Nomad1111

Anybody can, but should they? 

I totally disagree that travelling is a waste of the summer! If you have the time and money, do it! It's going to be very difficult to find that chunk of time during your PhD, you've likely worked your butt off to get into programs, and travelling is a wonderful way to grow and mature as a person. Sure, prep too if ya want, can't you do both?  Globally calling it a waste seems a bit closed-minded?

It's been done. This has been known about for 100 years.
 

It's been a stressful semester of writing thesis, teaching and taking a class.  I have to pack for moving, closing up my home, and then unpacking. Any reading I do will be fun, no-brain stuff, except I will reread Conrad & Jean Rhys for one of my classes. I wrote seminar papers on both of those books, so have already done two close readings. This will be a fun reading that refreshes my memory of them and reduces some of the new Ph.D. student jitters.

You've travelled a lot, you've gone backpacking, you've had plenty of time. Others likely haven't, so why sweepingly say that travelling is a waste and you strongly advise against it? You're approaching it from one of many angles but others are in different positions coming at grad school from different angles. 

On this weeks show the crew introduce special guest, Hana, to unpack how close is too close with your advisor, see an example of the kinds of things you can learn from animal research, distinguish between a wet and a dry lab, and hear about how Hana tackled the problem of diversity in her department.
Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/graduates-anonymous/id1224791435
Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/I2a4hgncos2d7gvxlpkijkcudxq?t=Graduates_Anonymous
Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=136082&refid=stpr
Website: https://gradanon.fireside.fm/4

As I have wrote elsewhere on these forums, I agree that the PhD should not be viewed only as an avenue for a specific line of work, if that specific line of work is a tenure track professor position. Statistically, we create way more PhDs than there are positions. Instead, as you wrote, I view the PhD as training in a set of useful skills that can lead to a multitude of careers which require these skills. Therefore, I think it only makes sense that a student pursues a PhD if they know that the training from this degree will help them achieve their career goals, whatever those may be.
However, I disagree with the sentiment that a PhD "allows a person to study and contribute to a particular field of inquiry". Well, to clarify, I disagree with this view as the "primary" or "main" focus of a PhD! The PhD should do this but the school should also ensure their students are developing transferable skills. In this sense, I do view the PhD as vocational training or like a "professional school". I believe that the University has a ethical responsibility to ensure their graduates are employable and to provide resources to non-academic career paths, to ensure the degree requirements don't interfere with a student's ability to make themselves employable elsewhere etc.
What do you mean by "Get a PhD for free?". I would never spend money or go into debt for a PhD. In my field, we are "fully funded" which means that we do not pay any tuition or fees and we get paid a stipend for our work (not a ton of money but enough to live on). However, this is a big cost to me, because most PhD students in my field can earn a lot more money if they were not PhD students. In terms of this opportunity cost, I think most students lose out on $10,000 to $20,000 per year. For a 5 year degree, this is up to $100,000, but also 5 years of raises, and 5 years of experience. This is a lot of money over a working lifetime, especially since missing something like 2% raise for 5 years adds up to a lot over 30-40 years of working. Of course, after getting a PhD, I should be employable at a much higher level, and when I made the decision, I decided that there was some risk but that it would be worth it. I would be better off financially and with a better chance at career satisfaction if I had a PhD vs. a Masters degree (In Canada, Masters are also fully funded). 
So, I would say that no, it's never worth the time/money getting a PhD if you don't see any job prospects for you (not necessarily just in the field). I think a PhD is such a big financial risk that I would never go into a program without clear career goals and a clear path of how to achieve them after you graduate. 
To increase your marketability for non-academic jobs? This really depends on what you want to do outside of the academy! My advice is to keep your options open and pay attention to career center events on your campus. My school regularly hosts seminars where they invite recruiters from various sectors to come and talk about what it's like to work in their field. You don't get to hear very much outside of academia, so attending these events taught me a lot about what the options out there really were. As you learn about these other options, you should develop the skills that allow you to pursue these options. Also, a lot of the time, it's not necessarily learning new skills but how to "translate" your academic skills into the jargon that your desired career path uses, so that you can "speak their language". 
I was pretty vague in the above paragraph since I wanted it to be applicable to a wide range of career paths. Currently, I am also interested in data analyst/data science type positions. I am learning how to describe the computational aspects of my research into the methods that companies like Amazon or Facebook would use to describe their work. I am learning some additional skills to round out the computational stuff I just picked up as part of research so that I would have a stronger foundation. I am also learning about the process of hiring in these fields, e.g. how to prepare for that type of interview etc.
I'm currently in my last year of my PhD and I'm applying to jobs. At this point, I've only applied to academic ones (postdocs) because the postdoc job cycle happens a lot earlier. Non-academic jobs have much shorter turn around times and I may be applying to those later this year, depending on how the postdoc cycle goes.

