mutualist007

Slow and steady also runs out of time.

I do not advise it. Find a way to do an internship and a thesis. Doubly so if you're male, and triple that if you are an overprivileged uninteresting whitebread male.

This made my night. To hell with the academy! Open Access and rapture for all!

One acceptance (without funding) out of about 9 carefully targeted applications for Fall 2011, 2014, 2015 starts. I have done a lot more this year, most of it pro bono internship work so maybe that will count for something. I can take some rejection but I cannot stand not knowing exactly where I failed. Would it be too much to ask for applications to be scored on a basic rubric or metric and the results reported to the applicant? I'm not sure how many more times I need to apply before applying again is just throwing money away and engaging insanity.

My master's work background is in anthropology and public health. My MPH thesis involved working with neurimaging and genetics data. I took molecular bio and genetics and a microbio PH lab as electives, but the greater hald of my quant related coursework was statistical data analysis. How much of an uphill battle will it be to win admission to a cultural neuroscience lab if you do not posess a degree and background in biopsych, neuro or biochemistry?

Your email prescription is great. I think that is what will work best for me. I'm behind in contacting some of my POIs because I keep second guessing how much detail I should include in the email. I also worry about writing an email that is either too formal and formulaic or one that is too casual. How much should one mention regarding the POIs research? And has anyone ever sent their CV with the first email?

Thanks everyone for your honest and logical input! Last year I thought that I had to leave anthropology for social and affective neuroscience and neuropsychology to find a fit, but I see things differently now. Hindsight tells me that I did not choose wisely last year when I decided to apply to neuroscience and neuropsych programs as a latecoming outsider. However, I was somewhat sure that one of my waitlis!tings would turn into an acceptance. I waited until almost June, which is why it took me a while to reconsider and complete a new search. I regrouped after the last rejection notice and got busy with the final stages of my MPH degree requirements. Fit was a concern because I was coloring outside of the lines in the MPH program and I realized that going down that path took me away from most traditional bio and medical tracks in anthropology. My thesis research in public health centers on multivariate analysis of imaging and genetics data, which is a bit outside of the thesis work for others in my school's epidemiology track, but also outside of most anthro work. Despite the past experience fit issue, I hoped that I could use my thesis and internship work to show that I could crossover and be useful. Somehow while reading material for my thesis and internship work, I stumbled upon research by anthropologists and began a new journey of sorts. My tangent reading eventually led me to my current lists of potential contacts and their home departments. I hope something works out this time!

I found faculty and programs that make awesome fits for my interdisciplinary interests; Unfortunately I found them last month. Can I reach out to my new POIs and programs without coming across as flippant or inconsiderate? I blame my delay on the are rarity and uniqueness of the sub-subfields. I searched for months and even then I only found some of the faculty by chance while reading material from other disciplines. All advice Is welcome. Thanks!

I only very recently discovered Cultural Neuroscience but I know now that I found the perfect home for my research interests. I hope too that Cultural and Social/Affective PhD programs find my background sufficiently complimentary to the discipline. My recent thesis work in public health combines neuroimaging and genetics, and my background before that was in anthropology with interests in interplay between culture and biology, genetics and society, and genetic studies of specific demographic groups. I've been lucky enough to find a couple of schools, but the problem I encounter is that the cultural neuro labs (if any) are in the minority and I wonder if expressing those interests will hurt my chances of making it through the first cuts. I have Northwestern and the University of Miami on my contact list, but I need others. I have plenty of other schools on my list, but they all require me to explain 'fit'. All suggestions appreciated!

This thread at times brings me down again, but there are a few success stories, so who knows. Does anyone think perhaps that US men ≥35 years of age have a more difficult time getting into PhD programs than women in the US? Because of patriarchy and assumptions about gender roles and assumptions about barriers to entry, AdComs may assume that the older female candidates faced more legitimate obstacles. They therefore may silently surmise that men had less valid reasons for delaying their entry into academia, or perhaps they think that men should suck it up and go do something manual or service oriented.

Are you even allowed to publish research outside of the academy?

