cogneuroforfun

I know home phone isn't very expensive when you bundle it with TV/internet at home, but I think most people with normal/expensive cell phone plans don't have home phone. So if you're comparing cell phone only vs. home phone only, that reduces the price difference by $5 or $10 per month or whatever home phone would cost you, although home phone would still be much cheaper. As for not being reachable 24/7, that would be nice, but it isn't feasible for me and probably many others. It may be different if you're not in a lab setting, where labmates or your PI may need to reach you with questions or problems (or I may need to reach them ).

If your university and apartment/house both have wifi, you can also grab a used android phone, as people have mentioned, and have most of the benefits of a data plan (internet on all the time) without having to pay for either data or voice. That doesn't exactly solve your cellphone question, but a cheap prepaid flip-phone + wifi android phone will serve all your phone/data needs and cost only the prepaid minutes you actually need. Not bad!

Anecdotally, the DGS and several head professors in my program have said if we get all A's, we're spending too much time on classes. It was nice to hear

While I can't speak specifically to I/O, typically you should not expect credits to transfer from masters to PhD. Most PhD programs grant an MA/MS en route; they want you to take their classes and fulfill their requirements, and even if two classes at different universities look similar, they may be taught quite differently. Why don't you call or email a couple PhD programs that interest you? This is the kind of policy that will vary between schools.

If the iOS app works like the Android app, you may have to tell it to upload the file. Even if you can browse your whole dropbox on your ipad, it may be the case that files aren't actually on your device until you tell dropbox to open or download them. I believe this is so you don't run into data overages (for example, having your phone constantly sync dropbox on a 2gb plan would quickly eat up your data for the month). It is still pretty pain-free: the file structures are preserved and uploads/downloads are very quick.

Yeah, Touchpad is discontinued. Supposedly HP is going to support webOS for awhile, but it isn't clear how much support anyone can expect. At the very least, you have a nicely specced and sized browser/media player tablet. At best, webOS may still get some nice upgrades and ports of Android, Linux, and maybe Windows will be developed. If you're in the market for a 10" tablet and don't care about getting 100s of games to play, even $250 is relatively cheap and decent. For $99 or $150, it is a steal.

A $99 HP Touchpad (if you can find one) also looks like a very sweet deal for a cheap pdf reader option.

This is why you should not apply for a PhD, in any field. It is worth the stress if you know what you're getting into and you want to do it. It sounds like you have a lot of interests, but are not anywhere near ready to lock yourself down into one of them for 5-7 years of study + a lifetime career after that. Take some time off, get a mindless job if you can't find anything super interesting, and keep exploring your interests!

I just got Repligo Reader for Android and will now definitely use my Nook Color for reading articles. You can add notes and little graphics (arrows, highlighting, etc) on top of the pdf and these annotations do display when you open the file using Adobe on a PC. So that seals it for me, no more huge stacks of printed articles. I can take notes as I read and view those notes on the actual pdf file when I go back and reference an article for a paper or something.

I'm surprised there isn't more Nook Color love. With a rooted Nook Color and a custom ROM installed (Cyanogenmod 7 is very nice), which is actually quite easy to do, you have a full-featured Android tablet with excellent build quality for ~$200. You can overclock it to get a huge bump in performance for any graphics-intensive stuff you need. Almost any app you need can be found for free in the market, which is a nice thing about Android devices. The smaller/lighter size is good for some things (under a pound, so very easy to hold for long periods) and not as good for other things (reading scientific articles on a 7" screen means you can usually do one column at a time in portrait or short full-page horizontal sections in landscape). Oh, and it doubles as an e-reader The screen is very readable on minimum brightness, which saves battery life and your eyes! Overall, I am incredibly happy with it. It has much more functionality than an e-ink reader, but is more portable and much cheaper than a larger tablet. The Galaxy Tab WiFi is in a similar position. Here is an article comparing the two: http://blog.laptopma...r-vs-galaxy-tab I think either would be a good buy if you're on the fence about tablets or want something affordable and fully-featured. Edit: One more thing for compatibility issues. You can convert e-book formats between Kindle, Nook, etc. With any of the full-featured tablets, you can either install each of the reading apps (Kindle for Amazon, Nook reader) or convert them to a common format and use one reader for everything. I'm not sure whether e-ink/Kindle readers are able to do this.

Email is the way to go. I think I emailed mine earlier than you guys are recommending, like July-ish. It is true that their funding situation in a year may not be set in stone, but I wanted to give myself time to hear back from professors and ask questions before committing myself to writing an SoP or application for any given program. A few programs I knew I would apply to, whether I heard back from profs or not. But for most of them, I ended up applying because I was interested and the PI(s) I emailed also seemed interested. I actually only had one program/PI out of ten that I did not hear back from via email, which I still can't believe!

Yeah, publications, first author or otherwise, are bonuses, but they're by no means necessary to get into great programs. If you can publish something, great! If not, having some interesting research projects that you can talk about in personal statements and interviews is perfectly good enough. Doing research as an undergrad is a prerequisite, but having publications is not.

It doesn't sound like you really have a compelling reason to get a PsyD. It will probably open fewer doors for you professionally than you think, especially since you already have a relevant MS and work experience. If you're qualified to do therapy, keep doing it! I have heard that the clinical field is changing somewhat, as more and more services are being provided by practitioners with masters degrees in counseling, substance abuse, or social work. How much did your masters cost? How much do you think the PsyD would add to your salary? What do you think the monthly loan payments are going to be for 200k+ in non-dischargeable debt? What other certifications can you get that would help you professionally? Loving learning doesn't mean you should go into massive debt for another degree. If you've worked with "The famous Dr. Minuchin" and enjoyed it, keep being involved with research. That is a much cheaper way to foster your love of learning!

When I had to decide between buying Microsoft Office or using Open Office, I used Open Office. When my lab offered to pay for a Microsoft Office license, I went with that.

Especially if you're helping with any research projects, your current boss should be able to write you a decent letter. They won't need to actually write it out until December at the earliest, so you'll have some more time to impress them, too. Typically people take gap years when they aren't sure what they want to do or when they need to get more research experience to have a shot at good PhD programs. They may be a full-time lab manager or RA for a year or two to get solid experience designing and completing some research. For an MA in counseling, you probably don't need your application strengthened too much. Do you have decent grades? Can you retake the GRE so that it is up to par for the programs you're looking at? Do you feel comfortable starting and paying for a full-time MA?