juilletmercredi

I'm at the stage you're at now, wondering and poking into different fields. I am pretty sure I don't want to be an academic. I love teaching and sharing my passion for psychology and public health with others, especially undergrad students who are new to the field, and I love research, but I know that I don't love the academic world. My ideal would be to work in the federal government as a researcher, but I would also like to work in a think tank or NGO doing research or policy work. I'd publish on the side (and not necessarily only in academic journals) and I'd want to give talks and connect with my community doing outreach work instead of only within academia. I have the same fears as you. I've started reading career books, as next year will be my last, and they've helped me. You can read guides about how to turn your CV into a resume (the book "So What Are You Going To Do With That?" has helpful advice to that end) and that might help you start thinking about the very concrete skills that academic work gives you. For one, we present all the time, so you know how to do public speaking. We have to learn a lot of material very quickly and distill out major points and themes. We write A LOT, and depending on the field we sometimes have to write short, concise material for public dissemination. We do analysis of data, whether it's quantitative or qualitative. Really, we have a lot of skills, we just need to find ways to distill them out onto paper and talk about them in interviews. I hope you are feeling better soon!

A 50% aid package at a school that costs $60,000 a year is still $60,000 for a two year program. What jobs are you aiming for after graduation? What kind of salaries do they make? What kind of debt do you already have? I think a top 30 school can still open doors without getting you into a lot of debt.

I entirely concede your point that a TT job is where the vast majority of folks head after getting this degree, That's the problem though...they don't. Most of us may want to, but the vast majority of us are not anymore - which is why nonacademic careers are not really alternative careers anymore.

When you say course webpages, do you mean like Courseworks pages or something? I don't see how that would be useful information... At my Ivy League we do have short course descriptions up on the webpage and all the classes for the next year are already listed up there. But sadly, I have to agree with waddle. The professors here don't focus on teaching, and quite frankly their teaching is kinda bad and the classes are just meh. They expect most of their learning to happen outside of the classroom, which goes to explain why I only took one social psychology seminar in my actual department (I had to go to a nearby university to satisfy the requirement without taking a cognition or neuroscience class I was likely to fail). Our departmental webpage is meh.

I LOVE that Tumblr.

I could've sworn I commented in this thread but I have a 13.3" MacBook Pro. I do wish the screen was a little bigger, but I'd rather have portability than screen size (plus the 15" was out of my price range. Already the 13.3" was stretching it.) I have an external monitor at home; I currently have a 19" external monitor but I plan to upgrade to a 24" over the summer after I move. I have bad eyesight that has only gotten worse and a large monitor will allow me to enlarge things without losing a considerable amount of screen space. I primarily work at home, so I connect my laptop to an external mouse and keyboard in addition to the monitor and voila, I have a pseudo-desktop. Before this I had a 14.1" Toshiba Satellite (loved the larger screen, but it was bulky, a little unwieldy and the battery life sucked) and before that, a 13.3" Sony Vaio (would not buy again).

My lab has graduate students (two doctoral students - me and another woman from my cohort, both fourth years - and a few assorted grad students from other schools and the MPH program), two project coordinators who are full-time employees, and our advisor. We don't need a lot of equipment since we do field studies with humans - in fact, we don't even have physical space. The school of public health I attend has no undergrads and we are far from the undergrad campus, so even if we wanted undergrad RAs we would have a more difficult time getting them. I am also part of a psychology lab that has a more traditional structure. We have a lab coordinator (who is amazing), and there are two postdocs that also take care of a lot of the leadership and mentoring. Then there are four doctoral students. I'm the most advanced grad student in my fourth year, (I'm pre-candidacy but not by a lot - I should be admitted to candidacy this summer) then there are two third years and a first-year. And then there are a lot of RAs. Some of the RAs are post-baccalaureate students in our certificate program, but most are junior/senior undergrads. This lab does run a lot more smoothly. We also have a physical space. I would say that this lab setup is a lot more ideal than my uptown lab, but my uptown lab allows me a lot more close work with my advisor. The psychology lab is more working closely with the postdocs, which is fine because they're great but…you know. My uptown lab had biweekly lab meetings. My psychology lab has weekly meetings, which is far too often in my opinion. I think the most essential person to have in a lab is a lab coordinator. In my two labs, our project/lab coordinator(s) are the ones who arrange all of the administrative things - room requisitions, equipment orders, access, listservs, meetings, everything. These are things that the grad students have neither the time nor the inclination to do properly. Having a postdoc or two is also nice, as I have learned from the difference between the two labs. The postdocs keep things running smoothly when the advisor is not there or doesn't have time to do so, and they are also great mentors because they are energetic and really excited about cutting edge stuff since they are new in the field. I hope to be that kind of postdoc wherever I go next.