Maybe she was trying to be down to earth and open, but it sounds like terrible questions about things that should not even be at issue. What does any of that have to do with your potential for scholarly output? Perhaps she was dropping hints that group think and social capital have more to do with success than novel research and analysis. The opening article I posted in this thread was a bit one directional. I think the issue of ageism in academia is more nuanced. Ageism experienced in academia is probably an indirect process. I suspect that this ageism is seldom part of a direct scheme to shape the mindset and social circle of the academic elite. The culture of academia tends to relate more to birds of the same feather. Their order may find it hard to understand why some prodigal students delayed graduate school for 5-10 years only to come back hungry to chase a new dream and calling. The academician way of life is akin to the cloistered life of a Monk or initiate of some secret order. The academic claims to be a part of the real world, but in many ways they are apart from it. They interface with it formally and informally when they leave the job, but otherwise they belong to something else. Perhaps because of this seperation, they find it hard to relate to students who for better or for worse, first found themselves tangled up in the outside life, before some pivotal moment led them to see the light. Unfortunately, I think many academics nurse a kind of skepticism about the seriousness of the non-traditional initiate. Perhaps it's more. Maybe there is a belief in academia that everyone has a place, and that everyone should accept their first choices and lot in life. Each according to their ability and each according to their need -- and never shall they need to change or desire something new I sometimes wonder if most living academics today came from families with a strong tradition of academic scholarship. If so, their backgrounds may not be the stuff of money and riches (it could) but their exposure and access to norms and path-finding is definitely cultural capital that they can take to the bank. Not to pity myself, but I am well aware not that I did not have that background. I am among the first generations in my family to attend college. I can think of only a handful of others, starting mainly with older cousins who ventured into that territory in the 1980s, and later, several others including myself who went to college in the mid to late 1990s. Most in my family however went in for professional and vocational training. I did not. I suspect that first generation college students venture in with severe deficits in social and cultural capital that is fundamentally necessary to understand the norms and unwritten expectations necessary to understand academia. When I went back to the University for my second bachelor's degree as a 30-something, I went in knowing that I knew how to study and learn and make great grades, but I was still very ignorant regarding the experiential expectations and other cultural realities of academia. Not knowing about the extras that were necessary for building success was a detriment. I hope we can keep this thread going as a way to document and monitor experiences and encounters where age becomes a factor. Nonetheless, I wonder if we should make careful distinctions about the kinds of ageism thinking that we report. Is ageism in academia something that just happens because older students are outlier statistics and outside the "norm"; or is it more systemic and a part of academia's values of merit? Do traditional path academics assume that older students with numerically shorter career timelines are destined to produce less research than a traditional student initiate who finishes their PhD before 30? This presupposes limitations and therefore limits on who should go on to join the order. The ability to conduct and publish research should not belong in to an elite few. Scientific and humanistic research needs to be democratized and removing barriers that restrict who can conduct and publish research is as important as the open access movement that aims to make that research available to the masses. https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008#page/n0/mode/2up http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/09/michael-eisen-plos-open-access-aaron-swartz

It all depends on the program you want to join. Many professional based doctorates actually prefer applicants to have 3 years experience. Clinical counseling, teaching, public health, are the ones that come to mind now. Honestly, I don't know why they are called "professional", but that's how one of my professors relayed it to me. I am trying to break into Arts and Sciences and to some extent academia, and that's where there is an unsaid preference or at least greater ability to relate to those who look most like the academics doing the recruiting. What this usually means is the younger and quicker you go through each degree milestone, the better. Merit is ascribed (unknowingly perhaps) to the undergrad who finishes before age 23, and the PhD student who starts before 25 and finishes by the time they are 30 (see the higher ed article link in the original post). I would love to collect and analyze the data on PhD student demographics and maybe that of the faculty too. Another article on ageism in academia http://ag3v.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/age-discrimination/

I found it disturbing and hypocritical, but we can always hope that the age bias is lessened when the PhD is new. Other online discussions I've read make a distinction between physical age and PhD age. PhD age is the years that have passed from the time of PhD completion to the time you are applying for a job. We shouldn't let this deter us or get us down. My intention with this post was to call attention to what I see as a hidden hypocrisy and accepted discrimination in academia. We need to be aware so we can be good self advocates and maybe enlist others to help us fight these sorts of things. Another possible affront to the democracy of access is the creation of the published caste. Regardless of ability or posession of a PhD level of education, those who are not not affiliated with a 4-year University or major research institution will probably find it nigh impossible to pass the peer review process and get published.

Looks cool. I still think it would be informative to compare the attributes of accepted vs not accepted Maybe some demographic information and some other qualitative stuff like time spent outside the classroom in experiential activities would be good too. But I'm impressed with what you have. It shows what one can expect among the accepted crowd.

It's kind of disconcerting if you are nontraditional, or over 30. Bias Against Older Candidates Inside Higher Ed http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/12/17/age The comments on this article reveal much about the truth on the ground for those who fall outside the approved trajectory of going straight through from an undergraduate degree. One of those comments is included one below. "Tenured at 60 • 5 years ago I returned to grad school and got my Ph.D. at 45, then spent 9 years before being hired tenure track. This happened despite having completed a pretigious postdoc, publishing research steadily, receiving a grant for my work, and teaching in a series of full-time visiting appointments with rave reviews. I would submit 60-70 applications and receive 3-5 on-campus interviews each year but was always the second choice. When I took my age off my vita, my interviews were at top places, such as NYU and UCLA. I honed my interview skills and am certain I wasn't saying or doing anything off-putting during my interviews. You would think someone with my training would be hired somewhere. The year I was actually hired, I had 10 interviews and only one job offer. That is clearly discrimination at work. I consider myself fortunate to have finally found a place willing to set aside prejudice and fairly consider a person on their own merits. Such places do exist but most of us do not have the stamina to keep looking until we finally find one of them." Feel free to post more. I will post more later as well.

Maybe it would be a good idea to do a poll that compares the attributes of those who got it to the attributes of those who did not get in right away (who are waitlisted or rejected). Any takers for creating that kind of poll? If no one does this in the next week I may do it, or I may get fancy and create a larger survey.

