xxtraloud

I sent my usual email to a PI with my CV and he replied with a one line saying "i will be taking one student, based on your backbround and interests i think you should apply". How do i take this? I will apply for sure but i was hoping to make a more personal contact. This person is the director of the research center at a notorious university on the west coast. I am thinking about replying and asking for a phone conversation and that I plan on visit in the Fall. I am nervous about this phone chat as I am not sure how not to sound banal and ask abvious questions. any suggestion from people with similar experiences

thanks guys. I appreciate the advice

i think it's so ridiculous that applying to grad school has to be so expensive. I understand the school fee and the GRE fee but charging $23 to send a print out with regular mail is just plain robbery. The cost of a print out is less tahn $0.10 + stamp and the time it takes for the employee to put it in an envelope it totals maybe $5. Why ETS has to be a for profit institution?!

thanks. that seems a good advice. would it be acceptable to email one of the graduate student in the group to get a feeling for the group an the PI? or at this point it's not gonna much that much of a difference?

I have only submitted one app so far and I am rushing to find other good programs before it's too late. I started this process way too late and now I am paying for it.

so I have applied to the ESPM PhD program at Berkeley. I am mainly interested in working with two professors. I have e-mailed one before applying following the guidelines for a good e-mail. I have not received a reply. At this point I'm not sure if I should follow up and let him know that I have completed my application and/or e-mail my second reference and also let him know that I have applied. I think it is important for me to get some exposure because my GRE verbal scores were lower than the average. What do you guys suggest?

i am so broke. is there a way to get in for free at the conference. do they actually check id? i went to some conferences where you could just walk in

is anybody here interested or enrolled in a graduate program in environmental ethics or environ. philosphy? I have been reading a few articles and it seems it's mainly arm-chair reasoning. is there any field work/ field studies? can someone point out papers that have field work? I mainly read abstracts but none of them seem to give a hint of field work, not even using a survey or focus group.

thanks guys, now I have have somewhat of a better pic. I also emailed some grad students and they pretty much said what has been mentioned here. now the other thing that puzzles me. how do people choose a remote area for their research interest? is it because they traveled there once or twice and fell in love with it? Or just because they read about it? I have seen some pretty random and specific locations in some anthro research, like some small island off the coast of australia or some remote chinese village. What are the main reasons that lead someone to pick such a specific place?

hello everybody, In December of 2008 I completed a Masters in computer science at the University of Minnesota, now I want to go back to grad school for a PhD program. But what I really want to get into is a totally different field, the social sciences. I'm looking into something related to the environment and society, so environmental anthropology or sociology, some subfields of geography, and recently I found out about some interdisciplinary programs which are very appealing. At this point the main problem for me is that I lack some of the core requirements of these fields of study and that could be a major problem in my application. I don't have money to pay for another master, and I'd rather start right away PhD by 2 years. what can i do to improve my chances? some programs told me to get a MA in a related field, some other told me that they accept people with different backgrounds, some other told me they have no time to look into my situation. Should I take some classes at a community college, or some upper-level classes online at some good school? I have been involved in a 2 year research project during my master but it was not related to what I'm getting into, and we did not publish any papers. I've done 3 class related research papers/projects but always in computer science classes. I was also TA for a year and a half. I am an international student. Does anybody have any suggestions, ideas, comments or on what I could do?

so I'm just curious as to when field studies happen in social sciences, particularly in geography, anthropology, sociology, I see some professors are involved in research in Antarctica or some remote areas or of course outside of the US. I'm wondering what time of the year they go away, does this happen during the summer, or during the school year? Does that mean that they don't really teach any classes for a semester or two?how often does that happen? As I'm considering a career as a professor in one of these fields I would like to understand these dynamics, I like the idea of field work in another country but probably not for 3-6 months every time, as I would like to be with my family most of the time. I am mainly looking into environmental anthropology I would like to hear some insiders on this topic.