Not difficult at all. In my program, an A is the standard grade and a B is still okay, but maybe you missed something. A C is a failing grade, which means you have to retake the course. In general, professors don't give out Cs, so by default all of your grades (here) will be a B or higher, which is an automatic 3.0. In practice, the vast majority of your grades will be As, because if you are not doing A work your professor may usher you aside and ask what's up. Not all grad programs may be like this - so you may want to check specifically with students in your program.

I am going to semi-agree with Dal PhDer in that there is a fine line between really wanting to quit and never look back, and going through a slump period. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, and it's especially difficult in your first year because it may be your first slump period and you don't realize that everyone feels like that at some point in their graduate program. I went through two such major periods - once in my second year, and once in my third year when it was so bad I started applying to jobs and told my advisor I was quitting. I'm still here. The way to find out, I think, is to reflect on the things that make you happy in graduate school. Honestly. If the thing that makes you happiest are departmental happy hour where you can socialize with others and the flexibility of time you have to get away from the graduate school, maybe you do need to quit. But if the things that make you happy are related to a science career - being paid to answer big questions, analysis, being in an intellectual community of scholars - then maybe you should stay. Every career has its downsides, as someone else has already wisely said. But you have to decide if there is enough to hold onto that makes it worthwhile. For me, even though I am sometimes miserable and graduate school causes me a great deal of anxiety, I think 1) I am just a naturally anxious person, and although not being here would probably be better for my mental health anxiety would accompany me anyway and 2) I realized that I am very passionate about my topic and my area. Whenever I think about the kind of work that I want to do, it's the kind of stuff I need a PhD to do. And whenever I think about comparable things I could do if I left, they never leave me quite as satisfied as thinking about myself in a career in my area. I get a warm happy glow when I think about teaching and mentoring students and working on research in my field, and I don't get that feeling when I think about comparable jobs. That glow is what keeps me pushing on even when I want to pull all of the hair out of my head. So maybe that can be a useful exercise - imagine yourself as a scientist (realistically), then imagine yourself doing something else that pays better or has a more regular schedule or is less competitive, isolating, or negative. Do you feel satisfied thinking about the others? Another thing you may want to do is a Google search on "thinking about leaving graduate school" and similar keywords. I did and came across a wealth of people who were also thinking about leaving. Reading their thoughts and comments and blogs and BB threads helped me feel like I wasn't alone. Ironically, knowing that I wasn't alone in being stressed out and somewhat depressed on occasion in graduate school was what helped me decide to stay. But it may also help you decide to leave, or at least make you feel like you're not alone.

