fuzzylogician

Is there a tl;dr version for those who might be able to help but find the text too daunting?

In my opinion it's worth the try, but in this early stage you should only apply to jobs that you actually really want and you'd be happy to give up your fellowship for. Unless your field is different from virtually every other field I know anything about, the job market is tight, and prospects even for the best candidates aren't great. So if you can get an offer, that would be amazing and you should obviously go for it. But even if not, even though the process of going on the job market is time consuming, the documents you'll produce will be a good foundation for later years on the market, so you'll be saving yourself a lot of time and stress in later years. My own experience was that creating the original documents was incredibly time consuming, but every year since, I haven't needed more than a few days of tweaks to be ready for another round of applications. So, doing a good job the first time around can really pay off down the line. I think a good goal for the first year is a long-list interview and perhaps an on-campus visit. You'll get to see much closer up what's actually out there, you'll get some experience prepping for interviews, and if you're successful, you'll put together a job talk and get to go on a campus visit. You might also learn from this process how to situate your thinking in the bigger picture, which you might find will help with the dissertation writing, especially when you move beyond the detailed analysis to the discussion of implications, next steps, and how your work fits with other advances in your (sub)field. If you come without any expectations beyond getting an interview -- which, for a fourth-year PhD student would be wise -- I think that it's a win-win. You do have the time to do this now. Anyway, that's my $.02.

No. It takes a few months to do a good job so you should probably start in the summer before you plan to apply, but it makes no sense to start before you've even started your Masters. Your PhD application will be greatly informed by your work as a Masters student.

For what it's worth: You don't know if your chosen field/program is right for you until you try. Lots of people come in thinking they want thing A but learn that actually maybe thing B is better suited for them. Happens all the time, but you still have to take the chance, otherwise you'll never know. What you describe sounds pretty common, and not at all an indication that you've made the wrong decision. Academia has a ridiculous number of awkward, shy, and introverted people. Academics are most definitely not "on" all the time. Maybe SLPs are different, but I bet that just like any other profession, there are all kinds of people. Everyone has bad days. And while it's generally best to treat your academic program like a workplace and not snap at people in ways you wouldn't treat a work colleague, it's also entirely understandable if some days you're not as outgoing or happy as others. If you make genuine friends in your program, you'll find ways to vent during the days, and if not, I'm sure you'll find your friends and vent in the evenings. This is no different than any other job you'll have.

So this is something I've started doing in recent years around this time of year, but kind of independently of the job market: I create a sort of end-of-year report for myself detailing what I did over the school year, because I always end the year feeling like I didn't do a lot (I feel like I get most of my research done over the summer). I list all my research activities (papers in press, papers submitted, conference proceedings; conference talks, invited talks, ongoing projects) and related travel; advising (dissertations, qualifying papers, senior theses, other projects); service (committee work, journal reviewing, conference reviewing, event organization); and teaching, and I pull my teaching evaluations for the year. I also create a plan for summer work, which I usually announce somewhere public to make a commitment (I try to be part of a writing group). I find this very helpful in actually seeing all the invisible things that happen over the course of the year. You get kudos on published papers, but on more or less none of the other things. I don't do this specifically for jobs, but it does make life easier if there's an attractive job I want to apply for. These days I feel like if you told me right now that there's a job with a deadline tomorrow that I should apply for, I'd have no problem getting my materials together in time...

Well. I'll ignore the "maybe linguistics and history aren't as rigorous as the science I am studying" bit and other not so subtle jabs at me. I'll also not spend time writing a long post about presentation skills and their usefulness in areas outside academia. I'll say this: if you've had this problem for over a decade, then this is something you could and should have planned for. I assume this exam isn't some secret they only let you in on after you've joined your program -- it's probably on the department's webpage and you could have known about it. The fact that you didn't plan for it is not anyone else's fault. Now the question is what you are going to do about it. If the entire point of this thread is to blow off steam, you're doing a good job. But if you want to actually get advice, that means being open to opinions other than your own. So here's mine: have you had a conversation with your committee about alternative ways of satisfying the requirement? Have you had a chat with the office of disabilities? Have you taken any action at all to try to fix the situation? There very well might be people who want to help you, but you need to ask for help, and you need to make a good faith effort to find alternatives, if you want to be able to move forward. You might also want to refrain from assuming you can know what experiences people have had, where they come from, or what they can relate to, if you know nothing about them.

