juilletmercredi

Things I or other grad student friends have done for extra money: -Statistical consulting (if you have the skills. Most large universities have a service you can sometimes join, or you can freelance it. I've done both and get my clients through referrals on the second end). -Other kinds of consulting work - I have a couple friends who served as part-time consultants to firms in the city. One helped a non-profit write grants; another helped a non-profit design health improvement programs for their company. -Taking on extra classes as a teaching assistant (check out other departments. Sometimes related classes need TAs.) -Adjuncting (also easier once you already have the MA and once you aren't taking classes anymore, but if you have some time and expertise, it's a thought) -Working as a research assistant for a nonprofit, NGO, etc. (check out Idealist.org, they list these there. This is easier to do once you get past year 2 and have your MA, or if you come in with an MA) -Work as a project manager/coordinator for a professor (this is easier to do once you are ABD, because you have more free time. I have a lot of friends in the sciences who did this because it pays more than GRA and fellowship stipends). -Working as a graduate assistant in student affairs, career services, etc. (most universities with undergraduates have a variety of GA positions that support work with undergraduates. I worked as a hall director in residential life for two years, and got free housing as part of my compensation! I've also had friends work in fraternity and sorority life, student advising, institutional advancement, the writing center and the undergrad dean's office). -Babysitting/nannying (sign up for Care.com) -Dog-walking (there's a website that you can sign up for this, too; I don't remember the name. There are also several services that will place you with clients) -House-sitting (sometimes these gigs are paid - usually not, but check it out) -SAT and GRE tutoring (many many companies. Kaplan and Princeton Review are everywhere; Manhattan Prep pays the most - $100/hour! - but will only take you if you scored like 90th percentile+ on the SAT or GRE. You can also do this freelance.)

In Gregory Colon Semenza's book Graduate Study for the Twenty-First Century, he actually writes about this - he characterizes several types of graduate students and professors, and the complainer is a type. There are certain people who connect to others through complaining, and still others who are just negative and pessimistic all the time. Just smile and nod and avoid them. Or better yet, be relentlessly positive and sunny with them. Once they realize that you won't complain with them AND will bring some sunshine to their complain parade, they usually leave you alone. On the other hand, I do tend to get annoyed when a person complains about everyone else complaining every time they complain, even a normal amount of venting. First of all, you are doing exactly what you hate. Second of all, everyone needs to vent sometimes.

Given that I am graduating this year, I am definitely not keeping it classy. I plan to get pretty wasted. In past years, I have kept it pretty classy though.

Yeah, there are more than 2 people who had one - I think Eigen and I both had one, and there were a lot of people on the NSF thread this year who got one. I think awardees might be evenly distributed across the three eligibility years. I personally think it's easier to apply for it when you are already in graduate school, since you have a better idea of your projects and what's possible at your institution. As a 2nd year doctoral student, I was able to get recommendation letters from my two advisors and another graduate professor who'd taught me in class. The deadline is in early to mid November, although the exact day depends on your field. I didn't find any of the other resources NSF offered very useful. I'm a social scientist, so I didn't need the computing resources they offered. When I first received the scholarship, you could apply for up to a $1,000 international travel grant to do research or present work abroad. I was gearing up to apply for it to present my work at the International AIDS conference, when they abruptly changed it to a $1,000 award to do polar or Nordic research (it was either or both, I can't remember). Since my work has absolutely nothing to do with that...yeah. LOL. Still, the money and prestige by itself are great! And yes, I did have a lot more control over how I spent my time, including who my advisor(s) was/were and what research I did. If I had taken departmental funds I would've been assigned a mentor, and since my primary mentor at the time was a newish assistant professor, he had no money. I got the opportunity to work with him because of NSF (and the NIH training grant I was on my first two years).

Damn, I was going to recommend my inkjet printer (an Epson WorkForce 2540) but never mind, lol. I do like it because it supports AirPrint and Google Cloud Print, plus it's wireless so me and my husband are both connected. I am selective about what I print so I haven't had to worry about ink cartridges too much - we bought it a year and a half ago and I think I've replaced the black twice and the magenta ink once, and the yellow is low. However, I don't print any articles (I read them all online or on my iPad), and I bought it after I finished coursework so there was no need to print papers to turn in. I mostly use it to print, scan, and copy forms I need to turn in for various things.

I'm interested in the history of conflict, specifically armed conflict during the mid to late 20th century. I'm particularly fascinated with World War II, but most recently I was reading about the Yugoslav Wars (and specifically the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina). I'm a social-health psychologist, so that has nothing to do with my field (well, not directly). I also am really interested in the ethics of human experimentation and pharmaceutical trials/approval. Oh, and I am a total astronomy nerd. I've been watching Cosmos with my husband and we stare at the television like two toddlers who want to be astronauts, lol. (He was an aerospace engineering major who's switched to statistics, but he's still hooked).