As you well know, there are other ways that undergraduates can color outside the lines short acts of cheating or plagiarizing. A four page essay can become six pages. Then you make font size and margins standardized for everyone and take off points if they do not follow those rules. A student can be habitually late and/or under-prepared to section. That will show in their participation grades, and likely in exams as well if they are underprepared. A student can be late to appointments. Then you can refuse to make appointments with them any longer, if it happens frequently enough. A student can horde library books. That's what recall is for. And library fines. At my university it is possible for undergrads to renew a book enough times to borrow it for the entire semester (course textbooks are usually placed on reserves and you cannot borrow them outside of the library, but we have interlibrary loan agreements that would allow students to do that. I've done it for a textbook I wouldn't otherwise buy and couldn't afford.) how is cheating by an undergraduate "completely" different than a graduate student going against an executed agreement to not take on additional work? Because the undergraduate is doing it because they, on some level, have an entitlement complex: they believe deserve a high grade for less work. The graduate student is working to make enough money to eat and pay their rent. an undergraduate could reasonably argue that he or she did not know she was plagiarizing because she was never given extended guidance as to what constitutes plagiarism. And? Seven times out of ten, this is a BS argument anyway. And in none of the other examples you gave can an undergrad say "I didn't know I was supposed to be on time for class" or "I didn't know I couldn't play with my margins to make a 4 page paper a 6 page paper" (assuming that you have set reasonable guidelines ahead of time, which you should. I still don't see how working outside of school, even if my contract technically forbids it, suddenly strips me of my ability to grade my undergrads down for shoddy work or cutting corners. Are you saying that a graduate student also reasonably say "I did not know that I was expected to abide by the contract I signed when I was offered a fellowship/teaching assistant ship? Is there anything in my comment that makes you think that? What I said was "Personally, I think it is unreasonable for programs to demand that you do not work if they are not paying you a living wage." I said nothing to say that graduate student should not expect consequences if they did get caught violating their contract, although I have seen few schools that actually hold graduate students to that (especially when they know they do not pay a living wage). Personally, I don't think it's any of the department's business what I am doing outside of my work time so long as I am getting my work done.

I've heard it both ways. I think any advisor who begrudges you seeking out a second (or third) mentor is being silly and potentially dangerous; after all, when you apply for jobs and funding you will need 3-4 recommendation letters. So it's good to develop relationships with other professors. Not only that, but other professors will have had a different journey than your advisor, and so they may have unique input. Another thing is that my advisor is junior and I have benefited from having the voice of some senior scholars as a mentor. If your advisor is senior, you may also benefit from the input of those closer to the job market and going through the tenure process. I have not had to juggle the pseudo-employee relationship with my advisor, but then again, he does not fund me. I've been on external funding since I've been here. Still, I work on his data and projects. I think it depends on the personality of your advisor - some of them will make great mentors, and others will just be your advisor. But yes, it is normal to seek out other mentors.

I got an iPad after I was finished with classes. Like you, I had a netbook when I was in class, but I wish I had had the iPad + keyboard. Much lighter and more portable, more versatile, and yes, you can highlight and annotate PDFs. I use GoodReader, which is probably the best $10 I've ever spent. When I highlight and annotate on my computer using Adobe Professional, the changes show up in GoodReader, and I can add notes and underline and everything. I can also sync it with Dropbox, which is how I keep my articles synced between my computer and my iPad. A USB port would be nice, or even an SD card. But there are so many programs that allow you to use cloud storage. iCloud comes with 5 GB already. Personally, I prefer Dropbox, which allows me to have folders directly on my computer and automatically syncs everything up. I also use an app called CloudOn, which allows me to start Word documents on my iPad and save them into Dropbox. It's not perfect but it gets the job done for short tasks (although I wouldn't type on the iPad for hours - but if you do plan to do that, I suggest investing in the Apple bluetooth keyboard or a folding keyboard that's close to full-sized. I have the ZaggFolio and while it seemed an amazing idea at the time, the case is really bulky and the keyboard is too cramped to do anything for any long period of time). I use Evernote to take notes and sync them across my computer and my iPad.

When people say Brooklyn they actually mean a bit further out, since most of the close neighborhoods in Brooklyn (Brooklyn Heights, BoCoCa, DUMBO, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Park Slope) rival Manhattan prices. Inexpensive Brooklyn neighborhoods with a closer commute are Prospect Heights, Lefferts Gardens, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, (East) Flatbush, Bushwick, Crown Heights, maybe Sunset Park (depends on where in Sunset Park it is). Personally, I have found the 1/2/3, the B/D and the N/Q/R to be pretty reliable. If one will attend Columbia or the Graduate Center, Queens is probably even cheaper and a closer commute. Actually, there are nice neighborhoods in Queens that have an easy commute to NYU, too, so I would investigate those. Astoria and Long Island City come to mind. Sunnyside is also pretty close, as was mentioned.

