juilletmercredi

Those benefits don't necessarily make self-funding worth it, unless you're independently wealthy and can pay completely out of pocket - and even then, it's not necessarily worth the outlay of money. First of all, your actual in-program experience might not be as good as the students who come in with funding. Funding is a signal to the program and department about how much the department is willing to invest in you. If a program doesn't fund you, that means they aren't investing in you as a student and junior scholar. Particularly if you are attending with students who are funded, there's going to be an obvious disparity. If you have to work while you're in the program to support yourself, you're taking away time that all your colleagues will be spending on research and professional development. Even if you aren't working and you're borrowing loans, the perception of you by faculty will be qualitatively different than your colleagues who have regular funding. Secondly, transferring PhD programs - as @rising_star alluded to above - isn't a simple or easy thing. It's not like transferring undergraduate programs. Most times you can only transfer in 9-12 credits (about a semester's worth). And even if your program technically allows you to transfer in work, your PI may have additional requirements or may be reluctant to let you graduate before you've been in the program for 4-5 years. After all, they are making an investment in you, and they want to get some good years of research work out of you and hopefully some publications. I have a friend who did a few years of a PhD before transferring to my program (for legit reasons); he had to start all over and graduated the same year I did, even though I started from scratch. That was partially because of his adviser's preference. You also need the support from your old adviser, but if he feels like you just came into their PhD program to get a master's and transfer away he may be less willing to support your transitioning to another program, especially if he expected to apply for funding for you and get you to stay. Thirdly, from a monetary perspective it's not a good ROI. The first 2-3 years of a PhD program are the most expensive years, as you are still taking coursework. Many private universities' tuition is over $40,000 per year these days, which means you'd be borrowing at least $80,000 (if you just had to borrow tuition and fees) and maybe upwards of $130,000 (if you also have to borrow living expenses). Even if you do make it in a career as a successful academic or industry scientist, the salary in those fields is not big enough to comfortably repay that kind of debt. And it'd be one thing if it was like med school or law school in which all of your colleagues have that debt, but it's not. That kind of debt may also force you to limit the kinds of jobs you can take after graduating because some of them won't allow you to repay your loans. In an already competitive market, you don't want that. In fact, IMO it's far better to be "in limbo" for a year, or at the very least attend a terminal master's program that is designed to be a stepping stone into a PhD program (hopefully with funding, or maybe at an inexpensive public university in your home state). In some fields, there are other things you can do, like do a post-baccalaureate research fellowship or work as a lab manager or research associate. Even working a semi-related research/scholarship job would be preferable - I have some colleagues who worked at think tanks or nonprofits for 2-3 years between college and grad school, and that research can be looked on quite favorably especially in the social sciences. (Often, they are supervised by PhDs who do work that is quite similar to what professors do.) Even doing nothing in the interim could be preferable. If you only get in without funding, or get into no programs, that might just be the luck of the draw and not due to your credentials or anything. Taking a year to work on your materials or maybe retake the GRE if that's a factor could improve your application, and in the meantime you aren't racking up debt.

Yes, I timed the beginning of my postdoc so it followed right after I defended. That way there was no break in my paycheck. Same thing with the transition from my postdoc to my first full-time position - there was only about a week between those two positions, and that was only because I was moving cross-country and needed to settle in a bit. If you already know there's going to be about a month's gap, start saving a little every month so you have enough to at least cover basic needs during that month. If it's going to be longer, you might look into temping in the mean time, or doing an arranged summer internship for a professor or office on campus.

Yes, it's far too early. Generally speaking for academic jobs that start in the fall of 2017 you would start applying between August and December of 2016, with interviews generally taking place between November and March of 2017. For industry jobs the application period would be even later - like rising_star said, you'd want to be within 6 months of graduation (unless you are applying for competitive Wall Street quant positions or consulting positions - those have application cycles like academia, whereby you'd apply around October).

Well, first of all, if you are asking about industry jobs I would stick to listening to industry people. Many academics have never worked an industry job and don't really know how it works, and most of the people they may know in industry are their friends and colleagues from their PhDs and postdocs who left academia and went to work in industry with PhDs. They have a skewed sample and no experience to rely on. They also have an interesting definition of a "real" research job, and it may not match with the kinds of positions you actually want to get. This isn't universally true. It depends on the job - and on you, really. It's your responsibility to convey in the cover letter and in your interviews that you are genuinely interested in a specific type of position and that you really want to build a career in it. But there are lots of PhDs that are working in positions that only require an MA or a BA.

