American in Beijing

Berkeley's Diversity Outreach Office has some great tips on their websites for writing SOPs and other parts of grad school applications. It's a really great resource for anyone who's applying to grad school, especially for those in the social sciences and humanities.

If you plan on applying for the 2010-2011 season, check it out!


http://ls.berkeley.e...tatement-1.html

It's normal to doubt yourself before a major life change. I myself keep switching back and forth between euphoria and complete panic. Last month was panic month, where I seriously doubted whether I can handle it. This month I'm very much excited, bouncing off the walls and reviewing all my undergrad work so I can be prepared for grad school. In another week or so, you might have the same drastic change I had.

Honestly, I would at least try it out and see. It's not like you're spending any money to do this. You've worked so hard to get in, why not at least try it for a semester? Once you enter, you can drop out whenever you want. Why risk burning bridges when you don't have to? Who knows! You might find that you love it!

I save most of my energy for lifting student essays at the end of the term. Quite the workout, that!

I'm assuming you're talking about Chinese history. What period have you been doing research in? What's your background in Classical Chinese? I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but a strong grasp of even the elementary Classical Chinese structures can really help your ability to read Modern Chinese.

I had a similarly frustrating experience in my last year of undergrad, when I decided to do a research project that heavily relied on Chinese language primary texts. I wasn't really prepared linguistically for the challenge, and had to look up almost every word. Fortunately one of my professors convinced me to go do an advanced language program in China, where we studied a lot of the basic constructions you can find in texts from different periods and different disciplines. I read those same texts at the end of the program, and I could easily go through them without a dictionary.

So basically, I would recommend you attend an advanced language program in China or Taiwan.

However, if that's not an option for you, then I would try to use your language tutor to your best advantage. Looking up and memorizing EVERY word or construction is not going to help you. Some of those words that you spent hours memorizing won't ever show up again, or at least not for a long time. I would have your language tutor read ahead in your materials and pick out the important and frequently used constructions. Before you read the text, study these constructions. Then, when you go to read the text, skim it first without a dictionary and see how much you can understand. Then read it once through again without a dictionary, underlining the words you don't understand. However, try to underline only the words that you can't guess the meaning. Then, use the dictionary to look up the underlined words (an electronic dictionary will save you a lot of time in this part). Read it through again. By this point, you should be able to understand what the text is saying, even if you still don't fully understand every word of every sentence. After that, I would have your language tutor look through your underlined words and pick out some of the very important ones for you to memorize.

This kind of a method should help a bit. But learning to read a language is the same as most other skills in life: you get better with practice. The more you read, the faster you'll be able to read. That's why Chinese history professors don't need to hire translators to do their research; they've just read these kinds of documents so often that they can just do it by themselves relatively easily. I know it's hard, but 加油! You can do it! Just keep working at it.

Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions or need more advice.

Man, if we were at the same school I would totally join you in that game of tag. Although you know what you could do to get your grad school friends into it would be to start up a game of Paint Monster. We used to play this at an English Camp I worked at and it was the most fun thing ever.

It's basically a combination of tag and hide and seek. Three people (maybe more or less, depending on the size of your group) are given a jar of paint (each a different color) and a paintbrush. They are then told to hide in different places while the rest of the group covers there eyes. Once they have hidden themselves, one, two or three (again, depending on the size of your group) "paint monsters" are chosen. These people are each given a damp washcloth.

Once the paint monsters have been chose, the remaining people are allowed to run around freely looking for the painters. Once they have found a painter, the painter then uses the paintbrush to paint a stripe on the person's face. The goal of the game is to be the first one to return to the starting point with all the colors on his/her face.

However, once you have paint on your face, you are vulnerable to the attacks of the paint monsters. If they see you with paint on your face, they can chase you and try to tag you. Once they have tagged you, they use the damp washcloth to wipe the paint off your face. You must then start over.

Yet starting over might not be as easy as you thought, because the painters are allowed to move from their spots at any time, meaning that you have to start the whole process over again.

This game is a lot of fun . . . and maybe I'll just start a game on Berkeley's campus for an afternoon of stress-relieving fun and exercise!

Do you still live relatively close to your undergrad institution? Another option would be to e-mail other professors whose classes you did well in and ask them to meet with you to talk about grad school and being a professor. It will remind them of who you are and you'll come across as a bit more motivated. You could bring up the subject of letters of recommendation and ask whom they would suggest write you one (with the hopes that THEY will be open to writing you one).

