random_grad

This is such an amazing opportunity! Sounds like it's totally worth the 1 year. Besides, you will be more mature and better prepared to apply to grad school as well.

1. I was thinking more in terms of a person claiming a dependent being on disability while really it's a fake document they obtained in the country where the parent lives and where there is corruption 2. There are plenty of cases where people choose to have many kids to claim special benefits from the government, so why not university/ 3. But subsidies can work as an extra incentive to have kids, when the parents might have benefited from postponing for a variety of reasons (maturity, relationship, dissertation) I mean, most people will not abuse the system. But some might, and that's gonna be at everyone else's expense.

Potential abuses: - people claim dependents who really could fend for themselves - people start having more kids than intended - people choose to have kids earlier than ready - spouse choses to stay at home bc of stipend increase while otherwise could work and/or use daycare

I think it is fair that students in in-demand fields would get more funding while humanities pay less - this will make a person think twice before applying. As long as funding is above the poverty line for a given city (yes, I follow the Toronto situation with great interest), that imo is reasonable funding. Some unis offer need based grants. Problems start when you add dependents to the equation. Would an employer pay more if you tell you have kids? Probably not. Should PhDs be able to support their families? Definitely. Would it be fair to make funding contingent on kids? It can lead to terrible abuses. How do you think the family issue should be negotiated?

no car. I don t drive but order groceries to be delivered. (no car = huge savings where I live). My main savings come from rent: I live far from campus so it s cheaper. The commute is not a problem as I can read or think - not being a driver. I also eat out strategically: every now and then I d eat the lunch special to satisfy my cravings so that I don t order food on the weekend. I only drink alcohol at home or at least try to. I don t necessarily buy the cheapest because more expensive stuff lasts longer - you savor it. Same for clothes and furniture: I buy not too cheap stuff that will last several years. Only if I need to. I never buy at dollar stores bc quality is crap. I do visit 2nd hand Stores but purchase carefully so that it s not a one time wear. It s easy to end up buying stuff you don t need when it s cheap.

From a sample of 1, I'd say it's not necessary, although one of my professors told me that in an ideal world, I should visit before applying. I was not able to do so because no money. Instead, I wrote to professors of interest and skyped with some of them. Not visiting does not seem to have hurt my results: admitted in 5/10, including top schools which I did not visit or talk to on skype (but did write an email). If I had the money, I would have preferred visiting just because it's fun - although it probably would have been stressful too. If you decide to visit, imo it's best to make it coincide with a public lecture, during which you can ask clever questions and then mingle at a moment when faculty intended to do so anyway. If you decide to spend some time with specific people and have them show you their facilities, you should get a referral from a prof at the school you're at or it might seem as a burden. Consult with your profs and maybe one of the profs at the other school is their friend (or enemy, in which case seriously do not go). Consider sitting on a graduate seminar, if you're permitted.

As another person with a 99th-percentile GRE, I know how you feel: it's so cool but at the same time you know deep inside that nobody cares. It's an odd feeling to not be able to do anything with that score. All it can do is not hurt your application, and I heard that in some schools it influences funding. Still, profs never mentioned GRE to me and never asked about my score. As for your other question, I don't know specifically about philosophy, which appears to be a very competitive field (you should ask in the philosophy forum, by the way), but in other fields in the humanities it is not uncommon for a person to use their minor as new primary field, esp. with so many courses take - 11 is a lot. What really matters is not the official designation of your major or minor, but your references and writing sample. Also, might be of relevance for you to highlight breadth of courses if indeed you achieved breadth. That's what 'major' is for: to ensure that you specialized a bit but most importantly that you fulfilled the foundation requirement in your major - philosophy would, for example, require you take courses in ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics etc - the different subfields - or courses on specific schools of thoughts to cover the basics. If in addition to that you have a couple of advanced courses, you'll be fine. If instead you only took intro courses or specialized too much, that might be problematic. Another thing worth mentioning: science can be very relevant to philosophy. Look at the MIT philosophy program - lots of math. Or some programs have you replace a language req with a science foundation in, say, biology if you study bioethics.

