starmaker

Why should I sign such a petition? I want dignity and good working conditions for graduate students. Part of what that means is that I want them to be recognized legitimately as workers. Grad stipends should be taxed. And graduate assistants should be able to unionize (which might help with the whole higher stipends thing in some cases). And file complaints with the National Labor Relations Board. And be provided health insurance (I don't much like the employer-provides-health-insurance system, but as long as we have it, graduate assistants should benefit from it). And be eligible (if they otherwise meet the conditions) for the FMLA, and USERRA, and be eligible to receive workers' compensation. And all that other good stuff. And yes, I realize that some "normal" jobs are problematic with regards to some of this, which is one reason I'm an activist. Editing this post to add: Just to be clear, I know that at some schools the grad students already have some or all of these benefits. But I want them to be more ubiquitous. And the canonical excuse that I've seen from university admins who want to deny grad students such benefits is that they are somehow not real workers. I don't want grad students to accept that view of their own work, and allow it to be used against them. Basically, I want grad student employees to be treated as the grown-up working people they are and not special snowflake children. It's not like other jobs don't ever require fees from your wages. What do you think a worker's share of health insurance premiums are? What do you think continuing ed or certification requirements are? And I am currently both a grad student and a full-time non-academic worker, and no, grad students don't do double the work of the rest of the world. There are grad students who are expected to work an exceptional number of hours, and non-academic workers who are expected to work an exceptional number of hours, and many in both categories of workers who are not.

Seriously? South Waltham/Moody Street is great!

East Boston is a big Latino culture area. It has a lot of parks and beaches, and other attractions. The obvious drawback (though it's also a convenience) is that you're right next to a major airport, with all the noise and other implications (like airport expansions possibly seizing land). You have easy access to the Blue Line (subway). Chelsea is diverse and blue-collar. Public transit is less convenient - Chelsea has a commuter rail stop, but not a subway stop.

Depending on which offer I go with, my stipend will be roughly a quarter to a third of my current salary. I'm fortunate to have lived below my means and saved up a nice chunk of cash over the last few years, so I have a cushion and experience living more frugally. I'm also hoping that my spouse will be making some money by then (right now I'm supporting both of us as he gets started as a freelancer).

I don't know how much this would cost in NYC, but one thing I've heard people discuss in Boston when talking about childcare affordability is a "nanny share", in which you and a couple of other families jointly hire a nanny to take care of the kids, and split the costs. One of my close friends who is a nanny in Boston (and is the one who first explained the concept of nanny shares to me) says that a typical wage for a nanny here is around $18/hour, and covering half of a typical individual health care premium would be, say, $1500/year, which comes to approximately $37.5k total for full-time care (and presumably accordingly less for part-time care). Split that three ways with two other families and each is paying $12.5k/year (the same math for half-time care would be 18k wages +1.5k health insurance divided three ways = $6.5k). Which is less than daycare for one kid costs around here. If the math works out similarly in NYC, this might be something to look into.

I submitted and haven't heard anything. Past results from the results survey suggest that people usually hear news in early April. I really wish fellowships were quicker about this - when I'm weighing offers between two schools with very different funding packages, it would be nice to know whether I'm getting a bunch of portable fellowship money!

This seems like it belongs in the Applications forum, not the Decisions forum. There's a thread in the Lobby (which, full disclosure, I started) for people with below-3 undergrad GPAs who got accepted to grad programs. You may want to look at it. Those "minimum requirements" aren't always strict - I've known people to get into programs where they didn't meet the minimum GPA. The key to doing this is having good master's grades or good research experience. You have these, so I'd say, apply to places where you are a good fit and don't worry about the alleged minimum requirements. Look for programs where the program faculty have more control over the admissions process, and the graduate school itself has less.

What's your area of research? The two programs have different strengths. Are you going for a master's or PhD? What sort of funding did they offer you?

I'd like to see more articles dedicated to encouraging grad students to form a workable "Plan B" instead of discouraging them from trying their "Plan A". These people, or some of them anyway, write all these articles because they think they're helping a bunch of innocent students avoid a life of destitution (and honestly, as a leftist activist, I find the idea that money should be irrelevant, to a leftist or anyone else, to be a little strange - some of my fellow activists are homeless, or they have big medical bills that they can't pay, and I'm pretty sure money, and their lack of it, is relevant to them). But if the worry is that the "Plan A" tenure-track professorship won't work out, why not talk about the employable skills that you can develop while you're making your way through grad school (if in a field with no industry market)? You can get an EMT certification and gain experience moonlighting or on your school's volunteer force. You can get certified as a plumber or an electrician. And then, if your Plan A does work out (as I hope it does for all here), you'll have picked up some highly useful extra skills along the way.

