psycholinguist

I bought a copy of SimCity 4 a couple of summers back, and I'm still playing SimCity 2000! Not to mention that I never got tired of Civilization II...

Big-Shot Professor A at Program X: 'With your grades, you should look into applying for Grant XYZ! You'd probably have a good chance at being awarded one!' Big-Shot Professor B at Program Y: 'We're sorry, but we're rejecting you. You don't have as much theoretical background as we'd prefer, and besides, your grades aren't quite high enough.' I'm not feeling all that bitter about Y, but still...go figure!

Mostly unexpected rejections for me lately. I still have options, just not as many as my initial streak of success suggested I might have. However, I loved my one campus-visit so far and I have another coming up shortly, so I'm not feeling too stressed-out about having to make a decision. Sorry for the lack of better news, but I hope [null complementiser since repeated 'that' always looks weird] that comes to something good!

I arranged to visit UCSD over my break. Meaning that I'm flying to California, spending half a day there, and then pretty much lying on the beach for most of the rest of the week. I haven't been to California in more than three years, and I've never gone to a warm place for my spring-break before, so it's about time in more ways than one! (Of course, then I'm going to come a couple of days before classes restart, so I can cram for midterms and work on the thesis a bit more. Ah well. That's what I get for being an undergrad.)

You might be able to find a semi-decent emulator for PC or Mac. Not that I know whether such things are legal.

I love my undergraduate school, and I'd theoretically have no problem staying on. However:

I've been wondering about this myself. Program X jumped on me the instant that the applications were released to faculty-members, with three professors emailing me within days. Program Y surprised me with an out-of-the-blue acceptance-letter full of praise (which I realise may be included with every application they get). Both were unexpected. This was a bigger issue for undergraduate studies for me, though. I was accepted to several colleges, amongst them P, Q, and R. P was easily the most selective, but they didn't even send me a viewbook, and their website wasn't particularly helpful; where the heck was I supposed to actually learn about them? Q had been sending me a lot of materials, almost to the point of spamming me - I'd received an introductory poster, at least one viewbook, and lots of postcards and things from them - and R had been somewhere in the middle, but with the flashiest website and most personalised acceptance-letter as well. By the time I visited all three of these places, I still had absolutely nothing from P except the piece of paper with an acceptance and my name on it; in fact, I ended up wandering around the campus at random until I found a tour-group for younger high-school students, which was the best I could hope for, and I bought a viewbook at the campus store. Meanwhile, Q and R had both been sending me tons of congratulatory materials, and I had no trouble feeling welcomed to their campuses. Anyway, I ruled out P partially because it had come to feel so stand-offish, and partially because I didn't like the feel of the city it was in; R I eliminated because I didn't like the student-population much, though I thought the college deserved better. Q it was, and I've loved the place so much that I'm half-dreading my graduation from it in May. The poster they sent me at the beginning of twelfth grade is still on the back of my bedroom door at my parents' house. Anyway, moral-ish thing from that overlong anecdote: I wouldn't turn down a program only on the basis of coming across as remote, but if one makes you feel wanted, that sounds like a plus for it to me!

At some point I had a dream about a very weird visit to the University of Toronto linguistics-department. It was one big long narrow room in an irregularly-shaped office-building in the centre of Toronto, with cubicles placed haphazardly all over it. I was looking for one potential advisor and got sent around the same corner about four times trying to find her office. I don't think I ever succeeded, either.

This is exactly what one of my LOR-writers said. She told me that she highly recommends taking at least a year off between college and grad-school, because a) the two experiences are so different; getting other experience is extremely valuable; and c) most importantly, it rekindles your interest in your chosen field(s). I considered her advice and basically ended up throwing it out the window for myself, but I can certainly appreciate her viewpoint.

Blame the economy before you go after yourself. I've had professors stunned to learn of my rejections.

Aw, I threw mine in the recycling. Combining them with everyone else's and setting them alight would've totally PWNED. But hey...if we're just going to be in Vegas anyway, why don't we drive out to the middle of the desert and make the whole thing our own version of the Burning Man festival? (I mean, heck, we couldn't get any weirder than that.)

Looks promising to me! Here's hoping it turns out well!

Still a great game!

