juilletmercredi

Not really. Most MA programs expect you to pay your own way, anyway. Also, a 3.4 is not abysmal. That's what I had when I got into my PhD program.

I think they are applying to Harvard as they want to start as a dual degree student - their degree at HDS is in progress. You could definitely try. I know a friend of mine started her MPH at Columbia and then applied in the middle of her first year to do a dual-degree MPA at Columbia, too. She didn't have the work experience that MPA applicants usually have (she only had one year), but she was already at Columbia and so she got into the program anyway.

You can ask, but expect that the answer is likely no, especially if you are in a field that does not accept transfer credits from other programs. (For example, in my field unless there are exceptional circumstances - usually an advisor leaving University A and going to University B and negotiating for the students they bring - you don't so much as transfer from A to B as you do apply to B and start over. At most, you may get one semester of credit, but you usually have to take more classes and take their qualifying exams all over.)

Yes. My interests could've been studied in a social psychology, public health, or sociology department. I ended up going into a program that's sort of a hybrid of all three (a joint program in social psychology and public health, with the public health department having very heavy sociological influences). My advisors told me that what department you go into doesn't really affect the questions you can ask, just the research methods you will use to answer those questions. Social psychologists use psychological theories and methods to answer questions (experiments, quantitative surveys, large-scale epidemiological studies sometimes) and I was much more interested in those methods and theories than in sociological theory and methods (which could be quant surveys or qual interviews). It ends up that I do use some sociological theory and some methods in my work, but I focus primarily on the psychological. So given that you are a political science major, but likely have taken some sociology classes, which approach do you want to use? What kind of department do you want to "grow up in" academically? Also, what kind of classes do you want to teach? I wanted to teach either in a school of public health or a psychology department, but not a sociology department, so that helped drive my decision.

Try versatilephd.com! It's a website that's especially tailored for people in the humanities and social sciences who want non-academic careers. There are tons of people on the forums there who have PhDs in humanities fields who have moved into non-academic careers, and every so often they have career panels where the mods invite panelists in different career fields to speak about how they got into their fields. Very very useful resource!

For an MBA, your grades are pretty much secondary. You need full-time work experience. 5-7 years is ideal; 2-3 years is the minimum to get into a good program. Your short-term goal should be getting a good middle management job at a firm where you can get progressively more responsible work experience. With economics, your grades will matter much more. Your grades at BOTH schools will be important, so your CC grades will have a big impact. Remember that if you transfer after your second year at a CC, when you apply to grad school - if you apply in your senior year - there will only be one year of grades at your new university anyway. This is especially true if you take any classes that will be important to your grad programs while at CC - so for an economics degree, your calculus sequence. The fact that you went to a CC won't matter, but your grades will. Try to limit your transfers. No, transferring a third time to a more competitive school is probably not a good idea. The best thing you can do is do really well, and then work for 3-7 years after college.

