fuzzylogician

1. I don't think you should email the professor, but you could certainly come to her office hours in a week or two to talk about your learning process and whether these new insights you've discovered are on the right track, as well as if you're following the concepts in class currently. 2. I would recommend talking to your advisor. Right now the problem is small and hopefully fixable. The more you wait, the larger it could potentially become, and the harder it will be to ask for help. You should let your advisor know early on so he can help you in any way that he can, which is his job. I don't think you want to be in a situation where at the end of the semester he suddenly discovers that you've been struggling for months without letting him know, possibly with consequences for your ability to stay in the program. Talk to him now, even though it's an uncomfortable conversation, and get all the help that you can as soon as you can, so you can fix this. Knowing who and when to ask for help is a very important skill.

The professor from your undergraduate institution will know the culture of your field better than I do, so I wouldn't just disregard what he ways. And I think the question of whether funding is usually offered or not is also relevant: if the offers you got are as good as it gets then the language you want to use when you decline would be different than if the offer isn't that good (=if better offers would also include a stipend). But I really can't imagine that if you decline citing financial reasons for the decision and reiterate your interest in the program and plans to reapply when your personal situation improves that you would necessarily burn a bridge and be immediately disqualified in the future.

The short version: you can apply for whatever jobs you want. You cannot work on your student visa, so you will need a job that will want to issue you a work visa. Those exist, but aren't that easy to come by. You probably can't use your OPT, because you haven't finished your program. Moreover, once you are no longer a student in good standing, I believe your visa may no longer be valid and therefore you will have to leave the US. This is something that you need to get clear instructions on from your ISO. Some types of visas have quotas and wait periods, others are faster, but realistically, you may have a hard time staying in the US and being employed throughout because of transition times and visa processing times. This doesn't take into account the time it would take to look for and apply for jobs, and of course we don't know you and have no way of knowing how likely you are to be an attractive candidate. Unfortunately it's harder for foreigners to find jobs because the company will have to sponsor your visa, but often they can hire a local person who wouldn't come with this extra expense and wait period until the visa is approved. I don't mean to be negative, but I think this is the reality of your situation.

I am not sure I followed all of that, since you didn't quite specify what MA we are talking about and what your long-term goals are. Best I could make sense of your post, it seems to me that taking the offer that is financially responsible is the smart choice. Declining the other offers while explaining that you are very excited about the program but it doesn't make financial sense to you right now is something that shouldn't burn any bridges. You could even say that you intend to apply again in a few years, after your finances stabilize, maybe even ask for any advice on improving your application for the next time around. I don't know if MDiv offers are usually funded or not so it's hard for me to say anything more about your chances of improving your offer after the MA, and of course none of us know what the applicant pool will look like two years from now. But all things being equal, one would think that you should have similar or better chances compared to this application cycle.

(And so I don't sound like I don't understand your pain, this is going to be the third year in a row that I can't make any summer plans or go home because of immigration complications. I expect next year to be the same. It sucks.)

This is something to consult with the ISO at your school about, to avoid making costly mistakes. From the way it sounds to me, you're going to have a problem and there is no way out of it. If you leave, you'll have to reenter with the new F-1, but then you have to wait until 30 days before the start of the program. Or you don't apply for your new F-1 and re-enter on the old one, but then whenever you leave the country next you'll have to take care of the visa situation, and I wouldn't be surprised if you also have trouble re-entering the US on your old F-1 given that you'll be about to switch schools, although I think at least technically if you are entering the US with a valid visa, I-20, and matching and valid SEVIS, you should be alright. But I think the SEVIS number might already be switched earlier and then there might be a mismatch and I have no idea what they'll do in that case. So it's a potential mess. You really need to get expert advice. My guess is that the answer is that unfortunately you have to either travel a lot earlier in the summer before the transfer procedure begins, or not at all.

I don't think there is any harm in applying again next year. You never know what circumstances led to the unfunded offer and it's possible that next year will be different. It's better if you have more to show for your year, if not much has changed then the chances of a different outcome are lower. But I don't think there is anything to lose by trying.

I have very little sympathy for students who can't be bothered to read emails or come to class, or somehow manage not to hear an announcement that the professor made several times, and then think they are entitled to something because they didn't know some rule or regulation. I hope the students weren't successful in their appeals, @shadowclaw! Getting a large class to settle down can take a moment, though 10 seconds sounds like it's on the long side. Sometimes it helps to make a loud noise, like clapping or banging something on the table. Waving your hands could be a solution once in a while, but it's probably not good if you have to do it every time you want to start class or have a discussion.