n my first year, I had to take a year-long doctoral seminar with my cohort. My field is an interdisciplinary one with influences from fields ranging from the social sciences to the natural sciences to business and policy studies - but the co-instructors for the course were a sociologist and an anthropologist, and so the first year course focused primarily on sociology and anthro. My background is in psychology, which has a very different tradition of reading and theory. So my first class ever I was overloaded with more reading than I had ever done in a week, in a completely different style than I was used to. Since I was the only person in my cohort 1) straight from undergrad and 2) in psychology (the rest were sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists and one historian). Naturally, I was terrified. I tried to share in class anyway, even though to me I sounded like an idiot. I found out from one of the co-instructors halfway through the first semester that he thought I was very thoughtful and made intriguing comments; he liked that I brought a different perspective to the class partially borne out of my unfamiliarity with sociological theory. Apparently I approached it differently. I also found out, through chatting with my cohort-mates that everyone else in my cohort was just as terrified, and almost as behind in the reading as I was. After that, I felt better. We bonded and I think we all felt more comfortable commenting in class. Moral of the story: 1) Everyone is just as terrified as you are. 2) Everyone is behind on the reading. There's so much of it that you cannot manage to actually, thoroughly read it all. You eventually learn how to selectively choose what to read, and how to skim well enough that you know what you need to know. It takes time and practice. 3) Your professors don't expect you to think like they do. That's their job - to teach you how to think like they do. They still want to hear your thoughts and discuss, especially in seminar based classes. 4) Definitely, *definitely* always confer with your professors over final research papers. Most grad seminars are small enough that the professors can give individual attention to each student who makes an appointment with them about their papers or what not. Make that appointment when you have a solid draft, and ask for feedback. (You may get an hour and a half long interesting conversation out of it, as I did with one of my co-instructors.) My field is interdisciplinary and so a variety of citation styles are used; I use APA, since that's my field, and I have never had a professor ask me to not use APA. I wouldn't know an endnote from a footnote. But if you are in an disciplinary field that commonly uses one style, buy the book of the style and learn it well - from memory. It will save you some time and headache.

TA'ing isn't as bad as givnig a presentation to your peers. You'll realize that you have the authority in the class you TA (as long as the professor isn't in class as well). When you give presentations or seminars you some times have to worry about somebody in the audience knowing more than you about the subject and asking crazy specific questions that you aren't prepared for, but when you TA the students don't know nearly as much as you, and most don't care enough to ever ask questions. Going to second this, mostly. I know that I was afraid of TAing because I thought the undergrads would be judging me the way my peers, and faculty, would be judging me. Nope! They don't know much about your topic and that's why they are taking the class. And most of the time they are at least mildly interested in it. You get a few people who are miserable and don't want to be there, but most of the students in my experience have at least some desire to take the course. Although I have to disagree with the last part - it really depends on where you are, but I TA at a university where the culture is to question everything. So the students ask lots of questions even in a 180-person lecture class. But their questions are elementary and pretty easy to answer. Sometimes I can't answer them, but I'll just give them a thoughtful look and say "You know what, I don't know. But I'll find out for you." And then follow up.

Personally, I think that non-native speakers should be graded the same as native English speakers. The reason I think this is because these students will presumably be released into the world and write things for dissemination in the English language. I don't want them to think that their English writing is just fine when it clearly isn't. When I grade papers (I'm in psychology), I note spelling, grammatical, and syntactical errors but I don't start deducting points until the errors are so bad that it makes it difficult to read the paper. I spend a lot of time grading papers because I write notes in the margins about errors and what can be done to improve them. No, my field's not English, but I believe strongly in "writing across the curriculum" and that professors across fields (not just English professors) should contribute to the develop of good writing, especially if they are going to require a paper as part of the course. I have met individually with students both in and out of my office hours to give them feedback on their papers. I'm willing to do that with every student, native speaker or not. Writing is important. I have to agree with Sigaba. If I make excuses for my students' poor writing, how are they ever going to learn that their writing is poor? How will they learn how to improve?

