fuzzylogician

I assume you might have taken the GRE recently? This happens with some frequency. Don't think too much of it.

What is the purpose of the CV? For fellowships, grants, job applications, or really anything else academic, I can't see an online course making its way to one's CV (nor in-person classes, for that matter). For industry purposes, it probably depends on the job requirements, and I would think that for it to be taken seriously, you'd want to have the certificate (and list that somewhere, rather than the class per se).

Some answers will be program/field/people specific, but to the extent that one can give generalized answers: - For work expectations (TAship, GAship, etc), the first week of class would be a good time to figure those out, if not sooner. For example, I just reached out to my TA for next semester and we scheduled a meeting for the week before classes start. If I were you I'd give the prof a bit more time to reach out, and if you don't hear from them, write them to introduce yourself and ask for a meeting around the beginning of the semester. - For other profs you want to work with, you could schedule a meeting to introduce yourself early on, but really the time to start talking to them more regularly is when you have something to talk about. That might actually mean later in the year, depending on the structure of your program and when you start developing projects of your own. In some fields first-year is very much coursework based, and it therefore it takes longer to reach out to people outside your instructors and cohort, and that's okay. Take your time, you're not missing out on anything if you don't have anything to talk to profs about yet, anyway. Once you do have something to discuss, you just email whoever you want to talk to (or you stop by their office) and schedule a meeting, simple as that. If you feel that there's potential for a good working relationship you ask for another meeting the following week/two weeks/whatever timeline allows you to get work done, and after a few rounds of that you might just ask to have a regular weekly/bi-weekly meeting to continue working on your project. - For getting to know people beyond professional settings, that really depends on the person and the program. I'd suggest taking this one slowly and consulting with other more senior students once you're there and know some of them. Professors can vary greatly in how much they want to share with students, and it might take a bit of time to figure that out. Again, take your time to figure out the subtle workings of your department. There will be social opportunities to get to know people, at least on a superficial level. Your department will likely have a 'beginning of year' event of some kind and you could find ways to chat with some profs there; you could strategically try and sit next to one of them at a talk and strike up a conversation before the talk starts; if there is a speaker in town and there's a party or dinner organized, that's another way to chat with people in a friendly non-academic setting. Some of those things might not happen until at least a few weeks into the semester, but that's fine. For what it's worth, I would say that I mostly started talking to profs outside of classes in my second semester and then in second year; in the first semester I just did my coursework and tried to figure out what else I needed to know about the program I was in.

As a general rule, I would always prefer to submit a published paper than a manuscript with any application. Now, that said, I would want to submit a writing sample that's actually directly related to the job ad, and would not submit papers in another subfield as they are not going to maximally showcase my strength in [job ad's subfield].* I'm not sure what other materials you are submitting as part of the application, but this published paper will presumably feature not only in your CV, but possibly in your research statement and/or cover letter, as will your dissertation topic and perhaps the main arguments/findings. So either way, I would imagine that you'll discuss both of these texts. As a student, I was also always told that it's important to submit a dissertation chapter to show the committee what I am working on and to allay any concerns about the state of my writing. But then, applications I submitted wanted on average 3-5 samples of writing, so I never had to choose just one. So I guess the bottom line is that you need advice from someone in your field, and no one here can tell you with confidence what to do (not to mention, we don't actually know the content or the level of scholarship; not every paper in a top-3 journal is that amazing and not every chapter is that non-amazing...). If you pressured me for my instinct independent of all these caveats and gaps in my knowledge, I'd say diss chapter, since it's the one on-topic. But I could be very wrong. * side note: if I could submit multiple papers and I had work on a side-specialty that the ad mentions, I might choose one, as long as I also showcase my work in the main field. Either way, I'd mention this work in my materials as it's relevant to the ad.