It's obviously ideal if you can get more than one letter from your undergrad institution. Recommendations from these people will mean a WHOLE lot more than some professor at a community college or an online course.

I agree. It's definitely not always the best decision to go with the biggest name or the most famous lab. If, after visiting and having detailed discussions with both faculty and students at several schools, you decide that the number 31 school is the best fit for your needs, then by all means go for it. However, I think it's a foolish decision to not even bother to apply to a school that in reality you know little about just because it's Ivy League and you don't want to work in a big lab or teach at an Ivy League institution. You should at least give yourself all the options you can so that when March comes around you can know you made an informed decision.

Something else I think you should do that no one's mentioned so far is be extra active in contacting professors. Like UnlikelyGrad said, some schools only want to see your major GPA for the last two years, so your Computer Science degree won't matter at all. However, at least in my field, MOST schools want you to put down your cumulative GPA. And applications with low GPAs are often just thrown out without being reviewed. I think once you have narrowed down a few professors you would like to work with in grad school you should definitely try to set up a meeting with them. Don't mention the GPA thing right off the bat, but do try to work it in the conversation somehow. Tell them you have a 4.0 or close to a 4.0 major GPA and that you would hate to have your application ignored due to Computer Science grades from more than 10 years ago. I am sure they will understand and maybe will even flag your application to make sure it passes through the first round and at least gets reviewed.

I was really nervous before my first (and only) POI meeting as well. Unfortunately, back then I didn't know about this forum, so I didn't even have the benefit of others' advice. Still, it went really well and I had a good time. I dressed somewhat formally (nice pants, black cardigan, pashmina, fake pearl necklace, heels), which was good, because my POI was dressed similarly and I wasn't under-dressed. She asked me some questions about my proposed topic of research, we talked about some books I had read on the subject, and then she gave me some advice about resources I could use if I wanted to continue down this line of research. Then she told me a bit about the program, I asked her some questions, and then we were finished.

I had spent a good part of my summer conducting research on my topic, so that's the main reason why we talked about it for so long. If you're worried that you don't have enough research experience to be able to talk about your own research for a long period of time, I would recommend reading one of your POI's books and making some mental notes as you read of topics of conversation.

As far as questions go, I would be prepared to ask about specific details about the program itself (it shows you've done your homework and read the website, ). You can also ask about the department culture and the other grad students doing research there. I'm sure you'll think of something while you're talking.

Good luck! I'm sure you'll do very well!

I second the Barron's recommendation. I was in the same situation as you, OP. I gave myself only a month to prepare for the GRE (both times . . . I didn't really learn). But I was able to raise my cumulative score by 500 points with the help of Barron's (and a LOT of flashcards . . . ).

Don't panic. It's doable. You're going to do great! Good luck!

Honestly HOUBMA, the advice you give out is false. Your odds of acceptance decrease dramatically with 2.5 GPA even with a decent GRE score, unless of course you have been out of the academia for 10 years and served in the military. Even then, one is playing against the odds.

Just because her oral English is very good, doesn't mean that her formal writing skills are just as good. Living in a country for decades can obviously give you a lot of great spoken skills and teach you how to write a basic e-mail, but it doesn't mean that you can write a formal recommendation. Formal writing is very different from interacting with people in day-to-day life, and can be very hard to pick up if you didn't spend 12 years in an English-speaking secondary education system (which means extra kudos for you, JustChill, for being able to write so well!). For instance, I asked one of my non-native English speaking professors to write me a recommendation once. She has lived in America for 15 years, has no discernible accent, and only VERY rarely makes grammar mistakes, but I was very surprised at how informal and sloppy the letter was. She's an adjunct language professor with only a MA, so she doesn't often get the chance to write them. So even though her English is amazing and she's one of the professors who honestly knows me best, I don't ask her to write LORs for me anymore.

Unless your boss has a lot of experience writing academic letters of recommendation, I would personally go with your anthropology professor. Not only is she a native speaker, but, seeing as she's an academic, she also has greater insight into what academics would find appealing about an applicant.

Just because her oral English is very good, doesn't mean that her formal writing skills are just as good. Living in a country for decades can obviously give you a lot of great spoken skills and teach you how to write a basic e-mail, but it doesn't mean that you can write a formal recommendation. Formal writing is very different from interacting with people in day-to-day life, and can be very hard to pick up if you didn't spend 12 years in an English-speaking secondary education system (which means extra kudos for you, JustChill, for being able to write so well!). For instance, I asked one of my non-native English speaking professors to write me a recommendation once. She has lived in America for 15 years, has no discernible accent, and only VERY rarely makes grammar mistakes, but I was very surprised at how informal and sloppy the letter was. She's an adjunct language professor with only a MA, so she doesn't often get the chance to write them. So even though her English is amazing and she's one of the professors who honestly knows me best, I don't ask her to write LORs for me anymore.

