fuzzylogician

Most of my work is done in collaborations. My dissertation is actually kind of an exception, where only two chapters (out of 5) came out of joint work. I will say this: I've had awesome collaborations and I've had meh collaborations. I think the most important factor in a successful collaboration is the personality match between collaborators, and that's something that's very hard to quantify or predict, but it's something you just know when you meet the person and talk to them. Sometimes someone rubs you the wrong way, or you get a weird vibe off of them. If that happens, even if it's someone who on paper it would be great to work with, or is famous or it would look good on my CV to have something with them, I just don't. Doing that in the past has caused me a lot of grief. Now I concentrate on the sustainable ones that I enjoy. Then there are also some technical aspects to collaborations that as a young researcher you need to learn to figure out, but I think they tend to depend on the group more than anything. Like discussing authorship very early; agreeing on how we communicate, how we technically keep shared work and who has access to it; who is responsible for which part of the work; operating procedures for if/when someone becomes busy and less responsive (happens to everyone at some point). I only work with people who I know I can trust. So if they are writing an abstract and I don't have time to take a look, I fully trust them to submit it with my name on it, and I know it's good and represents all our thoughts. Same goes the other way -- I expect to have the autonomy to make decisions myself, if a collaborator is not able to attend to our joint work in a reasonable amount of time. This is always tricky, especially when collaborating with older, more established researchers, but if someone is going to insist that nothing happens unless they personally approve it, and then they take months on end to reply to email, that is probably not worth maintaining. As a PI I think you choose students who you think can work well with you, and you facilitate conversations among students, as needed. You make yourself available to settle disputes and you try to prevent them before they happen if you think something might be brewing. Beyond that, you make the community around you pleasant and you make collaborations possible, but I don't think you can force them. (But, I am not in a lab science so it's not like anyone is required to collaborate on anything in particular, so things might be different for you.)

Why don't you reply to the email and ask when might be a good time to ask again about possible positions? Ask the prof to keep you in mind in the meanwhile in case anything comes up.

Hi there, I don't know what the point of this latest post even is, but I've merged it with some of your previous ones. Please stop opening multiple new threads unnecessarily, as they bump down other people's threads which deserve just as much attention as you do.

Not that we know that the wrong resume would spell disaster, but suppose it does mean 'no.' What harm could possibly come from sending a second email with the correct resume? You've already got a 'no.' Worst thing that can happen is nothing changes; in that case, you've lost nothing. But there is a chance that things could improve, so why not try?

If you need to physically be at the UK school until the end of September, there will be an obvious problem and I don't think any school will allow you to do that. If the question is just about the official date the degree will be conferred, that shouldn't matter. US schools don't usually require an MA degree from their applicants, a BA is sufficient.

Wait, suddenly it's 320 words, not 300 characters, that's a big difference. I assume you're also going to discuss these research experiences in your SOP, and your letter writers will discuss this in their letters.

Well, 300 characters is roughly 3 average length sentences. How much do you have to say? Do you have prior research assistant experience to describe? What skills would you want to talk about? If you are being *concise*, is there any way you could be close to the 300 character mark (in which case I'd say keep it under the limit), or would you write substantially more?

Hi there, you've opened 5 new topics in less than 24 hours. Please keep your questions in the same thread, if they are related. I've merged two of your questions that seem obviously related. You ask very general questions that we cannot answer with the information you provide. There is no set procedure that all PIs in all labs in all fields (since you don't tell us what field you are in) in all schools in all countries (since you don't tell us where you're applying, not even a continent) use when they receive resumes from students, just like there is no one way to assign TAships, and no one reason why a department would undergo structural changes (all things you've asked about today). Unless you give us more to go on, I'm afraid your questions will go unanswered, or all we can say is "it depends." In this particular case, here is a guess: it's unlikely that PIs share resumes they receive, because there doesn't seem to be a clear reason to do so. However, you won't know either way and if you are rejected from one position, all you can do is try for the next.

Depending on how much you have to say, my best bet would be not to write a flowery essay answer but rather give a list of the qualities, skills, or qualifications that would make you a good research assistant. For example, one important skill set is being able to deal with page/word/character limits, being concise, and getting your point across.

I'm sure there are reasons, but how could we possibly know what they are?

Weird thing I learned being on the job market: the places you applied to and didn't end up going to have a way of remembering you in a positive light. As if to say "we knew you were good way back when, glad to see you're still going strong." Even before then, I had multiple occasions of presenting at schools I declined, and not once was there any weirdness. Strong applicants routinely get accepted to more than one school, and schools are used to getting declined for some set of competitors. Unless you were outrageously obnoxious when you turned them down, you have nothing to worry about.

Means they are not done deciding who to make offers to, and implies that there are more students than open positions and some students may not get anything, or may not get exactly what they want. Depends on the department and its policies. No way we can know. Contact whoever gave you the information you quoted above and ask them if there is anything you should do now.

What good would it do you to delete the email? Email back, apologize, and attach the correct resume.

In general the thing to focus on is how your research fits with that of the professors/labs at each school. To do a good job at that, you need to choose schools that can complement and support your research. If you've done a good job at that, the fit portion of the SOP more or less writes itself, because it should be obvious. Sounds like you're well on your way to doing that. It's also useful to mention facilities, labs, libraries, access to special communities or any other unusual resources a school has to offer, as long as it's linked to your research in some way. It shows that you've done your legwork and have actually given some thought to why each school is right for you. You can learn a lot about what a school is proud of by reading their website. If they stress the importance of working within the community and that's something you at least find interesting, comment on that. If they talk a lot about the importance of teaching experience, talk about why that's something drawing you to that school. You get the idea. You can have a couple of sentences about these unique things that draw you to each school, but I would put them after explaining the fit with the professors, which should be the primary reason you choose to apply to a school.