Well, it depends on what research jobs we're talking about, but I think your professors are generally wrong. For leadership jobs in industry - and jobs at top employers - a PhD might be the necessary credential. If you're doing cutting-edge work, leading a research group, managing other researchers, basically doing work that's really similar to being a university professor (other than that pesky teaching part) then you'll probably need a PhD. But there are lots of research positions in industry that only require an MS. It kind of depends on the job.

I'm not quite sure what you're asking. The prestige of your graduate program/university isn't a "job skill"; it's simply an attribute of one aspect of your profile. It sounds like you might be asking whether or not prestige matters, and the answer is that it depends. It depends on the sector, it depends on the employer, it even depends on the hiring manager who reviews your resume. Even within the people involved in hiring for a specific job there might be differences of opinion with respect to how important prestige is.

A second childhood? A socialist utopia? Everyone else's graduate school experiences must be really different from mine. Graduate school (and academia) is the real world. It's not some respite from it or an imaginary place; it's just a subset of the "real world" that functions in a space of privilege in many senses. It's no less or more real than being a hedge fund manager or a CEO or a corporate lawyer or a marketing manager. Those people also experience extraordinary privilege by virtue of the money and status that they have, but they still have "real" experiences. Reality comes in many different forms, and it's not all cold basements and dirty sidewalks. I didn't feel like I was sheltered from "the real world" in graduate school; I existed in it. I had to pay my rent and feed myself like everyone else; I saved and worried about emergencies; I took public transit; I dealt with grumpy administrators and not getting paid on time and issues of being the only woman of color in my department. There are certainly privileges to working in academia, but there are downsides, too, and it doesn't remove you from living in reality. I think you should just enjoy whatever privileges you have, while remembering that there are downsides to everything and that you don't live in some made-up fantasy land but actual real life. As far as academia being a socialist utopia...no, it's totally not. First of all, many universities get a lot of their funding from private interests, charitable donations, and contracts with corporations. A lot of the medical research going on on your campuses, for example, may be funded by drug companies (or overseen by drug companies, or bought out by drug companies). Many private foundations give grants to researchers to investigate issues of interest to them. And especially as you ascend up the research ladder, gaining the money and resources to conduct your research looks more and more capitalist. And it's definitely not a utopia - academics are no less likely to be grumpy and disagreeable than any other employees out there. They're just people. People who generally have a job they like and are passionate about, which is great, but people nonetheless.

I understand both sides of this dispute: you're frustrated because you feel like your friend doesn't understand your work and she's frustrated because she feels like you don't make time for her. I remember writing my dissertation and being in the last few months of it. It's a stressful time, and you can be really busy especially if you have an ambitious timeline. Your socialization time will be limited, and good friends will understand that this is an unusual period in your life. And in the last couple weeks before the defense I think it's perfectly acceptable to sort of shut out the world and work work work. But if we're talking about months and months of time in which your friend feels neglected...well, it kind of depends on whether your friend is dramatizing it or whether you really haven't been spending that much time, but I'd at least give it a thought. Only socializing once a month for three straight months sounds a bit unhealthy. From her perspective, she never gets to spend any quality one-on-one time with you, which is one of the things that strengthens a close friendship - you only get to socialize once a month and you're throwing all of your friends together so you can just get face time with all of them in at the same time. That doesn't really allow you to develop individual relationships. And no, she's not in graduate school, so she doesn't understand your position - but everyone has had stressful times or lots of work before that allows them to relate at least somewhat. Have you considered discussing this with this friend in this way? Explaining to her that you're really swamped and you need for her to understand that, but that you also understand her point of view? What if you guys make a standing appointment at a different time each month - maybe 30-60 minutes to grab coffee or lunch together once a month, something you can both look forward to. One of the things that made my dissertation period really good is that I made time for myself, including time to hang with my friends and de-stress. If you're working on your dissertation 97% of the time, you're going to burn out.

