FoxAndChicken

I don't have a good excuse for this. I'm just doing the stereotypical American thing and realizing it's been years since I took a close look at a map. Fortunately, I'm not applying for a geography Ph.D.

So, that seemed weird to me, because I was under the impression that the philippines were more east than Korea. So I looked at a map, and realized that I only ever studied geography by region, and there are a whole lot of things that I misproportioned in my mental image of the world. Mind. Blown.

It's 10:30AM here. Are you in Asia somewhere? South Korea is about an hour ahead of you, I think? I only know that offhand because I tend to keep track of kpop releases.

One of my friends told me she was having nightmares because she is afraid that her boyfriend and her will break up after he graduates and it terrifies her that he might date someone else. She knows this thinking is irrational, so I didn't really have much to say except ". . . Well. If you don't sleep you won't have nightmares." This is how I'm getting through application waiting season.

One of the professors in the department I work in said that she was shut out, went and learned a couple languages and got in everywhere she applied. That made me feel better.

I understand. I don't want my friends and family to say "I'm sure you'll get in!" I want them to say "It'll be okay if you don't." Because I feel like it's pretty likely I'll be shut out.

️I don't believe UM Philosophy has, but the classics department has people who specialize in ancient philosophy, so it could have been that.

I decided that I wanted to be a logic major between freshman and sophomore year, but even before that I would basically beg my friends taking the class to let me help them. (Unfortunately, something about logic means people don't want tutors because they think it's remedial thinking and they don't want to admit they're bad at thinking.) But finally I have friends taking math logic, and they not only want my help, they give me Starbucks gift cards in exchange! I can't remember a time without lots of things to do. (I think that as a kid this is how my mom kept me from hanging out with the neighbor kids who all do meth now.) So I am both used to it and crave it. One thing that really jumpstarts my productivity is to make an entry in my planner that has the items I need to do with estimated time it should take. And I tend to estimate on the low side to push myself to do the things faster.

Oh, got it. I've heard grading can be tedious. It's weird to think that I could be leading classes within two years.

Marking?

All of that sounds really cool! I've never taken a physics course. Actually, my science courses in general are pretty lacking. I had to plan out every class I wanted to take when I was a sophomore because I decided to make my own major. Since I wanted to take upper level/graduate coursework in multiple departments, I needed to do prereqs in Linguistics, Philosophy, Math, and CS. Between that and my history minor, I ate up all of my electives. :/ No regrets, though! Interesting stuff, for sure. What is your background? I'm finishing up my senior year at UMich.

Order which I applied: Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, Yale, UMich, Carnegie Mellon, and Tufts. I don't want to preference rank them because I will be ecstatic if I get into any one of them, and definitely don't expect to get into multiple. Ergo, if I am in a scenario of having to decide, I'll figure it out, but I won't anticipate being in that position. Where did you apply?

I've never actually watched That 70's Show. Is it good?

I was going to apply Harvard, but I had so many apps on one day that I decided against it. Also, if I get shut out, I can apply again next year and they won't have seen my application. Reading their site was so nice because it validated that what I do is indeed a thing. I'm the first/only logic major at my school, so it's a lot of floating between the math and philosophy departments.

The nightmares, omg. I had a dream that parenthesis were chasing me and the next day, when I was typing up homework for my recursion theory class, I realized that how I'd written it before the nightmare actually did have mismatched parenthesis.

I don't think we'll hear back for about a week and a half, if last year is any indication. They seem to get a little later each year, but I don't have a ton of data. I'm taking set theory now! It's cool stuff. Working on well orderings and stuff. Did you apply Harvard also?

I stress shop, too. It's really bas because I just quit my retail job recently because I was hired to help with a cool research project. This is my first weekend where I have things to do, but don't have to be anywhere to do them, so I'm doing probably six months of laundry. (Over the past six months I've done a load per week, but worn more than a load of clothes per week.) I am currently horrified at the amount of clothing I purchased while working at a cute boutique. O.o

Jessica Jones is pretty excellent! So many ups and downs. What part are you on? Over winter break I watched a lot of Buffy.

loan sharks

That project sounds SO cool! I sprained my ankle like twenty times over four years, and then I went to physical therapy and now I don't faceplant while walking over flat surfaces. This past week I started a project in the math department developing a logic curriculum for first or second year undergraduates that explains why math proofs work. Specifically, when you explain: "Take an arbitrary element of a set. Show that it has these properties. Then, you conclude that everything in the set has this property." It takes a while to sink in why that works. So we're developing a curriculum that will give them lots of practice with this. I'm SUPER excited to start this project, because usually math peoples think I do a fuzzier version of what they do. But now I get to make them clean up their notation. Muhahahaha!

I don't give myself a choice. I am in six classes and have three jobs and maintain leadership positions in three student organizations. Not being productive isn't an options. I'm required to be places for all of these things, which helps. I check my email every very few minutes at most of them. Fortunately, people understand.

I mean, maybe. But I have a couple friends who independently use the phrase "I'm obnoxious," and they're all really successful people. Probably for that reason? One girl was talking about feedback she got from some judges at a thing, and I was like "Wait. How did you get feedback? Those are secret ballots." And she was like "I'm obnoxious." And yeah. That's why she wins.

I haven't heard anything yet, but all of my friends in mathematics have heard from a bunch of schools. It's just a difference of field (I'm applying mostly philosophy and the earliest any of them should be released is like the 12th), but every time I go into the math department (which is daily) they ask if I've heard any good news yet. Like, there hasn't been any news, and that's fine. It's just making the waiting that much worse.

I recently posted general interview advice in the Wine Wait and Whine thread! Not grad school specific though.

Some tips I picked up for interviews: 1. Being really grateful and really nervous are weirdly mutually exclusive. If I get in the mindset of remembering all of the improbabilities that had to line up for me to get where I am, then I don't feel nervous any more. Also, it helps you remember to be kind of humble. 2. Remember that they want you to succeed. Everyone has that fear of being like in the middle school talent show where people boo you off stage because your talent is bad. But you're ACTUALLY qualified to be in said interview, and more importantly, middle school students are terrible. Even the most terrible adult will not be as soul crushing as a judgy middle school student. So they won't boo you out of the interview, even if your talent sucks. Because social norms. 3. They don't want perfect, they just want you. The best way to be an interesting person is to be interested in things. You want to get a Ph.D. for a reason, right? If you weren't interested in the topic, you wouldn't be doing this. Let that shine through, because that is exciting to the person interviewing you as well. View it as an opportunity to nerd with a fellow enthusiast. :D