Phancy_Physicist

I process it simply by thinking about what I want in life and how my PhD will get me there. Not even career specifics like professor or industry scientist. I just think about the general goals I want in my career; to be somewhat of my own boss, to do something I love, to have new concepts/ideas to work with on a semi-regular basis, and to have time for a significant other/family. All the careers I want that satisfy those criteria require a PhD. So I just look at it the same way I looked at my undergrad; a necessary part in reaching my goals in life.  

I will be completely honest and say that as someone who is finishing up their 1st year in a PhD, the first year is fairly difficult. There is a lot of adjustment, mentally, financially, academically, etc. However, most programs are aware of this and most PIs will check in on you throughout your first year to see how things are going. But you do get used to it and find ways to cope, such as making friends in your cohort or going out with your lab mates.

I'm a first gen/low income student, so I was always poor, and staying poor wasn't a difficult shift for me (albeit frustrating sometimes when you want to do something nice for your significant other). But you aren't actually as poor everyone makes it out to be. I'm somehow slightly better paid in grad school than I was as an undergrad with a nearly full time job at minimum wage. 

My best advice is to be honest with yourself and your reasons for doing the PhD. I've seen graduate students drop out of various programs and almost all of them said something along the lines of "I just did not have it in me to continue BECAUSE it wasn't worth it". Meaning that if there isn't a small part of you, deeeeeeep down inside that just LIVES to be in lab and do the research you love, you won't make it through the PhD. That being said, if you have that small part, you'll be okay. If you can trust yourself and know who you are/what you're about, you'll make everything out of your PhD program and you'll kill it in post-doc/whatever you go on to do afterwards. 

I GOT IT!!!! Holy cow I am in utter shock! 2nd year PhD student here, was expecting absolutely nothing this year!

Just found out I got it!
April 13, 2018
 
Dear ________:
It is a pleasure to inform you that you have been selected to receive the 2018 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship Award.  This fellowship is awarded to you in recognition of your academic excellence and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) achievements, from over 3600 applications that were received this year.  
Program Awardees receive full tuition and all mandatory fees coverage for up to three years at any accredited U.S. college or university that provides advanced degrees in science and engineering, and a monthly stipend of $3200. In addition, Fellows receive up to $1200 annually for health insurance coverage, and up to two trips (all expenses paid based on the government travel policy per year for training and/or conferences that support their educational initiatives).
The NDSEG Fellowship Program is sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the Army Research Office (ARO), and Office of Naval Research (ONR) under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, OUSD (R&E).   This program is administered by Solutions Through Innovative Technologies, Inc. (STI-TEC).
Please indicate your acceptance of this Fellowship by signing the NDSEG Fellowship Terms of Award (See Attachment). We must receive your signed terms of appointment no later than May 1, 2018.  Upon acceptance, you will also need to complete all forms in the Awardee package along with the form linked below, and upload all documents by June 1st.

NDSEG, NSF, Hertz, and Ford. Sorry about my diverse-ness. But if it's any consolation, that one had the roughest stats of any. 65 awardees from over 1800 apps. 

NSF, NDSEG, Hertx, NASA NSTRF, Ford....

Link now works. I was not awarded, but congrats to all who were! I'm 0/4 on fellowships this year, but that's life. TAing isn't actually as bad as they say it is.

Sorry Internet. 

Link now works. I was not awarded, but congrats to all who were! I'm 0/4 on fellowships this year, but that's life. TAing isn't actually as bad as they say it is.

Sorry Internet. 

Link now works. I was not awarded, but congrats to all who were! I'm 0/4 on fellowships this year, but that's life. TAing isn't actually as bad as they say it is.

Sorry Internet. 

I process it simply by thinking about what I want in life and how my PhD will get me there. Not even career specifics like professor or industry scientist. I just think about the general goals I want in my career; to be somewhat of my own boss, to do something I love, to have new concepts/ideas to work with on a semi-regular basis, and to have time for a significant other/family. All the careers I want that satisfy those criteria require a PhD. So I just look at it the same way I looked at my undergrad; a necessary part in reaching my goals in life.  