Well, I have a good problem to have. I have two acceptances (I'm still waiting on one school, but I expect them to reject me). But deciding between them is going to be very difficult. I'd appreciate people's thoughts. I'm going for a CS PhD. Let's call the programs A and B (I know, original...I was going to go with school colors, but their colors are similar). My first-choice end goal would be academia, but I wouldn't mind industry/government research. Both programs have research going on that I'd enjoy a lot (obviously). *********************************************************************************************************************************************** Reputation: They're about the same right now (both around #70), but A has been moving up more quickly than B has. I expect A to continue going up quickly, as the university continues to invest in the department and the department brings in strong new faculty. B has gone up a little in recent years, but not a lot. Placement: A has a very good placement record for its ranking, with a number of recent PhDs ending up in postdoc/faculty positions in departments that are more prestigious than A (reversing the usual downward cascade). I have no idea about B, and need to find this out. Funding/Perks: This is where B comes up REALLY strong. A is offering 21.5k for an assistantship (they don't know yet whether it would be a TAship or an RAship), plus half of heath insurance premiums after the first semester. B is offering me a prestigious NSF IGERT traineeship/fellowship for the first two years, with a stipend of 30.5k. In addition to the prestige of the program and the NSF name, it comes with a variety of perks, including special summer institutes and seminar series for the IGERT cohort, and (if I want it) a funded semester-long internship at a research institute in India. Advisors: A and B are both small departments, which limits the advisor choice. There's only one advisor in B that I really want to work with (though there are a couple of others that I could live with if forced), but he is VERY well-known in the relevant subfield, very much a bigshot. I have not met him in person yet, and I need to ask a couple of contacts about what he's like to work with. A has two advisors that interest me, both rising youngish associate prof types. I've met them both and talked to both of their students. They are both very friendly and like me a lot. One is reported by students to be easy to get along with, the other is moody but will also go to bat for her students. Curriculum: A has a joint PhD program with another discipline that I'm interested in, that A's existing PhD students can join, for extra fun and employability. A is very interdisciplinary, which I like. Their PhD program is a post-MS PhD program, so I wouldn't have to repeat any MS work (though I would still have to take quals and their quals seem to be kind of hard). I took non-degree classes there for a while, so I know that I can succeed in their classes. B is not a post-MS PhD program, though I could get some transfer credit for my MS. In addition to the extra credentials that I'd get from the IGERT curriculum, B is part of a really neat interdisciplinary research center and has an optional certificate program in quant bio. Teacher Training: Since I'm interested in academia, this is relevant. B is very big on everybody learning to teach, though they have no special programs. A has minimal requirements, and their ordinary TAs mostly do gruntwork, but they have competitive training programs for people who want more training in college-level teaching. Social Climate of the Department: A is an INCREDIBLY warm, friendly, supportive department (again, I've taken non-degree classes there, so I know it's not just a facade for the visiting admittees), with no/minimal political nonsense. I don't know what B is like - their open house for admittees hasn't happened yet. Social Climate of the University: B wins this one. B has a famously social-justice-oriented community and lots of interesting community groups. For all that A is such a pleasant department, the university as a whole has some very significant problems with racism and classism. It seems to have fewer interesting community groups. Location: A and B are less than 10 miles apart, so they tie on this one.

PhD Applications (focus in artificial life and self-organizing systems) Admitted: Tufts, Brandeis (with NSF IGERT traineeship) Waiting: Harvard (probably rejected)

Make sure it's the right kind of knowledgeable, though. My mom and stepdad are nationally competitive cyclists (so certainly very knowledgeable about bikes). If I had them suggest bikes for me, they'd probably all cost $1000+ and be an order of magnitude more fancy than what I needed.

Well, I've got another acceptance to report. It's another mid-rank program, and this one offered me an NSF IGERT trainee/fellowship. This is going to be a tough decision.

The problem with the NRC rankings is that the data is ancient by this time. I wish they came out more often, because I find their rankings, and their raw data, valuable. In many fields (including mine), US News is a straight-up current-reputation measure. That is literally all that is measured. That's why I like it, because I know exactly what I'm getting - no complicated balancing act formula. If I want to check out a program's current reputation, I'll look at US News. If I don't, then I don't care about US News at all. Edited to add: They didn't do a new CS ranking? #(*&%! I wanted to see how certain programs had moved since the old ranking.

