LJK

This subject has come up before: Check about half way down If the MS is coursework, you should be expressing interest in the specific classes and professors who will teach those classes. If the MS is research based then keep the SOP focused on research - if you were proposing some sort of project in the phd SOP, make sure that you aren't proposing something too big to do during an MS. If you are pointing to areas and asking questions rather than specifically outlining a project, that can probably remain the same. Finally, make sure your future plans reflect graduating with an MS - not saying that you are planning on applying to faculty positions after graduating is probably a good idea. You want to show that you understand what the MS will qualify you for.

I totally understand why you are freaked out and checking into this, but to give some perspective: you were still invited for an interview. Whoever did look over your writing sample personally did not have an issue with it, even if turnitin had a larger problem with your paper than others. It might just be that your writing style is a bit, well, generic, resulting in the same word choices, etc. that others have used. Generic, if that is your issue, isn't necessarily a bad thing as it can be easier to read. My understanding of turnitin is that it flags anything, cited or not, that should be cited. So rather than the generic hypothesis, perhaps your lit review is more citation heavy than most of the writing samples resulting in more turnitin flagging. As long as you know that you have cited diligently (and we all can unconsciously use the same wording so that isn't that big a deal if the quotes aren't there when they should be) you should be fine. Perhaps show the writecheck analysis to your thesis advisor so that you can be reassured from a professor that you are reading it correctly and that you haven't really done anything wrong. Also, it is most definitely not plagiarism to go back to the original citation. As long as you are not using the interpretation of the intermediate paper, there is no reason to cite it in relation to the root paper. I doubt that they will determine that you have plagiarized. If for some reason they decide you have, I think it would depend on the relationships between faculty at the various schools (if they are friends discussing the applicant pool this year it could come up) or if they have some specific policy about it. I doubt that they would actively try to blacklist you. Again: you have an interview! Breathe!

It sounds like you have a good working relationship with your advisor. It also sounds like you have made up your mind and are leaving for the right reasons. I would approach her now and explain that you have decided to take the MA and not to come back. You can frame it in terms of the current application season and wanting to let her know at a time when your funding line could be used for a new student in next year's cohort. I think the most tactful way to leave a phd program is to be conscious of how your leaving will affect them and to make the change as minimally disruptive as possible. I don't think anyone can really fault you for staying healthy and choosing to have a different set of priorities than you expected to have initially, but I think waiting to the end of the semester and letting a funded position go to waste or be filled with a lesser candidate because you sat on your decision could burn bridges.

So I don't know enough about this situation to understand why you think and your advisor thinks that he is being reasonable. You are a first year graduate student with one semester under your belt. Why does he think you should be ready to publish at this point? I don't think it is unusual to not submit manuscripts until you are in your third year let alone your first. How can your untenured advisor be very senior in the department? That doesn't make logical sense without more information. The tenured professors in the department will be voting on whether to keep him and therefore more senior. Senior indicates how long they have been in the department. By senior to you really mean influential? These are different things. It sounds to me like you are being tossed in with all sorts of expectations and not being mentored. If you don't know how to approach research it is your advisor's job to teach you how to think about it. It's like taking upper-level major classes, they are about the content to some extent, but its more about learning how to read research or work problems. Its about learning to approach the subject properly. Either your advisor or a further along grad student should be teaching you how to approach research, how to recognize the beginnings of results, how to then focus in, etc. How does funding work in your department? Is all funding through the advisors or is there the possibility of becoming a department funded TA if you are not given an RA position? Were you guaranteed funding for 4 or 5 years when admitted. If you have any sort of fall-back like this you might be a bit less stressed out about producing results. Look to grad students who have successfully gotten further in their grad careers than you have. Ask them questions about options should your advisor follow through with taking away your RA funding. Finally, just because your advisor-advisee relationship hit a snag, that doesn't mean its over. He does sound like a bit of a hard-ass but you signed up for that, thinking it was positive he emphasized results. Are there other advisees of this same professor? They have probably been dealing with him longer and know how to approach him, how to avoid pissing him off, etc. You need to figure out what you have been doing, where the weaknesses you see in yourself are, what needs to be fixed. Set goals for yourself and meet them. If one of your issues is that you are not currently skilled at honing in on usable results, explain that to your advisor. Ask if you can set up a weekly meeting (if you don't have one already) where you show him what you have been doing that week and he can see if he can help you to focus on the right next step. It sounds like he is having you be too independent too fast. Demand more attention until you are at a place where being independent is a reasonable expectation. If there is any time that you are unclear on how to proceed or don't know what is expected of you, ask. I know the whole advisor-advisee relationship is scary in its power differential especially if your advisor is already threatening to take away funding, but the relationship is based on advice. Make sure he is giving you plenty. If he is not going to mentor you, do look around your department and think about whether you can 1) setup a co-advising or unofficial second mentorship with another professor who you could serve on your committees, or 2) see if there is another research fit that would allow you to study the things you want to study with a better advisor-advisee relationship. I think it is way too early for you to be thinking about dropping out. That seems to be stemming from the advisor-advisee issues which are to be weathered, rather than a disinterest in the research. If you aren't producing because you don't like research as much as you thought you would, that is when to consider dropping out.