I will be completely honest and say that as someone who is finishing up their 1st year in a PhD, the first year is fairly difficult. There is a lot of adjustment, mentally, financially, academically, etc. However, most programs are aware of this and most PIs will check in on you throughout your first year to see how things are going. But you do get used to it and find ways to cope, such as making friends in your cohort or going out with your lab mates.

I'm a first gen/low income student, so I was always poor, and staying poor wasn't a difficult shift for me (albeit frustrating sometimes when you want to do something nice for your significant other). But you aren't actually as poor everyone makes it out to be. I'm somehow slightly better paid in grad school than I was as an undergrad with a nearly full time job at minimum wage. 

My best advice is to be honest with yourself and your reasons for doing the PhD. I've seen graduate students drop out of various programs and almost all of them said something along the lines of "I just did not have it in me to continue BECAUSE it wasn't worth it". Meaning that if there isn't a small part of you, deeeeeeep down inside that just LIVES to be in lab and do the research you love, you won't make it through the PhD. That being said, if you have that small part, you'll be okay. If you can trust yourself and know who you are/what you're about, you'll make everything out of your PhD program and you'll kill it in post-doc/whatever you go on to do afterwards. 

This is actually a common problem with the SMART fellowship. You often had people with PhDs and years of training going into positions that were designed for a recent engineering graduate. DoD wants smart people, but idk if they necessarily know where to put them to work. 

He is likely not a troll. This is the honest to god way a lot of men in STEM and other fields think. 

To be fair, you do sound a bit insufferable. 

I process it simply by thinking about what I want in life and how my PhD will get me there. Not even career specifics like professor or industry scientist. I just think about the general goals I want in my career; to be somewhat of my own boss, to do something I love, to have new concepts/ideas to work with on a semi-regular basis, and to have time for a significant other/family. All the careers I want that satisfy those criteria require a PhD. So I just look at it the same way I looked at my undergrad; a necessary part in reaching my goals in life.  

I will be completely honest and say that as someone who is finishing up their 1st year in a PhD, the first year is fairly difficult. There is a lot of adjustment, mentally, financially, academically, etc. However, most programs are aware of this and most PIs will check in on you throughout your first year to see how things are going. But you do get used to it and find ways to cope, such as making friends in your cohort or going out with your lab mates.

I'm a first gen/low income student, so I was always poor, and staying poor wasn't a difficult shift for me (albeit frustrating sometimes when you want to do something nice for your significant other). But you aren't actually as poor everyone makes it out to be. I'm somehow slightly better paid in grad school than I was as an undergrad with a nearly full time job at minimum wage. 

My best advice is to be honest with yourself and your reasons for doing the PhD. I've seen graduate students drop out of various programs and almost all of them said something along the lines of "I just did not have it in me to continue BECAUSE it wasn't worth it". Meaning that if there isn't a small part of you, deeeeeeep down inside that just LIVES to be in lab and do the research you love, you won't make it through the PhD. That being said, if you have that small part, you'll be okay. If you can trust yourself and know who you are/what you're about, you'll make everything out of your PhD program and you'll kill it in post-doc/whatever you go on to do afterwards. 

So you feel that you got burned, which is the crux of your frustration.  That is to say that you are upset that the woman with the lesser application got into the same caliber of program as you while the woman with the same application as you got into the better program.  If you examine yourself and not the situation you'll likely find that you are suffering from a case of entitlement; for what-ever reason you feel you deserve a better program.  Ask yourself this:  instead of comparing yourself to those two women what if they were men instead?  
Now, is the situation you present justifiable?  I dunno.  What I do know is that all three of you are obviously otherwise qualified.  You do not know what exactly qualified the woman into the better program.  Perhaps she has interest in area of mathematics and/or prospected an area of research that is not only different from yours but also one that just happened to line up with what her program was looking for.  Perhaps she better sold herself in her SOP or had stronger LORs.  Maybe she was found to be interesting during the interview or maybe the person who brought her on board was a woman, too?  And if so, good for them.
 

