accidental_philologist

Hey guys, this is upsetting that this is happening in departments. What you guys are describing IS a hostile work environment filled with aggressive behavior. This behavior creates a feeling of “otherness” and isolation plus a feeling of being under attack and scrutiny. This is unfortunate. I come from the professional world where the work culture was VERY professional, so this is definitely something I need to be aware of as I enter the academic arena once more. Thanks guys for sharing your experiences. I think A LOT of women can relate. 

1. It will depend on the program. Probably any program that accepts you will offer the possibility of transferring in some coursework, but it depends. I don't think there is such thing as "transfer" student status, because any new program you go to will probably have you start as a first year. It's possible a program will reduce your total funding time and let you enter with advanced standing based on your previous record. You'll only have a master's degree though, so really you'll be in the pool like anyone else with a master's degree in terms of assessing your application.
2. If your professors are invested in your development, they will want you to be in a place that you feel is best for making that happen. I think the extent to which you burn bridges will be incumbent upon how you interact with them throughout the application process. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to keep up friendly relations as far as that is possible, because these people might be all you've got in the end.
3. Be direct, but don't harp on it. Your capacity to present yourself soberly could factor into whether they think you will be a good presence in their program, and no one will want to go to a pity party for you. Focus on showing why the program you would like to go to is in fact the best possible program for you.
4. Three clichés as a word of caution:
The devil you know is better than the devil you don't.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
The grass is always greener on the other side.
5. The first semester of a PhD comes with lots of intangible difficulties. Things may even out, or they may not.

I am sorry that the dynamic is such that you're feeling increasingly isolated from your cohort.
As a rule of thumb,  trust your instincts. if you feel like you're on the receiving end of inappropriate behavior, people probably are behaving inappropriately towards you. If you're feeling harassed, you're being harassed.
Would it be possible for you to focus on your coursework for the balance of the term while you regroup and figure out how you want to educate members of your cohort on how they should treat you? Or do you want to write them off entirely for the present, if not permanently? 
 
 

The professor emailed me today to tell me that my last summary was excellent. I did not ask for it. So it's reassuring.

Well, my strategy devolved into overusing my TA office supplies, but that's not a feasible strategy for everyone. In your case, I would recommend keeping a paper notebook/legal pad/whatever, while using the following approach (an acronym IPSO):
Issue: What is the research question?
Position: What is the thesis? How does it interact with other literature?
Support: What are the sources used? How does the author support his/her argument?
Outcome: Future avenues for research, assuming the author's argument is correct?
 

I do what GeoDUDE! does and use Mendeley for reading my papers. I mostly do this to use Mendeley's excellent methods for keeping track of citations (I export BibTeX files).
 
I understand what you mean about highlighting with a mouse though. My solution is actually I rarely mark up PDFs anymore. Instead, I just read them and don't make any annotations. This is obviously not a good way to retain information but I already have over 100 papers in my collection for my current project and I don't expect myself to know every detail of every single paper. Instead, I read the paper and I find that I do pretty good at remembering the main points. In the future, I just skim the abstract again and I remember what the paper was generally about. Mendeley has a box for you to type in whatever you want for each paper and I use this to make notes to myself, e.g. "Cite this for Method X!!" etc.
 
The above is for the lowest level of paper. For papers that are more critical to my work, I keep notes for them in a separate notebook. I read the paper on the screen and then I write summary notes for each one. Maybe summarize the paper in one page of notes or something (i.e. longer than I would want to store in the Mendeley text box). Because I can write on a physical piece of paper, this makes noting down important figures or equations much easier. Sometimes, I would sparingly use the Mendeley built-in highlighter tool so that when I skim through the PDF again in the future, I know where the *really* important stuff is. With the "Find" function, I never have to highlight or otherwise annotate lesser details though.
 
Finally, for the absolute critical papers to my work (i.e. <10 or so), I print out physical copies and keep them in my filing cabinet. These are the papers that I really want to know backwards and forwards and I write on them, draw things, take them with me while commuting etc. Since it's just a small number, having physical copies is very manageable.
 
