juilletmercredi

Don't talk in negatives or uncertainties; instead, talk about what you actually want to do. "After I obtain my MS, I plan to work in X industry doing Y." And then talk about how that specific program can help you get there, because of special programs and internships they may have, classes, etc.

Honestly, I wouldn't bother explaining a 3.3.

Just work to rephrase sequntial "I..." statements. It makes the flow go better. Be careful if you do this; don't use the passive voice. There's nothing wrong with using simple language ("I enjoy...") as long as you're not repetitive. For example, I would not say "Getting into your school would be enjoyable." I would simply say "I wish to attend Awesome University's program in X because Y." Then elaborate. attending workshops and conferences several times a year, such as Big Name Confernce in the field, fuels(?) my commitment to lifelong learning/professional development(or however you will phrase that). ? This is a great example of that. This is wordy and long and unclear. Why not just say "I attend several workshops and conferences per year, and I find that they enhance my professional development. For example, at XXX Conference, I was able to explore beachside basketweaving, an area of weaving to which I had not been exposed." For example, is it okay to say "I am committed to lifelong learning. As a xxxxx at yyyyy I have continued to expand my knowledge of zzzz and my skills in aaaa through attending workshops and conferences several times a year, such as Big Name Confernce in the field." This is too long and wordy. See above.

Well, the best way to approach this is get some research experience. Typically you need about 2-3 years to be competitive, although they don't have to be full-time - most often students get research experience at about 10-20 hours per week. You'd also be competitive for MS programs, because many MS programs accept students with no research experience because they help students get that experience for PhD programs. IN engineering things may be a bit different, so I would try to approach explaining your undergraduate experience. Talk about how your practical experience gave you the tools you need to understand research. For example, you are working on the design of mid-range motors. Have you needed to review other motors of different types to try to make your own? Have you reverse-engineered certain parts or took bits and pieces of knowledge from other types of machines to build upon in building your motor? Have you consulted the research literature published in mid-range motors in engineering to help you decide where to take your design? Have you experimented with prototypes or parts to see how they work in isolation and together in order to make it work? Things like that are related tasks to research that could bolster your argument that you know what you're getting yourself into and you could succeed in a research career. There's no guarantee that this approach will work, and in general students who have no research experiences have very slim chances of getting admitted to PhD programs. But basically you have to explain why, despite the fact that you have no direct experience, you have *in*direct experiences that will be easily transferable to a research environment and allow you to excel in your work. Talking about having worked with PhDs before and being very passionate about what they do is also a good way to go.

It's kind of not possible for us to tell you whether or not you have a "shot" based solely on the vague information that's presented here; it depends on a lot of intangibles - the quality of your research and teaching experience, how excellent your letters and statement of purpose is, your fit with that department, whether or not you know anyone in that department, and who you are competing with - as well as other things not under your control like funding levels, who's retiring or leaving in the next 2-3 years, etc. The best thing you can do for yourself is 1) Give your application your all. Put forth the best effort you can. and 2) Once you are done, put it aside and focus on something else - your MA thesis, a hobby, reading, something. Worrying about it will only stress you out.

Oh please - I would not assume that she was intimidated by you. I have been impressed by many an undergrad - many who were more talented than I was when I was at their stage - but intimidated by none so far, and I've been here 6 years and have worked with a lot of undergrads. I think she sounds like a person who does not know how to handle stress. You have shown her that you are willing to take her abuse (inadvertently), so she uses you as a whipping board when she needs to lash out at something. This has to stop - it doesn't matter that you're younger or at a different level. You are both human beings and she needs to treat you like one. If you want to make it work, then I would just be frank with her. "Look, Sally, I would really like for us to continue our great working relationship. But I've noticed that when you are stressed out, you lash out at me. It hurts me and I would like for you not to do that." It sounds like you said something similar to that and she started crying - again, don't blame yourself, as this is her, not you. She either hasn't yet learned how to handle her emotions in an adult way, or she's having a really difficult time right now and just needs to work through it. You can be friendly with her in the lab, but any time she snaps at you just remind her that she's taking her frustrations out on you and you don't like that. If she persists even through the reminders, then I would just avoid her. And please remember this for when you go into your own grad program and through life - you don't need to take abuse from anyone, regardless of their level. Now of course when you start getting into adviser-advisee relationships and people who could destroy your career it gets a little more tricky, but that doesn't mean that you can't politely and respectfully address the abuse when it happens.