I do think the gender bias in the mathematical sciences (and especially theoretical branches and pure math) is disproportionate relative other STEM fields, but OP, coming in here with aggressive one-sentence arguments and no evidence will not lead to a productive discussion. If you're upset about your results and want to rant, this likely isn't the place because you will get shot down (as you can already see), and you'll probably feel even worse.
fwiw at least on the applied math side, every woman I know who has wanted to get a PhD has gotten in (programs of their choice or of similar caliber). That said, I think the bias starts way earlier than grad school applications (you're lucky if it starts in college), and I think it continues in perpetuity after them. Part of it is that nobody wants to address gender bias or sexual harassment (which disproportionately affects women) because it damages the reputations of people and institutions in myriad ways, and part of it is that mathematical science is still a boys' club. It's not limited to STEM. This is an article on gender bias in economics. I tried sharing it along my institutional channels and nobody gave a shit.

In my committee work, we have seen clear empirical evidence to the contrary. That is, we find women underrepresented in the candidates that were accepted to the program. In all of the STEM fields. We find further underrepresentation in the number of women that choose to attend (i.e. the fraction of women that attend our school is lower than the fraction of women accepted to our school). Our school is a top tier program. 
I don't think there is a bias against men at all in STEM admissions, if that is what you are implying. If we want to discuss Math specifically, I can point to many examples of gender bias against women / for men. For example, the Fields Medal in Math has been awarded 56 times since 1936, to 55 men and 1 woman (in 2014) [citation]. There will be another round of medalists this year so maybe that number will increase. Yes, I am aware that the Fields Medal is certainly a different type of competition than a graduate school application, but to match your statement, I would say that anyone familiar with the field of Math would contend that the field itself has a bias towards men and the Fields Medal list is just one example.
As @Comparativist said, can you provide any evidence for your claim that math graduate schools are biased towards admitting women?

Made an account just to reply.
E/E/E/E/E/VG. Not awarded. 
I got knocked by reviewer 1 who said that I didn’t have a very good plan to share my research with others. Also said that I had a lack of rationale for why my proposed research would be of greater benefit than other available methods. 
I can’t be mad though. Aside from those comments my reviews were pretty stellar (and apparently my letter writers think I’m pretty capable, one of which who is now my PI).
Guess I’ll be applying for other stuff next year! ??‍♂️
Also congrats to everyone who got it! Celebration is in order!

I was not awarded.  Worst part is there was not a single negative review, all very good or excellent. Very confused. 

Anyway, Congratulations to all of you honorable mentions and awardees! You all worked hard and deserve this! 

Hi, I got the January email, but nothing in March, so you aren't the only one in that boat. When I called they said they are still sending out notifications. I'm gonna look at it as a positive, maybe we're awardees? We wait with baited breathe till this coming week...

I remember before applying to all of my graduate programs I specifically contacted the professors I wanted to work with to let them know I was applying and if they were taking graduate students. But I always addressed them as Dr. (last name), even when they said first name was okay. This also gave me a chance to see if they were the kind of academic that is too busy all the time or would actually reply to potential students. This process REALLY helped me filter out some programs I thought were great, but either had no space for me or the faculty never responded. I actually ended up making an email template where I would insert the professors name, and a section about how my undergraduate research specifically related to theirs; so it wasn't just a mass email. It also ended up giving me the opportunity to talk to them about NSF GRFP research ideas, and at two schools I was offered early summer research if accepted! I ended up taking one of them and am incredibly happy where I am.
 
Very sorry to hear that you experienced this though. As a male graduate student in STEM with a female advisor in a predominately male field, it is sad to see what she has to put up with sometimes. I'm very proud to say I work with one of the best chemical physicists in the nation, and everyone always starts with "What's his name?".

