prefers_pencils

It used to be 19,000 EUR per year. Might be slightly higher now. In any case, the PhD program treats the students very poorly. Buyer beware.

My Master of Arts looks identical to my husband's. I went to Teachers College, he went to the Engineering school. However... he gets Alumni emails from Columbia University. I do not. He can access the Columbia library database. I cannot. In the system, TC grads are not considered Columbia grads and you will feel like a second class citizen of the university among other alumni for your entire life. If I could go back, I would have chosen another MA degree within the rest of the university. TC is a good school, but for the alumni privilege it's completely worthless. Hope you chose wisely.

Our comprehensive exam is closed book. I've just begun studying but I honestly didn't think that it would be this miserable. Trying to get my anxiety under control is a superhuman task.

Thanks - this makes me feel better!

Thanks for your thoughts. As we're in the same research area, this student will be present at presentations I'm expected to give the over the next few months, so there's not much I can hide in terms of project details. But I'll certainly work hard.

Two thoughts: For the courses, it's possible you may feel like you're not learning from the foundational coursework in any institution. This can happen when programs try to "standardize" learning for all PhDs who enter with different backgrounds and strength areas. Generally I don't learn the useful things from my courses, I learn from doing research, so I saw them as a bunch of hoops to jump through to prove my worth before getting into the fun stuff. For the faculty, are they not taking students right now, or not taking students this fall? If your first year is mostly coursework, but you suspect a professor might take you on in your second year, it might be worth the wait. Sometimes there's an anti-first years bias as faculty want to see what students get weeded out (or weed themselves out) before investing their time and energy. If they are definitely not taking students in the second year, either, and there's really no one else you want to work with, then I would seriously look into transferring. Keep in mind that some schools may make you redo the coursework, though, so you could lose a year.

Looking for objective perspectives on a tricky issue: staking claims on research ideas among PhD students. I'm an early year student in a social sciences department full of diverse research areas. Of the ~20 students in my division, ~3 of us research under the same topic umbrella. I'm 6 months into my first major research project on a topic no one in my department has touched but seems to be gathering momentum in the field. I haven't formally presented this idea to the department yet, but have informally shared details with other faculty and students in the last three months or so. I've finished collecting data and am partway through the analyses. Just recently, one of the students in my "umbrella" learned about my project. This student, in front of my advisor and other faculty, minimized the scope of my project's focus on this "hot" topic, then made a claim that they had a similar idea "last year" -- that they have suddenly decided to pursue this spring. I was then invited to be essentially the 4th author on their to-be-written paper. The student currently has several other projects ongoing, none of which are related to this topic. My advisor responded that it would not be in everyone's best interest to collaborate, and that because this topic is quite central to my research, the other student should essentially continue down their current path so we don't seem identical on the job market. I really love my advisor for saying this. But... the student's response was an abrupt and neutral "Lots to consider... We'll see", without agreeing or acknowledging any of my advisor's points. I feel threatened by this. I have had research ideas around this student's topic area that I have specifically avoided pursuing so as not to step on research toes. My general impression of research as a profession is that "ideas are in the air", meaning that it's not unusual for multiple people to come up with similar ideas. However, I believe you should respectfully step off if someone has already begun work on said idea as they've invested the time and intention while you've prioritized other things. Also the timing of this "I was first" claim is rather suspicious. Do you think this student's actions are suspicious? Am I being too territorial? What do you advise? Thanks for reading. TL;DR: I think my idea may be getting scooped by another student, who claims they had this idea "over a year ago" but are suddenly declaring intentions to work on it now. The announcement is suspiciously timed with learning about my 6-month old project. Is all fair in research and war?

I think you mean valedictions.

I'm sorry you are having a rough time in your program. To be fair, a lot of management programs - in the US and elsewhere - put their students through economics coursework regardless of the students' specialty area. At the same time, if you're truly unhappy, a transfer might make sense for you. Two questions come to mind: 1. When do students typically leave the program? If in Years 1-2, it could be due to a variety of reasons, such as them realizing that academia isn't their best choice. If in Years 3-5, well, that's more concerning. 2. Do you have an advisor, and do you like their work? This relationship becomes the most influential part of your PhD, although that's not obvious in the first year. If you really like the work they're doing and you like them as a person, it might be worth it to tough out the quantitative coursework in the beginning. Course requirements aren't always synonymous with faculty research interests, either, so it might not be the case that qualitative work isn't valued. I'm a little confused by this point: You want to apply to OB departments in the US that have a stronger emphasis on ... what, exactly? Or you want to apply to other business schools that have a stronger OB department in general? Honestly, the rankings are never cut and dry; it really depends on your research area. If you can be a little more specific in your interests I can try to be more helpful. Edit: You might consider reposting this in the "Officially Grads" section which might reach a larger audience. I think people in the Business section are typically applicants rather than fellow current students.

We all have our own opinions about how to handle difficult situations, and the beauty of this forum is that we're all able to voice them and let the OP take from them whatever she finds the most helpful. I've written my advice from the basis of my own life experience, and what I would do in her situation based on the information given. Your experience/advice may differ, and that's totally cool. What isn't cool is picking apart someone else's advice. We're all trying to help as best we can.