At least in my field, there is no expectation that your MA and PhD be on the same topic. It sometimes happens that way because students have an expertise and an interest in a certain area and they just keep working in it, but there is nothing that says you can't change your topic between the two degrees. My dissertation isn't based on other papers I wrote for earlier stages in my program (we write two qualifying papers), although it is partly based on journal papers I'd written before starting my dissertation and more generally on a topic I'd been thinking about in a variety of ways for several years, and it also isn't related to the topic I was working on for my Masters.

Indeed. And since when are 6 assignments over a 14-week semester "frequent work"? Sometimes I just don't understand what these students are thinking.

It's helpful to have the presentation/publication on your CV. What helps more is the ability to talk about the details of the paper and your role in the research in your SOP and in any subsequent interviews. Hopefully the process you went through helped you refine your interests and be able to talk about your research in more detail. That is something that will come out in your application documents. And then having the paper doesn't hurt, although there is only so much that a conference paper can do for you.

Definitely ok. And since we're doing that: On the discussion board for the class, in the past couple of weeks: Student A: can you clarify what to do in Question 3? Your question is very poorly written. (No. That's not the problem.) Student B: When you say "for each of the following sentences, do XYZ", do I need to do it for each sentence separately, or for all of them together? I find this very confusing. (You used "each" in your question so I know you understand what it means. How are you possibly confused?) Student C: I propose that Prof. Logician drop the lowest assignment score from our final grade. Many of my professors have done so in the past when assigning frequent work. It would help all of us get better grades. (Seriously??) Also, there is the student that a TA just caught cheating. Sigh.

For me, bigger and smaller conferences achieve different goals. The bigger ones are better for having my ideas heard, and they are an opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues who I don't get to see very often. The smaller conferences are better for meeting new people and making connections, especially when it comes to people who are specifically in my subfield or work on related issues. That said, the bigger conferences in my field are probably about 2-300 people in size, and smaller ones could be anywhere from 30-50 to maybe 70. So that sounds a bit different from having thousands of people around. We have one such conference a year, and I go there for job interviews and to meet up with friends, but it's not usually a good place to meet new people or to get my research out to the right people, because it's so large it's hard to make sure the right people are in the audience. If you are just getting started as a student, I don't think it's worth taking out loans to network. When you have something good to present, maybe in your third year (assuming a 5-year program), that's the time to start thinking about conferences. There are ways of reducing costs, like choosing to attend conferences that are closer by, staying with graduate students, and applying for university-wide travel funding opportunities, which may offset at least some of the costs. Some conferences also offer some funding to students, and that's worth looking into. If I were paying out of pocket (which I've never done), I would not go to more than one conference a year, and I'd be careful about choosing the right one. There are ways to network without traveling, by contacting the relevant people and starting email and then Skype conversations. At some point it may be important to be visible, as you start thinking about the job market, but perhaps not before, if you are funding your own travel throughout. If later in your degree you apply for external funding, make sure you remember to add travel funding to your budget so you get to present your work.

Yeah, I really don't think anyone here is going to suggest that you try to get your PI fired, that is extremely likely to backfire, or at least not to work. Transferring into another PhD program is not an easy thing to do, it's not like undergrad. You can try to discreetly ask about that, but keep in mind that it's late in the season and it's unlikely that schools will have extra money laying around to bring in a transfer student, even if this were something that they would in general consider. You should also keep in mind that even if you can transfer, there is a good chance that most of what you've already done in your current program won't count toward your new degree, so in a sense you'll be either completely starting over, or close to it. The easiest thing for you to do is to leave the school you are currently at with an MA, so at least on paper you got something out of that degree. You want to do it in a way that doesn't burn any bridges, because you'll need at least one LOR from a professor at this school. Not having such a letter would raise red flags with any school you might try to apply to in the future. With this LOR and your MA, you can then apply to another PhD program. You can briefly explain your leaving your current program as the result of a shift in your interests combined with changes to the makeup of the faculty that made your old school no longer a good match for your research. If you can show that and have the support of your old program, you shouldn't have a problem applying to new schools (though of course we can't judge how strong your application will be, not knowing anything about you or your research).

I know some people who deferred for a year. The one thing I'd worry about if you defer for a semester is how doing so might affect your social life -- if everyone starts together in the fall and friendships are formed during that first semester of first year, you might have a bit of a hard time making friends. Of course, this depends on many other factors and might not be an issue at all, but if you're the only one who starts late, it might not be trivial. And then, even though you've said it's not a problem, you should make sure that there aren't actually any prereqs that you have to take in the fall for spring courses, or classes that are only offered every other year, or any other complication that could set you back if you miss the fall semester. But overall, I don't think there is any problem with asking, especially if you'd be ready to begin in the fall if they tell you it's not an option.

