HyacinthMacaw

I had a professor who concluded every email with "Serving the Moon Goddess since 1961." Seriously. Personally, I haven't decided which goddess to serve just yet, but when I do I'll add my supplications to my email signature. Or perhaps I should just close with a word of wisdom from our dignified sage, Pit Bull: "Now pump it up and back it up like a Tonka truck."

Good question! I guess academic folks just like to separate work and play--work hard, play hard, you know? It reminds me of how childish professors would get in the buffet line at conferences. There was this one guy carrying fistfuls of coconut shrimp before frolicking to his hotel room like a little kid at a candy store. (Oh wait, that was me.) I really do like people to loosen up and mix work and fun, but if people aren't comfortable with sipping bourbon and getting their freak on in class, I think that's cool. Some people's style is just a little more reserved.

Dear folks, I'd like to elicit your thoughts and comments on a heartbreaking issue. I came across this article in which the authors surveyed graduate admissions committees for "kisses of death" that would lead them to reject otherwise strong applicants. I discovered that the disclosure of struggles with one's mental health represented an ostensibly egregious error in that category. To survey respondents, this indicated emotional instability, and the authors of the article warn that evidence of a turbulent personal history or trauma could suggest an inability to function as a successful graduate student. I'm objecting to this reasoning not only because I've struggled with severe recurring depression ever since I was 13, engaged in violent self-harm before attempting suicide nearly two years ago, and am thus inclined to rush to the defense of the despondent. I object because the characterization of my brothers and sisters in suffering as "unable to function as successful graduate student" infuriates me, and I view surviving trauma and abuse (or self-abuse) as a testament to one's strength, not infirmity. I object because exhibiting our humanity when we convey these narratives should elicit respect in the very least--not icy reprimands, "kisses of death." I object because divorcing personal history from professional ambition can carry particular sting. In this context, stigma is the shame of having to keep something private for fear of prejudice, disgust, disdain, disapproval. I have no doubt that private victimization, however defined, can propel us to achieve in our fields. Grief motivates us to dream harder. And the relationship is bidirectional; our academic work can spur emotional growth, our zest for living. There are probably hazards to this linkage of the private and the public, but they do not justify discriminatory admissions practices. Indeed, very few things do. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against qualified people with disabilities, including those with mental illness. I say "qualified" because an applicant or employee must still perform the "essential duties" of his or her position. If a psychiatric diagnosis interferes with this, then an employer could legally deny an applicant employment. It's immaterial whether the disclosure of psychiatric history is voluntary, I believe, as in the case of personal statements--just as an employer or university cannot discriminate on the basis of religion if one were to offer that information. In any case, the judgment that a mentally disordered individual cannot execute the basic functions of his or her position cannot be made on the basis of stereotypical generalizations but on objective evidence. This also applies in assessments that an individual may be a "direct threat" to him/herself or to others. For all the moral disgrace of mental health stigma, prejudice, and discrimination during the application process, I've discovered that these are likely to dissolve once nestled safely in a graduate program and under the wing of a supportive advisor. I was blessed with such an advisor already; indeed, I was surprised he was capable of such compassion as when I informed him via email that I had landed in the hospital after doing all I could to end my life. I don't plan on disclosing my history to my current advisor, but I can already tell that if I were to relapse, she would grant me all the resources I would need for an accelerated recovery. So how are admissions committees quick to dismiss applicants who discuss emotional/physical trauma and/or mental illness but equally quick, as individual advisors, to accommodate students suffering the same? If mental illness really does manifest an inability to function as a successful graduate student, then graduate students who disclose their illness to advisors and department chairs would be deemed unfit to continue their studies and promptly expelled. The reasoning of survey respondents in the above article leads to that harsh conclusion. Ultimately, capricious, inscrutable admissions committees can reject applicants for reasons that have nothing to do with merit. We've grown accustomed to that by now. Fairness doesn't always prevail. So why raise the issue? Well, for one I'm concerned that misconceptions about the mentally ill as violent or dangerous will continue to dominate admissions/hiring decisions. Though this callous discrimination can melt away in relationships with colleagues, thus challenging those stereotypes, our attitudes towards groups as whole entities does matter. There's a difference between demonstrating compassion to a schizophrenic co-worker and having favorable attitudes towards schizophrenics in general. These are of course related, but I would argue that much of what passes for prejudice reduction occurs at the interpersonal level only, not the intergroup level. So ambivalence towards certain groups can survive independent of our interpersonal treatment of members of these groups. And such ambivalence (or antipathy) still poses a problem because it can predict discrimination in organizational settings and perhaps political opposition to budgetary allocations for mental health services. Put simply, I will never doubt the capacity for human beings to love one another within their established social networks, but I am far more pessimistic of our good will towards groups in general. To bridge that distance, I suppose we ought to feel every suicide as the suicide of a loved one, every abuse as the abuse of a loved one, every illness as our own--but that would defy our bloody history. That's the tragedy here--placing groups at a psychological distance justifies our cruelty even though every tear, every death, should break our hearts whether or not we know the afflicted. So what do you think? Is mental health stigma still a problem? I'm sorry I've spit this out so incoherently. Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated. Thanks for reading!