It does feel like an over-reaction. I think you may be both blowing this out of proportion and under- or misestimating the importance of being able to present yourself orally in a variety of occasions. Writing ability is important, but if you can't sell your ideas in person as well, you'll suffer as an academic. If you give an atrocious job talk or you aren't able to answer questions from left field (and some people specialize at asking those at job talks!), you'll have a hard time getting a job. Students might ask you any question out of the blue, whether or not it's actually related to what you are talking about. And similarly at conferences you might be able to prepare for the talk, but it's very hard to prepare for the question period. You can't panic and run off-stage every time someone asks you something you weren't prepared for. (And here, in fact, you've gotten several weeks precisely in order to prepare!) That aside giving engaging talks is a good way of getting yourself and your ideas out there, or getting invited to conferences and to give talks, and the conversations of the kind you have when not on stage are important for building connections. Those are sometimes as important, if not more, than the actual ideas you're trying to sell, and you can't control the direction they go in.* I'm sure you've noticed that success only has some correlation with good ideas. (As in, you can have good ideas and not be as successful, or not as good ideas but really good inter-personal skills, and be quite successful). So, I think this is a more useful skill than you might be giving it credit for. That aside, given that there are people around who agree that the current form of the qualifying exam might not be ideal, maybe there is a way to work something out where it's manageable for you but also meets the department's requirements. You'd need to work this out on an individual basis with your committee; I'm sure you're not the first person to deal with serious stage fright. That said, I would advise you not to do or say anything drastic until after you've calmed down, because right now it sounds like you're over-reacting. If you have a supportive advisor and committee, they should be willing to help you through this milestone in your program and move on to the next steps, especially if you're otherwise successful and could have a successful career in your field. Try to figure this out with them before you do anything quite as drastic as taking your grant and walking away. * For example, I've been asked on some interview what I think were the most important 3 inventions of the 20th century and why. Another person once asked what book I'd take with me to a deserted island. More than once someone asked some version of "young/old man/woman/person I admire in [my field/other field/science]", what paper I read recently that made me change my mind about my research (and what specifically it was), the most impactful paper/presentation of the year, and other things that caught me off guard. Those are just a few example. I doubt the specific answers mattered, but my reaction did. And then of course random people will ask about hobbies, books you've read recently, your favorite foods, recent travels, and any other thing that pops into their heads. Unless you plan to pre-rehearse every possible conversation you might have with other academics, you need to learn to deal with unexpected situations, including high-stakes ones.

Email.

So in my field, at least, applications are basically done and decided as far as TT jobs and prestigious postdocs go. The only things still open are the one-off teaching positions that can come up at any time, but even those generally have deadlines around now or very soon. Next year's cycle won't begin for several more months. Given the new restrictions on H1Bs, I also know some people who are basically already banned from applying because there is no chance they'll be able to get their visa in time to start teaching in the fall.. it's all very depressing.

Do it in writing. Write whoever made you the official offer (chair? DGS?). You could also write your potential PI, if s/he's been helpful along the way, to personally thank them and let them know about this development.

Sounds like the thing to do next is to start making connections in your target department. Schedule a meeting with the professor you mention to discuss your shared interests and any way of getting more involved in that program's activities (but without at the moment discussing any plans to transfer, that would be premature). Also, as mentioned above, it's important to identify more than one potential advisor; having just one is always dangerous, and eventually you'll need a committee of at least three faculty members. You could try and participate in public/large events at the target department (do they hold colloquia or other events you could show up at to start showing your face around?). You could look into either taking or auditing classes there, and/or starting a project/independent study advised or co-advised by someone there. It's important to know that you actually like the new department, not on paper but in practice. And with support of potential advisors who know and like you, things will be much easier.

