juilletmercredi

Hello there! I'm in Mailman's Sociomedical Sciences program with a psychology concentration If you want to do both clinical and research, I see little reason to get a PhD either in this program or in public health. If you want to study public health, you can do a PhD in clinical psychology and get a one-year MPH after that designed for folks who already have doctoral degrees and want to study public health. Or you can study clinical or counseling psychology at a place that also has a school of public health, take classes in public health, and do research with a professor in the school of public health. Or you can do a postdoc in public health. I believe that clinical psychologists also have more flexibility in this economy; when looking for academic jobs, a lot of them want someone with clinical or counseling training. The reason for that is that while research psychologists can only teach in research-focused programs/classes, clinical psychologists who do research can teach in clinical psych programs (both on the MA/MS and PhD level) and can teach research-focused programs. There are a lot of "clinical science" programs that focus primarily on research - they are still APA-accredited and allow you to practice, but focus on preparing academic researchers who intend upon research positions. You could also find a clinical health psychology program, which focuses on psychosocial determinants of health. FYI, I got into this PhD program without ANY master's. At most schools of public health you could probably get into a doctoral program because you have an MA in a social science field, but you'd probably have to take some make-up classes an MPH graduate wouldn't (intro to epidemiology, intro to biostatistics, environmental health sciences, and intro to health policy and management come to mind). I'll send you a PM as well.

Since you are still in college, you can also talk to your professors about this. Do you have an advisor, or a professor you took a class with and really like? Ask them where your grades and test scores, along with other accomplishments, will make you competitive.

It depends. He may be at the point in his career where he's winding down his own independent research and really functions as a senior author on junior faculty members', postdocs', or graduate students' papers, and is mostly writing review articles and theoretical ones. He may have had a bad spell with a failed experiment and is trying to publish while he gears up for a new one. Or yes, maybe he just wanted to write some review articles because he realized things are missing in the field. The best way to find out is to find a polite way to ask a graduate student of his what things are like in the lab.

He got mad at me and gave me a long lecture on grad school culture and how I was supposed to work hard and figure things out on my own. He asked me to not do the project if it is too hard for me so I had to abandon it after putting in a semester worth of work. Weird, half my comment got deleted. I was responding to this and saying how annoyed I am that a postdoc would say this - yes, graduate school is about learning to figure things out on your own, but you have to learn to do that. That's what it's all about. Someone has to help show you. Can you set up a meeting with your PI, and lay out to him the kinds of things that you need from him? If that is unsuccessful, I suggest speaking with your Director of Graduate Studies. Everyone's busy, but PIs and postdocs should be making time for graduate students and actually mentoring them not just using them as assistants.

OP didn't say that she only wanted one year off (she said she was taking at least 2 off) and I know plenty of people who do TFA and don't work in urban education for the long haul. Some people take the understanding of urban conditions they garner from doing TFA and put it to use in other sectors. I know it's not as simple as just being passionate, but I've had quite a few friends who successfully did TFA even though they had no intention of staying in teaching for a long time (and I would say if you WERE interested in teaching for a long time, TFA wouldn't be the way to go necessarily). I have a friend who did TFA for two years, ended up working for their corporate offices and is now at Yale Law. And I'm not saying it just because I'm defensive about my answer - but moreso because I just want the info out there for others who may be reading the article. I admit that it may not be the best choice for someone just looking to fill two years, though, as it's intense.

I'm IN a PhD program. I'm in my fifth year, in fact, and I've finished my coursework and my comprehensive exams, with external funding. I've also been to family weddings and was the maid-of-honor in one until a week before it was called off (which meant I had already paid the airfare and the accommodations - and it was a destination wedding, so it wasn't as easy as going home). I know many PhD students, medical students, and law students who have been in their friends' weddings during school. I also got married *myself* during graduate school. You can't study 24 hours a day. Of course it's a full time commitment, but so is working. I've never heard anyone say "I can't be in your wedding because I have a job." If one manages one's time well, one can still maintain relationships with friends and families and even be in weddings. It's different if you have something big around that time - but even then, people can be flexible. My cousin (the one I was going to be maid of honor for) was getting married on the same day as my comprehensive exam, and I talked to my advisor and the department was going to let me take the exam a week earlier so I could go to the wedding (she ended up canceling about a week before). We're humans, not research machines. I dare say, also, that anyone who barrels through a PhD program as if they can have no outside commitments is going to burn out really fast. I'm serious - you have to do some things for yourself, otherwise you will just be completely miserable. That includes being with friends.