I would recommend studying strategically. You know that there will only be 6 data interpretation questions, and these are very tricky, so just skip these (do pick an answer - you re not penalized for guessing wrong). Focus on doing well on certain types of questions, rather than kinda knowing all. Master several types and guess the others. Master as many as you can in the 90 days. do not learn the 3D formulas and other advanced stuff as these are rare and would probably only show up if you get the "harder" 2nd section. Most importantly, learn strategies for finding answers fast. McGraw-Hill has helpful tips. Same for V, but with more memorizing.

Imo if you can afford to wait and reapply to other schools, withdrawing is the safest way. Even if the school which accepted you then sees your name in the long run, they will not remember the details of your app. if you tell nothing and accept they will find out almost for sure unless you switched fields, in which case the likelihood would be smaller but still existing. If however you really want this school, depending on whether you still feel like the language of the transcripts disclosure was ambiguous, you could claim that you realized that you should have submitted it just now and want to update your app. If it is not ambiguous then there s little choice but withdraw or pray they never find out.

In the 2 months that remain you can learn a lot. For me it was helpful to organize words by meaning and colorcoding good-bad etc. This way visual memory helped connect words even if I did not know the definition. I also used the helpful elimination techniques from Mcgraw-hill (I think that s were it was) for answering questions where you don t know all the words. as mentioned above, you need to 'get' how to crack the test fast.

Consider asking schools reasons for denial. it might be other than GPA.

I was talking about people not finishing their MA. Otherwise I agree that the Canadian system has its benefits because it allows you to test the waters. That totally how I used it.

I ve heard of dpts purpusefully manipulating attriion rates. That is indeed very unfortunate. Cases I ve seen, however, were with students being admitted from small universities - presumably they were the top of their class etc - but for whom the transition was too much to handle. Perhaps the dpt should have created extra safeguards for catching cases like this; but there s always a person who simply does not seek help or, well, for whom it was never meant to be. Im talking about terminal MAs within the Canadian system. The reason I m worried is that I expect my load to double at the new institution, and the MA load was already bad enough XD I guess it s a bit of the imposter syndrome creeping out. I should trust the adcom.

For me attrition has first and formost military connotations and denotes something austere, with throwning troops marching on despite losses and wounds. Hence my initially negative perception of the term. (Then again I m esl so I probably have it all wrong due to my foreign cultural references). Have you seen students regretting having kids as in kids lead a person to drop out? (although I would imagine that nobody would ever show such feelings but rather construct a happy narrative around it).

It s good to hear that attrition mostly happens for positive reasons! I was not fully aware of the ratio of choice to failure (as in getting kicked out of the program). I can certainly imagine that a person may chose to pursue a different path. At the master s level all the attrition I ve seen was due to inability to follow the courseload/handle the stress, which is not really a choice even if it leads to realizing that that path is not for you and leads to something productive eventually.

What are the most common (but also less common yet striking) reasons for leaving the program you've encountered (whether dropping out ABD or before)? How not to become a statistic?

as I mentioned in my comment above, I do not exclude the possibility that if academia doesn't work out, I'd be able to take a left turn and find some other meaningful employment. it might even turn out to be of more interest to me than some academic jobs. there's always a plan B.