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, and my apologies for the delay in posting a follow-up! I think this is definitely something to speak with my advisor about. I was perhaps overestimating the danger of being "scooped." Thanks again, and all the best.

Hi socpsy_123, I'm afraid I don't know of any such joint-degree programs, but some social psych programs may allow you to take courses in ethnic studies departments. Also, the Culture and Psychology Research Group (CPRG) at the University of Kansas may interest you even if it falls short of offering a joint degree. Feel free to take a look here: http://www.psych.ku.edu/cprg/cprgthemes.html Wishing you all the best in your search.

Hello folks, I've enthusiastically accepted an offer to enroll in a doctoral program that seems like a wonderful fit, and I've started planning a new life in a new city. One thing I wonder, however, is whether I can collaborate with a professor at another university that denied me admission. This professor is examining exactly the same issue that I am at the university in which I'm about to enroll. This is a specific area--as specific as "interventions to aid gang-affiliated youth," perhaps. She hasn't published any work yet, but we are reading the same theoretical and empirical papers. If we don't collaborate, I fear that our two labs will replicate each other's independent work while only one lab will have the honor of publication. So will it be safe to contact this professor and ask her the status of her research program, what experiments she has conducted and will conduct, etc.? Should I forthrightly express interest in collaborating, and if so, how should I do that? I would really appreciate your thoughts and comments. Thanks, and all the best!

Sounds like a fun gig--really! I found Writing with Style by Trimble to be an indispensable resource during my freshman writing class. It is essentially an update of Elements of Style by Strunk & White. All the best!

89.5% of the programs to which I applied rejected me, which is oddly about the same percentage of applicants that most programs reject (maybe it's even a little higher)! These are long odds indeed.

Woo-hoo! I just accepted an invitation to join the Social Psych program at KU. I can't wait to start working! I'm already looking for apartments. Please feel free to PM me if you're also heading to Lawrence, especially if you're in the Social Psych program! All the best!

Hello folks, I do not have children, but I would like to raise a child at one point. I feel comfortable in academia, and although I derive great purpose and pleasure from my work, I also understand that the pressure to attain stature in the field and become tenured can degrade the quality of one's relationships with his or her family and friends. So how conducive is academia to raising a family? Here's how I see it: I'm 23 now, and I'll be 28 when I finish my PhD program. Maybe I might land a tenure-track job when I'm 30, and if I'm lucky enough I might get tenure at 37 or so. I would rather not wait until then to start raising a family, which means I'll have to start when I finally have a stable job. My point is, I don't want to be the kind of careerist father whose children always see him working, whose children grow up feeling neglected and abandoned by their father. I know that asking to work just 40 hours a week would be asking too much. But I really would like to teach my child to read one day, to walk, cook meals for her/him, etc., i.e. just be a good father. I don't believe in the kind of gendered division of labor that delegates child-rearing to women only. I want to be an active participant in ensuring my child's welfare. Clearly, lots of professors have children, and there are professors married to other people in academia (or people in other demanding occupations like medicine, law, business, etc.). So how do they do it? Or am I just in the wrong profession? If any of you already have children, how have you dealt with the challenges of raising a child while progressing towards your degree? Thanks for all your feedback. All the best!

I'm sorry to seem like the only person posting on this thread--I'm hoping this info benefits someone! It does seem like a lot of "taught programs", i.e. M.Sc. programs have late deadlines. Check out this link for more info on the MSc in Social Cognition at University College London: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/graduate-study/degrees/pgt/TMSPSYSSCG01 Its latest deadline is August 27th. All the best!

