fuzzylogician

flights.google.com is good if you are flexible, it will show you if it's better to fly a couple of days earlier or later than you had planned more easily than other search engines I know. For actual price comparison, I usually then also look at hipmunk and kayak (hipmunk is my favorite). Sometimes I see something there that google didn't show me. If the entire flight is with one company, I will also go on the company website to see if I can buy the ticket directly there, but usually it's cheaper through the search engine.

You're in the UK (right?) so I'm not sure this will be useful because things might be very different. But: for service in your department, you can generally do one of two things. Either reply to an email asking for volunteers for something, or (better, I think) identify the position you would like to have, and find a way to volunteer for it. My department was very organized, and very student centric. Students run 3-4 reading groups weekly, a colloquium series, a less formal brown bag lunch series, each run by two students on a rotating basis (you volunteer for a year, normally), and there are two student reps that attend faculty meetings and so on. On top of that there was an occasional other thing that needed a volunteer like sitting on a committee, help with the weekly newsletter, etc. We had student meetings at the beginning and end of each semester, and a bunch of these positions were discussed and got volunteers. If your department isn't as organized (most aren't), you probably need to identify the thing you want to do and ask how you can get involved with it. For example, if there is a colloquium series, if you ask to get involved I bet no one will say no. It's a lot of work, but you also learn a lot. Or if someone is organizing a conference or workshop around you, ask if they need students to help out. For all of these things, it probably makes sense to first get to the new school and spend at least a few weeks, maybe a semester, just observing and learning what's out there. There will be enough difficulty adjusting without taking on extra responsibilities that first semester. For university-level work, again there are the two ways to get involved that I already mentioned. If you read the emails from your graduate student union, I bet almost each one will say they are looking for volunteers for something or other, and once in a while there will be an email asking for student-volunteers for some university-level committee like hiring a new Dean, etc. Or you can just go to the student union and ask how to get involved. For society-level work, I guess I am not sure if there is a UK-specific linguistic society (since your signature says you're a linguist); if you are a member of the LSA, there are several committees that anyone can volunteer for, for example a relevant one is COSIAC (the Committee on Student Issues and Concerns) and there are committees concentrating on minorities and women's issues. Members live all over, so a lot happens over email.

