robot_hamster

They never close school here when it snows. Okay, not never. They will close if there is over a foot of snow that falls in a relatively short period of time. I hate the snow though, even though I have had to deal with it all my life. I'm always saying we're going to move to Hawaii and be homeless on the beach! Haha! No snow there! Well, except on the very top of the mountain.

My thought would be microbiology, but that is only because there are so many at my school.

If the lectures are posted on blackboard, then I don't usually take a lot of notes at all. I will simply bring a spiral notebook to jot down things that don't appear on the Power Point slides. I find I learn better if I am actually listening to the professor rather than frantically trying to write down everything up on the screen.

I'm just starting my second semester and there has certainly be no "ah ha" moments here. I feel dumb practically constantly and I am afraid to speak out during class for fear I will appear dumb to others as well. It seems like other people know so much more than I do. I am taking a lot of classes that involve applying techniques though, so it's all new territory for me. My undergraduate career was spent studying theory with very little thought being given to how people actually get stuff done.

I tried to sign up for that list and it didn't work.

My husband took an english course just recently that was taught by a TA. I think she was pretty much on her own, teaching the entire thing by herself. There was another TA teaching the other section of the course.

I should point out that in my program, a Masters degree gets applied toward a PhD. So it's not like I would be having to do "extra" work. I know some programs want you to do a straight up PhD and a Masters almost becomes a waste.

My thought is that he's going through a phase. He feels old and he doesn't like the idea of just getting started with a family when his is in his 40s. At the same time, he's still trying to get his undergraduate done and he knows that we are poor and that we have a lot of debt. So I do question how serious he is about the whole having a kid thing. I do know, however, that he has a track record for expecting me to go to school, work, and still cook and clean and whatnot on top of that. Well, you can probably guess what gets neglected because I just don't have time during the school months. We both have agreed that it wouldn't be wise to have kids until we can afford it though. Neither of my parents went to college and my dad had to work 2 jobs just to support us so my mom could stay home. His parents both had high paying careers, but he never saw either one of them because they worked so much. Neither one of us want to live like our parents did.

I'm not sure how well the funding for a PhD is, but I know that there are people who are receiving it. I started my first semester with no funding, but I have found a TA position for this next semester. I'm pretty sure they reserve the RA positions for the PhD students. So you think it would be better to just continue on to a PhD right away as long as there is funding? Or is it vital that I have some sort of real world job between my Masters and PhD? As far as kids go, I think my husband is nuts! Haha! I can barely get up and do all the things I need to do bad enough as it is. There is no doubt in my mind that I would be terribly unhappy if I wasn't well settled into a career first. This might sound bad, but if I was forced to choose, I would pick having a career over having kids.

I am under the natural resources umbrella, but I am interested in ecology and conservation. I may want to go into academia, but I'm not sure yet.

My situation is pretty complicated and I think a lot of my fellow students just don't understand. When I graduated from high school, I literally ran away with my boyfriend. We lived together for many years, struggling with our finances. He was trying to go to school, but it was difficult because he did not qualify for financial aid. His parents were trying to help him out, but his attendance was patchy (he would go for a semester, then skip a semester, etc). I didn't go to college during this time because I didn't qualify for financial aid either. I'm not sure what happened, but at some point he decided we shouldn't put off getting married anymore. We got married and suddenly I qualified for financial aid. I went to college as a non-traditional student and I never looked back. I graduated and then I decided to go to graduate school right away. To me, it feels like so much time has been wasted so why put off going to graduate school? I'm in a masters program right now, but husband has decided to complete his undergraduate degree. We are poor, we have no money, and we live in a crappy house. My husband is older than me and so he's been having thoughts about having a family. Me? I am no where near ready. I hear people talking about taking time off from school to work for awhile and get some experience in their field (I have spent my entire adult life working retail). Before I will be ready to move on to the "next step" of married life, I'm going to want to be finished with my education and already have a good job that's paying off all of our ridiculous debts. The problem is, I'm not sure if I want to stop at a Masters. I'm afraid though that if I work for awhile after getting my Masters, that I may end up never coming back to get a PhD. So it's like I'm on this fast track marathon to get my education finished all at once. I hear horror stories about people with a PhD and no work experience. At the same time, I realize that I'm not getting any younger and I probably don't want to be having a kid when I am 40. In case you're curious, I am 29 right now (my husband is 6 years older). Does anyone else here have a similar situation or concerns? Or am I just the extreme exception to the rule? I was hoping for some advice, but I'm sure not very many people will be in the same boat as me.