How I stay motivated is getting out of the lab and doing what it is I love to do. You and I seem to have similar interests and personalities: we both like methodology, and we both like communicating science to others. Your dreams seem similar to mine as well! I do like being a producer of research, but at a smaller scale than would be expected of me at an R1. And I would rather communicate to the general public about healthcare science than to other scientist in my field. So to give myself a more well-rounded experience, here are the things I've done: -Worked as a hall director for residential life (this was somewhat unrelated to science, but I did get to interact with undergrads on a regular basis, advise them, and get experience in the student affairs side of education). -Judged the New York City Science & Engineering Fair -Joined the women in science group at my campus, which sponsors fun sciency stuff including a day to get middle school girls interested in science -Taught a summer program in my field for two years, designed to get undergraduates excited about my research -Served on advanced grad student panels giving advice and mentorship to less advanced students in the department -Had a corporate internship one summer, to decide whether I really wanted to leave academia and work in a corporate environment (I liked it, and it let me know that I could leave academia. I'm going to try to make it work first, but I know that there's a whole other world out there that I would enjoy in case I get tired or bored). -Statistical consulting, which I really love. It gives me the opportunity to help other people with their science, learn about other areas of science and teach people statistics. -I currently work in an empirical research lab, that helps undergraduates use scientific data and quantitative reasoning in their classwork and research. I also have a grad student in my cohort who just published her first book about popular science and is currently working on a second one - she published the first book shortly after she finished her PhD here. She's also written for several magazines and newspapers, including the New Yorker, the Times and the Boston Globe. I've had other friends in grad school write for HuffPo, the Times, Science Mag, the Chronicle...one dude from my department is currently a professor at a top 5 school in my field, but while he was here he wrote a regular column for the Huffington Post. If you want to write about popular science, DO IT! Don't wait until you've graduated to do so. Start off freelancing - contact news outlets and see if they would be interested. You could make a little side money and do what you really love! P.S.: I hit a wall in my 3rd year, too. You kind of have to work through it a little; it takes a while to find your passion. Once I started balancing out my science work with other stuff (related to science, but more public) I felt much happier. P.P.S: I hear you on the methodology thing, but even as a methodologist you need to develop a substantive area. It doesn't have to be one that you devote your entire life to, though; you just need to pick something that you could conceivably work within for the next 4-10 years (depending on whether you can make a shift in a postdoc). Like you, I have broad interests; I have settled within an area that I actually care a whole lot about and am passionate about, but there are other things I could work on that are also "oooh, shiny." Once you get tenure you can do whatever you want, but it may behoove you to develop a substantive area or two that you can work within to publish. As silly as it is in academia, you at least initially need to be "known for" something. Also, you may want to aim at mid-ranked to less-well-known SLACs, comprehensive universities and baccalaureate colleges. The reason I suggest that is because the top SLACs often have 2/2 or 3/2 teaching loads because they expect you to be doing research - maybe not quantity, but quality. If you go to a comprehensive master's university or a more mid-ranked SLAC, though, the teaching load will be heavier (3/3 to 4/4) and the research expectations will be lower, which will free you to focus primarily on teaching if you want. The downside, of course, is that you will have less time for writing that popular book on cognitive neuroscience and less time for communicating science outside of the university. So you have to decide what your priorities are and use that to help you select the kind of job you want. Now is the perfect time to start thinking about it.

I think you can take some of the advice presented above - but fewer and fewer schools are allowing deferrals these days, as they have more competitive classes. So plan on adding an extra year after you return from South America and using that year to apply to grad school.

Happy Veterans Day! I am not, but my husband is (AF 2008-2012).

This is not my field, so I am discussing this purely from an outsider's angle. What do you see yourself doing in 5 years? How about 10? Do you still want to be an ESL instructor in your abroad country? Or would you rather be teaching English composition and rhetoric at the PhD level? How about university administration? Do you maybe want to become an academic advisor, a department chair, a dean, a provost? The median salary for assistant professors ranges from $58,000 to $77,000, depending on what kind of institution they are at. Associates range from $70,000 to $88,000 and full professors from $92,000 to $135,000 per year. It usually takes 6-7 years to go to associate and then another 7-9 years to go to full, so we are talking about 13-16 years into your profession...but 13-16 years from now do you think you would make at last $90,000 as an instructor (including the value of your room and board) at your UK institution? Or ~$70,000 6 years from now? (You've already been teaching 7 years - you'd be a tenured associate professor at most places by now.) Does that matter to you? (Averages found here: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/04/08/aaup-survey-finds-average-faculty-salary-increased-rate-inflation-last-year) Do you want to do research? PhD students are expected to do research during their schooling, and professors are typically expected to do some research at least pre-tenure (and at top schools, post-tenure too). You said you don't lack the interest, but do you have a strong interest in research?

