detroitfan

Couple things off the top of my head... There's a line to walk between "taking it easy your first couple years" and "burning yourself out." And it's something to take seriously. Everyone who went through a graduate program had those folks in their cohort that were smarter than they were and worked just as hard, but managed their time poorly. They started taking papers to conferences before they had the skills to do so, they loaded up on technical courses without the adequate prerequisites and they faked interests in subfields or topics they felt would be trendy for the job market. Most of those people don't finish and end up working in the private sector (for a good chunk of cash...but still...) You want to be aggressive in graduate school, but you also need to be smart about it. There's a lot to learn. Always keep an eye on the job market, but keep the other solidly on your development within your program. Your letters are going to either open or keep doors shut for you, and those letters are largely determined by your performance/attitude within your program. Once that die is cast, I think the best generic job market advice is to plan on practicing that job talk non-stop for about 6 months. Having only been on the market in one, I can't really contrast the american to comparative subfields. They're both going to be competitive. My intuition is that there's always going to be a certain level of demand across american politics subfields, whereas it may fluctuate across regions in comparative/ir (i.e. mideast is hot at the moment).

It's going to depend on the program you're in, but I wouldn't run the ICPSR or one of the EITMs until the summer of my second or third year. Having noted that, I thought the program I eventually went to was valuable for learning/networking/broadening my exposure to the discipline. The summer of my first year I managed to latch on to a senior faculty member and do some RA work. I thought it was pretty useful.

I think the preceding comments were on the nose. I wouldn't worry about getting grilled on your poster. It's a really laid back, low-stress environment. It tends to attract a more general crowd than papers will. I wouldn't abandon your poster for a long period of time, but I also wouldn't be shy about looking around at other peoples posters that may be related to your work. It's a nice opportunity to meet scholars with similar interests and at similar stages in their career. Congrats and enjoy.

For what it's worth, about a quarter of the graduate students at the top 20 where I finished had masters from other schools. Of those, probably half were "moving up" and half were lateral transfers (advisors would leave, etc.) I have no idea if this is generalizeable to other programs (it sounds like it isn't). For most of these students it did increase the time to degree (most not doing field work finished in 6 I think). Honestly, I don't think it's out of line to ask the lower ranked program if many of their students transfer. You'll get some older faculty or the occasional associate that will be upset, but many more are aware of the situation and willing to talk to you about it. I wouldn't "count" on being able to do it, and if you're looking to do something very specialized it's makes it even more unlikely, but in my experience it's not uncommon.

I actually think it's quite common and I know several junior faculty at lower ranked PhD programs that frequently encourage and help their students transfer up. I wouldn't say there aren't some faculty that discourage it there, but it occurs at a decent rate. If the option is 2nd tier no funding or fourth tier funded masters, I'd opt for the masters. This isn't to say you'll be a slam dunk to get into better programs...But if you distinguish yourself at the MA program I think you have a good shot.