greyicewater

I saw Pullman pop up in the city guide forum recent activity and just wanted to throw in a review of the Pullman/Moscow area. I first visited to help a friend move there for the cog. neuroscience program and visited again a few months ago. I know she has had an overall really positive experience and I've had a blast every time I've been. She found a super cheap apartment off campus- there was even a student discount for academic performance and it's still close to WSU. As for the area itself, it's really nice to have the two towns so close because they've both got some gems of restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and places to see concerts. If you like dive-esque bars (that don't feel skeevy) check out John's Alley in Moscow, they randomly will have big names come through and have live music regularly (we saw Afroman when I was there ha). Also, if you're looking for an occasional splurge dinner that's totally worth the money go to Sangria, it's a Peruvian restaurant on the border of Moscow close to Pullman and is ridiculously delicious. I definitely recommend getting out and exploring the Pullman/Moscow area, it has a lot to offer. My friend out there has met some great people, both in grad school and in town, and has overall really loved it.
Good luck and have fun! 

(Sorry for the long rant from just a Pullman/Moscow visitor, I really love the area and had my heart set on WSU but they didn't have funding for my program this year/didn't accept new applications because of this so I'm actually also just super jealous lol)

filing cabinets are good. any sort of filing system.

corkboard and coloured notecards. especially helpful for visually mapping out a long-term research project.

a calendar of some sort. do you write in an agenda? use your computer's calendar? want something on the wall? time management will be key in your life and you'll need this. badly.

external hard-drives and thumb drives. back up everything. save it on your computer and your thumb drive at all times. back it all up on the external HD once every two weeks or whenever you remember. keep updated copies of your work in two or three places. i had a friend who left everything on a thumb drive, and HE LOST IT (he luckily had a month-old version of his work saved in his email). i had another friend who used his laptop and his external HD only, and spilled coffee on both while he was doing a back-up. he promptly quit graduate school and he was ABD. (he claims the decision to quit came two days before the terrible spill, but i don't believe him).

a laptop. if you've already got a desktop, then get one of those little netbooks. they're light and they have long battery life.

several different comfy chairs. you will spend most of your time sitting down. get a variety of "feels" with your chairs. hard and upright, soft and sunken in, good for stretching your legs out straight, something that reclines, an ergonomically correct stool. trust me.

Kind of late but I have landed on Lehigh's American Studies MA program. After visiting, and along with receiving my full funding offer, it seems like it will be a good fit and a good place to get my grad school start before jumping into PhD work. Anyone else in Lehigh's AMST program? Congrats to everyone on their acceptances and future schools! Wishing all the best for you all

I saw Pullman pop up in the city guide forum recent activity and just wanted to throw in a review of the Pullman/Moscow area. I first visited to help a friend move there for the cog. neuroscience program and visited again a few months ago. I know she has had an overall really positive experience and I've had a blast every time I've been. She found a super cheap apartment off campus- there was even a student discount for academic performance and it's still close to WSU. As for the area itself, it's really nice to have the two towns so close because they've both got some gems of restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and places to see concerts. If you like dive-esque bars (that don't feel skeevy) check out John's Alley in Moscow, they randomly will have big names come through and have live music regularly (we saw Afroman when I was there ha). Also, if you're looking for an occasional splurge dinner that's totally worth the money go to Sangria, it's a Peruvian restaurant on the border of Moscow close to Pullman and is ridiculously delicious. I definitely recommend getting out and exploring the Pullman/Moscow area, it has a lot to offer. My friend out there has met some great people, both in grad school and in town, and has overall really loved it.
Good luck and have fun! 

(Sorry for the long rant from just a Pullman/Moscow visitor, I really love the area and had my heart set on WSU but they didn't have funding for my program this year/didn't accept new applications because of this so I'm actually also just super jealous lol)

I saw Pullman pop up in the city guide forum recent activity and just wanted to throw in a review of the Pullman/Moscow area. I first visited to help a friend move there for the cog. neuroscience program and visited again a few months ago. I know she has had an overall really positive experience and I've had a blast every time I've been. She found a super cheap apartment off campus- there was even a student discount for academic performance and it's still close to WSU. As for the area itself, it's really nice to have the two towns so close because they've both got some gems of restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and places to see concerts. If you like dive-esque bars (that don't feel skeevy) check out John's Alley in Moscow, they randomly will have big names come through and have live music regularly (we saw Afroman when I was there ha). Also, if you're looking for an occasional splurge dinner that's totally worth the money go to Sangria, it's a Peruvian restaurant on the border of Moscow close to Pullman and is ridiculously delicious. I definitely recommend getting out and exploring the Pullman/Moscow area, it has a lot to offer. My friend out there has met some great people, both in grad school and in town, and has overall really loved it.
Good luck and have fun! 