Your undergrad degree is 6 years behind you. You have a successful job history behind you as well. Your undergrad grades won't matter as much, especially if you can take and do well in the quant classes you will need to prepare you for a quant degree. I think any quant road you take is going to require at least the calculus sequence (cal I-III) and linear algebra, so you may want to get started taking that. The supplemental classes you take will depend on what you want to do. Here are some quant fields you could enter/get a master's in -statistics (this is a growing field, so many applied stats programs are admitting students with just three semesters of calculus and linear algebra) -biostatistics (same as above, just applied to biological and health sciences work) -actuarial science -(quantitative) finance -operations research -computer science (will also require some CS/technical classes) -bioinformatics (it's like CS + biological science) -information technology (less technical than CS) -economics -public policy analysis (there are some public policy programs that have a focus on statistical and policy analysis) -educational measurement and statistics -quantitative psychology Now to your individual dilemma - I really, really don't think you need a PhD. Most people out there doing policy analysis don't have PhDs; you can do that with a master's. If you don't care what field you want to go into, but you want to use statistical/quantitative analysis, work in a flexible environment in which you are given targets and asked to meet them with little oversight, and want to be creative and have some flexibility - I'll put a plug in for statistics. If you work as a statistician, you'll often have a lot autonomy because you may be the only one or one of few on the team who understands what you're doing. You have to use the "best" method for the dataset and problem you are given, and if none exists, sometimes you have to invent it. It involves creativity and not just mindless plugging in of numbers, because there's no right answer and a lot of different ways you can do it. And since you're working with people who don't understand what you're doing, you need to learn to translate statistics into regular English. And with a degree in statistics, you can go a variety of ways. You can take business classes and specialize in business data; you can take biostatistics classes and do health & life sciences research; you can take some computer science classes and become a computational data scientist (like writing computer programs to do data mining or something like that); you can specialize educational measurement and go work for ACT or ETS designing standardized tests...you can take policy classes and do analysis...there's a lot you can do. Statistics is a flexible and useful field, and it can be really fascinating and beautiful if you're a math nerd, lol. There are also MPP and MPA programs that have strengths/emphases in policy analysis and quantitative methods of analysis. For example, Princeton's MPP program has strengths in quantitative and policy analysis. An economics degree is good for that too - you can go to a program with a really strong econometrics focus. ** Here, I want to counteract the idea that graduate school is not made for creative multidimensional people. Yes, you do need a focus - for now. But the myth, I think, is that all grad students are interested in one thing that they want to do. I've found that to be untrue; most grad students were just very good at making it look like they were focused in one particular area, and are very good at working at one particular area for a couple of years. For example, I have wide and varied research interests within public health - interests that span several lifetime research agendas, lol. I could never do them all. And then I have interests in things that aren't research-related, per se. I think there are several careers I could've been happy in! The point is, narrow yourself down to one area that you can do for 2-7 years. The working world is a lot more flexible than academia. You can start your career analyzing economic policy and slowly move yourself into educational policy if you get bored. It just depends on you and the skills you have and learn.

I don't believe in going to school just for the sake of going to school. So my question is, if your goal is to get a certain kind of master's or PhD, then why would you need a certificate from a community college? I would only look at an online program if it would get me to the same goal as the in-person program would, and if it's at a brick-and-mortar school's world campus.

I have a close friend/coworker doing the MA in art history here at Columbia. She works part-time at an art gallery AND works part-time in residential life with me, which probably totals about 30 hours a week (20 hours in this job and probably around 10 in the other. She doesn't think it interferes in her ability to engage in her work beyond the point where she can get what she needs to get done. She's writing her thesis now (in longhand, I might add). I personally work 20 hours a week in my doctoral program. I don't think it takes away from the ability to engage. If you work a job that is flexible, you can schedule your hours so that you are in the department often enough - and you can make those colloquia, talks, brown bags, whatever. One of my advisors doesn't even know I work part-time. I completely disagree with the advice to not work and just take out loans. Living in New York is expensive, and if you can avoid taking out the $50,000 in loans it will cost you to cover living expenses over two years of living here, then do it. AFAIK art history jobs don't pay six figures, so the less debt you can take out, the better!

I have a MacBook Pro and I love it and will never go back to a PC, but I understand price constraints. I didn't buy one until late into my graduate career, because I couldn't bring myself to spend the money. If you want a PC, my favorite brands are Toshiba and Lenovo. Toshiba's computers last for a while and they have good specs for good prices. Lenovo's products aren't as good as the old IBM quality (Lenovo bought IBM) but they are still pretty good, and they make slickly designed machines, too - you can get some in a series that resemble MacBook Pros. They tend to be a little more expensive than Toshiba, but not as expensive as Apple. I had a ThinkPad before Lenovo was bought by IBM - I bought it in 2004 before I started college. My aunt has it now. It still works. It's slow as hell, but it runs. Never had a problem with it and it's built like a tank. Dell is a decent low-end computer. Lots of people have bad experiences with Dell, but I had a few Dells before I had my MacBook and they were all fine, all lasted at least 3 years (I replace computers fairly quickly, but they may have lasted longer than that). Overall, if you just want a computer to do schoolwork and a bit of Internet browsing, plus watching movies on DVD, I would look for a computer with a 13-15" screen (smaller is tiny; bigger is less portable), at least 4 GB of RAM, at least a 250 GB HDD, at least a 2.0 GHz processor (I personally would go for Intel Core. Intel Pentium and Intel Celeron are older versions, and Core is typically better. There are also AMD Athlon processors, but IMO those aren't the same quality). If you want to hook your computer up to a television and watch movies at home that way, you want one with an HDMI port. Most modern computers have all of these things by default. I'm not sure I would get a Chromebook as a main computer; they seem better suited as the portable companion to having a desktop computer. I suppose it also depends on what kind of Chromebook you get - they do have a 14" Chromebook for $319.