^gotta agree with personalityresearcher, but only at this point. It's from 6 years of an advisor-advisee relationship. Not gonna lie, though, I was attracted to my advisor when I first met him. It wasn't really a crush, though, more just like "Whoa, this guy is kind of hot." Absolutely not a problem now - he's more like a...well, not a father figure because he's too young, but a wise older cousin? Funny though, he came to a party in my secondary department during my second year, I think, and a couple of students did think he was my boyfriend (we're both black...and in the extreme minority, so, I suppose an understandable assumption to make...?) Even by that point the mentoring relationship had evolved enough that that was just hilarious (to both of us) as opposed to awkward. Don't worry OP, you'll end up hating your PI at some point during your PhD. Everyone does. You know, I was actually fortunate enough to have this not happen to me. There have been times that I've been frustrated with him, but I can't remember a time that I was genuinely pissed at him.

My mother explicitly told me that she gave me a neutral-sounding name so that I couldn't be identified as black on my resume or in correspondence. My father had originally picked a more ethnic-sounding name and she vetoed it. But, I don't think that students should go to any kind of lengths to avoid this bias...not because I don't think it exists, but because I wouldn't want to work with a professor who doesn't respond based on perceptions of my race or gender (even unconsciously). Moreover, while I'm aware that this happens - and has possibly happened to me in the past without my knowledge - I haven't really found it a significant impediment. As with most kinds of discrimination, life has to proceed on in the face of it. The bright side is that graduate students of color - and female grad students - tend to be incredibly resilient. People always tell me I'm so chill and laid-back. How else should I be? I can't afford my blood pressure going up over this foolishness, lol.

My high school graduating class (332) actually wasn't that much smaller than my college graduating class (567). My undergrad alma mater loves tradition, so we have weird rules to follow for graduation. We wear our caps and gown and graduation dress on four occasions - the Founders Day in early April of our senior year (the celebration of the founding of our college), Class Day (which is run by the seniors, in which members of our class give speeches and read poetry and we hold hands and sing and we all cry), baccalaureate ( didn't go to this, but I think it's a religious service) and commencement. I think Class Day is my favorite - it's held in our chapel. On campus we have this arch called the Alumnae Arch, and you're not supposed to walk under it until you graduate. Lore has it that you won't graduate if you do. On Class Day the alumnae lead the graduating seniors under the arch, starting with the earliest graduating class present and going backwards. Everybody cries! Also no one cheers when your name is called during the graduation ceremony because it's supposed to be solemn. We have a specific graduation dress uniform - a white dress (longer than the knee, other restrictions apply), flesh-toned stockings, and black closed-toe shoes. We're not allowed to wear any jewelry although everyone breaks that rule. (See here for explanation. There are also some really gorgeous pictures of all the Spelman students in white dresses going way back - it's been a tradition at our college for over a hundred years). It sounds ugly but it's actually pretty emotional, especially since it's the same outfit you wear during your induction ceremony first year and at Founders Day every other year, and all the alumnae who return for Reunion and to lead you through the arch on Class Day also wear it with us. But yes, it does mean that you need to get like 3 or 4 different white dresses, lol. I'm definitely, definitely walking in my PhD commencement. As a matter of fact, I am graduating in October and I will be returning next May to walk in the three ceremonies I am eligible for (school of public health, graduate school, and university commencement). I worked my butt off for 6 years and I am definitely donning those ridiculous robes and that silly hat.

I suppose it depends on the context. If I'm talking to academics or at a conference or professionals in the wild, I'd say Columbia (my graduate school). If I'm talking to people and it's clear they want to know where I went to undergrad college, I'd say Spelman (my undergraduate college). When undergrads ask me they almost always want to know where I went to undergrad, so I tell them that. I'm definitely more attached to my undergrad college, but I wear my grad school sweatshirts more often because I have more of them. I'm planning on getting a license plate frame from my undergrad alma mater, and I don't care, lol, even though I will be working at a third university in a small town in which probably close to no one has heard of it. I don't think this will make a difference - I went to a D3 undergrad and a D1 grad school and I am not attached to my grad school, not like undergrad anyway. (I'm starting to become more attached as I finish up, but there's nothing more that I want then to get the hell out of here.) But yea, you won't be as socially involved in the community as you were as an undergrad, so you won't get as attached. I'm going to a Big 10 university for my postdoc, though, and I intend to get super crazy about the sports there