I concur with most of what newms says. I would be prepared to be interviewed rather than wooed as an accepted student. But I have seen the sentiment passed around on the boards a few times that if they reimburse you for travel that means they are 'really' interested. I think what really interested means varies a lot by field and school. At my current school where I am getting my MS, the department invites 15ish people to visit just about every year. Some years that is for 5 seats and some years that is for 2 seats. It is never as low as 2 to 1 or even this person is the one we want for this particular seat (this is for a field where admits go directly into a particular professor's lab). Some of the people invited last year were being interviewed for a seat they decided not to fill (which made me happy as a lowly MS student who could then be funded). Reimbursed travel does indicate the the school is interested in you and that you are on the short list, but you won't know how interested they are until you show up and see the amount of competition. While I feel like the level of interest indicated by an interview is sometimes a bit overstated, I do think it is a positive sign. Be ready to shine as the person they got the impression of through your application materials and you have a very good shot (even if the interview is 5 interviewees to 1 seat, that is way better than the original 50 applicants to 1 interview slot or whatever it was that you have survived.) Be realistic and prepared. Good Luck!

While I totally agree that the politest thing would have been for her to respond and respond with more words, I don't know that I would write her off without meeting her if there is a good research fit. Some people are crappy at email. Sometimes this indicates a larger problem and that they will be crappy in all aspects, but sometimes it really just says that they are crappy at email. I would have the question in my mind about her but still be open to being pleasantly surprised by her if given the opportunity to meet her. On the other hand, if you get more evidence that she is unconcerned with good communication, or doesn't care, etc. then avoid, avoid, avoid.

I think sending the email is fine. I like Gooner's template. Perhaps add a question that you didn't think to ask during the interview, something that follows up on something you learned about the program? ("During our conversation, you mentioned {x,y,z} which I think is {unique, interesting, suprising, etc.}. {question about the info}" I think question asking will bring it home that you aren't just obsessing over the interview but are actively considering what their program can offer you. If has the added effect of allowing you to see the prof's email tone when they respond to your question. It should be a good question though, or leave it out.

I had an informal phone interview as part of the phone call in which I was invited to a department's in-person interview weekend. My POI confirmed that I was still interested in the things I said I was interested in my SOP, wanted to discuss my past research, and then asked me questions about what was a bit unique: particularly my changing of fields -> why I had done it, what my perspective was as someone versed in both fields, how comfortable I am with my newer field. The POI finished up by asking if I had any questions, at which point I froze (I'll get most of the answers to my questions at the interview weekend! What to ask that isn't a stupid question at this point?!) but recovered by asking about what is new and ongoing in their lab. Overall, there was no knowledge quizzing. I feel like the main thing is confirming that you are the person that is implied by your application. As long as that is the case, you should be fine. I guess there is the possibility that there will be other types of interviews out there, but I hope that yours is as comfortable a conversation as this was!

The professor may have wanted to get an immediate idea of whether you were interested in attending the interview before involving anyone else in the department. Maybe there is some bit of hassle to getting a student invited which would only be worth it if you were going to come. I think you did yourself a favor by contacting him! He probably would not have actively looked for your application and would not have invited you to visit without your pro-activeness. I think that it is a good sign. Don't worry that you are pressuring him, it seems like you put the right amount of pressure on him (or better wording: drew the right amount of attention to yourself). Interviews don't mean acceptances but now you have a much better shot than the people who weren't invited for an interview! PS: His wording is strange to a native English speaker too!