Unless your boss has a lot of experience writing academic letters of recommendation, I would personally go with your anthropology professor. Not only is she a native speaker, but, seeing as she's an academic, she also has greater insight into what academics would find appealing about an applicant.

I would get rid of the first paragraph. The story is cute, but so many other personal statements are going to have the exact same kind of story that it's not going to be cute to the people on the adcoms anymore. I would use the space to instead discuss your intended area of research. You talk a lot about what you have done in the past, but you don't discuss what kind of research you intend to do on the doctoral level. Pick a topic that you like (preferably one that fits well with the interests of the faculty at the school you're applying to) and show off how much you know about it. Adcoms want to see that you're knowledgeable and dedicated, so keep that in mind when you write!

Also, there are a few grammar and spelling mistakes in your personal statement. Before you send it off, you should have a native speaker with good writing skills look it over for you.

I'm assuming you're talking about Chinese history. What period have you been doing research in? What's your background in Classical Chinese? I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but a strong grasp of even the elementary Classical Chinese structures can really help your ability to read Modern Chinese.

I had a similarly frustrating experience in my last year of undergrad, when I decided to do a research project that heavily relied on Chinese language primary texts. I wasn't really prepared linguistically for the challenge, and had to look up almost every word. Fortunately one of my professors convinced me to go do an advanced language program in China, where we studied a lot of the basic constructions you can find in texts from different periods and different disciplines. I read those same texts at the end of the program, and I could easily go through them without a dictionary.

So basically, I would recommend you attend an advanced language program in China or Taiwan.

However, if that's not an option for you, then I would try to use your language tutor to your best advantage. Looking up and memorizing EVERY word or construction is not going to help you. Some of those words that you spent hours memorizing won't ever show up again, or at least not for a long time. I would have your language tutor read ahead in your materials and pick out the important and frequently used constructions. Before you read the text, study these constructions. Then, when you go to read the text, skim it first without a dictionary and see how much you can understand. Then read it once through again without a dictionary, underlining the words you don't understand. However, try to underline only the words that you can't guess the meaning. Then, use the dictionary to look up the underlined words (an electronic dictionary will save you a lot of time in this part). Read it through again. By this point, you should be able to understand what the text is saying, even if you still don't fully understand every word of every sentence. After that, I would have your language tutor look through your underlined words and pick out some of the very important ones for you to memorize.

This kind of a method should help a bit. But learning to read a language is the same as most other skills in life: you get better with practice. The more you read, the faster you'll be able to read. That's why Chinese history professors don't need to hire translators to do their research; they've just read these kinds of documents so often that they can just do it by themselves relatively easily. I know it's hard, but 加油! You can do it! Just keep working at it.

Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions or need more advice.

I'm assuming you're talking about Chinese history. What period have you been doing research in? What's your background in Classical Chinese? I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but a strong grasp of even the elementary Classical Chinese structures can really help your ability to read Modern Chinese.

I had a similarly frustrating experience in my last year of undergrad, when I decided to do a research project that heavily relied on Chinese language primary texts. I wasn't really prepared linguistically for the challenge, and had to look up almost every word. Fortunately one of my professors convinced me to go do an advanced language program in China, where we studied a lot of the basic constructions you can find in texts from different periods and different disciplines. I read those same texts at the end of the program, and I could easily go through them without a dictionary.

So basically, I would recommend you attend an advanced language program in China or Taiwan.

However, if that's not an option for you, then I would try to use your language tutor to your best advantage. Looking up and memorizing EVERY word or construction is not going to help you. Some of those words that you spent hours memorizing won't ever show up again, or at least not for a long time. I would have your language tutor read ahead in your materials and pick out the important and frequently used constructions. Before you read the text, study these constructions. Then, when you go to read the text, skim it first without a dictionary and see how much you can understand. Then read it once through again without a dictionary, underlining the words you don't understand. However, try to underline only the words that you can't guess the meaning. Then, use the dictionary to look up the underlined words (an electronic dictionary will save you a lot of time in this part). Read it through again. By this point, you should be able to understand what the text is saying, even if you still don't fully understand every word of every sentence. After that, I would have your language tutor look through your underlined words and pick out some of the very important ones for you to memorize.