You didn't get full funding to attend a PhD in nursing? I wouldn't attend either of them, and would reapply next year. Personally I would not do a PhD without funding, but especially not in nursing, where there's a faculty shortage and lots of federal money from the NIH and HRSA. If you're going to attend anyway, then it depends. UNC does have a better-ranked school of nursing (and not just for US News) but if the research match is better at UMBC, then that may be the better place for you. If you want to be nursing faculty, because there is a nursing shortage where you go matters less than it does in other fields, although I have noticed that nursing professors at top schools typically got their PhDs from top schools, too.

Your university's graduate school should have a listing of fellowships. It may be on the website, but a lot of graduate schools also keep a binder of them in their offices, and sometimes they even have sample essays from past winners in there.

I want to help people without working directly with people. I'm a behind-the-scenes kind of person; I really wanted to work on issues of human interest and impact, but I didn't want to be a doctor, nurse, counselor or clinical social worker. Then I discovered public health, and especially applied public health research. I'm really passionate about a variety of health issues and I want to continue to use the research tools I'm learning to solve those health problems - but in a very applied way. Public health is a really applied field, and I wasn't interested in discovering basic theories about human behavior. I wanted to use those basic theories and apply them to work within health and health care, and use my research to influence policy and legislation. My goal is to work for a government agency or think tank as a researcher or research consultant. I want to do that for 10-15 years, and then pursue a degree in public policy or public administration and run some research agency(ies) or go into policy analysis.

As far as postdocs being good, it depends on the field. Postdoctoral appointments can be very good in the sciences and social sciences; I myself am taking a postdoc for the 2 years after I graduate. I'm looking forward to the dedicated time to research and write, as I'll have papers I want to edit from my dissertation, new areas I want to go into, and I've found a supportive place that sponsors the postdoc in order to train new scientists in my field. I think most new scientists in the sciences and social sciences should do a postdoc if a research career (at an institute, R1, think tank, etc.) is their goal. But whether or not the fact that they are increasing and are a prerequisite to jobs is a good thing is debatable. Nowadays even professors who teach at small LACs have done postdocs first; I don't necessarily think that's a great thing, if a student really wants to teach. Also the question is whether 2 years (or really, 1 additional year, since the person will be going through the process in their second year) really provides all that much additional vetting. In addition, many postdocs are really assistants to professors; the professors need a specific set of tasks done, and so they hire a postdoc because they want that work done. It's not necessarily seen as a period where they are going to develop their work. At UNC, looks like since 2009 at least half of the placements have been in VAPs and postdocs. WVU has a 72% placement rate over the past 15 years. Their placement rate in the last 5 years has not been nearly so good (33% 2011, 50% 2010 - 1 out of 2, 25% 2009, 75% 2008 and 33% 2007.) Most of their great placement was before 2007. At Chicago, I count 8/16 assistant professors for 2011-2012, 4/14 t-t faculty for 2010-2011, 7/13 t-t faculty in 2009-2010 (including the deputy director of the MA program), and 4/8 for 2008-2009. 2007-2008 was a good year, with 9/11 getting t-t jobs somewhere, and good places too. For the last 4 years it appears that Chicago - one of the top programs in English, I think - had around a 50% placement rate into tenure-track positions. At UT, not counting the Fall 2012 graduates because that's too soon. 5/9 from summer 2012; 2/7 from spring 2012; 1/3 from Fall 2011, 0/4 from summer 2011, 4/8 from spring 2011, 1/4 from fall 2010, 5/6 from summer 2010, 5/10 from spring 2010; 2/4 from fall 2009…and then I got tired of going back, but here again it looks like the average is around 50%. Of course, it stands to reason that some of these graduates from the last 5 years will soon move into tenure-track positions, after 1-5 years of adjuncting or doing a VAP or some other non-tenure track position. So then the placement rate may look more like it does from the early 2000s and late 1990s, but I think the point is that even these top places don't look like they are placing 70% of their graduates directly into tenure-track positions. It looks like *eventually* about 70% of their grads may find tenure-track positions, but the "immediately after graduation rate" may be closer to 30-50% depending on the program. And I think from there, it's a person's own decision on whether or not that's appealing to them. Some people are so passionate about scholarship and academia that they don't mind being a VAP or on a non-tt position for 3-5 years before settling into one, and I say - power to those folks! We need them to be professors. And then there are others (like myself) who think 2-3 years as a postdoc is plenty enough. But then, I entered this enterprise not really wanting to be an academic in the first place.