So, actually, I think the clunkiness of an electronic highlighter tool is a blessing. It makes me want to use it less, which means I only highlight things I really really want to remember. Many of my articles do not even have highlighter marks at all. In the past, with paper copies, I might want to highlight smaller references to keywords but now I can just use Mendeley's "find" function to search for keywords in all of my papers at once! 

I spent about $10 on a neoprene pouch for my laptop, and then it goes into my big purse. It's protected in transit, which is the only thing I'm really worried about. I use Avast's free antivirus software (I have for years). As far as charging, I just bring the charger with me and charge it when it gets around 20-30% cuz I don't want it to die on me if I'm in the middle of something and don't have access to an outlet. 

Pace yourself, and don't try to read too much at once. Start with 10 pages a day, and work up to twenty. Keep an eye out for the main claim, and make a note of it once you find it (highlight it too!). Highlight the reasons offered in support of the claim, and make a note of those, too. But don't highlight too much! 
As you're reading, write down the questions that occur to you. Also make a note of any thoughts or observations you have. When you're done, go back over your notes and see how it all fits together. Try to answer your questions.
And then, when you're done, write a brief summary of the chapter/article. Explain the main claim and its supporting premises, so that you can just read the quick summary later.
For books, reading book reviews can be helpful, since they're usually good at condensing the point and identifying flaws. But I suggest reading those only after you've read it, too, or once you're pretty far along. Best not to colour your views with someone else's!

