UnlikelyGrad

OOOH! Will do. (My kids have the old MacBook now, and it's driving them crazy.)

Well, if it were someone not in my department, I guess it would be OK. I just don't know anyone else.

I've read this thread as a moderator before, but now that I'm officially divorced I'm reading it with new eyes... (Note: I may need a couple of years of therapy before I can be in a LTR, but that's another story!) For me dating will be a different cup of tea than for you, maybe, because I'm >10 years older than 95% of the grad students in my department...and the other 5% are already married! There are professors my age, though. *squick* So for me, the only way I can really date anyone is to get involved in stuff off-campus which, conveniently, I already am. There's one group in particular that is fun to hang out with which includes some very nerdy people; we play games together one night a week. I figure any dates I get are likely to come from this pool. I just hope the guys aren't too intimidated by a woman who has more formal education than they do.

Thanks, Strangefox!

YES!!! Do not get an ordinary MacBook. I had one which my ex bought me used during my first year of grad school. The case, being plastic, cracked in a not-good place and I had trouble with the keyboard/trackpad ever after. Now I have a MacBookPro which is more or less indestructible aluminum and I am soooo happy! I would say, get a minimum 4 GB RAM and 250 GB hard drive. I had 2 GB/150 GB (I think) on the old machine and I *was* starting to run out. But then, I have a huge music library and lots of pictures of my kiddos...

For starters, hand out a mean-sounding syllabus on the first day of class. I'm not sure being short has anything to do with lack of respect. (My advisor is short, and all the undergrads I talk to say they are scared of her!) Having a babyface hasn't stopped me too much. (Admittedly, now that I'm pushing 40, my 'babyface' makes me look 25, which is not a bad thing.) It's a matter of having presence, I think, and that has only a smidgen to do with looks. If you don't want your students to dread coming to class: (1) Make sure your lectures are WELL-PREPARED...don't wander hither and yon (figuratively speaking) as you try to lecture. I don't mean that you have to read word-for-word (which would also make the students dread your class), but rather that you should have a good, solid outline of what you want to cover. (2) Make sure you "change gears" every 10-15 minutes...e.g. don't just sit there and lecture, lecture, lecture or people will fall asleep. Do an activity (which can be a 'thought activity'), have a demonstration, have a discussion, or--if all else fails--tell a story which is somewhat relevant to the class. (3) One of the things that will really help is if you learn all of your students' names. Some of the profs here who do the big lectures are amazing at this. They wander around before lecture starts to find out what students' names are (early in the semester) or say hi and ask how it is going (later on, after they know the names). I've never been good at names, so a 250-person lecture class might be beyond me. But I did manage to learn all of my students' names in my labs (~24 students) by week 6 of the semester. Don't just learn their names, call them by name frequently: "Mark, do you have a question?" "Yes, Jane, how can I help you?"

LOL. I was just going to say, "Squish w/ tissue--or hand if no tissue is handy"

People who have met me find this hard to believe, but I am terribly afraid of walking up to strangers to start a conversation. Sometimes I even find it hard to talk to people I know! I've worked on this fear for many, many years and have gotten quite good at doing it--but it still scares the heck out of me! So I don't know if that counts as conquering a fear or not.