Two months is definitely long enough to wait. I'd forward the original email with some text to effect that "maybe you didn't get my last email so I'm emailing again." Do it Monday midday or Tuesday morning, after they've had time to deal with email from the weekend and last week. There is a better chance for your email to be noticed and not drowned out by other noise that way. It is the summer vacation so it's entirely possible that emails get lost or ignored, if the prof is not reading email while they are away from their office; this tends to mean you have to attend to a huge pile of emails when you're back, which can lead to lower priority emails getting pushed back and eventually forgotten (this is not a good excuse, but it does happen). If you don't hear back again, I'd wait until the school year begins and email roughly two weeks into the semester, after the the craziness of the new year is generally over and people settle into a routine. At that point if you don't hear back and there is no reason to suspect the person isn't reading their email, I might take that as a sign to move on.

I end every email with a request with "Thanks/Thank you/Thank you very much" depending on how well I know the person and how difficult I expect it to be to deal with my request. For simple stuff I usually don't reply again, especially if it's someone I know and what they did for me was part of their job description. I might say thanks in person, if appropriate. For more formal requests, people I don't know, or if I asked for something that required someone to go out of their way to help, I'll reply again with a thanks.

I saw your post yesterday and came back to write a reply, but frankly I'm not much into passive-aggressive and definitely not into people not appreciating the time it takes to write here. So, the shortest reply this deserves: Assuming you're applying in the US (which you didn't tell us), you don't need to have a dissertation topic in mind. What is useful to have is a broad question, or alternatively be able to articulate a specific interest in a subfield. You can give more than one example of particular questions that are derivatives of the more general interest. If your interests sound very broad or if you say you are interested in unrelated subfields or questions, there is a risk of sounding unfocused or unprepared. It'd be better to tie your interests together, for example through a broad research question that can be attacked from different angles. Demonstrate how the different aspects of what you are interested in come together. This will help you address fit with the schools, which is hard to do if you don't have a good idea of what you want to go to grad school for.

So you're going to start attending your school somewhere around January or February of 2016? If so, there is nothing you need to do right now. You should contact whoever you've been corresponding with about the deferral to ask when they'll issue the new funding offer and to ask if there is anything else that needs to happen. The bureaucracy and timeline are completely school dependent so no one here will be able to tell you what to expect. Around the time they tell you to expect the new offer letter, I'd email just to make sure everything is in order and to ask if there is any other information you can provide to speed the process along. People usually deal with visa-related bureaucracy maybe 3 months before beginning school in the fall, so I would assume something similar holds for spring admissions. You could contact your school's International Students Office to ask about their timeline and when you should send a reminder if you don't hear from them. It's possible that they'll need something from your department before they can continue on their end, and that's good to know so you can inform whoever is taking care of your case at your department. As for your professor, you could email again around the beginning of the school year, if you want to get a head start on reading maybe, but really there is nothing you need to do before you arrive.

Depending on the location and your field, it might be perfectly fine to wear nice jeans and a short sleeves blouse or buttoned shirt, or wear slacks if you're not sure if jeans are appropriate. I second the suggestion to bring a sweater, just in case, and wear comfortable shoes.

You should know the flight numbers & times of all your flights to help you find it on the boards in the airport, but you don't need to print the receipt or the itinerary. If you check-in online, you'll need to print your boarding pass at home (this will be possible roughly 24-48 hours before your flight), or you can check in and print your boarding pass at the airport, in which case all you need to bring is you passport and visa-related documents. It's also useful to know the booking number for your ticket. Another thing to keep handy: the computer and/or person at the check-in counter will ask you for your address while in the US. Have that written somewhere that's easy to access. (If you don't have an apartment yet, you can give them the address for the hotel you'll stay at while searching for an apartment, or your department's address.)

The SSN stays the same. That said, if there is a way not to give it in the applications, I would do that. The schools don't actually need it -- they do just fine with international students who don't have a SSN at all. It'd be just a bunch more databases your SSN would sit in that could get hacked and end up causing you a lot of grief. Identity theft is a real problem in the US.

The program is taught in English, no French required. Knowing French in Montreal is useful but not necessary. You can absolutely get by just with English.

In my field it's not exactly that the journal is (usually) hosted by an institution but the editors will often come from the same institution or somehow share a theoretical affinity, be friends, maybe publish together. So if you only submit to your advisor's journal, there could be some concern. As I said above, I actually think the better worry is about having papers in many of the major relevant journals of your field, not just one or two, and more importantly choosing the right journal to reach the appropriate audience with your work.

I wouldn't worry. I think in the future it is important to also submit to other journals so you have a nice breadth to your CV, and if you'd asked me before submitting I might have said choose a journal that's not related to your previous institution just to be safe (depending on the politics behind the journal), but since it's accepted I wouldn't touch it now and instead set my sights on a different journal for my next submission. Congrats!

Ask around or google the journal to make sure. If you got this email from someone you've never heard of, this is probably a spam email they send around to anyone who might bite. They usually go something like "We saw your talk [talk title] and think you are an expert in [vague field]. We would like to invite you to submit this work to our journal." Often the journal doesn't even sound like it's particularly related to your work. If this is the case, archive the email or send it to spam. The only thing to take seriously is an actual personalized email from someone you know, from a journal you've heard of.