day_manderly
-
Posts
110 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by day_manderly
-
-
6 hours ago, throwaway19 said:
Hi everyone. This is a throwaway account because I'm identifiable by my main account.
I'll try to make this as short as possible. Basically, I feel like sh*t, and for no reason. I got into 6 fully-funded top-50 PhD programs in my field and will be attending a top-15. I won an NSF, have two publications, got Phi Beta Kappa, and won a very good award from my undergrad department. I feel like I don't deserve any of this, like it was all luck or an accident. I feel less accomplished than others in my cohort, especially since I'm one of the youngest.
I graduated in December and have been living at home and working an RA job from home. I went to undergrad less than an hour away from home, and I'll be going to the closest "good" school possible in my field, only 4 hours away. All of the others were 8+ hours away. Still, I've never been this far from home. Never studied abroad or anything. I feel stunted. I lived at school all through undergrad and was fine. Now, every time I think of moving, I get all panicky. I cannot bear the thought of it. I'm living in a constant state of anxiety and fear - not only of moving, but also of not being able to survive my program, of not being good enough. I wish I could defer for a year, but with my NSF, that's not possible. Besides, it might make things worse.
I am very close to my widowed grandmother and see her everyday, and since my parents' divorce, I've gotten very close to my mother, whom I live with now. I'm so worried about leaving them alone. I don't want them to be sad. I also am afraid of having to cook and clean and do all of this stuff for myself, even though I've done it all before. I tried to find a roommate but have failed so far. Besides, I have enough money to live alone and do in fact prefer it. I just don't want to feel lonely. I tend to isolate myself in a new place. I hate moving and starting over and meeting new people, and I feel so comfortable here at home. Sometimes I feel so bad about all of this and want to just forget about the whole grad school thing and just live a quiet and simple life forever. Yet I know I would hate that so much in the long run. I know I would be wasting so much that I've worked for, even though I don't feel like I deserve what I have. I feel like a loser whenever I try to talk to anyone about this; they've all gone abroad multiple times and went to college very far away from home and whatever else. I feel like something is wrong with me for feeling so afraid. But I am so terrified of this new chapter in my life, and I don't know how I'm going to enjoy, or even survive, these next few months of my life. I'm going to be a nervous wreck, and I'm going to ruin the time I do have left at home. For so long I thought I wanted to get away, but now that the time is almost here, I want nothing more than to stay.
Sorry for all the rambling, I just needed to vent. I think this is mostly all just fear of growing up, but it just feels overwhelming.
First of all, read about imposter syndrome, because you definitely have it.
Then - nobody gets admitted for not being good enough.
Now, the most important advice: CELEBRATE. Go to a bar with your friends / family / special someone / yourself. Make it a memorable night. You need a mark in you mind that something has changed, that you are your own hero, that nothing will ever be the same. Get happy. Go for a picnic. Spend a week preparing for it, and then give yourself a big night.
Then, get over it. You deserve it. You have worked for it, hard. If you feel you did not spend enough hours working on it hard - whatever, it's not about time, it's about the results.
Do not defer, by all means (even if it somehow becomes possible). Go for it. Panic is normal - I was all panicky too when I moved. Things that help:
* travelling there often (at least thrice), checking the place out, making friends;
* watching movies about great universities;
* sports. You need another accomplishment to make it roll - sign up for a 5k run or something like that;
* go travel somewhere new and exciting.
Be ready for a month of organizing work when you are in grad school, it's ok. Just make yourself busy, join one club or another. In a month into grad school it will be all right, regardless of how you feel now!
I would advise against reaching out to nameless community from your school - better ask people who you make friends with / like. Nameless community gives all sorts of feedback, and it's impossible to get prepared.