You haven't RSVPed to either yet? If you are more interested in one school, try to go to that interview. Email the other school and see if you can come at a different time. They maybe accommodating even if they aren't specifically offering you an out. If they are not flexible, weight the decision carefully. I know at my current program where I am getting my MS, the main interview day had a lot of activities, lots of interaction with the whole department, while the people who came on alternate days came on a weekend and only met a small sub-set of people. If you end up going on an alternate day, see if you can go on a weekday if at all possible - you will get more of a real experience rather than empty halls, offices and labs.

I agree with qbtacoma, if this professor has this reputation he is not someone you want to be your boss (since he clearly won't be your mentor). If one of my professors said what yours said in such detail, especially the part about seeing former advisees avoid their former advisor, I would probably trust them. If you would really like to confirm you could email one of the former advisees to see if they will confirm or deny. From the posts you have been making, it seems like you have a number of interviews and if all goes well will have a number of offers. The concrete info you are being offered seems pretty damning. I would politely excuse yourself from the interview at Prof. Y's university and go to the other one. If I had been given this sort of info and has a number of possible directions I would not gamble with attending, and therefore what is the point in visiting? Would you seriously consider working with Professor Y at this point? I would work on getting the offer from the other school since that is likely one that you might want to accept more. Also, if you are comfortable with it, could you PM me Prof. Y's name? I'm also in cognitive psych though possibly in a different sub-area, and I would like to have an idea of who the good/bad guys are.

Have you been to the school while school is in session? Campuses feel completely different during the academic year from how they feel in the summer and that can also carry over into the local area.

Number 1: I wasn't thinking 'why get two master's degrees?' honestly. I don't know what your degrees are in and whether they compliment each other, but I didn't think 'la, this person is gready about education, doesn't s/he know that s/he is only allowed so much." It could just be the mental place you are in right now, an the anonymous nature of the forum, but you NEED to not be defensive and putting yourself down about your past choices. You made them for a reason right? Find a way to present you multiple advanced degrees as strengths - you have more to offer than someone who just got one of those degrees. Number 2: It doesn't matter that everyone else is talking to professors and networking. As professors in a professional program, it is part of their job to maintain contacts with non-academics who might be able to take students on as employees. Again, you are letting a (seemingly, this post is all I know about you) low self-esteem get in the way of utilizing one of the key aspects of an applied program. Regardless of whether you think a professor likes you in specific (though if you have reason to think that they may particularly dislike you for some reason, maybe avoid), if you like the area they teach, that is the person you need to be talking to because they have the connections. Do some introspection: Why did you get these degrees? Or at least the latest one? What was the long term objective? Now: What sort of entry-level jobs (or slightly above with the masters) would move you closer to the long term goal? When you have a firm idea of what you want, make lists of why you are qualified for that work, why you would be an asset in such a position. I think you need to do what you need to do to convince yourself that you are a good applicant for these positions. Do you have either a mentor/professor or at least another graduate of the program who has seen your strengths and weaknesses that you can talk with? At least in this post, you seem to be focusing way too strongly on the negative. You want to project self-confidence rather than low self-esteem, but it has be be genuine or it will come off as arrogant or fake instead. My roommate's boyfriend last year graduated with a Masters in engineering. He developed a relationship with a professor who had the sort of network that my friend needed to get the job he wanted. He went to career services and had them help him tailor his resume. (My career services also helps with interview skills, perhaps yours does too.) There was a weekly or bi-weekly networking dinner that puts recent graduate in the situation of dressing business casual regularly so it felt less strange and meeting new people regularly. I think potential employers were invited to some of these dinners. (I don't know if your school has this sort of event, but you would only know if you were actively using your professor's connections.) He had the added pressure of needing to find a job within his direct field and within a certain number of months from graduation in order to transition from a student visa to a work visa. He got a job within 3-4 months of graduating. As for how to approach professors: I think what you were saying is good. Target the professors who are in the areas you are interested in and request meetings. In the email say that you would like to discuss job hunting strategies within the sub-field that you are interested in. The professors will be more invested in helping you if they have face-to-face contact with you. Ask about how past students have found the type of job you are looking for, how the industry is doing in the job market, if they have any specialized knowledge about where jobs might be. Don't go in expecting them to get you a job, go in looking to learn how to find yourself a job from someone who had guided people through the process before. Anyway, this has been sort of rambling and long but I hope some of that helps!

