fuzzylogician

This is a question for those of you who are in the lab sciences (or if you otherwise often have co-authors): suppose you have a joint project with 1-2 other students and a professor who is the PI, where you are the first author on any papers that come out of the project. When you submit to conferences, it's very clear that all the contributors are co-authors on the work. Now suppose the PI is invited to give a talk, and spends the entire time talking about your joint project. Do you expect that (s)he will: [a] include you as a co-presenter or put you in the acknowledgements; and, do you expect that (s)he will let you know that (s)he presented your joint work, either before or after the presentation? I suspect that there may be different norms in different fields but still I wonder if there are some accepted conventions here.

Stay for >5 years in a program you hate, is not within your field of interest and is not even funding you, or leave with a Masters and reapply later for a program that you'll enjoy being in? Seems like an easy choice to me, no? Your post didn't list anything positive about your current program, but there must be something if you are considering suffering for this long. [if your interests are so far removed from the program you are in, why did you apply there in the first place? Did you have a complete change of heart this soon after entering the program? it seems like on the face of it the answer to your question is obvious, but there are some details missing].

Thinking about the psychology of adcoms, imagine that professors will be reading dozens of these essays in a row. I can imagine that "eureka moment" stories can get repetitive and boring pretty fast. All they really want to know at a first pass is - who is this applicant? what subfield are they applying to? (who can I pass this essay off to?) Now compare an essay that opens with "I want to study XXX" with one where that statement is buried somewhere in the third paragraph. I think that this is when the no-fluff approach is most appreciated.

I also used Donald Asher's book when I applied and I thought that it contained great advice, but the part about structuring the SOP was not as relevant for my field. I had versions of my SOP that opened with a story (and I actually have an unusual story of how I got into my field) but eventually I felt that the version that just opened with some research questions I wanted to study was much stronger. I do agree that "I am applying to [school] in order to study [blah]" is not very exciting, but there are ways to make research interests sound less boring, e.g. "Why are chocolate chip and mint cookies sold at twice the rate of carrot-and-blueberry muffins? What influences cookie-monster's preference for dark over white chocolate? Which is better - peanut butter or caramel? I hope to answer these questions during my studies at the SWEET graduate program at [school]."

I agree that those situations are not problematic -- I should have made it clear that I wasn't referring to that kind of situation. Professors go on conferences or give talks all the time and having to reschedule for that reason is not a problem, in my opinion. Those thing are usually planned well ahead of time, however, so there is no reason why they would (consistently) pop up at the last minute and force changes in schedule or homework load. I was imagining the extra homework being a way of making up for material that a last-minute cancelled class was supposed to cover, and while there is a lot of self-teaching involved in grad school I don't think it's fair to have that be a solution for a class that is not administered properly.

It's hard to tell from what you write really how bad things are. Some of the behavior you describe doesn't sound that out of the ordinary to me. I had an phone interview when I was applying that had three people on the line where one of them was driving, had a terrible lag and was constantly breaking up. I thought it was unprofessional and ended up not accepting that school's offer (for many different reasons) but I wasn't outraged. Same goes for someone having favorites -- that's just life. It's great when you're one of the professor's favorites and less fun when you're not; I think it's unfair to expect someone to like everyone in their program equally and there are places where being the favorite has benefits that others may consider unfair (say, if a professor has to choose one student to be his TA or RA, or if he has funding to pay someone over the summer). You may think that your professor endorsed someone less qualified but better-liked than someone who "deserved" the job more, but what does that really mean? It's a fact of life that the best person doesn't always win the prize, and if this endorsement didn't happen in an official capacity but more on a personal level then I don't think it's unprofessional. Making connections is an important skill and this other student is doing a better job at it than the one who is "more deserving". This: is more worrisome. That shouldn't happen. I'd concentrate on the cancelling part and not on the adding homework part because no one will interfere with the classroom management decisions a colleague is making, unless they are egregiously unprofessional. Adding extra homework might not qualify as that, but it is worth mentioning because it's an unfair way of dealing with missed classes. Your last point, again, I'm not sure I follow. Is it her job -- and hers alone -- to give you all this information? It sounds like general information that is not even program-specific. Where is your advisor? The DGS? Where are the other professors in the program? I'd start by choosing another professor in the program who you feel comfortable talking to (your advisor, or an established professor who can successfully manage dealing with the chair) and bringing up the things that you are unhappy with. Be careful about how you lay out your grievances. Start with the professional concerns -- getting an internship, getting good advice on how to obtain one and who should give it. Then talk about classes and the one that gets unexpectedly cancelled. Since you can't expect to suddenly become the chair's favorite, a good outcome will be getting good advice on how to successfully navigate the program - learning about other sources of information, making connections with other professors who might endorse you when you are looking for an internship. I think you need to try and solve this program-internally before you take it outside, but if you feel that you won't find a sympathetic ear in your program then start learning about the services your university offers. Is there a student council? A dean in charge of student affairs? There must be someone whose job it is to address concerns like the ones you are bringing up.

