fuzzylogician

Hello Ali, unless you want to provide more context for your question, this sound like a request for help with a homework assignment, which is not the purpose of this board. If that is not what this question is about, I suggest you tell us more about how the question came up and what you have done to try and answer it.

I think you are still not getting it. You are comparing yourself to her, but there is no basis for comparison. She is the one who has proven herself, has a PhD, and is running a lab. You are a trainee, and you are not allowed to do everything that she is. It's none of your business if she spends time talking to other professors or checking her email. You are also ascribing all kinds of ill intent to her. She deliberately waited to talk to you to hurt you the most. She deliberately kept you off the email to the conference coordinators. Is there any evidence to support these claims? Usually in these situations the professor has other things on their mind other than inflicting maximum pain on a student. Since she waited until Friday I wouldn't be surprised if she was trying to give you a chance to approach her and fix what you've broken, and you failed to act on it. Frankly, I don't think it's too much to ask that a student send a quick email to let me know they are not coming into the lab after a vacation; a quick 'hey, my flight got delayed and I only got in this morning. I didn't get much sleep so I'm going to take the day off to recover and will be in tomorrow morning' was probably all you needed. Then you didn't apologize to her or say anything about your new results for another three days. Maybe by that point she was pissed. I would be. She's giving you a chance to fix things now; I'd take it, and stop trying to blame her for everything.

Listen, you are trying to explain away each incident as a separate issue. First off, you are absolutely under no obligation to explain anything to anyone here, including me. Second, my guess above (and that is all it is, to be clear) is that even if you think these are separate incidents, to her they form a pattern. You are certainly under no obligation to disclose any medical condition to her, it was a suggestion along with several others that you should only take up if you are comfortable doing so. You are also not under any obligation to talk to anyone in your lab, that's again something you could think about if there is anyone you are comfortable consulting with who would not think you are just whining and would not disclose your story to others without your consent. Absent that, the best we can do here is guess and extrapolate based on your story and our experience, and there is a good chance we'll get some details wrong or misjudge parts of the situation. I worry about some language you are using here ("I am insulted that...", "childish and cruel way..." etc). I understand you are hurt right now, so the best thing to do is to take a few days to cool off and collect your thoughts. If there is no one else to talk to about this to gain perspective, you might need to talk to her again. Yes, if you say you are "confused because of her contradictory ways" you won't get very far. I am sure she is perfectly consistent in her behavior in her own eyes. Your goal should be to understand what that logic is, and whether you can follow it reasonably well. Accept that she is the one with the power in this relationship and it's unlikely that you can change how she behaves. You can work on changing her perception of you, but you can only do that with a level headed approach, not by blaming her for everything -- regardless of who is actually at fault. Really, you can only change your own behavior. Either you can figure out what she thinks the problem is and get suggestions from her on how to improve, or if you can't do that, then I unfortunately don't see things improving here.

^This. I think it's fair to explain that you plan to apply to grad school in a couple of years and ask for a letter now, since you think it will be easier for him to write it now rather than a few years down the line. You could ask for his advice on where to keep the letter, but there are a few options -- either simply on his computer, or he can send it to a secretary who can hold onto it and help with uploading it later, or you can look into a service such as interfolio that specializes in precisely what you are looking for -- archiving letters of recommendation for future use so the original author doesn't have to be involved in future submissions.

It seems clear that as far as your advisor is concerned, there is a problem that goes beyond being late to the lab a few times. Based on what you describe, I would guess the problem is that she views you as irresponsible in general - you're late to the lab, you don't show up without any notice, once you're back you don't let her know even though you have results she should know about, you forget to get a discount that will end up costing her money, you take too much vacation time. For you, these are unrelated minor incidents and some of it may not even be true. For her, each individual action may not be a problem (as evidenced by the fact that your colleagues may do one or the other and -- to your knowledge -- not be reprimanded for it), but viewed in tandem there is a worrisome pattern here. As I see it, there are three options here. You may decide to share with her that you are having a medical problem that has been affecting your work, that you were not going to disclose to her but now you realize it may have affected your work and you apologize for that. You may (instead or in addition) simply request a meeting and ask for her help improving -- concentrating specifically on what she thinks the problem is, because a major issue here is that you are not sure what the problem is and therefore what behaviors might indicate that you are doing things right/wrong. Or, you might just put your head down and work. What she said may or may not have been a threat. She might have said it in the heat of the moment not realizing the effect it would have on you -- which is also terrible but is a different problem. In the longer run, you could decide you need to change advisors and labs, and that could be something to start thinking about, though I think right now it's premature. My first thought is that it would be good to find someone to talk to who has a better perspective than us. Is there anyone in the lab who is more experienced who you feel comfortable talking to? If you can find such a person, it could be very helpful in giving you some perspective. Is this behavior unheard of? Is it something she sometimes does absentmindedly without meaning much? Is tardiness something she is particularly sensitive about? Is there some previous story of difficulty involving someone who was (perceived as being) irresponsible in some ways? Knowing that will help you decide how to deal with this situation.