So any MA program at a relatively decent university that will allow you to do research will prepare you for a PhD program. I lived nearby Camden for a time and have lots of family still there. Out of all the areas in Camden the neighborhood that Rutgers is in is one of the least sketchy - near the waterfront and the attempted revitalization - but that's a relative term. I certainly would never live there - I'd rent an apartment in a different town and commute. Undecided on whether I'd attend; it would really depend on the department and my other options. But this is a place I would never be comfortable leaving late at night after some hours in the lab or a place where I feel me and lab-mates could grab drinks after class or something. I used to ride into the Walter Rand Transportation Center from New York to visit my cousins when I still lived in NYC - same neighborhood, about a half-mile from Rutgers-Camden - and if a bus/train was going to get there after 10 pm I just waited to leave until the next morning. And my cousin would always make sure she was waiting there when I got there so I wouldn't have to stand around in Camden. I have cousins who are pretty rough and they steer clear of Camden, so...

Which one has the advisor you most want to work with? Which one has the most advisors that could advise you or that you could work with on research? What are the programs' reputations like in the field? Placement records? They look like they're roughly equal rankings-wise, with UCSB being maybe a bit below the other three American schools (Toronto is harder to place - you have to know your own field). Do any of them have special resources, centers, certificates, concentrations, etc., that are appealing to you? Did you prefer the fit or vibe at any of the programs? Do you have a geographic preference for any of them? All great cities, but going to graduate school in Santa Barbara would be amazing. On the other hand, Houston (and Raleigh) are pretty cheap compared to Davis and SB (and Toronto). Is the funding roughly equivalent between them?

Different strokes for different folks, but I don't. I would not attend a PhD program that did not provide me with full funding to cover my tuition, fees, health insurance, and a stipend that is livable in the city the university is in. Besides, transferring PhD programs isn't a piece of cake and honestly they probably won't take most of the work you've done in your first year. It's better to simply not attend and reapply next year. However, if your signature is current and updated, it looks like you've only been accepted to one school and you don't have responses yet to four others. I know it's a bit late in the game but why not wait until you have a full slate of responses?

Well, yes, from a non-academic professional networking perspective being in Seattle is better than being in Pullman. That's unequivocally true. But that's not the only consideration here. If your ultimate goal is to get a PhD, you're accepted into a PhD program. It sounds like the program is a good fit for you and you want a research career; all of the networking in the world won't help you if you don't have the degree necessary to enter a research career. And if you want a PhD either way, doing the MS at UW adds money and time to that endeavor - potentially a lot of money. And being in a big city won't necessarily be a networking boon for academic positions, if that's your goal. I did a short postdoc in a small college town and honestly those professors there were some of the best networkers ever, far better than some of the professors from my graduate program in New York. It was cheap to bring people to campus so they invited all kinds of speakers and big people in the field to come speak, and they knew everybody! I love Seattle so much and I'm a huge advocate of being happy during your graduate program - it's as much a part of your life as anything else that you do. But you also have to think about long-term gain as well. Pullman and Seattle are about 4.5 hours apart; you could do a long-distance relationship for the PhD program, and see each other most weekends. It's okay for that to be completely unacceptable and for you not to even want to consider it, of course. (Personally, I did an LDR like this for a year, and that got really old. In hindsight, not sure I'd want to do it for more than 2-3.) There are some shorter-term benefits, too - $2100 a month will go a lot farther in Pullman.

I would definitely choose the Penn PhD. There's no reason not to.

If you truly are 100% uninterested in doing clinical work, the PhD in neuroscience might be a better bet. The funding is better (I would not take out loans to attend a PhD program to cover basic needs or tuition/fees/health insurance), and neuroscience PhDs definitely do research with clinical populations. For IRB approval on grants, all you need is a consultant who is a clinical psychologist or clinical neuropsychologist - that's not difficult to get (nor is it very expensive).