My condolences. On the practical side, since you're close to done, what I imagine the department head will offer you is the opportunity to finish your research under someone else's supervision. It won't be perfect, but this situation is far from ideal and everyone will make do. You shouldn't have to start over since it sounds like you're pretty advanced in your research. The technical aspect of who is your advisor on paper could be separate from where you actually get help. This would be a good time to cultivate these other mentorship/advising relationships that are outside your department, both for advising and for future LORs, in case you plan to apply for a PhD (you didn't say). In the latter case, you might also discuss with the dept head ways of securing a strong letter from your department, which may be a combination of a generic letter on file from your advisor if he is willing and able to do this for you now, and a letter from the head possibly building on this letter and explaining the situation. In the event that you want to apply for a PhD or use LORs for anything else in the future, it might be best to have the head be responsible for letters, combining insights from your advisor as best you can get them with additional feedback on the rest of the process once someone else takes over. (Or, whoever takes over as your supervisor might do this for you; either way, ask about this now.) It's better to have someone who you can reach out to for updated letters, though a letter from your supervisor saved with some archiving service would also be helpful, given the circumstances. Re funding, it probably depends on the source and you'll have to ask your department to be sure, but in similar cases I know of, the grant continued to be disbursed and students continued to be supported for some time after the untimely death of a PI.

Yep, same. I've also been to quite a few conferences where if you ask the organizers nicely (and especially if you don't have your own funding), they will let you register at the reduced student rate even if you've already graduated. Name tags never indicate status or how much you paid in registration fees, that's entirely unimportant. Worth asking the organizers, OP, even if just as clarification "Dear organizers, I was wondering if postdocs should register as students or faculty" (except, of course, if there is a special "postdoc" category. In my field there almost never is). You never know, they might solve your problem for you.

Conferences vary in whether they consider postdocs as students for the purposes of registration fees (at least in my field). If that might be true in your case, I would feign ignorance and try for the free registration, as your advisor suggests. If this stresses you out, though, you might as well just pay the fee and get it over with. Depending on the context, I don't really know if this amounts to "my advisor is asking me to lie", though.

One option is to try the writing center at your school, if one exists. Most schools will have some version of this service, and the writing tutors tend to be very good. They do precisely what the copy-editor will not -- sit with you and explain what changes should be made and why. Beyond that, one other thing to try is to identify friends/colleagues who could help you, in exchange for some reciprocal help (comment on their work, help them with whatever they need help with - data coding or low-level grunt work, etc, or just take them out for coffee/lunch if they don't want actual help). I've done this for several non-native-speaker friends. Something else to do is to go back to older drafts of your own work, go through them systematically, and collect your original writing and your supervisors' comments/suggested wording. You might notice patterns in your own writing and in their comments based on that. (You might also bring these drafts and comments to a meeting with the writing center, since they can help you identify patterns and address systematic problems. Or, if there is no writing center, you might be able to find a tutor through the English department who could do this for you.) Beyond those suggestions, while I think that your efforts are admirable, it's hard to see how you can learn what you need to learn under the time pressure that you're under. You probably need a more concentrated effort, though the automated tools you suggest might provide some clues.

I write "MA student" and the years. This is right after a year where I was an "exchange student" at another institution, and both didn't lead to a degree. My BA is listed as "BA in XYZ, summa cum laude" and my PhD is listed as "PhD in XYZ", and in the first couple of years I also listed my committee and dissertation title. I think it's honest but also doesn't exactly draw attention to the distinction. In the rare occasions where someone wanted transcripts, I explained the situation and they were fine with the answer, no confusion or problems.

For what it's worth, in a similar situation (advisor delaying progress toward my thesis with basically everything else done for the MA), I chose not to finish the degree. I realized that finishing (if possible, which frankly wasn't obvious) would have meant working non-stop with someone who is being an obstructionist and basically not having any kind of break leading up to starting my very intensive PhD program. I reached out to my new PhD program to ask if it would matter to them if I didn't finish, since my application did mention a projected graduation date, and they said it didn't matter as far as they were concerned. I put the MA "on hold" (an administrative process which would have allowed me to come back and finish it within some amount of time, in the event that the PhD didn't work out), and left in early summer. It was a great decision and I don't regret it for a minute. I never went back to finish the degree, I now have my PhD, and not once has this come up in job interviews or anywhere else -- once you have a PhD no one will care about this MA (and if they ask, there are benign ways of answering). I can't promise that it'll be the same for you, but for me, at least, my mental and physical health meant that I needed a break, and once I had the PhD it became a non-issue. I would suggest reaching out to your prospective advisor/program to ask how they see things. (Disclaimer: it is obvious, I think, what the pros of finishing are, so I'm not even bothering with those.)

