Humulus_lupulus

This will be the longest week ever.

Agreed. OP, I kind of feel like you're blaming the professor for the situation you're in. You might have a bad professor, but I think they've been totally reasonable and upfront with the information you've been given. Sending a flurry of panicked emails to the professor over halfway through a semester is no way to make a situation better for you. YOU should be the one requesting to meet with them, not the other way around. There is literally no reason (from what I can see) that you shouldn't drop the class, other than fear of some stigma of failure it might impart on you. I'd rather drop a class than have an F on my transcript, quite frankly. Get out of the hole before you get in too deep.

Between waiting for NSF and watching the craziness that is March Madness, I've probably developed a heart condition. SO. MUCH. STRESS.

Agreed, knowing is a sigh of relief either way. That's a crazy low success rate. I'm in engineering, but it's biological engineering so it's kind of the red-headed stepchild of both engineering and life science fields. I got honorable mention my first year (surprisingly, considering I threw it together in a week) and then nothing last year and the biggest criticism was publications. This year, I had 3 submitted at the time of submission, and I went pretty theoretical, packed it with NSF buzzwords, and told them my work is "changing the world." My guess is that the top 1,000 applications get funded no matter who looks at them...they are just plain good candidates! The next 1,000 are probably a toss up depending on the day and on the reviewers. I also realized at a later date that I made a small mistake in my application, but I'm sure if my advisors didn't see it, maybe someone who is not an expert in my field wouldn't notice.

I'm just trying to be as sad as possible this week and next. I figure if I set the bar low enough, a rejection can't make things any worse!

I think this week would be a bit ambitious. Plan for next week.

Are any of the research areas of these professors related? I was between two labs, sort of like lab 3 and lab 4 for you. I couldn't decide between either of them, but ultimately, I didn't have to! I got funding from the PI who always has money, and I still get to work with the one who doesn't get funded as well for projects I have an interest in. They co-advise me. You may approach lab 4's PI and suggest a co-advising situation if it makes sense. Also, putting in effort too apply for funding yourself goes a LONG way. I applied for the NSF GRFP as well as a univeristy fellowship because my one PI with all the money suggested it, and doing that gave me a lot of credit with him. Fortunately, I got the university fellowship, but I didn't learn about it until after I was admitted and told I had funding from him anyway. Even if you can't do that, offer to help with writing a proposal, because it will show you are committed and interested. Good luck--do anything you can to get into lab 4, or talk to lab 3 about possibly getting into a different kind of research that is a better fit. My one advisor is totally cool with adapting research to the person and will let projects, specifically PhD projects which aren't clearly laid out in proposals, go in the direction the student takes them.

Yeah, this is generally the case. Keep your eyes peeled for maintenance within those times!

I didn't like the way lab meetings were going, so I talked to my advisor and made some suggestions on how to improve them for me and the other grad students. He took them to heart, and lab meetings, and lab procedures in general, are now a lot more productive.

Yeah, it usually says whether or not you got it in the email. First line of mine last year said this: "Your application for the 2015 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program has been evaluated. We regret to inform you that you were not selected to receive a fellowship in this year's competition." :-(

I am coadvised, and my one advisor taught two of my courses in my first semester, and I have never had a course with my other advisor. While my relationship with both professors is very good, I've developed a great rapport with the advisor that I haven't had any courses with simply from lab meetings, seeing him in the lunchroom, regular weekly meetings, and passing him in the hallway. He even had to leave for ~6 months unexpectedly. It's a little easier to get to know your professors in class, but a lot of that is your personality and their personality and both of you making the best of time outside the classroom.

I'm pretty sure it usually goes down a couple of times in the beginning of March (maybe to enter in all the scores and then have the top ones selected). But yeah, look for a 3-8 am announcement sometime in a couple of weeks, and that will be it! My prediction is March 31 for the emails to go out.

Probably wouldn't hurt to put a little heat on the school that hasn't sent anything yet. I was in a similar situation, so I contacted my PI and asked my chances of being admitted, and he basically said there was almost no chance that I wouldn't be.