Sounds like you've had a pretty bad year, I'm very sorry. There is a lot to disentangle here, so this post will be long. The end of a relationship is never easy. Getting cheated on sucks and is unfair. I assume it happened not long after you moved/started your new job, based on your timeline, and I'm sure that didn't help either. Not having close friends around probably didn't help deal with the situation, and I would bet the pressure and anxiety that's associated with the job market made it even worse. This is all to say that it's understandable that you're feeling down, I think anyone would be. You say the job market ate up a lot of your time and you did nothing other than teach for a while. I understand, it wasn't all that different for me this year. It was my second year on the job market and I have to say that last year's experience helped, but there was one semester this year where I taught and traveled to interviews and basically did nothing else. I don't think this is unusual, based on my friend's experiences too. That said, if your new colleagues only saw you sad, confused, extremely busy or gone a lot, and not really getting research done, they may have the wrong idea about who you are and what you are about. It sucks that they judge you and jump to conclusions, but that's their bad, not yours. I really don't think your actions were different than anyone else's in your situation would be, so either they are impatient, or inexperienced, or not a good personality match (I think that much is a given), but either way, as have2thinkboutit says, I think this school may not be the best place for you. You talk about "the email," so I would assume they consulted with each other and together decided not to do it? Then it's not four rejections but one, not that I think it sucks much less. Anyway, it doesn't matter. In that sense, the fact that they say they don't want to sponsor you for a fellowship might be doing you a favor. If they can sense you are unhappy there, they are helping you find a place where you can fit. I tend to think people are not evil, but they can be selfish and self-serving. The comment that it would be too much work is very telling. But if they don't want to put in the work, you can't make them. I would write this place off, invest my time in another successful year on the job market without making the effort to collaborate with anyone there (which will free up time and emotional resources), and plan on moving to a new place next year, whatever happens. That is, I am going with your "happy self" that enjoys what you're doing, and ignoring the hurt feelings that come from having bad things happen to you that you can't control. With regard to getting papers rejected and your research being stalled: rejection is something that happens to everyone. If it's your first one, congratulations. You have been extremely lucky so far. It sucks that the rejection coincided with other bad things in your life, but you have to learn to deal with it. If you haven't yet, pick the paper up, make whatever changes do make sense from your reviews, and submit it to another journal. Regarding feeling stalled, since you say you are spending your summer writing up multiple papers, I assume that's not really so. Being on the job market can slow you down, especially when your emotions are already all over the place. It sounds to me that you are doing everything you should be. It'll take time to get papers accepted if you didn't submit anything this year, but it'll happen, there is no reason to assume otherwise. And here I want to come to my main point. You describe the following situation: (success,) (success,) success, success, success, success, success, failure. Of course, it's possible that this was a turning point and now there will be a streak of failures. But there is no evidence to support this in your narrative. You had one bad year, but even as this bad year ends you are starting new collaborations and already writing new papers. Therefore, it's inevitable to conclude that this was an isolated incident and your future will be as bright as your past has been. Of course, the job market is difficult and one never knows, but if I were a betting person, I'd put my money on you. Again, if I were a betting person, I would bet that your panic attacks stem from the fact that you did everything right and still couldn't stop a series of bad things from happening to you. I can imagine if it were me, I would want to be able to put my finger on something I did wrong and could improve, to make sure it never happens again. Having no control over the situation is very difficult. My advice is twofold: first, keep doing what you're doing. The chances of this bad thing happening again are minuscule, and you cannot plan your life around avoiding it. Second, do something new, non-academic. It would help you feel better to have good memories associated with your town, not just rejections and failed relationships. Plan to leave next year, but leave on a high note. Pick up a new hobby, find a meetup group you like -- anything, and start living a full life there. Lastly, I want to take time to address a couple of the suggestions that were made in the posts above mine. First, I do think there is something to have2thinkboutit's thought that the place you are at right now is not the best place for you. However, I would not go as far as to leave or take a break, unless you really feel like that is at the root of what is affecting your mental health. It sounded like your postdoc has already been extended and you are committed to being there, and if so then I would make it work -- perhaps mentally disengage from the people -- and plan to move next year, with enough time to do it professionally and not last-minute. Taking an impromptu break might leave a hole that's hard to fill on your CV and make it unnecessarily difficult for you on the job market. Plan to be elsewhere this time next year; it helps to have a plan and an end-point to the situation. Second, I don't think this one incident on your first year on the job market is any indication that you should be applying to lower tier schools or that you did anything wrong (and frankly, ivorytowerunlocked, I was surprised and confused by your comparison between this person's situation and a woman-hater, as well as by the suggestion to take multiple years to improve the research and grants before applying again). OP, you say that aside from the unfortunate ending, you did well on the job market. If it was unheard of, etc., then we must conclude that it will not happen again and next time will be successful and stay successful. Aim high and don't flinch. Conclusions should be drawn based on data, not anecdotes. And the data says your aim should be true. Good luck, I hope this helps.

Just to follow up, I've moved from a country where it never snows to successively colder and snowier areas over the years. The first winter is the most difficult, and after that you body kind of gets used to it. One tip is to only buy winter gear in the city where you're moving to. Your winter gear from your non-cold city will not be sufficient, but at the new place they will know what you need. On top of that, I needed to actively teach myself that *sunny does not mean warm*. In fact, the sunny days are some of the coldest in the winter. Also, days are not necessarily warmer than nights. You can't make any prediction except by checking the forecast. Take a moment to check out how people are dressed outside when you are getting ready to leave to give you an idea of how cold it is outside. Stay warm -- for me, a scarf is essential long before I whip out the gloves or hat. Plan for extra commute time; things are slower if you're walking or driving in snow/ice, especially right after fresh snow has fallen and before the streets have been cleared. You'll also want extra time at the office to change your shoes and clothes. This year, my 20-minute summer commute took 25 minutes in the snow and 30 minutes when it was icy. And finally, in my new city this year, I had to eventually get campons. It sometimes got so icy that even my best winter boots couldn't deal with it; I could not walk anywhere without those spikes.