You might not be obligated to write the letter, but for those students who express to you that you are one of their few or only options, then I believe that you are obligated to work with them to see if you can muster up something good to say. No. No one is obligated to work with any one particular student to write a letter of recommendation. When you write one, you are saying, "I stake my reputation on the fact that I think this student is well-prepared for the award for which he is applying." Are you willing to stake your reputation on a student that you don't know very well, or a student who is doing poorly in your class, simply because he doesn't have many options? It's the students' responsibility to cultivate multiple options for letters of recommendation. I also don't think it is unethical to gently and kindly discourage some students from graduate study. It wouldn't be on the basis of one class grade, though. For example, if a student explicitly told you that they hated writing papers and disliked research, but wanted to get a PhD in English because they liked reading books, wouldn't you want to enlighten them? What about if a student expresses an interest in getting a doctoral degree because they don't know what else to do or because they simply want the prestige of being called "doctor," even though they don't plan to do anything with the doctoral degree? I've dealt with both of the latter two situations as a mentor, and I kindly told these students (who were outstanding in other ways) that perhaps they wanted to explore other things and come back to graduate study later, when they were more ready. Personally, I think it is far kinder of me as an advanced mentor to let them know ahead of time they may not be ready for grad study than for me to say "Yes, sure, so you don't like writing and you hate research papers - but don't worry, go ahead and get that PhD!"

So I'm doing my best here, proposing a topic entirely outside of my comfort zone I don't think "outside of your own field of interest and past experience" means you have to pick something completely out of your comfort zone. I've taken the first of my qualifying exams and am in the middle of studying for my second set (which I am taking in the second week of May). Yes, it is a normal expectation that you be able to produce research simultaneously. I think it's expected that you slow down a little bit, especially if you have other obligations (TAing, for example), but you are expected to keep your research agenda going. I also took a week off for my qualifying exams the first time - I basically lived in the library and/or in my bedroom studying. I also intend to take a week off this time, and scheduled it during the undergrads' finals week to give myself the time (I'm TAing this semester).

Personally? I'd take b or c, depending on your preferences. My preference is colored by moving from Atlanta (lots of wide open spaces, large apartments and houses for cheap) to NYC (literally living on top of other people in tiny spaces for astronomical prices). As a coupled person, I'd prefer the middle ground - a 20 minute bike ride to campus, an apartment complex with a pool in the summers, no undergrads (meaning no undergrad parties) and a private bathroom. I don't think it's at all important to be walking distance from campus, just close. I also don't think it's important to be walking distance to downtown, just close enough to visit as frequently as you want (for example, if you are more of a weekend visitor, an hour is fine. If you're going to want to ride into the city for a weekday evening ballet performance or dinner at a nice restaurant, you'll want 30-40 minutes or less. I don't think you'll meet many other people in the complex; when I lived in an apartment building in NYC, I didn't really get to know anyone other than my immediate next door neighbors and one other grad student (and I only met him because he stayed with me and my roommate for a week while his situation was finalizing). I currently live in a res hall and I don't know my neighbors aside from hearing them through the walls at 2 am, lol. Most of the people I have met, I do not live with. I agree that a little distance between you and campus is healthy. It allows you to turn your brain on and off to academic stuff, as was said in the last comment. I live on campus because I work on campus in a live-in position, but if I didn't, I wouldn't live on campus (especially not with undergrads, who don't seem to need to sleep and have little impetus to keep common living spaces clean. And who get sick in weird places, like window ledges and inside washing machines.)

Does anyone else use expensive skincare/foundation/concealer and cheap-o mascara and eyeliner? Me. I use Bare Escentuals foundation and Bliss skincare. My mascara is actually pretty expensive, too (Korres) but I do wear Maybelline eyeliner from the drugstore. I also think I would much more easily replace my Korres mascara with drugstore mascara than I would my foundation. I love BE foundation.

