juilletmercredi

I'm skeptical. This article doesn't actually share any consumer data about the average moscato drinker. The only "data" it has to support the idea that moscato drinkers are primarily African American and younger is that it's big in hip-hop music. Well, that's silly, because anyone who listens to hip hop knows that artists often rap about things their listeners can't afford (like Cristal). Also, most African Americans don't run out and buy something just because Nicki Minaj or Drake mentions it. Sounds like old-fashioned stereotyping wrapped in the guise of economic "research." If he had actually presented some market research data that would be a different story. Secondly I am so tired of the wine industry. I love wine - many different kinds of wine, including moscato, although it certainly wasn't my introduction to wine. I do tend to prefer sweeter wines to dry wines, although not too sweet (I don't like most moscatos). But I hate this idea that there are some wines more "sophisticated" than others. It's been shown time and again that wine-tasting is pure bullshit and that even master wine tasters can't really taste the differences between different wines reliably - and that sometimes they can't even tell the difference between reds and whites, if the whites are colored with food coloring. It's all a shill to sell bottles. Why is dry wine "more mature" and somehow less ghetto, and require "graduating" to, than a sweet moscato or a Riesling or something? I don't understand why people have to be so snobby about wine. If people are buying your bottles, wineries, why the hell do you care?

Pardon, but I don't really see the point of this. Many students go off to work for a few years knowing that they want to go back to business school - I don't see why you shouldn't just go work for 2-5 years and then apply to business school when you're ready to go back, rather than trying to apply now. I did a quick search and it seems that with the exception of Harvard and Stanford's provisions, a lot of b-schools are actually contracting their deferral programs. Prior to 2009, it was more common for top business schools to allow for deferrals for promising admitted students to pursue some other business opportunities, but it seems like so many students deferred after 2009 (for financial reasons during the recession - either they could no longer afford it, or they were afraid to give up their job and not be able to get another) that a lot of programs tightened these up. Most of them only do deferrals for medical and emergency reasons. I'd also like to note that the Harvard 2+2 program is extremely competitive.

I started drinking coffee in graduate school. I just really love the taste, smell, and mouthfeel, and it's a soothing morning ritual for me. I don't drink it every day (just almost every day: I have a Keurig) and when I do, it's a small cup; I haven't noticed feeling more tired on mornings on which I don't drink coffee. To be honest, coffee doesn't really give me that much of a boost; I think it's because I don't drink that much. I've actually been known to get really sleepy and cozy after a good cup of coffee. Sometimes I drink it before bed with dessert, and I haven't had trouble going to sleep with it. My real addiction is chai tea lattes. If I ever learn how to make those at home, I'm done for. I just don't like giving Starbucks $4 a cup, so that limits my intake. I'd love to become a coffee snob, but at the moment I am far too impatient to grind my own beans. I'm sure there are a lot of places to find great coffee here in NYC, but I have just never bothered to look. I would, however, like a nice cozy comfortable coffee shop that isn't Starbucks. I'd like to support some independent shops. Yes, coffee can give your body the illusion it's awake when it's not. That is the point of caffeine. But of course you can do a PhD without caffeine. In fact, you can do a PhD without staying up late at all, if your budget your time well.

Have you ever lived in the town that you are moving to? If not, how do you know you despise it? I live in a very large city as part of my grad program, and while I thought I would love it I actually dislike it and want to move to a small town. Anyway, it's true that you can't do your best work if you are miserable - but that comes with some balance. Yes, you won't be in class every day, but on days you aren't you may need to be in the lab or meet with your professor. Even if you are mostly writing, you may have a work space in the department and your advisor and the culture of the department may expect to see you there most days of the week. I think first and second year grad students should plan to be on campus 4-5 days a week. I wouldn't do a 60-mile commute (which is at least an hour). It is something you can consider doing in year 3 or 4, once you're finished with coursework and really do spend less time on campus. And if you are not planning to get a car of your own (sounds that way if looking for carpools), then forget it. I think people from cities might be surprised how much there is to do in a small town. Some small towns - especially small towns that have grown up around colleges - can have a variety of interesting and fun things to do and even a pretty cool nightlife, depending on the town.