Thank you so much!

This (and jynx's comment above) makes a lot more sense than what I wrote. My apologies for the misguided misguidance.

Hello folks, I do believe that racial harmony in academia consists of more than just prejudice reduction or mere tolerance. Such politeness without compassion fails to address the psychological victimization of ethnic minorities, a sort of internalized racism that metastasizes over time. Even in a world bereft of prejudice, the reality of racial difference and phenotypic variation--being the "other"--injects a pervasive sense that one does not belong. Not in government, not in business, medicine, or law. And certainly not in academia. So this is a thread about the experience of ethnic minorities in this turbocharged and insular place. Non-minorities are of course welcome to join the conversation. I write from experience. I grew up hating myself for the color of my skin, which is a shade darker than the color of dead leaves. There was a bliss to whiteness that I craved, and I exerted great effort to punish myself for my sordid heritage. I categorize myself as Indo-Trinidadian, the descendant of indentured servants that emigrated from India to Trinidad. I came to the United States from Trinidad as an infant. I have never felt that I belonged anywhere, and I suspect that my conviction that I am different, and that others see me as different, must have contributed to my racial self-aversion. Despite the pleasure and purpose that I derive from working in my field, I feel arrested by the notion that I'm infringing on turf where I am not welcome. The delusion of isolation, I think, is the price of racial uniqueness, and it's a delusion that I still struggle to vanquish. Even more, stereotypes about my ethnic group's performance in academic settings don't exist. I can't imagine how exhausting life must be for those of African, Hispanic, and Native American descent, that is, those who hail from groups stigmatized in this line of work. And even if I were to find myself surrounded by Indo-Trinidadians in the lab, would uncertainty about my belonging subside? I'm not sure. I have grown accustomed to the injection of self-doubt wherever hope might lie. As a result, I pressure myself to succeed, but achievement awards me neither belonging nor confidence. There are occasions when I wish I would have professed my affection for certain women who seemed to possess the kindness to quell an anxious heart, who might have viewed my intimate company as something more than an act of contamination. And yet, I feared rejection because of the color of my skin. I am still terrified that the impurities of my race (not just my physical attributes, but my culture, my homeland) foretells only more unrequited love. I have therefore completely avoided initiating any non-platonic contact with women. It wouldn't surprise me if women never reciprocated my affection, anyway, for I know that I have little to offer. In romance, my racial otherness places me at a disadvantage, while White male suitors, still a numerical majority, exercise their privilege of never having to contend with psychological torment like this. So who out there also lies among those wounded in the war on ourselves? How do you protect yourself, buoy your self-worth in a line of work that is rife with failure? When belonging to an ethnic minority, will the scars ever disappear? Namely, does the perceived lack of fit in high-status occupations dissipate, or will we always feel "out of place"? And how to navigate the treacherous waters of interracial romance? To women, LGBTs, religious minorities, and working-class folks: What challenges have you faced in academia that are distinctly the burden of minorities? What opportunities? Many thanks to all of you for reading and for contributing. I would like to think that this sort of discussion pushes this diverse world a little bit closer together.

Hi! I would venture to guess that while any research beats no research at all, research that has little to no bearing on your POI's interests will garner you less respect than research experience within at least his or her subject area (e.g., intergroup relations, emotion, etc.). I worked for years as an undergrad in a clinical science lab before switching to social psychology as a master's student in two different programs. I was worried that I lacked a coherent narrative given the abrupt switch. Still, my most recent research experience informed my research interests as I expressed them in my statement. It was my most recent work, not my clinical science work, that suggested my degree of fit in social psychology programs. Hope that helps. All the best!

As a follow-up, I can add that the online application deadline for NYU's General Psych MA program is May 15th. They also do "on the spot" admissions if you apply after the deadline. You will need to gather standard application materials and submit them at an informal interview with the director of the the MA program, Barry Cohen. Feel free to contact him at bc2@nyu.edu for more info. That said, I'll emphasize that this is a non-funded master's program, and tuition costs over $12,000 per semester. I found my entry into the MA program useful only to gain access into a great social psych lab and start designing my own research. I left the program after one semester so as to relieve myself of any additional financial burdens, but I had already secured a comfortable place working for and with a professor.