- amlitbookworm and PizzaCat93
-
2
-
1 hour ago, Levon3 said:
I don't know of any school's website that has a "search by interest" option. If you aren't already familiar with the notable scholars in this domain, I don't understand how you are sure you want to study this. One thing you might try is: run a google scholar search for your theoretical interests, read some articles and develop a running list of people you'd be interested in working with based on their work. Some of them may be at Peabody, but you may determine that you are a better fit with a professor elsewhere.
Why, the Harvard website does, and UMich website, and UPenn's, too. As for reading and searching - yes, sure, I have done all that. I know where the professors who work in the same field mostly reside, and have contacted a few. Peabody is one of the safeties for me, as the list of schools where a person with my interest can apply is rather short, and the school has a PhD program with a possible concentration in Higher Education - not so common a thing.
Another point - sometimes a professor is not officially working in the school of education, but in, say, the department of history. That is another reason why I asked the community here whether they know someone. Also, I might have missed a professor; he or she might have been a faculty member in another place when writing a paper, and so on.
Btw, looking for different programs, I found Higher Education: A Worldwide Inventory of Research Centers, Academic Programs, and Journals and Publications by Boston College Center for International Higher Education immensely helpful.
https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/research_sites/cihe/pdf/Worldwide_Inventory_full_2015_08_11.pdf
-
56 minutes ago, Heather1011 said:
I disagree about the cost being $1200 to split a house. I have definitely seen rooms in 3-4 bedrooms in different parts of Boston/Cambridge for $700-900, utilities vary. Same goes for NYC. You just have to look in different neighborhoods.
Yes, but what do you mean by 'different neighborhoods'? Would the price of $700 mean one lives in a really bad neighborhood which is far away from the campus?
-
On 15/05/2016 at 2:07 PM, grad16-17 said:
With this kind of rent prices, how do young families moving up there for grad school get by???
Suggestions of rental areas please.
Are the rent prices really that high?! That seems insane. And what does a 'house for 4 people' mean, anyway?..
-
2 hours ago, ZeChocMoose said:
Higher ed is a field that borrows theories from other social science disciplines and applies them to help explain their empirical work. If you are only interested in creating theories - this isn't the right field for you.
Being a theorist does not mean only creating theories, but also critiquing and applying them. Also, we do create theories - look at Ronald Barnett, for one. Peabody's website does not have a 'search by interest' option, hence one has to read each and every professor's profile in order to understand who is who. Ergo, the question.
-
So I have been looking for different PhD programs. I am interested in PhDs in Higher Ed specifically, and it seems like Canada has at least three (U of Toronto, UBS, U of Alberta). Does anybody have any information? I am particularly concerned about financial aid for international students. I have written to them, of course, but their e-mail was beyond cryptic (although very nice), and, subsequently, not really informative. Hence, the questions:
Is anyone here currently attending any of the Canadian schools? How do you feel about your experience?
Do they fund PhD students? Does the funding cover the expenses?
How does the application process differ to the one is US?
-
-
Thank you. I ended up simply chatting with the professor, but I am not sure it can always be done. According to my observations, in most cases professors prefer to talk about their work first, and about everything else next.
-
I'd like to start a thread on how to acquire information from grad schools on education. They are all very different, right? And most of the good ones are highly competitive.
And my problem of today - I have a connection with two grad schools, but not with my potential supervisors. Still, I feel I should be using these connections to get acquainted with the schools. In fact, I am going to talk to one of the professors today. Do you have any advice on the questions? I have two goals: 1) to understand the atmosphere, how the school functions; 2) to become familiar to the professors.
Getting back into GRE Prep - 3 months to go
in GRE/GMAT/etc
Posted
I personally am using Magoosh Advanced plan + going through Manhattan + using everything I stumble upon for practice questions.
4 essays per day is crazy (and so are 2 per day). I would rather suggest to make sure you've written an essay (not just written, but mastered, killed it) on all of the big topics - government, education, environment, society. Group all the topics, and then just make sure you have a bank of ideas/examples/approaches for each one. I also find writing plans without actually writing an essay immensely helpful.