fuzzylogician

Not for nothing but I don't TA courses at this point, I teach my own. But when I was a TA, at two different institutions, there was exactly zero TA training and no one one could officially ask about any of these things. The good instructors would tell us to come to them with problems, the not-as-good ones didn't want to know about it. Reading through the school's code of conduct is one option, asking a trusted admin person who's been around for a while is another. Unfortunately, both TAs and (increasingly) professors have less and less power to deal with problematic students, as students are perceived more and more as "clients" who receive our instructional services. One needs to very cynically weigh the costs of pursuing disciplinary action against the potential benefits.

Oh, absolutely, and worth repeating: you deserve to be treated with respect, and anyone who calls you a profane name should face consequences. In class I would not just let it slide, and after class I would pursue it with the appropriate authorities as well.

I don't mean to disregard your experience at all. I am just saying this as someone who came in with a BA where I took some MA courses and then did an MA before applying for a PhD in the States, and had a change in both the subfield I am interested in and the methodologies I use between those earlier degrees and graduating with my PhD. My core interests probably haven't changed and I think it's possible to find a unifying theme between my earliest undergrad papers and my dissertation and current work. But some things have definitely been refined and changed, at least in part through exposure to ideas I just wasn't aware of before, and through working with people who had different approaches than mine. If I had chosen a different school for my PhD, that was better aligned with my narrow interests at the time, I probably would have come out a different linguist with a different dissertation, but I am very happy to have gone to a school that allowed me to explore and change my way of doing things. In the end, what mattered most was the people I was working with, much more than the specifics of the project I chose. Point being, I don't think that there is just one choice that's "right", it depends on many factors. Location is one of them; decent advising is a big one, and funding is important. Also your post-degree plans and which degree will give you more/better opportunities. It's up to you to decide and again, I don't think there is just one correct choice. I am just trying to spell out what all the different considerations might be.

^ In addition, in all such matters, involve the instructor of record. The professor in charge of the course should know of any issue serious enough to warrant removing a student from class (name calling would be included for me, argumentative student in discussions would not, but that is a judgment call). If it were me, in cases that don't involve safety I would do my best to ignore the bad behavior and steer the class back in a productive direction; engaging a student like that could be dangerous in that you as instructor often can't actually do much in the moment and you don't want to give the student too much power (e.g. refusing to leave and causing a scene, taking time away from class). It's a judgment call. In many cases, the right course of action would be to turn matters over to the professor and not deal with it yourself. The power differential between prof and student and the experience will usually mean it'll be easier for the prof to deal with it than for the TA.

Honestly, I think you need to assume that it will not work out this year. There is always some chance that they will suddenly find funding for you, but I think it's unlikely to happen very late in the game, I'm sorry. Money to fund unfunded students doesn't usually appear late in the summer. I don't think you can count on external funding to come in in time, these things require detailed applications and I would assume anything applicable that has submission deadlines in the nearish future will not be decided and disbursed before you'd want to start the program, assuming you win it. So realistically, you are looking at working and reapplying next year, unless something unexpected happens in the next few months.

Don't begin applications before they are active, that can't lead to anything good. You can read up on requirements on departments' websites and create a spreadsheet to keep track of requirements and deadlines, to be updated later in the fall. There is a lot you can get started on now if you wish, for example writing a first draft of your SOP. Those things take time and the best thing you can do is write a preliminary version with enough time to put it away and come back to it several times. You could do research on each department and potential advisor, for a stronger, more focused SOP. You could refine your research interests, think about questions that interest you, and the language you'd need to use to describe it concisely in a statement. You could work on your writing sample, if any program requires it. You could study for the GRE. You could create a CV for yourself, start a website, create profiles on academia.edu or researchgate or whatever else people in your field use. You could think of who your LOR writers will be and start putting together the materials you'll give them (but it's too early to actually contact them!). Lots of things you can do without access to the application software itself.

Assuming this is your only acceptance, I think you should wait to hear back about possible funding. If it's a yes, you go. If it's a no, you explain that you are very excited about the program but can't attend without funding and ask to defer by one year in the hopes that you'll get funded next year. Meanwhile you reapply to other programs and hope for a better outcome. Don't attend an unfunded program and don't count on something working out after the first year -- what if it doesn't? That could have significant negative outcomes and is not worth the risk.

