fuzzylogician

I did this -- started a Masters to improve my chances of getting into a good PhD program, got into my first choice, and never finished the Masters. I did verify with the school that they wouldn't mind. If that's the case for you, I say save your money. The Masters has never been an issue for me, not for grants or fellowships, not for jobs, not for anything else, it just never comes up and no one cares.

Any chance to set up a Skype meeting with this POI? There is politics that may be worrisome, but it's worth actually taking the time to figure out if you get along with the person. It's too bad that you didn't get to do this while you were there, but you should try again. That said, I think that going to a school where there is just one person who is a good fit is dangerous for a variety of reasons, even if there was no conflict at all. And you should take general placement rates with a huge grain of salt; what really matters is what happens to your potential advisor's students and more generally how things are looking in your subfield.

Please do not post the same question multiple times. To reply, go here:

You can reply and say you haven't decided yet. You do realize this is information they will be able to find out themselves, because at some point you'll be on the 'students' page on your chosen university's website and it'll be on your CV and be presented as your affiliation at any presentation and on any publication? This is not exactly secret information.

Yes, this happens. Like with anything else in life, some people will be less prepared, or won't think their decisions through before acting. But with the amount of emphasis that regular gradcafe posters put on 'fit' throughout the process, from long before applications are due and through making decisions on where to attend, I can't help but be bewildered at your puzzlement over whether you are the only one who finds this behavior less than satisfactory: of course you aren't!

Honestly, I think my assessment is that there is no way to handle the situation. Your advisor has a particular work style that is incompatible with yours. It seems highly unlikely to me that he will change. So your options are (i) learning to adapt, or (ii) changing advisors. One part of learning to adapt might mean that you need to sit down with him and understand what his expectations actually are. If he sends you 100 comments hours before a major deadline, does he actually expect you to have them done in time? Or does he expect you to be able to identify the important ones? Or can you ignore them, basically, and use it to learn for next time? If he has wholly unrealistic expectations, that is a big concern and will not go away, unless he is very new and is (maybe!) able to learn and adapt his mentoring style, e.g. if multiple students are coming to him telling him he has unrealistic expectations. In that case, I would try to figure out how his other students are handling it--maybe they have advice that would help you. If he expects you to only do what's important, then you need to figure out how to do that, so there is some learning to be done on your part which is hard but important. Maybe you need to sit down with him with old comments and walk through and classify his comments into important and less important. If his comments are broader-scope and not intended to be adopted last minute, that is yet another different story. Another aspect of this story is his expectations on your time. You said you wouldn't be available over break, but then you did a lot of last-minute work. You need to mean it if you say you will be unavailable, or not be surprised when people don't take you seriously when you say that. Different advisors will have different expectations here, and if your advisor has expectations that are incompatible with what you are comfortable with, that is again a reason to consider switching advisors. Keep in mind, though, that you are the student and he is the advisor, and you can't really say things like "I made it clear that I will only do XYZ" if he is expecting something else--he is the one who decides. You can negotiate with him to bring his expectations to a place you're comfortable with, but remember that this is not an equal relationship. Before you make any decisions, I think you should gather information from more advanced students, and you should talk to your advisor about your work styles, his expectations, and your progress. Do it in person and try to be clear and upfront, because sometimes we have a way of reading more into people's words and emails than they intended. Maybe what you understand as him being upset really isn't that. But at the end of the day, it sounds to me like this person is just not a good fit for you for personality reasons, and you will be unhappy working with him, because he will continue doing this and it's just something you don't enjoy. (And by the way, your title is misleading, I think. It's not that you are not getting feedback, but that you are getting it on a timeline you are unhappy with. Those are two very different problems.)

I think that question is too specific, and also depends on the amount of funding you will receive, which we can't know. Have you tried asking the international students office directly? Even if you don't have a decision yet, the ISO should know approximate numbers for students in similar situations. Also: please do not cross-post the same question multiple times. This is the correct place for the question and I am keeping it here; I removed your other five identical posts of this question.

They're doing you a huge favor. It's good to know there is no funding in your subfield before committing to the school, and they would be doing you a disservice if they sugar coated it. I also had occasions where after telling someone where else I was admitted, they proceeded to tell me bad things about those schools. The only thing that taught me was that I did not want to work with that person. The best places where those that had only good things to say about their competitors and told me any choice would be good for me. And yeah, I would have a very bad reaction to anyone saying that women weren't as smart as men. Again, though, they are doing you a favor. Better to discover the misogynists now than have to work with them later.