LOL, I feel like you can't make it to graduate school if you don't have these nerdy traits - at least some of them. I think I was less nerdy than most, though. I did take all AP classes and was involved in one academic extracurricular (literary magazine), and I studied a few hours every day - mostly doing homework. I was also a marching band geek, but in my high school the cool kids did band - I went to high school in the South and our marching band had 300 people in it and we did elaborate dance sequences and were in a movie. And oh, I guess I did have an academic semi-curricular - I was in a debate club centering around the Constitution (this one. It was totally awesome and there were both nerds and non-nerds on it. We won our state competition and went to nationals in my year.) But I didn't do any of the other stuff on that list. I actually wanted to be a cheerleader (and was invited to do so), but my mother forbade me from joining the squad. I didn't even know I wanted to go to college until late junior year, because my parents didn't go and I came from a working class background. I guess I dreamed about college in senior year, but it was more about all the parties I'd go to, not classes lol. And I spent my summers lazing about (and writing fiction).

Also just want to warn you that the exposure to academia in undergrad is totally different from grad school, unless you had a pretty unique undergrad experience. Professors view you as more of a junior colleague in graduate school, especially in a doctoral program. Therefore, they show you a different side of them and it can get pretty...interesting.

^ Ditto the above. And with a 3.1 undergrad GPA and a 2.7 MEng GPA, you won't be a very competitive candidate for med school admissions. Heck, even without the F you're not a very competitive candidate - a 3.4 would be low even for undergrad, but in master's degrees grades are commonly inflated and a 3.4 is relatively low-ish. Plus, I think undergrad grades/performance are weighted more heavily than grad school grades, although they are taken into account. But I'm not 100% sure about that!

Festivus, you should know that the dictionary is descriptive, not prescriptive. It describes words the way people commonly use them, not the way that they should be used or are used in specific contexts like academia. Furthermore, the dictionary definition isn't really a good reference mechanism for an academic who wants to know what the standards of their field are. In academic writing (and pretty much all writing, honestly), citing work incorrectly or not citing at all is plagiarism. If we want to get technical, paraphrasing or discussing the work of another author without crediting that author is "an act or instance of using...the...thoughts of another author" without crediting the original author. There's a neat website called Plagiarism.org that outlines types of plagiarism - including inaccurate information about sources is one of them. And the websites of most university writing centers note proper citations as a key element of avoiding plagiarism, including unintentional plagiarism. Plagiarism can certainly be unintentional. With that said, I agree that owning up to the mistake is the best way to handle this.

Your advisor can't dictate to you where you live, nor can the university or the department. However, how feasible it is for you to move when you're ABD will depend on the work and your program type. I know a couple of people who have relocated when they were ABD, but they were all in social science or humanities fields and didn't have lab work to complete, so they could write/work from home. In each case they were moving to be with a spouse or partner. And even then, I get the sense that they have to return relatively often to meet with their advisor. I personally meet with my advisor every other week, but I suppose we could Skype if I lived away, although it wouldn't be the same.

I don't think rising_star is being "over-dramatic" at all. Mental illness IS stigmatized in the U.S., and many people will assume that because you are seeking counseling that you are mentally ill. They may then attach all kinds of stereotypes and assumptions to you and your work. I agree with her that you need to be very careful who you share this information with. In the middle of my graduate program I decided to seek counseling. I did discuss with my advisor, but only because I trusted him and felt like he wouldn't discriminate against me because of it - and also only because it had gotten so bad that I was avoiding him and not turning in work. If your issues aren't interfering with your work I see no reason to share; if they are, you can choose how much you want to share. You could say that you have a health problem that you are seeking help with, that it was interfering with your work but you're being treated and it shouldn't be an issue.

I haven't been in this situation, but I think I would be wary of meeting on Skype. It's only partially the person in question - it's also the space. You want to see the space that you're renting. While most postings on CL are legitimate, some are exaggerations and some are just plain scams. I suppose this is doable in some cities but not others - I would never rent an apartment in NYC sight unseen, for example, as landlords and brokers often exaggerate on CL. Is it possible for you to sublet something short-term (for a month or two) so you can hunt for more permanent housing in the area?

