fuzzylogician

Alright. I'm going to check out of this thread, I've made my point. The only one who seems not to get it is you, and feeding trolls is not worth my time. But: First, if I were trying to do that, I wouldn't have to go outside this thread. Second, please. Get over yourself. Do you really think I have nothing better to do? You give yourself too much credit.

And your disgusting comment helps make sure it stays not non-existent. Surely you know that it’s acceptable webiquette to address the content of a post, not its writer. Surely, though, if you choose to violate that convention, you’d at least learn what it is that a linguistics PhD does so as not to embarrass yourself with your ignorance.

I still don't see the problem. How can there be a conflict of interests if there is no official relationship between them? I'm sure that there are general academic integrity guidelines at your university (as well as individual policies for some classes) and they will explain what kind of collaboration and/or assistance is allowed on assignments. Should an undergrad also be compelled to disclose that they have hired a tutor for help with particular subjects, or that they got a friend to proofread their paper, or if their best friend is ahead of them in the program? This is a general issue of what kind of help is considered appropriate and what isn't - it has to do with disclosing a romantic relationship.

If there is no teaching/advising relationship between the grad student and the undergrad, I don't see why they need to disclose their relationship to anyone. Why would it be any of the university's business?

You really believe that there is no gender discrimination and no racial discrimination of any kind in academia? Well. You either live in an overly protective environment and are very lucky, or you live in the same world as the rest of us and are very oblivious.

Could you ask one of your LOR writers address this issue? Your grades aren't so bad as to merit an explanation in your SOP, in my opinion, but if you have a recommender mention the reason for the bad semester in their letter then you've covered all your bases.

I'm not sure what counts as making a professor unhappy but that kind of reaction - offending a student on a personal level - seems completely unprofessional and out of place. I would find an appropriate venue to complain and replace my advisor if they ever insulted me like that. Yes, people certainly gossip, so that's something to be prepared for. However, people gossip about everything all the time so it's also not really something to worry about too much. Some people need to be condescending to make themselves feel good, and the best way to deal with that is to stay away from them and ignore the bad attitude.

For the first semester or two, I recommend taking the recommended number of classes in your department and no more. Ask your advisor or older students what that number is. Once you're acclimated in your program you'll know if you can afford to take on a higher load than recommended. Can you audit classes? Many times there will a class that is interesting and relevant to your research, but once you're done with the required courses it's time consuming to have to take those classes for credit. Many professors will let you sit in on a class if you ask them to, however. Get your requirements out of the way and then do that, if you like. At some point, though, it's REALLY nice not to have to take any more classes. There are always going to be interesting things going on, and you need to stop being distracted and concentrate on your research.

For future reference, for whoever is reading this post, please DO NOT just PM me your SOP if I have not agreed to read it in advance. Furthermore, most of the time I will NOT agree to read your SOP. I get a lot of these requests; I do this on a volunteer basis in my spare time, and I can't commit to helping you all. As you'll notice I do comment on threads in the community when I have the time, but I am not an expert and you shouldn't treat me like one. THANK YOU.

What kind of salary are you expecting to earn after you graduate with the degree? You need to do the math to know how much you'll be repaying and what other expenses you'll have but my guess is, the debt will be a very large burden. If that assessment is on the right track, I'm with rising_star: defer and try to improve your financial situation before you take on this kind of debt.

If a school only asks for one document, what they want is the research statement. Follow the prompt and unless it asks for your personal story, don't give it.