The options are very limited, unfortunately. I think the Fulbright is one of the only options that are available to international students, but it comes with the 2-year requirement and hence isn't desirable if you think you might want to stay in the States after your PhD. There is one NSF grant that you could be eligible for, but only a few years down the road -- the NSF dissertation improvement grant. Other NSF grants are for citizens only. If your country doesn't have options of its own, it may be very difficult for you to obtain external funding.

Sounds like you're doing what you should be doing. You do a lot of reading, you try to identify what kinds of questions interest you, and you do some more reading. For my earliest paper topics, I just went through the relevant shelves at the library and picked up books/journals one after the other (back when the easiest way to access a journal paper was to flip through the hard copy, not go online and browse the journal's website!) and had a pretty tough criterion about putting books/papers back on the shelf if they didn't catch my attention pretty quickly. Eventually themes started to emerge in what interested me. They're actually pretty much the same now as they were back then. Likewise if you are taking seminars in your field, can you identify the topics that catch your attention? Once you have that much going (which it sounds like you do), you start reading background more seriously. In my field, you might want to read both survey articles that introduce the major issues, data, and theoretical frameworks, as well as some seminal papers and some new papers. Survey/handbook articles are usually very good for pointing you in the right direction. This is also a good time to get some advice from an advisor about what you should be reading. At some point, after you've done some reading, hopefully, one of two things will happen: either you'll stumble upon a question in a paper that hasn't been answered that you think that you can say something about (footnotes with language like "we leave this for future research" can be helpful, and often papers' conclusions will have such a discussion), or you identify a problem with a current paper or an extension of the paper, or you can think of a way to apply it to a new dataset, or asking a new and related question, etc. The workable part is a little bit harder to judge when you're new, but this is what you have an advisor for!

Yeah, you've made up your mind and I'm sure I'm wasting my breath here, but you've gotta know that starting now or a year from now doesn't make a big difference, and almost everyone who starts a PhD program is older than those 22 year old graduates, if there was ever a point in comparing yourself to them (which there isn't). The point of deferring is exactly that you can start next year if you don't get a better/funded offer, and that makes the whole "what if" second paragraph of your response irrelevant. But heck, it sounds like you just want someone to tell you that you're making the right call; I won't give you that, but maybe someone else will.

Not much to say if you've already decided you are doing this, but I would not recommend it. At the very least, I would look into deferring for a year, so that you can move to the new state now, work for a year to build up some savings, and start next year as an in-state student. That would give you a chance to reapply to other schools and hopefully secure a funded offer, and would also significantly decrease your debt burden if you do end up paying out of pocket.

True_life, I moved your post to the Officially Grads forum, which is more appropriate for the content. If you browse the forum (using the search function) you will discover that you are absolutely not alone. More later.

^In fact, a large point of *research* is being able to come up with interesting, executable ideas that interface with and advance our knowledge. If someone has such an idea, there is no reason why they should give it to an internet stranger instead of carrying it out themselves.

I afraid it'll be a tough fight and your chances of succeeding aren't great. The thing to concentrate on is probably the improvement from the first exam to the second and the fact that you passed one of the two parts, and that you've been working hard to improve in the second part and even have a paper in it. Perhaps you could ask for a second chance to retake just the part you failed, because the paper indicates that you are knowledgeable in this area but something went wrong in the exam that isn't representative of your knowledge (is there something you can point to as a mitigating factor for why your score was so low?). I would make sure a 3.56 GPA is actually considered high for your PhD program before even saying it, but more generally I think you should *not* spend too much time on your efforts to improve--coming to class and participating, and hiring a tutor, do *not* entitle you to a good grade, it just doesn't work that way. It's your output that counts, not how hard you worked to produce it. Another thing not to mention more than in the briefest terms, if at all, is your scholarship and consequences of having to leave. That isn't relevant to these proceedings, and some professors would view it as unfair pressure on them. Finally, for whether you should lie to people back in your home country, those things are bound to come out, and the consequences could be severe. I would not recommend it.

You don't need to worry about the professor's time. Worry about making the right decision. It can easily take a week to schedule a meeting, and if you think you will seriously consider this school if you get off the waitlist, you need to act now to collect all the information you need to make your decision. If following the incident you have decided not to attend this school, that's a perfectly legitimate choice, but in that case you should let them know and maybe someone else can come off the waitlist instead of you. Otherwise, I assume your previous meeting with this POI when he was visiting your school didn't discuss issues like advising style, potential research projects, students placement records, etc. You need to have a conversation with this person as his potential student at least once before you accept an offer from his school.

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