It's a calculated risk. You never really know what you are going to get with an advisor: Assistant professors are likely to be working their butts off and will be heavily invested in whether you in particular do well - it indicates they are doing well. They are likely to push you to publish and do a lot of research. They could be doing some trial and error as far as advising goes but you can seek out more established professors and further along graduate students to augment the advising. Associate professors could be taking it easier now that they have tenure, or they could be completely jazzed to be mentoring young scholars. Full professors could be jazzed, maintain a distance from advisees, or could mainly write non-peer reviewed chapters and books, not needing to publish for advancement. The hiring committee and department saw something in the assistant professor that they thought would lead to a tenured colleague. My strategy was to apply to work with the 10 PIs (I know its a lot but everyone told me I was crazy when I was down to 6) that are most interesting to me, regardless of rank/tenure/school/lab size/etc. should I be lucky enough to have multiple interviews and even multiple acceptances, I will try to find out as much about the labs I would be working in and the advisor I would be working under as possible. (I know that it is a bit different for English than for Psych but I think the general philosophy applies). Also, assistant professors generally are at a school for 6 years prior to tenure. If you are applying to work with a brand new prof, they are likely to be there for the 5 years of a phd program (well, that is the standard time in my field). If you are applying to work with a prof who is a few years in, you can gauge for yourself how well they are doing, at least as far as publishing goes. If you are seriously considering a school where an assistant prof is who you would want to work with, see if you can identify a second prof who could be your 'replacement' advisor should the first one not get tenure. I think it is definitely something to think about, but I would definitely put them on your SOP. Also, a new prof's lab/advisee group might be 'easier' to get accepted to... they won't yet have 'their share' of students.

Is the university offering you admission and funding on this list? (you need to open the pdf): http://www.cgsnet.org/?tabid=201 If so, you are not required to respond until April 15th. Otherwise, the university can set their own deadlines (as it appears they have). You can request an extension, but they don't have to give it to you. The situation where you accept then back out is more murky... you may end up getting black balled for this admission year if you go that route without getting a signed release from the school you committed to.

There is a first year student in my department who wasn't invited for the interview. A particular professor/sub-field had a slot and the 2 or 3 people invited to the interview weekend for that slot chose to go elsewhere. Even though there were prospectives who had been interviewed in other sub-fields (this is a small department with a 'large' first year class of 6 so the sub-fields are not as independent as they seem to be at large programs) who had not been admitted someone who had not been interviewed was offered the slot first. There is still hope after the interviews but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Are you suggesting writing a lit review of the field for the SOP? That is too much and wouldn't necessarily show a command of anything in particular. But, if what you are doing is talking about your interests and citing literature relevant to your interests, possibly even putting forth some ideas, I think that is exactly what you should be doing. I cite relevant articles in my SOP for cognitive programs. It is hard to talk about my research experience without making citations. For one school, they wanted a proposal of a first year project instead of talking about past research experience, so I proposed an idea based off some recent literature (and cited it). Research you do in grad school should be grounded in the field's literature, so showing you can come up with ideas grounded in the literature in the SOP shows that you have an essential skill for grad school. I'm not exactly sure if this is what you are asking/proposing...

cognitivelucy we have a bunch of the same schools! I will report my interviews/acceptances/rejections promptly to the results section, I hope you will do the same! I'm applying to: MIT UPenn WUSTL Vanderbilt University of Indiana, Bloomington University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign University of Wisconsin, Madison University of Texas, Austin University of California, Merced (CogSci) Stanford I have an interview/'visit' at Merced but haven't heard anything from any of the other schools. I actually did some calling around inquiring about when interview weekends will be and many of the schools haven't even finalized the date yet! I know that I am constantly checking my email and the results section but its still early!

