spunky

i guess it helps exemplify how removed some of us are from it all. honestly, i don't even have a clue whether 'normies' is a thing or not. but the fact that we're even having this conversation points towards the fact that for quite a few of us (i'm glad i'm not alone) the divide is quite tangible

well... wouldn't you say you're already placing some distance between yourself and other people by calling your non-academic friends 'normal'? like you have the 'normal' group of friends and the 'academic' group of friends? i mean, you even have a special name for them (which i have to say is more than what i do)! denigrating the outside world is pointless. it is the world that we live in and it influences us more than we can influence it. but my guess is that a staple of a scientific mind is to set yourself apart of the object of study so you can remain as objective as possible when looking at it. Leahey (from 'A History of Psychology') calls it 'the viewpoint from nowhere' so if for i guess 5 or 6 years of graduate school you spend your time looking at things and analyzing and re-analyzing them over and over again, it just makes sense you'll eventually make a habit out of it. what i'm starting to realize is that this is probably depends a lot more on the area of study one is involved in. the people in my area (Mathematics/Statistics) are notorious for insulating ourselves from the 'outside world' if we find a problem that interests us. it reminds me of the quote Farkas Bolyai sent his son János: "For God's sake, please give it up. Fear it no less than the sensual passion, because it, too, may take up all your time and deprive you of your health, peace of mind and happiness in life. [A letter to his son János urging him to give up work on non-Euclidean geometry.]" maybe those of use who have trouble relating to the everyday world just find graduate school to be a decent-enough excuse to rationalize why we can't get along with people in the outside world. with that being said, however, i am thankful for graduate school because i don't think i would have the chance to meet and talk to other people if it were not for it. i can keep an 'everyday' conversation for maybe 10-15mins before the other person (usually non-academic) and myself become painfully aware that we have absolutely nothing to talk about

i think it's just fair to say one of the main reasons of why we gravitate towards academia is because we appreciate the intellectual stimulation and we can only take so much of going a day talking about normal, 'everyday' kind of stuff without going insane. heck, the very fact that we're spending time analyzing the intellectual exchanges of our social interactions already says something about the kind of people we are and the kind of people we look around to get together with. we can't help but be insightful and we like to talk about our insights to other people (and listen to theirs as well). but the world outside doesn't care much for insight.

Although I pretty much agree with everyone mentioned that you should re-take the GRE (because you should) at the end of the day, why don't you just apply? The worst that can happen is that you application gets tossed on the 'No' pile and then you'll just learn that those darn GREs are a lot more important than we'd like them to be. We may not like them much, but they're a fact of life now (almost a 'rite of passage') and sometimes you just gotta suck it up and work on them if you really want something. My PhD is in Psychometrics/Quantitative Psychology (which means I will eventually be working at ETS, College Board, etc. where all these standardized tests are developed) and the more I dealt with people in admission departments from colleges and in the testing industry, the more I learnt why they are valued: there are too many applicants and not enough programs to take everyone in. There is no time to assess each applicant's merits on their own so admission committees need a quick check to filter many of them as they can so professors and potential future advisors can concentrate on evaluating the applications of students they consider to be the best candidates. Will brilliant people fall through the cracks? Oh, absolutely! The system is not perfect, but it is the one we have. It is up to you (or anyone else), as the applicant to either maximize your chances of admission or just bank on luck and hope that someone will notice something in your application that may show them you're a worthwhile candidate. When I applied the first time I also got not-so-great scores on the GRE and was rejected. I studied really hard the 2nd time and got in. My application was pretty much the same as the one I submitted the first time, the only thing that changed were my GRE scores and, apparently, that was enough to get me in.

that's how two friends of mine did it. they trusted each other a lot, so they exchanged credit/debit cards and when one was away, the other use said credit/debit card for regular purchases (groceries, etc.), they shared the same apt so could both show continuous use of the lease, and utilities, etc. i don't think California authorities have any way of knowing where you're going and for how long, but they can ask for whatever kind of paperwork they feel like asking if they're suspicious. if you coordinate it well, it's not super hard to get all the documents you may need.