I applaud your decision to focus in and only apply to schools that are a good, near-perfect fit - IMO there's no other reason to go to a PhD program - but I would say don't worry too much about the coursework. It is such a small part of your program. You want to make sure that the coursework you have is going to teach you the content base you need to do good work in your field, but don't rule out schools because they have a couple of core classes you think you won't like. You may be surprised. I'm a social/health psychologist who had to take a neuroscience seminar as part of my program and I loved it. If you're just going into junior year, don't worry that their labs are currently full. It will be two years before you join their labs. 3.36 is a bit low but it's not impossible; I had a 3.42 when I got into my program (but my major GPA was higher; it's your major GPA that may give pause). I went to a small LAC that routinely had independent research projects as part of courses. I didn't put them on my CV as projects, but I think it was clear from my statement and other materials that I had a lot of research knowledge acquired in and out of the classroom. So OP, I wouldn't necessarily count a required course (especially a methods course) as a separate research project, but it is valuable experience. Yes, you should still bother trying to get into the SSRP. You can get independent confirmation from another professor at a different university that you are awesome.

My reasons for getting a PhD were initially that I wanted to be a researcher. I wanted to work either as an academic professor at a research-focused institution, or work as a researcher at a government agency/think tank/other place in a position that required a PhD. When I reviewed the kinds of jobs I wanted at the time, all of them required PhDs. Work experience matters in some PhD programs; depends on the field. Public health is a very experience-oriented field, and much of the work in the field is research-related. Thus, work experience can help a public health application even if it's not a direct research position. But in my other field - psychology - work experience only helps if it were as a research coordinator or lab technician/manager. Don't let the standardized tests keep you from applying; they are the least important part of your application. Yes, an abysmally low score can keep you out, but they are also the easiest part of your application to improve in a relatively short period of time.

Other than fee waivers to programs based on financial need, there really aren't any.

It always amuses me to hear about other people's advisor stories and how different they all are. My advisor spent most of my time pre-quals telling me how easy they were and trying to get me to calm down and stop worrying.

Um, no. I don't even think a departmental secretary would forward this request to the graduate students, unless there were dire circumstances like you were in the hospital.

rising_star simply said that students in the physical sciences don't necessarily work more than students in the social sciences. Since you aren't her, and you aren't in her program, I'm wondering how it is you think you she's "kidding herself" by thinking she works more than those in the physical sciences. I know some English lit and history PhD students who work hours as long as, or longer than, some students in the physical sciences. They spend hours and hours in the library or archives. Some anthropologists spend years doing fieldwork hundreds of miles away from home, sometimes thousands. Being that you're a psychology student, you already know that many psychologists spend many hours in the lab doing experiments. I'm in the health sciences and our journals, just like physical science journals, have a wide range of acceptance rates. I've also helped write a grant and have planned 2-3 new studies here. The hours in any field are influenced by how "smart" you work, but there's no denying that there IS a minimum amount of work that you have to put in. Physical and natural scientists may have to be in the lab whereas I may be able to do that work from the comfort of my home or in a coffee shop. But there are also many physical scientists who DON'T have to go the the lab (math, theoretical physics, perhaps computational sciences…) We all have our own struggles; there's no need to devalue any one field's.

I had to take written quals. Our quals were one of those where everyone overstressed and overstudied and the actual exam wasn't that bad. Can you talk to your advisor? YOu may be panicking from stress, but unnecessarily.