For me, the key to success is setting goals weekly but scheduling daily. I've found that it is impossible to schedule weekly when research is involved. I used to try, and I'd always end up falling flat on my face. For example, "Monday I'll do A, Tuesday, I'll do B, Wednesday I'll do C." But then on Monday I would do A and find that my first approach didn't work at all, so I'd do A again on Tuesday (and sometimes on Wednesday and Thursday)...and just barely start B at the end of the week. So now I try to think of overall goals: "I'm going to do A this week, and think about what I need to do to do B and C, if I have the time." Then, on Sunday night, I say: "Tomorrow I'm doing A. What specific things do I need to do to do A?" Sometimes after planning I'll run into lab to get some reagents made up, so I can get going on the experiment first thing Monday morning. After I finish my work on Monday, I'll sit down for a bit (usually while I'm acid washing the lines in the equipment--nothing to do for ~15 min anyway) and evaluate: Did things go as planned? If not, what will I do differently? What do I need to do those things tomorrow? If things did go well, I'm moving on to task B tomorrow. What do I need to do to prepare for task B? I've found that it's very important to figure out when, and under what circumstances you work best; try to plan your hardest tasks for those times/circumstances. I'm a morning person, so I like to start my hard stuff right after getting into the lab. So any prep work that can be done in advance (reagent prep, as mentioned earlier, is a big one) is done the afternoon/evening before. I'm pretty fuzzy in the afternoon, so this is a good time for menial tasks--not just reagent prep, but also washing dishes, ordering lab supplies, you name it... I've found that if all hell breaks loose early in the day (e.g. analytical equipment dies and needs fixing), I almost never get good data. So instead I'll spend the day fixing the equipment first, doing homework (if I have any), reading technical journals, doing bureaucratic stuff that really ought to be taken care of...and really, I've found I have at least one day a week where I just can't get be productive in lab. I don't know why, it just happens. Sometimes I make up on the weekends (and yes, sometimes this means hauling the kiddos in with me; they play on the computer while I work), and sometimes I just give it up as a lost cause. Sorry this is so rambly and disjointed--hope you can pick at least one useful bit of info out of what I've written!

Yes. This. I usually buy ~2 months in advance, if possible, then skim the book to get a feel for what's covered. I don't read in depth until the term starts.

My first year, I registered on orientation day. To tell the honest truth, my advisor wasn't much help (admittedly, she's in charge of grad admissions in the department, and was trying to make sure everyone was where they needed to be). She told me to ask a second-year student in the same program, who turned out to be very helpful (and is still a good friend).

Wow. That's a tough situation. First of all, I would nix transferring to AU--better to build up connections, I think, and do a post-doc there (if you're in a field that does post-docs). I don't think starting over is worth the hassle. We had a prof 'abandon' my department at the end of last academic year. Both of his remaining students (who were 1 to 2 years from finishing) decided to stay on here. They don't seem to have any problems doing their research, and my understanding is that they communicate with him as much as they used to before. But the long-distance advisor thing doesn't work for everyone. Having just finished a year away from your advisor, you should know what you think of how well it works for you. (Yes, it clearly WORKS, since you got a lot accomplished while she was away. But did you like that arrangement? I wasn't clear on how you felt about it from reading your story.) Personally, while I can do long-distance--my advisor was also on sabbatical this year, and I got a lot accomplished--I don't like it very much. I'm very glad that she'll be back soon: 3 more weeks! Hooray! You may feel differently, however...

Theoretically yes, but...what, exactly do you think "dissertation" means? For someone majoring in English, maybe a dissertation just means reading and writing. But for someone in engineering or science (the sort of person who would want a research post at an industrial lab/consulting company), a dissertation means: RESEARCH. Writing too, but also lots and lots of research. Because a science/engineering dissertation can't just be a big long review paper: it has to contain original research. I have read master's theses by previous students of my advisor. I have read doctoral dissertations written by her students, too. There is no comparison: the doctoral students are way, way ahead of where the master's students are. Let me put it this way: at the end of this summer, I will probably have enough research that I could write a master's thesis and get my M.S. But I feel like I'm just getting started in terms of "learning the research ropes". If I had an MS, I think I could perform research competently, but only under the supervision of a Ph.D. My advisor trains us to be independent.

I looked at their list of compatible modems, then bought one on eBay for about 1/3 the price of what I would have paid getting one through Comcast.

Really??!! I'm paying $35/month. When we had Comcast in CA we had terrible problems with outages--at least once a month, sometimes lasting 2-3 days! We finally switched to DSL (which, I should add, was even slower than the stats Strangefox gave--but still allowed us to Skype). However, here in CO I have only had 1 outage in 5 months, and even then it was only for a couple of hours. So I think a lot depends on the reliability of the local cable network.

Agreed 100%.