What do you want to come out of this? Do you want to work with PI #2 and will s/he still take you on as a student? Or do you want to work with PI #1, and is this even an option? What you do kind of depends on what you want the outcome to be. Seems to me that it'd be better to work with PI #2 and assuming that this means no more lab meetings (or any meetings) with PI #1, you just let it cool for a bit, then find a way to apologize again and blame it on language/communication failures once everyone's calmed down and some time has passed. At the end of the day it's up to your PI to forgive you and move on, if he wants. There isn't much that you can do to take it back.

I would not take an unfunded offer or one where funding it not guaranteed. You can't count on getting a TAship -- what happens if that falls through? I think your realistic options are working with one of the professors who did make you a funded offer, even if your interests aren't as good a match, or reapplying next year.

If you aren't confident you could get a job with a degree from Indiana then I don't understand why it has an advantage in your mind. Following your passion is great, but eventually you're going to want to be able to put dinner on the table. That aside, passions change. Your current interests are based on fairly minimal exposure to the field through an undergraduate degree. You are likely to be exposed to new ideas in grad school and you might decide to follow one of them; this is also true for the MA to PhD transition, so keep that in mind. And finally, you've already committed to another school, so we really shouldn't be having this conversation at all.

This is a friendly reminder not to feed the troll.

You could always start a new thread if you think on one will see this one... Here are some questions to think of as a first step: is this a Masters or a PhD? If it's a Masters, are you planning to apply for a PhD after, and is it a one-year or a two-year program? Did you get to visit one or both places? Did you meet your potential advisors? I will be the first to say that location is important (to me), but there are other factors that would weigh in on my decision, too.

This would depend on the school so there isn't going to be a definitive answer that we can give you. Often it's the case that there are more students interested in TAing than open positions, and in that case the question becomes how to prioritize who gets positions. One way to go about it is to say PhD students before MA students, in which case in some schools it may mean that MA students hardly ever get TAships. Or they may say more senior students before junior ones, or in-field students before others, or more experienced ones before less experienced ones, or anything else that would make sense. Bottom line is you would need to find out how things work at the particular school you have in mind.

Many departments will invite admitted students out for a visit, or alternatively they might invite finalists for an interview + visit. This kind of visit will obviously happen after you submit your application, and will usually be something the school will schedule and pay for (at least partly). On the other hand, what you are asking about is a pre-application visit; this is not something that a school will pay for, but if you wanted to fund yourself and wrote to the department, most likely they will help arrange a schedule and allow you to meet with professors and sit in on classes. They might even be able to arrange for you to stay with a student, if you ask, to save on accommodation costs.

Suggestion: Can you write the graduate secretary or the DGS and ask them to put you in touch with the other students in your cohort? Presumably they have everyone's email addresses and at some point might even plan to create a mailing list (my cohort has one). It might be a much easier way to find your classmate than hoping that they read this post.

Are you applying for a professional or research-based degree? Is it a Masters or a PhD (or something else)? Whatever you do, I don't think a letter from a PhD student is a good idea; she can't speak to your ability to succeed in the program (she hasn't even gone through it herself) and she was not a supervisor at your work, so this is at most a peer evaluation and won't count for much. I feel like even with your descriptions, I don't have a good sense of what each of these potential LOR writers will actually say about you. You should choose the third letter so that it is detailed and (if possible) covers any aspects of your personal and academic profile not already covered by the other letters, to the extent that this extra information is relevant. So if this is a research-based PhD program and professor #3 can speak to your strength in research and give detailed examples of past successes, then I'd choose him even if LORs #1 and #2 say similar things, because details of your professional work seem less relevant. If prof #3 will only write something short and generic, then it might not be the best choice, and perhaps the professional letter will be more detailed and can still be relevant. If this is a professional degree and Professional #1+2 can write a detailed letter about aspects of your work and personality that are relevant to the degree you are applying for, then I'd be much more inclined to choose them. In short, it depends on your goals and on the actual potential content of each letter.