How do you know that you "definitely" won't have the time or funds to fly back? Let's say that you start your PhD in the 2013-2014 school year. You'll be a second year in 2015. I checked, and Pi Day is a Saturday. You have two years. Surely in two years' time you can save up enough money for a plane ticket and a bridesmaid's dress. And since Pi Day is a Saturday, you can easily fly out on a Friday, return on a Sunday, and not miss anything. If she wants a maid-of-honor who can be around to fold a thousand origami cranes, then maybe you do need to step down or ask for a demotion to bridesmaid. But if she (like most people) just wants one of the most important people in her life to stand up for her on her wedding day, don't back out just because you're going to a PhD program. It's like a job. You don't cease to be a person, with all the requisite relationships and complications of being a person, just because you are in a PhD program. And this is all hypothetical now, anyway. You don't know that you'll be in a program, you don't know that you'll be thousands of miles away. Just relax. If you do get into a program for Fall 2013 and it gets to be Spring 2014 - about a year out - and it looks like you won't be able to juggle, then you can talk to her then. But first, I would ask her what she wants of you. You may be surprised - she may only want you to stand up for her, as her friend. Oftentimes in-town bridesmaids will organize the bridal shower and bachelorette and stuff.

Can you work at a university/college writing center, or as a writing teacher? There are a lot of college prep programs for low-income/disadvantaged youth that hire writing curriculum coordinators (part-time or full-time) to improve the students' writing and allow them to write personal statements for college. Or you could work with a test prep center and teach courses for a usually higher-income group of students. What about Teach for America? I don't think you get to choose the subject, but you may be able to integrate writing into any subject you teach (and you may have some say. Teaching literature to children may be rewarding). There are also other programs through which you can teach English abroad besides Fulbright. CIEE runs such programs, and there's the JET programme in Japan and the EPIK program in Korea.

I agree with the above advice: you may find that you need to get an MA in sociology first, or take a few sociology classes on the graduate level. It's partially because of your GPA but partially because of the gap between the last time you did sociology research and now. Community organizing is great, but it's very different from sociological research. You may also want to see if you can get some research experience volunteering with a professor, if you don't get an MA. Right now, with 6-years-ago research you aren't a very competitive candidate for a PhD in sociology.

One of my closest friends is doing her MS in speech-language pathology here at Teachers College, Columbia University. She said GRE scores were optional, and I just checked the page and it appears that they are: http://www.tc.edu/admitted/admissions-guide.asp

Everyone freaks out about quals. It shouldn't be an "academic spanking," though. I thought quals were just a hoop to jump through when I was pre-quals, but post-quals, I realize how very useful and purposeful they are. I realized how much I know, but more importantly, it forced me to organize and synthesize all of that information and explain it concretely without using materials right at the ready. And my orals taught me to do all of that in verbal format with others in my field. It teaches you how to have a scholarly conversation with colleagues, which is part of academia. So think of it as a learning experience. I am much better at recalling information and organizing it now to make a cogent argument. Don't worry about "impressing" your committee per se. Don't worry about proving your advisor wrong, not in the traditional sense. Your main goal should be learning the material you're intended to learn and demonstrating that you know that material and can articulate it in a scholarly way at a high level. Quals are different everywhere, but in my general experience, it was not about name dropping. You should know big authors in your field and be able to remember who promulgated big theories with a big impact on the way your field works, but generally speaking, you don't need to know who did every little study that supports that theory. You need to be able to talk about how those studies support the major theory, though. It's all big picture. Details are only about supporting that big picture. I would offer examples from my field but they may be meaningless to you. It's also okay to say "I don't know," but to offer your educated analysis. One of my examiners asked me what my entire field meant. WTF? I paused to think for a while and offered an answer that I admitted was just my opinion.