Depending on how you define it, this is my fourth time. 1st time: Senior in college, bad grades, decent research experience, applied to a variety of MS programs. Didn't get in anywhere. 2nd time: Had been working for about half a year, applied to post-bac CS program. Got in. 3rd time: Had been working for about a year and a half and was taking post-bac CS classes, applied to two MS CS programs. Got into both. 4th time: Finishing up part-time MS in CS, applying to PhD programs. Got into one, still waiting to hear from other two.

Don't get anything that looks too nice. At least around here, most commuting bikes are pretty cruddy-looking, and a notably nice-looking bike will just be a target for thieves. I agree with the recommendations for a hybrid.

It depends on the program. Would it be possible for you to do the program part-time while working full-time (or vice versa)? I do have a friend doing the full-time work/full-time PhD thing, but it's hard, and her job allows telecommuting. I've been doing the full-time work/part-time grad school game for years, and I'm ready to be done with it at this point, but it's certainly doable.

Having some kind of experience helps. By the time I submitted my MS apps, I'd been working in my field full-time for a year and a half (with a peer-reviewed publication) and had taken four post-bachelor's non-degree classes in my field. And I had a well-above-average, though not outstanding, GRE score. By the time I submitted my PhD apps, I'd been working full-time in my field for four and a half years, had a 3.5 MS GPA plus five non-degree classes before that, had four peer-reviewed publications (one as first author) a published abstract, and a poster presentation under my belt, and had an over-1500 quant + verbal GRE with a perfect writing score. And I have grant-writing experience through my jobs (which, unsurprisingly, a lot of PIs appreciate). And all that experience allowed me a very focused SOP and lots of options for strong letters of recommendation. People with very low undergrad GPAs, for the most part, don't get into grad programs because they got lucky (well, they did, but not moreso than other applicants) and were selected before more-qualified applicants. They get in because they made themselves highly qualified in other ways. Edited to fix typos.

IMO, anybody who tells you that grad school means you'll have no time for a social life or relationship is full of it and probably trying to do some sort of weird masochistic bragging thing about how hard grad school life is. I've known a lot of grad students, some of them at top programs in stereotypically-difficult fields, and they have crunch times like any other working adult, but exactly zero of them have been so busy that they can't have a social life or relationship. I am, by the way, a half-time MS student, a full-time worker, a political activist, and happily married with an active social life. And I did well enough in my MS to have gotten a PhD acceptance (possibly with more coming; I've only heard back from one school). Grad school's no more hosing, in terms of time required, than many non-academic jobs (as long as your advisor isn't one of those professors who thinks they're a feudal lord). Sometimes the hard thing, if you've moved to go to grad school and left your old friends behind, is making friends in the first place, rather than finding time to hang out with them. Your cohort could be a source of friends, but there's no guarantee that you'll like them just because you happen to be in the same field (look at the numerous examples of intra-field professorial feuds). You can also meet neighbors, people in student clubs, and people in community organizations, for starters.

Huh. In the one offer that I've gotten so far, they only pay for health insurance after the first semester, and then only half of it (however, the fee is not too bad and the stipend level is higher than that of the UCs). Of course, medical expenses can add up even if your insurance is paid, if you have any chronic health problems. Hopefully you don't and so this is not an issue! I just tend to think of it because at one point my spouse had 4-5 specialist appointments/week, and even with good insurance that was adding up to $300+/month. And yeah, it is really hard to live both frugally and alone in a high cost-of-living area, no matter how small an apartment you get. However, a lot of people enjoy having roommates with pets, as Sparky said. Most of my friends who live with roommates, have pets in their households (many of them cats).

Income taxes? Health insurance and medical expenses? Heat costs, in the winter (I guess this is not as much of a concern in California)? Loan/credit card payments, if applicable? I'm not trying to say that $2k/month isn't doable, I just think you did miss a few things.

I don't know all the details, but he was a top applicant - senior at one of the tied-for-#1-ranked programs, high GPA, good research experience, glowing letters from famous profs in his subfield. He's also gotten into (among others), CMU, MIT, and UPenn. I don't know anyone who has gone for the master's profile, so I don't know what sort of profile people who get accepted to that usually get.

I applied for the PhD at Harvard. I haven't heard anything yet. A friend got an acceptance email last week.

Really, your outside life should be the most helpful resource that you have in dealing with this, since you don't depend on the program for a social life. If your professors are pleased with your progress, the resentful people can take a hike. To answer your question, I haven't personally experienced this, but I know a couple of people who have. I have a friend whose fellow grad students resented and sniped about him because he was heavily involved in amateur theater productions - he did plenty of service work, but they were resentful that he wasn't spending all day every day in the lab. I think he dealt pretty much by ignoring them.

Depends on the program. One of my programs emailed everyone at once. Another, judging by the results survey so far, staggers it.