juilletmercredi

Nah, you buy a bubble coat and a hat and some gloves and you'll be fine.

My mom got really excited when I got accepted to Yale's program in my field. I had already been previously accepted to Emory, and that made her happy too, but Yale was YALE. Except that in my field, Emory is in the top 10. Yale is in maybe the top 15 or 20. But she didn't give me any advice about where to go. My mom's really easygoing like that; she was like that when I applied to college, too. She just wanted me to go where I was happy, and do what made me happy, and she didn't care either way. She was always going to brag. Although she does like telling people that I go to Columbia. I'm already starting to frame how I'm going to have the postdoc conversation. Three of the best postdocs for me are at Penn State, UCLA, and UNC-Chapel Hill. Yale has a decent one that appeals to me, but it's not at the top of the list, and I know if I communicate this information she's going to get all excited because then she can tell people her daughter got her PhD at Columbia and works at Yale. They also can never get my title straight. My sister was going around telling people I was a professor at Columbia because she heard I taught classes (I'm a TA.)

In general, my advice is to worry about you and let your PI worry about his own tenure. I know it's natural to worry about your advisor's tenure case (I worried about mine, as well, when I contemplated dropping out - he was 2 or 3 years from tenure when I was considering it). But if your advisor has been doing what he's supposed to be doing to get tenure, your decision shouldn't have a huge impact on his tenure case. In addition to that, you can't stay on and do something you don't want to do to help someone else maintain their job, especially not for 3 more years! You'll be miserable and maybe resentful. For what it's worth, it's my advisor's 7th year here and my 5th, so I entered when he was beginning his third year as an assistant professor. He is up for tenure this year, and I was not asked to submit a recommendation letter for his tenure file. I am his second doctoral student, so I would be a logical person to ask if any students were asked (the first is currently a postdoc, but my advisor did not advise him through his entire doctoral program, just in the last 2 years). We are at an R1, so while the number of students he has shepherded to graduation or close is probably important, his grants and publications are far more important.

There is no good time to take a break, but I do think that the second year is a particularly bad time to take one. You should be finishing up coursework and getting your research rolling. I think you're also more likely to feel disconnected from the department. You've only been there one year. Your advisor doesn't know you very well yet, and so she may be suspicious that you are actually planning to leave and just dragging it out. I also agree that "I want to be with my fiance, just for a year, though," isn't going to sound compelling or convincing to an advisor after only one year in the program. She may doubt your commitment to the program or the field as a whole. And even if she doesn't, word will get around that you took a leave after your first year, and other professors may doubt your commitment. I think the fourth or fifth year is probably the best time to take a leave, assuming that your comprehensive exams are done. In fact, in a lot of programs you may not even need to take a leave; you can write from a distance, assuming you don't need access to lab equipment or physical books in the library or have access to another library or lab from your new city. A lot of doctoral students in my department do that. I also don't necessarily know that taking a leave to be with a spouse is a good idea with the assumption that you plan to return to your program. I'm married and I've lived apart from my spouse when we were engaged, and I know it sucks, but taking a year off to be together only to have to return to the program doesn't seem wise or useful. You're vastly increasing the chances that you will decide to leave your program - which is completely okay if that's what you want, but not okay if you want to stay and finish. I think it would be different if you were taking that year off to strategize to apply to programs closer to your spouse, or trying to find work in his area and planning to leave his program. You're also assuming that you'll find full-time employment right away. You've technically been out of the workforce for a year, and although you can refer to your research assistantship as employment, it may be difficult for you to find a position. Also, yes, you do need to consider (if you haven't already) the impact that your spouse's career may have on your own. If you are aiming for academia, that's not a terrible mobile field. Is your spouse's field mobile? Will be willing to move with you again if you need to move for a postdoc, and then an academic position?

