Arcadian

Unless the application fees are going to make a dent in your funds, go ahead and apply, but also start looking for RA positions in the meantime. That way, no matter what happens, you'll be good. If you don't apply, you'll always wonder "what if I had just applied? Maybe I would've been accepted." If you apply and don't get accepted, you'll have no doubts in your mind, and you'll feel good about your RA work.

Honestly, you don't even need to forgo funding in order to work from home as a PhD student. I was a traditional funded PhD student in my 20s who worked from home 90% of the time. The main issue is that your advisor will need to align with your research interests perfectly so they won't mind you working independently without contributing to other lab activities. So what you really need to do is find an advisor who fits your research interests and work style. If you don't find someone like that, you won't be accepted in the first place. But you're still willing to attend lab meetings and TA, right? If so, you won't be radically different from a "normal" PhD student. PS: How much are you making from those royalties?? Grad school is expensive as hell, even if you are independently wealthy...If you can avoid paying for it, why wouldn't you?

Hey, I did the opposite! Got a BA in psychology, then a PhD in neuroscience, and now I work in software development.

Try to pace yourself. If you're in it for the long haul, you might as well settle in and enjoy it as much as possible. I got a few extensions for projects, took 7 years to complete the PhD, but I wasn't stressed the entire time. Fortunately my program was pretty good about work-life balance, but I know that's not always the case. Good luck out there.

Also consider the sunk cost of doing 2.5 years of a PhD for no reason. You might feel like you wasted those 2.5 years. For me, the PhD was a goal in its own right. I decided not to stay in academia, but I still wanted the PhD. Took me 7 years, but at least I can say I accomplished my goal. Determine how much you care about that.

Thanks Let me know how your search goes.

You will be. After 6 months of time off and traveling with my wife, I took a job at a software company for a UX research position. I had taken interest in that field about 2 years prior. Several of my coworkers have a similar background in cognitive psychology, so it's a great fit. My wife and I agree that it's the happiest time in our lives. We both found good-paying jobs in the city of our choice, got a nice new home, and still have time to pursue our hobbies. Grad school was a transformative experience for me. Made a few forever-friends and so many great memories. That period of my life shaped me into the man I was always meant to be. Seize the moment, and enjoy it! Congrats to both of you (and everyone in the thread). Eight years later, I still remember my moment of acceptance vividly. I called my mom, and then my girlfriend (now wife). Tears were shed. Cheers to your present and future success!

Hey, just wanted to follow up on this. Indeed, I ultimately agreed with your assessment and decided to take an industry job. Everything is going great so far, and I've never been happier! I'm definitely happier now than I would have been if I had stayed in academia, lol.

Just wanted to drop in and say good luck to everyone. With grad school in my rearview mirror, I can now appreciate this forum from a different perspective. Wait a minute...am I like that guy who graduated high school and still hangs out at the football games?

Sounds about right. That's grad school for ya! You'll constantly question your own decisions, and you'll perpetually have this vague feeling that you're doing something wrong. Heh! Fun times. Don't worry, it'll all work out (probably), and you'll look back on your first year project later and realize nobody cared. Just kidding. Kind of. On a more serious note...hey, look at it this way! When you've done everything you can, and you're just waiting on your advisor to follow up, the "ball is in his/her court." Nobody can blame you for taking too long because you've done your part, and you've made efforts to contact your advisor all you can. It's up to them! You're totally blameless at that point. That was the approach I took to allow myself to relax throughout grad school. Granted, I took 7 years to complete my PhD, but hey! ?

I was pretty ambivalent too. Just finished my PhD last May. I'm currently a freelance proofreader and looking for jobs at software companies. I'm kind of open to doing a post-doc or adjunct position, but I'm not really interested in tenure track anymore. I just don't enjoy the publish or perish culture, constantly applying for grants, and all else that academic careers entail. I also really wouldn't want to advise grad students and all that. It's like, I just went through this whole process as a grad student myself. The last thing I want is to go through that whole process again, over and over again, from the other side of the advisor's desk. No thanks!

I'm seeing a lot of uptight traditionalism in this thread, to be honest. I don't care if a student addresses me by name in an email. As long as they're not being disrespectful, there is no problem. I care more about efficiency and conciseness - ask me your question, or convey your message, and make it brief and to the point. Efficiency is what matters, people, not archaic traditions. Even my 80-year-old co-advisor stopped using greetings and signatures in our email exchanges. He says what needs to be said, and he sends the email. With that said, I do care about the proper use of grammar, and I silently judge people who write poorly in emails. Even when I write emails from my phone with a crappy touchscreen, I make sure everything is correct. Caveat: If it's your first time corresponding with someone, or you don't know them very well, then yes, include a greeting and signature. But that's only because you don't know how that person thinks. If someone really cares that much about an email greeting, I can't agree with them, but I also don't want them to think less of me for something so petty.

When I listen to a podcast or music in my lab, I keep one earbud in and one out, just in case someone needs to speak with me. When I listen to podcasts, I keep the earbud in my right ear because the right ear hooks up with the left auditory cortex, which is more devoted to speech perception (right ear advantage). When I listen to music, I keep the earbud in my left ear because the left ear hooks up with the right auditory cortex, which is more devoted to music perception (left ear advantage). Anyone else do this, or is that weird?

The department doesn't keep track of my hours spent in the office. I'm not sure how that would even be possible. This isn't "clock-in clock-out" wage labor. If I'm fulfilling my responsibilities, no one cares how long it took.

No. I have one regular office hour per week, or by appointment. This obviously depends on your school/department/program/professor.