Hey folks, I just figured it might be a good idea to start a thread to call attention to master's and doctoral programs in psychology that are still accepting applications for matriculation later this year. Chances are there are a lot of folks out there exploring alternative options, a "plan B." Let's hope this thread can highlight some of these opportunities. If I received no offers to Ph.D. programs, my "plan B" was to apply to the M.Sc. program in Group Processes and Intergroup Relations at the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK. Its deadline is July 2011 if you intend to matriculate in September 2011 (the same goes for the PhD programs). For funding consideration, however, the deadline is a few months earlier: May 31st for this scholarship for MSc programs. Unfortunately, the deadline for research PhD scholarships seems to have passed. Feel free to browse the site for more information: http://www.kent.ac.uk/psychology/why-pg.html I was in correspondence with the admissions staff (psypgadmissions@kent.ac.uk) last year, and I'll relay their replies here verbatim: "The New Route PhD takes an extra year and includes all the coursework you would take in one of our taught MSc programs in addition to the stats course, spread out over the first two years. The transferable skills training is a part of both the New Route and regular PhD. I believe you can specify that you are applying for the New Route when you apply for the PhD. My one caution is that I am not sure if all of our competitive studentship funding will cover all 4 years." "GRE scores are not required. Assuming you are looking to start studies in September 2011, you may want to look for the announcements of our studentship competition which will be on the website in late December or early January; for that we will require that you apply early in the year. Apart from the studentships, you can apply for graduate study at any time up to 2 months from your start date. "You are very welcome to provide more than two letters of recommendation if you think it will aid our decision-making. Our online application system asks for the email addresses of two referees but I will gladly accept the third or even fourth over email and attach to your file. "As for our admission statistics, we have received 48 PhD application so far this year and have made offers to 25 applicants. "We do advise applicants who do not qualify for Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership with the British Psychological Society to request that their referees complete a proforma regarding applicants' statistical and methodological training. These are downloadable here: http://www.kent.ac.uk/psychology/forms/pro-formas.html. Your referees are welcome to fax (+44 1227 827030) or email them directly to me for ease." I do feel it's a great program--Kent houses the research center that publishes the Group Processes and Intergroup Relations journal. Lots of well-known faculty there, too: Dominic Abrams, Richard Crisp, etc. In addition to Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, the School of Psychology also offers M.Sc. degrees in cognitive psych/neuropsych, forensic psych, research methods, and social and applied psychology. They offer research degrees in a lot of the same areas: cognitive/neuropsych, social, forensic, health, and developmental. I hope that helps! Please feel free to share info about programs that are still accepting applications. All the best!

I just googled "egg in a nest" and love the idea. Thanks for the discovery!

Thanks!

Congratulations to the person who posted on the results page that they have received an offer from Penn State! Receiving the good news in person must have been extra special. Might I ask you who your POI is? Feel free to PM me. I am just under pressure to accept another program's offer, and I haven't heard from Penn State since the Dec. 1st deadline. I suspect the news isn't favorable for me, so I would just like them to reject me ASAP. Thanks! Also, has anyone heard anything at all from Rutgers? This is another case where I haven't heard anything since the deadline. I am not even sure if they have extended interviews, as there are no posts on the results page for the Rutgers social psych program. Thanks again, and all the best to everyone.

Glasstothearson, first off I just want to commend you for seeking treatment. Though I can understand why you might feel bad about leaving the office for a few hours each week, you are receiving vital medical treatment. If you were a professor, how would you feel if your student, diagnosed with depression and anxiety, felt bad about visiting his or her therapist? Wouldn't you do all you could to reassure them that they deserve treatment, that their lives are precious, too, and that just as the cancer patient receives regular chemotherapy, so must the person suffering from mental illness? If your advisor asks you about your absences, feel free to share only as much as you would like. I like poco_puffs' idea of referencing a "standing appointment." I've struggled with severe recurring depression ever since I was 13. I resorted to self-harm behaviors and, at my most desperate point at which I lost all hope, I attempted suicide soon after I graduated from college, as a master's student. You are correct in your suspicion that many people experience depression and/or anxiety in grad school. Many more probably go untreated. So again I congratulate you on receiving a combination of medication and psychotherapy to accelerate your recovery. I hope that you have found your medication and biweekly therapy satisfactory. It can take a while for the effects of those treatments to kick in. If you would like to explore additional therapy, I would recommend dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). It emphasizes letting go of negative self-judgments and practicing self-compassion. Its four themes are mindfulness, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and emotion regulation. It is empirically supported for the treatment of depression. It's a grievous shame that most university health insurance plans only cover psychotherapy for up to 12 or so sessions per academic year, I think. That's how it worked at my undergrad. Please don't be afraid to seek additional treatment (in the form of group therapy, weekly or twice-weekly therapy instead of biweekly therapy, etc.) if you feel your current treatments are not making you feel better. Feeling Good by David Burns has been recommended to me if you would like to explore bibliotherapy. I wish you all the best as well as a speedy recovery. Navigating depression's fog can often seem like an endless voyage, as if lost at sea without a compass, or like trudging through waist-deep mud, but the best thing about this illness is that it is 100 percent treatable. In therapy, you can also learn ways to build resilience and cope with stress to ward off depression should it ever threaten to return (let's hope it doesn't). Take care, and please be ask kind to yourself as you would like others to be.

