's the little things that keep you going, and your momentum! Know how YOU "recharge," as in what makes you feel rejuvenated and ready to face challenges. Allow yourself time for that. Know when you are most productive and make sure that those hours are when you are doing your most important work. Also know that if you are ever feeling overwhelmed you can talk about it to your advisors, fellow students, friends, etc. 

like Imaginary said, poking around on websites can be helpful. But I'd also suggest maybe talking to a professor who is in the same field as you are, if you can. I say this because they might know what the schools financial situation is like, and be able to give you an idea. And as it was said before, funded MA's are possible. It just depends on funding availability, and things like that.  

Since you have a working relationship with him, presumably a good one, all that's stopping you is the jitters of making a request as big as this. I think you deserve to give yourself credit for even asking him in person. A lot of people may try to ask casually over email. And like MathCat says, the worst possible thing that can happen is that he says no. The only reason that may happen is that some PI prefers having graduate students from outside of their home universities or he prefers that you explore your options elsewhere (the whole "leaving the nest" conundrum).

As someone who knows you well and knows what your research interests entails, you can be more direct with him. Let him know what you see yourself doing in graduate school, and ask if there's a possibility of continuing on the work you did with your honours thesis or something similar in your graduate studies.

Just ask!

Zoology! 

Yo finalmente iré a UT . ¿Los demás?

Thank you all for your valuable advice! I'm going to NCSU!
 
 
That really helped helped to ease my anxiety. 

Backpack because I don't want to worsen my scoliosis I gave myself because I was in school when it was cool to do one shoulder for book bags.

I use a canvas tote for most days now that I'm done with classes and just have paperwork keys and my access card to carry around

Just so you know, GradCafe houses Linguistics under Social Sciences. (It's a totally understandable mistake, though, since so many US universities house the ling departments in humanities.) If you're interested in psycholinguistics, some good places to look would be University of Maryland, MIT, a few of the University of California sites, University of Chicago, University of Connecticut...there are definitely more, but these are the first that come to mind based on my own grad school search. Also these are more syntax-geared, I think, so if you're interested in something like experimental semantics, you'll need to do more digging or ask someone who's more in that field. These are also all linguistics departments--I know that there are psychology and cognitive science departments with good psycholinguistic work, but I don't really know which ones. I would suggest you look at recent papers that interest you and that reflect the type of work you might want to do (in terms of the questions asked, the approach taken, etc.), and research the authors and their departments. That might at least give you a starting point.

I will also be attending NCSU in the fall.  

I just got accepted into the MEAS department! So excited! Is anyone in the department or know anything about it?? 

Sure, but it might not be very nice or you might have a few of roommates. Raleigh has a huge range of living options, and you can live very cheaply -- as many undergrads do -- depending on your flexibility. Utilities are cheap, and supposedly Google Fiber is coming to Raleigh in the near future. Transportation depends. You probably want a car. While public transportation is decent right around State's campus, anywhere outside of that range becomes a challenge, and in my opinion Raleigh is a very drivable city. Plus there's tons of cool stuff to do outside Raleigh that having a car would facilitate.

Bottom line, it is your body and it is their time and their money and their decision if they're comfortable with your appearance as a reflection of the profession you seek to enter.

Given the overall competitiveness of the Ivory Tower, is an artistic statement of one's individuality a worthy distraction from an intellectual statement?

the fact that i am still on this website after accepting a funded phd offer
like i thought i could quit this place, but it is like an addiction
probably because everyone on here can understand aspects of my experience that most people in my real life can't, to an extent, but i was anticipating being "free" and alas, i remain
 
also, why am i still smoking cigarettes after i quit smoking cigarettes? but i don't smoke them like i did before (chain smoking) and it's just sort of once a day but it makes me angry with myself and i don't understand my own vices...

I second that. Got my "full" acceptance letter around the 13th for the MSEE program. Hope you get your notice soon! As I've found in the engineering research and science sectors, administrative tasks don't exactly take the first priority. Definitely stay in contact with the department, or try candidly asking any professors with whom you may have already established a positive rapport.