Damn, that's pretty rough. The workload is pretty normal, but I don't think you should have any possibility of being removed from the program within the first year, unless you do nothing at all. Year one should be for formulating ideas. This takes time. Hell, I didn't settle on the topic of my dissertation until year 4.

^That's a sad story. Granting the fundamental differences between social psychology and sociology, I find it unfortunately narrow-minded for psychologists to be "concerned" about someone's choice to study sociology. If anything, we need to have more cross-talk between those two fields, so I find it sad that it's being discouraged. Fortunately, many people in behavioral sciences take a multidisciplinary approach. I know several people in my program who got Master's degrees in different fields, most notably computer science and engineering. It is considered valuable to bring knowledge from another field if it complements your field well, because it means you will have something unique to offer that few others can.

I don't care if people look at my social media. I hope they do. I have nothing to hide. I explicitly advocate everything that I post. So this is a non-issue for me.

In the text that you quoted, I said "you can expect to encounter people like this anywhere in society." However, there is a higher probability of encountering them at an institution that is affiliated with a related train of thought, such as Catholicism. Additionally, so as to indicate that I'm not just picking on Catholicism in particular, I followed that statement by saying that I would never take a job at any religiously-affiliated university. And I maintain that anti-religion is a position that can be rationally defended. If there is an idea that gives rise to bigotry towards other ideas, then that is the idea we ought to oppose.

Haha! It seems that everyone involved with this story is wrong in some way. The undergrad was wrong for believing gay marriage is harmful to society, wrong for recording his conversation with the TA, and wrong for misinterpreting the TA's comments as being against "homophobic opinions." Unfortunately, you can expect to encounter people like this anywhere in society, especially at a Catholic university. And that's reason number 427 why I would never take a job at a religiously-affiliated university. The TA was doing fine until she became overly aggressive in her conversation with the undergrad. During her actual lesson, she was right to assume that most of the class agreed that gay marriage is permissible under Rawls' principle. And she was right to invite students to discuss the issue further after class. Why, then, did she become so hostile to the student in their post-class discussion? She could have ended this whole thing by simply presenting a counterargument to the undergrad, rather than engaging in a meta-debate about what can and cannot be debated. That sort of meta-debate is rarely productive for actual debate. The professor was wrong for taking sides with the undergrad, and for writing about his TA in a blog using her real name. The dean was wrong for taking such extreme measures for such a trivial matter. I know it escalated when the TA received threatening emails, but that is unfortunately a fact of life that academics must learn to deal with. When you express contentious opinions in a public setting, you're probably going to evoke heated responses. As the professor's attorney pointed out in his letter to the dean, there are no university laws against using a student's name in a blog. He didn't violate any university laws, hence there are no grounds on which to fire him. Lol at this whole stupid, avoidable situation.

My advisor always says "too much text." So, that's been my experience with that.

No clearly defined purpose - sometimes I just sit around and wonder, what is it like to be a sociologist? Your answers were great. I'll let you know if I think of any more questions.

What’s up sociologists! I come in peace from the land of psychology. I have some general questions about the field. Although I have never formally studied (or even taken an introductory course in) sociology, I have long been interested in sociological phenomena, especially structural violence and class stratification, and I have been told that I think like a sociologist. Maybe I went into the wrong field, but alas. Psychology can inform sociology and vice versa. Anyway, as I said, I have never read a text book on sociology, so I am unacquainted with the history and evolution of the field. But I know there are many conceptions (perhaps misconceptions) out there about sociology, and I know some people (anarcho-capitalists) who tend to make sweeping negative generalizations about the field. Here are some questions that I have: Is it true that most sociologists can be classified in what is called the “political left”? Are there major counterexamples? I don’t generally like to think in terms of a left-right dichotomy, which is severely oversimplified, but it can be a useful distinction in some contexts. Is there anything like a “unified theory of sociology” or an effort to create one? Physicists are trying to mathematically unify the forces of nature, and psychologists are making a similar effort to develop a unified theory of cognition. Is there anything like that in sociology, or is it primarily an applied science? (Not to say that would be a bad thing, but just wondering.) What are the most common two or three research methods in sociology? How often does sociology link up with philosophy in the academic world? It seems like they should be intimately linked, as social philosophy is basically concerned with sociological questions. But are they? Same question as above, but with social psychology (instead of philosophy). Are there any famous sociologists alive today? From my naïve perspective, it seems that sociologists, as individuals with a scientific understanding of society, should be in a position to make important decisions about society. They are probably more qualified to make such decisions than “politicians.” Is there much effort among sociologists to directly affect, or even enter into, the political system? Are most sociologists considered “radical” in their ideas? It almost seems necessary, for how can one study society and merely conclude that the status quo is acceptable? Thanks for your time.

You're good. Fuck that guy who wrote to you. /thread

Leisure activities are crucial for the human mind...they actually increase one's work productivity. The optimal ratio of work to leisure varies a lot between individuals. I start to see diminishing returns in my work after a just a couple of hours, so I prefer to intersperse my work with leisure activities throughout the day. Philosophically, I am something of a hedonist. Life is not worth living without pleasure. I do desire more than just pleasure - what is often called self-actualization - but that is only relevant if it is enjoyable. I'm not willing to suffer for many years just based on the premise that someday, hopefully I will be happy. That is a fruitless endeavor because when you finally achieve your goals, you'll wonder what happened to the time. You'll wish you had stopped to smell the roses. You'll wish you had actually lived in the present moment, rather than treating everything as a preamble to the future.