I have, but it was to cover the rent and not make spare money. In NYC, that's illegal anyway - if you are renting and you sublet, you can only charge your sublessor the cost of the rent. I originally went into an apartment lease together with another roommate in an MPH program, but she moved out of her room after she finished and I wanted to stay. I found two students to cover the interim time (one for the academic year, and one for the summer) before I ended up moving out myself to live with my husband. My landlord was okay with that. I used Craigslist, honestly, but I would be careful with that. I got the initial contact through CL and then contacted renters individually via email, and then via phone. Only after I had verified them did I tell them the actual location of my apartment, and I met them to show them around. I used a sample sublease agreement that I found online and just altered it to my liking. One of the major things I added to the lease is that a security deposit cannot be used as last month's rent; I made it that way to protect myself in case my roommates caused significant damage that I needed to repair before I moved out. I also did specify the fee for late payments; it was equal to the fee in the lease. You also want to specify how you will split utilities payments. We split ours 50/50 regardless but some may want to split them proportionate to use (in my area, the biggest difference would be electricity during the summer months if the roommate has an A/C unit and you don't.) I also specified that the tenant was also liable for all of the stipulations under my original lease (wrt to pets and noise and all that) and arranged to provide them a copy of the original lease at their request. No one did, probably because I took the basic rules from the lease and put it into the sublease.

I have a few friends on HPSP. One of them is in social work; he's studying to become an LCSW and then go into the Air Force to serve military members who need clinical mental health services. I also have a few friends/acquaintances who have done HPSP in clinical psychology. Everyone I know in the program loves it; I tend to hang around the military psychologists and public health officers at conferences and they are the nicest people. I've thought about joining the Reserves, but every time I talk to recruiters there are no jobs in what I want to do or what I am trained for.

I do think that most graduate students like graduate school at least a little. It's just the culture to complain to other people about your job. We complain in our department all the time, but most of us will readily admit that we love psychology, we like our department, our advisors are generally nice and caring people who care about our development, etc. It's far from a hellhole. I love doing research; I love investigating things that are near and dear to my heart, and being able to ask and answer the questions I wonder about. I love writing and reading and thinking all day long most days. I love that I'm encouraged to exchange and share information with other students. I like teaching and exchanging information with undergrads, most of whom are pretty eager to learn what you have to teach them. (Yes, even in statistics. I had more than one of them approach me and tell me how they really wanted to go to grad school so they needed to learn this.) I love the flexibility - the fact that it's 11:50 am on a Friday morning and I'm at home procrastinating. I like that I can, within reason, select what I want to do each semester and schedule my own time to maximize my productivity. I like the other students in my cohort, and I like our collegiality. I also like what the above poster referenced. I see this even outside my field. I'll talk to PhD students in English literature or art history (which are far afield from what I do) and I'm like wow, that is so fascinating! How do you study that? Where are your archives? And when I tell them my research they're the same way. Of course it's easier within the social sciences, and easier still when talking to other psychology or health sciences students, but I feel like PhD students have this shared bond of being fascinated with scholarship and discovering things. Yes, I'm very busy, yes, I sometimes work 12 hours a day cleaning data or writing something up or god forbid grading, but for the most part I enjoy what I'd do. I'd much rather spend 12 hours straight writing about something I am really passionate about, or 12 hours analyzing data and watching patterns emerge, than spend 8 hours at a job I hated. I didn't like coursework, though. I mean, I liked the classes, and my professors were amazing and talented and knowledgeable, but I felt so overwhelmed. Now that I don't have coursework, I feel relieved and I can manage and set my time much more easily.

What kind of advice are you looking for? Taking an extra semester or summer isn't a whole lot different from any of the prior semesters you've had to finish. FYI, I finished in the standard/traditional 4 years. I don't think finishing in 5 or even 6 years raises too many eyebrows especially if you double-majored or had a setback early on, or took some time off. But I think taking longer than 6 years and being enrolled continuously sort of raises some eyebrows unless you have a compelling reason (like attending part-time and working to put yourself through school, or - in my husband's case - taking a break for military service).