STATA is easier, but R is free and everyone is using R now. I would take the R class, because STATA is easier to teach yourself IMO if you want to learn it later. And there is indeed code for everything in R already online. GUIs in stats programs are just annoying. Learn the code. It gives you so much more control over your analysis and it's much easier to make individual tweaks and SAVE your work. Whether or not you need to use the same package as others in your lab will really depend, honestly. A large enough department will have students who use everything. I think pretty much every major stats package is well-represented in my department at this point.

Arcanen, I totally agree with your entire post. Once I started getting involved in my university community, refusing to work more than about a 50-hour work week, and took time for myself - I was so much happier. Grad school isn't so miserable anymore. BUT. I do disagree with one point. I Refuse to live in a residence hall anymore. I worked as a hall director for two years and I hated living in the residence hall. I refuse to share a bathroom with dozens of people and not have my own kitchen anymore. But you do have to make an extra effort to socialize when you live in an apartment. and the actual amount of time that they spend in labs is way more than anybody that I know getting a PhD in the social sciences Labs aren't the only place work gets done. And I would say that my colleagues in the psychology deparment probably rival your friends in the natural sciences wrt time spent in labs. Psychology is a very lab-based social science.

BTW, I go to Columbia's SPH. Public health is my field. Some thoughts: 1. I don't know who told you that the GRE and your GPA are the only important things for grad school admissions, but they are totally wrong. Your GRE is probably the least important part, and for an MPH your GPA is only important insofar as you prove that you can do graduate level work. Once you get over a certain threshold, it doesn't matter as much anymore. I'd say that threshold is around a 3.3-3.5 depending on the program. If this is the same person telling you that poli sci is unilaterally easier than economics, I think you need to stop listening to them. 2. Public health does not care what your major is. Most PH students here are social science majors from undergrad. Econ is a social science major, not a STEM major. Actually here, the biggest majors represented are probably sociology, psychology, and anthropology, with some history and political science majors mixed in. But there are people with all kinds of majors - definitely economics, but natural sciences and languages and humanities too. There was an English literature major in one of my classes one year. Plenty of biology and chemistry and former pre-med students. Spanish majors. All kinds of majors. It really doesn't matter what you pick. Political science can be a very quantitative major depending on where it's offered, and at some programs the rigor and analytical skills required make it very difficult. Both majors are in the social sciences, as they both study the behavior of people. Both actually use very similar research methods. And both are writing-heavy fields, so you won't do any less writing in economics than you will in political science. You won't write any 50-page papers, though, unless you choose to do a senior thesis. But it just sounds like you are more interested ine conomics, so just major in economics. However, given that your interest lies in public health administration, I suggest economics. I think it will give you a better foundation for the work you want to do, and the classes you will take in HPM. But seriously, they are not going to pass over your application because of your major. There is no "formula." It's a holistic application process. Your work experience and your statement of purpose and references are far more important. 3. Yes, there are a million Penn State alumni here. That's because there are hundreds of thousands of Penn State alumni. It's a big freaking school. That doesn't mean you can't come here from ECU. There are also tons of people from schools I have never heard of. 4. Just because your diploma doesn't say World Campus doesn't mean the adcom won't figure it out. For example, if you intend to continue working, it's going to be obvious if you worked in North Carolina during all the time that you were supposedly at Penn State. Your recommenders will probably also mention it in their letters. 5. Rising_star is right that your supervisor should be a third recommendation. You should plan to get at least 2 from professors at your new school. 6. I also don't think you will finish in 1-1.5 years, as most schools have a residency requirement of at least 2 years AND usually won't take more than 60 transfer credits. So I would plan on it taking at least 2 years for you to finish, unless ECU and Penn State are quite unusual. I agree that I would attend ECU, for two reasons: 1) It will cost less. MPHs are expensive and you want to minimize your undergraduate debt. And 2) you will get a lot more out of physical attendance. Your letters of recommendation will be stronger, and you may be able to get on-campus experiences and internships you wouldn't otherwise get. My undergrad is ranked somewhere in the high 70s and I'm in Columbia's SPH now.