Thanks for all the comments, folks! I'm definitely going to deliberate on this some more. I agree that access to the library database shouldn't be a problem as long as I've got an online ID. This will allow me to keep up with the literature even if I move in a few weeks rather than a few months before the fall semester. Thanks again!

Hey folks, I'm posting in this forum because I'd like to elicit comments from current grad students rather than prospective ones. I'm incredibly psyched about attending a particular program that has offered me admission. Indeed, if I could start working and move there tomorrow, I would do it in a heartbeat. The problem is that I have to wait until the fall semester starts! That's 5 months! I can't even read up on the literature in the interim because I am not a registered student anywhere and lack access to online library resources. I suspect that money from my fellowship cannot be dispensed until the fall. Moreover, the program offers only limited summer funding, and I doubt I would qualify. So does anyone know how I might be able to start working in June, say, despite these obstacles? I plan on discussing this with the graduate director (who also happens to be my primary advisor), but I have yet to send in my acceptance of the program's offer. There's little doubt that I'll matriculate there, but I don't want to commit before I've received all decisions, and this may not happen until mid-April. That said, irrespective of which program I attend, I would like to start doing research (or honestly, just reading more than abstracts, since that's all I have access to for now) as soon as possible. It's not like if I have a summer job lined up for me or anything like that or an extended summer vacation planned. I live with my mother and father and am unemployed. I don't believe I'm qualified for a summer job, anyway. Many thanks for all your help! I wish you all the best.

Don't worry about it! Just do your best with what remaining coursework you have and be proud of it. Would you believe that the average GPA of admitted applicants to Harvard University is slightly lower than the average GPA of rejected applicants? I received three C's, one C-, and one C+ when I was an undergrad, and yet I received an offer from a program with an excellent reputation in the area in which I would like to work. Of course, I didn't make PBK, but lots of successful applicants don't either. That's not to discount the importance of GPA. GPA, like GRE scores, does provide a relatively objective basis for comparing applicants. So as I said, just do your best. Even if you fall short of some arbitrary standard, no one can say that you didn't try as hard as you could. Needless to say, convert the impulse to criticize yourself (or compare yourself to others) into positive action.

Screw the need for an even remotely academic topic; chances are we're hungry, and if we're not hungry now, we will be soon. We could use some vicarious sustenance. Please spare no detail--feel free to describe your favorite sandwich in as sumptuous and orgasmic a manner as you like. Burritos, gyros, and calzones count. For my part, I keep dreaming of this lamb gyro from a guy named Shafiq off Liberty Avenue in Jamaica, Queens, NY. It's a greasy, beautiful mess of dense chunks of spiced meat oozing all sorts of mysterious juices (and lots of salt, probably). It comes wrapped in foil, a $4 brick of a gyro, not anything like its overpriced Manhattan counterparts. Shafiq plasters his gyros with his legendary "white sauce," (a blend of mayonnaise and dill, I think) which the pita slowly absorbs even as it has been lightly brushed with oil to add sponginess. When holding the sandwich vertically, the liquid elements seep down to saturate the bottom end, increasing the unctuousness of the experience with each bite. I've only managed to eat a few in my lifetime, each never less than a month apart. Consuming more of these would constitute self-abuse. Nevertheless, I have never felt so satisfied after eating a sandwich, and I had no idea it could induce such pleasure. Thank you, and please feel free to share!