I schedule non-flexible time on Google Calendar and usually do not structure my work time very strictly unless I am in a time crunch and must get certain things done by certain times. Basically, all blank spaces between 8am and 5pm on my calendar (except for noon-1pm) is flexible work time. When I must get something done, I fill in these blank spaces with scheduled time to work on X.
 
I've also started doing something a month ago that I've found really helpful to my sanity. I used to consider my lunch hour as flexible work time as well, but I'm now considering it scheduled down time. In the past, I always say yes to work related commitments anytime between 8am and 5pm and schedule all other stuff around it. Then in April, I look at my schedule and found that in most weeks, 4 out of 5 lunch hours have stuff scheduled in them!
 
So, now I will always say "no" to any requests between noon and 1pm unless it is something I care about enough to give up my lunch hour for. Or, I am redefining my work day to be 8am to 12pm and 1pm to 5pm. This means I no longer need to feel bad or make excuses about why I can't do something for someone at noon, I just say no, I am busy at lunch. I also treat my noon-1pm block as "scheduled time" so this means if a 11am-noon meeting is running late, I leave at noon, the same way I would leave a meeting that was supposed to end at 2pm because I have a class or another meeting starting at 2pm.
 
Writing this out, it sounds almost silly because it's such as a small thing. But getting used to saying no and treating the 12pm-1pm block as off-limits was tough to do in the last 5 weeks. I think learning to say no is very important and much harder than it sounds (it took me about 1-2 years into grad school because I was able to set definite boundaries on my work day instead of always scheduling around other people and stressing out over that).

I also agree with you and Sigaba that those who work more hours are going to be more competitive. But there's another way to interpret the same fact: I know I am disadvantaged when competing with someone who works 60 hours per week consistently and that is fine with me. I rather work 40 hours, be happy, and find a less competitive job than work 60 hours in order to compete. To maintain my own sanity, I try not to compare myself with others--even if I work 60 hours per week, there is always another metric I can use to say "People in Group X are still more competitive than me".
 
In addition, I should be more explicit and say that the 9-5 / 40 hours per week schedule is the maximum that a graduate student should feel "required" to do. I feel like I am doing "good enough" when I work this much. On occasion, I will feel particularly inspired or motivated to try something and I'll work extra to get it done. But this is because I want to and because I made this choice for myself, not out of obligation. 

C-
Unless you already have a very refined skill set as a historian, you might be in for some incredibly tough sledding if you approach what awaits you as a "traditional job" that is not as enjoyable to you as your hobbies.

I very strongly recommend that you reassess your commitment to Klio. Consider the possibility that your proposed approach to history may place you at a disadvantage when it comes to competing with your fellow students, meeting the expectations of your professors, and, most of all, maximizing your potential.

You've travelled a lot, you've gone backpacking, you've had plenty of time. Others likely haven't, so why sweepingly say that travelling is a waste and you strongly advise against it? You're approaching it from one of many angles but others are in different positions coming at grad school from different angles. 

In the US, taxes are all very dependent on your personal situation so it is hard for someone who isn't in a similar situation as you (e.g. your program director) to be able to answer that question. Don't ask this to your program director.
Instead, look at this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States 
A few key things to keep in mind:
1. You have to pay federal tax as well as state tax. There may also be tax for your specific city.
2. If you are not a resident alien for tax purposes (if this is your first time in the US then you will not be a resident alien), you cannot claim the standard deduction mentioned in the Wiki article. You can only claim the personal exemption of around $4,000. Therefore, you will be taxed on $24,000 of income.
3. On average, a grad student earning $25k-$30k per year will be taxed at a rate around 12%. But a lot of things depend on what state you live in, whether your home country has a tax treaty with the US and whether you support dependents (but your spouse, if you have one, won't count). Safe thing to do is to budget 15% for taxes and treat the money returned each year as a bonus.