I'm telling you not to rush BECAUSE I was in a relationship at 22, not in spite of it. I am a completely different person now than I was at 22, and I was extremely lucky in that my husband's personality changed along with mine and that we managed to make it work between us and are happy. I actually met my husband in high school. People are always like "oh, that's so cute!" But I wish that I had spent more time in college focusing on myself, developing myself and really making lasting friendships, maybe participating more in clubs that I wanted to do. I don't really have a lot of close friends from college as a result, and I didn't do some of the things I really wanted to do in college and immediately thereafter because I wanted to make him happy. And when you're 22, making your partner happy means throwing yourself into a relationship in a totally unrealistic way. Only after we backed off a little (in my mid-20s) did we really find our footing in the relationship and feel truly ready to get married. We were both more confident, more settled in our identities, and had more life experience. He got to travel the world with the military and I really found myself in grad school. And as a result of backing off more, I DO have more friends in grad school and have been able to invest myself really intensely into this process to make myself a competitive candidate. You find yourself in a whole different way in your mid-20s, regardless of what you are doing at the time. I used to hate when people said this to me but I'm going to say it anyway because it turned out to be true: it's really difficult for you to understand it at your vantage point, because you are young. When you are 22, 30 seems like a really long way away; so far the time has been passing relatively slowly, and 30 just seems so old and so long to wait for something that you really, really want. But as you get closer to 30 (usually between ages 24 and 27) you start to realize that 30 is not that old. If the average lifespan is around 80, when you turn 30 you still have about 50 more years of living to do. A woman's fertility doesn't really start to steeply decline until her late 30s/early 40s, so even if you are almost 23 you have a good at least 15 more years of fertility to have children.

^Ditto. Every time I start to feel bad (I also come from a family where having children after 30 is weird) I meet yet another highly educated academic woman who had a healthy child, or more than one, into their late 30s and early 40s. I know a 45-year-old woman with a 3-year-old child. Even Michelle Obama had her first child at 34, and her second at 37. It is totally normal for women who pursue graduate degrees to delay marriage and childbirth/childrearing several years.

^Definitely agree with the above. Actually, that goes for all of the parks in New York, with the exception of the very small Union Square Park and Washington Square Park, and that's because they are well-lit and you can see into them from all directions outside the park.