There are some really interesting people here. I'm not normally the type to hang around message-boards at all (in fact, this is only the third Internet forum that I've used more than a handful of times, and I've long since stopped frequenting either of the others), but I'm enjoying it here. I think you'd get a good response if you opened up the current-grad section a bit. It's good to be in contact with this group. That said, we do recognise that doing so might trigger additional needs in the way of finances, staff, and so on...

Thanks for your kind words. Have to say that I'm not really aiming for McGill psychology anymore, though. At one point I was (especially after reading This Is Your Brain on Music), but I came to realise that my interest in music-cognition is probably better-suited to side-projects than to a specialisation for me. Kristine Onishi sent me an email asking if I wanted to work under her and do language-acquistion, but I have very little interest in research in that area, so I politely turned her down. Somewhat later, Dr. Palmer emailed me saying that she'd be happy to co-supervise projects of mine with a linguistics professor, but she hadn't counted on my being rejected from their linguistics department. I emailed her back and said that it wasn't a big deal, since I have other options. No official decision yet from them, though.

Oh, on that I got exactly i. It's also what I got on every single practise-test I took. How's that for consistency? Anyway, you can begin adjusting to the magnitude of my acclaimed insanity by noting that my username is homophonous with 'psycho linguist'. After which...hmm...well, although I am a composer in my spare time, I've never had to write or arrange a piece that long before. Hmm. Could you possibly give me a travel-grant to stay a while at the Hotel Infinity? Works for me! * grins *

At a guess, $15,000 Canadian per year in Hamilton is probably doable, even with two people. It's certainly bound to be cheaper than Toronto, and I hear that a single student can do just fine on $15,000 there. And I doubt Laurel Trainor or anyone would force you to do signal-processing for the entire duration of your Ph.D.! I mean, what kind of degree would that be? That said, Northwestern sounds promising as well. That's a tough call. Wait for the final decisions to come in, see if McMaster can find a bit more money for you, then draw up a realistic budget for the year for all three options (stipend versus average rent in each place, furnishings, electricity/Internet bills, food and medications, transportation, travel, any visa processing fees, and any visa costs). It's not such a bad thing to have a decision come down to funding if that's what's going to make the decision easy.

You're welcome! And, if it's any consolation, I only heard of it a month or so ago...and from the Wikipedia list of Internet phenomena, at that!

I wish I could offer more help than I can, but I'm in a similar position myself. Professors have told me, however, that there would be more jobs in psychology than linguistics. Given your interests, I would probably favour psychology; it sounds as if you'd be more unhappy shutting out music-cognition than a few language-related topics. That said, I understand the appeal of linguistics on its own as well, and Northwestern's linguistics program is quite esteemed. You may well have thought of this already, but keep in mind that the United States and Canada have different currencies, so the exchange-rates with the rupee could be pretty far apart. That could make a major difference to the amount of money that you will have. (I don't know anything about OSU, but would you be hoping to work with Laurel Trainor at McMaster? I hear that although her own research is groundbreaking, she has a fairly high number of grad-students. Also, her research is much more focused on the neurological than the behavioral.)

The economy surely has something to do with it. A professor at one of the schools I applied to told me, "You could get in anywhere!" - which already isn't true. Another was astonished to hear about my having been rejected from a program she has worked fairly closely with in the past. So I think there's a noticeable new discrepancy emerging between professors' expectations for admissions and the reality.

Mention them and John Cleese will appear and scream at you to shut up. I'd like to see one of them take on Chuck Norris. (The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny comes to mind.)

Agreed! 214 Self-Defense Against Ninjas 215 Self-Defense Against Pirates 216 Self-Defense Against Chuck Norris (Wishful Thinking) 217 Self-Defense Against Anyone Who Attacks You Armed With a Piece of Fresh Fruit

My score was an irrational number; I therefore have no way of submitting it.

Sorry, what I meant was that I got an acceptance but they haven't decided about how much funding they can give me. Meaning that I'm glad to learn that they can't offer much to international students, since I could be disappointed by how little they might offer me and, if so, will now know why that would be the case. I'm really sorry about your rejection for purely financial reasons! What a drag.

Congratulations! Vancouver is very multicultural. Latinos and those of African descent are less common than East Asians, South Asians, and Caucasians, but people from all over the world live there. It's not that discrimination is unheard-of, but it's uncommon.