That's not something I can answer, sorry. Maybe someone in your field (on TGC or elsewhere) can answer it. From a purely utilitarian point of view, you should do whichever thing is easier for you and/or will result in greater benefit. I don't know how the industry you want to go into views a thesis. I imagine it doesn't hurt but it may not help much either. So if the goal is to finish the degree and start your career as soon as possible then there is something to be said for choosing the option that gets you there faster. If there is a danger of a thesis taking longer and possibly causing you to fail the degree, that's a concern. If it's not a real concern (=motivated students who do well in the program in general also succeed in writing a thesis, and they don't tend to take excessively long to graduate), which I imagine is the case in your situation because there is no hiding diseased areas of a program, and you want to do research -- then go for it! Far be it from me to stop anyone from the joys of research, it's something I hope to continue doing for the rest of my life:)

The hook vs. no hook is an unsettled question. Personally I believe in opening with your research interests, not with fluff, so your outline looks good to me. In general I think it's a good idea to structure your SOP however you feel is best and not necessarily follow "common wisdom". I would question devoting one quarter of the SOP to situating your research interests within your discipline, unless that is a contested issue. You should explain to the adcom why you are interested in the questions you are proposing to study, perhaps as they relate to particular professors' work at the program(s) you are applying to, not spend a paragraph lecturing about the place of food within the context of Geography studies in general.

I feel like I should repeat my disclaimer -- some of these topic may not be acceptable in other fields, I really don't know. But in my field you don't have to do ground-breaking work for a Masters, it's enough to engage with a relatively small problem in some insightful way. It sounds like you should be taking the comp exam but you should consult with your advisor before you decide. Here are some questions you might want to ask him or else find out through a student or an administrative assistant: - Is there a student handbook or guide for the program that describes the process of writing a thesis and/or taking comps? - Can you fail your comps? then what? - Who decides when you defend? what if your committee thinks you're not ready but your I-20 expires? - How long do students in the program usually take to finish comps? a thesis? - How many students have failed their comps in recent years? their thesis defense? what happened to them? - What does your advisor recommend you do, given that you want to go into industry and are not planning on a PhD in the near future? - How does the topic-choosing process happen in your program? Will your advisor suggest topics or things to read or are you expected to come up with a topic by yourself? Will he help steer you towards open problems if you define some general areas of interest? - How extensive does the topic need to be? What topics did your advisor's other advisees have in the recent past? How long did they take to finish? - How hands-on is the advisor? How often does he meet with students? Will he preempt degree-prolonging blunders like a too-long or not well-defined topic, explorations into tangential fields, writing-process delays? Does he read drafts of chapters? Will he help come up with an outline? - What kind of timeline would he recommend, in case you choose to write a thesis? Does he think your timeline makes sense? Good luck!