Idk I mean I know it seems unrealistic but I know one person who met their SO in grad school and they have been together 3 years and will probably get married. I just want to be like that. I know people who have met their spouses in undergrad, at work, at bars, online, in social groups, in Greek organizations, in volunteer organizations...there are a billion ways to meet someone else. Just because someone else met their SO in grad school doesn't mean you will have the same experience, especially in a female dominated field. Also remember that most people do not go to grad school, but somehow most people get married. Obviously there are other ways to meet a partner. There's no guarentee in a job I will find someone because I will be working so much but in grad school I will have classes with other people, and I can sit in the library I think you have two misconceptions about the way dating (and life) works after college: one, that you will have more free time in grad school, and two, that relationships happen as easily post-college as they do in college. Let me disabuse you of those both right now. As others have mentioned you will actually have LESS free time as a grad student than as a working adult. In a 9-5 you work from well, 9 to 5. After that your time is yours, and you have all days on the weekends and the evenings to yourself (how glorious!). Even if you worked 9 to 7 you still have evenings after 7 and weekends. That is NOT the case in grad school. One of my MSW friends literally works from 10 to 10 most days, between classes, fieldwork, and studying. I think she takes Fridays "off" to have to herself, but she also does some work on the weekends (writing papers, studying, etc.) You have LESS free time in grad school than you have in a regular 40-50 hour a week job. I have friends who work full time now and they are always asking me to hang out on the weekends and in the evenings and I'm like "Sorry guys, I have to write a paper" or "Sorry guys, I'm teaching a late night class" or "Sorry guys, studying for quals" (in years 3 or 4). Notion 2: In college, friendships are easy. Everyone's looking for friends! You can sit with someone randomly in the library or the caf and start a deep conversation about Proust. You can stop by your friend's dorm room for a chat. You can call your biology labmate at 2 am, knowing she's also still awake, and chill or commiserate. And college students are also usually on the prowl for romantic relationships, so all of those things can happen in romantic contexts, too. You also may constantly run into your friends and plan spontaneous fun - let's go out tonight! Let's go grab a coffee right now! Come over to my dorm room in 15 minutes! "Real life," unfortunately, does not work like that. In grad school, I've never had anyone walk over to me in the library while I was studying unless they already knew me. I have to *schedule* every social engagement I have with my friends, sometimes a week in advance, even if it's just getting lunch or coffee because we have busy lives and don't necessarily live near each other. "Spontaneous" means we planned it a day or two before. My calendar looks like a rainbow threw up on it. And much the same for romantic relationships, at this point you have to make concerted efforts to meet people. I mean, certainly, some people just spontaneously meet in a coffee shop or at a bar or whatever. But even people who meet "spontaneously" have often made time in their social lives to go out and try to meet people - they schedule in that party, that mixer, that social group, that alumni area meeting. It's not like you're gonna sit in the library and the perfect person for you is going to walk up and ask you out (I mean, it's possible, but much less likely post-undergrad). Your roommate may be able to introduce you to some people, but likely your roommate will also be a busy grad student or young professional who won't be introducing you to a constant stream of people. Your classmates are also older, and many of them will already be in relationships, or not interested in dating, or in other complicated social arrangements that don't lend themselves to availability. I'm in a PhD program; I was one of the youngest people in my program at 22, and I would say 60-70% of us were already partnered when we came in. Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that you can't have a social life or meet people in grad school. You can, and I do know several people (including one of my best friends who just got engaged) who have met long-term partners in their grad programs. But it's harder, and you have less free time. You have to make the effort - you have to make time, you have to put yourself out there, you have to go to mixers and socials, just the same as if you were working full time. Even if you harbor romantic fantasies of meeting someone in a bookstore over a warm coffee and your favorite new novel, you still have put yourself in the bookstore for that to work. But if you're doing fieldwork 3x a week for 8 hours a day and then you have papers and test to write and study for in between, it can be hard to make time for that. If you work 9-5, you can be at the bookstore by 5:30 if you want. If you are 22, please relax, lol. I'm 27, and I got married when I was 26. You don't realize how young 22 is until you're not 22 anymore, but you have PLENTY of time to meet someone and get married. The average age of marriage these days is 26 for women (and 28 for men). There are a lot of highly educated women getting married in their early 30s and even later. You have time. You ain't dead yet. It seems to me like you want to get an MSW because you want to actually be a social worker, and I agree with TakeruK that social and personal reasons are just as valid and important as professional and academic reasons in selecting a graduate school. You need to be happy. The way to meet people in grad school is to get active. Go to graduate student mixers (there's usually a grad student social group, or several of them, that plan these). Go out into the city in which your university is and go to bars or join social groups (e.g., I joined a social sports league and played kickball on a team to meet friends!) Stay connected to the things you love and you'll meet other people who like them - play in an orchestra, join a running group, go to Toastmasters, hang out in lounges and bars. And don't go into every relationship thinking "Is he/she the one?" because you put way too much pressure on yourself, on your partner and on the relationship. You just want to say "I wonder if I like this person." Then "Hmm, I wonder if I like this person enough to last through all the things I can't stand about them." Once you get past those stages then it's like "Hmm, maybe we could build something really long term?" It's iterative, it takes time. What if you don't meet someone until 12 or 18 months in? You don't want to put pressure on you and them to try to get married in the next 6-12 months, so take it easy and realize that your life and prospects for marriage are not over once you are out of grad school.

The amount of hours that you put in don't necessarily determine your grade - you have to be using that time wisely. And no, that's not what grade inflation means - it's not a numerical thing but more of an expectations thing. It's like, if your work is up to par in graduate school, it's expected to be A work. If it's middling but ok, you get a B. Most assignments that I've had in graduate school haven't been numerically graded but were papers that were sort of subjectively graded, and if you did normal grad-school level work you got an A. Work that was less than what was expected, but acceptable, garnered a B. But for the classes in which I did have some numerically graded work (mostly statistics classes) an 85 was still a B. The hardest classes for me to study for were actually not stats - stats was pretty easy for me (I'm a methodologist with strong quantitative training). They were a sociological and anthropological theory class I had to take in my first year (I'm in an interdisciplinary program and I'm a psychologist by training, so I wasn't used to reading Marx and Durkheim or thinking in such an abstract way) and a cognitive psychology class I took in my first year as well (I'm a social psychologist, and it was very boring. Not because cognition is boring, but the professors just were not interesting).

