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Teaching Faculty Wannabe

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Posts posted by Teaching Faculty Wannabe

  1. 13 hours ago, sgaw10 said:

    My mom and I don't get along.

    She told me a couple weeks ago that she spontaneously booked a trip to my new city. Never even asked me.

    This is the first week of grad school for me, and I'm already incredibly busy. Even after I insisted I did not want money, she demands that I make time for her to give me some after she criticized how my salary will not go very far. She also feels that my new school is lesser than my undergrad institution and does not hesitate to express that. She doesn't understand what I'm doing, which is fine, but she doesn't try understanding. My mom lashed out at me via text a couple months ago because she thought I misread and actually had to take more money from my family for tuition, which is not true. Unrelated but strange to mention is that she has a crude Twitter account with tens of thousands of followers, where I suspect she may be cheating on my dad in some sort of virtual relationship.

    My parents are trying to guilt me into hanging out with her, but this is something I really don't want to do. I'm not sure how I should go about it. I don't understand why it's my responsibility to entertain her on a whim. 

    /endrant

     

    @sgaw10 I am so sorry. I think I remember you talking about your parents, especially your mom's, misunderstanding of grad school and the finances that come with it. I think what your family needs to learn is that you are an adult now. You have your own life. You can't stop everything for them and they should get that. I am sorry they don't and make you feel guilty, especially during the start of grad school which already has multitudes of stressfullness in of itself.

    I wish I could provide a solution, but I don't think there is much you can do per se but be honest with them. Once you do, then your family has to change. You can't change them, sadly.

  2. 15 hours ago, Adelaide9216 said:

    Hello, I will be living on my own for the first time. I do know how to cook, but I feel like meal prepping is going to be a challenge...any tips or apps on how to make that process smooth for someone who used to live in a big family?

    Check out this website: https://sweetpeasandsaffron.com/

    There are other websites that have tips and recipes on meal prepping. I hope this helps!

  3. On 6/19/2019 at 12:06 AM, ray92 said:

    Anybody see that link yet?

    Nope, but I believe last week I got an email saying to fill out the info for my internship in a Google Form. Did you get that?

  4. Does anyone who got the award have advice to give to those that were not recommended, but have the opportunity to apply again? What do you think made your application stand out?

  5. On 6/5/2019 at 11:03 AM, plainpixxel said:

    Hello everyone! 
    Does any know what's going on with GEM?
    I haven't heard anything since I accepted my offer for the associate fellowship. 
    I sent in all my transcripts, and my headshot. It's just been quiet with no email updates. 

    They had a seminar for the Full Fellows (or maybe everyone, not sure) I believe last week and they said that they are trying to confirm people this week, but it seems like it is taking longer than they thought. We should be getting a letter or something in the mail from them confirming the fellowship. Additionally, I think they are supposed to send out an email when they are finished with the confirmation process.

  6. On 5/26/2019 at 10:23 PM, mika-ella said:

    Hi!

    I am planning to apply masters program in Engineering this year. The question is I do not know which engineering area is interesting me. Now I am studying at 3rd year and majoring at B.Eng. in Construction and Civil Engineering. To be more detailed, my specialization will be translated into English as "Manufacturing of building materials, products and structures", so it is closely to Materials Science.

    Today I searched some universities in Canada and find that Civil Engineering is divided to another specialist as Transportation, Mining, Environmental, etc Engineering and this information made me confused.

    At high school and first course I was very interested in Chemistry, but then I was interested in Construction Materials, and now I do not know what to choose. If someone can help with that please, give me some advice. Thank you!

    Well, the thing about engineering is how interdisciplinary all of it is. They are all connected in one way or another. However, of course, you will learn specific and different things in each one. So, when you are trying to decide on what you want to do, first think about your interests in general not based on the engineering fields, themselves. Then combine those interests to see what engineering fields fit them. You will have to look into the fields themselves to see what they focus on more and decide from there which curriculum you like better.