Congratulations on you acceptance! I as an international graduate student in the West Coast. Although I came at an older age and having worked, I had no idea what to expect or what the culture would be like. Now I am a professor, so my advice is based both of my graduate experience and my (still very recent) conversations with students in my department. 
General Advise
Treat graduate school like a job as much as possible. This means several things. On the one hand, you are now an adult responsible for your time and your own progress. As any adult, you are of course entitled to your own life. My advise: keep the dog! (I wish I had one!). Try to keep a routine the best you can and set an amount of work hours. I am assuming you have no kids and/or no partner, based on you OP? If that's the case, it is very easy to work very long hours. Treat yourself to your favorite hobbies: running clubs, church meetings, frisbee, what ever. I was very good at this in my third year. Grad school is also a job in the sense that you are being trained to be a colleague. I don't think no one will tell you this in your department, but try to dress professionally in tone with the department's culture. You'll always be a little less formal than faculty, of course (especially when you are only writing). Similarly, pick up the way people treat each other. I'm not talking about how to address professors (I'd err on the edge of formality, if you don't know your department's culture yet) but especially the collegiality among peers (or lack of). Stay with the good ones. [Eg: I had my first meeting with a graduate student earlier this month and I've noticed that I planned it more or less how a female advisor had always structured hers: first asking about how you are doing and then going into business]. Age-wise, you are not an UG anymore. Don't behave like one.  But graduate school is not a simple job. Be resilient. Your priorities and working style will change in the next five to seven years. I was very active until year 4, once I started writing the dissertation and going into the job market, I was siting down all day, writing. In addition, graduate school is more than a job because we give a lot to be here. I gave up my country to be here. Others move their families. Others left jobs. So it is very personal in a way that it is not faculty (trust me, I am one of those now). So, take care of yourself. Do not postpone your own health and wellness for a paper, it is never worth it. Believe it or not, life happens when you are in a PhD, so allow yourself to deal with what life throws at you. In addition, look for allies in the program, especially other graduate students. I say allies and not friends because I have the theory that we don't have to be friends with the people we work with. I'm not sure it's true, but for me this idea helped me relax and not feel the pressure of "you have to make friends". I did make great friends and with others I have great professional relationships. You want that.  Take the time to learn. I think it's impressive that you are starting a PhD program so young. Unfortunately, that means that you might be still learning about yourself, especially about how you learn. Now, everybody is there to learn. Remember the friends and colleagues part I mentioned earlier? Well, there is a third group of fellow students (the smallest, for sure) with whom I never wanted anything to do with: those who are speaking and saying nothing, and do not accept feedback.We are all students, we are all learning no matter what stage in life you are. Do not allow anyone believe that you have "more" to learn than others. I came at age 31 and still needed to learn how to read and write, because my foreignness made me a complete outside to American academic writing. You might encounter something like this, so give yourself the space to learn what you need to learn in order to succeed.  You have more power than you think. Although a PhD program is structured (coursework-exams-research-dissertation), you have a lot of agency in how to do each (or some) of the stages. Take a look at graduate certificates, workshops, and the like. I have friends all over the place that started off as part-time (5hs/week) editors of an in-house journal and now they are directors of Digital Scholarship in two institutions. I have friends that began working for the university's center for teaching and today, as they finish their PhD, are leading workshops on teaching, technology, and pedagogy to university professors. Depending on what your interests are, do expand them beyond the halls of your Department. This is also from the job market point of view. Search committees are looking more and more for people who can partner with other areas in the university, who can bring in novel teaching strategies, who can collaborate with others, and who engage the public. There are many, many programs on campuses trying to articulate these needs. Check them out, if it's something that interests you, because you might find yourself collaborating with someone after attending their talk!  Academic advise
Coursework is not just coursework. Work with your advisor to design a curriculum that works for you. Remember that the goal is to be a scholar, not pass courses. Courses should build into your interests and help you develop a sense of the literature and the debates in your field. Sometimes you'll take courses outside your field, but be conscious about why. Times is precious.  Research well how your exams and prospectus are done. Every institution is different. In many cases, expectations are unwritten so have as many conversations as you can with your advisor regarding the purpose of exams and/or prospectus.  Choose a bibliographic manager TODAY. Like, right now.  I would strongly advise you to take notes in your laptop, since that's easier to search when you are writing papers, prospectus, dissertation, etc.  I would advise you not to get a printer. I got one and then got a job on campus where I could print for free. Maybe you department supports some printing? Check that out before spending money.  Miscellanea
Take control of your online presence. People will Google you. Do not shy away from grant programs, even if you are not applying for anything yet. Grant writing programs are great to a) have grant applications drafts ready and b) basically boil down your project! (and it's never to early to think about your project). There are many events on campus that are free and/or include free food. Keep them in your orbit. A weekly international lunch fed me during my first three years.  Begin all e-mails to professors with "Dear Dr. Smith" unless they tell you not to (I asked once, and they said that although we can treat each other by first names, they prefer formality over emails because you never know how emails get circulated).  Get your eyes checked (we spend a lot of time in front of screens) Experiment with ILL in the first week or two so you get a sense of how it works. They will be your best friends! Do not get rid of the dog (I know, I've said that, but I insist)  
Shoot me up if you have further questions. 
 
 

Still waiting for a grade.
I'm nervous even though I've been told that everything should be okay.

Just some news: I am resubmitting this week. Two of the three professors gave me their comments already, and they both said they would be highly surprised if I fail again. I hope the examiner will feel the same way!
I still have a few changes to make but nothing major in their opinion. 

Yes.
Focus for now on your qualifying exams.
To paraphrase a bloodthirsty quote from an American admiral during the Second World War, if it helps you with quals it's important; if it doesn't help you with your quals, it's not important.

I think its good to be thinking about this early and keep revisiting your strategies regularly to make sure your system is still working for you.  In terms of your personal goal, my biggest piece of advice is to schedule this just as you would your classes and research.  I keep an electronic calendar and I schedule all of my workouts, weekend events/activities with friends, mani/pedis, hair salon visits, etc.  If its on the calendar I'm already committed to doing it and it reminds me that it is just as important as everything else.  These things often can't be rescheduled and if I've prepaid then I'm going no matter how tired or not in the mood I am.  Forcing myself to prioritize my self care in this way has served me well.  Once there I always end up having a good time and then I don't feel like my whole life is nothing but school.
As for your other goals I would say resist the urge to plan everything extremely far in advance because in grad school things change constantly and you're always learning about new opportunities.  I started out just making a weekly plan and setting reminders for long term deadlines.  Then I added a daily to do list and that seemed life changing.  Then I started planning two weeks at a time and now I'm trying to expand to a month.  I'm aiming to plan 2 months at a time, use a daily to do list, and set reminders for long term deadlines and I think that'll be enough for me.    
Also its impossible to do everything and that's ok.  There will always be more opportunities in the future.