This kind of a method should help a bit. But learning to read a language is the same as most other skills in life: you get better with practice. The more you read, the faster you'll be able to read. That's why Chinese history professors don't need to hire translators to do their research; they've just read these kinds of documents so often that they can just do it by themselves relatively easily. I know it's hard, but 加油! You can do it! Just keep working at it.

Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions or need more advice.

I took a year off, so I'll be 23 when I start and turning 24 towards the end of the first semester. I've been told that very few people in my field finish in fewer than 6 years (one program told me they'd never had anyone finish in fewer than 6), so I'll be at least 30 when I graduate *gulp*.

In response to everyone's questions about parenthood, I've been feeling very confused about that myself. East Asian history PhDs are notoriously long (one of my professors needed 12 years to complete his, though I highly doubt my case will be that extreme . . . I hope), and I'm worried that if I have a child during grad school it's not going to help that I have a baby in tow when I'm scrambling for a job with massive amounts of debt from undergrad all coming back the second I graduate. But then again, is having a kid while I'm vying for tenure the best idea either? Neither is having a kid after tenure, when I'm in my late 30s early 40s when I have health issues to consider.

Perhaps no time's the best time to have a kid when you're an impoverished academic. Unless, of course, you marry for money. I feel like a PhD in Chinese history might make me stand out in the competition to be Mr. Bazillionaire's doting trophy wife . . .

Wow, compared to some of the responses here my situation was not horribly bad, but at the time I didn't know how to carry on.

One of my classmates passed away at the end of October. Although I didn't know him personally, my program put me in charge of organizing some things for his parents and helping with the memorial ceremony. Reading and/or translating his essays, blogs, and the letters of his family/friends left me almost as devastated as if he'd been a close friend. It also resulted in me effectively missing a week's worth of class and the final exam, all of which I had to make up.

The day after the memorial service my parents came to visit for a week. Needless to say, between taking them around a foreign city where they didn't speak the language and making up my homework so I wouldn't flunk out of my program, I didn't have much time to work on my apps. When I finally got around to working on my writing sample, my parents would whine: "Do you really HAVE to do that?" . . . Needless to say, I don't exactly come from an academic family.

After my parents had finally left, I thought to myself: ok, crunch time! You can do this! You still have two weeks! All you have to do is edit some things. That's doable, right?

The next day my host mom kicked me out of my house, because she needed the room for her sick mother-in-law. She gave me 2 days to move out. I was so exhausted and stressed, I just cried for three days. In between crying, I went to class, studied for my final exam, and found a place to live. This essentially left me with 1 week to do at least half of my application work.

In the end, it all worked out. The school with the earliest deadline, the one where I had the least time to prepare, has given me a positive response. Before, I contemplated writing to them to explain my horrible situation, but in the end I realized that in life there are probably going to be lots of times like this where unexpected and even tragic things happen. Can I always use them for an excuse to not get my work done well?

Basically, shit happens. But, as many others have pointed out:

"When life gets you down you know what you gotta do? . . . Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming! What do we do? We swim! Swim!"

I love Finding Nemo.

I'm with a lot of others here on the location question. Unless you are REALLY not a countryside person or a city person, I would put location last. But make sure you're first very informed about the nature of the location before you decide on a school.

I went to undergrad in a "rural area" (well, at least that's what people who grew up in cities and didn't know what REAL rural looks like called it). I'm VERY familiar with the "I hate this place, because you can't walk to a mall/bar" kind of mentality. I have friends who at least claimed to be completely miserable, because my school didn't have a happening club right down the street. These were mostly, however, the same people who didn't even bother to come visit the school before accepting, and who also had lived their entire lives in a city. They weren't expecting it, and the shock of the disappointment made them miserable. Before you make any decision, make sure you are 100% informed about any factor that you personally consider to be a big deal.

So why do I still advocate that you ignore location in your final decisions? Well, because in many cases your preferences can change. Also, in my experience, as long as you know what to expect, you can deal with non-ideal situations. If your dream school is located in the big city and you're one of those people who, like me, does not like big city life, tell yourself this: no school is perfect. I may hate the location of this school, but everything else is great for me. Isn't a PhD worth sacrificing my lungs and getting a little dirty every time you leave the apartment? In reality, for the first 2-3 years, I'm not going to ever have time to leave the library. Does it really matter if this library is located in New York or rural Idaho?