fuzzylogician

If you look at the People page on the department website, can you go through the list of grad students and figure out what year they're in by looking at their CVs? That would give you some indication of what's happening now. Also just ask some current students if you know any, and ask to be put in touch with some if not. That will be a useful resource regardless.

Sounds like you have several good options, so at this point I would ask who knows you best, can talk about your research abilities and potential, and will together cover everything there is to say about your different experiences? In general, a letter from someone who you've done research with (thesis advisor, internship mentor, lab supervisor, etc) would be better than a letter from a professor who you only took a class from, but there are caveats. If the course was a seminar that you wrote a good paper for, if you participated a lot, if they're very famous, those might be reasons to ask this person for a letter, especially if your two thesis advisors might write about very similar things. But as a whole, I think the advice above would be my choice, too.

Can you find out what the average time to completion rate is in this program? If we're talking 4 years of a full load of coursework, it's very hard to see how you could complete the program in five years, assuming you also have to TA, and you need time to build up some research projects.

There is no way anyone here can know what your two professors are discussing. You have to ask them. It's completely reasonable to worry about funding, you should not feel ashamed or embarrassed by it. You might ask two questions, maybe in two consecutive email. First, ask for a timeline to decision; if they tell you it'll be soon (whatever soon means for you given your other constraints, e.g. if you need to know by a certain date because of your other offer), you just wait. If the timeline is long or unclear, then ask if the offer would likely include tuition remission in addition to the stipend, and if you can get a ballpark estimate, acknowledging that you understand that they're not making any promises by giving you this information. You might also instead just ask both questions at the same time, if you feel comfortable doing so. If you do have outside pressure because of the other offer, you should also state that in your email, so they know and can take that into account in their planning.

We can give you some guesstimate, though frankly it'd be a wild guess at best. On a whole I'd like to think that programs keep their promises if they can, but they may lose funding some years, or have more first-years accept offers than planned, or a prof who brought a grant might take another job and take their money with them, etc. It's hard to know how often that happens and how it affects students. Luckily, though, what you really want to know is simply how likely *your program* is to renew your funding. You can get much closer to an answer by talking to current 2nd year students and learning how many of them had been given/promised funding in their first year and what happened in their second year.

There's not enough information here for us to help you. Only you can know how much you need this job, whether you can make amends with your boss and be okay going forward, or alternatively, if you quit, how hard it would be to find another job. As a rule, I wouldn't quit a job because of one bad interaction with a supervisor, unless there were some very unusual circumstances.

Outside perspective: it seems to me that this varies *greatly*. I had classmates who could never work on more than one project at a time, and I see professors who have been like that for decades, and seem to make it work for them. There are those who can handle 2, maybe 3, distinct things at a time, and there are those who always have a half dozen or more projects are various stages of completion. I'm one of the latter people. I'd say at the moment I have 5 projects that are in various stages of getting-ready-for-initial-writeup, 3-4 revisions of papers for ongoing projects, and 2 big ideas for multi-year projects that I probably won't actually take on for another 2-3 years, but I keep coming back to them and adding bits and pieces to my skeleton of a proposal that I keep on my desktop. I mostly work with collaborators/students, and not all projects will be equally active at any given time. I enjoy working this way because it means that I'm never stuck with nowhere to go next, but it requires quite a lot of management. Overall, it seems to me that as a grad student, you want to ask yourself a combination of questions about what you're comfortable with, and what will allow you to have enough deliverables (papers, presentations, diverse skills, etc) to make you competitive on the job market. It's not easy finding the sweet spot where you're productive enough but not too busy for self-care.

I don't remember questions like that on any of my applications. I don't think it's common. But if you do get asked, tell the truth. There will always be a place to explain what happened, and your explanation sounds like it was a minor offense that shouldn't cause you any trouble. I stress again, though: *don't lie*. The lie will get you in a lot more trouble than the actual offense. Good luck!

1. The F1 visa doesn't allow students to work. That includes "stuffs, small client projects etc", including if you get paid in another country. Some might tell you that you can work under the table and no one would ever know; I would advise you to be *very* careful and not do anything illegal. A Masters would mean being out of the workforce and not making a salary. Whether it's worth it to you is an entirely personal question. You know precisely what the costs are: you are out of the workforce, you're not making money, you're paying for a degree; in exchange, you hope to be able to apply for other jobs with more career prospects and a better salary once you're done with the degree. Only you can decide if it's worth it to you. 2. You don't have to apply for jobs in NC just because you studied there. But yes, it's getting harder to get the H1B visa, and it might get even harder. No one here can predict the future. Again, it's up to you to decide if it'd be worth it even if you end up going back to your home country (or a third country). It's a real possibility to keep in mind that you might not be able to get a job in the US post-graduation. 3. Whether you'll like Durham is yet again something only you can know. For me, it's a nice place, even though it's on the smaller side. But I don't think that really helps you out too much, because you and I are different people.