well... selling stuff, of course. i've got an eBay account and an Amazon account. i started off selling some extra stuff (like a garage sale) when i was moving and was surprised at how quickly everything sold (used furniture, books, etc. nothing fancy). then a friend of mine got me in touch with another person who gets overstock CDs from places like Wal-Mart or Virgin Music and I re-sell those. add that a few years (and some diligent work on my part) and i was able to save enough for the first down payment of my current apartment. the good thing about online retail is that basically the only thing you do is (a) reply to emails from costumers and ( b ) list products online. i reply to emails 2 hours every day and list new products every Saturday so you work like maybe 10h/week? that leaves me enough time to pursue a PhD. because i'm good at programming/statistics, i also advertise on freelancer.com and bid on projects people post on there. i'm gonna sound mean for a minute here but i've come to realize that people are so numerically/computationally illiterate that they're willing to pay good cash for a task that maybe takes an afternoon to be completed? all in all, there's plenty of decent-paying websites out there for people who wanna make some extra cash quickly. i think if i were to dedicate all of my time to the online business side of things i could potentially earn more than what any academic position i will ever get. the problem is most of it is just mindless, repetitive work so i keep the business to feed me and graduate school to keep me happy

eBay/Amazon FTW!!! gosh, it started from a little "i-need-some-cash-on-the-side" thing to a serious back-up plan to make a decent living.

then you didn't really look hard enough... XD

we're obsessed with self-labeling and we like the idea that everyone can be neatly placed in a box with a sticker in front of it.

at this point in the movie i couldn't take it anymore and started bawling... i had to take a moment before leaving the theatre! (thank God it was empty) - epicness at 3:44!!! Archivist: And what if no one believes this truth? Sonmi-451: Someone already does. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYLpQFuxV5Y

do it in PREZI!!! (it's kinda funky)

well... i was a hard-core emo and i milked that way after it stopped being cool as an undergrad (and was still a nerd tho. so an emo nerd!)

AWFUL. i tried it for like a 2 yrs and it just made me realize just how much more awesome academia is... ... the lack of intellectual stimulation in the average job is so palpable that it makes you want to cry. i ended up selling my business (to my husband)) so i could run away from it all.

"social life"? what is this "social life" you speak of? XD

i guess it mostly depends on where the 'hub of the action' is for you. i lived on campus (here in UBC, Vancouver, Canada) and found the experience to be kinda 'meh'. moved out to downtown in the middle of the city and life is awesome. so my take would be to do your homework in terms of where you'll find more interesting stuff to do/people to meet, etc. and try to live as close as you can do there.

shhh! that's our dirty little secret and we don't like it when it gets out every now and then! (still very much true tho)

True. Then again I was born in Mexico..... So yeah, I fall in that list. You'll be fine. As long as you have an official letter of acceptance, I'd say you're already half-way there.

because...you... love trolling to get some attention?

well, you're ages ahead of me. i kept renewing my student permit throughout all my undergrad and my MA and i didn't have a home, let alone a steady employment or any kind of professional experience. so you're on the winning side here

if you're renewing it i believe they're still asking over CAD$10,000 in a Canadian Bank (do CAD$11,000 to be on the safe side) if you're getting it for the first time SHOW THEM EVERYTHING (and by everything i mean EVERYTHING). the more money you show = the better your chances you'll get a permit without them getting suspicious. particularly now that the first batch of "bridge-lifting" policies are being implemented.

i know this can work IF (and i know that's a big if) you have a co-signer who's a U.S. citizen or has a green card (so that they're basically on the hook for your loan). But yeah... for us, int'l students, our best bet is usually our home country (OR if you're in a high-demand, usually STEM area it's not unusual for some corporation to fund your education. i know a friend of mine who went to school on Wal-Mart's dime XD

same here. I am (well was, until very recently) an international student and English is not my first language but managed to get decent GRE scores to get in gradschool. i think you can do well if you take the time to study and prepare

uhm... i'm not quite sure any university would be willing to jump into this bandwagon. i'm trying to find the exact statistic, but isn't it true that most colleges (at least in the U.S.) now employ adjunct professors for teaching-only duties? thinking pragmatically, as the head of a university i'd say you'd probably give tenure to talented, research-only professors (because they are the ones capable of bringing in more grants and prestige to the university) and leave the teaching to adjuncts, TAs and whatnot.

To be honest with you (and as a Quantitative Psychology PhD student) I'm not sure whether any countries aside from North America (with the sole exception of the Netherlands) offer a PhD program with exclusive focus in Quantitative Psychology. If you're crossing out the U.S. and Canada, I believe only the Netherlands has full PhD programs in Quantitative Psychology. If you don't choose any schools in North America, your best bet is probably to choose a professor in a Statistic Department (like Karl Joreskog at Uppsala University) who happens to be interested in Quant Psych.

with the exception that now all the forms must be filled online (they're phasing out paper-and-pencil forms) no, there is nothing that you're missing. most of the changes were targeted to stop "visa mill" applications (i.e. people who were applying as students but with no real intention to actually study OR to study in Canada and not go back to their home country).