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eco_env

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Posts posted by eco_env

  1. Use Google Maps Public Transit to get an idea for how long it would take to get from point A to point B with and without a car. For example, it takes me 45+ mins to get to campus by bus/walking, and it would take 10-15 min by car. I can get to some places ~2 miles from my apt faster by walking than taking the bus. That's what I call a bad public transportation system. But I've managed to make it work, at least for everyday purposes, not so much if I want to get out to neighboring cities. This will probably be true for most cities with a bus system.

  2. Help! Any appeal stories out there?

    Hi all. I received an honorable mention in the NSF GRFP competition this year, and my reviews have only left my baffled...

    I got glowing reviews, except that two reviewers said that I didn't connect my project to existing literature.

    This is baffling because.... I did. The entire second paragraph in my proposal does just that. It's like they somehow just completely missed that part of the proposal. It just doesn't make any sense, and I don't even know what to think.

    I would really like to somehow bring this to the attention of the program officers in hopes that they could perhaps give my application another look?

    Normally I wouldn't be one to appeal a decision like this, but since the only criticism I got is an objective matter that I can refute/correct by simply pointing them to the correct portion of my proposal, I feel like it is worth a shot.

    Does anyone know of any successful appeal stories? Or should I just accept this as one of those times when life doles out a crappy hand?

    Any advice/insight would be much appreciated!

    if they didn't notice it, you didn't make it obvious enough. several of my reviewers did the same thing (saying I didn't do something, when I actually did and wrote about it). Reviewers read proposals quickly; it's your job to make important parts stick out (but don't ask me how, because i clearly fail in this respect).

  3. At least in our department, with 1-3 grad students in a class, evaluations aren't anonymous at all. Just as advisors grow a thick skin to hearing things that don't agree with them, as a grad student you should get used to doling out fair and even handed assessment that you don't mind signing your name to.

    Being a student, grad or undergrad, is a completely different situation from being a professor. Professors still have power over you. I don't want my professors knowing I'm the one that gave them a bad evaluation- if they feel my assesment is unfair, they might develop resentment towards me and evaluate me more harshly. If I (subconciously) resent a professor for what I percive as an unfair evaluation, there's not much I can do other than give a bad evaluation if I take a class with him/her again- in which case it's just one of several evaluations of his/her teaching, and eaching is not the most important part of his/her job anyway.

  4. I paid a student (not much, maybe $20) to look at apartments for me. She took pictures and gave me an overview of the area of each apt. I mailed in an application with a deposit based on her recommendation. It turned out OK, though I might have hesitated to take this apt if I'd seen it in person. I told her which apt to check out; I found the mmostly through padmapper and called to ask about visits and availability first, so she only visited apts that looked good to me.

  5. Hey Owl.

    I was accepted maybe 5 weeks ago. They are hosting an event for accepted students this weekend through Monday, March 19.

    I have until april 15, but i'll respond to the offer sooner than that

    Anybody heard from Berkeley's ESPM? I emailed the graduate director and she would say nothing on dates nor on my specific application, I am running out of my patience :wacko:

    Are you sure you are talking about the same program? ESPM isn't really a microbio program. Owl, you'll probably get your rejection in early April :(.

  6. Please be very careful when it comes to encouraging proof reading by third parties. By some academic standards, this activity can lead to unintentional acts of plagiarism. It is one thing to offer a general comment about word choices or verb tenses ("You might want to double check your verb tenses...") while a specific recommendation ("Change 'she thinks' to 'she thought'.") might be crossing the line.

    It might be a problem if you are getting graded on grammar. Otherwise, you learn proper grammar (or get extra eyes to catch typos you didn't notice), and the grader understands what you were trying to communicate better. everyone wins.

  7. I know some people don't like that the NRC rankings are given as ranges, but I think the ranges are informative without being so unrealistically definite (Program A is #1, Program B is #2, etc).

    This way I can say the program that accepted me is just as good as the programs that rejected me without an interview- since there's a slight overlap in their ranges. ;)

  8. anyone else reread their essays and think they aren't any good anymore? haha..

    I'm afraid to. I was revising my research proposal for a different application, and I think I sent it out with a mistake in the logic of my expected results. No one who reviewed it realized it; i guess it was so convulted anyway, it didn't make any sense.

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