You can provide for yourself and live respectably with a salary of $60,000. That's higher than the national average for an entire household, much less one person, and that's just what you would start out with. It sounds to me like you are interested in a whole lot of stuff. What year are you in college? In order to get a PhD in something, you can't just like it. You have to be passionate about it, almost to the point of obsession. That's not to say that you can't have interests in other things, but it sounds like you haven't really narrowed down what it is you want to do or what your goal is, so you should do that first. What are you really passionate about? You may never be a provost or a dean, and even if you do, you usually would have to work at least 15 years as a professor first and have a distinguished record of research and service. So think about what you would want to do if you did not ascend to those heights and if you remained on faculty/what you need to do in the years prior. Do you want to split your time between practicing as a dentist and teaching dental school classes (or maybe public health? We have DMD/DDS and MD folks teaching in schools of public health)? Or do you want to just do research and teach science classes? It kind of baffles me that you think you'll have a better work/life balance in dental academia. I am getting my PhD at a medical center campus so I see dental and medical faculty all the time; they don't have any better a work/life balance than other professors, and in some ways it may be worse. Many of them balance teaching, reseach AND practice so they're very busy. If you wanted to be a dental academic, you'd likely have to get your DDS (4 years) and do a postdoctoral research fellowship to get enough research experience and publications to be on faculty (probably around 3-5 years). So at best, you'll have done 7 years and be 29-30 years old. Then you have to chase grants and get tenure. Many graduate students have children in grad school; there's no ideal time to have a baby, but I'm guessing it would be more difficult in dental school than a PhD program. I think if being a young parent is a priority then academia is probably not a good fit unless you were willing to juggle that in grad school.

I initially misread it like wildviolet too, and my eyes about bugged out of my head! I was like NOOOOO. I think of my advisor announced that he was leaving, and was about to move now, I would decline to move with him. There are a variety of reasons for that - I live in this city with my husband, and my university is top 10 in my field and one of the top 5 in my subfield. So I certainly wouldn't transfer, but I don't think I would even physically move. I'm far enough advanced, though, that we could meet over Skype and I could maybe travel to his new location a few times a year and I could bang this out. My dissertation, at this point, requires a computer and that's it. It would be harder if I were in STEM and needed lab resources.

^I agree with the above. Normally I am a huge proponent of "Why make yourself miserable? Just leave if you know you don't need it," but that's for PhD students and typically students who are 1 or more years away from ever finishing. But you're in the last semester of a master's program and you just need to bang out a mediocre thesis. It doesn't need to be the best thesis ever written; it doesn't even need to be particularly good. Just get it finished. Your Director of Graduate Studies or whoever heads the MS program at your university will know whether what you have planned is an acceptable thesis, so ask first. I think my master's essay was about 15 pages long. That's because I wrote it in publishable journal article format; I did, indeed, publish it as a journal article. So yours doesn't have to be long, either. It depends on the conventions of your department. So plow through. get focused and get through the next 3 months. You can parlay your MS in engineering into a lot of different fields - it's still going to be useful to you!

Personally, I wouldn't waste your money. I can't imagine how a consultant could help you other than to edit your personal statement.

I would also advise going where the research fit is better and where job prospects are better. Then, try to secure some external funding so that you can be picky about when and what you TA. I TA and it's very very time consuming. One of the benefits of my external funding is that I was more or less able to choose when I wanted to TA, and what. Next year, I'm seeking a research fellowship so that I can write my dissertation in peace without the TA responsibilities.

There are a variety of fields you can do: I/O would work Social would also work Cognitive may also work depending on the program and mentors You may want to look into decision sciences programs: Carnegie Mellon has a good one There may even be some business PhD programs that look at this. Really, it's going to be advisor-dependent. Any of these PhDs will get you to go, but which one you pursue will depend on your career interests (do you want to teach? Solely do research? GO work in industry?) and who's doing what in which departments.

