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TK778

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Everything posted by TK778

  1. Starting a thread for the engineering PhD at Stanford for Fall 2019. I am personally an electrical engineer - hoping to meet new people and just use the forum for all general purposes.
  2. Congrats on snagging an interview! Just a few thoughts: I would not try to meet earlier, in person, with the professor. It seems like he would like to meet up in person during the graduate visitation day. Instead, I would ask him if he would be interested in doing a Skype chat to talk about some of his ongoing research (especially if he was not a PI on your SoP). If he says yes, that's a perfect way of establishing contact with him and could leave a more impactful impression as they go into the admission process. The one thing researchers love to do is talk about their research, so if he has the time, I assume he would be game for it. Plus, this is an easy way to get an idea of what his personality is like which is important. Even more so, it could lessen the potential awkwardness of meeting someone in person for the first time. Having chatted via Skype could enable you to have a more fluid in-person conversation with him if you choose to visit the school. Idk, that's my two cents. Good Luck!
  3. Hi guys, I would greatly appreciate some advice on a conflict that I have been battling with for a little over a year now. I will streamline the background information to try and make this as coherent and easy to consume. I am currently pursuing a PhD in EE (specifically in neural interfaces/BMI) at the same school I did my Bachelors (I know, I know, its a no-no, but I my reasons). I found a really neat lab that has a reputation for producing high quality papers not only in the engineering field, but also in the biological world where the impact factors are much higher and reaches a larger audience. The PI of the lab is a beast when it comes to publishing papers and getting large grants. I worked in the lab for about 2.5 years during my undergrad where I was exposed to a wide variety of hardware and software engineering principles under the supervision of the lab's postdoc. It was great, and I enjoyed my time, but when graduation came sneaking around the corner, I started to look at other schools to start a PhD program. In the midst of applying to school, fellowships, and grants my PI offered me to stay at the university to complete the PhD in a shortened amount of time by combining the previous work I did with my thesis since the department deemed it PhD level work. On top of that, he offered full tuition coverage and stipend support. Since I liked the project that I was currently working on, I decided to stay but I was a bit wary from the start because I really wasn't sure why he offered me a PhD for such a short time-frame. Later on, I received the NSF GRFP so it has made me even more anxious since I know I would have a good chance of possibly going somewhere else since the funding follows me. Fast forward about a year later and after working very closely with him (without the postdoc to pretty much shield me from all of the problems I am now dealing with), and I realize that I may have made a huge mistake. Now, I am not going to say my PI is downright stupid, but oh boy this man is so out of touch with an technical concepts in the field. My field is in mixed-analog design for ASIC's so I really need someone who can give me proper advice on IC design, fab, testing, etc. Instead of writing another paragraph, let me list the red flags that I now see. I am not sure if this is standard for a PhD student to be dealing with. 1. PI has no idea how to advise on technical problems.When it comes to designing new chips, testing them, or even looking at the problem in a different light, you are on your own. He has zero clue what to do. For example, I was having a big problems with an ADC design and he had no input. It was pretty much read and search the internet. 2. I recently wrote a few papers with him one-on-one as the first author and he is very bipolar. He gets in these fits of absolute rage where he screams at the top of his lungs if you did't format the paper margin correctly, make table the way he likes it, or even if the file doesn't open fast enough (he still uses windows 95 so there is a lot of issues). Any problem that comes up he assumes I should have known how to do it. Mind you, I am first year student, I am here to learn things like how to make a stellar figure, how to streamline certain parts of your paper to make the story line better, etc. He just assumes I know all of it as if I have been doing it for years and it creates a pretty hostile environment. He really takes a "my way or the highway approach" so there is no room for compromise. 3. He never wants to admit that any problem was in part or totally his fault. It is always the student. 4. He is super anxious all the time and instills poor confidence in the students. The other students literally let him run all over them. They have stopped standing up for themselves. They claim to have adapted to the environment, but its disturbing. 5. Told me I can take a lot of classes outside my field (ie: high-level math courses, neurology, physics) . Now I am restricted to taking the most worthless and easy classes in the department so I can "focus" more on research. I am so so so bored. 6. He makes false promises when he is backed into corner. 7. The current project I am on, the one that he offered the PhD for, turns out to have been a total dupe. He offered the PhD because he needed a body to continue working on the project since there is a lot of money involved in it and there would be dead time trying to find a new student to train and get up to speed. I learned this just a few weeks ago after asking some questions to my mentors/PI. I have been doing mundane tasks for almost 9 months now and I feel so worthless. I could go on more, but I hope this paints a brief picture. I am asking for advice on how feasible is it to transfer programs (universities entirely) without jeopardizing my reputation and career. I want my PhD to be a journey where I am challenged to break past my limits and really explore my love for the interface between biology and electronics, but with an advisor like this, I feel like I am going to be miserable. Or is this the norm? Oh and I plan to go into industrial research after a PhD, I don't have a desire to stay in pure academia. Sorry if this turned out to be a bit all over the place. I am just pretty lost right now.