And maybe I'm one of the crazy ones, but I TA for free every semester, because it's a great source of teaching experience for my resume. I personally would not TA for free. It is far too much work, and I am not free labor. TAing is a service with value and I believe I should be paid fairly for providing this service. Of course, this is an individual decision that has to be weighed against paid TA opportunities at your school, the benefit it would give to your resume and whether you already live comfortably. I'm going to go with the "depends on the culture of your department" answer. Some departments explicitly forbid outside work but really look the other way as long as you are meeting the requirements of the program and doing what you are supposed to be doing. Some are more strict. Personally, I think it is unreasonable for programs to demand that you do not work if they are not paying you a living wage. And personally, I agree with rising_star in that having a reasonable amount of other commitments (including, potentially, a part-time job that I enjoy) helps me balance some of my unstructured time to get more done. If you work as a T.A., at some point you're going to need to hold a student accountable. If you've colored outside of the lines, will you still have the moral authority to tell that student "You must color inside the lines"? Of course you will. Working for extra pay as a doctoral student is completely different from plagiarizing a paper or cheating on an exam.

I read Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision…. Hilarious book that will amuse and depress you, but not really an advice book. It's great stress relief, though. I agree with Getting What You Came For - yes, some of the material is outdated, but the non-technological advice is solid and ageless. It's a great book, but it does focus more on the sciences. Most of the advice is widely applicable, though. I've heard that Graduate Study in the Twenty-First Century is the humanities equivalent. (I'm in a lab-based natural/social science and I've found that advice books geared towards the sciences are more helpful for me than ones geared towards the humanities, simply because our grad school and hiring processes are closer to science fields.) As for writing, I have heard positive things about How to Write A Lot and Writing Your Dissertation In Fifteen Minutes a Day. Both of these are planned summer reading for me, since I am beginning my dissertation this summer/fall.

I was sort of limited by my perception of my cumulative ugrad GPA as low (it was a 3.4 - but I had a higher major GPA, and only realized how important that was in retrospect). Besides, I was straddling two fields. One of my fields, public health, usually requires a master's degree before entering a PhD program. So my original plan was to get an MPH and then apply to doctoral programs in both public health and social psychology. But on a whim, I applied to a hybrid social psych and public health PhD program. To my surprise, I was admitted. When I told my advisor this story later, he seemed very surprised, and told me that I would've been a very competitive candidate at other PhD programs in social psych right out of the box. So sometimes I wish I had applied more widely to other social psych programs - but then I realize I would've ended up here anyway, because this program was perfectly suited to my needs. And I love it.

Yes, of course it will hurt your chances, although it largely depends on your field. Your profile seems to indicate that you are an English PhD. Even top English PhD graduates who cast a nationwide net and apply to pretty much every job in their field have a difficult time finding assistant professor positions - even the ones who are willing to move to Podunk in a flyover state (whatever they consider a flyover state) just to teach. The market is suffering a persistent, long-standing oversupply of English PhDs. If you are concentrating all of your efforts on one particular city/geographic region, you are limiting your chances of finding a professor job very severely. This is especially true if it's a popular major city, since many people want to be in a major city and you will be competing for positions with other new grads, recent grads who have been adjunct teaching for several years, and assistant (and maybe associate) profs who are currently stuck in Podunk and want to move to a bigger city. Most likely, you won't get one. You may get lucky, of course. And this applies less if you are a superstar (you know, two books in hand, third on the way, and a large portable grant). You may not have much trouble finding adjunct positions or even a non-tenure track lecturer position at one of those colleges. Colleges, especially large publics and community colleges, often need people to teach first-year composition and similar courses. Adjunct positions teaching those classes should be relatively plentiful, although of course you will be competing with the other English PhD holders already in the city. Full-time lecturer positions, not so much, but you may be able to snag one. Personally, I think you should develop a Plan B. Perhaps you can apply for other full-time jobs related to your field (or even completely outside it) and adjunct "on the side," so to speak?

Yes. Most of the graduate schools participate in University Apartment Housing (UAH), which are a collection of mostly apartment-style buildings in the Morningside Heights area. Teachers College also has their own housing system that's also in the same neighborhood; most of it is dormitory-style (some with private bathrooms). The medical center campus has its own housing system that's a mix of studios, shared apartments, and dormitory-style rooms. I will note, however, that housing is quite limited amongst graduate students and that you should definitely prepare a Plan B and be prepared to do the apartment search. I think it's slightly easier to get it on the main campus, though, as I only know a few grad students on the Morningside campus who don't live in UAH housing and that's mostly by choice. (By contrast, I know a LOT of CUMC students who live off-campus.)