    For example, I like biology, chemistry, polymers, most materials science, biomaterials, math, and some physics. I like them all on their own, but especially like them together. When I combine them, I could either do chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, or materials science/engineering. However, I chose materials science/engineering at my undergrad degree because I liked the focus it had on chemistry, physics, and materials. However, I have decided to choose biomedical engineering for my PhD because it has more of an empathize on biology, polymers, and biomaterials while still being to focus on materials science, and chemistry. I never chose to do chemical engineering because even though I could combine all of my interests in this field, the work in it was too focused on the chemical side of things rather the materials and biology sides (which I like more). I also didn't do mechanical engineering because it had too much physics for my liking.

    I hope this helps and make sense. It is kind of like putting a puzzle together. Good luck!

  7. On 5/14/2019 at 8:54 AM, Maylee said:

    I gave my employer three months notice when I accepted a funding offer. Everyone was excited for me and told me how appreciated I was (which nobody ever does until you leave). Then, they started to get bitter when they had to go through the hiring process and re-structure the office. They've made me move my physical office multiple times, keep "forgetting" to include me in important emails, and nobody will quit mentioning that I'm "leaving them." On top of that, I'm leaving my entire support network soon for five years, my partner and I have decided that the distance won't work but we're "enjoying what we have left", my new car broke down irreparably so when I do move I can't ever visit home or get around my new city, I'm not sure I can bring any of my belongings with me without a vehicle, my family is struggling with physical and mental health, and I can't afford to re-start my medication on this very terrible insurance (which is currently denying to pay for my last visit). I feel helpless, lonely, and selfish for leaving for yet another degree. 

    On the bright side, my school found out they had a bit of additional grant money to award and chose me to receive it on top of my funding. I may be able to buy a moped to get to the grocery store, which is pretty neat. ?

    Sending good vibes and love! Hopefully one day it will feel worth it!

  8. On 5/10/2019 at 9:20 AM, sgaw10 said:

    My mom is giving me such a hard time. I try to cut her some slack because my parents don't have college degrees and thus know nothing about academia. But I have clearly explained to her multiple times that my PhD program provides a stipend, health insurance, and tuition remission, and that a PhD is not related to becoming a medical doctor (i.e. can get a doctorate in any field, from philosophy, to economics, to chemistry, etc). Yet she insists on "figuring things out" for me and thinks I don't know what I'm doing. She only cares about financial logistics, never once having asked me what my interests are, and fitting her ideal mold (overheard a few years ago that she just wants me to marry a rich doctor). Then she has a popular Twitter account where she interacts with creepy male followers who apparently know about me, because she tweeted she was "upset" that she would no longer be in the city where I currently live and has to tolerate my next location. She then says that my next school is "not as good" as my current school yet uses undergraduate rankings as support. She rarely ever comes to visit and would never willingly interact with a black person or ride public transportation despite putting these cities in her bio. And it feels as if she is taking credit for my hard work. Dont get me wrong -- I'm thankful for my parents' financial support. But this is insulting.

    This is her most recent text she sent me yesterday. Maybe I'm being a bit overly sensitive, but this sort of thing has been going on for years. So frustrating.

     

    20190510_081906.jpg

    I am so sorry about your parents, especially your mother, for not understanding. I hope one day they do!

  9. On 5/24/2019 at 3:09 PM, Halek said:

    Update:

    I turned him down. It was the right thing to do. But I also feel horrible because I REALLY want to be in a relationship. But I know that a relationship with him wouldn't be healthy for me. 

    I'm so tired I can barely move. And I don't know if it's from the field work or from him.

    I should be reading some Ethnographies but I feel like I just need to sleep.

    I think you did the right thing.

    I told someone I liked them a semester and a half before both of us graduated from undergrad. They were in the relationship at the time (I hadn't known because I wasn't super close with them, but had talked with them many times and taken many classes with them AKA we were in the same major). Two weeks before graduating, they kissed me when we were both really drunk (our classmates were out drinking together to celebrate the semester before graduating). FYI, they were broken up with their partner at the time. That was the worst thing they could have done because my feelings got deeper but they weren't ready to be in a relationship (although, they got back together with their ex a few months later, ugh). It took so much time to get over them, and we kissed one last time after that night as a stupid goodbye, I guess.

    So, what I am trying to say here is that it was good that you didn't string him along. The timing doesn't seem to be right for the both of you, and it was good that you acknowledged that instead of ending up hurting each other more in the end.