Sometime in grad school I realized that I didn't care as much as some of the other people in my cohort. I would see them in the research room in the wee hours of the night, or every time we ran into each other they would want to talk about theory when I just wanted to talk about last night's episode of Lost or something. They were working on multiple projects and planning their academic lives, and I was thinking about shoes. I felt inadequate, like a fake academic. And then around my third year, I stopped caring. Coincidentally, that's around the time I stopped seeing my cohort mates as much, but I think I just grew up. The vast majority of employees do not spend their every waking moment thinking about work, so why should I be any different? I prefer shoe shopping to literature searches. So what? Most people prefer their hobbies to work. I'm good at what I do, I'm passionate about my work, I really love my field. My adviser says I'm an ideal student at this stage, I have a first-authored paper out and another in the works, I have a fellowship. I am clearly doing what I should be doing. So I say the same to you. If you love what you are doing and no one has complained about it yet, and you're doing what you need to prepare yourself for the job market in a realistic way…who cares if you aren't the superstar? I realized that I could either choose to be the superstar and make myself care more, or I could be happy with who I am and just be the great (but not superstar) grad student. Even if you are never as motivated as she is, or she gets the more prestigious job than you…who cares? IF you are content with what you do, then you've won within yourself. I also agree with the others - I came straight from undergrad, and I am now in my 5th year. I learned things in my 3rd or 4th year that I wish I knew when I was 22 or 23. It's just part of living. She may have worked those 4 years and hated her job and is really relishing being back in school, whereas you don't know the contrast between full time work and studying something you love. Or maybe she worked 80-hour weeks and so this is just a piece of cake for her. She may have acquired skills in her "past life" that are very useful, whereas you will have to learn those skills as you go along. That's okay. Evaluations are a little of both. You aren't explicitly compared with your cohort mates, but of course the DGS and your adviser are going to compare you to other students (past and present) vis-a-vis where you should be given your year in the program. Don't worry, though. If she blasts through all of her coursework and takes her comps at the end of her first year or something, you won't be considered "behind" because you are taking a more conventional route and just finished what you were supposed to have finished. Stay in communication with your advisor, follow your handbook, and do your own thing, and you should be fine.

Theory is research, though, just a different kind of research. In the vast majority of American doctoral programs, your grades in your class don't mean much. The work you do outside of class is far more often. Whether that's spending 10 hours a day in the lab, analyzing large datasets in your pajamas from home or doing scholarly literary criticism in the library (all of which I would call "research"), that is largely the end goal of your PhD program. A PhD student who got straight As in classes but didn't do any outside scholarly work in graduate school is a graduate who is likely not going to get a job. I'm in the social sciences and theory is important here, too. We were told to take our coursework seriously, and make sure that we learned the puzzle pieces we needed, especially to pass comprehensives. But the purpose of the theory is a foundation on which to produce scholarly work.

Actually thinking about working in the future does ironically keep me motivated to finish my degree, because I imagine myself with more respect and responsibility with those three letters behind my name. I know it's probably not true, but imagining it helps.

I'm facing the same thing that you are, except that it took me four years to decide (yep, I'm a 5th year and most likely dropping out if I can find a job). If you don't like research and can't get motivated to do it, then perhaps you should drop out. A PhD is about research, after all. If you are already having this problem in your first year, you will feel it even more intensely when you are dissertating, and then you will have the bitterness of having stayed in far longer than you should have. If research does not excite you, then there's no need for a PhD in the field because a PhD is a qualification to do research. The jobs you will face down will be research jobs. As for whether to stay for a master's - well. I'm job-hunting now and there are actually quite a lot of jobs out there for BA holders, depending on what you want to do. However, I have found that it is very useful that I've stayed in for my master's. A lot of the jobs I want to do require a master's degree…any master's. Many of the ones in my field would take a master's in the physical or natural sciences, too. So an MS in chemistry would be useful - but it would take you another 1.5 (or 2.5 - it took me 3 years to get my MA, too) years in a program you don't like, pretending to be a PhD student when really you are desiring the master's. That may be miserable for you. A safe way to figure this out is to take a leave of absence. You may want to finish out your first year, and see how you feel. If you still feel bad about this, then try to find employment and take a leave. If you find yourself itching to finish and go back, you can go back...if you enjoy working and don't care, then you have your answer.

Honestly, I don't think it matters either way. As sareth said I learned a great deal from the process of researching, writing, and presenting my senior thesis, and I could've published it if I had spent the time necessary to revise it for publication. But graduate level classes and individualized research is good, too.