I've never heard of either one of these. Does this mean I have/had bad advisers?

This thread is funny! When I was an undergrad: Them: So you're a biology major, right? Me: Yes Them: Maybe you can help me, I'm having a problem. Then they proceed to describe their menstrual cycle in detail and wants to know why this is doing that. Me: Uh, well... (Now I do know the answer to some things, but this is stuff you learn in sex-ed in grade school) Now that I am a grad student: Them: What are you studying? Me: (technically) Natural resources Them: So you want to be a forest ranger? Me: Uh, no

I think it depends. If, say, you have been going back and forth with a professor for some time and the professor seemed eager to take you on as a student if you did apply then I don't see anything wrong with giving them a heads up that you have submitted your application. If you didn't have much contact with the professor, then I suppose contacting them out of the blue would seem weird.

Hmm, not for those. I agree with PlutonicFriend, those areas are something that you have to dig for more.

"So I hear your graduating soon, what was your degree again?" (Biology) "Oh, you'll only top out at $40,000 with that!" This was my husband's cousin right before I finished my undergraduate degree.

What sorts of computational biology are you interested in? There are lots of great bioinformatics programs out there.

Very few people published something as an undergrad at my school. It was a requirement, however, that everyone presented their senior thesis to a professional conference which I suppose counts as something when applying for graduate school. I was able to say "I presented my senior thesis at a professional conference".

Just be honest about it and acknowledge what you had done wrong. Tell them you will do better in the future. Your adviser will probably be disappointed, but I don't think it will be the end of the world for them. My adviser is very understanding when I am having a problem or am feeling insecure. He tries to be reassuring no matter what happens.

I haven't looked at the roster yet so I am not sure if anyone I know is taking the class. No one I have talked to has said anything about being in it. I guess it might be a concern for me for the class I don't know anything about. I don't know what I'll be doing for this class yet, so hopefully I won't find myself in an awkward position. Generally, all of the grad students are pretty accepting when another grad student is a TA for a class they are taking. Well, from my experience anyway. I probably would feel a little more in a position of authority though if it were only undergrads in the class.

This is very interesting approach. I'm not sure about the whole acting thing working for me though, I just don't do well speaking in front of people period.

This might be something I need to get used to. I volunteer for mentoring high school students where I work one on one with someone. Sometimes I forget that they are high school students and they are not always familiar with scientific concepts that are, for me at least, common knowledge. I guess I will have to assume that these upper-level undergrad and graduate students are more likely to be thinking about things in a way that I am more familiar with.

Where I live, you can't even own a car if you want to qualify for food stamps. I am curious too what the heck you're buying that costs over $100 every week.

Thank you to the more recent responses. Everything sounds like it is good advice, the trick will be remembering it later on down the road! I have been having trouble sleeping lately, this has gotten me so worried. Am I anxious at the thought of being a TA? Or the fact that I am having to give up my part-time job which, quite frankly, has become a security blanket for me? Or is it both? My guess is it's probably a little bit of both. This whole thing has just been so scary for me. So the YouTube video thing really works? I would be afraid that the students would think I was being stupid. Haha! The class that I am for sure doing the actual lab sections for is an upper-level undergraduate/graduate course (we have lot's of combo courses like that at my school). Sounds a little crazy for a first time TA to do (the fact that I will be teaching the lab sections for an upper-level course, I mean)! The other class, the one I know nothing about in regard to subject matter, I still have no clue what I am doing for it. My hope is that I won't actually be teaching any lab sections, but setting up the lab for activities and grading things instead.

Thank you for the recent replies. I did not see this person the last two weeks of the semester (dead week and finals week) and now we are on winter break. The university shuts down so I won't be back until the week prior to the beginning of Spring semester. I am definitely going to address this when I get back, whether it is just talking to a councilor or whatever. I thank you all who have told me to trust my instincts. Even if it does turn out to be nothing, which it very well could be, it is always better to be safe than sorry. You just don't know nowadays and it never hurts to be cautious. I'm not going to point fingers at anyone or have him put on the "blacklist". I wouldn't accuse someone of something they haven't done.