    I am sorry you are in so much pain right now, but I promise you it will get better.

  10. On 5/16/2019 at 6:30 PM, accidental_philologist said:

    1.       Do well in course work. Not only in getting good grades, but also in really applying myself and learning as much as I can from every course

    2.       Research. If I want to be competitive on the job market, I need to produce some research and hopefully get some things published. 

    3.       Professionalization. I need to cultivate good professional connections, present at conferences, win awards, and participate in professionalization activities/groups.

    4.       Personal. Keeping myself sane through all of this by scheduling time to relax, tidy up, hang out with friends, cook healthy food, etc. 

    Then, within these four sort of "themes", I can create smaller sub-goals. A goal for 1 might look like organizing my notes really well so that I can refer to them in the future; a goal for 2 might be setting aside a block of time to work on my extracurricular research projects; a goal for 3 might be to apply to X number of conferences/awards during a semester; a goal for 4 might look like setting aside a day per month to deep clean the apartment; so on and so forth. Then, if one goal supports multiple themes (like submitting an abstract to a conference to present on my research, so themes 2 and 3, or working on revising notes with a friend from class over coffee, so 1 and 4) then I know that it's DEFINITELY something I should try to do.

    I think this is great! Your post is inspiring me to do the same before I start in August. 

    On 5/16/2019 at 6:30 PM, accidental_philologist said:

    So my questions are these: what do you think? Have I missed any critical things? What sorts of sub-goals, or edits to the system, would you recommend? I will also be teaching in later years, and I'm not sure how I'd fit teaching into this system, so I'd love suggestions on that! AND, of course, is this ALSO as unmanageable as a straight-up list of dozens of goals (I often trick myself into thinking I have broken things down when I have actually made them more complicated...), or overly complicated?? Am I overthinking this? Of course I understand SMART goals and use them for structuring bigger aims, but I don't otherwise know how to organize smaller sub-goals so that I stay on top of things without letting basics slide. 

    For me, I think I am going to had another category: Communication. This can connect with Professionalization in the sense of presenting at conferences, and writing research articles. Personally, I want to learn how to present to crowds with varying amounts of knowledge of my topic. I think it's important to be able to relay information to people with different backgrounds, but especially to the general public. Scientists have a hard time trying to make the public understand their research and the importance of it, and that's definitely a skill I want to work on while doing my PhD.

    Additionally, another category I would think of adding is Volunteering. I plan on doing outreach programs with my department and college. I am not sure if you find this important for your goals, but it is something to consider.

    I am not sure if you are really overthinking or overly complicating things, but just be prepared to not accomplish everything you want to accomplish since being a grad students is a very time-consuming task. It is a good thing to keep in mind, and you shouldn't beat yourself up for it if some things don't happen like you want them to. Getting a PhD is not about becoming a perfect researcher--that's impossible, but it is possible to try your best, learn a lot, and use those things you learned to grow as a researcher and as a person.

  11. 20 hours ago, ray92 said:

    Any updates from anyone?  Has anyone started their internships yet?

    I haven't gotten anything official from GEM, but I will start my internship at the beginning of June (which is so soon, ahh!)! I have been doing a lot of paperwork for my internship and such.

  12. 21 hours ago, pacogri said:

    Housing arrangements!

    This will be my first time adulting, and living by myself, so I have several questions:

    1. What should I be aware of when looking for apartments? When I go to visit, what should get my attention the most?
    2. Is a 9 month or 12 month lease better?
    3. Is living on campus something you would recommend?
    4. How can you manage feelings of loneliness when living alone? (My partner is going to join me after a year, but a year is a long time)

     

     

    @palyndrone@bibliophile222

    1. I think the above two users did a good job of this. One thing I will point out is that if you are looking at apartment complexes, the leasing office will show you their best place. It will be like a showroom sort of thing. So, whenever you move, don't expect it to be that pristine, clean, and put together like the place they showed you. Also, ask what utilities (gas, electricity, wifi, heat, water, sewer, trash, recycling, cable, etc) are included and excluded in the rent?

    2. 9 months would only be better if you are unsure about the place, but then that means you have to move earlier. So, it's up to you really. Be aware that the rent might be more expensive if you do a 9 moths lease.