This has been discussed some in the past. Here are some links:

This is a tough one. I understand your reluctance to grade in a way that feels unfair to you. However, you need to follow the primary instructor/TA manager's lead on this one. It's not fair to the students that points get taken off for the same issue by all but one TA. If this is how the other TAs are doing things, and the instructor is happy, there is very little you can do. You can ask about the rubric and specific issues you encounter, but if you're instructed to pay close attention to XYZ, you can't just decide that it's too nit-picky or not worth your attention. While you may see things differently, and you may very well be correct in how you see it, you are not in charge. One day, if and when you are in charge, you can instruct your TAs to grade however you see fit. For now, you need to conform to what is requested of you, unless there are very extreme circumstances (like, someone is asking you to given a B to someone who is doing F-level work), which doesn't seem to be the case here.

In addition to the links rising_star posted, is another link to a discussion of this topic with links to other previous threads.

(moved here from the Applications forum)

Hi there, the process of coming up with an idea that could be developed into actionable research is one of the most difficult parts of being a student, and generally of doing research. No one here will just give you an idea. Even if we did, it probably wouldn't help. The topic you work on is something that needs to come from you. It should be something that you are personally interested in, so that you can sustain several years of research on it. You should be talking to your advisors, revisiting papers you have written for classes, and generally doing a lot of reading. By doing this, you will discover that there are some questions that interest you more than others. Once you identify those, you need to do more reading to learn the background of what is already known. Through this process, you'll also start identifying "holes" in the research, and this is where you can contribute. At that point, your advisors should be able to help you turn your ideas into a research proposal. Good luck!

I did a lot of department-level and a bit of university-level service while in grad school. Right now I am mostly doing national service with my field's professional association.* I think TakeruK summarized the benefits that can be had from doing service very well. I do things that don't require too much of a time commitment but do require some initiative (=for anything to happen, there needs to be someone whose job it is to stay on top of things and delegate/get stuff done). It's helped me learn how things really operate behind the scenes in a way that I think most grad students are kind of oblivious to. In the grand scheme of things, I think it's useful for understanding academia if you want an academic job and it has benefits if you want a non-academic job. That said, most people don't get involved in service, and there are good reasons for that. It's not particularly valued, compared to other things that you could spend your time on (research!, and even teaching), and it can be very frustrating. It seems to me that there is a kind of person who gets involved and a kind of person who doesn't. The ones who stay at it are the ones who learn to enjoy it and grow from it, and the ones who leave or don't get involved in the first place are the ones who can't stand the thumb twiddling and time waste that can often happen. * I put aside abstract/manuscript reviewing, which is something everyone in academia does on some level. I am more thinking about committee/event organizing type service here.

1. What carrier is best depends on where you'll be. Coverage may vary. Your best bet is to ask a current student, but someone here is likely to know too if you want to share your future location. 2. You can either go to a large store (Wallmart, Target, RadioShack, etc.) or to a retail store of whatever carrier you choose. You can browse online ahead of time to know what plan you want (some carriers have more than one pre-paid plan). I've never heard of the company in your link. I don't know why you'd need that as opposed to a normal contract with a local carrier. The plans aren't particularly cheap.

Yes, you can apply with that transcript. Once your transcript for the Fall becomes available, you might want to send it to the schools you're applying to and ask them to update your application. If you're admitted, your admissions will be conditional upon you graduating on time with your BA. They'll probably want to see a transcript or BA certificate in the summer, before you start your graduate program in the Fall. (All of which is to say, this is standard operating procedure for anyone applying while still in school, it's not a problem.)

I'm currently re-watching Criminal Minds. Ever since they added a Linguist to the team, I can't help but cringe at her lines. Most recently "the worst thing you can do to a linguist is not communicate" |shudder|. I keep up with Orange is the New Black, House of Cards (the original British series is awesome too!), Scandal, Grey's Anatomy. Older favorites: Arrested Development, The Killing, NCIS, CSI: NY. This is making me realize I spend too much time on Netflix

Finally Accepted -- my memory is the same. The OP mentioned having graduated and said she was moving to a new PhD program. She was concerned about the professor's influence on this new program. I think it was clear that the OP is not, and will not be interacting with this professor on a daily basis, will not have her on a committee or really in any capacity that could affect her as a graduate student, and she had already gotten into a PhD program, so there is no danger of the professor affecting the OP's admissions chances. As you say, we never got a clear answer to whether the professor knew what her boyfriend did, and certainly there was no evidence that the professor asked the boyfriend to do anything. In any event as has been noted already, even if she knew, apologizing or not is not a measurement of guilt, and how you or I would feel and act if it were our partner is irrelevant. There is a good chance that the professor didn't apologize because that could be taken as an admission of guilt. Beyond that, everything is speculation.