It's not automatic. Your school may ask you to fill out Form W-4 (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf) when you arrive, however, this is mostly used for American earners (if non-resident aliens fill out this form, we have to do special things to it, as specified in the instructions for non-resident aliens). I honestly do not remember if I filled one of these out 5 years ago, but I know my spouse definitely has for their "real person job". The W-4 is the form that tells your employer how much to withhold etc.
Your school and country's treaty may be different than my school and the Canada-US treaty. In my case, my school's HR department knows nothing about my treaty. The international student office always try to stay out of taxes because they don't want to give advice they are liable for. The office won't advise me on taxes but they do run workshops led by actual tax attorneys to help us.
The Canadian-US tax treaty is simple: Canadians who are non-resident aliens in the US earning less than $10,000 in a tax year are exempt from all US taxes on that income (they will still claim this income in Canada though). However, this is not a "progressive" limit. If you earn $9,999, you pay no taxes. If you earn $10,001, you pay the full amount of taxes. I am not sure what happens if it's $10,000 (i.e. I don't remember if the wording is "$10,000 or less" or "less than $10,000"). 
Because it depends on the total amount earned at the end of the year, there's no good way to get the school to withhold less taxes. It is something you have to pay first and then claim later if you're eligible. I am not sure if this is true for all tax treaties or just the Canada-US one. In order to claim it, you fill in a part of the 1040-NR (the main federal tax form) citing the specific section in the US Tax Code. I use tax software designed for non-residents that figures out automatically whether or not I'm eligible each year based on my income. The school provides this software for free, and if yours does not, make sure you buy specifically the non-resident version of any tax software!
Finally, no, I don't think state taxes are part of these tax treaties. State taxes can run very differently. For example, as a non-resident alien in the US, I do not pay US federal taxes on my worldwide income, however, as a California non-resident, I still pay California taxes on any income earned while in California. For example, I had a Canadian fellowship for a few years and the payment came in the form of a cheque sent to me by the Canadian government. This income is not taxable by the US federal taxes but I still paid California tax on it because it was income earned for work in the state, despite the foreign source. State taxes are usually way less though: it's about 1% to 2% for me, and California has one of the highest state taxes.
As your quote says, funding that pays for your tuition, required fees, books, supplies and equipment are tax free. So if your tuition is $15,000 and you get a total package of $25,000, then the first $15,000 is tax free. However, with many grad programs, we get a tuition waiver plus a stipend of (for example) $25,000. In this case, the entire $25,000 is taxable (minus any deductions) since you already got a tuition waiver. 

@TakeruK I may have to end up naming my firstborn after your gradcafe handle.Thank you so much!!
I'll have to bookmark this for next year!

I think we are all self absorbed, on all "sides"
 
Lets all remember that people are people are people.  There are monsters in the world, but lets not create more because we aren't getting our way.   Most people aren't hanging on several acceptances because they want to torture those on the wait list, and the people on the wait list aren't less qualified, and may have the same credentials as those considering multiple acceptances.  It is the luck of the draw. 
 
Those with several acceptances- Be considerate, if you know you aren't going to accept, then tell them so.  Those waiting- be patient and don't create villains where there are none.
 
It is a long and painful process for everyone involved.  Lets not make it more painful by attacking eachother.

not expecting anyone to consider my opinion... just saying that there's a lot of selfabsorption in the room. how quickly we forget what it's like to be on the torturous waiting end! these are the kinds of attitudes that carry forward into academia and shows how profs can completely guiltlessly put applicants thru hell during app season.
 
apply your very powerful brain for a day or two, consult everyone you need to consult, and make a decision. because of this dawdling and "WEEEEE I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DOOOOO HEE HEE!" some people will have to make the tough choice of turning down offers to gamble for a wait list offer that may come after april 15. 
 
it's awful.

