juilletmercredi

I agree that you should pursue your passion if you want to, but it might require a little adjusting. If your partner is mean to you and threatens you or your mom on a regular basis, then he shouldn't be your partner unless you're really devoted to helping him. It sounds like you're just keeping him around to pay the mortgage. Are your two daughters adults? Can they get jobs and help pay the mortgage? Can you apply for public assistance? If your stipend is less than $150/week (or $600/month) I'm willing to bet that you are eligible for some form of public assistance. At some point it may be necessary for you to take a leave of absence, but there's no shame in that, and please take it if you need it. Many, many graduate students do. We all need a breather. But I will caution you that you should pursue this MFA because it is a passion with the full knowledge that you may not get a tenure-track job after you finish, and indeed, the odds are against you.

If you have trouble speaking up in class, prepare some commentary ahead of time. Select 2-3 readings that you are really going to dive deeply into, and concentrate on thinking of things to say. I'm normally a very outspoken person but I was intimidated my first year of grad school because I was the only one in my cohort straight from undergrad, and also the only one without significant theoretical training (I was a psychology major in a program full of anthropologists, sociologists, and historians). I made it my mission to think of things to say during class. I wrote them down on little post-it notes that I stuck to the pages of my readings. This helped because I had already thought through how I would word it and what I would say, so it was easier to say it during class. I often also started off by being the first person to say something. It sounds counterintuitive for a person afraid of speaking up in class, but sometimes when a discussion gets really good it's difficult to insert yourself, and that may be even more intimidating for a shy person. But often even the most outgoing person won't want to be the first person to make a comment. If you are often the first person to comment, you can start off with something middle-of-the-road and still be remembered positively for it. Then your classmates can feed off what you said.

First of all, let me be frank: I'm not sure that a fully online MPH woud be a good springboard into a doctoral program. Using a master's as a springboard into a doctoral program relies more on the research experiences and personal connections with mentors and professors than just taking the coursework and getting the degree. I mean yes, a lot of doctoral programs in public health require a master's ahead of time (I am in one of the few that don't) but just having the MPH is a basic qualification. All of the other applicants will have one too, and most of them will have completed one in person. I'm in public health, and I'm not familiar with either of these programs or the graduates...I would say it probably doesn't matter which one you choose rankings-wise. You should choose the one in which you will have the greatest interactions with professors (online or face-to-face) and which ones have the best chance of placing you in good practica experiences.

fuzzylogician's post is very apt: succeeding in academia (and in the corporate world) is all about recognizing your own strengths and promoting yourself. Nobody is going to say "go", and nobody is going to be a better promoter of you than you. So if you want something, you need to apply for it and talk to the appropriate people to get it. Yes, you will be competing with your friends sometimes. If they are true friends, they will be happy for you when you succeed even if they fail. Besides, you never know where that friend can help you later - maybe he'll be on a search committee for a job you're applying for one day. Also, seconding that second paragraph. I found my peace in graduate school when I stopped constantly comparing myself to my peers. Some comparison is good to make sure you are on the right track. But you may have a different situation and different goals than the people you're with, even if you work in the same lab and have the same advisor (I have a friend and colleague right now who came in the same year as I did. She's finishing in May whereas I probably won't graduate until next February, and she has more pubs than me - but she also came in with a master's and is aiming for R1s, whereas I came straight from undergrad and want to work at R2 or LAC. Different circumstances, different goals, different people!)

I would go to whatever school is going to set you up better for employment in your chosen field. Is one ranked higher than the other? Do you have a better fit? Do the professors at one have a more extensive network than the other? Do you have more support? If you're in a PhD program, your advisor matters far more than the other professors, so you should go where you have the better relationship with your advisor. After you finish your coursework, the other professors won't matter as much. Does one of them have better internships or other professionalization experiences? Take all of these things into account. The other thing is finances...you said you are currently living with your father. Is that cutting your expenses by a lot? Because that's a big factor too. If you can save $60K by staying at home, that may be worth it if this program will also get you to your goal.