    3. and 4. It might be more expensive to live on campus, but if you are worried about loneliness, then this might be the best option. Living on campus connects you to the university and you can easily go to public places filled with students and go to school events.

    I hope this helps!

  13. @dalamplighter Well, let's compare the two even further.

    NSF

    • 3 years of support
    • $34,000 per year plus $12,000 towards tuition
    • Get access to supercomputer/massive database (or something of that sort)
    • No service obligation
    • Can apply to NSF GROW and NSF GRIP (only for NSF GRFP awardees)
    • More known in academia

    NDSEG

    • 3 years of support
    • $4,000 per month ($48,000 per year), $5000 travel budget, $1200 towards health insurance, all tuition and fees are paid
    • I imagine, access to DoD facilities (some researchers might not like DoD bc they don't like working with the military maybe???)
    • No service obligation
    • More known in industry and engineering (this fellowship is highly known in the engineering fields, but it seems less in neuroscience)

    So, I am unsure if you have to pay tuition and fees in your program. I will only have to pay fees when I start in the fall. If you do have to pay tuition, then that can help you save a lot of money!

    But if tuition isn't an issue, you would get $14,000 more per year ($1,167 more per month) with the NDSEG + a travel budget + money to cover health insurance if your school doesn't cover it for you.

    So, here is my two cents. NSF will give you less money but will provide you more opportunities because you get to apply to NSF internships that are exclusive to NSF GRFP Fellows. However, if you don't think you will use those opportunities and would feel better about having more money, then NDSEG would be better.

    I hope this helps! Good luck!

  14. On 4/28/2019 at 2:19 PM, Muhammad Ibrar said:

    There are more than 4 thousand universities at united states, how to shortlist 6 to 10 universities according to academic profile? like it is not feasible to go through each website of university, is there any smart way to shortlist some universities for engineering category?

    There really is no way to shortlist without missing out on some schools because there are so many. But you first have to start looking at a lot of schools and then narrowing down that list until you get to a point you feel good about. Just as a warning, this can get very exhausting. This is how I chose my schools.

    1. I excluded all schools that were in areas of the country that I didn't want to live in. For example, for me I didn't want to live in the South (I lived there my whole life) nor the Midwest. I also limited the amounts of schools I applied to in California (only one) because it is very expensive to live there.

    2. I then excluded more schools by whether if they are in small towns, big towns, or cities. This part is really difficult (I ended up picking a place that is in a small town, but it is close to a small city and easy to travel to big cities that are a little further away). However, you want to be happy where you live. Figure out what sort of environment you like living in.

    3. Look at the list of rankings of schools for your particular field. Rankings shouldn't be your top priority when looking at schools, but they provide a good list of schools to look into.

    4. Read research papers on projects you find interesting, and see what schools the authors are at.

    By doing this, you will at least have a long list of possible schools. In order to reduce it down more, you need to do some in-depth research on most of the schools on this list by going to their websites. When you are doing research on the schools, you should pay attention to these factors:

    1. Research focuses. Most departments have research areas they focus on. Make sure they have the research area you are interested in. If not, get rid of that school immediately.

    2. Potential advisors. Find at least two people you would like to work with at each university. I aimed for three, but two should be good. If there is only one person, I would eliminate that school because there is no guaranteeing you will work with that person.

    3. Tuition scholarship/waivers plus funding. You want to make sure that you will have your tuition waived along with getting funding at the school. This is usual for PhDs, but not as common for Masters. However, some schools might not support PhDs in that way, so make sure they do.

    4. Application fees. Applying to grad school is expensive. If you have a hard time choosing between applying to schools that are similar in nature, maybe eliminate the ones with higher application fees.

    I hope this helps! Good luck!

  15. 8 hours ago, drfigue said:

    ¡Pa' lante! (I hope you understand Spanish?) --- keep going forward! We at the BME/BIOE chat are SO proud of you!! And besides, this is just the first attempt - you'll get them next year or the next one. I also didn't have a mentor/faculty to help/review, but sometimes we have to work with what we have at the moment. And you know what? It makes you grow, in all aspects. Don't be hard on yourself. After all, you are on an awesome fellowship and have plenty of time to come up with a stronger application for NSF (and I can help if you'd like!).