(Sorry for the long rant from just a Pullman/Moscow visitor, I really love the area and had my heart set on WSU but they didn't have funding for my program this year/didn't accept new applications because of this so I'm actually also just super jealous lol)

I am so sorry you had to go through that with your previous profs/program but thank you for sharing this. I have been wondering about what to do in this area and this is pretty convincing to go to disability services first. 

This is my second time going to grad school (first time was in a different field). The first time around I chose to self-disclose my chronic illness to my advisor/professor because I thought it would be good for them to know "just in case." I thought it was smart to be as open as possible. Unfortunately there is a stigma associated with my condition and telling my advisor about my illness was the worst decision I made in grad school. They told me I may not be able to continue because my condition was a liability. I had to get documentation from my doctor, and I finished the program successfully but it was harder because I self-disclosed and the professors made me jump through extra hoops.
This time around, I am going to go through the disability office and make sure I have protections in place before I share my disability with a professor again. If you go through the disability services office, they will give you a letter stating your accommodations, but the letter does not share your diagnoses. It is up to you how much information you want to give the professors in addition to the letters.
Maybe I just had bad luck, but I thought I should share my experience. I'm not saying it's smart to "hide" your disability, but I think it's good to make sure you are registered with disability services (or whatever it may be called) BEFORE sharing anything. 
I know I will need accommodations during grad school this time because my medical problems are a little worse now than they were a few years ago. But I'm going to go the official route this time. I encourage you to do the same to have the protections in place before you share with your professors.
 

The process: 
1. You choose an appropriate publication venue, write up your paper, revise/polish, submit it. 
2. Your paper hits an editor's desk, who takes a look. They may choose to desk-reject the paper (common in some fields, not others), otherwise they will send the paper out to review (usually to 2-3 reviewers, but this depends on the field). How long it takes to find people who are willing to review the paper may vary (sometimes you can suggest reviewers, which can help the process along). How long it takes to get an editor to actually look at the paper also varies. 
3. You wait. Maybe you bug the editor once in a while. You wait some more. This step can take anything from weeks to months, with a lot of variation across fields.
4. You get your first round of reviews back, with a decision. If it's not a reject, it's likely a Revise and Resubmit. Now it's up to you to make the changes. This can take as long as you let it. 
5. Assuming it's an R&R, you resubmit and the paper along with a letter to the editor specifying the changes you've made. The paper  will likely go back to the same reviewers, if they're willing to look at the paper again.
6. See step 3. 
7. You get your decision back. Hopefully there has been improvement, so either it's an R&R with fewer issues that are easier to deal with, or it's an accept with minor revisions. It could be a rejection, or if there is a new reviewer, there might be new issues to deal with. A good editor should not allow new major issues at this point, but it can happen. Note that some journals only allow one round of R&R so you might at this point get a rejection just because you haven't successfully dealt with all the comments from the first round. This is another one of those things that varies by field and even journal. 
8. If it's good news, you revise accordingly, repeat steps 5-7. If it's a rejection, you regroup, see what you can take from the comments you got to improve the paper, and try again.
(9. Eventually, you deal with copy-editing of a final version, you wait for official publication. You post an unofficial copy on your website and your field's repository. You celebrate.) 
The overall timeframe:
Years. You write, you revise, you submit, you get comments and revise some more, you wait for reviews for weeks or months, once accepted you might even wait months or years for the paper to appear in print, if there is a backlog of papers. Some of my papers have taken up to 5 years from submission to appearing in print. The fastest ones probably took more like 1-2 years. Other fields will have a very different timeline, so YMMV. 