I live with a group of Physics PhD students and am currently in a Cognitive Psych MS program. In Physics, the first years here are not even assigned to labs yet. They have so much coursework and basic knowledge to acquire (beyond what they have already learned as physics majors in undergrad) that they don't start doing research right away. As a first year psych student, I took 2 courses, a stats class and a readings course each semester and did a substantial research project. My MS, and I think most psychology Masters theses, is research based. In Physics, the Masters is coursework based. I think the big difference is that Physics as a 'mature science' has a huge amount of information that needs to get synthesized before the academic literature can be understood by the students. As a less mature science, psychology is easier to get into and start picking up the academic literature to read and understand it. I think psychologists assume less comprehensive background when writing since there are people with social psychology PhDs who have never had to take a developmental course or a cognitive course or an evolutionary psych course (we just had some ABDs come through our department to interview for a job opening and they were amazed that we were all required to take a social, developmental and cognitive course). The model psych uses of not requiring training across sub-disciplines but putting them all in the same department where being able to convey clearly what is interesting and exciting about your work to a group of non-specialists is essential (job-talks, tenure, etc.) makes it much, much more accessible to be picked up on the side. Also, is sounds like the OP is reading journal articles, not reading Pinker's pop science books and calling that expertise in psychology. However, on the other hand, one of my grad classes started out with a couple of chapters of one of Pinker's books because the group consisted of Social, Developmental and Cognitive 1st and 2nd years, many of whom had little to no Cognitive background. I'm glad I was in the class nay-saying some of what Pinker puts forth as factual so everyone realized that there were debates and complexities that the book was smoothing over (probably more than I knew enough about to argue with). This is the level of background that the prof though was acceptable in a cognitive survey course. I can't imagine a physics course starting with Greene's synopsis of string theory. I love psychology. I plan on getting a PhD in psychology or in a psych heavy cognitive science program. I actually think that one thing that is really cool about psychology is that it isn't too hard to get into intellectually. It means that people with different backgrounds and different skills sets can come together and work on the same problems. I would actually put forth that most people starting PhD programs in psych have some sort of serious deficiency. Your average undergraduate psychology major has probably taken one or two advanced courses in their graduate sub-field. They have probably done research in their sub-field but then so must non-psych majors who wish to apply successfully (as the OP has, indicating a higher level of dedication than just doing some reading). Psych undergrads generally don't have much of a background in using statistics software, programming experiments, etc. The technical aspects are not highlighted (at least as far as I have seen) and are only acquired through research experience - where it depends on what is being used at that particular time in that particular lab what gets taught. Perhaps someone with a non-psych background will take a longer time to intellectually wrap their mind around psychological research and experiment design than someone who majored in it, but they will have all the spare time the majors are using to gain basic technical skills to develop their understanding. Also, since I'm on a role here: For me, one of the hardest things I have done as a grad student was to wrap my mind around cognitive neuroscience research. At my university, there is no one doing high-tech cogneuro on site and there is only one lower-level undergraduate course on the brain. Yet in all the grad courses, at some point the relevant cogneuro research is assigned and is almost impossible to wrap one's unprepared mind around. There is a lot more knowledge assumed in a neuroscience paper, knowledge that I have never been systematically been taught. The professors view the cogneuro lit as part of the same literature, not something completely separate. I think that this view is good, the different experimental techniques are attempting to answer the same questions. But! I think that cogneuro is much harder to get into and deserves a grad-level (and undergrad-level also) introduction where the assumed knowledge about the brain is taught systematically. Maybe that happens at other universities, but at mine, there is a readings course that is only taught every once in a blue moon which I think is a disservice to the students.

I think you have a high likelihood of getting in somewhere. Psychology is a very strange mixture of people with extremely varied amounts of math/programming/hard science backgrounds from practically nothing to the kind of background you have. I think your average psych undergrad takes one or two stats courses and thats it. You will stand out in that regard and I think that it is likely that someone will be very much interested in you for your interests and the skills you will bring with you. While you haven't taken psychology courses, you can clearly demonstrate that you have some background via your reading group and the EP LoRs and that it isn't just a passing fancy. Psych grad programs are very competitive so nothing is guaranteed, but I think you have a good shot! As for hearing back, I needed to make travel arrangements for an interview in February. I was debating whether to fly out for the whole weekend or to leave the non-interview time open for other potential interviews. This morning, I called around to some of my schools asking when their interviews would be. Most haven't decided when the visiting weekends will be! This included UT-Austin (which apparently only interviews for cognitive and social). Since the programs haven't made the date decision yet, there is no way that they can have started sending out invitations. So don't worry! Its early days yet for Psychology programs.

The program the applicant has been invited for an interview in is CNBC's in-house PhD program. I am applying through CMU's psych dept. with a secondary application into the CNBC's grad training program. Though of course my breathe hitched when I first saw that entry

Psychology or Neuroscience? I'm applying on the Psychology side of things and have not heard from CMU or Madison yet.