These questions don't cover all possibilities so I am going to clarify. I answered that I was only paid by the NSF fellowship, but that's not strictly true. In my position - as an interdisciplinary student whose home department is in a professional school - NSF gives me a base stipend. But if I TA or RA on top of that, I can get paid extra. They treat it like having a part-time job or internship. However, if I were in a GSAS department at my university, I would have two choices. I could choose for GSAS to "top-off" my external fellowship by adding onto my fellowship, up to a max total of $30,000 per year. Since the NSF already does that, I wouldn't choose that, but I would choose the other option, which is to defer my GSAS funding during the period of the NSF funding. So technically, I would have 8 years of finding (3 of NSF + 5 of GSAS). My guess is that no school is going to allow you to simply "stack" your institutional fellowship on top of an NSF (in the sense that if you're awarded $25,000 and you get an NSF for $30,000, you're now making $55,000). Some schools will top up that NSF a little more, but $30,000 is usually the limit at most places. Some schools will give you a bonus - my university gives GSAS-funded students a one-time month's bonus (equivalent to about $2,500) if they win an external award. Some universities just pat you on the back and say congratulations, now you can finish your program. At most places, you can work within the limits of the NSF (only things related to your degree progression, like TAing and RAing) and get paid a little extra. But usually they have a part-time structuring of the funds. Everyone here is required to TA one semester a year, and it's part of the funding, but if you're on an NSF, you get paid an extra $3,000 per section per class. I also chose that I am not allowed to use any of the funds. But the funds hit my student account directly. They pay my tuition, fees, and health insurance automatically. Right now I'm on extended residence because I am serving as a TA and defending my dissertation proposal, so my tuition and fees for the year are $19,000; health insurance is something like $3500. NSF pays $12,000 of that and my home department pays the rest. But let's say that I was getting the NSF next year (this is my last year, so I won't). I'll be on matriculation and facilities. M&F is only $3,500 a year and then health insurance is $3,500 a year, making $7,000. NSF would still give the school $12,000, so I'll have an overage on my account of $5,000. After that, the university does strange things. The official party line is that you have to leave it on the account because it's the university's money. What actually happens depends on how the university administration's gods feel that day. How do you know? Some schools have it posted on their website. Columbia has a website addressing the external fellowship policy: http://gsas.columbia.edu/external-fellowships I would search your university's graduate school website for something similar. If not, there is usually someone in the financial aid office who is designated to handle these things - maybe two or three people. I would call and ask.

^I agree that that seems like a sweeping generalization, and I disagree with it. You can work 10-hour days and maintain a good work-life balance, in fact. It depends on how you define "good". I tend to take at least one full day off per week, and make time for myself in the evenings (a few hours) and I'm doing quite well in my program. I'm no superstar, but I'm also not just shuffling towards a PhD aimlessly. I honestly think it's counterproductive to be nose to the grindstone all the time and never balance that out with the rest of your life. First of all, you won't have any friends or partners. And secondly, your life makes your work better. I am often inspired by newspaper or magazine articles; it fuels my curiosity about the world. Enjoying myself with friends or my husband makes me much more refreshed and ready to get back to work. I'm not doing this to work all the time; I'm doing this as an enjoyable way to support the rest of my life. Avoid drinking the academic kool-aid that posits that you must be working, or thinking about work, nearly all of the time or you will fail. That's a great way to have guilt following you around, and it just demoralizes you and makes you feel depressed and anxious - which in turn makes you less productive. (I have a lot of experience with this, as this was essentially years 2, 3, and 4 of my PhD. I was so miserable!) BUT I don't totally disagree with lewin00. You will need to work weekends more often than not. You will need to work nights, more often than not. Nine to five isn't really going to work for this, especially not when you're still in coursework. If you want to try to structure your days, say, 8 to 6 M-F and maybe like 10 to 4 on Saturday, then I think that's more realistic.