...a lot of departments have written exams that test you on everything you learned in the past year. My department has written exams in the third year that test you on everything you've learned until then and then oral exams that are typically taken in the 3rd or 4th year that are also cumulative. To the question, you answer "yes." You didn't switch to a terminal MA program by choice; you were forced to switch because you failed your quals. This is also a very easy thing to verify - a simple call to your old department (or a mention in a recommendation letter) tells the truth, and if you hide it you look dishonest. It's best to be upfront about failing your quals but explaining that you have health reasons for that and also think that the program was maybe not the best fit, so you are a looking for a better fit program. Of course, you can always ask first and clarify with the departmental administrator. However, I would assume that your intended new department(s) will want to know that you failed your qualifying exams, and will want an appropriate explanation for that.

Business casual is fine. I would also come having read some articles she's written recently, and be prepared to link your interests to her recent work. Also read a little recent work from other professors whose work overlaps with yours - you never know who you'll be scheduled to meet with at the last minute or who might stop you to talk in the hall. I would also not assume that there is a formal guided tour if you are not going on an official visit day. I went to visit a program after I was admitted, and I was visiting on my own, and there was no formal tour. I did meet up with some graduate students who took me on an informal tour on their own, but it wasn't pre-planned. Actually, I would ask the departmental secretary if they can refer you to some graduate students who work with your adviser (or look them on the web-page) and see if you can catch lunch with them. At my department, the grad students who took me to lunch were given departmental funding to do so. I would also take some personal time to tool around the campus and the city a little bit. See if you can imagine yourself as a student there. When I visited, I got a guest pass to walk around the main campus library; I also visited the health sciences library and looked through some of the computer labs and study spaces. I sat in on two different classes. I also ventured out into the city and hung out with some of the grad students at an after-classes mixer/lounge party. I really could envision myself as a student here, and that's the reason I ended up coming.

I actually just went to a conference at my university this past Friday on working in SLACs - what the lifestyle is like and how to be attractive to them. I also really want to teach at a SLAC, so I was super excited to be there. (I also went to a SLAC myself). One of the major things they said was that you need to find a way to scale your research down to the SLAC size, including incorporating undergraduates and finding a way to do the research that you want to do with the resources available to you at your SLAC. To that end, I think saying that you will collaborate with others who use an fMRI scanner - assuming that fMRI is central to your research and the only way that you can get it done - is a bad idea, unless the SLAC you are applying to has a consortium agreement with another large school that you know definitely has a scanner (examples might be Swarthmore, Haverford and Bryn Mawr with UPenn, or Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, Smith and Amherst with UMass-Amherst). They want to know that you can independently conduct research and set up your own lab, and constant collaboration for ALL of your research is not a feasible plan of action to explain. They also said that one of the common misconceptions about SLACs is that the faculty don't do research, or much of it. They said that (especially at the most selective ones, like Oberlin, Swarthmore, Middlebury, Amherst, etc.) they are still expected to do research and spend 40-50% of their time on it, sometimes a bit more, because they are only teaching 2/2 or 3/2 loads. It's just that the quantity of research is less. But they still need 1-2 publications in peer-reviewed journals a year to get tenure, and those of us in the sciences are still expected to successfully obtain grant funding. If you're aiming for a more middling or lower ranked SLAC the expectations are also less (maybe a pub every other year) but they are also teaching heavier loads (anything from 3/3 to 4/4). However, the conference I went to was for selective/top small colleges, so they spoke more about the experience there. It really was a balance, not all teaching. So they say it's a mistake to apply to a SLAC (at least in the top 100ish) and assume or act like you won't do research or don't like research, because they are very much looking for scholars and scientists and they want evidence that you will be productive. It's not just helpful; it's required, and you're required to explain in your application materials how you will include it in your research and incorporate undergrads. I also asked about the teaching experience thing. As a psychologist I've had a variety of experiences, which ranged from mostly being a grader all the way to preparing lectures, leading seminars and preparing assignments and exams...but I've never been the instructor of record for a whole class myself. I likely won't have the experience before I apply, either (writing my dissertation now on a fellowship, and I'll be doing a research-based postdoc for the next two years). The professors I talked to said that that was fine - of course they like to see instructor experience, but they've hired plenty of people without it, as long as you can talk in a compelling way about how your past experiences prepared you for teaching. I also checked out recent hires at some of the top colleges and it seems like that's true - actually, most of the new hires in my field (psychology) didn't have experience teaching a full class themselves. But almost all of them had research-based postdocs! Actually, by perusing the CVs of those who got hired at top colleges it seems like many of them would've also been competitive for R1s, too. How early are you in your program? Can you develop another line of research/another interest that can be done at small LACs? For example, since my interests are also methodological, I'm also using large national datasets in my research and I plan to have a line of research that is based primarily on large national datasets. That way I also have some research to work with while I'm setting up my lab at a SLAC (I do longitudinal studies).