I also had crippling depression at several points during my graduate career. Last summer, I got nothing related to my degree progression done. I was TAing for an undergrad summer program, and when I wasn't doing that I was laying in bed or wandering aimlessly around the city. I doubt that you are not qualified for anything if you leave - most jobs are not major-specific, and English majors find jobs every day - but it doesn't sound like you really want to leave. It sounds like you have an advisor mismatch that is causing most of your problems. The remedy to that is to find another advisor. Do you know why your current advisor wants to drop you? What, specifically, are his complaints? I would ask him that - set up a meeting with him, bring a notebook, and ask him for *specific* feedback about your areas for improvement. He owes you at least that. The next step would be to review that list and answer whether it is 1) accurate, and 2) workable. Can you fix some of the things your advisor mentioned as problems? Or are there not really any problems other than the advisor just doesn't like your personal style? Then talk to your Director of Graduate Studies. They are supposed to help you navigate the program, which would include helping you find another advisor if your current one refuses to help or advise you. I know these things are not easy to do when all you want to do is stare at the way from under your covers - been there, trust me. But talk to your therapist about strategies for motivating yourself and getting yourself there.

I thought the exact same thing when I started my PhD program. 5 years later, I want to be a professor at a school where I can balance my research and teaching. You may not change your mind, but you can't say for certain that you won't, so I wouldn't rule out a school that otherwise fits well simply because of the TA requirement. Even if you do hold tight and don't change your mind at all, TAing does have some benefits: -Work closely with professors in a different capacity. I have a professor who absolutely loves me because she says I was the best TA she ever had. -Really learn the basics of your field in a way you never have before. -Strengthen your public speaking skills. -Interact with the next generation of the field, and have some influence on some of their career decisions.

SPSS: SPSS Survival Manual: A step by step guide to data analysis using SPSS by Julie Pallant Discovering Statistics Using SPSS by Andy Field (great book) SAS: The Little SAS Book: A Primer, by Lora Delwiche and Susan Slaughter (currently on the 5th ed. I think) Discovering Statistics Using SAS by Andy Field and Jeremy Miles (I have never used this one, but I have used the one for SPSS and it's good, so I'm assuming this one is good too. There are also a lot of online resources for syntax for both, like ats.ucla.edu. I spent hours Googling, sitting in front of SAS in the lab and referencing books to teach myself. Personally, I preferred that to a class.

I would also stay until the end, but I don't see the point of comps if you don't want to finish the program unless you have to pass comps to get the MA. Just finish out the semester, and I would say talk to your PI now to let them know that you don't want to finish.

Before I switched to a Mac, I had a Toshiba that I liked. Their quality has been going down in recent years but generally speaking, they are solid machines, last a decent amount of time and have features that a grad student would appreciate (large hard drives, durability, backlit keyboards for those late nights). Other good PC brands are Lenovo and Asus. I had a Sony I did not like (they are overpriced and flimsy). Dells are hit or miss. The build quality on their business line is better, as is the support. I would also value portability a lot as a grad student. I take my computer pretty much everywhere with me, so I really appreciate the lightweight MacBook Pro. If I were in the PC market, I would probably be looking at ultrabooks.

This question is pretty much impossible to answer. There are thousands, perhaps millions, of people out there with PhDs and other doctoral degrees. The thing is, if you want to publish and continue to do research you will. You'll seek out venues in which you can do that. I'm in graduate school and I've already published; many graduate students start publishing here and then move on to publish more later.

Since your advisor has already revealed to you that she's pregnant, I don't think it's untoward to ask her to meet with you about a timeline for your dissertation progress and then being relatively direct about the question of midsummer progress check-ins. I wouldn't frame it that way, or make it about her child at all, but just ask her if she plans to be around during the summer for you to make progress and get feedback about your dissertation. For all you know, she's hired a full-time nanny who is available to take over the care of her baby after two weeks, or her partner is staying home. Or maybe she's already thought of someone on your committee who will step up and take a greater role while she is recovering. Like kcald716 says, she's not dropping off the face of the planet, she's having a baby. She'll probably be less available for a few weeks at best.