There are different opinions on this, but I would say, in this case, yes. Not finishing will raise some concerns about your commitment and your ability to pursue graduate work, and you should address them and explain what happened with the last program. "I discovered that my interests lay elsewhere" is a perfectly fine explanation. Explanations should always be brief, positive and non-accusatory.

As long as the first two letters are strong, it's okay if the third one is just okay. Based on your description, I would think option 1 is better, since it's a well-known person within your field, as opposed to someone from another field. Talk to this guy again, maybe there are ways to help him write you a stronger letter that you could utilize between now and the application deadline (meet with him a few times, show him some of your recent papers, etc).

To my knowledge the AW score is the least important of the GRE scores. As long as you are submitting strong and well-written essays, and you have LORs that can say you're a good writer, I would expect that things should be fine. There are many other more important components of the application to worry about. Disclaimer: I am not an expert in your field(s) and I don't sit on the admissions committees of the schools you'll apply to; but I did apply with a 4.5 AW score and ended up doing perfectly fine.

The professor seems pretty clear that you should improve your Arabic before applying to the program. The "I and my colleagues have decided..." suggests this may be a policy now, perhaps a new one, explaining why there are currently students in the program with less Arabic than you. You got a very clear explanation of why this is now the policy, given the current state of the job market. Frankly, I would take this advice seriously because once you start the program, as she says, it'll be hard to get your language to where it needs to be. If that means that by that very decision you're going to make it very hard for yourself to get a job after you graduate, it seems wise to take the extra year or two to beef up your language skills and allow yourself a more successful career down the line. One or two years aren't going to make that much of a difference from the other end of a long successful career, but if not investing them properly can mean not getting started even, well, I think it's clear what you need to do. The only thing she says that you should pay attention to is the question of career goals; if you aren't interested in an academic career in the first place, things might be different.

In that case, instead of asking vague questions on this board, I would encourage you to read up on the websites of relevant universities you might want to eventually teach at to (a) identify if/who/how many foreign faculty in your area/field work at that university; (b) read up on their credentials and background to see if there is a pattern (they all have EU/US degrees, they all have XYZ language or specialty, etc); (c) reach out to them to ask directly for their perspective as a foreign faculty member in University/Country. That will be a whole lot more effective than asking here. What you really want to know is not only what's technically on the books (though that matters too), but what are the unwritten rules -- are international faculty shielded from service? helped with language difficulties? assigned easier classes to teach? encouraged or discouraged from joining the staff? That's something insiders will know, and if you make the right connections, you might be able to begin to find out. They could also be your first points of networking and contact, and eventually if you do end up in those schools/countries, they will be some of your best options for allies.

^ That's a useful thing to do regardless of whether the professor is bad or not. Not everything they do (that work or that don't work) will work for you, so it's always a useful question to ask yourself: how would you teach this class? What would you keep/replace/adapt? This is the case both when you TA and when you take a class as a graduate student, if you eventually want to teach a version of that class yourself.

Generally, I would strongly suggest ignoring RMP reviews for any kind of decision making on your part. Students will form their own opinions, and those are only sometimes related to actual facts. On a practical level, it depends on how much work you want to put in. If students dislike the prof, they may come to you more or they may give up. If you are encouraging and open, you might end up spending a lot of time fixing what the prof broke. They may love you, and you'll get excellent reviews. Or they may blame you for everything that's wrong and whatever you do won't be good enough. There are also questions of how supportive the prof will be with solutions, resolving disagreements, and such. So short answer is, if you want to keep a low profile, you can keep your role to a minimum and follow his lead in how you treat the students, or you could present yourself as the recourse for any confusion he introduces. Part of it you have to play by ear depending on the class you get and its nature, as well as your relationship with the prof. (You also didn't mention how large the class is, what works for a class of 15 may not work for 150, and vice versa.)

I highly doubt anyone will answer this for you. No one will admit to this sort of practice, whether or not it happens. I suggest looking at the "current students" page to see if there is diversity in where students come from. That said, it's not uncommon for students with strong backing from known faculty to do better than those who don't have strong supporters, and that shouldn't be too surprising. But in any event, I don't think there's going to be anyone on this board who can help you one way or the other.

What most people end up doing is they have a template that they tweak for each school. Your past is your past and your interests are your interests, but you probably have different reasons for thinking that each school you're applying to is an appropriate choice, and that's part of what you want to convey in your SOP. So you tweak the so-called "fit"-paragraph(s). You might also have reasons to highlight different aspects of your profile for different schools (focus on methodology, highlight research interest X or interest Y because the relevant school has an X/Y expert, etc). Most of the statement probably doesn't need to change much, once you have a good draft going.