The year isn't lost! It's another year of your life, right? You won't be in graduate school next year, but that doesn't mean that this year or the next is a *waste*. It's your life…enjoy it!

There's really no way of telling you. Even if I was in evolutionary biology and knew about the caliber of the programs you're applying to, I don't know the other applicants' packages, nor do I know the content of your letters of recommendation or your statement of purpose. It may be that your research is so great, and fits so well with the program, that your 3.08 GPA and that low quant score is overlooked and they admit you. Or maybe everyone else in your application cohort is a superstar and you don't get admitted (and wouldn't even if your GRE score was higher). Being the first person to complete the application package doesn't matter; the committee cares about the credentials in it. Often they don't even know who was first, because the departmental administrator assembles the materials for them and gives it to them. If you are confident that professors in the department will go to bat for you, then that's a powerful thing (although I am curious as to how - do you know them personally, have you worked with them before?) Do you stand a chance? Yes. Will us telling you on the Internet assuage your fears? Not really, because we don't really know. I say this genuinely - take up something else you can do to get your mind off the worry. Read books, play video games, go shopping, take up running or something…something…that can distract you from the anxiety!

A 3.3 is not "dreadful." I had a 3.4 and I'm in a top 10 program in my field. It is a bit low for law (at least in the US - not sure about Canadian schools) but for MPPs it's fine. MPPs look for solid academic performance AND demonstration of experience in the field, such as work experience or an internship or participation in student groups that do public policy related stuff. Look, at present, you can't change your cumulative GPA. The only thing you can do is press forward and use it. I would say this year, apply widely - take the LSAT and get as high a score you possibly can, target a few of your favorite law schools, but also take the GRE and apply to MPP programs where you're competitive. If you get into law school, fantastic, but if not, you can get the MPP and try again after you finish it, if you still desire. Right now you can't be sure you'll be admitted, but if you don't apply, you definitely won't get in.

Safety and location should always comes before a school's ranking. I disagree with this on principle. Of course you don't want to be somewhere unsafe, and you don't want to be anywhere you would be absolutely miserable. But aside from that, I don't think you should turn down a top-ranked program just because it's not in your first-choice city or something, and I certainly don't think you should take location into account before program ranking. Sacrificing a little comfort now will give you more flexibility down the line.

Why don't you just tell the truth? If you don't get it, that doesn't mean you're clueless, you just need some help understanding this one concept. And if you were slacking off because you were working on other things, well, you don't even need to meet with the prof. You know what you need to do.

There are politics in every corporate environment and field. I think people tend to expect them in the business world, but seem shocked when they move into the "ivory tower" and find them here too. Academics are people, and universities are business/organizations. There will always be politics. That's not a reason to leave, though, because you will find that everywhere. Finishing graduate school and successfully moving into a professor position isn't just about liking research. I know how you feel; I came to graduate school for the same reasons (loving research and wanting to help people) and graduate school made me a lot more cynical. I say this to mean that it's okay to really love research and still realize that academia isn't for you for other reasons - the salary, the unstructured schedule, hating teaching, hating the administrative environment, not wanting to get on the postdoc wheel for another 3-4 years, etc. Should you finish? only you can answer that. You sound like you're in the middle - not a person who absolutely should quit but not a person who absolutely should stay, either. What I would do is explore other career opportunities - google, visit your career counseling office - and see if most or all of the ones that appeal to you require a PhD in chemistry. I decided to finish my PhD because even if I don't go into academia, most of the careers I want to do would benefit from me having a PhD. But if I didn't think it would benefit me, I would've left.

