PokePsych

I'm feeling you! I nearly had a burnout a few months back - have been sturggling with anxiety for a bit now. Am now trying to transit from a non-US Master to a North-American PhD.. Had a couple of full blown panic attacks in the last month, starting to lose hair, and don't sleep well.... Things that has worked for me: 1) Learn how to say NO. I don't need to take every project, learn everything at once, and so on. Even if I have joined a project - I just say this month I'll try my best to take care of it - but no promises. I need my time for other times. Prioritize and prioritize yoursel fmost of all. 2) Surround myself by positive people. It rubs off. I have many friends who are not in academics. Social support is just so important. I'm actively trying to meet new people. 3) Find friends who go through the same thing - I feel less alone and realize I'm not crazy. Imposter syndrom is real. 4) Combine 2 + 3 in a support network. I have a bunch of friends in and outside of academics who are willing to listen and cheer me up. I have a good friendship with my former supervisor who is always rooting for me and probably beliefs more in me than I do myself and I love running into him. I have friends who know nothing about academics and I am happy to chat with them about other things. My partner is amazing in getting me grounded and telling me to shut off my laptop, stop working, and watch a movie with him. He will let me know when its too much or when I'm being too work-a-holic. 5) Do not pressure yourself to do everything and all at once. You do NOT need to learn everything NOW and join all projects. Quality over Quantity and the same goes for quality of life. 6) Do not compare yourself to others. This was probably my biggest step. Yeah some may have certain skills I don't have. Yet I have my own cool skills and traits too. Do not overstretch yourself trying to catch up or compete. Focus on your strengths, play them out well, try to identify some things you want to learn. I tend to make a couple of long-term goals, and a few short-term. And then I ahve a list of things I want to do - but I will not do them now - I do not have the time. Besides, the job market is just so.. well.. you can have most skills and most publications and maybe they still like someone else better for whatever reason. One of the profs in my department disclosed to me that he was almost not hired as he had a gap in his publications (somewhere mid grad school) and apparently the head of the department was against him for that reason. Now he's a fucking rockstar here and doing far better than that same guy. Then I know this other prof who barely published anything nor did any teaching but then his interests PERFECTLY aligned with the department he wanted to work for and he is a lot of fun - he got the job at a top 10 school. And prof 3 I know just got hired as she started dating one of our staff members during her PhD and he's a big shot here so they hired her because he threatened to elave otherwise. Don't make urself any illusions that you can influence the job market too much and just try to be the best version of you you can be - and recognize the limits of this. 7) Develop some non-academic hobbies. Potentially join some clubs in this so you need to take a brake from academics. I'm doing photography, cooking, pilates and yoga, learning a new language, learning about movies. Clubs also have helped me to make friends. 8) A regular 'rhythm' in life. I try to sleep more or less the same time eveyr day. I try to balance my diet in that it is healthy (worked beautifully - bye chocolate). 9) Never take criticism personally an drealize it can be supersubjective. I've had the same paper being teared apart by person 1 and praised by person 2. Plus people can be assholes. 10) professional counselling - Just go for it when you feel the need. Mental health still has stigma's and prejudices. But it exists for a reason.

Don't know - I had some none responses, mainly good responses (I put forward some RQs I'd like to pursue) and one informative that his research interests changed. That last one was very helpful for sure

Join the (Dutch) club! Didnt'get any skypes but I'm OK with that.

Not necessarily - if you have a clear rational of what you wanna study. Am applying to two programs at U Waterloo because I want to study culture and they have people who study that both in Organizational & Social program.

my two cents - be more holistic in your thinking. Let's say you're and admission committee - what do you look at? It's not only GRE scores, rather they evaluate a LOT of things. Just like people with a less than amazing GPA can get in, people with a less than amazing GRE can get in. Also consider your LORs to help you out here. Im a non-native English speaker so expect my verbals not to be very amazing. Yet I have two native speakers who are profs at my uni address my English abilities (plus I got a A+ for writing and presenting grad level class - so obviously I can communicate). I got my other LOR to highlight my stats skills such that I independently did a meta-anlysis with him and I got an A+ for advanced data analysis and my more high level stats classes (my first year grade sucks, but got B+ and A's for my undergrad stats classes after that, A+ for my grad level stats class) and I asked my other LOR to also comment how I'm doing all my analysis independent - including some more advanced ones. So I'm trying to show them - regardless of my GRE score - I'm actually cool with these things. I'm taking the test in 10 days and am freaking out though. I aim at getting in the 150s for verbal (powerprep ranges me between 154 - 157) and 160s for quant, but am mainly struggling with the last one (scoring around 153 now... :/ But will be studying fulltime now).