Why don't you take a look at the NRC rankings in statistics (http://chronicle.com/article/nrc-statistics/124660/) and perhaps even the U.S. News list (http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/statistics-rankings?int=e6ce6e)? Two things. First of all, even if we wanted to, we couldn't help you find a good school with just this information. I don't know how to translate your GPA to a 4.0 scale, and I have no idea what you are interested in - you didn't say whether you wanted to concentrate in a specific area of statistics (like biostats, operations research, bioinformatics) or just a good general degree. It also is dependent upon where you want to work; if you want to go work at a prestigious firm or something a top-ranked degree is more important; if you want to settle down somewhere and aren't particularly worried about pedigree, that changes things. Furthermore, coming up with a list of places is more your legwork. You're supposed to do it. Top schools in stats, according to the NRC, are Stanford, Harvard, U-Washington, Cornell, Berkeley, Chicago, Michigan, Penn State, UNC-Chapel Hill, UW-Madison, Duke, Iowa State, NCSU, Johns Hopkins, Texas A&M, Columbia, UCLA, Purdue, and Penn (in no particular order). There are many more on the list - those are just roughly in the top 10 by S-rank and R-rank, so you can peruse through the list and see what's midrange for you. I will say that your quantitative scores aren't all that impressive for statistics; you're expected to score very highly. tmc12, most master's start in late August or early September. We call that fall semester, so "Fall 2014" just means he wants to apply this year to begin next year.

The Ivy League isn't necessarily the best place to go in all fields. In finance, I am sure that many of the top programs are at Ivy Leagues, but there are other top programs too that may be better suited for your needs. But anyway, like the above comment states, PhDs are about research. The PhD admissions committee is not going to care about the debate team or your undergraduate scholarship. They might care about your internships, if they are finance-related. But a tippy-top PhD program in finance is going to want to see at least 2 years of research experience in finance or quantitative related fields. Why do you want a PhD in finance, anyway? People get PhDs in finance to teach and do research in business schools, and sometimes the private sector at think tanks and such. But you don't need a PhD to do work as a quantitative financial analyst in the corporate world. Columbia also has an MS program in the mathematics of finance, in addition to the financial engineering one.

If you haven't yet been admitted, you probably won't be able to begin this fall anyway - it's probably for a Fall 2014 start date unless this is an exceptional PhD program. Besides, everything right now is hypothetical - you don't know if you're in the program, and you don't know if the internship will become full-time. Why don't you wait until you do? Assuming that your PhD program will admit you for a Fall 2014 start date anyway, you have almost a year to work in your job and decide whether you like it and would rather stay there. The question is, is the job the kind of job you would want to get regardless of whether you had the PhD? Is your ideal job/field one that requires a PhD in your field? Whether or not the PhD will be better in the long run depends entirely on your field and what you want to do, as well as the stability of that field and employment for PhDs within it.

In the midst of all of the very recent "I hate grad school; it's miserable and there are no jobs" articles, there's this one in Salon: You Only Hate Grad School Because You Think You're Supposed To What do you all think? Personally, I disagree with his entire article and I've actually had a pretty overall positive experiences in grad school. (I'm also a social psychologist.) But I'll wait to give my explanation why.

Helping students transition through undergrad IS mentoring. All of the duties you're doing sound very much like mentoring. I agree that you should list your real job title, because in the event that someone calls to verify (this typically doesn't happen for admissions but does happen all the time in job hunting) you don't want your title to not match what your supervisor says your title is. Then just list your job duties and/or accomplishments below the title. I think people often understand that titles aren't always reflective of all or even most of your duties, so they look to your description to give them a better picture.

For graduate school admissions, I don't think gaps in relevant work/study are an issue. What they're most interested in hearing about is your preparation for graduate school and why you are a good fit for the program. Discuss that in your statement. You don't have to explain every moment that you were involved in doing something other than preparing for graduate school.