Lets see. I've never done a Masters in the US, my program is PhD only and I am in a different field so [insert appropriate disclaimers here]. From what I can gather the answer to the "time to completion" question depends on the field and, importantly, also on your advisor and her expectations. Some advisors are very practical in getting students out the door on time, others have higher expectations and may keep students longer (this has advantages--e.g. a better worked-out final product--and disadvantages--e,g, taking longer, which may be unnecessary in some cases, for example if you want to go into industry or if a less-developed project would be still be strong enough to get you into a good PhD program a year earlier). It also depends on whether or not you already have an idea for a topic or even an existing project in mind which could be adapted/expanded upon, or if you have to start from scratch. If you already know the literature on your topic, that's a big advantage. If you have to spend some time reading before you can even define a topic, expect to take longer. Your plan does sound feasible to me, time-wise, but again, it depends on the specifics of your situation. Yes, of course. Writing is an acquired skill, it may be difficult initially but eventually everybody gets the job done. You have to learn to write if you want to get your ideas out to a wide audience. Your advisor should help you with organization and revisions of the paper. This, too, is something to ask your advisor. In my department you can't fail a defense because the committee simply won't let you defend before they think you are ready. At most you may be asked to make revisions before filing the paper. Defenses are usually in front of just your committee; some students choose to have public defenses (in some fields that is the norm for PhD, but I've never heard of a public Masters defense). This is something the other students in your department would know, you should ask around. They should also be able to tell you if other students have failed their defenses and what happened to them in the end. Also, if there are program requirements or some student handbook online or elsewhere in your department I imagine that this would be a topic that would be covered there. Some students have wonderfully innovative, thoughtful theses. Others engage a small open problem and offer some (working or non-working) solution. Sometimes just proposing a new dataset that should/could be analyzed by an existing proposal, or a new way of looking at an existing problem, or else tying together ideas that are all already in the literature but have never been brought to bear on the same question, or pointing out problems with some existing theory even if you don't have a full working solution are enough of a contribution for a Masters thesis. It's not expected to be as deep as PhD research -- and rightly so, given time constraints and the level of familiarity that Masters students usually have with their fields compared to a PhD student at the stage of writing a dissertation.

I don't see why adding two PhD programs to your list of schools should make you look flaky. Just let them know that you added the programs and ask if they can submit their letters by the new deadlines. If you're close with them you could also use the opportunity to ask about your acceptance chances and whether they would recommend any other schools, now that you're also considering PhD programs and not only Masters ones.

This post has some great advice and has been featuring on my facebook wall--posted by professors who I am friends with--more than once.

It wouldn't be the first thing I would spend my time on, but if you have time after you're done with all the other parts of the application--SOP, content edits to the writing sample, exams and whatnot--then if it's not a lot of work, using a more familiar format for your work could be visually appealing. It won't influence what people think about the content of the work and therefore can only have a small effect on the overall opinion of you, so don't waste too much time on this if you choose to do it at all.

I wish I had better news but when I encountered a similar problem (worse, even), my professor chose to ignore the offense too. In my case we are talking about a clear case of 5 students who "collaborated" on a take-home exam(!) and still didn't manage to get a passing grade. The professor was so reluctant to deal with the problem that she asked me to give them all the lowest possible passing grade and not push this any further. I refused to do this--she actually asked me to regrade the whole exam for a class of 40 students with a grading curve in mind which would result in these students passing and others not "suffering" from unfair points being deducted only them. I became extremely disillusioned and my relationship with the professor became almost impossible to manage. It only hurt me, in the end. No one else cared and my degree suffered. If you don't feel that you'll have the support of your professor, sadly my advice is to give the student a "0" and not worry about this any further. No good will come of it; I completely understand how frustrated you must feel, though.

Maybe this FSP blog entry could be relevant: http://science-professor.blogspot.com/2011/10/writing-to-me-reprise.html

It happens occasionally. Some professors use the student's version of the letter as a basis for their letters but I'm sure others only give the letter a glance before signing it unchanged. I never had anything like this happen to me but I imagine I would prefer to err on the side of being too positive. If the professor doesn't endorse this opinion of you she can always reword whatever she disagrees with. Better that than not being confident enough and missing out on an opportunity for a stronger letter, in case she never really reads the letter carefully. Of course I'm not arguing for far-fetched exaggerations but I am advocating for the use of as many superlatives and details as is reasonable.

Check whether the application websites allow you to upload any additional/supplemental materials in support of your application. I submitted a course list (name/instructor/short description of content for classes with vague names like "seminar in linguistics") as a supplemental document in some applications that required it. I don't think a course list belongs on a CV/resume, though. If there are specific courses that influenced your scholarship, you should mention them in your SOP.