I think I mostly like the amount of detail you have. It's just the very broad seemingly baseless statements that I find hard to work through. You don't need to give irrelevant details about what you studied, but you were doing a good job tying your degree to your current studies so I was hoping for more of that. You need to be careful about the advice you read on the gradcafe. It's sometimes very general, and many people aren't careful about pinpointing who their advice targets. People in STEM fields may need to have projects before they start grad school, but I don't think that holds for many other fields. Or maybe I don't understand what you mean by "project." I understand you're a nontraditional student with a different background than most students. If that means that you didn't do a BA in the field you want to study now or you've never written a large paper for a class about anything similar, then the question you want to be able to answer for the adcom members is - "does she really know what she's getting herself into?" that is, do you understand the field? are you familiar with the prominent questions it is currently preoccupied with? are you sure the work you are interested in is done in this field? One good way to answer this question is to give detailed relevant descriptions of your interests. If you went and read up on your field, was it just random? or was it topic-directed? is there a question or cluster of questions that intrigue you? can you describe your independent study in that context - explain your interests and how they developed and became more focused through your research. There doesn't need to be a final paper or presentation - in many fields it'd be great but not necessary - but you should demonstrate that you actually learned something. Again, show, don't tell. This will also help you get started on the fit paragraph that I saw you asked about elsewhere. I assume that you've chosen schools to apply to that have professors who do relevant work. Identify the professors and explain how their work will help yours. Imagine that the adcom gives each prof the SOPs that identify him/her to read, to choose students who stand out. If they see how your interests match theirs, and you seem like a focused student with a clear vision of what she's doing, then you'll stand out. Yes, everyone likes initiative and tenacity. But show, don't tell. Explain what you did in detail. That will show that you're invested and determined. If you can, have a LOR writer explain your motivation. Saying "I'm motivated" is far less convincing than laying out the details of how your motivation has pushed you to achievements in the past.

If this a professor who has direct knowledge of these classes you took - for example, if they were your supervisor/advisor or had some role in which they helped you choose classes - then you should have them write about it. If they have no first-hand knowledge, it may be more difficult for them to explain your choices. However, if you can get some authoritative figure do it, that would be helpful. If you address this in your SOP, keep it short and simple. Don't dwell on it; just state the facts and move on.

Having never been on an adcom I can't really tell you what they'd want to see - I'd imagine that actually seeing successful projects (=publications, other papers) firsthand is great but not everybody will take the time to do that for every applicant. Your recommenders should take the time to describe the details of what you did in their letters, and that's one main source of information for adcoms about your proficiency in the field. Beyond that, I think that being able to articulate the details of what you did in your SOP is also very important. It demonstrates that you understand which parts are important and you can place them in the appropriate context to convey your role in the project. I think that this ability is more important than having a publication from a project because lets face it, most undergraduates, MA students and even PhD students (in some fields) will not have a (serious) publication in their name before they graduate. When you stay on this site long enough and read enough SOPs, you learn that the strong ones are the ones that contain detailed information about the person's interests, If you can articulate where you are in the field - what questions you care about and why, and how that fits with where you field currently stands - that shows that you have the maturity to start a PhD program and the ability to stick it out, because you understand what you're getting yourself into. I think that's more important than having the actual publication. Re: your intro. Yeah, this is more like it. 1. I again stumbled on the first sentence (but maybe this style is common in your field -- it really isn't in mine). 2. The latter, in particular, has been both illuminating and inspirational; continuous academic research as well as first-hand practicum teaching experience has allowed me to explore the deep impact of gender socialisation on secondary school students and the need for more understanding - will you tell us more about the "academic research" later? it sounds extremely vague; "the need for understanding" - understanding what, why? 3. Insofar as interdisciplinary pursuits usually beget unexpected results, this practical experience has unexpectedly evolved into a desire to explore the theoretical in an attempt to understand the deeper bedrock of prevailing Western societal conceptions of gender by means of literature. Whoa, grandiose yet vague. This could be pared down and made more precise. You don't need to say "explore the theoretical" or "understand the deeper bedrock of ..." just say a desire to study XXX (or something along those lines). I assume you'll tell us what conceptions you're talking about and what literature you'll be exploring later? 4. Now I'm prone to saying - get rid of the "exploratory period" section - it feels out of place. Again, it's very heavy on pretty words but it doesn't say anything. And if, as you say, your "interest-based research" was essentially reading in the library, I'm not sure all this verbiage is even supported by fact. Did doing that really "hone your tenacity?" no offense, but it sounds like you're just using this as an exercise in creating writing instead of what it should be - a tightly written research statement.