Well, as I'm sure you know, literature is more than just fiction Contrary to what you may think, I do have sympathy for you. It sounds like you may have gone to get your MA directly after undergrad, and so you were only one month into not just a new job but a totally different lifestyle. You've been in some form of school for as long as you can remember, and it's completely normal to feel the itch to go back before you've settled in. It's also normal to not have perfect self-knowledge at age 24. You did what you thought was a good idea at the time, and there's nothing wrong with that - now you just have to fix it. I don't think you should immediately talk to your adviser and department head, although that will come. I think that first you need an exit strategy. What is your next step? Are you going to get another master's and train for another career? Are you going to apply directly to jobs? Are you going to go to law school or med school or something else? I don't think it's ever a good idea to leave a grad program without an exit strategy, unless you're so miserable that you're a danger to yourself. Once you decide what your next step is, prepare for that next step. Apply for some jobs, and start putting one foot out. Once you find employment - whatever level you need to support yourself at a level you are comfortable - *then* you can tell your adviser and the department chair that you are planning to leave and go through the actions necessary to withdraw. Also...I'm not going to say don't think about your program at all, because you do want to try to make the transition smoothly and not ruffle feathers. But...put yourself first. It would be ideal to try to figure out what you want to do and make an exit plan before the beginning of the spring semester, so that they can find someone else to cover your classes. But think about it like a job - you don't want to leave a job before you have a new job, and similarly, you don't want to leave your paying, experience-bearing position before you have a new paying position with health insurance. They will find a way to make up for the fact that you have to leave, even if you end up leaving in mid-March. This is semi-related - but why oh why do professors advise uncertain undergraduate to get an MA? When an undergrad says to you "I am not sure what to do next!" academics' answer should NOT be "go to grad school!" WTF? It should be "get a job and work for a few years and figure out what you want to do while feeding yourself and gaining skills and experience"!

This post is about 7 months old, and the OP has likely already decided in May and begun their MSW program in early September.

I'm pretty sure that the GRE is offered most days of the week; because it's computer-based I don't think you have to do it on specified test days. At least that's the way it was when I took it, but they've changed a lot since then. I would retake if you got a 150 Q - that's important for physics programs - and see if you can study to raise your score as well as do some exercises to try to get your test day anxiety down. As for the rest of the stuff, don't beat yourself up. You can't change your GPA, so don't agonize over it; focus instead on presenting yourself in the best light. Do some affirmation exercises - write down a list of all of the things that make you awesome!