Ideally you should spend your free time not on more classes but on more research experience, preferably in the area you want to specialize in in grad school. Can you do a project or independent study to demonstrate your skills and develop some experience in your desired field? Also think about ways to convert one of your other options for letters from an okay letter to a strong one. Two strong letters and one okay will get you much farther than just one strong letter and two average ones. Again, if you have the time, investing in relationships with your professors outside of class would be much more productive.

Any local university where you can find a host in the relevant department? Churches or other volunteer organizations that work with the local population? Alternatively, for touristy areas, are there local ho(s)tels where foreigners congregate? Is there a consulate where you can try and find expats? Or maybe the solution is to set up a remote support group (your cohort, maybe?) that you can keep in touch with via Skype or similar?

I'm not sure I followed the question. You can argue whatever you want. The question is how convincing you'll be (and for that matter, who your audience is and what your goals are in doing so). That depends on the narrative you can weave out of your experiences and how they fit into your future plans. That said, an MBA, a consulting job, and a MA/PhD in cognitive science are very different things, so you might want to pause and actually figure out what you want to do in life. Also, possibly, come up with some attainable research goals to write about that would convince someone reading your application that you're actually a serious candidate worth investing lots of time and money in.

Hi there, this forum is not meant for help with homework assignments. I suggest you seek help from your TA or professor.

A quick response to some of this: - Yes, having someone who is willing to vouch for you is good. If she'll take you on as an RA next year and you then continue to keep in touch with her in later years, that's great. Should lead to a strong letter. - Doing things you enjoy is exactly the thing to do at this point. Let yourself grow and follow your instincts. You can worry about how to weave your experiences into a narrative later. You also really don't need to be presenting at conferences or worrying about publications this early. But that said, networking is one of the most helpful things you can do, so if you have the chance (or, you create the chance for yourself), that'd be helpful. It'd be absolutely sensible to do this in later years; if you don't do this until your third year, you're perfectly fine. - Your life is yours to live, not your parents'. Do what you want, not what they do. That said, again it's important to remember how much the job market sucks. I don't think it's something students understand as well as they should. Doing a double-major in philosophy and something a bit more "practical" might not be a bad move. Economics, for example, has a lot of directions that could take you closer to philosophy, and stats are useful for a variety of fields of study. You don't needs to commit to an entire career just yet. Keep your options open.

Hello there first year undergrad. A 3.7 GPA on its own will not stop you from getting into a top school. It's a perfectly respectable GPA! What will truly matter are other aspects of your application: your SOP, your writing sample, your letters, and your choice of schools (=schools that are a good fit for your interests). At this point, I would encourage you to simply enjoy your studies! It's entirely premature to think about PhDs and post-PhD plans. You really don't have nearly enough experience to know what you'll want to do. In the interest of making the most of your education at the moment, you might find ways to cultivate relationships with faculty at your school, who could eventually write you strong letters of recommendation. You'll want letters that say more than just what grade you got in which class, so make en effort to participate, show up to office hours, write papers where you can, and eventually choose a thesis option, if available, or an independent study otherwise. Take the time to define some research interests. See about participating in departmental reading groups in later years. Maybe there are volunteer or paid research assistant positions you could apply for. Maybe there are undergraduate conferences you could apply for. Or maybe you could join (or create) a club in your own department and participate in organizing events. At some point (=at least in another year and a half), you might think about writing papers that could serve as a writing sample, and once you have better defined interests, you could start looking into potential schools to apply to. Keep your options open, since you may find that you change your mind in a variety of ways as your education progresses. As for academic jobs -- again, premature. But you should go into this with eyes wide open. The academic job market is extremely difficult, even for the best of candidates. Coming from a top school is a big help in the process; people from other institutions do get jobs, but less frequently. So, it's not a guarantee but it'll help. But again, this is a decision you can only make once you have spent some time developing your research interests. Different schools have different strengths, and you need to pick the ones that are right for you.

You might want to share the field you're applying in, because answers vary not only by university but also by department. You could also use the Results search to see if you can find when rejection notifications went out in previous years (if any).

