IRdreams

I generally err on the side of being a little over dressed rather than being under dressed. The reason: I presented a grad student conference and I thought it would be a shlump town so I only brought a wool suit skirt and a silk blouse. I wound up feeling a little underdressed as the majority of presenters were in full suits. Note: this could be the result of a lot people at this conference hoping to be employed in DC and not as academics. Since then, I have always worn a full suit to conferences. If the conference appears more informal, I fold my jacket and store it in my tote. That way I am still well dressed but not over board. In general, I always find it is easier to dress down if the environment is more causal than to dress up if you get it wrong.

I know this varies by field, but I was wondering what people's opinion of co-publishing with a faculty member were. I was recently invited to do so by someone whose work I admire and respect. As far as pros: I think it could be a good pedagogical experience to write with someone who has successfully navigated the publishing process. Potentially an addition to the resume. Cons: As the grad student, I will recieve less credit than if I worked on my own single author pub. Team work can always be tricky. I know this issue has been touched on elsewhere, but I was hoping to come up with a definitive pro/con list.

It can also be program and methods specific within the same subfield. Within International Relations, scholars who rely upon available datasets are expected to have more pubs on average than a scholar who does primarily qualitative work as the later often takes significantly longer. If your program is known for a particular methodological approach to your sub-discipline, this could me that the expectations from highering committees about YourFabU here are likely shaped by their priors about the type of generally produced at your department.

It is definitely rough. I had a really great experience the first time I TAed and I think it shaped a lot of my beliefs about how to run a section. The professor encouraged us to treat section like we would a seminar that students could have the best of all worlds: a lecture and time period for free ranging and indepth discussion. My next TA experience was terrible by comparison. Besides the issues with this professor, the class was well outside my area and frankly my interest. And my evals suffered comparatively I'm sure. However, I continue to employ the seminar indepth dissection of the readings approach. For the most part, I think students want to talk. So give them a forum to do so and structure the conversation so it is also educational and hopefully they will at least get something out the class. A friend of mine took a different route. She basically surogate lectured. But this was her field so that helps a lot. I think a mix of both would have been the ideal set up. Perhaps a 20 minute mini lecture on the things you think it would be embarrassing for them to have not learned in the course and then 30 minute discussion time.

It also takes a while on average because reject is a distinct if not the most likely outcome for your first submission. At least in my field, they get 1000s of submissions for about 35-50 spots in top journals in a year. Revise and resubmit is the lucky response. Often, you can only send it to one journal at a time and their process is very time intensive. This is why my adviser has advocated a pyramid strategy for publishing. He suggests trying in a top tier journal that is the best fit. If rejected, one then tries at a discipline level journal. Maybe apply to one more of these, but if rejected again, one tries at a topical journal which are generally the least prestigious in my field.

Come to think of it, mine doesn't have GPA on it any more either. However, academic honors are on there. Which is pratically the same thing.

As a student, I find the CV thing a bit wierd, but it totally makes sense as a professor. I guess I just need to make the transition. I think part of the issue for me is I went to an undergrad where things like grades and accomplishments were not discussed among students so feel awkward having gpa and fellowship information open to the world. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of my accomplishments but it just seems pretentious to display everything....IMHO. But the consensus appears to disagree.

I think the research fellow idea is a great one. I always struggle with the pretentiousness issue....but then I'm probably also pretentious.

So it seems like graduate students often have websites that promote themselves, including a place for their CV and ect if they are academic hopefuls. My question is when is it appropriate to create this website? ABD or only in the job market year? What should one include? Do people find these sites beneficial?

So if you are more theory inclined, I suspect your verbal score will be an issue at the top schools on your list. Moreover, even with the new exam, your scores aren't really in the range where they could take advantage of the ambiguity. You are also then betting on adcomms not knowing their business, which I generally think is a losing proposition. Sadly, it is a hoop. But sometimes when someone tells us to jump, all we can ask is how high.

Nope...just the late night ICPSR crazies.

Actually, when I said Rutgers I was thinking Rochester. Ignore my late night drivel.

Disgusting practice and disgusting site.

Looks great. Loving the new subforums.

The last question I tend to ask my self which I realize the Keohane list doesn't include is: How could this research be extended (by myself or others)? I found that when writing exams I got a lot of positive comments concerning the sections in which I laid out a not currently extant research agenda related to the great books and discussed strategies for evaluating a related hypothesis which extends from the readings. I later talked with my adviser and he brought up the fact that this had really distinguished my responses from others in a flattering way. His reasoning: graduate students are very good at critically evaluating research (the questions Keohane proposes are mostly of this nature) but they tend to conflate critical analysis with tearing something to shreds. By extending the work, you wind up highlighting its strengths which generally reflects a more balanced assessment of the study since all studies you will find on a grad reading list will have strengths and weakness but certainly enough strengths to get them published. Moreover, outlining a research plan in a paragraph or a few (depending on length and time constraints) highlights the skills the program is actually trying to instill within you. At the end of the day, they are really hoping we will move beyond the role of critic and into the role of researcher and this reflects your thoughts on how to actually implement a research question and so suggests that you are making that transition.

http://www.quantoid.net/ICPSR.php the latex presentation is pretty good and on the short side

RWGB, for sure. And thanks for the advice. This was partially why I was surprised when I actually found relatively few courses offered through the department.

My school has a program where we can take classes for a year at another one of the ivys+Stanford. I'm wondering out of this sample, which has the best training on game theory these days. I intuitively though Stanford since I come from an IR background, but yale's looks quite serious so I'm hoping to get the views of others. There are some other reasons why Stanford is attractive to me, but my school only has a very introductory game theory sequence and I would like to advance beyond the reading level to being able to model credibly. Any advice would be much appreciated.