Hello! Grad school is the first time in my entire life - literally - that I have been able to easily make friends. I now go to social events without having to force myself to because I actually enjoy them. This is completely new for me! I think there is something about being around people with similar interests and goals that makes bonding much easier.

One of my professors gave me an awesome little precis template to fill out for each title I do for exams. It consists of:
Title, author, publishing info:
Topic:
Main argument:
Subarguments:
-
-
-
Sources and methodologies:
Contributions:
2-3 quotes:
 
She encouraged us to try to keep the precis to just one page (Word document) or two max if the work is particularly long or complex. You can keep them all in a file and print them out to play with (review, group together in different ways, think through) to help you prepare to discuss them in the broad survey--ish kind of way you will need to on your exams.
 
I hope this helps!!

At first I didn't think I was going to jump into the fray, but I can feel @Adelaide9216's frustration and pain palpating through the screen. I know all of you are trying to be helpful and give her the harsh truth as you see it, but as someone who's been reading her posts for a year or so now, it feels a bit like you're crushing her soul. I know how much effort she's been putting into her work and how much all her hopes and dreams depend on passing the thesis. I gasped when she first posted about failing. I don't think she's trying to pass the buck and blame everyone else, she just poured out her soul at a time when she is feeling very vulnerable and stressed out, and I think it's kind of sad that people who have purportedly read her posts think this is an appropriate time to deliver the "harsh reality" in all its cold, unsympathetic harshness. @Chanandler made what may have been a valid point, but I can think of a few different ways it could have been stated more positively without hurting her to the extent that it did. Maybe I'm too soft and taking this too much to heart, but I like to think that if I reached out like this in a state of heartache, I would receive sympathetic support instead of a damn peer review.

Have you considered the possibility that your fail is deserved?
Obviously we only know what you've told us and none of us have read your thesis, but you seem desperate to blame everyone except for yourself and cry about how unfairly you've been treated.  Perhaps your work wasn't good enough to pass. I'm saying this because you've shown no indication that you consider this a possibility. If it is the case that your work wasn't good enough then you're wasting time blaming other people - time that could be spent improving your work.
When professors fail a piece of work I'm sure they're used to having students throw it back at them and complain and say it's not fair. Do you really want to be one of those people, or do you want to pick yourself up and think about why your work wasn't good enough to pass? Then you can go back, fix it, and have a valuable learning and development experience. Self-reflection and accepting responsibility should be an important part of learning and growth.
Saying this to help. Most posts here have been incredibly supportive, I feel that it's important to bring this other point up. I'm not saying it's impossible that you were unfairly failed because that sort of thing does indeed happen. However, it's rare that I've spoken with a failed student who was able to admit it was their fault.

In the strongest of possible terms, I respectfully recommend that if you're going to rent that you first obtain a copy of your credit report and then use tools that allow you to lock your credit scores and unlock them on a case by case basis.

I recommend that one ask for copies of rental agreements/contracts first, taking the time to read the documents closely, and then develop a list of questions.
Agreements typically have specific language that defines the agreement as the printed word, and not what is said by either party. Additionally, agreements will have a clause on severability. If you are renting space in a condo, you will need to see a copy of the HOA agreement.
I also recommend that one go a municipal website and look for webpages dealing with renters' rights.
In regards to the duration of a lease, I recommend that you ask for language that sets the agreement as month to month after the initial term.
Insofar as what to look for in the apartment, signs of mold/mildew vermin/insects arguably should top your list. Open up all the taps and flush the toilet and listen.
You want to see smoke detectors and fire sprinklers. You want to understand how often the garbage is picked up. 
You may want to check the strength of your cellular service in every room of an apartment as well as on the nearby streets.
If an apartment building has podium parking (parking at ground level with the apartment on top), please understand that the lowest level of apartments is going to be significantly cooler sometimes. If you're in an area with colder winters, you may feel like you're walking on ice.
IRT on line reviews, I recommend taking reviews with a grain of salt. Residents don't always have realistic expectations of the level of service for which they're paying.
If online resources allow, look at the crime statistics for your neighborhood. Understand your comfort level with the street conditions under different scenarios. Everything is an adventure in the summer before graduate school. When you're knee deep in your studies, your perception of what is quaint and tolerance level may both differ.