That has not been my experience either. I feel like my department is nirvana based upon what I've heard other graduate students describe. Not only are the professors typically sane, they WANT to see us succeed. Twice I have been so burned out and depressed I've wanted to leave graduate school for other reasons, and twice I have only met understanding and sympathy from my advisor and professors, and twice I've decided to stay because I know I have their support and I can complete. I'm sure they do talk about us, but if they do they keep it to themselves. And our DGS is incredibly supportive in organizing workshops, brown bags, and forwarding job opportunities and conference calls to us. My first year was "bad" in terms of adjustment and workload, but I enjoyed it a lot. I've liked or loved all of the professors I've had for classes here. Your program sounds toxic, and you have to decide whether it's worth it for you to stick around given it's placement rates and your advisor's network. Personally I think graduate school hard enough without having to deal with horrible professors and poor support, and I'd advise you to get out before you've invested 3, 4, 5 years into this place. Also, food for thought: getting through coursework is the "easy" part, and you typically don't need much support for that. It's the later years of graduate school that are harder, when you have to pass comprehensive exams and start writing your dissertation. If they are this nasty when you are taking classes, what will they be like when you have to rely solely on their evaluation for progressing in the program through exams and dissertation? What good is their network if they won't share it with you because they think you suck?

When I was still on departmental/university funding it went up a little bit every year. This was not made explicit in the original offer. I am currently on an external award that does not rise.

Agreeing with everyone else in that the best thing you can do is drop it act like nothing happened. Agree that at conferences, we don't gossip about grad students. The gossip is about big shots and researchers in the field, unless the grad student did something REALLY egregious and public (yours doesn't account). Academics are people and they will all react differently. Some of them will avoid you and others will act like nothing happened.

If you are happy with your productivity, and your advisor is happy with your productivity, then...you're fine. If you already have 3 first-authored publications in the works I'd say you are just fine.

This basically is a "what are my chances" type post, but with a slightly different spin. That's okay, though Generally speaking, it's hard to gauge your competitiveness in the overall pool. We'd have to know the values of the individual programs to which you are applying. But I would say generally speaking, professional programs like the MPIA care less about your GPA (as long as it is above a certain threshold, generally a 3.0-3.2) and more about experiences and skills that you have that can contribute to your success in the job market. Your language skills and your experience living abroad, as well as your ability to articulate your passions and goals, are likely to be more important than your exact grades. And especially since you can show an upward trend of your grades now that you have solidified your ideas, you have a better shot.

The reason that terminal MA programs in psychology are somewhat limited is because they have somewhat limited utility. Many successful applicants choose to work as lab managers for two years instead of doing an MA, taking classes and doing research in a university lab while they do so. In addition to that, in psychology credits from previous graduate programs typically do not transfer. And there aren't many jobs that require a master's in psychology. Nonetheless, there are some programs: -CUNY-Hunter College MA in General Psychology -New School for Social Research MA in General Psychology -St. John's University MA in General/Experimental Psychology -Columbia University-Teachers College has several MA programs that may interest you: Applied Behavior Analysis, Applied Statistics, Behavioral Disorders, Clinical Psychology, Counseling & Clinical Psychology, Counseling Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Psychology in Education, School Psychology, Social-Organizational Psychology -American University MA in Psychology -Boston College MA in Psychology -George Mason MA in Psychology (concentrations in applied developmental psychology, cognitive and behavioral neuroscience (formerly biopsychology), human factors/applied cognition, industrial/organizational psychology, and school psychology) -College of William & Mary MA in Psychology -UCF MA in psychology -Catholic University of America MA in psychology -SUNY New Paltz -SUNY Brockport There are also some on the West Coast - Pepperdine and UC-Davis both have one.

Which one do you think will be better for your career? Which one has the stronger program and/or the better connections? I'm not in engineering, but I feel like RIT might be the better choice career-wise. You could always move to DC afterwards.