I'm going to do my best to try to summarize this as objectively as possible, in hopes of getting some advice on how to handle this. I'm in the beginning of my second year of my MS degree in engineering. I am in a lab with four other graduate students, one second-year MS who did his undergrad in a different department at the university, and three PhD who are international students who have been here 4+ years. And then there's me--I came from another US university from a life sciences major. We also have 11 undergraduate students in the lab, ranging from freshman to senior, most of whom have been around since freshmen. In August, there was a problem with one of the methods I was using. I was going to use a method from a collaborator, but my lab-mates suggested I use "our" method, which was drastically different than the method from our collaborator. So, obviously, I wanted to get to the bottom of why this method was so different. I was emailing around asking the lab manager and some others about the method and how it was developed, where it came from, etc. One lab manager emailed me back and specified a method he used, which closely matched the one from our collaborator. The other lab manager RIPPED me...basically saying she didn't appreciate my attitude and how I told her she was wrong in front of a bunch of people, blah, blah, blah. Long story short, I emailed back (nicely) with some more questions, and I got ripped again. My advisor dealt with this immediately, pretty much telling her to calm down, and giving me some insight on how I might better address it with her in the future. Throughout the past couple of months, there have been some other problems that have come up in the lab, some of which I have handled poorly, in retrospect. Specifically, I called some people out in email, copying the whole group. Not to be rude, mainly just to clarify something, but my intentions got misconstrued. I understand how I could have handled those situations differently, and I'm moving forward and learning. My advisor also made it very clear to the lab manager that I wasn't trying to be a jerk, I just wanted my research to be done properly. Fast forward to the past couple of weeks. I was stuck late in the lab one day because the process times were long, not getting my samples to be finished until 4:30. From the outset of my project, I understood that I would be handling the samples in one step, and the undergrads would be the ones processing them in the final step. So, when I went over at 4:30, I had hoped there would be at least one person around to help me out. A few stuck around until 5, and then the rest of the crew showed up and they all left--together! I suspect they were going out to dinner, as that is a "regular" thing for Thursday night. A job that should have taken a few of us 30 mins ended up taking 2 hours for me to do it myself. I wasn't just going to dump and run, I planned to stay and help. Last week, I was walking by the lab on my way home, and I overheard some of the undergrads talking negatively about me. I suppose this was backlash from when I asked my advisor to drop by the lab to take a look at some of my samples that got messed up by the undergrads who processed them. He came by and started asking one of the seniors some questions--very respectfully!--just trying to understand the sources of the problem. (My advisor has excellent interpersonal skills and he has a good rapport with everyone in the lab, so he wasn't coming across as being "threatening.") It was a very friendly discussion between the three of us, and the undergrad agreed that there were a few ways to help prevent the problem. I guess it wasn't as friendly as I thought, because it got totally misconstrued to mean "all the undergrads are in trouble." The undergrad went and told one of the other undergrads, and they both went and told a half-baked version of the story to the lab manager (the one who ripped me previously), who believed them! WHAT?! I'm really starting to feel alienated. I have to beg for help most of the time, and even when I do, it's not always available. I've been feeling a significant disconnect lately--they can all be sitting around the lab and making plans for going out to eat, and not even TRY to invite me, just the other MS student who got his undergrad degree here. Then to know that they were badmouthing me and were supported in that by the lab manager is just icing on the cake. I know I'm not always going to get along with everyone I work with, but it's to the point where I don't feel like I want to try to do any work because it will just get met with resistance. I've talked with my advisor about this, and he is very supportive of me, but I feel like he is not being aggressive enough with how he is handling it. It's been 3 months now, and things are really just getting worse. HELP!

One of my PIs sent my proposal back like three days after it was due with MINOR edits...I'll hold off on looking at it until I am working on submissions for other fellowships. I'm a little scared, though.

I appreciate the feedback, everyone! My PI is pushing the others (I didn't even do the work under my PI, this was at another university for undergrad) so MAYBE it will get in. The advice on deadlines is great, though, and it will be something to keep in mind for the future. Needless to say, this has been a learning process for me!

So...has anyone been in a situation where you're trying to get a publication in before some sort of major deadline, such as a HUGE national fellowship that regards publications like gold? I completed a publication back in April of this year (granted, this was rather late with respect to when I finished the project) and I sent it out to the three other authors for review and edits. Since then, I've sent out reminders and I've even seen them in person to ask. I told them the gravity of getting this thing in before the fellowship deadline. Now, the deadline is coming up in a few days, and I've only received edits from one author earlier this week. Nothing at all from the other--not even a green light for submitting without his edits. What do I do?? I need to get this in, and I'm unfamiliar with the submission process since this is my first submission ever.

I'm technically "borrowing" my parents' car while I'm in grad school, so while I have a house and a Michigan drivers license, the insurance is still in my home state. I talked to a lawyer friend of mine and he said it was ok to do that.

Do everything in bullet points because block text is hard to read, and don't give handouts or business cards--take his/her business card or contact information and contact him/her. This will make the networking more memorable and you'll get a chance to get his/her information.

Nope, we saw that he wanted to take credit for my stuff, consulted with someone at our university, and jumped on an invention disclosure. The process entailed a submission at both our university and his university, then a review/revision process with discussion of royalties if it went to patent. We included him in the authors on our submission, but he was mad that we did it without saying anything so the project just got dropped. Unfortunate, but I am looking to use some of the data from that project for a PhD proposal, so it wasn't a total loss for me. Plus, it taught me a valuable lesson to make sure I have all my bases covered before entering a future collaboration.

Keep in mind, depression isn't an overwhelming sadness like they make it seem. It's more a lack of really caring or any sort of feeling at all. Your symptoms sound pretty familiar based on my own experiences. Do go see a counselor, but if you go to your school's counseling center, make sure you request an experienced counselor, not an intern. You may need to wait a little longer but it is worth it.

Start off very, very vague with what you possibly want help with and why that person would be a good collaborator. I've personally had a well-established faculty member try and take credit for my ideas once we were getting to the patent step, so be careful. Form the connection, lay out the guidelines, find a way to get your ideas in writing with your current advisor/committee, and move from there. I like to think the best about people, but in my case, sometimes world-renowned scientists DO try to steal credit from undergraduates who are trying to get established in the scientific community.

Get some experience on university committees. That's the only thing I can really add that's different from here. Ask your PI or grad coordinator how to do this--usually they have to beg for student reps.

Without really knowing the details of what happened between the two of you, it's kind of hard to make that judgment. However, if it really wasn't that bad of a falling out and you two are on pretty good terms, I'd say go for it. Your experience teaching is important. Give it some thought and determine if you'd be a good fit working with him in a teaching role--I'd imagine that if you're still with him as an advisee, then things are probably good enough to do this. I think all advisors and students probably go through some sort of falling out at some point. Don't let that hurt your professional development.

Great feedback everyone--I'll talk to my professor to see if there is still space for a talk. I agree that I need to get out of my comfort zone and give a talk!