I really don't think English committees will care that you were academically dismissed from law school. You could add an additional supplement where you briefly explained what you did here. Or you can just say one or two sentences about it in your SoP - you went into law school without a real passion for it, and you didn't do well because it wasn't of interest to you. Doing law school made you realize how much you really missed English literature, and so you wanted to leave and start an English lit program because of your passion there. That's it. If you have an excellent sample and come highly recommended from your undergraduate English department, your law school grades won't matter.

This book on graduate admissions essays. I'm an excellent writer, but writing an admissions essay (especially within 500-1000 words) was really difficult for me. This book really helped break down what admissions committees wanted, and gave some pretty good sample essays.

Your advisor sounds like he's getting kickbacks from a master's program or from gradschools.com. First of all, I disagree with your advisor. Your CUMULATIVE GPA is a bit low, but clinical programs don't care if you've got a C in freshman English or that painting class you took. They care about your psychology grades, and your psychology GPA is quite high. Your GRE scores are really high and you have a solid amount of research experience for being an undergrad (2 years in one lab and a summer REU program). You'd actually be a fairly strong candidate for any other PhD in psychology aside from clinical. When I got into my social psychology program (less competitive than clinical but still competitive) I had a 3.4 cumulative, 3.6 psychology, 2.5 years of research experience and 1 summer program, no publications. My recommendation? DO NOT waste your money on a masters. What you need is research experience. Most successful clinical applicants work for 2-3 years as a lab manager or research coordinator. You can find these jobs in university departments - psychology, of course, but also medical schools (neurology, psychiatry), business schools, education schools and schools of public health. Now is the time of year to start looking for those jobs, as most of the current lab managers just found out that they are in somewhere, have given their notice and the PIs are looking for lab managers to replace them. Or you could get a non-academic research job for 2 years at your department of health, an educational testing agency (like ETS or ACT), a market research firm, etc. Just as long as it's research related - that will do more for you than an MA. Much much more. To answer your questions: 1. If you do want to get a masters, then no, it does not need to be in clinical psychology. Honestly, I would really recommend doing a masters in mental health counseling or an MSW. That way, you can get licensed to counsel and get actual counseling experience, in case you want to take a break before you return or stop at a PhD. A master's in clinical psychology does not prepare you for counseling. (BTW, Teachers College has an MA in clinical psychology, and they're a very respected program. They also have an MA in psychological counseling that will allow you to counsel with your MA only.) If you really want to do a research-related program that won't license you, you can get an MA in general psychology or experimental psychology - that's totally fine. 2. Well, it can help if you have a low GPA. But otherwise, no, not necessarily. It's your research experience (and, for scientist-practitioner programs, your clinical/counseling related volunteer or paid experiences) that will get you into these programs. 3. Yes, if you do a master's. They are expensive and there is little funding. That is another reason that I recommend not doing a master's but getting a job as a lab manager/research coordinator. The one way to minimize costs is to go to a public university in a state where you are a resident. 4. Not really. I think TC allows you to do that, but their PhD program is not well-funded. That's always a danger with MA in psych programs, that you won't get in and/or that you'll still take 5-6 years to graduate anyway.

Just as a note - your fraternity membership and membership in the Knights of Columbus won't matter for grad school. The community service may matter in more practice-oriented programs. Personally, I am an advocate for the MSW. I don't think there are any benefits to the masters in counseling - in fact, I think the benefits fall on the MSW side. It's a versatile degree, and you can get licensed as a clinical social worker and practice mental health counseling. The military is in great need of licensed social workers, and while they actually have a specialty for that - I don't think they have one for masters-level counselors. Other than an MSW, you'd have to get a PhD in clinical or counseling psych.

In the beginning of the semester, I lay out the statement that if I can't read it, I won't grade it. This helps head problems off at the pass. The first time, I give it back saying that I can't read it and ask them to fix it. Any subsequent time, they get a 0 for the problem. I take arguments on a case-by-case basis.