Fair enough. Though, as you say, a little bit of nerves keep you on your toes. The point is, the crippling anxiety does go away. A classmate of mine fainted the first two times he had to present in class in front of us (us being 6 of his classmates who went through everything in first-year together, and one instructor). He has had a very hard time with his accent and his English in general. This past semester he TAed for the first time. I'm sure he had a terrible time in the beginning, but you wouldn't believe how much his confidence has improved. I'm not saying it's not hard, but it can be done.

Huh, I think the anxieties at least become more subtle with time, if not go away completely. I used to be afraid to participate in class. That went away in undergrad as I advanced in my program and found out I had smart things to say (mostly by thinking something and then being annoyed that someone else said it and got praised by the instructor, or by having the instructor raise an issue that I had already noticed as something that needed to be brought up -- eventually I decided I should say what I'm thinking because chances are, it's not completely stupid). Then I was terrified when I started teaching - I was a beginning MA student, TAing an advanced class with a reputation for being the hardest in the program, where most of the students were my age or older. The instructor wasn't a great help but I got notes from previous TAs (who were wonderful!) and I prepared elaborate lesson plans. Having a plan on paper and going through it helped, and eventually having to go into a classroom and "perform" in front of people every week had its effect. Now I prepare a plan but I'm not scared to go in front of a class. Giving lectures in front of a larger audience still makes me shiver a little bit, but I'm sure that will subside too, with time. Then I was terrified when I had to start presenting my own work in front of my colleagues and professors in internal research groups and meetings at my PhD program, and later when I had to present at conferences. For the first few conferences I had full scripts of the entire talk which I rehearsed multiple times. Now I give one practice talk but I don't feel the need to write down every word in advance. I still get a short panic attack before going on stage, but it's getting better. I can actually focus on improving my lecturing skills instead of just focusing on getting through the talk. The point of all this being, you need to do this on your own and embrace the experience. You'll get better with time. Others have mentioned the logistic difficulties but those aside it's simply a skill you have to learn if you want to be in academia. Even if you want a research-only position, there will be at least one job-talk in your future, and you will have to TA through school. Better start early and get as much practice as you can.

There's a long thread from a couple of years ago that could be useful: I've recently started using a note-taking app called WorkFlowy (read about it here), and I LOVE it. I'm a list person and have tried many apps, and this one really does a good job organizing all my lists while keeping the design clean and simple.

You're an undergraduate applying to grad schools? You'll get a much better response if you post this question in a more appropriate forum, e.g. the Engineering forum or the Applications forum. It might also help if you ask a more precise question and explain why you're asking it. Otherwise your questions are so general that they're hard to reply to.

Well, if you've read any of my other posts on SOPs, you know that the fluffy opening is not something I ever advise people to use. It's really not my favorite, unless done really well. Normally I think that the best way to go is to introduce yourself as the person you'd like to be once admitted - that is, open with what your interests are and what you'd like to study. I can see how the type of opening you used may make more sense for someone with a nontraditional path, but without seeing the rest of the SOP and how it's structured and focused, it's hard for me to judge if it does a good job. I think that this paragraph is good for its style, but I'm still not convinced that all these fluff and background need to be there; on the other hand, if that's the way you choose to go I'm not sure there's enough of it ( but more focused, detailed!). For nitpicky things, 1. I found the first sentence difficult to read because of all the commas in it. Could it be rearranged to ease the flow? 2. "I have taken many detours in my life on my way toward graduate studies but in every side street that I explored, I knew that that my strong desire to study early modern English literature would always prevail." - this feels too cliche, even for this type of opening. Did you really always know you wanted to study this particular area of this particular field? Then why go do all these other things? (mind you, you may have perfectly legitimate answers but your readers will make up their minds without asking you.) 3. Is there a better way to tie your previous experience in teaching and your degree to your current application? Your description of its contribution is very vague and general. 4. Similarly for your description of your independent studies. The description of what you took from them is very vague. Do you get back to this project later in your SOP and describe the actual things you did and learned? If you choose to go with this type of opening, it'll do your application good if you give specific examples and details of what you did and what you learned from it instead of listing positive character traits you say it honed in you (this is the "show, don't tell" common wisdom). FWIW, I didn't find the phrase "exploratory period away from academia" particularly offensive. Why would it be? Seems like a good way to describe what it meant for you, if you ask me.