This is a most fascinating read on this forum. I read it all (which in hindsight was probably a waste of time). Two questions that arose from this thread are imo of some value: what should we do as a group? and what should every grad student do as an individual? These have been answered in a not very convincing way. To the first question, a union of adjuncts appears the most realistic, although, as has been pointed out, that would not change that much and certainly not fast enough, as anyone ever witnessing union bargains can tell. To the other question, diversification of CV is a good point but at the same time a bit vague and potentially harmful. A third question that keeps coming up is what was the purpose of VM's initial post. Was it to get validation? To vent or to troll? To start a discussion or to warn us newbies? I can tell you what it did to me, for all it's worth, a newly admitted student, who had been warned at first and encouraged later by the same set of professors. The thread did not bring me any closer to understanding how bad the job market is. As has been pointed out by many who already are on the job market, there is no way of understanding what it's like until you're there. Now at least I know that. OK, see you in 6 years. The thread made me worried for a day about the fact that the university where I will be studying forbids outside work - therefore no diversification of the CV for me! (Needless to say, as an international student, the only option would have been to go back to Canada every summer, which is highly impractical for many reasons). The thread helped me realize that what I'm feeling in my current job is alienation, and fueled my desire to succeed as a scholar. Currently, I work a crappy office job where nobody cares. I could sit back and read books. The problem is: I always care about what I do. I tried hard, but the boss did not bother to listen to my rationalization proposal; management is exceedingly incompetent and hypocritical; clients are angry for a good reason; and colleagues are plain stupid (the other day at lunch they discussed pizza toppings for the entire hour). Now I count the days to the end of my contract! This job (and other office jobs before) reminds me every day how much I don't care about money and care about not wasting my life on meaningless tasks. Because when I do something, I invest myself in it. When in return I only get hypocrisy and lack of care, it's alienating. This job in particular pays well, is not hard, and even offers significant prospects for advancements. In 6 years I could have become manager or whatever. By all standards it's not a bad job. But it is a nightmare for me. I can't work with people who upon hearing what I did my MA in tell me sarcastically "a very useful subject!". Therefore, PhD is my only hope in getting a job I like. I will be devastated if I don't. But at least I would have tried and done something interesting with my life. Then, I will be creative enough to find some other career path and eventually settle for something not too bad. But for now I will put all my efforts toward succeeding in this career path. Not diversifying the CV, not being a defeatist: having a positive attitude. I hope to beat the odds, I hope to be the one who gets a postdoc and does not ever have to adjunct after the PhD. I will do all in my power to make this happen. This thread made me (re)realize the acuteness of this desire, and how competitive humanities are.

So sad to hear you are in such a poisonous environment. I had that in the undergrad with folks sabotaging others' work, plotting and gossiping. steer clear and stick to your work and friends. You don t want to be erroneously associated with the uncollegial group of people. At the same time, note well the names so as to avoid those people in the future. I for one have a s..t list. It s not very long, it s all in my head. I personally would stop telling answers to those who are not nice. Why bother. your friends yes but others? let them go to office hours.

That s a very timely idea! I was just thinking about this this morning, that it was time to think about goals. I already have goals for the summer which are quite modest: reread the core primary texts in my are (why: refresh knowledge and potential find new ideas), read this year's books by my potential advisor and a few other professors of interest (for obvious reasons + professional dvpt), read a few major works of world literature (for general erudition and entertainment) - metrics for these are all very simple: read. otherwise also think about the field in general and topics to explore (no metrics for this, I don t function that way.) For my 1st year of PhD goals will be comnection with dpt community, get closure in the one topic outside of my specialty I still want to explore, understand current trends in my field, try to publish my seminar papers. also apply for DAAD to learn German, but that might not be required. We ll see.

@adamski, Well, the gordian knot is a pretty standard cultural reference that might appear on the exam. What I meant was that sometimes Kaplan would have 2 very similar options which both fit and they just twost their justification into fitting their pick.

Like yourself, I was applying for jobs this winter and I was never too eager to tell HR that I applied for PhD. I had to disclose that once when a high ranking manager asked me directly (the next question was: what in a job would make you consider not doing a PhD and it was hard to not tell "nothing would" to his face. I basically described a tenure track job. Needless to say, I did not get the job at that company.). Otherwise I considered (and still do) that it was not your responsibility to disclose the then hypothetical PhD scenario. They emplyer might be annoyed that you did not tell them about the decision at the time of signing he new contract now, but definitely not about not disclosing in January. The hiring process is a game and it s their problem they were not smart enough to ask the right question.

Powerprep is quite accurate, so it s best to use it 1 mid-way through preparation to see how you re doing and one close to the exam to brush up on the last remaining points. Kaplan s math is just too easy, it s nothing like the real test , and their verbal is sometimes poorly justified so I found it annoying to work with. Still, good practice as it forces you to think about the questions.

Interesting. Why is that? I feel completely otherwise: new school, new place, new friends... A different mode of working after the qualifying exams, too. Already the change between BA and MA was drastic with a major shift in attitude of others toward me, which I felt esp. strongly because it was all in the same university. But because it was the same school it kind of felt like a continuation. Although I have always treated every new place as an opportunity to change my approach to things, present myself in a new light. But now I think it will be all very new and different. To my mind of a historian this all looks like the timeline has new bracket opening with now closing bracket in sight Or, if you will, the moment now is like the origin of a ray which I sure hope does not become a segment too soon

@knp you re right, sorry. It depends.