Yeah, this is nothing to worry about. And is yet another reason why students should not view their LORs -- so much unnecessary drama and speculation is read into a situation that warrants none of it.

It means the committee decided to award you funding on a TAship, and now there is some administrative process that they need to go through to get it officially approved. Sounds like they don't expect any problems and unless something goes very unexpectedly wrong, you will have this position.

I'm not going to give you a template but I would say you scout out the ones who you think are interesting, and you write an email introducing yourself and asking for a Skype meeting. In that meeting, you ask your questions about whether they are taking students, and how they deal with students will less background, and everything else that is on your mind. The subject line can say "Skype meeting request" or similar. People will have different expectations so we can't really answer your questions for you, you will just have to talk to everyone who you think might be relevant. Don't attach a resume. Keep it short. They should know your name, since you're an admitted student and there can't be too many of those. And since you say you're expected to find an advisor before arriving, they will be expecting to get these emails from students.

It's not commonly done but of course not impossible. What happens a lot more often is that you apply to schools that seem like a good fit on paper, and if/when you get admitted, they will often fly you out to visit some time before you make a decision about which school to attend (or: in some fields they have on-campus interviews for finalists). It could still be expensive (one school will usually not be able to cover the entire cost of the trip) but if you combine funding from several schools you could travel at no expense, and anyway it will be cheaper than going on your own. You will also get more attention and will be taken more seriously as an admitted student than as a random person who hasn't even applied yet. I can tell you personally that I am more inclined to share certain tidbits of information with people who it's relevant for (=admitted students who will work in a particular subfield or with a particular person).

I'm sorry to hear that. More details (in no particular order): - What caused you to get fired? You don't have to answer that or give details, but it would help to know if there was a problem that is outside of your control and if you are given another chance, it should work out, or if there was a bigger problem that would be a red flag to any future advisor/employer. - What is your current status--are you finishing year 1 of 2, or can you not even finish year 1? - Is it possible for you to stay and finish the degree without funding? What happens if you leave in the middle? - Does your immigration status depend on having funding? - Is there a chance to get funding from another professor in your department? - Can you still apply for anything at another university for next year? It seems a little late in the season to get started with applications; can your advisor help with that? - Do you expect the letter from your advisor to be strong? Are there other professors who will write you strong letters?

No, it doesn't knock you out of the running. It's a minor error that obviously doesn't mean anything. Let it go.

Not in SLP, but in general: if there is a school where you were interviewed/waitlisted or where you had some personal communication with a professor, you could try to follow up. If you got a rejection without any prior communication you could still try, but the chances that you'll get useful feedback are much lower. What you want is to talk to someone who you know thought favorably of you, and preferably you want to talk to a school that was considering you in sufficient detail that they'll both remember you and want to help you, where you almost made it and would have been a good fit, but just missed the cut. If you're planning to reapply to a school, it's worth a shot. But don't get your hopes up -- in many cases you might not get any feedback, or nothing useful.

Best thing to do, if they already acknowledge that your work "inspired" theirs, is to explicitly ask them to cite you. Can you do that? I assume there is actually something written up that can be cited (even if it's just a handout/slides), otherwise this is a lot trickier. At the same time, if you haven't already, you might consider posting a manuscript on your website or some repository, if that is done in your field, to establish that you got there first. In my field, it's very common to cite unpublished manuscripts and the credit goes to the person who came up with the idea first, not the person who was published first. Have you tried talking with your advisor about this? Also, what is the status of the other person -- a peer, or someone more established? That too makes a difference in how you might want to proceed. Is it someone in your department who you can just take aside? A student of your advisor's, where your advisor can just instruct them to add your paper to the citation list?

In that case you definitely don't need a new laptop. I think it makes a lot more sense for you to start your program with the laptop you have, and if, after a while, you discover that your needs are not met by the laptop you currently own, then you can get yourself a newer one. By that point you should also know if there is a particular brand that people prefer. Sometimes there is software in certain fields that dictates that everyone uses Windows or Mac computers, so that's something to find out about before you make any decisions. I personally came with a then about-two-year-old Lenovo laptop and had it for the first three years of my program, then friends convinced me to get a Macbook Air, which is what most people in my field seem to have. I like it fine, but I haven't become a convert like many people I know. It's nice, but honestly I don't know if it's worth that extra money and hype. But in any event, that's something you can figure out later, probably a few years from now, when you actually have a reason to buy a newer laptop.