Well this thread is quite intimidating. So many Ivy level schools. I'll be heading to Baylor in the fall. Good Luck to everyone!

Stanford Genetics!
Anyone else going to Stanford?

Yeah, you're seriously overthinking how much people care. Hiring managers care about your research experience, skill set, and how well you'd fit in a team dynamic. No one cares where you went to school unless its a top tier school (which all three of your choices are) and in that case maybe - and I seriously mean MAYBE - it will give you a tiny extra advantage over other candidates. For the most part though, no one cares. This isn't like law or business; in biotech, your skill set matters exponentially more than what school you went to. If you want to go into biotech, your number one goal should be to expose yourself to as much cutting-edge technology as possible (NGS, CRISPR, flow cytometry, etc). The exact ranking of an already elite university will mean literally nothing. 
And no need to apologize from doubting a random person from the internet. But yeah, I've been in the industry (and multiple companies) for the past 4 years so I do know what I'm talking about here. Hope this helps. 

Really? Hiring managers would see them as equivalent? And you know this from experience in industry?
Sorry, I realize it sounds like I'm doubting you, but I need to be sure.

Finally got accepted to my top choice school today! Either I was not on a waitlist or someone declined an offer.

It ultimately came down to which school had the whole package of research, mentorship/support and location for me. Don’t get me wrong, it was a very hard decision. I definitely lost some sleep over it.  
Long story short, the research fit was very good at both schools, and it would be very hard for me to choose solely based on that. 
As for mentorship/support, I got along better with the faculty I interacted with at Penn. This obviously depends on who I happened to interview with/run into, but the gut feeling was there. I decided to listen to it because I got matched with POIs I was really interested in at both places, and simply could see myself working with those at Penn over Harvard. I’ve learned the hard way that personality is something that matters to me. 
I also approached it from the angle of: “If (or maybe when) something goes wrong, who (other than my PI) can I go to for guidance?” At Penn I could name two such people after the visiting weekend, at Harvard it was a bit harder. I think this one is largely because CAMB is broken up into a few sub-groups, and each has a chair and administrator. It’s very different when you’re one of six or seven people, versus one of 65. Both of them at Penn sought the few of us in the sub-group out during the interviews to touch base and get to know us. Does not being sought out during the interview mean there is less support at Harvard? Probably not. But the structures of the programs are undeniably different, and I decided that Penn fit my needs better. 
Also, there is a higher junior faculty turnover at Harvard than at Penn.  To me, this had a higher probability of translating into a high pressure environment that I didn’t feel would fit the type of environment I learn best in. Of course that will differ on specifics labs and it’s probably avoidable; but again, it’s there, and might limit who I get to work with. I tend to gravitate toward smaller labs (which tend to be led by assistant professors) so I did not want to be limited by this fear. 
Finally, I preferred Philly over Boston. I can afford a one bedroom apartment about a 15 minute walk from campus by myself in Philly, in Boston that is nearly impossible. I wanted to have the option to live by myself comfortably. Ruled out NYC because of this one too. 
All in all, I had to go with where I felt I would have the highest probability of being happiest and most successful. So it’s not really one deciding factor, but kind of the context of the whole program, including the location, that just made Penn the better fit for me. It was one hell of a personal decision.

You've travelled a lot, you've gone backpacking, you've had plenty of time. Others likely haven't, so why sweepingly say that travelling is a waste and you strongly advise against it? You're approaching it from one of many angles but others are in different positions coming at grad school from different angles. 

You've travelled a lot, you've gone backpacking, you've had plenty of time. Others likely haven't, so why sweepingly say that travelling is a waste and you strongly advise against it? You're approaching it from one of many angles but others are in different positions coming at grad school from different angles. 

I totally disagree that travelling is a waste of the summer! If you have the time and money, do it! It's going to be very difficult to find that chunk of time during your PhD, you've likely worked your butt off to get into programs, and travelling is a wonderful way to grow and mature as a person. Sure, prep too if ya want, can't you do both?  Globally calling it a waste seems a bit closed-minded?