I did write them - mainly proposed some ideas and research questions, asked maybe for some papers (some where supernice about this and send me a bunch) AND asked them to point me to more people working in this direction - they also know you're not going to apply to only one PhD position so this can be a good question as well. It depends on the PI how they will respond, some don't, some do. Don't take it personally.

I know she's curerntly working on the correspondence bias and got a grant for person perception on this topic (Had email contact). Am applying to UCI anyway coz Paul Piff is there.

Don't forget about Lara Aknin and Azim Shariff who are recently joining in on this topic as well. Although, I'm familiar with most names on the topic. I'm just not necessarily interested in most of the research done by people. Michael Kraus is awesome but Yale's PhD program is not my cup of tea. Am applying to UCI and SFU though

SOme schools are against PI's contacting students before application. One I guess maybe too busy? Don't know. Generally OK, I'd say

Hola! My shortlist for PhDs is not that long. I was wondering if someone could maybe indicate some more potential supervisors in this area (either cultural psych or people researching inequality/social class)?? Thanks in advance! Name-dropping time

I mean last two years of your degree But experience can be very helpful as it shows motivation and passion I'd say

Just go for it! Is it over all 4 years or the last 2? Some schools only look at the GPA of your major or last two years (and some don't). In the end, evaluation is pretty holistic anyway. Sure there may be cut off scores, but its often a combination of GPA and GRE, as well as experience.

I'm down to 6 ATM. Contacted 5 supervisors - 2 nonresponding so far. For one not sure whether she will take new students so will email the grad office I guess. Got 1 very very good response from also my number 1 PI - so that's promssing so far :):)

These PhD Application thingies make me tooooo stressed. I'm constantly second guessing myself and doubting myself and shit.

UP! How's everyone doing?

UP... Mailed PI's yesterday about interests, ideas, etc. COuldn't sleep coz of all the stress.

Agree with person above. In the end - FIT seems to be the most important criteria after the initial cut. You also want to come across as a motivated, agreeable person. Wording is important - although it's great to for example mention your achievements, be considerate in your precise words. Maybe mention what you learned, how it helped you grow as a researcher but also identify what you can still LEARN. Maybe some motivation for OP: http://howigotintostanford.com/

Also note that in Europe we don't do GRE. We don't care about GRE. We don't even take it (except me.. because I want to study in N-America). I think the same goes for Australia and New Zealand. So if you feel GRE is the only thing holding you back, you may want to seriously consider making a big move. Honestly, I feel like half the PhDs in my school just couldn't be bothered with taking the GRE. Same goes for all N-Americans in my Master's program who said they basically came to the Netherlands because tuition is cheaper and they don't have to bother with the GRE lol.

Could you share your spreadsheet with me?? (maybe through PM) I wanna look at more schools. I only have 4-5 on my list and feel its too little