This is really a question for your advisor. I would guess that (1) not being able to make the deadline would not by itself be a problem: you write the editors to request more time, and I would bet you could easily get 2-4 more weeks. You could probably also ask for a second extension if you needed it (but of course there may be external deadlines or other considerations that could lead to a different answer than my guess here). (2) If you can't make the deadline and also don't want to pursue the paper any longer, you could write the editors to apologize and withdraw the submission; I again don't foresee any trouble with doing that. No reason why you couldn't submit to that journal again. (3) Now for the kicker: this is a co-authored paper. Backing out will hurt not only you but your advisor as well. Here I think there is a lot less leeway. Backing out on commitments to co-authors will legitimately piss them off. Since this is someone who is writing you letters and who you want to keep on your side, you need to do damage control. You need to sit with your advisor and tell him that your priorities have shifted and you can't make the deadline (and/or you can't contribute to this paper any longer) and you want his advice on what to do next. Your advisor could choose to press on with the submission without you as a co-author, or to withdraw, but you need to reach an agreement before you do anything else. Once you have a strategy, do not simply neglect or ignore this paper; write the editors to inform them of your decision as soon as possible, and make sure your correspondence is strictly professional. If you maintain an appropriate behavior, it shouldn't hurt your ability to return to a PhD program or publish with this journal in the future.

This is not the right place for your post. You should read the relevant post in the City Guide forum and post questions there. You could also try posting in the Meet and Greet forum, if you are looking for others who are also going to Yale next year.

Well, what are your post-PhD goals? There is hardly any case in which I would recommend this to someone who wants a career in academia. At most I would say, you can try to be on track to graduating in four years and go on the job market early, so you can file your dissertation if you magically get your dream job that first time around. However, most likely, your first time on the job market will not yield what you might hope for, especially as a relatively unknown student with just three years of experience (since you will be applying in the beginning of your fourth year). An extra fully funded, carefree year to write and publish without the complication of also teaching/service (not to mention the job insecurity you are likely to experience at your first job, and the time you will spend applying for more jobs once you get there) will be extra helpful. I think that extra year is invaluable in terms of experience, ability to publish, network, etc., and to prep you for what will come next.

Yeah, that sounds pretty normal. If you're choosing among several options, whatever you do, you are giving up on these other possible futures. You're never going to know what might have been; but that's true regardless of your choice. It's ok to worry, but try to remember what led you to choose this path. The program that accepted you had its reasons for doing so, and it'll be able to support you and train you. I'm sure it'll work out just fine.

You need to understand that you are in the wrong and the professor is in the right. No one is going to intervene on your behalf, and going over the professor's head and complaining to the department or higher ups isn't going to do you any good. You are the one who failed the final. 40% is a decent percentage for a final, not something that he is "at fault" for. In fact, with that weight for the final, it should actually be impossible for you to fail the class if you got perfect scores on the first 60% of your grade. Even to get a total of 80% on your final grade you will have to have gotten 50/100 on your final, which you will agree is not a good score. If failing is below 70%, you will have gotten less than 25% on your final. Again, none of this demonstrates anything but your sole responsibility for this outcome. In any event, you could talk to the professor to ask for some extra credit work to bring up your grade, given that you were doing well prior to the final. The professor might be inclined to agree if you accept responsibility and ask for mercy, but certainly not if you blame him. I don't think that saying that you're a graduate student in an undergrad class should make your case any stronger. If anything, I expect more of graduate students than undergrads, not less. You should also stop saying (and thinking) that he owes you something or that he is "ruining everything" for you. There was a published syllabus with a grade breakdown, and the only one who caused your low score is you.

I have a lot less experience with industry, so you should seek advice from people who hold the kind of jobs you'd want to have. But I'd bet some sizable chunk of money that industry employers google potential employees, too. So some web presence is important. But maybe what makes sense is not to have a personal webpage but to maintain a LinkedIn (or similar) profile. You should consult with someone in your field who knows more.

If you're planning to apply for a PhD, I think you should create a webpage before you start working on your applications. It can be barebones: one page that just lists your interests, current affiliation, and any projects you're working on (papers, presentations -- I assume there won't be enough for separate pages, and that's ok at this stage). You put a link to a pdf of your CV, your contact info, a picture, and that's an entirely respectable one-page website for a beginning researcher. It helps to have a web presence for applications, and if you have Google analytics, it will help you know who is searching for you. There are free services that will help you create a simple website without needing to be at all tech savvy.