Well, my counter is that you can say the same thing about Penn - they're pretty equal programs, so why not go to Penn? I think you just have to examine your own reasoning. If it's because you're absolutely delighted by the idea of being able to tell people you went to Harvard, I think you should probably spend a little more time thinking and making a decision. If it's because you truly believe that the connections and opportunities out of Harvard will be better than out of Penn, then you've made your choice.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't get the recommendation for a numeric keypad. I did a lot of statistical analysis in public health (with large national datasets) on laptops without numeric keypads. If you're an epidemiologist using national/public data sets you aren't necessarily going to be doing a lot of data entry, and the actual analysis itself doesn't usually involve a lot of repetitive entry of numbers, at least in my experience. Plus, you can always get a USB keypad for cheap if you wanted. But I can't think of a single time when I was like "man I really wish I had a keypad." Maybe it's the molecular part? I'd go with a Windows machine because using SAS in a virtual environment is a pain in the ass, in my opinion. I did this - I had a powerful Mac, 16 GB with a 1 TB Fusion drive. I dedicated half the RAM to my virtual machine. SAS still lagged. Other than that the brand and type is kind of up to you. I schlepped my laptop everywhere and traveled a lot, so having a slim, portable machine was important to me. Right now I have an HP Spectre x360 for my personal laptop and I like it a lot, although I'm not sure I would want to use it as a work machine. My work laptop is a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon and it's an excellent work laptop. Super slim and portable, long battery life (I forget the charger all the time - I wouldn't say it actually has 10.9 hours unless you're not doing anything with it, but I would say around 6-8 is pretty accurate), quite durable (man I've dropped it so many times) and quite powerful. I think they start at around $1200. ThinkPad has also introduced the P50, which is supposed to be for big data and other applications that require lots of power.

But...he is. You want a PhD and he's made it clear that he's not totally behind that in your situation and he would only take you for an MA, at least initially. He's also voiced the concern that you are not committed to your research. Yes, he made the concern obliquely - by referencing his other students and your hobbies - but that doesn't make the expression any less real. He's also consistently asking you if you are sure you want to join his group and talking negatively about his funding. These are ALL of the signs of someone trying to dissuade you from joining his group. You say that you've already established that your hobbies are a non-issue, but your first post doesn't make it sound that way ("because I have hobbies, he's worried that'll take up my time...and I've already told him it won't happen, yet he still wants me to take some time and think about it.") The last part of that statement signals to me that he doesn't believe you for whatever reason. It does, indeed, sound like the PI cares if you have hobbies. I think this is, at the very least, a PI making it very clear that he is not your strongest advocate or supporter. You want a PI that believes in your abilities and skills and isn't constantly questioning you from the outset. Because of that, it doesn't really seem like this person is a great fit for you at this time. Best case scenario you have to constantly worry about proving yourself in the first 2 years of your relationship rather than knowing that this is someone who has wanted to sponsor and support you from the outset. And there are many things that can go wrong: if he has high standards and is easily disappointed (which frankly sounds like the case), then you may find him unpleasable. Well, it's not a great plan at least. It kind of depends on the terms of the agreement. Generally speaking you shouldn't enter a PhD program without full funding to take you through at least the coursework phase (and ideally through the whole thing). Don't just worry about it later - that can end you up in some tremendous debt that you won't be able to repay and that will hobble the beginning of your career. Leaving with a master's from a PhD program to go somewhere else is logistically and emotionally more difficult than most people imagine. You'll need your advisor's support, for one. That said, it sounds like he's only taking you for an MA program, in which case your plan isn't so bad on face. Having one year completely covered and only having to pay for the second year, with the understanding that you are only there for the MA and will apply to the PhD program like anyone else (including considering other programs) isn't such a bad thing - in fact, that's pretty good for the MA. But that's again ignoring the fact that this professor doesn't really sound like he wants to advise you at all.

Having stats skills and coursework will help you on the job market, but it need not be a formal minor. That said, a minor can help because it's a structured program AND it shows that the school has been thoughtful about creating opportunities for PhD students to get advanced stats training. You will always have to explain your interests in statistical analysis. You can't just slap a minor on your CV and expect it to do the work for you Either way you go you'll have to address it in your statements and cover letters. Besides, even if you don't do a formal minor, you can always say that you concentrated or specialized in statistical analysis/methods at BC on your CV - you don't only have to put the most formal of things there. (I certainly put this down even though I don't have a formal concentration in the area sponsored by the school. It's still an accurate reflection of my training.)

Typically lack of funding for an MA program isn't a sign that they don't want you. Funding for MA programs is far less common than funding for PhD program, especially in the social sciences. Why do you think you didn't get into PhD programs? Is it a problem that attending an MA program can fix? If you do think you need an MA before advancing to a PhD program, is there a lower-cost way for you to do that - like attending an MA program at a public university in your home state? Just because this is the only MA offer you have this year doesn't mean you should take it; maybe you should apply to a mix of PhD and MA programs next year and see what happens. That job offer you talk about - is it work in the field that you'd like? I don't think an MA program is going to respond well to a job offer as leverage. They're not really comparable offers.