In all honesty, I think you should enjoy your summer. You won't have a (completely) free summer again. You'll have enough work to do once the semester starts and I hardly think these few weeks will make that much of a difference.

I like this a lot! The very beginning was a little cliche for me (maybe a lot, if you're going to be applying to schools where many people with similar interests to yours apply, and hence may see many similar openings) - but the continuation is clear and captivating. Without knowing anything about your field, I found it very convincing. It did sound like you know what you're talking about.

That's a very naive opinion. Of all the grad school application components, the GRE grades are one of the least important. The SOP, LORs and writing sample are much MUCH more indicative of an applicant's success. Low scores may keep you out of school but once you pass the cutoff threshholds (if they even exist), it's those other components that will get you in.

Very briefly, you are not on the right track right now, in my opinion. P1: delete. This is a completely unrelated personal story that does not tell the adcom why you are a good candidate for their program or why they should choose you over the other applicants. It's also really not how you want to be remembered. P2: beginning: delete (it also has some strange typos/words missing). Again, personal and irrelevant. At most you could briefly mention you are interested in memory research because of exposure to your grandmother's Alzheimer's disease. Second half: the fact that you took the courses is found in your transcripts and the fact that the instructors were enthusiastic is irrelevant. You're now a third of the way through your statement and have yet to give the adcom a single reason to admit you. P3: good content, requires some rewriting. Delete the part about overcoming your fears. Instead stick to what you've done and what you've learned from it. I also think the description following "under the scholarship" is completely cliche and doesn't add anything (we all correct mistakes and try to interest our students when we teach). P4: details, please. Don't say you'll do something successfully, just say you could do it. Are there other faculty members with research interests relevant to your own? Having just one POI is not very encouraging. Remember, you'll eventually have to form a dissertation committee. What if you don't have chemistry with your proposed advisor (or, what if they move away/get sick/are denied tenure, etc)? You want to have more than just one option. P5: back to banalities. The program doesn't need you to tell them how good they are, they assume you think so because you applied, and they are flattered enough by that. You really haven't said anything of content in this paragraph. Bottom line: get rid of fluff. Expand (a lot!) on your previous research. Directly address your current research interests. Say more on why you fit the school, and mention more POIs by name. Re: word counts, make sure that the 500 word limit is relevant for the schools you're applying to. Different schools have different requirements.

1. There are restrictions on work on a student visa (F-1 and J-1). In your first year, you are allowed to work up to 20 hours a week during the semester and up to 40 hours a week in the summer on campus only. After the first year, you can apply for permission to work off-campus, but you'll have to justify your request (and no, financial need is not a good justification, you're supposed to be able to support yourself off your stipend and other existing means as a prerequisite for your visa). Therefore, off-campus work needs to be in a related field, e.g. it can be an internship or work that gives you direct experience in what you're studying. There are ways of using up some of your OPT for this purpose, and the International Student Office at your university should be able to assist. 2. You could try and pick up extra RA or TA positions in your university. If you can find that kind of job, it'll give you the most freedom and flexibility in stressful times towards the end of the semester. It's doable, though not easy. See also (but note that immigration restrictions are not discussed there). IMPORTANT: you need to know how you're funded - if you're funded through a TAship, you automatically count as if you're working 20 hours a week during the semester - regardless of how much time you actually work - and you won't be able to work elsewhere during the semester. As far as I know, you need to be on a fellowship for any of this to work.

I've taken a class with my advisor and I've also TAed for him (so, sat in on an intro class he was teaching). I didn't feel that the class was more stressful - on the one hand I think he had high expectations of me; moreover, can read my face so often he would introduce an argument and then follow it up with "Fuzzy, you disagree...why?" without me saying anything. But on the other hand since we had an established relationship at that point I also felt very at ease pointing out flaws in arguments and participating a lot. I knew what to expect so I wasn't phased by this. I didn't need to prove anything at that point and the course was a required class that's outside of my main interests so I just had fun being more active in class than I would normally be.