He means at immigration, when you cross the border into the US. They'll have this kind of short chat with you about where you are coming from and where you are going every time you enter the US.

Fixed it! For future reference, "B )" written together automatically turns into the smily .

I generally agree with your post, just chiming in to say that some people do require the occasional validation, and I think that's a perfectly legitimate thing to want. The thing is, OP, you have to realize that some advisors just can't give it to you, because that's just not their advising style. So either you can learn to accept how your advisor works (=realize that no news means "you are doing well", and they will let you know if there is any problem), or if this is something you can't do without, you may need to find alternative ways of getting what you need. It's possible that more advanced students can give you that and it seems to me that this a good place to look for this support, or in the extreme case you may need to find a new advisor.* * My post above comes from my own non-lab-based perspective, where you'd talk to your advisor but you wouldn't necessarily expect older students to help you with projects or answer your questions. In light of St Ansdrews Lynx's post, I think she's right that you should first look at whether what you are looking for can be offered within your lab, by peers.

^ echoing the above: you need to figure out if this is normal operating procedure for your professor. The best way to do that is to talk to other Masters and PhD students. Do they all have the same experience? Has it always been this way or is there something going on in the professor's life? Frankly, I think having a conversation with the professor may have limited impact on the situation. If this is how he advises students, he is not suddenly going to go from a few minutes a month to, say, an hour a week. You may have substantially different needs and expectations from the advising relationship. If that's the case, accept that likely he will not change. Either you can learn to make the situation work, or -- since in this case the gap seems too wide to bridge -- you may need to look for another advisor, whose advising style is more compatible with your needs. (To be clear, I think what you want is entirely reasonable! I just think that if someone gives you something substantially different than that, and is used to doing that for everyone, it's hard to imagine that they can change enough to accommodate your needs. It's a recipe for frustration and dysfunction.) The time to recognize that is as early as possible, so you can identify a more suitable advisor without too much loss of work. On the other hand, if this is "just you," it's perhaps more addressable but it still doesn't sound good. I don't think I could work long-term with someone who I feel doesn't think I'm worth their time. Again, my advice about seeking other mentors stands. Here, though, a conversation may have more of an impact. I would concretely try to establish weekly/bi-weekly meetings. And again, having information from other students about what their experience is like will help. It'd be different if they had regular meetings as first/second years or if he only schedules meetings when needed. Knowing that can help steer the conversation in more helpful directions.

I'm not an Ed person but my best advice is to spend some time on the websites of the programs you are planning to apply for. Identify the early-career (first-year, maybe second-year) students, find the ones with websites, and look at their CVs. That will give you the best idea of what the profiles of recent admitees look like, and more specifically how they structure their CVs. More generally, I think the CV should be tailored to your strengths and to the situation. If you are applying to programs that emphasize teaching/practical experience, then your teaching should be front and center. If the program highlights its commitment to research, then the research should come first, though depending on exactly how weak your research experience is / how strong your teaching experience is, I might make different decisions. If you are applying to research-centric programs but highlight your teaching in your CV, you need to make sure that your SOP addresses your choice to apply to a research heavy program despite your relative lack of experience, to show that you understand the nature of the program and have considered your fit with it.

Obviously it won't help, but linguistics is a small enough field that (as far as I know) all applications are given at least some consideration, and there are no strict cutoffs like in fields that get hundreds of applications for a dozen spots (e.g. in Psychology, from what I know). So as long as there is a clear upward trend and your grades in linguistics are good, I think you should be ok if the rest of your application is strong. If you are concerned, you might consider either having a short explanation in your SOP or some supplemental document or alternatively having one of your recommenders mention your grades in their LOR. I am not sure it's needed in this case, but it's something to consider.