    Thank you so much for this! I know a little bit of Spanish, and I think have heard that phrase, but I had to look it up to remember, haha. I am going to write it down to remember!

    I am proud of everyone else in the BME/BIO chat! I feel like we sort of became an online family and some from that chat are going to be in same cohort as I am at UConn, which is exciting!

    It has definitely made me thing about my work, and I will grow from this. Not all of it, but some of my reviewer's feedback were useful. I also thankful for the GEM Fellowship since I get extra money and an awesome internship this summer!

    Thank you for offering to help! I might take you up on that!

  16. I am very proud of all of those you got the award! That's awesome!

    However, as a "Not Recommended" person with some conflicting reviews and I think a bit nitpicky at that, I feel defeated. The thing keeping me going is the fact that I got an internal fellowship and an external fellowship and I have an awesome PhD research advisor with great project ideas, which I feel super lucky about. Also, I can't let this experience as well as my successes define me, just have to put a little bit of effort into getting over the reveviewers' words. I guess you can't win them all.

    Also, I am proud of myself for a good application in general. I didn't have a mentor to help me, and I wasn't even currently working on research at the time, but I did get help from two people, which I am super thankful for.

    Good luck to everyone on their future endeavors!

  17. 15 minutes ago, telkanuru said:

    Ok, but you realize that here you've given a real human advice on a life-altering decision based on that desire for an alternate reality? That's... not great. 

    Yes...I feel bad about that.....I shouldn't have used my desire for a different reality to justify my reasoning/ horrible advice...It is wrong and I shouldn't have let my optimism blind me...

    I apologize @bric for giving you and others unrealistic advice. Getting a professorship is not an easy thing to do at all, even if you get a degree from a top-ranked program. If you still feel like applying to professorships anyways, then do so because you never know, but the reality is that you, just like the rest of those who want to be professors, will have to think of things to do outside of being a professor when it comes to your career. Despite all of that, congrats on getting into grad school! You should be proud of yourself!

  18. 6 minutes ago, telkanuru said:

    This may have been almost true - or at least you could plausibly argue it - 10 years ago; it is no longer. That middle tier of "undergrad" institution is rapidly collapsing, and what jobs do exist are being hotly contested by grads from Harvard, Yale, Chicago, and the like. I know plenty of Ivy graduates, and they are universally thrilled if they manage to land a permanent position at a branch campus or community college. That's the brutal reality of the current market.

    Sure. If you're at a prestigious institution, you get Important Scholars swinging by weekly to give a talk, because prestige and money go hand in hand. Guess who has the advantage there.

    Me too, and mostly they are. It doesn't mean that they're unimportant, though, and school rank corresponds to many structural advantages such as (as I have already said) increased visibility to important scholars, extra funding, and lighter teaching loads, all of which enable higher-quality research.

    Alas that the world is the way it is, and not the way you want it to be.

    Again, this may have been true when that professor was on the market however many decades ago, but this is absolute nonsense today. I can give you lists of absolutely brilliant friends from really good institutions who simply have been unlucky in the preferences of the hiring committee or have only had 3 (!!) job listings in their subfields, and are now adjuncting to make ends meet. Don't trust anyone who's gotten their job before 2014 when it comes to the job market.

    If you go into academia thinking it will all work out if you try hard enough, or that you're smarter and are going to do it better than everyone else, you will end up broken, poor, and disappointed. Optimism in this regard is, quite frankly, self-delusion. That's not an opinion. That's simply an observation of reality.

    I see. I agree with all of your points. I know entering into academia is difficult, especially now. My mom are and her parents were university professors. I am sure it was easier for them back then to get jobs, but since my mom is still in that world today, I have gotten exposure to the current difficulties of academia. It is hard to even get the job, and then it is even hard to get tenured once you have gotten the job.

    I know working hard won't get you into a professorship. I know my beliefs are not reflective of reality. I just wish reality weren't so based on prestige and who has the most money. Not everyone can afford prestige, and because of this, it can greatly prevent them from achieving their dreams of becoming a professor. I just wish the world wasn't the way it is. I know I can't personally change that. Maybe that can't ever change, which makes me sad.

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