bambi_86

Most realtors I've been in touch with regarding apartments (studios that is) have told me to get in touch in July for move-in in August. Is this your experience too?

I've seen a lot of people without prior work experience in a relevant field struggle to find jobs or even worthwhile internships during and after SAIS. You'll get much more out of it if you get some relevant work experience first. As good of a school as SAIS is, finding jobs after graduation is not a cakewalk for most people.

One thing to think of, and I know not everyone has this opportunity, is to look beyond the country where you did your undergrad. In my case, I did my undergrad at a European university (in my home country) where a GPA-system isn't used. In fact, no numerical ranking is given for my undergrad coursework. This has really worked in my favor. I slacked off during my first year of undergrad before I realized that I might need good graders for the future. With substantial publishing and work experience, I managed to get into the 2nd highest ranked my program globally in my field. Graduating in two weeks, I will be continuing on to a PhD program at an Ivy-league school. My undergrad self wouldn't believe me if I went back and told him about this... My point is -- if you're stuck with a crappy GPA, at least entertain the thought of doing your next degree in another country than the one you did your undergrad in. Surprisingly many schools don't seem to know or care about translating grades to their own systems.

One thing I've learned while at SAIS is that concentrations matter relatively little and mostly do so for the network that alumni and professors can provide. But if you take their courses (you can certainly take IDEV-courses at SAIS even if you're not in the program) you'll get to know them anyway. Generally speaking, few outside of SAIS or any grad school (aka potential employers) will either understand what "concentration" means or care about it. SAIS also has fantastic courses in China studies. I would not want to pass up the chance to study with people like Anne Thurston and David Lampton.

I didn't mean to suggest these fields are one and the same. But still, I think that IR and history do have a lot of interrelated features. To me, most of the useful aspects of IR do come either directly or indirectly from historical studies. This is why I decided to go for a PhD in history to begin with, and though I do have some lack of confidence stemming from my lack of an academic history background, I have to work on the assumption that the committee that admitted me wouldn't have done so if they didn't think I was sufficiently prepared. Apologies for this side note -- on the topic, I think that my main takeaway from this thread is that there's a difference between "hard work" and the sheer amount of hours you put in. Making sure that you have free time, it seems, will only make you more productive when you're actually doing the work you need to. At least that seems to be the most reasonable approach to start out with.

Thanks! I've heard great things too and they've given a really good impression so far. Feel free to PM me as well for any DC-related questions!

This is all really great advice. I'll just strive to always treat it like a job, put up clear goals and see free time as virtually non-negotiable. Also there seem to be a lot of benefits to reap from the flexibility. Thanks again, this forum truly is awesome.

I knew I would get a lot of helpful advice here but this really exceeded my expectations. I can't thank you enough, both for the advice on how to plan PhD life in order to take scheduled time off, and for the encouragement to do so. I can really foresee myself not enjoying life as a PhD student if I allow myself to go as crazy as I normally do about these things. I will say though, these two years of MA studies have really shown me that time by no means equals work done or productivity. In general, I think there is an unhealthy view in some grad programs (I can only speak for MA) that the people who put down the most hours have the most success. But knowing how many people are doing random internet browsing around me in the library as I write this, I know it's not the case and I wish more grad programs would work to get rid of that sort of attitude. I actually just had a great realization about this talking to one of my current profs right now. She did her PhD while raising two kids and working part-time for the federal government. Many people have to go through these programs with such demanding life and family conditions, so for those of us who only have ourselves and perhaps a significant other to plan time around, taking weekends off shouldn't be all that hard.

Hi all, I've looked for a good answer to this all over the forum, and while many of the threads (whoever put together the lists of advice for incoming PhD students is a genius) cover similar topics, I wanted to start one specifically on the feasibility of treating your graduate studies like a 9-5 job more or less. Short story, I'm currently finishing up my MA studies at one school and moving on to a PhD in a slightly different field (going from international relations to history). I'm honestly not sure I could handle five more years of not having weekends free ever. I also know myself well enough to know that I can get stuff done within a certain time limit if I only decide to. Therefore, I'm wondering what you experienced PhD students could tell me about the feasibility of taking weekends completely off to hang out with significant others, friends etc. Is it an impossible ambition or in fact a good and doable idea? Grateful for any advice. In any case, I'm very much looking forward to joining your ranks.

If I may, I'd like to jump in and take Georgetown's side here. I'm currently finishing up my MA program at one of its competitor schools here in DC, waiting to move to your current town (Philly) to begin my history PhD at UPenn. As someone who is very passionate to the point of nerdiness about my topic (which we presumably all are), it's been really good to be in a city like DC where you're constantly given a reality-check about your topic. You're always forced to think about how your research is connected to current events and how the broader public will relate to what you are working on. For some, that might be a negative, but for me, it's been really helpful in thinking about what I want to research. This is one of the reasons I'll be travelling back here fairly frequently during my program.