I had an adviser in undergrad who thought that this was absolutely necessary. When I met with one of his colleagues to think about strategizing for a summer internship between gradschool and graduation, he barged in on the meeting. Demanded to know what I was doing. Got in a fight with the guy since "serious grad students need to seriously bone up during the summer." When I later thanked my adviser's colleague who I had only met the one time for his advice but noted that I would be taking my summer in a different direction, this charming gentlemen thought it was okay to tell as an undergrad: "The reason you're not going to get into Harvard is because you've done nothing of distinction in your life." Needless to say it turned into major department drama. What did I actually do with my summer? I came to the conclusion they were both dicks and ignored them both. I took my major's advice (third professor in this story) to have fun with my summer. He told me that the number one issue with going from direct from undergrad was burn out and that recharging before hand was really important. From what I've seen, burn out can have an effect regardless of your gradschool trajectory so even if you aren't from undergrad taking a break is not a bad idea. That said, I definitely read. But it wasn't textbooks. And I can tell you that I've been no worse for the wear in gradschool as a result. Why did I mention reading during my summer? Well, if you are in a reading intensive program this might be your last opportunity for a while to read for pleasure. While I have had the time to read for pleasure in grad school, after reading several thousand pages in a week I generally lack the motivation then pick up an outside reading book.

I was told that a top schools that generally a 700 math/verbal is a common cutoff, so this may be a problem for UChicago, specifically. From what I've been told, schools frequently have a line at which they won't read applications, but once you've crossed that threshold, no one really cares about the GRE. There are some exceptions. I remember reading a paper by Gary King about Harvard's admission process and he strongly emphasized a high math score as something that department looks for and I suspect that Stanford and Rutgers do as well.

I have 2 guesses: Reed or Evergreen State College

I was given this by a student of Keohane and I believe that Keohane deserves the credit for developing this so please don't attribute it to me. I copied and pasted it from a word document so sorry about the weird formatting. This is generally what I aspire to use when evaluating Polisci research. Key word being aspire. It is obviously a long laundry list for some articles. Therefore, you should tailor it to your needs. For example, I rarely focus to much on the IV and DV since this comes naturally to me. For an exam, I would definitely make sure that you answer the question about what are possible alternative explanations that the author didn't consider. This question is great for coming up with your own critique of the work, which is usually something exam committees want to see. Hope this helps! Using a template like this might help you structure your thoughts and notes on the reading. @Squirrel: I would say that copying and pasting is an inefficient way to take notes. Always try to reformulate what the author has said in your own words. This makes it shorter and puts it in a language structure that should be easier for you to follow. Plus, this requires some creative energy so it is a more active process which is likely to stick with you longer than a mere copy/paste job. Questions to consider in formulating and evaluating social science research 1. What is the central question? a. Why is it important (theoretically, substantively)? b. What is being explained (What is the dependent variable and how does it vary)? c. How does this phenomenon present a puzzle? 2. What is the central answer? a. What is doing the explaining (what are the independent variables and how do they vary)? b. What are the hypotheses, i.e., what is the relationship between independent and dependent variables, what kind of change in the independent variables causes what kind of change in the dependent variable? c. What are the causal mechanisms, ie, why are the independent and dependent variables so related? d. How do the independent variables related to eachother? e. What assumptions does the theory make? f. Is the theory falsifiable in concept? g. What does this explanation add to our understanding of the question? 3. What are the possible alternative explanations? a. What assumptions are you making about the direction of causality? b. What other explanations might there be for the phenomenon of study, and to what degree do they conflict with the central answer? c. Could the hypothesized relationships have occurred by chance? 4. Why are possible alternative explanations wrong? a. What is the logical structure of the alternative explanation? b. What is the empirical evidence? 5. What is the relationship between the theory and the evidence? a. What does the research allow to vary, i.e. in this design are the explanations variables or constants? b. What does your research design hold constant, i.e. does it help to rule out the alternative competing explanations/ c. How are the theoretical constructs represented empirically, i.e. how do you know it when you see it (measurement)? 6. How do empirical conclusions relate to the theory? a. How confident are you about the theory in light of the evidence? b. How widely do the conclusions generalize, i.e. what might the limitations of the study? Scope conditions? c. What does the provisionally accepted or revised theory say about questions of broader importance?

Hi Squirrel, So the notes collaborative I was thinking about is here: http://www.olivialau.org/ir/archive/ (It is IR specific and there may be others if you looked, but this is the one that I found. On Lau's website there is stuff for Harvard as well as some dated Stanford stuff, but it is pretty solid). The Trachtenberg link you found was the one I was thinking about. I don't know why your department is using scare tactics, especially considering it is a small department, but preparation is the key regardless. I personally would feel uncomfortable with book reviews for a few reasons. Obviously, they are a very limited due to space. Second, they don't always focus on the sorts of things that exam takers need to analyze work on. That being said, I feel more comfortable rellying on book reviews and note colloborative notes if I have at least skimmed the text a little so there might be a middle ground. Book reviews can be another good source for figuring out what portion of a book to focus on as they do tend to point out the contribution the author is making.

I am not in a lab field so take what I say with a grain of salt, but this really doesn't sound normal. I talked with my mom who has her phD in PChem and she said that this behavior was definitely not the norm in her experience though admittedly her degree was in the 80s. I would strongly consider doing whatever possible to get out from under this adviser since it seems like she is stealing and sabotaging the careers of her students. But that just my 0.02.