I generally agree with Forsaken and DigDeep. Presitge matters but maybe what we need to look at is actually the realtive presitige that includes the school ranking, and the specific faculty one studied with at the department. The relative prestige may also need to include the prestige relationship or differential between the doctoral school of the applicant and the school that is hiring. Can anyone point to a faculty member teaching at a top ranked school who received their degree from a lesser known unranked school - or someone from a top 10 ranked school who teaches at a small state university in the sticks with no PhD program (nothing wrong with those btw... I would rather teach there I think)? I'm willing to stand corrected, and I imagine it happens, but I suspect that those instances will be the exceptions and outliers. I don't like saying that one school has more prestige than another, but I think they get ranked nonetheless.

You won the internet that day with this. The last bit was a funny effective way to exit.

I consider it important to add my observations by giving an example that explains how merit and go-getting doesn't always mean you start with equal access. I have seen it replicated before by other posters on other forums. From my point of view I was making an objective observation. I think most of us here understand Bourdieu and Durkheim. My example was an explanatory extension of some of their arguments, but only on a much smaller scale. I thought it was clear that for the most part, master's students and undergraduate students do not all start with the same access to resources whether it's time, geographic access, money, access to professors, etc. I don't think that is untrue or even pessimistic to state that. As I mentioned previously, the scenario where large numbers of students are admitted yet funding is restricted to a few is systemic and it happens at a lot of places. My school was good to me in a lot of ways. The rank and file professors could not help that administrators and deans want full departments brimming over with students, yet they are expected to run departments with a scarcity of personnel and financial resources. That's another issue for another time. Sure, maybe some students need to weigh their options more carefully and choose not to attend if they are not funded, but if everyone could do that then everyone everywhere should be capable of being careful with their financial choices and they should all live within their means. That doesn't happen. We gamble and take out chances to improve our position -- and sometimes our status so that we can have a better chance at resources in the future. So what was my point? To offer a counterpoint and example of differential access to research resources that argues against the boot-strap argument that if you push hard enough all things are more or less equal -- except for merit of course. I will try be more careful with my wording in the future. It is possible to substitute actual journal publishing with other forms of presenting or producing original work.

Nice profile graphic and screen name. As for the quote about the unpublished being admitted, I think it's possible and it gives hope, but I think this may apply more to applicants coming straight out of undergraduate programs. Maybe we need to collect the data here if we can and post the results

I had a 2008 MacBook running a program called "Parallels" which allows you to launch into Windows from the Mac OS, or reboot into Windows. It was very convenient. Personally I use Linux a lot, Ubuntu and Linux Mint specifically, and there is a lot of free genetics and science software, GIS too, available in the open source community. It also seems to be preferred by some labs when it comes to using the smaller specialized genetics algorithmic applications, or using the 'R' programming language. As far as hardware is concerned, Apple is very consistent with quality. I feel like there is a lot of hit or miss variance with Intel/AMD PC based hardware. Go with a Macbook for the main travel laptop. You can always add an install of Linux or Windows to it later if you want. A scratch built Linux desktop workstation may be a good option too since desktops don't always have the video power to run ArcGIS well. Below I listed some US companies that build laptops and desktops with quality parts and with Linux preinstalled. They will also offer to load Windows too. Faster quad or more processor, good quality video card and 8GB+ of RAM is recommended for anything GIS related though. And a sizeable monitor or two cheap 17" ones linked together will work too. Linux Systems that offer everything + Windows boot option installed: ZaReason http://zareason.com/shop/Desktops/ System76 https://www.system76.com/home/

I have to respond because in some cases some students start with much better opportunities than others in their cohort. I was admitted to an MA program that has maybe a total of 35 or so students (not sure) in a small department. Several students in my cohort started their first semester working with their primary POI and adviser. I like many others started with no funding. I found an assistantship in another department but the work I was doing was completely unrelated to what I wanted to study. That was not the case for the students who got right into lab work and teaching. This is an important difference and something to beware of going in. I also argue that starting right off working with a POI and possibly in their lab, is an advantage that other students do not have. It also makes it easier to pick up advice and suggestions for thesis work. I know because some have told me that one of the professors was practically asking students to base their thesis work on the materials in their lab. "Grooming" may have been too harsh a word, but I do feel that some of the cohorts each year are the stars who start right out with funding and working directly with their adviser or POI -- the rest of us are the cash cows that bring money to the program. I got an anthro assistantship my second year, but it was working as a TA with someone whose research had very little relevance to my interests. So there.

Thanks! Now I need to quickly find some intel on what to expect in an interview!

I wish I could have edited one of my earlier posts, but I can't so I will just say that not all is doom. The Emory rejection just came at the perfect time to create a perfect storm of doubt and frustration with my MA experience. I think for some people the MA/MS option works great, however I think it should be approached with awareness of its limitations. Be mindful that it’s best and maybe only certain use is to build a stronger PhD application. I am back online with the MPH and looking forward to an interview later this month. Cheers