I'm finding it helpful/interesting to read through the archives of Female Science Professor, an anonymous physical sciences professor who writes about academia in all its aspects. You get her perspective but also a diverse set of perspectives from her many commenters. In particular, your issues about inequality of your professor's investment reminded me of this post: https://www.blogger....574011310486264 In particular check out the comment by anonymous at 11/06/2009 02:25:00 PM and the subsequent reactions. It is likely true that the students ahead of you in a new professor's lab matter more for his tenure prospects (presuming any look like they are going to finish what with the drop-out and the switcher). Whether that is the source of inequality that you are seeing is not clear, maybe he was given less of a teaching load at first or less service requirements as he got started (other things that FSP has blogged about) and he truly has less time now as well as more students to divide his advising time between. There are lots of possible reasons of why he is acting the way he is and an honest conversation is really the only way to know what is going on. I think it is completely legitimate to ask what is going on with the publication that was supposed to get done by 1/1. You think he is slacking, but does he think you are slacking in some way? (I'm not saying you are, but sometimes we don't meet other people's expectations simply by not knowing what they are.) Is he just too busy? If he is too busy during the semester, does he concentrate on writing during breaks? If you know when he is likely to get to things, you can use that as a personal deadline to get things to him by. It might be that the particular paper you are on isn't a priority for him (in this scenario it is not you, it is the paper in comparison to other papers). It might be that he is prioritizing the students who are further along just because they need publications to go on the job market and you have more time to put things together. Whatever the reason for his behavior, I hope for your sake that he is able to evaluate himself as well as you rather than just putting everything on you. Try to frame your request for the mid-year check-in in terms of constructive criticism - what can you do better, if you are discussing how to do things in the future more than how things have been done in the past, you can propose things like having more communication about when he will be able to respond to you, etc. because it will help you do better (and him be a better advisor but you don't have to mention that part ) Good Luck!

I realize that this was probably accidental usage of the same word but if you aren't Accepting don't 'gracefully accept' the offer, 'gracefully acknowledge.' It really depends on how you are told, who is telling you, etc. but it may even be the case that the professor(s) may even ask about their competition - they know that recipients of first round offers for them are likely to be first or second round offer receivers from other universities. Being honestly upbeat about the offer, asking additional questions about what life would be like/how that department functions for grad students (it sounds like you are pretty familiar but you probably don't know everything there is to know), discussing the biggest concerns you have (is it in your mind that this school is a 'safety' just because you know you can get in, or is it a 'safety' because it is also is lower on your list for some reason?), give the professor(s) a chance to address those concerns - you are moving into the-school-convincing-you stage from the you-convincing-the-school stage of the process, take advantage of it. Obviously, tact is still required, but don't be afraid to discuss things that you are truly concerned about that may lead you to a different school - the professors will be (should be) glad to have the opportunity.

My thought is that right now is a good time in the year to bill such a conversation as a mid-year check-in/evaluation. If you bill the meeting to be about you, your progress, your strengths and weaknesses, your projects rather than his advising style, his strengths/weaknesses, etc. I think you could have a very productive conversation. Ask for feedback on lab work, writing papers, and anything else that you don't know exactly what he is thinking that is relevant. If you are annoyed by his tardiness for meetings or his slow editing, ask if there is any way to improve this (without mentioning annoyance per say... perhaps respect for his professorial busyness and desire to use every waking minute for research?). Could meetings be held in the lab so that you can work up until his arrival? For the editing issue, is there a time during the week that he usually works on editing that it would be ideal for you to have a draft to him by? Or would it be possible for him to reply to an email of a paper for editing with a guess of how long it will take him to get to it based on his current queue? Even though I am suggesting a few, I wouldn't go in to the conversation with a bunch of 'solutions' worked out that he might not be interested in conforming to set in your mind as The Solutions. Have your goal of the conversation to be aware of how he thinks you are doing and to advise him of things that are confusing/frustrating about your advising relationship. If he is open to finding solutions, yay! But if not, maybe he will at least cue you into how he thinks about these things so they become less puzzling and easier to work around on your own. You are only one semester in to a 4-5 year relationship.. it takes time to figure out how your working relationship will be best choreographed.