If you submit the most recent transcript available by the deadline, they'll have to accept it as is. With Dec 1 deadlines, the majority of schools will not have their fall grades posted, and I'm sure that's what the school is expecting. You could try and submit updated transcripts if they allow it, but I agree that you should be sure your application is complete by the deadline.

^This. But in addition I am sure that if you explain that you are withdrawing because you received a TT job offer, people will understand and no bridges will be burned.

Well, a good place to start is probably this: does the other program know you? Is there someone there who would be willing to take you on as a student? You didn't say how far along you are in your current program, but one thing that would probably help is if you had the support of someone in the other program who would be willing to take you on as a student. Have you had a chance to be co-advised by someone in that department? Taken courses there? Do you have a sense of whether the two programs have any collaborations, cross-appointed faculty, etc? Again, that would facilitate everyone's support. It's generally be much easier if they already know and like you, and harder if you've had this secret plan but no one knows about it.

That sounds like a lovely gesture.

My field does that all the time. Personally I would go for one sheet of paper, so at most two pages, for a poster session.

One should be aware that the academic job market in most fields is extremely tight. Even with all the right credentials and very good work, it takes people years to find a job, if at all. It involves years of uncertainty, often the need to be mobile and move to undesirable locations at short notice, sometimes away from family and friends, and staying productive through high teaching loads and not-great institutions -- and that's if you're one of the lucky ones. So yes, your professor is right that if you want an academic job, you need to give yourself the best chance, and apply to top schools. Attending a school that doesn't have a good placement record will make your life that much more difficult. Again, even with the right school and advisors, nothing is guaranteed, so you should always have a fallback plan in case you don't get a job or decide academia just isn't for you (happens often enough). If you google for it or search the board, you will find a variety of discussions about the job market and whether doing a PhD is a good idea in the first place. The answer is really that it depends on your goals.

Yeah, I don't buy the "women aren't keen on X" argument. It isn't true for karate just like it's not true for science or any other place that women have traditionally been kept out of. At the end of the day it's all about how you feel at the dojo, and how you click with the instructor and classmates. I'd rank that over which martial art it is. If the kung fu club is more welcoming, I'd personally prefer that.

What did you tell the students you would do with their complaints? Unless *they* understood the issue to have been resolved right there, I think it's your obligation to let the professor know. You should probably also let the other TA know that there were some complaints, and you felt that you had to let the prof know. In the future, if you think fast enough on your feet, the best thing to have done would have been to tell the students to take the complaint directly to the professor and leave you out of it; nothing good can come of this for you (generally, you don't complain about an employee's performance to a peer, you go to a manager). But yes, from your description that sounds like distracting behavior. None of those in isolation is too bad, but if combined and done to an extreme, some students might be negatively affected -- though it'll be impossible to quantify how much.

1. Books, coats, etc. in the front. 2. I tell them ahead of time that I'll announce times at whatever are appropriate intervals, so I do that. (I write the time left on the board, and only announce 5 minutes / 1 minute/ time is up.) 3. I pace up and down the isles once in a while, because I've learned that there are people who will raise their hands just as I come by, but will not raise their hands if I'm just standing or sitting in the front. (There are of course also those who aren't as shy and raise their hand whenever they need to, but there's a surprising number of shy students.) 4. I also sometimes go stand in the back, behind them, so cheaters can't see where I am. I actually find that to be the best place to stand. But most of the time I just hang out somewhere on the side and try not to disturb anyone.