My department (a psychology department that offers specializations in social and cognitive psychology and neuroscience; most of our students would define themselves as cognitive psychologists in some way) keeps pretty detailed employment/position data on our graduates dating back to 1985. Although most of our alumni do take academic positions at various institutions, there is a good and large proportion (I would say at least 30-40%) that take non-academic positions. Perusing the list shows that most of those who didn't become professors did stay in research in some form. Many of them went on to do research for universities (often in the Office of Institutional Research, sometimes in other institutes and centers), hospitals, medical schools/medical centers/schools of public health, non-governmental organizations, non-profits, for-profit corporations, government agencies (city, state, and federal), and think tanks/policy research institutes. Some of the potential companies include places like D.E. Shaw & Co., the City of New York, Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the WHO, Pacific Business Group on Health, RAND, Mathematica, RTI International, etc. I also know that the Army and Navy hires research psychologists; I met quite a lot of them at APA one year and they were very nice and most really liked their jobs. Cognitive psychology is one of their more in-demand fields. There are literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of organizations in these categories that hire PhD-level researchers to run all kinds of studies for them. When I looked, I was really very surprised to see how many there were out there for psychologists. The second largest group were consultants of all kinds. Some of them went on to be research consultants (consultants who help individuals and organizations plan and execute research studies), either at established firms or by setting up their own freelance consulting companies. Some went on to be educational consultants, if their research overlapped, which yours does. Some with strong stats skills went to be statistical consultants. And some went on to regular management consulting at firms like McKinsey and BCG. I go to one of those universities where the top consulting firms come to recruit, and they are always looking for bright young recent PhDs to staff their firms (I was invited to interview with one of them myself), especially if you have quantitative and computational skills. They even have special seminars especially for what they call "Advanced Degree Candidates," which are potential consultants with graduate degrees that aren't an MBA. A third group that kind of overlaps with the first one is the group who took non-academic positions at universities. One of our most recent graduates is a data librarian at a liberal arts college; another one works in the office of institutional research at a nearby college. Sometimes recent PhDs can get jobs as advising deans/advisers, in student affairs, in academic affairs, or other affiliated educational offices at colleges and universities. Then there were the ones that didn't fit into any groups. A small number went to do client services management/project management at corporations; another small number worked in science & technology firms as a behavioral researcher or in another role. (At APA one year, I met an engineering psychologist who worked at a large game publishing company and helped them put together their games; he said that he worked on a team with social, cognitive, and experimental psychologists who did gameplay and marketing researcher as they developed their games.) One became director of marketing research at a pharmaceutical company, although that was an older graduate and I doubt that was their first job. Some got into investment management. One listed themselves as a freelance editor, and there are at least two successful published authors in the group - one who was actually in my cohort and her book became a NYT bestseller. Two became psychology teachers at private high schools. Basically, there are lots and lots of jobs that you can do with a PhD in cognitive psychology. Some of them are essentially doing what academics do - just the research part, in a different setting. Some of them will have you using your PhD and research skills, and require a PhD, but are still kind of different from straight research. And others don't require a PhD at all, but you'll still use some of the skills you learned. What I mean to say is if you really want to get a PhD and you don't mind the very real chance that you won't get a tenure-track job afterwards, you probably won't be unemployed either if you can get creative. Pick up a copy of So What Are You Going to Do With That? Finding Careers Outside Academia. It's a great book and filled with tips for intrepid graduate students who either have an inkling that academia is not for them or just want to be prepared for the possibility that they don't find an academic job. Also, here is some of my own advice (from a grad student who is not sure whether she wants an academic career, and knew that from Day One): -Whatever you choose to do and wherever you choose to go, develop and cultivate strong quantitative skills. If your university offers it, get a joint/concurrent MA in statistics (many many universities allow this, including Michigan, Penn State and Yale) or a graduate certificate in statistics. Even if there's no formal recognition, take statistics classes, as many as you can. It's also a good idea to learn some computer programming, if you can. My ability to generate outside income has relied heavily upon my strong quantitative skills, and when I look at non-academic job ads the thing that most of them have in common is that they usually desire someone who knows how to use this or that statistical package or who can do at least intermediate level statistical analyses. Even if you stay in academia, most job ads nowadays ask for someone with strong methodological and statistical skills and want someone that can teach stats and methods, so you're preparing yourself either way. -Always do something outside of the department. Even if you don't need the extra money. How may be a little tricky, if you get an adviser whose head is still in the sand wrt the job market or who thinks you should be in the lab 100 hours a week, but as much as you can, finagle it. Ever since I finished coursework I've been working a "side hustle" with the primary purpose of developing some skills outside of the general academic ones. I've done freelance statistical consulting, I worked as an intern at a market research company, I was a hall director in the office of student affairs, and now I'm doing statistical project advising/tutoring work in the library. Each job has given me a variety of skills that I can draw upon, and I think compared with students who have done nothing beside being a research assistant I have an attractive bevy of experiences. Plus I've shown that I can work in teams and in more traditional office environments (e.g. the 9-to-5 life, meetings, teleworking, etc.) -Go to career center events. I go to a lot of them. My university's career center is rather excellent and has a whole series of events directly targeted at doctoral students who want non-academic jobs (as well as events for doctoral students who want academic jobs, both R1s and at LACs and other types of institutions. In fact, I'm going to one tomorrow.) They bring people to campus to talk about alternative careers; they have "turn your CV into a resume" workshops; they bring corporations who want to hire PhDs to campus to pitch their companies, etc. But even if whatever university you end up at doesn't have a strong career center for grad students, go to the undergrad events without shame. -Personally I always keep both an updated CV and resume on deck. You never know when you're going to need either. Final note: age-wise, as far as my department is concerned, you would be middle-of-the-pack. At 22, I was one of the youngest in my cohort when I began. Most of our beginning students are in their mid 20s to early 30s, and many either were married or got married and had some children during the program. Actually, I was astonished and very pleasantly surprised by how absolutely normal everyone in my cohort is - we're just normal people living normal regular lives who happen to be huge dorks about psychology. And everyone is considering non-academic careers, even though we don't say it in front of our advisers. So you may not stand out as much as you think you will.