Yes, it is. I think dealing with mental health issues is getting better/easier, though, as it's becoming more widely accepted that mental illness is (1) treatable and (2) not a reflection on the person's being "good" and "bad". The real problem, as I see it, is that there are a lot of (mostly older) people who still harbor the old attitudes. I feel like once these all die off, society will be a much more accepting, and an overall better place for people with mental illness.

Talking about it endlessly--no, that wouldn't help. But really, as hard as it would be to leave--making the decision to leave an abusive relationship is the hardest part. Really. And sometimes people need to hear outsiders telling them to leave for months or years before it finally sinks in. She'll get there sooner or later.

Not sure about NCAR (though I know who to ask to find out), but my understanding is that w/ USGS, once you go through internal review, you are allowed to publish/share the work freely. I do know that people with NCAR and USGS frequently collaborate with people from outside institutions, though, and I've seen several (and quite a few from NREL--different field, but same government-entity mentality) present work-in-progress at departmental seminars.

Postdoc length: That depends on which field. I think my predecessor spent ~1 year in his postdoc before landing a TT job (though, to be fair, he's probably stayed at his postdoc institution through the end of the school year, 1.5 years). I think the USGS postdocs are 2-3 years long.

I'm pretty sure there are people at CU Boulder who do stuff like that--NCAR is affiliated with CU Boulder, and there is a good deal of atmospheric stuff (including modeling) that goes on there.

Well, the geochem program I'm in tends to place people in environmental consulting firms. As far as I know, there have only been 3 graduates who have gone on to academia... Yes, you're right, solid-Earth people are in the highest demand, but that doesn't mean there aren't jobs of other sorts out there. Personally, I think that mastering biogeochemistry will allow me to work in pretty much any field...

That is actually a normal way for a victim of emotional abuse to feel. So let me ask you this: what will happen if you do leave, and fail? How will it be different from your normal life? Let's face it: right now anything you do is a failure, in your mother's eyes. If you fail, she calls you on your failure. If you do something that everyone else (including yourself) thinks is right, you still are a failure to her and her boyfriend. If you leave, you might fail sometimes, but at least it would be a failure under your control. You would know what to do to fix the problem. Or you would know who to ask for help in fixing the problem. You would be the one in control of your own life...as in control as anyone can be of a life, anyway. I read somewhere that abuse victims, on average, try leaving 10-12 times before they actually leave. As someone who's been there, I can tell you it is hard. (My number was more like 2, but there were years and years between attempts in which I tried to fix what was wrong with me to make the relationship right. I finally accepted that my ex was completely unwilling to change, except in ways that garnered him more control.) I am not saying that there won't be consequences for leaving. There will be. You may end up a lot poorer than you were before--in fact, I guarantee it. You will spend lots of time looking over your shoulder, wondering when your mom will show up to drag you back home. This is normal, and it will fade with time. Do you have (local) friends who are aware of your situation, who are willing to help? If so, get them to plan your escape. At the end of my marriage, I knew I should leave, but I honestly did not see a way to make it happen. My sisters planned my escape for me. Once the plan started going together and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, I broke through paralysis a little and contributed to the plan somewhat. But I really couldn't get it started. If you know you have to leave but you don't think you can, I highly recommend getting a friend to help you. Some will say no, but some will say yes. Good luck!

Oh, grow up. No one can force you to do anything. Your mother pressured you and you yielded to her pressure. It was your choice. Trust me, I know about pushy relatives. I have a pushy mom (see my blog). I had, for 20 years, a controlling (to-the-point-of-abusiveness) husband. I learned to stand up for myself. I learned to say no. And when my husband got angry at me because I was actually telling him no...I left. Sometimes you just have to take responsibility for your own actions.

It wasn't clear to me that he had accepted the offer--it sounded like he was deciding whether to accept it or not, since it seemed stingy. I should clarify that you should ask students who are already students what they make--not those who are going to be coming in with you! Also, I should add that, at my school, there is a regulation mandating the minimum you can pay a grad student. Almost everyone makes this rate. (My advisor generously gives me an extra $50/month.) I advise you to search the school website to see if such a minimum exists--if it does, it is generally available to the public.