Networking is an essential part of success in academia. My view is that academia is not just about producing knowledge, but also communicating and sharing it as well. In order to do your job effectively, you must be good at sharing your knowledge with others. So, I would say that networking is one of the core skills that an academic must develop as part of being a good researcher, not just as a necessity to find work! Academia is not about shutting yourself off from the world, putting your nose to the grindstone and producing good work.
But as others also said, "who you know" isn't meant to replace "what you know". A lack of a good network might hurt your ability to find a good postdoc or faculty position. But, an awesome network with little skills to back it up won't get you very far. Your network gets you noticed by the decision makers, but your actual ability to produce good work will eventually land you the job. 
"Networking" sometimes has a bad connotation because it brings up images of "sleazy car salesman" type actions and being overly aggressive. This isn't really how networking works in academia. To me, networking is really more about building good relationships with your colleagues and taking time and energy to maintain these good connections. We all take time to maintain our abilities, whether it's coding, keeping our equipment clean, reviewing the literature, virus-scanning/backing up our computers etc. so I think maintaining our connections are just as important. My view of networking is something like, "how I can help this person I just met? Do I have some particular skill to offer? Do I know someone who might?" etc.
Some concrete examples for things I do as a graduate student to build and maintain these connections:
- When visitors and guests come to the department, I sign up for meeting slots with them to ask them about their research and to tell them about mine.
- Conferences are a great way to meet other people in my field. I talk to my peers, junior students, senior students, postdocs, faculty. I especially focus on catching up with people I don't normally get to see everyday. There are some friends that I only ever see at conferences so I ensure to have at least one lunch or dinner with them each time.
- I have a research website and maintain an online presence that is related to my professional work
- Throughout the above means, I will meet many people who are interested in my work. They often ask if I'm writing a paper and I say yes, I'll let you know when it's ready! Then, when I submit it to a journal, while waiting for the official peer review, I also send a copy to 3-4 other people who could help me make the work even better and ask for their thoughts. I pick these people in conjunction with my advisor based on how well I (or my advisor) knows them and how much interest they would have in the paper. After all, we're asking to impose on their time so we want to ensure this is something they actually want to do. (**Note: for some journals, you are not allowed to do this)
- After the paper is accepted, I send it to a wider network, basically anyone who expressed any sort of interest in my work beyond just "polite interest". (I keep a list of names).
- I volunteer to host visiting speakers or to join committees to select/invite speakers. It's extra work but people enjoy being invited to come give a seminar and they will remember you. When you need to give talks elsewhere, they will hopefully think of you and invite you to their institution. 
- When people ask me for favours, I say yes when I can (obviously not to the extent where it is detrimental to my own work!). Usually it is just proofreading or providing my perspective on their work. Sometimes, it is because I have a piece of analysis already made and they want me to run their data through my code. I provide a nice little writeup and get coauthorship, but more importantly, developed a new relationship with someone who sees value in my skills/experience.

First off, congrats on starting grad school  Now some advice:
1. Don't worry about being the youngest. You were selected to be there out of many other applicants. They knew your age before offering you a spot so they know you are more than capable of succeeding in the program. I have a friend who is the youngest in her program and she is brilliant.
2. Get close to your cohort. At least one person. This person will be with you through the ups and downs of grad school and you guys can complain as well as praise each other. I had my grad school bestie and man, it helped to know that I wasn't the only one struggling. Speaking of struggling...
3. You deserve to be there. It may sound weird now but imposter syndrome can get to you, especially if you are surrounded by other people who think differently than you do and who are seemingly brilliant. That happened to me a couple times but I was able to get out of it and succeed.
4. Know how you cope and make sure it is not destructive. This was something I wish I knew before going in. I never had a high stress job in my life. Undergrad was a breeze for me and all the actual employment I had at that point was either retail or food. So I never really experienced true stress until I got into grad school. And man...did I have a vice for every semester. I drank a lot, slept around a lot, had a mixture of both one semester, and then shut myself off from the world and became a hermit for my last semester. Was it productive? Eeehhh I mean I got my work done and I survived. But I could see how that could have gotten destructive if I hadn't been able to get my work done. All I can say is that it will be hard. You will stress out. Try to find constructive ways to cope. But if you do like to drink...
5. Find a place with a good happy hour that is walking distance from the campus. While I don't encourage drinking as a way to cope, finding a place (any place, alcohol or otherwise) that other grad students like to go to and hang out after class will help both making friends and taking the edge off.
Hope that helps!

This book is very dense and specifically targets humanities Ph.D.s, but...
Educating Scholars: Doctoral Education in the Humanities is a good read. It's worth reading, I think.

Hello!
I thought of maybe we could do a directory of relevant and useful books for academia in general on this thread. What do you guys think? 

As a TA, I honestly don't envy my undergrads' courseloads because it's a lot of classes and sometimes they're studying topics that they have no interest in.  Meanwhile, as a graduate student, all the work that I do are labors of love... which makes graduate school more bearable than undergrad.  Yet, my work is still demanding.  Unlike my undergrads who focus more on facts and are only learning critical thinking skills, I have to perform thinking, reading, writing, and speaking skills at a much higher level, akin to thinking like my professors who are scholars themselves.  To do that, I have to put a lot of  thought into preparing for my classes (and exams).  
Just remember, first semester will always be rough, no matter what anyone says.
 

I love this thread

I still haven't heard anything and I am about ready to pull my hair out. I think I've been checking the UT MyStatus website roughly 50 times a day. 

Yes applied, no to hearing anything 

I've heard from heard from half of my eight schools (one waitlist, thee rejects). I totally get the desperate need for one full on acceptance. I'm handling it poorly. I'm trying to find comfort in the waitlist and trying to plan for a worst case scenario future where it doesn't pan out this year. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My neck, my back, my anxiety attack