  4. I would highly recommend any questions like this to be directed to your program officer. If you go to your NSF fastlane portal, on the right hand side near the bottom of the applicant info, your program manager is listed there. I would read over all of the information that you can get your hands on, formulate any questions you have, and then email them. Their job is to help you in this process!
  5. Correct me if I am wrong, but the organization can be easily changed. The panel doesn't expect you to fully commit to a school that you don't even know if you got into (ya know since we wrote the apps before grad school deadlines) Also, the research proposal is not binding at all, but you will have to coordinate with your program manager. Send them an email, I'm sure they will be happy to help!!!! Congrats by the way! Edit: the only reason why the NSF asks about the organization school is simply for statistics. They won't take the award away if you go somewhere else or do other research other than the proposal topic.
  6. I got it!!!!! E/E E/VG E/E
  7. Sometimes you can't please everyone buddy. That's just a fact of life. It may seem that your career is on the line if your PI is "disappointed", but the reality is this is kind of chance to show her that you are a resilient researcher. I am playing devils advocate here and entertaining the possibility of you not getting the NSF award. Okay so if that happens, your PI might be disappointed, but I can guarantee you that things will only get worse if you let that go to your head. You just have to get back up, realize that this field is a passion of yours and nobody has the right to stop you. If you keep working hard and show enthusiasm in your research, your PI will pick up on that. Its a trait of a great scientist. My PI is one the worlds experts in BMI and sometimes HE DOESN'T EVEN GET BIG GRANTS, but he just says "okay wasn't meant for me, time to find a new way to make my dream come true". What I am trying to say is it will all be okay!
  8. oh i called them. response was "mmmmm sometime in early april sweetie"
  9. I got about tree fiddy.
  10. Like I said my memory is failing me at this point!
  11. My memory is failing me but I never recall seeing "2018 GRFP Awardees" on the database lookup they provide. Its just text and says "not available yet" but I want to say that wasn't there a couple days ago.
  12. So desperate I called the applicant help desk to inquire about the release date. They said the NSF has said "early April". RIP
  13. Don't pick it up. You will lose all of your karma points.
  14. I am also the first in my immediate family to pursue any degree higher than a bachelor's. For all of those who have been mentioning that a PhD is only for the "most knowledgeable" candidates, or even feeling the pangs of impostor syndrome (so much fun), I can confidently say that the overwhelming majority of PhD advisers/mentors are not the "smartest" in their field. They just have a massive amount of experience in one field! I find a lot of people forget that their advisers tend to have 10+ years of experience on them which is why it appears that they "know everything". Even some of the smartest PhD candidates I know still fail to pick up on the smallest of details that are only identified through years and years of experience. So keep on grinding and hustling. Get excited
  15. Welcome and good for you! Learning should never stop, no matter what. However be ready for the significant decrease in pay, unless your work can allow you to work and pursue another degree simultaneously.
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