One of my friends carved a VERY detailed photo of Noam Chomsky onto a pumpkin last year. It took an entire evening but in the end it absolutely looked like a professional did it, really amazing. I'd post a link to a picture if it wouldn't eliminate what little anonymity I still have on this site. His tactic: print the image you would like to carve, tape it to the pumpkin and transfer the outline onto it with a small paring knife, then deepen the lines you created in the first run with a sharper knife. Lather, rinse, repeat.

1. Yes, if that is what the applications ask for. (hard copies of what?) 2. It depends. Some schools will accept photocopies until after you've been admitted, at which point they will need official copies. Otherwise you need to send as many official copies as the schools ask for. Do NOT assume that you can submit photocopies unless you were given permission to do so, or your application may be considered incomplete and hence disregarded without review.

Is it possible that the email address you are using is no longer active? If it's associated with his old position it may have been deactivated or he may not check it anymore. Is there a way to obtain an email address for his current position through some official at the organization? If not, depending on how long you've been waiting I might suggest for you to at least start looking around for a backup/replacement LOR. That way you can perhaps wait a little bit longer for the stronger letter and know you have a fallback in case it doesn't come through.

My word counter says that the first paragraph is 113 words long, out of a total of 458 words for the entire essay. That's one quarter of the SOP that does not tell the adcom much of anything about who rockyhill as an applicant. If the SOP has a word limit, at the very least it would make sense to cut this down to about half the length (10% or so of the statement). Personally I would cut it out completely but opening paragraphs and concluding paragraphs are very much a matter of taste. Regardless, though, these less contentful paragraphs should comprise a reasonable proportion of the essay, with the majority devoted to interests and fit.

You should call your professors by their first name if that's what they asked you to do. I understand the feeling of awkwardness but look at it from the professors' point of view. Graduate students are considered by many to be colleagues in training whereas there are other reasons for maintaining distance from undergraduates. You are making it difficult for your professors to develop a healthy working relationship with you by keeping an unneeded distance; it's difficult to have a free exchange of ideas when one person treats the other with such deference that they may not freely speak their mind. Plus, (in my opinion) it's strange in a continuous working relationship to keep the formalities for too long. As for fear of other kinds of relationships...well, those have very little to do with first-name basis and a lot more to do with the department's culture and policy towards such relationships. I am sure that there are other ways to convey that you are not interested in anything other than a professional relationship, or else I fear that calling someone Prof. X will not solve the problem anyway.

Could you have a CV that is structured like the norm in your field (look up current grad students' CVs in the departments you're considering applying to), to which you add more detailed descriptions of jobs you've held in the relevant sections? For example, my CV includes one-sentence descriptions of every TA,RA and related position I've ever held (includes e.g. the funding agency for my projects, the PI, my responsibilities \\ coursename, instructor, description of content, my responsibilities).

If I may answer this, I have to disagree with Sigaba's warning. I don't think that a well-written writing sample and SOP would raise a red flag if your verbal score is low. I think it's much likelier that the essays are taken as the true indication of an applicant's writing abilities, and not the GRE scores. The GPA and GRE scores are more often used for cutoffs so that your low score puts your application at the risk of being tossed without being thoroughly read, in which case your well-written essays will not save you. But once your application is given serious consideration, the essays and recommendations are the most important part of the application. I think in your case you should seriously consider improving your studying strategies and retaking the exam. In addition, if you have a close enough relationship with your recommenders I would suggest asking at least one of them to address your verbal/writing abilities directly. That should remove all doubt about what your skills really are.

I'm not sure why it's sad to have taken breaks between major stages in life, I've always found that people who have an "unusual" life trajectory have original ideas and interesting takes on things that other people might not have. Anyway, I would say, explain what needs explaining and not more. If you traveled -- just say that, no need to give a detailed description of the route though some details are probably fine; if you volunteered, say where. I wouldn't even bother saying anything if you stayed home and did nothing for a couple of months between jobs. It all depends on the details of your situation but if you over-explain you're not helping yourself much. Just be sure that they know how you account for your time if you took major breaks just so they know that you've settled down and are ready for a serious commitment.