Reading other people's responses have helped me put this into context. Yes, this is probably a top-10 program and a lot of those professors maybe did work 80-100 hours a week to get where they are (including time and home reading and such things). With that said, though, I go to a top 10 program myself and I don't think any of my colleagues work 80-100 hours a week. I'd say most work between 40-80 hours depending on the student, the time of year, and what else we have going on. When I was TAing and writing and studying for comprehensives, I easily worked 60-80 hours per week. Now that I am not TAing but just on fellowship and writing my proposal, I probably work about 40-60 hours a week. I don't even think my professors work 80-100 hours a week every week. Right before grants are due and when they have conferences and such, maybe, but even my super-busy advisor (who is up for tenure this year) doesn't work that much every week. And nobody's here at night or on the weekends. I'm sure many of my advisors are working from home, but I have been in the office late nights working and I have waved goodbye to almost my entire department of professors. The only ones here are the students, lol. It's not that they are never here late, but most people don't stay late every night and people generally do not come in on the weekends. But I am in the social sciences, and we don't need lab equipment, so I am positive people are working from home. I love working from home on weekend evenings - I have so much time However, the spirit of the letter is essentially correct, if you ignore the grossly exaggerated hours. I started working from home more often after my coursework ended and I so enjoyed not trekking up to my space, but the collaboration and people seeing you around the department is so important. They think about you for things, and you have conversations you wouldn't otherwise have. So now I'm up there 2-3 times a week and I go to more colloquia and such. My advisor is not really concerned with seeing me around as long as I am producing work. Most people do work at their jobs most of their waking hours. Even for a "regular" job where you work longer hours - let's say that you leave the house at 8, get to work at 9, work until 6 and get home at 7. Go to bed at midnight. You have spent most of your waking hours at work, thinking about work. Most academics work even longer days than that, and spend many hours writing on the weekends. Or they leave and when they get home, they write some more. Due to my training I do find myself thinking about my research during most of my waking hours. And the paragraph about reading the literature is true, too. Reading the lit excites me and gets me thinking about how I could extend the researchers' work. It sounds like perhaps students were evidencing in various ways an unfamiliarity with the literature?

^This. I do this myself - when I grade papers, I have to force myself to go back and write positive comments in places. Unless something is like written gold, I just don't comment on it if it's fine. I comment on it if it needs improvement. Regardless of whether the professor was being racist or not, OP, I think that you should focus on making your work the best it can be and finishing up. If you really don't understand why she makes the comments she does on your papers, set up an appointment with her to speak to her about how you can improve your writing. Or if you have an advisor, ask if your advisor can help you improve your writing. But if you get out with an A-...so what? That's a good grade. First of all, the way she said it was neutral; she even cited a scientific journal or some author, and her freedom of speech does let her say such things. Yes, there IS scientific literature that supports what she said, so it's not like she's pulling this out of thin air. Actually, there's not. This "scientific" evidence was refuted sometime in the earlier part of the 20th century.

How are you organizing your list of things to do? It may be helpful for you to make a checklist, electronic or paper, with all of the requirements for each school. You can give yourself mini-deadlines to get each piece done and check them off when you do finish. That way you are keeping track of what you've already done and what you need to do. I created mine in an Excel spreadsheet, where I also kept addresses and web URLs that I needed for the process. As for contacting professors, I think it can be helpful but not necessary for the majority of the social sciences (I'm in a social science, too). Sometimes it can be great to have a professor in your corner, but I think that's only really probable if your interests align very well and the professor already knows that you'll be a great worker. Usually this happens because he/she knows you ahead of time, or knows your current advisor and talks about you, or occasionally has seen you present at a conference. I guess in uncommon circumstances a professor will look at your CV and say "THIS! I have to have this kid," but if they are going to do that, they can do that when they see your CV during the process. It also depends on how admissions are done at your programs of interest. At my department, students usually name 1-3 professors they'd want to work with and their applications get forwarded to those professors, and the professors decide who they want to invite to campus based on the application. It's helpful to have contact professors ahead of time in this scenario, but not necessary, and I didn't.