Link to the relevant and still active thread discussing your question: (I am locking this new thread. There is no need to have two separate threads discussing the same question.)

Only school A can answer this question. There is no way we can know. I still don't think you should switch, but if you are serious about this, contact them immediately and ask. HOWEVER, only do this if you are absolutely sure you will accept their offer if it's still standing. Don't ask and then decline their offer a second time, because that will not leave a good impression and will make transferring or taking a postdoc there difficult. Also keep in mind that doing this might burn bridges with school B, so if you do end up accepting school A's offer you need to be careful about how you let school B know.

Please don't post the same question in multiple forums. Your other posts have been removed.

Transferring is almost certainly not an option. You would likely have to reapply and go through the process like any other candidate. Moreover, you would need to come up with a good explanation for why your current program (school B ) was not a good fit for you, in a way that would not make you sound less attractive to school A (which, as a student who might appear like they couldn't hack it after just one semester, could be a problem). It might be difficult to do without getting at least one letter of recommendation from school B, but on the other hand I assume you wouldn't want to tell them you are trying to move away before you had a guaranteed acceptance from school A. In short, it doesn't sound like a good idea, if for no other reason than that it would mean that you would spend your first semester/year worrying about applications and moving away instead of being immersed in classes, making friends and connections, and getting acclimated to your new home. Frankly, it sounds like a recipe for an unhappy first year and who knows what that might do to your future. This all said, I think you need to stop thinking about ways to keep all your options open. It sounds to me like you made the best decision for yourself given what matters most to you. For the record, I would have made the same choice. These kinds of choices always mean that you are giving something up and there is a 'what-if' element that lingers. But that would also be the case if you had made the opposite choice. I think right now it would be best for you to accept the decision as final and try and get yourself excited about everything school B has to offer, which from all you are describing sounds like a lot. Maybe you could come back to school A for a postdoc or as a visiting student for a semester 2-3 years from now, but maybe you won't even want to in a few years. There will be other opportunities -- this is not the end of your career, it's just the beginning.

A person can only make this promise to the extent that she has independent (grant-based) research funds and the admissions process at her university allows her to hire whoever she wants using these funds without going through official channels (or they are used basically as a rubber stamp). HOWEVER, a verbal promise is not worth the paper it's written on. What you have is a promise from someone that someone else will take you on as their student, no questions asked and without even talking to you or looking at your application materials. I wouldn't take that to the bank just yet. What I would take from it is that your advisor has connections and will use them on your behalf, which in general is good to have and will greatly boost your application. That said, I don't think it guarantees you anything, just improves your odds.

Please don't create multiple threads for the same request. Your other post has been removed.

As a former translator, my opinion is that "cheap" and "reliable" tend to be in complementary distribution. Good translators are usually not cheap. More so the more specialized the translation that you need. If you want specific recommendations, it might help to know what language we are talking about, what field, and how many pages. A good translator for scientific purposes has to have at least some understanding of the relevant field of inquiry to be able to choose the right terminology, and that's hard to come by. As it stands, your question is just too vague for us to be able to answer it.

I think taking two courses is going a bit overboard. I don't even really think one is necessary for most people. You can get the materials and study by yourself; the course is mostly helpful for providing the external motivation and time management support for those who require it. There are some useful techniques you can learn, though I think you can get them from a book and you don't need a class for that. Either way, one course should be enough. Most of the studying needs to be done outside the course setting, even if you do take a course. It's just a matter of time and practice. I agree with others that it'd be useful for you to know where you stand now and how far it is from where you want to be. My guess is that if you're willing to spend a lot of money, you can always find a way to spend it, be it through another class or private lessons. I'd start by assuming that the cheaper course is sufficient and go from there.

^ This. I always start with a 30-second summary that's usually 3-4 sentences long. I try and give some motivation for why we should care about what I'm doing, describe the findings -- but without explaining how I reached them, and say why it's interesting. At this point, people who are interested will probably ask some questions. Two frequent ones are "can you say more about [the problem you are studying]?" and "how did you conclude that [result]?". If so, you take it from there. If you didn't get a question, you can just ask "would you like me to tell you more about how I found [the results]?" Pick the most important aspects of the background and the results and do a 2-minute version of the spiel, building on your 30-second version. I'd try for around 30 seconds setting up the problem, 1 minute on the main findings, and 30 seconds for why your contribution is important and interesting. If people are still interested in more, that's when you walk through the remaining details. Free-styling it is generally more appealing to the audience than having you read the text directly off the poster, as long as you follow the general organization of your poster and gesture at the right part of the poster as you're talking about it (this is especially relevant for reading example sentences or looking at tree diagrams). If your examples are in a language your audience doesn't speak, you should summarize the language data in words and not necessarily read the examples (at least, not all of them). Skip technical details unless someone asks about them (e.g. it's ok not to mention exactly how many participants you had in an experiment, or how many native speakers you consulted for a certain judgment). It's fine to have some things you basically never say out loud, that are there just in case someone asks about them.