Sounds like they are interested in your application but want to do an interview. If they make you an offer (and it sounds like that has a fairly high likelihood of happening), then there needs to be a step of getting approval by IBM. I don't know if that is a formality or not, but it's something you could ask about in your interview. Seems to me like the next step is to say yes to the interview and find a date and time. You could confirm that both professors will participate in the interview and ask if there is anything useful that you should read up on to prepare ahead of the interview (but I would assume it's the details of the project they described, and if that is something you can easily find online, just use that. Only ask this question is the answer is non-obvious). What are you confused about?

Sounds like they are interested in your application but want to do an interview. If they make you an offer (and it sounds like that has a fairly high likelihood of happening), then there needs to be a step of getting approval by IBM. I don't know if that is a formality or not, but it's something you could ask about in your interview. Seems to me like the next step is to say yes to the interview and find a date and time. You could confirm that both professors will participate in the interview and ask if there is anything useful that you should read up on to prepare ahead of the interview (but I would assume it's the details of the project they described, and if that is something you can easily find online, just use that. Only ask this question is the answer is non-obvious). What are you confused about?

Relax, this happens. Any reasonable person would understand.

I'm not sure what kind of advice you are looking for. If the German university doesn't recognize your degree as acceptable then there is not much that any of us can do. And unfortunately I would suspect that this would be a problem with other German universities as well, they tend to be strict about approving diplomas from your prior education.

Everyone moves away from home for the first time at some point in their lives and not knowing what to do doesn't make you a failure. Moving to a new city always comes with a variety of non-fun chores that need to be taken care of and no one enjoys it or looks forward to it. So one thing you can get started with is reading up on what will need to happen. A good place to start might actually by the international students subforum here, where you can find lots of detailed advice for students who've never been to the States about how to go about starting a life in a new and unfamiliar location. I'd bet the majority of the advice will apply to you as well: finding an apartment (possibly from afar), setting up a local bank account, setting up utilities, buying groceries and household items, getting a local driver's license, getting settled at your new school, finding a local doctor/dentist/hair stylist, etc. More concretely, one thing to do is to write current students in your new department to ask for their advice on housing. Ask where students tend to live (what neighborhoods they live in, if they choose the dorms or off-campus housing), if they tend to have roommates, and what a reasonable price-range might be. Ask what time leases tend to start, if there is such a date (it often varies by city. E.g. in my current city it's July 1, in the previous one it was September 1), and around when is usually the best time to look for an apartment (again some markets are very fast and some are slower, so it might be anywhere from a few weeks before you'd want to move in to 3-4 months in advance). You might also ask if anyone is looking for a roommate or knows of an apartment that is going to become available (e.g. ones that used to belong to graduating students) -- that could save you a lot of headaches. Then you can read up on utility companies to know what's available. Cable/internet can often take a long time to set up, so once you have a lease you can try to schedule the technician some time ahead of when you move so you're not left hanging for too long. Figure out how to get electricity/gas/etc in your name. If you're going to buy furniture, learn about the local options. Learn about the bus system. At the end of the day you'll get there and there will be lots of new and unfamiliar things to deal with, even if you know they are coming. Just have faith that a lot of people have done it before, and just like them, you'll figure it out and it'll be alright. Edit: see the links in the post here. There's more, search for things like "moving advice" and similar.

This is not a secret. You will appear on your department's "people" page and your affiliation will appear on every presentation and talk that you give. If you have papers, it'll appear there too. I see no harm in telling them; they can find out themselves anyway.

No, this one seems pretty clear. You've been recommended for admissions by the department. Now the graduate school needs to approve it. Unless something very unexpected happens, you will probably hear that you've been admitted very soon.

Way to not address the actual content of my post. Once you are done with all that thinking, do you then not require that your students do anything you think might be hard for them to do (or, for that matter, things that for sure will be hard for them to do)? Or do you set boundaries and define clear requirements, and -- if necessary -- assist those with an actual need to meet those requirements?

Used to be you had one excellent option and you took it. 100% of options utilized to the full! Now you have two excellent choices and you have to give one up, 50% of your chances feel like they are going away and you worry about what might have been. This is completely normal, and would have happened no matter what choice you would have made. Give yourself time, but eventually you just need to remind yourself that there were reasons why you chose one school over the other, and they sounded reasonable and well thought out. A lot of what will come out of your grad school experience depends on you and what you will make of it, and at the end of the day it'll work out, one way or the other.