I'm a little surprised by this comment. First off, grades don't really matter as much in graduate school. Second, you wouldn't be the first student (or the 100th) to write/present/take exams in your non-native language. I don't think faculty judge non-native speakers more harshly. If anything, they might get a break on some writing imperfections that native speakers would not. For what it's worth, it's been my experience that native speakers are not any better at writing papers than native speakers are. It's an acquired skill, for everyone. Again, at the end of the day you need to think about how you want to disseminate your work: who do you want to attend your talks and lectures and who do you want to read your writing. If you hope to have an impact on the English-speaking community (=most researchers), you will have no choice but to learn to adjust, despite the discomfort. I say this as someone who's studied/worked/taught/presented/written in two non-native languages over the past decade, so don't think I don't appreciate what this means, but such is life.

Careful there. My advisors actually encouraged me to write on topics related to my research (qualifying papers, dissertation) for my class papers. The idea being that instead of spending some time researching and writing on something that I'll never touch again, I could use the time to work on stuff related to my research that would benefit me in the longer term. I've seen both undergraduate and graduate students develop class papers into a thesis all the time -- I've also advised and co-advised them myself -- and I wouldn't think about it twice. It's one of the most natural way to develop research topics at an early stage of one's career. OP, I think you need to have this conversation with your advisor. It'd be very silly if you couldn't use these data and analyses from your class paper in your thesis, as they're directly related to the work. I would be surprised if they didn't let you use them. I don't know of any way to cite such work, as it's not published, but since we're talking about an internal document anyway, I think it's sufficient that your advisor/committee know where they came from. They may then decide that you need to do X amount of additional work, since this part wasn't originally developed for the thesis. But either way, this is something to be worked out directly with your advisor and committee, in consultation with any official rules and requirements on the thesis.

Definitely not trying to defend anyone or explain anything. This has been circulating on my FB wall and that's what a friend who actually works there has to say. I have no personal knowledge of any kind. I do think it's important to concentrate efforts on actual wrongs and not perceived ones that are a misunderstanding, but I don't know which category this falls into.

It seems to me that one way of going about answering this question is doing some legwork: go on the relevant department's website and look at their People page. Most departments will list their graduate students, and many of those students will have websites. Go on the students' websites and look at their CVs; do their educations show a separate MA/MS prior to the PhD program? If not (or rarely), your answer is that likely your chances of admission with an MS aren't great. If there are plenty such students, then the information you got is inaccurate.

My understanding (from a friend a teaches there) is that this was an extraordinarily poorly worded email, and a big misunderstanding. The goal was to give some formal status to an already-existing situation, not to hire new unpaid labor, and that the relevant students aren't allowed to actually teach at all. That said, if true, that's completely outrageous and just plain wrong.

Sounds like you could write with a follow-up, since they told you they'd have an answer by the 20th.

Sounds like you've already done the work of looking at the requirements of the various programs that you're interested in. You'll get the best and most qualified response if you go straight to the source. This is the kind of question that would be easy for a DGS to answer -- either a department will overlook a low uGPA is there's a high gGPA and other strong aspects of an application, or they will not. The best that we can tell you is that you may have some difficulty, but as a rule, students who exhibit an upward trend of improvement should be able to find something, but that still doesn't tell you where or how hard it'll be. At the end of the day, some of it will simply be up to luck and other factors we can't predict.

In the interest for fully participating in academic life, you'll have no choice but to do your research in English. You'll want to be published and read by your peers outside the French-speaking community, and that means presenting in international conferences (in English) and writing journal papers (in English). If you hope to get a job in a non-French-speaking university (to greatly increase your odds of finding a job), you'll also need to teach in English. This discomfort you're facing is one that is common to all international students (who are non-native speakers, the vast majority of such students). We all had to learn to deal with it. I have no doubt that you can, too. Start slow, with first-year papers and presentations within your department and work your way up to larger and more diverse gatherings. Hopefully by the time you're ready to write your dissertation, you'll be a lot more experienced. Either way, to reach a larger and more influential audience, it's really unavoidable to work in English.

That there is NOT "no research exp". That's actually quite a lot of experience. What you're lacking are publications, but that's an entirely separate issue and not entirely up to you when you work in a lab anyway. The experience is the time you put into the lab and projects and what you learned from that. You developed skills, you refined your interests, you learned to present and write, design studies, work in a team, perform certain analyses. All of these are things that you can discuss in an SOP to make it a strong one. They should also lead to strong letters of recommendation from people who know you well. This kind of experience should give you enough insight to know what you want to study and what career path you want to pursue, and you should be able to have a strong argument for why you're qualified to do it and why the schools you're applying to are the right place(s) to pursue these interests. I'd really stop worrying about things you cannot change and focus on perfecting what already sounds like a potentially very strong application.