"phd that takes longer because you're working part time" is probably better than "no phd at all". I disagree with this heavily, especially if that PhD costs out-of-pocket money or a lot in loans. But with that aside, OP, a lot of people go into PhD programs unsure of exactly what they want to research. You should definitely have a general/broad idea, but narrowing it down takes some time. Many students spend their first year getting acclimated and reading - a lot - to refine their topic. Typically by the beginning of your second year, you should have identified someone you want to do research with and begin that research. IT's better if you can do that earlier, like in your second semester, but if you are also working part-time it may take some time. I think by the time the end of your third year rolls around you should have identified a potential dissertation topic (this is at programs that take 5 years on average, though). Often you spend your fourth year collecting data/running experiments and your 5th year writing and applying to jobs and postdocs.

Not to mention that most psychology students are not clinical students. I'm in social-health psychology But my advice is also that you can't force anyone to see a clinician/therapist. You can suggest it. But if the person responds by yelling and getting angry and refuses to go, then you can't force them unless they are a dependent in your care or a danger to themselves or others.

Ha ha mpheels, it's also my dream to be Secretary of Health and Human Services! But I'm not really a politician, and typically politicians get that spot. And I honestly don't want to be a politician, either. So what I think I would really like is to be the Assistant Secretary for HHS, or a deputy assistant secretary. I want to shape policy on health and human services, but I'd rather use my research and science expertise to counsel politicians on policy moves behind the scenes. The ASH tends to have a research background. I would like to do research for 10-15 years and then move into policy work afterwards. I'd also enjoy running the CDC or one of the NIH, I think.

We say that, and it sounds good in theory. In practice, it really depends on the individual student and their goals. I go to Mailman and I'm getting my PhD here, and I have friends in both programs. Many of my friends in the DrPH program aspire towards academic careers as researchers and teachers; they want to create knowledge, and they want to innovate within the field. And many of the PhD students (including myself) want to apply our science to solve real-world public health problems outside of academia. And in practice, here, DrPH students take the same courses and do much of the same work as PhD students. I am in sociomedical sciences. The major differences between the two degrees in my department are 1) the PhD program does not require a prior master's, whereas the DrPH does and 2) in sociomedical sciences, PhD students study in another social science discipline in addition to our department, whereas DrPH students only take public health coursework. And even that is not the same in all departments - biostatistics and epidemiology both require both DrPH and PhD applicants to have a prior master's. Because the PhD here can only be awarded by GSAS, whereas the DrPH is awareded by Mailman, there are also some administrative differences. For example, as a PhD student I am part of the Interuniversity Doctoral Consortium, which means that I can take classes at several other area universities (NYU, CUNY, Princeton, Yale, etc.) and my tuition covers it. DrPH students cannot do that. I also can use the resources of the career center at the main campus in addition to the ones at the Mailman campus, whereas technically DrPH students cannot (although in practice CCE events are open to anyone). I have a friend in my lab who chose the DrPH because she already had an MPH and figured it would take her less time to get to the DrPH than the PhD. Honestly, by the description given, she should really pursue the PhD and I should be the one after the DrPH. But I didn't have a prior master's, so PhD it was for me. I have another friend in biostats who got a DrPH for very similar reasons. Most of my friends here who chose the DrPH program did so because they had a prior MPH, but not necessarily because they really wanted to get involved in policy and applied work over research. Honestly, here I can't really tell the difference between who's in which degree program. We have to ask each other - "Are you DrPH or PhD?" Nowadays you can also see many public health professors with DrPH degrees. At other schools, it may be different. For example, at UGA I get the sense that there actually is a significant difference between their DrPH and PhD programs. Their DrPH programs emphasize prior public health experience and seem targeted towards experienced professionals. AS for funding, yes, funding can be different. There are some fellowships that are open only to PhD students and not DrPH students. For example, the Ford Foundation is open to PhD students but not to DrPH students (although that will vary; it's technically not open to public health students. Here PhD students can brand themselves as being in their disciplinary department, but elsewhere at more traditional public health programs, they may also be ineligible). The NSF fellowships are also not open to DrPH students but are open to PhD students. However, the most common mechanism of support - the NIH NRSA - is open to DrPH and PhD students. And both kinds of students here get institutional fellowships. My advice is to check into each university's specific programs and see which one is the better fit individually. At some schools, a DrPH may be a better fit; at others, a PhD may be better; and at yet other schools, neither program may be strictly better and you may just arbitrarily choose.