It does seem she has a very strong preference for C and even if you end up doing A or B she may not be as committed as you want her to be. I'd say have a chat when she gets back, be upfront but professional about it (why not A, maybe we have some different expectations), and then decide later on what you'd like to do. Somehow this sounds like my former supervisor, the horror. I do a MPhil and we have the last semester to run the proejct (but usually start earlier). Approached Supervisor X in october with a specific topic and RQ (lets call it project A). He said that was great. Supervisor X then asked me the next month wheterh I wanted to be INVOLVED with project B - as I could learn some new skills and was interested in SOME parts of it, that was OK. Confirmed still wanted to do A as thesis, not B. Two months in project B he wanted me to make that my thesis. I declined and reminded him of the former agreement which he was still OK with. I send him proposal for project A in early spring (like 2 weeks after that) that we agreed on - and he agreed to supervise on after I rejected the idea of doing B as my thesis. He ignore dme for 2 months - send him a number of reminders. Nobody could get a hold of him. Then finally got a message that theres only 24 hours a day and he's too busy - it was written very unprofessionally as well. Like WHUT. Filed an official complaint, there's a 3 day reply policy for a reason (and yeah well even 2 weeks I would have been OK with) - then don't take students or AT LEAST dont let me hanging for 2 months - it takes 10 seconds to email this! I'm not angry he doesn't want me to supervise, but just that he could have told me that wayyyy earlier. I think this is also what OP is struggling with. Department then tried to force him in supervising me. But I had no trust in this anymore and especially the timeframe. Ended up doing a follow-up/extension of my supervisor from last year which is completely my own project, so I learn a lot and ahve a great professional and personal relationship with this prof (he's basically my mentor anyway - and also moving to another uni as half the department did as they're all fed up with this type of shit that is currently happening also to them) - but will not graduate on time coz of this supervisor x's crap. Thank god I at least did not spend anything of my assigned research budget yet, as he wanted to use it for B and would then cover A for me... Now need to pay another semester's tuition, can't find a 'real' job, etc. THANKS DUDE. Like this has big consequences for me. With regard to the comment she may not work over summer - she could communicate that. This also varies per supervisor how they approach this. Sure professros are busy and I try to contact mine not more than once every 2 weeks over summer and have a biweekly meeting usually. Also am fine if it takes 3 weeks to reply over summer really, I understand but it's because this supervisor TOLD me that he will be travelling a lot and will do his best to help whenever he can over summer. So I at least know what is going on. However, we as students also need to know what we're up to. I can't wait around 3 months not knowing what my plans will be or how things will work out for the next semester. If I need to take extra classes I may or may not be able to take on an internship that I want to do, etc. If I can't graduate on time like now I need to make arrangements for housing, parttime work, etc. If OP's supervisor is not sure she wants to supervise project A or B or whatever - communicate and tell what is going on. Even a simple e-mail like Dear OP, I think there may be some misunderstanding. At this point in time I"m only able to supervise C due to external reasons (or whatever). Or even At this point in time I prefer to supervise C and am not sure if I am able to supervise A/B. At least OP then knows what he's up to. However, OP could also have asked for this clarification earlier - especially since she already mentioned do C (then why write B?). Also take in consideration possible cultural differences in communication style that may or may not apply. And although you indeed you don't always get to choose your project - you don't always have to do what others want either. In the end you want to do something you're passionate about too. Hence, the reason I also changed supervisors - I didn't ever want to do B (it's a social neuroscience project - although I'm interested in the topic I have aboslutely no interest in learnign how to analyze fMRI data and so on). I ended up with C and i'm very happy with it - I just wish I would have been able to start 3 months earlier... of which 2 months were a total unnecessary delay.

When my supervisor is more busy with going on vacation then supervising. Dude like I get you're moving to a different uni and you want to take your 3 months of vacationdays they still owe you - but you're in charge of data collection on MTurk so just run the shit please - it's not like that complicated to just click '300 participants'.

check howigotintostanford.com He may have some good tips Would it be possible to take some psych classes maybe? My uni also lets people with a non-psych background enter their research master in psych (for social psych though) - but its in Europe I'd certainly go for any volunteer practice/research experience to improve your chances

Don't know if helpful but I'm doing a Research Master here in Amsterdam - international one. ALthough classes have general themes, you can tailor usually the assignment to your interests (i.e., often proposal - for example proposal on 'the self', 'interdependence theory', etc.) that for sure will lend themselves to your interest. Also staff here that works on relationships (Righetti). Send me a PM if you want to know more

Yep SoP = Statement of purpose Also for publications - I once had a lecture on career advice from this prof of NYU. He said he finds it more interesting if an applicant (for a postdoc thing - not PhD) has 1 or 2 reallyyy good and interesting publications than 10 so-so ones. After all, those 2 show your potential to do great work, whereas the 10 mediocre ones just say you do kinda mediocre research. I'm still using this as my guideline. Quality over quantity.

Note that publications in itself are not necessary - it's also about experience. I've seen plenty of people enter grad school without a publication. My belief is still that publications can also be right place right time during undergrad. Some profs are also more willing than others to put student names on papers. Although I wouldn't know how much studying abroad in itself may help tbh - I've lived 2 years in Asia (although I'd like to do a PhD related to cultural psych so it may help for that reason), but I've also been involved in things that I'll just leave for my resume and will not discuss as they only distract from what I'm trying communicate. Like my student council time has no direct relevance for what I want to tell and I leave it for my SoPs to communicate that I have leadership skills and am a great teamplayer and open to new people or smthing. In the end you want to say I want to communicate I want to be an academic researcher and this is why I want this PhD on this topic.