I had a neutral experience with my first experience with teaching, and by my second TAship I decided I disliked it altogether and didn't want to go into academia. I changed my mind after I'd gotten more experience. You're always nervous and disorganized your first time TAing/teaching something, but as you gain more confidence it feels different. And yes, I have found that I enjoy teaching much more when I'm the one who gets to prepare the materials and lectures. I got my first taste of that in my third TAship - the first two professors I had TAed for were both somewhat to very disorganized and so TAing always felt rushed and hectic, which I hated. The third professor I TAed for was very organized and had a whole method and scheme to her madness, and that was a very pleasant experience. I hate doing anything last-minute, so I think that influenced my feelings. Ever since then I've TA'ed for other folks and co-taught a class, plus taught my own seminars over the summer, and I *love* doing that. But I get to plan what the kids are reading and doing and think about how best to present the material. Also some people just don't like lecturing. I don't. It feels awkward to stand in front of 200 students and talk at them for 2 hours. I prefer interactive classes, which is why it's my aim to go to a smaller liberal arts college or public comprehensive. I usually enjoy discussion-based classes more (although don't be fooled - those can bomb too. Sometimes the students don't understand the discussion or they don't feel like talking). One thing I have learned, though, is not to try to put TOO much thought or planning into the lecture/class. At some point things have to flow organically. I've been surprised to find that some of the lectures I thought were the least well-put-together were actually received well by the students, but I think it's because I talked more extemporaneously/from my own experience, and they tend to like that.

I would go for something like a bridge program, or perhaps a funded master's over paying for a master's degree. In your case, since you are coming from absolutely the ground up, I might consider doing a low-cost master's at a public in-state institution if I didn't have to borrow for living expenses, just tuition. But I honestly think the best way - if you can't do a funded bridge or master's - is simply to take the coursework you need as a non-degree student at your local public and volunteer with a professor as an RA for a couple of hours a week. You'll need both the coursework and the experience. For courses, you need: 1. Intro to Psychology 2. Statistics 3. Research Methods And 1-2 elective courses. I don't know that I agree cognitive is one of the most important if your interest is in community psychology. Obviously if your department offers a course in community psychology, you should take that, but most don't (it's a small subfield). For an interest in community psych, I would actually suggest social psych - as community psychology grew out of social psychology, essentially. Some other interesting/important classes might be personality psychology, clinical or abnormal psych (if you are interested in mental health issues), developmental, health psych, etc. It just really depends on what your research interests are within community psych. I do think it's sometimes a good idea to take one elective that's related to but outside your main area - so I'm a social-health psychologist but I took psych of learning in undergrad.

One of the things I've noticed is that people outside of psychology tend to believe the field is something that it isn't, and very often that "something" is philosophy. The Cartesian concept of self is a philosophical argument, not a psychological one, and it's definitely not something that most psychologists are familiar with much less reference in our actual work. I had to look it up. In fact, the whole field of psychological research goes against that assumption - that we cannot know anything of anything that is not the self. We spend a lot of time investigating and thinking about other people, and about the commonalities in people's behavior. Academics also have lots of interaction on a day-to-day level. I would wage that at least 90 percent of academics teach and work at non-elite schools, and spend most of their days teaching classes to undergraduates and some grad students, interacting with their colleagues, and giving research talks and seminars on occasion. Even professors at elite institutions teach classes and attend colloquia, brown-bags, and conferences. Besides, as a social psychologist you would have a lab of people with which you worked, and you would likely see most of them every day. There's no thinking and researching at the philosophical level. If you want to do that, you need to get a PhD in philosophy, not psychology. But yes, the question is answered this way: Do you want to be a medical doctor, or do you want to be a researcher and academic? People with MDs and psychiatry residencies typically ended up being psychiatrists in private practice, or maybe you'd be employed by a psychiatric hospital or clinic. MD psychiatrists don't typically do talk therapy; as I understand it, they're not really trained that way. I think their residencies do include *some* training in talk therapy, but more generally they're trained to see psychiatric disorders as physical/chemical imbalances that can be corrected by medication - although some psychiatrists do talk therapy. Psychiatrists also tend to work with the more severely mentally ill, although that all depends on where you work. Broadly speaking, if you want to do talk therapy, you should consider instead a PhD in clinical or counseling psychology (or an MSW and licensure as an LCSW). If you are interested in producing scholarship about the ways in which people interact with each other, then social psychology is what you're looking for. If you want to teach and do research in a university setting, then the PhD in social psych may serve you. You could also theoretically take your PhD in social psych to non-academic research positions. If you're torn between the two, a clinical psychology PhD could still be the way to go, specifically in a clinical science or scientist-practitioner program. A person with a PhD in clinical psychology is generally trained to both provide talk therapy but also to conduct research and teach psychology. Many clinical psychologists do both - maintain a limited private practice while also teaching full-time at a university (or, conversely, do full-time therapy and adjunct part-time). A clinical science program leans more heavily towards research training, although they are all APA-accredited programs that will allow you to become licensed. a S-P program by definition is supposed to balance them more equally, but some S-P programs lean more towards the practitioner side. I also agree about the advice about clinical-community programs. I have a couple of friends who have done such programs - it teaches you to treat people at the individual level while also considering the societal and systemic contributions to their illnesses, and also equipping you with the ability to try to effect systemic change.