Confessing doesn't absolve you, and the professor did the right thing. At every institution I've taught at, faculty are required to report these incidents and they don't get any discretion. It's out of their hands as soon as it happens, and is handled by a disciplinary officer whose job it is to deal with these cases. I assume this just happened? If it's a first offense, it shouldn't be too bad. You can read about what happens next online, I'm sure your school has that information available. From my experience it would involve some procedure with a Dean of Students or equivalent person in charge of academic dishonesty for undergraduates. The evidence for the offense will be anything written that shows cheating and your professor's testimony that you admitted it to him. You will get a chance to defend yourself, but in this case since it's pretty open and shut, best you can do is admit it, take responsibility, and not make excuses. Again, if it's a first offense, the punishment will probably not be too severe -- I assume you'll fail the class and may have to retake it, and you'll be put on probation so if anything like this happens again, the results will be much more serious. There might be a written report sitting in some file, or there might be a warning that is removed after some period if you maintain good behavior. These are things you could and should ask about, when you are contacted for the next step in the process. Some schools have a free law clinic where law students volunteer to help student like you out (or the student union might offer such a service). You can seek that out, to have representation in the proceedings. Also note that it might take several weeks, or even longer. This time of year there will be many similar cases for the disciplinary officer to deal with. That can cause a lot of emotional stress, so be sure to take care of yourself. Once the procedure is over, one thing you'll want to figure out is who is informed, and if it's anyone whose opinion you care about, you might want to schedule a meeting with them to clarify what happened. For your questions: 1. What would you appeal? You admit to the facts, and it sounds like the procedure is just starting. Again, seek representation from someone who's more experienced and can take you through the process, but I doubt that will involve an appeal. 2. Learn to manage your time and your anxiety. Learn to spread out your studies throughout the semester and to get help if you feel like you're falling behind -- reach out to the TA or instructor, and get private tutoring if possible. Cheating should never be an option. 3. It's hard to know. The most important advice right now is this: (a) take responsibility, and (b) don't lie. If there is a question about academic honesty on an application, answer it truthfully and explain what happened. You don't need to volunteer the information if it wasn't asked, but almost 100% of people who get in trouble because of cheating do so not because of a one-time offense but because they lied about it. So, don't do that. Work to make sure it's completely out of character for you; maintain honest behavior from here on out, and be able to discuss both why it happened and how you grew and moved past it if it ever comes up. This shouldn't be the end of your dreams, but make sure you take it seriously and fix whatever caused you to do this in the first place.

Frank answer: it doesn't matter, you have to do it because it's the only financially smart thing to do. Frank and to the point answer: no one here can possibly tell you what other people will think. Best you can do is write that professional and polite email and hope for the best. One thing that wasn't clear: if you accepted the offer before and now you're changing your mind, that might affect them because it might mean they won't be able to accept another student for your spot this late in the game. If they made an offer and you decline, that shouldn't affect anything, students decline offers all the time. Either way, it doesn't change what you have to do or how you'll do it, so just get it done with. The sooner the better.

I'm not sure there is a question in there, but for what it's worth, I think you're making the right decision. Simply write them and tell them what you told us: this is one of your top choices and you would love to attend, but unfortunately you can't afford to at the moment. You hope to strengthen your profile and reapply again next year, hoping for better outcomes in terms of funding. Thank them for their consideration, and you're done. Short, professional, and to the point.

Selecting a topic is something a student has to learn to do on his/her own. This is also what you have an advisor for. No one here will just give you a topic, this is not what this board is about, and in any event, anyone who has a good idea will pursue it on their own, not give it to a stranger. Good ideas are the bread and butter of academia.

As someone who graduated from MIT, I think it's an absolutely amazing place to get a PhD. That said, I think that mainly because I had really amazing advisors. I wouldn't give up a strong advising relationship to go to a school where someone showed interest three years ago but now no one's replying no matter how fancy the name of the institution. You're already at a top-15 school, and you have excellent external funding and a great advisor, so you'd be throwing away something that's already awesome for an unknown. Figure out more details about that unknown before you do anything rash that you'll later regret.