My instinct would be to apply to PhD programs without a second MA, but I don't know you or your qualifications so this is a shot in the dark. If you want to play it safe and you're picky about where you want to do your PhD (totally fair), why don't you hedge your bets and apply to those PhD programs that you'd be thrilled to attend now (without an MA), plus some MA programs with a track record of getting their alums into those same programs?

I've seen the policy and can totally understand it as an instructor. Creating good teaching materials can be extremely time consuming, and sometimes very hard to recreate if they are based on real language data (no idea if that's the case in your situation). There are only so many good data sets out there for a given purpose. That said, the policy should be balanced against fairness and student learning. When I've done this (for finals only), students could meet with me to see their exams in person and they could see where something went wrong. There were also no other deliverables that depended on the exam outcome. Maybe there could be some sort of solution along those lines for you as well. Have you tried reaching out to the instructional staff to get feedback on your work immediately after getting the grade, before the next graded assignment or quiz came up? They should provide a solution or feedback on your work regardless, otherwise something is indeed not working right.

What you're describing certainly doesn't sound healthy. I don't think the label of a mental illness is important here. What's important is finding ways of dealing with the situation and getting better. I'm not suggesting that you share the details of your feelings with colleagues, unless they are close friends who you trust. I do think you could say that you're stressed out because of dissertation writing, without explaining anything further. Everyone should understand that, and maybe you'll learn that other people are stressed too. I hope that sharing here is helping too, because -- again, you are not alone in feeling this way. Having difficulty writing and experiencing impostor syndrome in the context of putting together this large project like a dissertation is also not unusual. I am experiencing it with my own students now. I don't know your advisors and can't make you any promises, but often it's worse if you hold off on writing or showing your advisors anything until it's perfect than if you start showing them something incomplete and get help improving it. If I were your advisor I'd tell you that I'm not expecting perfection on the first try (or of the final product, for that matter), and I'd be in a much better position to help you if I could see a concrete document in front of me that we could discuss, so I can help you iron out quirks in the writing and structure*. For many students, this is the first large project they've ever tackled, and of course it's hard. And yes, it's likely that once you finish the dissertation things could improve. At least, you won't have this pressure of this project, these people, and these locations, all of which seem tied up in your mind with unpleasant experiences. That said, it's not a magic cure; there will be other sources of stress (there always are), so it's important to find ways of managing the stress. *Caveat: there are professors who only want to see full chapters; you need to identify the ones who are willing to help with the process as well. They do exist.

Mental health problems are very common among academics but also stigmatized. Just be cause you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not there. Don't assume that you're the only one who is encountering difficulty, that's incredibly unlikely. More likely, each person thinks they're the only one and they're ashamed and deal with it alone. Agreed with others that you should seek (continue to seek) mental health professionals to help you with this, what you are describing doesn't sound healthy. Also important: try to keep to a schedule so as not to over-work, take breaks, eat well and exercise. Recognize that there *will* be bad days, we all have them. On those days, instead of beating yourself up for not doing better and wasting time trying to work unsuccessfully, try giving yourself permission to take a break (but a real one, where you don't worry about work). It's important to recharge and these times off will end up saving you time in the long run. A good dissertation is a done dissertation. Seriously, this is so important. No dissertation is perfect. It'll have mistakes, and typos, and convoluted writing -- they all(!) do. You don't need to get it to be great, just to be good enough to defend and move on. That is an attainable bar. What you're experiencing is common, but sounds like on the extreme side of that. Lots of students run up against a wall at some point in the writing process. They develop anxiety, they have a hard time showing others unfinished work and get stuck, they overwork and don't take care of themselves. It's good that you're aware that there is a problem and you're trying to fix it.

@orange turtle what a great response! I am so glad you found the support you needed, and someone to take the situation as seriously as it should be. There is no situation where a supevisor telling you they want to have your children or propositioning you for sex is okay, no matter how anyone tries to spin it!

I hope the meeting went as well as could be. Meeting with counseling sounds like a good idea, everything else aside, to help you work through your feelings and develop strategies in case you have to continue seeing CreepProf as part of your professional life.