Why don't you ask him directly? "A faculty member with administrative duties" can be anything from the head of a search committee to the head of a special program to department chair to a dean who teaches one or two classes. They will all have various amounts of time depending on their duties and the department - in some departments, the chair is a figurehead and in others it takes up a significant amount of time. One of my advisers was department chair for 3 years while he advised me and he was still wonderful (he was also on sabbatical for one year that he advised me and is on sabbatical again now). My other adviser became the head of the special departmental program I'm in and was also still wonderful. You can set up a meeting with him and ask if he has time to take on another student and his mentoring style.

I do what both of the other commenters suggested - I always have a group activity planned that will take up significant class time and that will get them to think about the material in a different way. So for example, when my public health seminar had to think about interventions, I made them do a 35-minute activity that involved them getting in groups of 3 or 4 planning their own intervention that combined all of their interests. I made up a list of questions that they had to answer about the intervention. These were all kids taking a public health seminar because they wanted to, and doing internships, so they had that knowledge to draw upon - I would alter the assignment a bit for a class that was younger and had less experience. I also try to make my students feel at ease in commenting. First I tell them that this isn't the kind of class where I get up and talk and they just stare at me and take notes, that they are expected to talk. I try to give them the opportunity to comment first but if they don't, I tell them that I am just going to call on them. I usually don't have to - usually the threat of this is enough and the students would rather talk when they can think of something rather than me calling, but I do do it from time to time. (I try to balance this out with the students' individual needs and personalities - students who I know or sense have anxiety speaking in front of groups, but who contribute in other ways - like small group discussions - I don't call on as much. The other students don't seem to mind.) I have also found that when students know that I'm expecting to hear from them and will call them out if I haven't, they tend to be a bit more prepared to say something. But I also give them this little speech about how all knowledge is valuable and they are all coming from diverse backgrounds and theoretical orientations, and all of that is necessary in the classroom. It's an attempt to get them to ease up and not be afraid to say something wrong. In general, it's worked...I think? The other thing I do is vary how we do our discussions. It's an extension of the chunking rule. Even I get bored talking about the same thing for 2 hours straight. One example is - We spend 15 minutes doing some summary/recap/questions, then I split them into large groups (5-7 per group) to summarize different aspects of the paper/discussion (i.e. one group gets to identify all of the major players in our weekly case study; one group talks about the locations; one group talks about the organizations involved, etc.). Maybe that takes 15 minutes, and I bring them back together to brief each other and discuss the findings and add to each other's material. Then we spend, I don't know, 20-30 minutes discussing it as a group. Then I split them into different small groups (3-5 people each) and give them some questions to ponder or an activity to do - like the intervention above, or writing a mini-grant proposal, or whatever. Or one time I staged a debate between sides and the groups were larger, and they had to come up with arguments to make. Then we come together for the last 30 minutes and discuss the activity, or have the debate, or sum up whatever it was I made them do. The idea is to keep them moving around, changing the mode or method of discussion, switching gears of the topic. It also helped the shy students - the students who are shy about speaking in front of 15 or 20 students often are more talkative in groups of 3 or 4.

Many schools do not allow you to apply credits you earned elsewhere towards another degree towards a degree at their school/program. So I would check that out first. Also, the teaching component in the MFA is likely to be informal - while you may get credit for teaching assistantships, you probably won't be able to apply that against pedagogy classes elsewhere.