You aren't really helping the situation by staying silent, even though that's a valid personal choice. You could conceivably bring up some of the issues you are stewing about to the rest of the group - about the difficulty that privileged individuals have in understanding the disadvantage, about the concept of "doing school" and rewarding a particular type of student behavior. When people go off on tangents, you can ask questions like "But is that really relvant when we're talking about X?" or bring the conversation back to the topic at hand. If you are blunt, you could even flat-out say that the conversation is unproductive and express why you feel that way - because they haven't touched on X, they are ignoring Y, or they are interpreting Z wrong. If someone interrupts you, point out that they cut you off and finish your sentence. I used to be a chronic interrupter, because that's the way we communicate in my family. Everyone interrupts and talks over everyone else and somehow we all understand the conversation at hand. It's chaos. I didn't even realize people were offended by it until people gently pointed it ou to me. I've become aware of it and I don't anymore, even though I sometimes have to mentally tell myself "Hold that thought." I say this because many of your classmates may not even realize what they are doing unless someone points it out, and your professors don't seem really interested in being the one to do it. Part of the scholarly conversation is speaking up to be heard, especially if you feel like all the other scholars in the conversation are doing it wrong.

If you're not really interested in research, a career as a psychology professor or most PhD programs aren't really for you. Here are some suggestions: -Counseling or clinical psychologist (most PhD programs will require some research, including a dissertation. You'll have to look for those in the scientist-practitioner model) -School psychologist - counsel and evaluate school children (you would need at least an M.Ed, if not an Ed.S or PhD) -School counselor (an MA or an M.Ed is the requirement) -Social worker, including a licensed clinical social worker (you would need an MSW) -Licensed practical counselor (need an MSc/MS for this) -Health promotion specialist (may want an MPH for this) -Rehabilitation counselor -Human resources -Middle management -Market research analyst (you can work more on the client side of things, after the research is already done) I suggest that you look for a wide variety of jobs right out college. Visit your career counseling center or talk to your networks or parents' networks. Don't go to grad school yet, until you're sure what you want to do.

As a short answer to this question, I am inclined to go with long-term benefit over short-term gain. Success in this field is based in large part upon your ability to delay gratification. With that said, I don't see huge differences between School A and School B. I basically went to School B in terms of the PI - when I arrived my advisor was on his third year as assistant professor on the tenure track. I counted and figured that even if he didn't make tenure, I would be finished or nearly so if he had to move. I liked him a lot personally, and I knew we could work together. I'm still here, he's still here (and it looks like he is going to get tenure this year - and even if he doesn't, I only have one more year myself), and he's crazy productive. So that makes me, I think, more motivated and productive than I would've been otherwise. Watching him on the tenure track has given me a role model for when I am hopefully in that position myself in 3-4 years. He's also pushing into new and interested areas, and his collaborative network is surprisingly large. I solved some of the networking problems, though, by also having a more advanced mentor - a full professor who is well known in my field. This was partially achieved through an interdisciplinary program, but you can acquire this yourself. This is the kind of guy that if I mention his name at a large national conference people instantly know what kind of work I'm doing. So I wouldn't be worried about Mentor B vs. Mentor A, it's more about whether you are going to be able to get a job from School B as opposed to School A. If you're very productive under Mentor B, I think your school's reputation will matter a bit less. (Although, of course, it depends on what you mean by "decent" and not as reputed. I know some folks who think top 25 is just "decent" whereas top 10 is really what they consider reputed.) Still, on face, I might still go with School A all things being equal. You can still push into really exciting and new areas of the field, you just have to be a bit more self-motivated about it there.

If you already know that you don't enjoy the area and this is the exact area, or close enough, that you've already worked in, I see no point in actually attaching yourself in that lab. I would ask the department how flexible mentorship is - once you are admitted to the department, are you funded through a particular PI's grant and thus tied to that PI, or do you have some room to move around and switch? If you do have room to move around, the next step would be wondering whether you would be willing to work with this PI for 1-2 years while you want for your desired PI to get money - of course, running the risk that you never move out of the lab doing things that you don't enjoy. I'd say if there are better fits among your other top choices, those are probably better choices at this point in time. You just say that you don't think the fit is good.