I hate working in the office; I prefer to work from home and I am in fact more productive there. Being in my cubicle feels unnatural and uncomfortable and I can only do mundane tasks there, no actual writing. I have something of a reputation with other graduate students of "never being around," but I don't care. My adviser feels I am productive, and I do go to talks and lectures that are interesting to me. I also know most of the people in the department and they know me, so…there you go. It's not "never being around" in the sense that "you don't work," but more like "you're so busy/you bounce between two departments." I *am* making it a goal to go to more brown bags this year, but I also have more time to do so. I never really worked from the lab even in my first year. People got to know me because I joined graduate student groups, went to lectures, and was around in the department for classes. It also depends on departmental culture. My primary department is the social sciences and it's very common for people to work from home or elsewhere - most of us don't even have space within the research room, since we have a space crunch. In my secondary department (psychology) most people work from the lab and are seen around the department a lot, but when I'm not there people just assume I am in my primary department doing work.

Are you asking about the general job market or the academic job market? If it's academia you want, then the social science job market is better than the humanities but not as good as the physical sciences. It also depends on your social science, of course, as well as where you get your PhD and what your CV looks like when you're finished. A well-published PhD who went to a top program with an excellent adviser will be competitive for many jobs when she finishes. I have heard that there is a need for professors in Australia and potentially Canada if you are willing to go *anywhere*, but this is only second-hand from posters at CHE forums and such. If you are interested in the broader market - including jobs that don't really require PhDs as well as jobs that require and prefer them - then I think that market's doing okay. I'm definitely not willing to live anywhere nor am I willing to make less than I think I'm worth. But everyone has their trade-offs. Personally, I'm not very set on academia in and of itself, but I'm passionate about my field and don't want to leave it. My field is one of those applied ones that is very applicable outside of academia. I'd even wager that most people working in it are not academics.

Is it possible for you to work with chemistry faculty and do chemistry coursework while remaining in the physics program? Depending on your university or program, this may or may not make sense for you. But I attend a PhD program in psychology that only has 3 required courses (9 credits) out of a 30-credit program that absolutely have to be taken in psychology. The purpose is to allow interdisciplinary interests to be developed, and a lot of our students cospecialize in political science, business, biology, economics, and other fields. You also say that if you don't switch now it will be took late to take the chemistry classes. Does your department not let you take any classes outside of the department at all? Surely some of the physics students have crossdisciplinary interests that require them to take classes in, say, chemistry or computer science. Can't you register for some chem classes without having made a hard and fast decision? Your adviser or DGS can answer that. I will echo, though, that in the beginning you are always doing something that you haven't learned much about. That's the purpose of graduate school - to learn more about it. I agree with both sides of the advice that you have. I think you are feeling some imposter syndrome - most graduate students feel behind, and all graduate students have to learn new instruments, new theories, and new journal formats. They still publish. I agree with the advice to talk to your adviser and ask him/her how behind you really are and whether you are prepare enough to do the work within physics. They admitted you for a reason. However, you also know yourself better than anyone else, so if you are still feeling this way in a few weeks and feel like you can't claw your way out, it may be in your best interests to switch.

I'm glad folks stepped in and are taking colorblindness and "shedding labels" to task in this forum. This makes me very happy. To OP: I'm also a black woman from the South and I went to an HBCU for undergrad. I now attend a hybrid program in public health and psychology at a top program in the field. The public health department is pretty diverse but my psychology department is all white. Do I feel a greater sense of responsibility? Sometimes. I feel like I can never be late somewhere because I don't want people to assume that it's because of my race, and I tend to roll my eyes when professors give presentations and never present on (or even test, in some cases) racial data when it potentially matters. Often, on a more abstract level, I feel like I need to succeed to set the bar and be a role model for all the young black folks who will see me in 5-10+ years and feel like they can achieve because I did. (That's how I got to where I am today - there was a black female professor I particularly admired in college.) I also feel like if I fail, people will attribute it to my race. And sometimes, I feel like I can't connect with the people in my department. They don't understand my work fully, although most of that is because I'm a public health student first and we do things differently. Sometimes I look at the paintings in the library or the psych department of old white men - or at the faces of the other students, both my classmates and the undergrads I teach - and I feel like I don't belong here. But all of that is back-of-the-mind type stuff, or things that happen often enough to be annoying but not constantly. I have a solid cadre of graduate student friends of color (that I met through other means) that I chill with. My classmates are really nice and don't make a big deal out of my race while not ignoring it. My adviser is great and obviously cares about my career development. I love my racial identity and my sense of belongingness in my community. I think attending an HBCU did a lot for me there, because I feel secure in who I am and have those experiences of being one of many high-achieving young black people to draw from when shit gets real here. One of my black friends from high school, a doctor in residency, just started a thread on Facebook about how he wanted to start a clinic in Atlanta and all the black MBAs, lawyers, doctors, researchers and other professionals I went to HS and college with came out the woodwork to talk about what they could offer this clinic. My heart just soared.