I'm not in either of these fields, but I get the sense that a PhD in anthropology could apply for positions in an ethnomusicology department with the right research and training, but an ethnomusicology PhD might not be able to apply to positions in an anthropology department (or at least not all of them - maybe some). I'd talk to some ethnomusicology PhDs to confirm or deny that, though - and I'd talk to some recent graduates and newly hired PhDs, AND talk to some faculty who have served on a search committee lately in either field. Advanced faculty can be great for a lot of things but sometimes they wear rose-colored glasses when it comes to the academic job market.

You can get a job with both - they're both excellent schools with really excellent departments in those particular areas, and both are in cities with robust opportunities for internships and networking. Do you lean more towards applied math or statistics? They are similar, but not the same. What kind of industry do you want to work in post-graduation? Seattle has lots of employers, of course, but tech tends to dominate the scene. New York's employment scene is more diversified. There's also the fact that Seattle is a far cheaper city to live in than New York, which might impact the costs. Also, are you a WA resident? If so UW is likely to be far cheaper.

Here's my opinion: I'm obviously not against a long-distance relationship, given that I've done them before (with my own husband). And an hour or two isn't that far. However, living together is way, way better. I was never happier in my PhD program than the two years my husband and I finally lived in the same place. There's all that social support...my husband was my biggest champion and cheerleader when I was writing my dissertation, and it made the process so much better. Also, never underestimate the costs of living in two separate places. Not only do you pay two rents, but you need two sets of furniture; you need to go grocery shopping for two separate residences (and shopping for one is almost as expensive as shopping for two), two sets of utilities...etc. My husband and I have separate residences by necessity - we live 2,600 miles apart - but I try not to think about all of the excess money we've spent in our cumulative 6 years of long-distance living. Shudder. Your meager graduate stipends will go so much further if you're sharing a residence. Top 25 is still really good. The program is making strides in your area and seems to have made an impact. If your dream is to be a top-flight professor at the most elite program in your field then I would say you'd have to strongly consider A. Or, if your only choice was PhD 2 hours away from hubby vs. no PhD at all, I would say take the PhD (maybe). But School B sounds like a perfectly fine choice for you, especially with you leaning towards industry. Only you can really make that choice, though!

No, I don't think it's worth the extra loans. The amount that you'd be in debt all up would difficult to repay if you want to stay in academia (or even if you don't). You already said that School A has an amazing fit, amazing advisor, and it's a strong program. Why would you choose a school that is no better (and, in fact, that you have reservations about) but comes with an extra five figures of debt?

Eh, I would pick either A or B. It would depend on how much debt I had from undergrad. Assuming I had no to very little debt ( <$15K) from undergrad, $20K in debt for a master's really isn't that much. Sure, no debt is better than some debt, but a little bit of debt for a year of living somewhere you'd love to live and attending the top school in the world for your field isn't a bad deal. I guess it would just depend on how badly you wanted it. B is a good option, too. No debt is excellent, Toronto's a great city and it's the top school for this field in your country. I feel like you can't go wrong with either of these options.

I went to Columbia Mailman (in Sociomedical Sciences). I will say that one significant advantage of being in New York during your MPH is that New York has TONS TONS TONS of health-related institutions of all stripes - the huge NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, lots of NGOs, lots of nonprofits, some public health think tanks, lots and lots and lots of hospitals and clinics and other kinds of institutions that need administrators. And oh, lots of consulting firms. It'd be a piece of cake to get an academic-year internship at one of these types of companies/agencies to get some experience in grad school, and I have very frequently seen that lead to employment out of grad school. I would imagine that kind of experience would be harder to obtain in Baltimore, and harder still in New Haven. I also have to say that it was pretty amazing to be a graduate student in New York. New Haven isn't a small town, by the way. It's a small city. I'm not being pedantic - the population of greater New Haven is almost a million people. It's not like living in State College, PA or Urbana-Champaign, IL or Athens, GA. You're also only a couple of hours from Boston and New York. Yale's program is good. I also wouldn't say that JHU is anymore like a medical institution (or less like a university) than the other schools. Columbia's medical center is removed from the main campus, too, and all of your classes will likely be on the health sciences campus at 168th St. You won't actually have a whole lot of interaction with the non-health sciences students unless you motivate yourself to do it. Many large universities separate their medical complexes out because they either need the space for labs and rooms and beds, or they want to reach populations in the more urban core of the cities they're in (or both).