Why I would: 1) Autonomy/independence. I get to determine what I work on, when I want to. 2) Flexibility of schedule. I may have to work 80 hours a week, but they're any 80 hours I want! 3) Intellectually stimulating environment of the university. 4) Shaping young minds, I guess. Helping to influence the future of my field. I'd like to advise pre-health undergrads in their careers, and maybe advise new doctoral students one day. Why I wouldn't: 1) I don't really like teaching. Every time I get involved in it, I always think it's just distracting from my research, so I think that's a sign. 2) I would prefer some geographic mobility. I don't want a job in a place I hate just for the opportunity to be an academic. 3) I prefer a more medium-stress lifestyle, and I don't want to fight for tenure. 4) Tenure doesn't appeal to me. I don't want to be tied to one institution for my career; I want the freedom to move if I want to. I know it's a bit harder to move on in academia when you're an associate or full professor unless you are prolific. 5) I don't want to pay my own salary through grants. I would prefer a guaranteed salary. 6) Academia moves too slowly for me. I want my research to go towards applied programs that will solve problems in the more immediate future. I want to work on very applied issues and help people in the more proximal future. 7) I really don't want to run my own research lab. It's not that I'm not a good manager, but I would prefer the structure of an established company rather than being, essentially, the proprietor of a small business. I just want to worry about the science and not the money or the equipment or the space. I would rather work on a team with other researchers at my level, all of whom have a particular skill set they bring to the problem at hand. And I want to work for a corporation that hires other people to worry about the money and the equipment and the space and leave me to play with data and write papers. 8) I hate committees, and I hate meetings. I realize that those happen in corporate, too, but from my (admittedly limited) experience, academia = endless pointless meetings whereas corporate seems to have mastered them a little better. 9) I like routines and predictability. I know that I enjoy the flexibility of academia, but I also would not mind one bit working a 9-5 and knowing that at 5 or 6 or 7 pm I can drop everything and go home and not think about work the next day. 10) I like juggling multiple research projects at once, but I don't like juggling multiple tasks at once. I want to be a researcher working on a variety of projects, but not a teacher, adviser, and researcher all at once. I'm not really good at segmenting my time properly, and I've found that I waste a lot of time transitioning my brain from one task to the next. 11) I like to call myself a "research mercenary." I am more broadly interested in public health research, but there are a wide variety of fields within that area that I am interested in. I feel like if I became an academic, I'd be expected to dig a specialized niche within a particular area and burrow into that niche for the next 20 years. But that's not what I really want. I'd much rather be a semi-generalist, and know a little about a lot and a lot about one particular area of that lot. 12) Again, I have limited experience, but I find corporate bullshit more understandable than academic bullshit. Corporations want to make money, and people in corporations work together to make money somehow. Even in think tanks and policy institutes, the goal is to compete for government contracts and produce good end goals so that more agencies want to contract with you. Government agencies and institutes produce research for the national good (theoretically) to serve priority areas. But academic politics drive me nuts. I always feel a little bit alienated around other grad students who really, really want to be academics. 13) I don't like conferences. I know I will still go if I am in non-academic research, but they'll be less critical to my career (somewhat) and so maybe I will go to fewer. Now I sound like a misanthropic academic, lol.

It probably does mean 1 class a semester (maybe one class for the year; we only have to TA one class per year here). Hours devoted to TAing depend on the professor and class. On the low end, I TAed an intro class with a super-organized professor that only required that I show up (class was 1 hour and 15 minutes twice a week), hold two office hours a week, grade about 20 2-page papers 3 times a semester (this didn't take much time at all), help come up with exam questions and then grade the exams. On a regular week, the class took less than 10 hours of my time - probably about 7 hours/week. Exams and paper weeks were longer but maybe 12-15 hours max. This semester's assignment is more mid-range. The class meets for 4 hours each week, and I have to hold 2 office hours, so 6 hours. This class has less straightforward material and more sort of nebulous work so I think I work on it about 10 hours per week each week. When I had to prepare a lecture, I probably spent 20 hours that week on this class. It varies wildly. The stats class I TAed was the biggest commitment of time. I TAed two sections of the lab, which were 2 hours each. So again, 4 hours in class plus 2 office hours = 6 hours. But I also had to design the labs (or at least alter templates from last year), design homeworks, grade homeworks, design the exams and grade the exams. That class took 15 hours a week EVERY week, and on weeks in which I had grading to do, I felt like I didn't have enough time to do anything besides work on the class.