You sound like you are already sure that you don't want to do this - no point in toughing it out until the end of the year, unless you want to hang on to the funding while you look for jobs. You can talk to your advisor, if you have one, and just be straightforward and honest. If you don't have an advisor, the DGS may be the person to go to. If you still aren't 100% sure you can frame as you're thinking about leaving because you don't have the passion for it, but if you are already sure, then you may just want to be up front - "I wanted to let you know that I am leaving the program. There is nothing wrong with the program itself, for me; it's just that I have decided that my interests lie elsewhere. I would like to know what the process is for leaving." They will either tell you or refer you to someone who can. Fellowship money typically is just that. Every program knows they are taking a risk with each student, especially with the attrition rate of PhD programs being 50 percent or thereabouts. Usually if you leave you don't have to repay it. The only exceptions might be something like an NRSA where you're expected to "pay back" the money (usually with years of service as a health researcher, and being a graduate student counts), but it doesn't sound like you have that. As for your professors at home - I grappled with this when deciding whether or not to leave. The point is, you have to do what's best for YOU. Those professors at home don't have to live your life. Do you want to be miserable for the sake of pleasing other people? They will understand, and if they don't, then they were advising you more for their own gain than your development and well-being and you don't need them anyway. Personally I wouldn't even say anything unless you were very close to a few of them or they ask you.

I think it depends on the city that you're moving to about campus housing, and even the campus. Our university's main campus is a very expensive neighborhood and campus housing is cheaper and nicer than what you can find in the main neighborhood for the same price. If you move up to the next neighborhood, you can find things around the same size and price, but the neighborhood itself is not as desirable for most and you add a short commute. However, at the medical center campus, that's a cheaper neighborhood and the campus housing is crappy compared to what you can get in the SAME neighborhood. This is something to ask current grad students about. But yeah, there are definitely a whole bunch of people going to do fieldwork or research somewhere else who need to sublet their apartments during any given semester (especially summer, but also spring and fall) and you can find a sublet. I would follow rising_star's advice and email the departmental secretary.

It sounds like this may be your program/department more than research itself, or being an academic. I think the first step is to determine whether that's the case - is this that you are becoming disillusioned with research and the academic life itself (in which case you may not need a PhD at all, and may decide to leave) or is it that your program is sucking all of the life out of you and the things that you used to enjoy, you don't? Sit down and take at least a half-hour to really think about this. Journal or make a list or do whatever you do that helps you introspect. How do you feel about a research career, one with the type of job that requires a PhD? Do you see yourself enjoying that? Do you want that option to remain open to you? If you decide that you want to finish your PhD then the culprit might be your PhD program itself. Maybe you go to a toxic program/department and you need to transfer. Or maybe this is always the way it is your first year at this place and it gets better. The thing is that even the most supportive programs encourage sink or swim because that's what academia is like. Personally, I feel like I am a nice person but I also would not volunteer my time to tutor other colleagues in my program either, just because I don't have a lot of time to begin with. There are a lot of people who WOULD be willing to tutor you (either for money or something else), though, so you have to find them. My colleagues/cohortmates didn't really want to be close friends, either - they are very nice people to chat with in the research room but not necessarily the folks who wanted to hang out. So I sought out other people to hang out with. I hung out with the master's students, I did things in the city to meet young professionals, I hooked up with alumni from my undergrad who were in my city, and I got a GAship on campus that exposed me to a group of people who became friends.

I eventually changed my mind and continued in the program, but I was just straightforward with my advisor. I would be with yours, too. "As I've gone through this program, I've realized that my heart is not in full-time academic research. I've decided that it's best for me to leave this program." I would thank them for all their support, but don't apologize. You have nothing to apologize for. If you want, you can tell them why you're switching. As for transferring into the MD/PhD program at your school - if you don't like research, you won't like the PhD component. Also, those programs tend to be fiercely competitive, so your school might not just let you transfer in easily. It might be best for you to leave altogether and apply to medical school, especially if you haven't taken the MCAT yet.