One of my advisors is also really terse over email, but is really awesome in person. A lot of academics really just are that awkward in electronic communications. Others have so many competing demands on their time that they just dash off emails semi-thoughtlessly (I think my advisor falls into the latter camp). My other advisor wrote an email to me the other day and sent the email mid-sentence, so it just stopped in the middle of a sentence, lol. So I agree with the advice to wait until you get there. However, I know people who have worked with relatively standoffish professors with varying levels of success. It really depends on your working style and your own personality. If you need a good personal relationship with your advisor to succeed, you may be unhappy. If you can work past your advisor's weird personality issues and keep the relationship strictly professional, then you may be able to deal with it - especially if the advisor is very prolific. A lot of that also has to do with the field and how much time you have to spend in their presence, and how finicky they are about work you do with/for them.

If you are going to a PhD program and your offer comes with health insurance, your health insurance should cover some limited treatment with the counseling center at the university. The counseling center can refer you to therapists in the area who take the school's insurance. For example, my health fee covered 10 sessions per year with a counselor at the counseling center, and could cover an additional 40 sessions per year with a therapist outside of the center if the counselor referred me. Some of the counselors at the counseling center actually had private practices, and if you developed a rapport they could refer you to their own private practice and continue to work with you. Although I've never been formally diagnosed with a mood disorder, I had dealt with depression and anxiety issues in my young adult life in undergrad, and they came back to mess with me in graduate school. I felt the influence in my first two years, but they were really the strongest in years 3 and 4 for me (and somewhat in the beginning of year 5). It's been my experience that most graduate students experience serious debilitating depression at some point during the program, and the research agrees with me - over 60 percent of graduate students reported feeling so depressed they couldn't execute daily basic functions at some point during their program (don't have the citation). It does certainly interfere with plans - the summer after my fourth year was the lowest point for me, and it was all I could do to just complete basic tasks I had been assigned, much less write some of the papers for publication I had planned. There were spells of time in which it was difficult for me to get out of bed. It's hard to care about your research when you're feeling worthless inside. However, with some help you can control it, and you can complete your program. You just need the help. I agree with potentially registering with the office of disability services. I also gave my advisor the heads up once I was comfortable with him. I am actually in psychology and my research is on mental health, and so there is less of a stigma in admitting mental health issues around here. But if you are in a different field or think you may be discriminated against but face difficulties, you can just mention that you have a medical condition that's interfering with your work right now but that you are working with doctors to fix the issues.

Research fit is the most important thing in selecting a graduate school. It sucks to move, but if you want to seriously pursue an academic career, you need to expect to have to move for the good of career. Graduate school is a temporary state of being. I'm in psychology and ranking and the name of the PI do have a significant impact on the types of places you can work, and where you will be offered positions, in the future. In my own experience, my PI's connections allowed me to network my way into an excellent postdoc, and I find out about a looooot of not publicly posted postdoctoral fellowships and other offers through informal channels. Your PI's network becomes your network, so if your PI is well-known, he can connect you to more people. Besides, if the point is to do research, you really need to do research that fits you well as your *main* project, not as a side project.

^I agree with Eigen. My first impression was that the PI realizes that he has hit his max. Four brand-new doctoral students is a pretty heavy advising load. It's possible that it is a funding thing (the PI doesn't say), and if it is, there's the potential that if your friend got outside funding the PI might be able to take him in. But there's also the possibility that the PI simply realizes that he can't take anymore brand new grad students, regardless of money. In that case, your friend will just need to find a different adviser.

Definitely don't attend those PhD programs. I wouldn't go to a PhD program without full funding. I have a friend who did the MA in clinical psych at TC and got into the PhD program in clinical psych in TC. I talked with him and he seemed to have really mixed feelings about the department and program. They don't seem to have an excellent track record at getting people into other competitive clinical psych PhD programs. Personally, I think most of the time people don't need an MA in psych. What you need is research experience in psych, plus maybe a few non-degree psych courses if you have none. But if you really feel you need the MA in psych, I would recommend a much cheaper program at a public institution or a place with scholarships, since the important part here is the coursework. Hunter College, for example, has an MA in general psychology and OOS costs for students are far cheaper than TC's tuition. Stony Brook University has a strong psychology department and has a one-year master's that seems specifically designed for the purpose of launching people into a psych PhD program. SUNY New Paltz also offers an MA in psychology designed to help you get into a PhD program, and New Paltz is a cheaper city than NYC.