It's not really quant heavy. You need to take one quant course during the program but that can be statistics, for example, which is fairly elementary but very useful, not hard at all. If you don't want to go beyond that you don't need to. The economics courses are not too quantitatively challenging and you get great help from TA's etc. Quant shouldn't be your reason for choosing another school over SAIS.

IDEV is capped. I think strategic studies might be too from last year, but I may be wrong about this.

Of course it is! I would never claim otherwise and I hope that's not how you perceived what I wrote. I feel very fortunate to have such an option but even among "stellar institutions" there are obviously differences in rankings. Not that they necessarily matter that much.

Thanks a lot to all of you. What you say really echoes what I've heard from a lot of people at my current grad program. There seems to be somewhat of a divide between academic and professionals on this; many of the former tend to be skeptical of UK PhD programs for the reasons you all mention, while some others still think that name brand value and prestige weighs heavily. All factors that shouldn't really matter. My main concern with Cambridge wouldn't even be the job market issue, but rather actually getting through the program without formal coursework or close supervision. Again, thanks a lot to all of you, just wanted to make sure I wasn't committing a huge mistake in declining Cambridge.

Oh and the schools are Cambridge in the UK and UPenn in the states.

Thanks to all of you for your replies. I know it really shouldn't be a difficult question. The program and its contents is what matters, not the name of the school. It's just a little hard to imagine turning down an offer from this UK school, but I guess program content and contact with professors should always be the most important factor. Another issue I guess is that the UK program is in a discipline a little closer to what I want to pursue on the job market, plus the program is way shorter, but I think it wouldn't be worth it in the end.

I talked to Cambridge about this. They said TOEFL was fine still but you should probably check that with your department.

It took a few days for my status to change, but I'm sure it depends entirely upon the department and the overall workload of whoever is making sure that admitted applicants speak good enough English and don't have terrible grades. If your department admitted you I have a hard time seeing how you could have any results below the baseline requirements.

So, I am lucky enough to have been accepted to two PhD programs. This might sound impressive but for the record, I did apply to ten programs all in all and I've received six rejections so far, none of which were pleasant but mostly expected. My perspective and priorities have all changed dramatically throughout the process, and that's why I'm posting this. My first acceptance was from an absolute top university in the UK. It's one of the highest ranked universities in the world and I was almost certain I was going to accept it when I first found out. But since then a lot of my impressions have changed. My advisor-to-be has been practically impossible to get in contact with, and as is common practice in the UK, no real course work is involved. The funding situation is also very unclear. And a few weeks ago, I got admitted to my second program. It's at the history department at a US Ivy League school -- one of the lower Ivy's, but the department seems fantastic. Full funding is included for five years and I've gotten a great impression of the faculty, who have all been very encouraging, eager and welcoming. In stark contrast to the UK school, that is. I guess the main question I have for you guys is a very classic dilemma: prestige and name brand value vs other crucial factors. The US school has great name value as well but I know that many would be more impressed by the UK one, employers as well as others. I know prestige shouldn't be a decisive factor but I'm still interested in hearing what you guys think.

I've felt the same way for a long time, although perhaps not quite as severely. I took the GRE only once, and part of the reason I applied in this season was to make sure I wouldn't have to re-take it in the future. My situation is this -- I know I very likely could have gotten in to programs in political science etc, some of which would have been great given my research focus. But on the other hand, I've chosen to see the GRE as an indication of something else. My problem is the quant part, and maybe that tells me I shouldn't be doing quant-heavy programs given what my strengths and weaknesses are. Instead, this time around, I opted for applying to 50% history programs and 50% political science-ish ones. Not surprisingly, the polsci ones didn't work out while one really good program in history did. I do think this is where my heart really is and I am thrilled about attending, and though I do feel slightly bitter that the GRE may have narrowed my choices, I choose to see it as help rather than anything else. I know nothing about your background or focus but how narrowly are you applying? I applied to 10 places -- got into two so far, waiting on three (two of which I assume I didn't get into) and rejected from the rest. It's also a matter of just increasing the probability of admission, and sometimes, even a program you "should" be getting into can't take you for reasons other than your GRE. Don't let it stop you from achieving what you want, it really doesn't have to.

I'll most likely be accepting my offer at the PhD program in History starting in the fall semester of 2015 focusing on East Asia and Korea (North Korean history). Looking forward to seeing at least one of you around!

I would check UPenn as well.

Thank you very much! Yes I am waiting on three programs still, only one of which I think I have a realistic chance at. But given how nice the professors at the program I got admitted to have been in welcoming me and telling me about the academic environment they will provide, I can't see how I could choose any other place. Wish I could tell you of a way to get rid of that itch but I think it might be inevitable. Only way is probably to ask other people to take your computer and phone away...

Thank you very much! Just in general -- I think that all of us, regardless of our situation, are probably looking too much into a lot of things about this process...I even googled to check whether the school I eventually got into had had any snow days recently in case that would have been the reason for my slightly delayed response.

I don't know, and I've tried over and over again in the past few weeks to do the same. I did get two emails from professors this week telling me that I've been admitted, but nothing has changed in my application status still on the website.