accidental_philologist

Thank you for sharing your experience and starting this topic. I don't want to swerve the topic into just talking about me, but it reminds me of something I've been struggling a lot with lately -- I often find it hard to tell if male grad students are treating me nicely because they value my contribution, or are just tolerating me or trying to show off because I'm young and fairly good-looking. And then I hear them saying really quite misogynistic things about other women and it makes me think that it must be the latter, and then it just throws everything they've done, good and bad, into doubt, and I feel like I can't believe what they say to or about me or other women (or even scholarship done by women!). I'm trying to figure out how to brush it off and navigate interacting with them (as I theoretically may for the rest of our careers, which is ... not fun to think about) but it's honestly very alienating and depressing. I'm also in a similar position cause it's only my first semester in grad school. I don't have any advice for you cause I don't know how to deal with it myself....

I am particularly wondering about getting a plastic shell case for it. But I've heard conflicting reports on whether or not one actually helps protect the screen or corners from Disaster, and I don't want to buy plastic things if I don't really need them, you know?

Hey all! I'm trying to source some advice from other grad students who know the wear and tear that grad student life specifically can have on your laptop, and tips for how to mitigate damage and preserve the lifespan of one of your pricier investments on a grad student dime. What do you do to keep your tech in shape? Never drain the battery below 10 per cent? Favorite transport sleeves? Do you put an extra plastic case on it? Cover it in stickers? Pay for antivirus programs or just take whatever your university gives you to download? Etc. I personally just invested in a new laptop and am anxious to keep it going well. I hope it'll be The One that gets me through grad school, so I appreciate all your tips and hope others find them useful too!

Thanks for pointing this out! I think I'll include this under "coursework", because we take classes until the quals and those reflect our coursework and specializations (is my understanding) so I'll be sure to study and organize with an eye to retaining/organizing information in order to reference in preparation for the exams, instead of just for the course itself.

So I'm hoping to get some thoughts on this kind of way of organizing what I want to do in grad school. I will be a new grad student in the fall, so I've been spending this summer thinking a lot (a LOT) about my goals, and trying to figure out what they should be, and what the healthiest way of goal-setting is -- I tend to be a perfectionist, as is the wont of many grad students, but it really got me in my last year of undergrad with some serious burnout when I tried to take on Too Much and suffered the whole year -- so I tried to approach setting up what I want to do more ... holistically (?). But then I just came up with a massive, unmanageable list of dozens and dozens of things, from huge to minute, that I dream about doing. In trying to make that list manageable, what I've come up with so far is basically a four-fold approach to organizing what I want to get done while in grad school (note that these are NOT in order of importance): 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. 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. Looking for feedback! Thanks!

Not sure if they are the best programs for IE, but some other programs that let you specialize in IE within a linguistics department are Harvard, UPenn (I think? They have at least quite a few faculty members), and Oxford (track C in the Linguistics, Philology, and Phonetics faculty).

Also, you seem to be applying for a PhD. Is three years really going to be enough to finish that? I'm currently at IU Bloomington (in Germanic linguistics -- feel free to message me if you have questions! I did undergrad here and am staying for a Master's!) and while the programs are lovely and the town may grow on you, I don't know any students in any humanities department who have finished their programs of study in three years. It could be really stressful to have to reapply for funding in three years in order to finish. If your standard of living would be the same based on your stipend amounts in both cities, then consider that U of Washington might be a lower-stress option. You could certainly finish in 5 years, but maybe not in 3! However, if you would be scraping by in Seattle for 5 years, but living fairly well in Bloomington for 3, then maybe the latter would be the lower-stress option. The PhD will be monstrously stressful, so reduce your worries where you can is what I think!!

You could also email and ask, especially if this is a graduate student run conference, if there might be someone among the coordinators who you could stay with, should accommodation be an issue. The sooner the better -- I tried this for a conference but they were all already hosting other presenters! Also maybe look into something like paper prizes, not necessarily funding strictly earmarked for conferences. The programs I'm associated with at my undergrad all offer end-of-the-year "best student paper" prizes for undergrads and grads, and they tend to be something like $300 cash. If you found other awards for other things like that, you could put the money towards conference travel anyways.

can confirm that the University of California system includes vision and dental at no additional cost in their student health insurance plan. This seems to be, in the US at least, pretty unusual though.

You should also consider that, unlike undergrad, it's not just classes you'll be coming to campus for -- there will (or should) be things like guest lectures, conferences, professionalization events, or even socializing with people in your department and visiting professors. These things are important or even crucial for meeting people in your field and broadening your horizons a bit beyond your own program. I have friends who went to conference dinners with invited profs who are some of the biggest names in their fields, and made such a good connection that they're now on their dissertation committee. Would you be willing or able to attend and get the most out these extracurricular opportunities if you have your hour and half long drive home looming over your head? At least for your coursework foundational years, I would recommend living closer to campus. You could anticipate moving out once you've taken your quals, maybe.

Huh. Thank you for the information. I'm just wondering WHAT the thought process is behind this? Are they really so blatantly elitist as to say that only the independently wealthy may attend, and equally qualified (I mean, they were also accepted) but poorer people just ... can't? Or do students from the UK and (previously?) the EU get higher chances for funding, or are they just depending on external scholarships like Rhodes or whatever (which still smacks of irresponsibility)? I know it's something probably you nor any of us can answer, but I am a bit shocked if the attitude is so on-the-nose about the money...

I'm interested in this too -- one of my options is staying at my undergrad institution for an MA and reapplying in two years' time (and my choice might be determined by finances). I've heard that in my fields (linguistics, medieval studies) that it looks kinda bad to job hiring committees if you stay for your whole PhD, but I'm not sure if there's something similarly negative about an MA to admissions committees for PhD programs. And maybe it makes a difference what you do during your master's if you stay? If you really apply yourself to come out with top marks, conference presentations, maybe publishing, get in on conference/workshop planning, etc -- perhaps that would overcome any potential trepidation that you just cruised into a master's as essentially an extra year of undergrad?? I don't know, so I'm looking forward to hearing what others have to say!

Thanks for the info @pscwpv! That's really good to know. I'm in the social sciences, but when I asked the department I was accepted to if they would tell me if they had nominated me for anything, they refused to tell me. I guess it varies by department? Or do you mean to email someone with the Clarendon program directly?

*AGONY INTENSIFIES* Thanks for letting us know!

Hello all! I'm just one of the anxious Oxford candidates waiting to see if I ever hear from any funding -- please join me in my pain. Post if or when you have any news!