underthewaves

I will admit, as someone currently working on revision after revision of my SOP, I cannot imagine writing three or four different SOPs in one application season (as in, for three or four entirely different topics, rather than working with one main project + set of research questions and revising each SOP to individualize to each school).

I wonder if, perhaps, this is individual to certain professors? Only because I've also been in contact with a couple professors at UT Austin and while they've been open and honest about not being sure about how exactly covid will impact this admissions cycle, they've said they are on track to have a normal admissions year and are looking to accept students for fall 2021 (of course, whether someone is available to take on students in fall 2021 is the result of many factors, including but not limited to the pandemic).

For those who were offered funding (firstly, congratulations!) - how did you decide when to start the funding? Like May 2020 or September 2020?

From what I've heard from friends, it's the date of when you want to start receiving the payments. I believe it's three equal payments, so most typically people will choose to start receiving it in May or September.

Thanks for letting us know -- I got an offer from UBC and also had the same problem and was super confused.

I got an email about results not being released until April 15 and to ignore any automated messages about an April 1st release.

Sorry about that! I'd still suggest my original advice to speak to professors in your department -- have you spoken with your MA supervisor about it?

Have you checked with your MA supervisor (or another professor in your department)? I'm currently working on a research proposal for a grant application and my supervisor has been incredibly helpful with reading my drafts and offering advice. We also have one professor who is in charge of grants (kind of like a grant coordinator, I guess) and they have also been so helpful to everyone in terms of general advice and also giving specific advice based on our drafts. It's also been really helpful talking with other students who have successfully applied for this particular grant -- they've all been very kind and generous with offering their advice as well.

Have you chatted with your advisor about their thoughts, keeping in mind what you would like to do in the future? Do many of the people in Villanova's MA program typically go on to pursue a PhD? What would a teaching internship give you that will strengthen your PhD applications (assuming that's still your goal)?

I don't have any specific book recommendations, more of an overall recommendation -- find something published relatively recently that you're interested, read it, and then comb through the bibliography to see what works and authors that author is engaging with. I find tons of great recommendations that way.

I would just never tell an advisor that my friends and family thought an examiner was failing me (a student) out of jealousy, especially if you don't even agree with it. It just sort of seems like what's the point? It seems unlikely that the examiner failed you on purpose because they are jealous (the fail may have been unfair, but it being due to being jealous of a student seems super unlikely), so why even bring that up at all to your advisor?

I'm a little confused as to why you would share those comments from your friends/family with your advisor. Sometimes friend and family who don't understand how things work will automatically just go with "oh, it must be unfair" because they like us a lot and they see how hard we work -- it doesn't make it true or helpful and tbh, I cannot honestly imagine telling a professor that my friends and family thought an examiner failed me because the examiner was jealous. It just seems unnecessary to pass that kind of information along and if it's getting in your head, I second the earlier advice to either ignore those types of comments from your (well-meaning but perhaps misguided) friends and family or politely ask them to stop.

Congratulations -- it's a great feeling. I just handed in my honours thesis (still have the defense ahead, but finally printing the three copies was an awesome feeling, although 90 pages x 3 copies is an expensive printing job!) and it's such a nice feeling.

One of the greatest things about UBC's campus (in my opinion) is that the campus borders Pacific Spirit Park, which has tons of trails for running/walking and you can feel fully away from campus and just out in nature without ever having to technically leave the campus. Welcome to UBC as well -- I'm starting my MA in the fall at UBC but I'm also finishing up my BA here.

I've heard good things about Thunderbird from a friend who lives there currently (although, to be fair, he is part of the Res Life team so not sure how that may colour his perceptions). It's not exclusively for grad students, but it is primarily grad students and upper-year undergrads, which is nice. I personally don't live in official UBC housing (and never have, although I do live-on campus -- UBC is HUGE and there are tons of places to live that are on-campus but not UBC residence, varying from places with mainly students to like 20 million dollar homes with gorgeous views of the ocean), but I'd recommend the UBC sub-reddit for specific housing questions -- people on there are super nice and helpful, and there's always tons of questions about housing.