You just sound like you're a little burned out. Do you take vacations, weekly time off, trips out of town? You'd be surprised what a difference a few days can make. Given your major issue is the work/life balance, give a little more to your non-work life for a month and see how things feel. Manage expectations with your advisor so the workload is a bit lighter. Some academics work every day, but not everyone does. Maybe being at a top 5 school has something to do with it. The faculty there sought the prestige of your school/department, worked hard to get there and work harder to stay. It's not necessarily representative of everyone in academia as a whole. Enjoy the atmosphere while you're there and look forward to finding a job in a place that isn't so intense. FWIW, I've never seen an actuary refer to their job as "relaxed".

Wow, you have a lot going on - it sounds stressful and I'm sorry. Below are my thoughts... Regarding your actual advisor: If the non-responding advisor you're referring to is the one on sabbatical, that explains why she's not responding to your emails. A person on sabbatical will often semi-ignore their university email account while they're away, and as a professor they are still getting hundreds of emails to their inbox every week. Which means it's easy for yours to get lost in there among all the other messages. If she agreed to be your advisor, I'm pretty confident you'll see a significant change in her responsiveness once she returns to the school. Regarding Project 2: It's concerning that you are volunteering a lot of your time on this project and haven't met with the professor in three months. If you don't feel able to talk with the professor directly (either because you're nervous or because that person seems literally unavailable), the temporary advisor should help you. Keep your discussion on this topic professional and focused on requesting regular meetings and understanding expectations of the project involvement. It's completely within your rights to expect regular meetings with the project professor based on the work you are putting in. You're a graduate student, not a slave - you can't be expected to work away on something without any feedback. Either the professor agrees to meet with you every couple of weeks or you should get approval to leave that project entirely. Regarding the classmate getting paid: Again, also fishy, but there's too many unanswered questions here. Is the other student also a PhD student, also in your department, and attached to the exact same funding source? I don't mean source as in university fellowship, I mean what department/professor/research institute pays for her versus you. If it's exactly the same, then it's possible you're getting taken advantage of. If it's different, there's probably other reasons why she's able to get paid when you aren't. Regarding the classmate talking about you: Stay far away from this person as much as possible. Normally I'd recommend not mentioning this to your temporary advisor at all, but you wrote: It's completely unacceptable that your classmate is giving you negative feedback supposedly coming from your temp. advisor, because (1) she has no business talking to him about you, and (2) if he is openly telling her negative feedback about you, it's considered highly unprofessional. I would not be surprised if she were lying. You definitely need to be more open with your temporary advisor about this but in a calm and rational manner. If you trust your temporary advisor, request a confidential meeting and say that you (1) are really happy to be here, (2) are really committed to the program, (3) cannot reach your full potential because another student is creating this toxic environment for you. Avoid naming the student if you can, but definitely tell him that someone is giving you negative feedback and saying that it's coming from him. Then say that given this negative secondary feedback, you want to touch base and discuss any problems directly. I think your temporary advisor would appreciate the honesty and directness; I'm sure they do not have any idea about the personal dynamics between students. Overall: From what you wrote, it seems like you sense that everyone is communicating with everyone else but you. Your best bet is to step up communication with your temporary advisor and project professor. Focus the communication topics on your progress and on improving supervisor relationships. Also, if your university has an ombudsman, talk to that person too - they are a confidential advisory service and often a good sounding board. Good luck.

I know the feeling and I really empathize with you. Perhaps it's best to just draw back, focus on you, and be polite but distant, if you can. That way you'll waste less energy thinking about her and your dynamic, and redirect it toward your own positive self-growth. That's certainly what I'm going to try to do. This week I've come to the conclusion that this person in my program is a textbook covert narcissist; they have all the symptoms to a T. Realizing that has actually left me terrified because I'm hoping to distance myself without making it obvious, lest they try to exact some kind of revenge. (Earlier in the friendship I confided some things in them that I wish I hadn't, and I'm hoping they never break the trust to share it out of anger or something.) I feel like an idiot for being so trusting given that I now see them as a black hole of truly negative energy. Regardless of how I personally view the person, I've also realized that the time I spent lamenting about all these feelings in the past week means that the relationship overall is toxic and I need to distance myself - hopefully without creating any open animosity between us. And I feel that by doing so it justifies the "lonely road" of the PhD: it's essential to isolate yourself just to get the d--- work done without wasting time on any unnecessary bull :-)

This thread came up because I'm now experiencing unfortunately similar dynamics in my own program - an unpredictable mix of friendliness, then competition, from a particular person. It's come as a bit of a surprise because I have known this person for six months now and these displays began just a few weeks ago. We are close in research interests, but not as similar as I am with other students. It's a weakness of mine that I genuinely want to befriend everyone, and I know it's not realistic. I feel too old to be this sensitive about it, but I've never handled conflict well, even if it feels more like a cold war. Still, PhD programs are so hard - why can't people band together under the stress instead of turning on one another? I hope your situation has improved since the summer.

Is your advisor an assistant professor? She sure sounds like one, working frantically against her tenure clock and taking you on the crazy train with her. I have seen this a lot, always with untenured professors, and I think it's really sad. In order for the relationship to be successful, you'd need to be really comfortable pushing back, and knowing that no matter what, she'll always ask you to do one more thing - a beast that may never be satisfied. If imagining 5+ years of that seems unbearable, keep pushing to switch advisors. Also, are your communications to the area coordinator as direct as your posts on here? From what you've written, you see to be very tolerant, polite, and accommodating in your interactions with your advisor (and others, I imagine). Could it be that your politeness waters down the urgency of your message? Sometimes faculty are so busy that you really have to metaphorically yell "Fire!" for them to take action - it might feel pushy or uncomfortable to you, but really, they don't notice.