I appreciate both of your responses. Their stipends were comparable based on the COL in each area. I was able to get clarification today about the length of the time guaranteed and my funding source is basically renewable every semester since it entails maintaining a website, so I am no longer worried about the length of funding. Ultimately, IU is a much better fit for me, so despite my previous comments, I accepted my offer at IU.
Thanks so much for your help! And @accidental_philologist, I will definitely PM you with questions!

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. 

Many conferences have travel awards you can apply for, or lower registration rates for early career researchers and students (you could probably still consider yourself a student). Some conferences also have tradeoffs where you can volunteer for a few hours and get a fee waiver, or a shared hotel room, or something. Good luck!

Well the reason is they actually don't have much money to use. There's just some context here on UK education and Oxford in particular. Sorry if you know this already and it's unhelpful, but hopefully provides a bit of background. For the UK, undergrad student fees only started in 2012 and are capped at £9000 for UK/EU students, but the average Oxford undergrad costs far more than that to educate. The Colleges cover this cost from their endowment dividends, but it leaves very little money for graduate funding. At the same time, government funding has fallen faster than tuition rates have risen because of how unpopular tuition fees are, so all universities are facing funding shortfalls, but Oxford faces particular issues with undergrad costs. Equally, the colleges, central university and department are all separate legal entities so maintain separate funding, so college funding is not controlled by the departments or the university. The departments also have essentially no access to wealthy alumni because the colleges maintain priority and can deny the departments' requests to contact alumni for donations. (This is why the Blavatnik School of Public Policy and Said Business School are named after shady figured with no affiliation to Oxford).  The colleges also get far more money than the departments, meaning you have a lot of resource-poor departments and resource-rich colleges. There is also wide variation: Magdalen, St. John's, Christ Church, Worcester are loaded, but St Peter's and Mansfield are out of money.
So, there's little money for graduate funding. They prioritize DPhil funding in most departments, but they're very reliant on outside funding (ESRC, AHRC, Rhodes, Marshall, various country-specific funding) for lots of grad students. Clarendon is their initiative to try to overcome some of these issues, but that only funds 140 people a year across the whole university. Lots of the natural and hard sciences get Wellcome Trust funding, so the funding issue is particularly acute in Humanities and Social Sciences. 
As a result, in the context of the MPhil Comparative Government, they'll admit ~30 people for an expected intake of ~14. I would bet fewer than 7 of those end up with some amount of funding. Pretty much a max of 1 will have a Clarendon, 1-2 might have ESRC, maybe 1-2 Rhodes, 2-3 random college scholarships. In some years they'll have zero ESRC and zero Clarendons. The remaining students will be some combination of native-country-government funding and self-funding. They're aware their degrees become havens for the rich, but they don't have much recourse. The humanities and area studies masters are particularly bad for this: basically everyone I ever met doing the MPhil in Middle East Studies was super posh.
Anyway, hope that answers the question. They really aren't nefarious about it, but they basically have a massively inefficient system that means they'll never be able to compete funding-wise with American universities. The bad part is that it's an open secret among Oxford students, so we at least make an educated decision about applying knowing funding is unlikely, while they really aren't up-front enough with outside applicants that the chances of getting funding are very low.

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! 

You could also get free boxes from stores. They usually have tons of boxes after deliveries (I'd avoid food stores, but places like liquor stores or Home Depot or something). Just go in and say you're moving and are hoping if they have any boxes. They may have some or tell you "our next shipment is on x day, come then." I have never paid for moving boxes. Worst case, you drive around back of some malls and grab a bunch of boxes you see out by the dumpsters.