1. This is probably program-dependent. If you want to concentrate in finance, a technical degree is probably more desirable, but I can't imagine it would matter for management or marketing. Honestly, I think the most important thing in MBA admissions is your work experience. 2. Probably not. 3. Get good grades and then get 2-5 years of work experience. The more prestigious your firm and the more progressive your promotions and experience, the better your application will look regardless of your undergraduate major. Don't stay in a major you don't like simply because you think it will give you better prospects for an MBA. At top tier MBA programs, virtually no one is accepted without work experience.

It's primarily to avoid problems that can be averted by applying early - like if your computer crashes, the USPS loses your package, the server is down the night the app is due, etc.

I am also curious as to why the programs you have on your list are there. It could possibly be a research fit thing, but the top schools in BME are JHU, Georgia Tech, Duke, UCSD, MIT, Michigan, Rice, University of Washington, Berkeley, Case Western, WashU, and Penn. U.S. News isn't perfect or even great, but it does give a relatively good indication of fields and their programs' positions. (MIT isn't an Ivy League either, btw). In any case, your application looks very competitive especially with all the research experience. Publications are uncommon for undergrads but if you do have one, that's great. If you already know that your communication skills are not up to par, then I would suggest that you begin working on your personal statement very early and having lots and lots of people look over it for you to ensure that it makes sense and appropriately conveys your interest. Visit your university's writing center for additional help with that. 85-90% quantitative is not high enough for engineering - I don't know about the new GRE, but on the old GRE the math scores were so skewed that most math-heavy programs expected at least a 750+, which was something like 90th percentile on the old exam. You want to be scoring over the 90th percentile. I would not recommend investing in a class, though, because if you are already scoring that high it won't help much. Buy a test prep book and work through the problems, then identify what your issues are and fix those. Your verbal section won't matter much - 80th percentile is high enough for a BME program.

I'm not applying but I do have anxiety and depression. I had a depressive episode this summer that meant I wasted a lot of time and didn't get done what I needed to, which is going to set me back a bit, but I needed to get out of the funk. I feel better now, but it's a process. My depressive episodes also mean that whenever I think about even starting work I get anxious. I go to counseling on and off and have recently begun exploring natural ways to control my anxiety. Exercise really helps, and taking some herbal supplements to help me sleep and calm down during the day also help. I've recently gotten into tea and omg, it's made such a difference. About whether to stay here: that's debateable. I love forums when I am stressed because I feel a community of people who are going through the same thing as me, including the anxiety and fear that comes along with getting into and completing graduate school.

I am getting my PhD because I love research and I want to teach and advise undergraduates. This was not my original reason for getting my PhD. I originally came because I wanted to be a researcher at a federal government entity. That's still in the back of my mind as a secondary option. I wanted to do health-related research at the CDC or the NIH, or a think tank. Then I started working with undergrads and just fell in love. I love advising and working with them individually to help them achieve their goals. I don't exactly love teaching, but I like it enough and I think I'd like it a lot more at a small liberal arts college with smaller classes and my own control over classes. But I still do love research and am passionate about my research goals, so a professor job is really perfect for me. Personally, I think one should obtain a PhD if one needs it for one's future career goals OR if one is so simply passionate about a particular field of research or scholarship that one is willing to sacrifice 5-10 years of one's life to pursue that field. Other reasons should be secondary at best. In my own opinion, I think that future regret as a primary reason is one of the worst to get a PhD, because the program itself is so grueling and depressing at times that I regret going *into* it. The only thing that keeps me going is the fact that my career aspirations require it and I remind myself that I do love my research and am passionate about it. I would think that if you are doing it primarily just to say that you did it, at some point you'll be like "Why the f did I decide to do this again?" Everyone has those thoughts, but if you don't have passion to hold onto, it feels empty and you can get bitter. For the students I advise - when I ask them about graduate plans and they say they want a doctoral degree, I ask them why. If they give me any reason that sounds like "I just want to" or "I want to be called Doctor, that sounds cool," I strongly encourage them to work for a few years before getting a doctoral degree.