robot_hamster

They just look at your transcripts at my school.

Don't knock the liberal arts schools. I went to one for my undergrad and I am just fine as far as my education goes. I think I might have a bit of an advantage because a lot more was expected out of us there. We were expected to write professionally and produce high quality work, even if it is a simple assignment for a class. Now that I am in grad school at a large university and I am a TA, I am often shocked at how little effort a lot of the undergrads put into their work (and this is an upper level course). That would not have been tolerated at my school.

bhikhaari - I think that is true at my school too. But I'm not under biological sciences, that is a completely different department.

Ecology and, yes, it is through my department. Well, sort of. It is under the larger umbrella.

There are very few scholarships/fellowships available in my program. I think that only a handful of students are awarded them and they are typically only for $1000 ($500 each semester). The application process is relatively simple, but with so many students the chances aren't good. Most of the people in my program that have funding have it through a TA position. There are some RA positions, but those are mostly for PhD students. Getting a TA position, as I have learned, is pretty much hit or miss. You have to be in the right place at the right time (if an email goes out through the system, then you have to be checking your e-mail right at that second and then respond right away). I only got my position because I begged the associate director. They helped me get "in" and now I have to find a way to stay there since there are no guarantees for future semesters. My first semester was paid for through a loan, it was the entire tuition bill. With my TA position this semester, 100% of my tuition is waived. I guess my advice to you is to not rely on your adviser to help you find a TA position (if that is what you're wanting).

What sort of research is your lab involved in?

Okay, thanks for the info. I hope that they are as receptive to people asking such things as you are.

I don't think the data I am seeking is "out there", but thank you for the suggestion.

Well this professor cautioned me on this. They said that other students have told people that they would work on such-n-such project and then disappear. Of course I wouldn't intentionally do that, I just want to avoid giving the wrong impression.

So my thesis topic isn't coming along all that well. My biggest problem is that I get an idea in my head and then I realize that there really isn't any data available. Since I have a limited amount of time (a little over a year to have everything done), I am sort of limited on what I can do. I don't mind doing field work, but some things just take a long time before you can obtain sufficient data. I talked to a professor about this and they gave me the e-mail addresses of some state employees. Apparently there is a lot of unprocessed data that is laying around. I want to contact them to see what kinds of data they have available and then see if I can fashion a thesis project around it. Basically, I will just be fishing for information... I may or may not be interested in what they have to offer (and I have more than one person I can try). So my question is, how should I go about e-mailing them? What should I say? I don't want to annoy anyone and I don't want to sound desperate. I also don't want to get anyone's hopes up. I don't want to give them the wrong impression, them thinking I am interested in doing x,y, and z when I may not be. Does that make sense?

I agree with the others and think it really depends on the school and your area of study. For me, I went to a small private college for my undergrad. The classes were small and it was easy to develop a good relationship with your professors. The lower level classes all tended to be "it is what it is" sort of material, but the upper level class were way different. Those were the classes that really made you think. Many professors preferred group discussions and presenting material through current issues/topics. A lot of the time, there wasn't a single correct answer. We were forced to look at things from a different perspective than our own. So in that sense, the classes could be very challenging. Grad school, for me, has been an entirely different experience. I am attending a large state university and a lot of the classes are taught in a way where you simply memorize everything and then answer the questions on the test. These classes, however, are also classes that contain both undergraduate and graduate students. I get the feeling from these classes that the professor is expecting you to get a good grade. I have taken one class that was only graduate students though. This class was much more discussion based and it focused on reading, writing papers, and giving presentations. This class reminded me much more of my upper level undergraduate classes and it seemed the professor wasn't as concerned about what you did. As long as you put an appropriate amount of effort into your work, then you would most likely get an A. I have noticed in some of my classes that some grad students were not doing very well on their tests. My guess is that they were either focused on their research or their TAing or both and simply didn't have the time to study adequately. How their adviser feels about their grades in these classes, I have no idea. My adviser hasn't really said much about grades. I do know that it is a general requirement to maintain a 3.0 GPA though in order to remain in the program.

Wow, this is an old thread. I agree with you, this post really grabbed me too. Some of the things talked about really hit the nail on the head.

Money would be less stressful if I wasn't struggling so much to pay the bills. Extra debts are out of the question right now. Besides, I can't have any credit cards. It's not that I don't want to make a change, it's just that I am in a difficult situation right now. I have talked to several different people there at the health center, but I won't see some of them because they are men. Talking to some strange man about my problems (especially "girl" problems) is out of the question. Tell you what, I'll go back to the health center and talk to them about what my options are. Maybe they have a better suggestion.

rising_star - In response to your second comment, you will see in my first post that the people they have at my school don't seem to understand. That's why the suggestion of seeing an outside professional came up.I don't have real health insurance anymore, just a health plan provided by the university that is primarily intended to cover the costs at their own health center.

Being that I am stressed about money, spending money I don't have on a therapist/psychiatrist outside the university would probably make that part worse.

I don't think it hurts to apply. When it comes time for them to make a decision, I'm sure they will have a first, second, and third choice. So if you do find funding in your own department, then you can politely decline their offer (if you just so happen to be their first choice). I wouldn't accept an offer though only to pull out, say, shortly after the semester starts. They probably wouldn't appreciate that too much.

Yeah, I gathered that from what was being said in the other threads.

Wow, you're awful mean.

Hmm, I found a TA handbook that was literally buried within the university's website. Doesn't say anything about how evaluations are conducted though.

To tell you the truth, I have no clue. There are no guarantees that I will be able to get more TA positions further on down the line. It is basically just being in the right place at the right time. I am not teaching the class (meaning I'm not giving lectures), but I am there explaining stuff to people. No one has come right out and said I would be evaluated by the students. But I have filled out evaluations for TAs in the past. My guess is that if I'm going to be evaluated, it will get sprung on me at the end of the semester. I do want to do a good job for the professor though because it may mean they will recommend me to someone else for possible TA positions.

Maybe that is my problem. I have absolutely no clue what is going on. Then again, it doesn't seem like the professor knows either. There has been a lot of making stuff up as we go along going on. I agree with the second half of what you wrote. It is the little differences that are difficult and things can be interpreted differently by different people.

Feedback on my grading you mean? There wasn't much feedback. I was just told to use the grades they would have given on these papers as a baseline for the rest. Maybe I just need to grade it like I was before and then shift all the scores down. Haha!

I'm afraid they are going to give me horrible reviews. I've read all these horror stories about evaluations. I can see it now. "Did a horrible job explaining what we needed to do and then gave us terrible grades on our papers."

That's not exactly what I was thinking.

It's difficult not to when I am there with all the students and I know that they are confused. Heck, I'm confused! I did sit down with the professor to go over some of the papers. This is how I know we are not interpreting things the same way. The score I would have given was always higher than what they would have given.