One reason we think it is important that a record of the posts is kept is to correctly represent the context of the thread, so it remains useful to future readers. Here, for example, you are now saying that I made "abusive accusations" against you. I was responding to your own words in your now deleted original post where you said that you wanted to get your professor into trouble with the university, because of something that her boyfriend did off campus and which we have no evidence that she was involved in in any way. You may have meant something innocent, but those words carry a meaning that is not innocent. I don't think it's reasonable to ask us to stop referring to your posts simply because you don't like the answers you have received, especially since you are calling us out by name. I assume that you don't like the answers you have received because throughout you have been down-voting every post that suggests that the situation may have been more complicated than your interpretation of it, and you up-voted everyone who supported your interpretation. I have nothing more to add except responding to your latest reply to me to clarify that I have never mentioned Northwestern in any of my posts so I am not sure what you are referring to there, and I stand by what I did say (which, by the way, are my opinions, as a poster like any other). However, if you wish, I will stop responding specifically to your case in the future. More generally, moderators on this site are not paid. We volunteer our time to help others, and we want to make sure that our replies can help as many people as possible, hence the record keeping and policy against deleting posts. I am sorry if you feel that the responses you have gotten here have been unhelpful, but as has already been explained and I will not repeat at length, you can't control what people say. Maybe once some of the emotions linked with this situation and thread subside you can see that we were trying to help, and if not perhaps someone who comes in with a similar story in the future and reads this thread will. Whatever happens, I wish you luck and working through this obviously difficult situation and I hope that you can find a way to resolve it to your satisfaction.

The fact that you can claim that you: - have a fair amount of experience with your university's Title IX office - know that submitting a complaint does not initiate legal proceedings - know that they will refer you to the correct office - know that the first step is to contact the Dean's office suggests to me that you may have a history of over/mis-interpreting your professors' actions and perhaps filing complaints that are not found justified. Perhaps the fact that those of us who were able to read your original post found your reading of the situation somewhat misguided can help you rethink why you want to file this complaint against a person who I believe you called a mentor in your (now deleted) original post, and whether or not it's warranted. You cannot control what people post in this thread, despite the fact that you started it. Everyone is allowed to post their opinion, and as long as the language is not offensive, it is perfectly fine for there to be disagreements. Discussions can naturally develop in different direction and our priority is to both facilitate the current discussion and ensure that the advice is relevant for future board members as well (and therefore the fact that you deleted your original post after receiving thoughtful feedback is against our board policies, and frankly quite disrespectful to the people who took the time to read and comment on your post). If you feel like the conversation no longer contributes to your situation, you can choose not to participate in it anymore.

Your story doesn't mention even one action that the professor did wrong. She didn't ask you questions about the conversation the chair had with you and what you said, she wasn't pressuring you to do or say anything, she wasn't the one who had any contact with you at the restaurant. We have no evidence that she told her boyfriend to yell at you or dump the water on you, and she certainly didn't do those things. She is not responsible for the actions of another adult. You say this happened weeks ago and you haven't had any more recent contact with her. I am not sure what makes you suddenly think that she is unstable or dangerous. How would you know she hates you if you have had no contact with her? This seems unfounded to me. Frankly, I am concerned about your assertion that you want to get her into trouble because of this perceived opinion you think she has of you, and I hope that you will think long and hard before you take action that could damage a person's career for no concrete reason.

I'm not teaching in the Fall so I am combining two conferences in mid-September and mid-October into a month-long trip to Europe where I'll visit two or three different universities to give talks and work on collaborations with colleagues who I usually only talk to on Skype and in between do some sight-seeing in those cities, meet up with friends, and spend a bit of time visiting my parents. I often try to combine conference travel with sightseeing, for practical reasons, which may not always be 2-3 weeks but you can easily add 2-3 more days of personal time in the city where the conference is taking place for basically the same airfare as you would pay anyway, and if you have the funding you'd get it reimbursed. When I was in grad school, at least in the early years, it would have been easy to spend 2-3 weeks or probably even longer traveling in the summer. I would usually spend about that long visiting my family, and I didn't have any RA/TA obligations. One year I spent some time hiking the West Highland Way and then at the Fringe in Scotland; in another I went to the Far East for a collaboration and tacked on about 10 days of travel. In recent years this combination work/travel arrangement seems to work best for me, both as a way of staying on top of work and as a way of covering the costs. it's not quite the same as a long backpacking trip, but it's not too bad either.

Also worth noting, to the best of my knowledge PhD programs in engineering usually fund all the students that they accept. You don't have to have external funding such as a Fulbright scholarship, though obviously it's great to win these scholarships. The situation is different for MS programs, where there are usually fewer funding options.