I wish I didn't have to defend this damn proposal. *grumble*

You don't have to define yourself as either or. I do whatever suits my needs for that particular moment. In general, I tend to be much more of a digital person than a paper person. But if paper suits me better, I do that. For example, I read the vast majority of books electronically, but today I bought two paperbacks. I just wanted the feeling of paperback books in my hands, and I wanted to physically underline in them and post-it tag them, so I splurged a bit. I get a lot of paper from professors - ugh - and in the beginning of my program, I read all of my readings on paper. It was easier to shuffle them during class discussions, and I didn't yet have an ultraportable computer or an iPad. I just had a messenger bag and tried to prioritize what I needed for the day; I had separate folders for each class. I used highlighters and all that stuff. I took notes using a good old-fashioned pen and notebook. I also handed in some papers hard copy and other papers electronically. It depended on the professor. Now I live almost my entire life electronically - at least as far as my program goes. I'm in a journal field so I look for journal articles electronically; I only go to the library if I need a seminal work (and even then I try to avoid hunting for it in the stacks, lol). I write papers electronically and share them with collaborators that way. I read my journal articles on my iPad, which allows annotating and highlighting, and organize them using zotero. I manage my life using a Google calendar that I have synced to my computer and my phone and the cloud so I can always check it. I have all of my work backed up on an external hard drive and on the cloud in addition to having it on my computer. (Paranoia!) I honestly don't have room to store hundreds of journal articles; I barely have a place to put library books when I borrow them. But I also use paper. Like I said, I still buy paper books; sometimes I do print out journal articles (or other people give me paper copies of their articles), and more often than not I take notes on pen and paper. I prefer notebooks because they don't require any boot time; you have a thought and you just instantly jot them down. Sometimes if I have a thought and I want to write it in Evernote, my Mac will take a minute to think and I'll lose the thought. No worries of that with notebooks. I also remember things better if I write them down, so I sometimes buy a planner for the sole purpose of writing things in it, even though I never check it. I mostly do that for internal deadlines like dissertation deadlines or paper deadlines. Otherwise, I put it in my Google calendar. Why don't you store electronic copies of your readings on your computer but also print out the readings (or at least the most important ones) to read in hard copy? That way you have an electronic reference but can still read the way you prefer. I also think you should do anything else the way that makes the most sense to you. Don't try to rationalize it; we all have our kooky rituals and stuff. If you want to plan your days by Google calendar but print out your readings on a good ol' printer and use a highlighter and sticky flags, go ahead. If you want to proofread your papers in hard copy and then fix them and turn them in electronically, do that! I have a friend who is writing her master's thesis in long-hand (pen and looseleaf paper) and then typing it because she thinks better that way. Go for it!

I very rarely need to print at home. I read all of my articles electronically, though, either on my computer or on my iPad (I can't stand having tons of paper just lying around, and I don't have the resources to file it even if I wanted to). I don't print drafts of my papers - the other authors and I (or my advisor) review them all electronically. I review papers much better electronically anyway, with track changes in Word. Ironically, I could've used a printer in the beginning of my program, when I was least able to afford it. I read all of my articles for class in hard copy and I had files and files of stuff from classes. I also had to turn in hard copies of papers, which often resulted in mad dashes to the printing facilities a half hour before class praying that the lab wasn't busy. (I came straight from undergrad, so I didn't master not procrastinating on papers until later.) Now that I am not in classes and I only work on papers of my own volition other than my own dissertation, I don't need the printer as much - but ironically, I have one now. It's handy to have around for the occasional print job, but strictly speaking it's more of a luxury than a need. I have an Epson WF-2540. It's wireless and supports Google Air Print, which means that I can print from anywhere over the Internet. I can also print from my iPad which is useful because I read many articles that way. I mostly use it for personal documents - like my tax returns, a cover letter, a recommendation letter here or there, etc.