^ Along those lines, for Social Sciences / Humanities students: over time you will accumulate lots and lots of handouts, course notes, your own notes, etc. I make sure to scan everything at the end of each semester. It's somewhat of a pain but it's very helpful. I make sure to give the files informative names and keep them organized by year/course/topic so I can easily search through them. I've moved to taking meeting notes on my computer, as I mentioned above, but whatever I do by hand is also scanned and added to my collection. It makes life a lot easier when it's time to move and you don't want to carry a bunch of papers with you, and scanning 5 years worth of materials would be too daunting.

Yep -- I do something similar. I have automatic updates to Dropbox. Once a month I update important stuff on Microsoft's cloud too. And I have two external hard drives that I back up to and they are programmed to do a "daily" and "monthly" backup, so I should never lose more than just a few weeks' worth of work. (Learned the hard way, after losing all my materials from my first year of graduate school when my laptop died in a firy blaze.)

Most universities in the US recognize that in other countries, a BA is sometimes only three years long, not four years, and that is not a problem. The relevant requirement is that you must have a BA before you can begin a graduate program. If you are concerned about a specific requirement by a specific school, it would be best to contact their admissions office and ask.

You can report to the university the day after you arrive, or the day after that. That's fine. You can run your errands first. Your passport should suffice as identification to open a bank account. You shouldn't need a phone number. If they ask for one, give them your department's number and update it later. If you are an international student, they may want to see a lease or a letter stating that you are a student at a local school. It might also help to have a letter stating what your stipend will be. Large banks or alternatively credit unions or other banks that are near the university will have more experience dealing with international students. To renew your license, you'll need to show your passport, as well as the lease for your apartment or bills sent to your new address to prove that you are a state resident. Sometimes they require two forms of ID. Consult the DMV website for your state to see exactly what is required. You might have to pay with a check, so make sure to read up on that and have one ready before you go. You probably want to have your bank account set up before you try and get a phone contract, they may ask for that information. They may ask you for some kind of deposit, so be prepared for that. If it were me, I'd do bank first, DMV second, phone last.

This is extremely personal. I'm not sure knowing how I choose to keep up with my reading will help you, because it's just so different from field to field. But -- I use Dropbox for syncing and file sharing; TexPad is my favorite Latex editor and I use BibDesk for my bibliography needs; I use PowerPoint for posters, and by now I have a design I've settled on so I mostly just change the text/figures when I make a new poster; I use workflowy for my list and note-taking needs. Most of the advice I can think of is much higher level, really.

For me, the expenses were first paid by me and then had to be claimed as a reimbursement, handled by my department's admin person. The fact that the amounts were small didn't matter at all. Most expenses were for paying experimental subjects so I didn't need to claim each payment individually but instead I did them in several "batches" -- usually one per completed experiment. It was the same as with any other grant and reimbursement claim processed in my department.

Thank you for coming back to update us and congratulations! Given everything that you have been through, this is a huge success. Each individual problem you faced might have been enough to make someone quit, but you managed to get through it all, and with a very respectable GPA too! Don't underestimate your accomplishments! I'm sure with some perspective you will be able to look back and see this for the success that it is, but for now take it from us -- you did a very good job. Again, congratulations and good luck to you with whatever you choose to do next!

^ This. For most things it doesn't matter, and if anyone corrects your spelling, they are probably doing it in jest. Certainly for homework, emails, and other informal communication you can do what you want. As long as you are consistent in your choices, people will respect it. For journals, etc., I follow the journals' style guide. Mostly for me this means US spelling, but again in most cases as long as you are consistent in your choices no one is going to remark on your choice of spelling "color" vs. "colour" and so on. It's really not as much of a problem as submissions from non-native speakers, where you may encounter grammatical errors and inconsistencies--and even then, not every journal will go out of their way to correct all these issues.

This older thread has some good advice:

Merging this. We want to keep one thread per city unless we are dealing with very large ones, and even then very rarely (NYC has just one thread, for example).

I am not going to voice any opinion about your decision to reapply for grad school. Regarding your current decision, it seems to me that taking the Masters is better than leaving with nothing. The facts are what they are -- you did spend 4 years in this program, and you are leaving without a PhD. If you are going into industry, it's probably not going to matter much one way or the other so better have the degree than not. If you are reapplying to other PhD programs, you'll need to justify leaving and starting over. The best story you can tell, in my opinion, is that your advisor was denied tenure and no one else was able to support your research, forcing you to leave (or some version of that that may not be the full truth but is not a lie). If so, you would want to show that you were on good terms with your department. My guess is that leaving with some kind of degree is better than leaving with nothing to show for your time there. The real challenge, in my opinion, will be getting letters of recommendation to support your new applications. You will need to have someone from your current program support your new application if it's going to succeed. If you find such a person, I recommend you ask them for their opinion regarding the Masters option.