Let me just say, I literally made my account just now to reply to this and tell you how absolutely fucked it is that your advisor does that to you. Academics can spend so much time getting caught up in titles and prestige because thats how they see the world, but it is completely unfair to push that off onto a 1st or 2nd year graduate student. Focus on your research above all else and do good work, and good things will happen. 

I hate seeing Academia consume people like this. It isn't fair to you at all. Whether you get the NSF or HM or nothing, you're still a god damn PhD student/candidate, which make up less than 1% of the entire American population. You've worked hard for this, you will keep working hard, and titles and awards don't make or break you. 

Reviewer #2 will probably break you though, but they break everyone. 
Edit: Sorry if my use of language offends anybody, I just don't take kindly to academia being academia. I'm still waiting to hear back on my NSF and it's my second time applying! 

Edit: Edit: Also, my advisor just got back from an NSF panel/workshop today and it sounds like everything was super up in the air until the new budget was approved. So I'd imagine in the next week or two we will hear something. 

I remember before applying to all of my graduate programs I specifically contacted the professors I wanted to work with to let them know I was applying and if they were taking graduate students. But I always addressed them as Dr. (last name), even when they said first name was okay. This also gave me a chance to see if they were the kind of academic that is too busy all the time or would actually reply to potential students. This process REALLY helped me filter out some programs I thought were great, but either had no space for me or the faculty never responded. I actually ended up making an email template where I would insert the professors name, and a section about how my undergraduate research specifically related to theirs; so it wasn't just a mass email. It also ended up giving me the opportunity to talk to them about NSF GRFP research ideas, and at two schools I was offered early summer research if accepted! I ended up taking one of them and am incredibly happy where I am.
 
Very sorry to hear that you experienced this though. As a male graduate student in STEM with a female advisor in a predominately male field, it is sad to see what she has to put up with sometimes. I'm very proud to say I work with one of the best chemical physicists in the nation, and everyone always starts with "What's his name?".

Let me just say, I literally made my account just now to reply to this and tell you how absolutely fucked it is that your advisor does that to you. Academics can spend so much time getting caught up in titles and prestige because thats how they see the world, but it is completely unfair to push that off onto a 1st or 2nd year graduate student. Focus on your research above all else and do good work, and good things will happen. 

I hate seeing Academia consume people like this. It isn't fair to you at all. Whether you get the NSF or HM or nothing, you're still a god damn PhD student/candidate, which make up less than 1% of the entire American population. You've worked hard for this, you will keep working hard, and titles and awards don't make or break you. 

Reviewer #2 will probably break you though, but they break everyone. 
Edit: Sorry if my use of language offends anybody, I just don't take kindly to academia being academia. I'm still waiting to hear back on my NSF and it's my second time applying! 

Edit: Edit: Also, my advisor just got back from an NSF panel/workshop today and it sounds like everything was super up in the air until the new budget was approved. So I'd imagine in the next week or two we will hear something. 

You have till the 15th, don't worry. They cannot rescind your offer before then. Some schools just really want to lock down their graduate students so they can do administrative stuff like figure out TA positions, etc. Or some advisors are just really greedy/needy, take your pick. Academia is full of personality lol. 

I was in a similar situation last year when I applied and my advice to you is that my mentor told me. "Go work for someone that WANTS to work WITH you." In other words, I would much rather be art a lower ranked school with an advisor that supports me and wants me to be in lab and working with them to publish work rather than say an Ivy league where my worth is only validated by whether or not I bring data. (Sorry for anyone at an Ivy league right now, it isn't personal)

Think about who you would work with at each university. Maybe try contacting the specific PIs and see what they say. No matter what, you're in good shape. Congrats on your acceptance to at least one program, that often one more than most people! 

This sort of thing is very common, even out of STEM fields.
Glad you found a great match for your work. It sounds like you will graduate and become an ally to other female academics--much needed!