IRdreams

How has your experience been with Sierra Club hiking groups?

detail oriented

mob protection

network analysis

political science!!!

duty roster

Does anyone have any tips and tricks for making a commitment to exercise in grad school?

manufacturing sector

Both of my parents are PhD equipped. When I got in, the main piece of advice my mom gave me was: "First Year Grad School: It is actually called first year graduate hell." While not the cheeriest advice, it actually has helped me stick it out during the tougher parts. At the end of the day, grad school is just a massive hazing ritual if we believe the economists on education and signaling (not that I do, mind you but hazing is still part of the process for sure).

From what I can tell, professors like polite reminders. They just have too many deadlines realistically to keep caught up on all of them without our help.

Grad students can also lower the bills collectively. In my program, we established a norm of dividing the weeks among the students and then each week one of the grads was responsible for scanning the readings for that week and disseminating them to the class. It worked pretty well as a case of collective action. Since you have names it is pretty hard to free ride.

I don't know if this is true of all undergrad institutions, but my SLAC offers lots of grad funding to alumni. These are based on merit and projected budget which would obviously be higher in your case. The amounts are also not large enough to be conflated with a year stipend at most places (3,000-10,000) for the majority with many below 5,000.

Also, did you have any leadership roles in undergrad life? These can usually spun as providing opportunities to mentor younger students which is another aspect of the TA process.

The conference paper suggestion is a great one. When I am struggling, I also peruse syllabuses at other universities and see what the junior faculty have added when they teach the course. I actually generally make this habit regardless as it helps a lot with directing a lit review.

The other question is: is it more common for people who are married or in long term stable relationships? There is one girl in my program who owns her own home and makes substantial rental income off of it, but for the most part it is couples who do this sort of thing. Many of these couples also have one partner not in Academia.

car fumes

I'm in my second year in a grad program and have stuck around since my application season. TGC is not just good for getting in. The Bank has been invaluable as well as Officially Grads. However, these are likely somewhat seasonal as well. I wonder if there are any additional ways to make this site the logical place for current grads to turn to? When choosing my committee was a pain, I probably should have come here for example...

So does anyone know why there has been a turn away from the GRE at many funding agencies and fellowship granting programs? I was really surprised that the NSF no longer took these scores and I gather this is part of a larger trend.

So the NSF also no longer takes GRE. I would imagine that three years in most funding sources will care more about transcripts and writing samples than standardized tests. At least in my field, most of the dissertation improvement and completion fellowships are based solely on your essays and your record in graduate school.

Thank you for these application insights. I had not realized that the specific project had to be completed in the timeline. Seems like it is better for a one off than for a continuation of dissertation research potentially. Also, congratulations on your proposal.

About teaching and the GRF: I'm not in the hard sciences so my advice may not be 100% helpful, but I thought I'd share my 2 cents. My roommate and I are both in graduate school and in the same year in the program. During her first year she had teach immediately. My department on the other hand gives us a fellowship year when we enter. My suspicion is that this is a blessing. Graduate school is already a substantial transition for most people. Coursework becomes harder, grades matter less but the bench marks for success become more internalized, and lots of other social and professionalization pressures exist. Teaching is also a substantial transition. It is my suspicion that, especially, as a direct from UG admit, that getting some grad classes under your belt might be nice before TAing. You will transition into the program instead of doing all major transitions at once. You will also get more familiar with the state of the art, likely increasing your confidence when you do step into the classroom. If I were you, therefore, I might propose going on reserve status (it is not deferral) in your second year instead. By that time you will not be full tilt into a project but you will have gained some helpful experiences and made the transition.

Has anyone done a Nordic research opportunity? If so, where did you go? What is your impression of this program? Any advice for the application process? I would especially enjoy the input of social scientists if they have taken part.

I also suspect that the no double dipping policy was designed to prevent some instances of graduate student exploitation. Structurally if the university is allowed to make you RA/TA even while on fellowship (and in the past some did not pay additional dividends for this), the graduate student then has less time resources to devote to their own work which is what the NSF was really paying them to be doing in the first place. While the new rule does not allow you to choose to do extra work, the bright side is that it also does not allow the university to obligate you to do extra work. Even in instances where there was a formal choice about whether to take on these additional duties, the power dynamic made it such that saying no might not have been a possibility for fellows not interested. This seems like a potentially good development to me in light of the persistent patterns of over admittance to fill TA slots and the like which the job market is unable to sustain once students graduate. The down side: I'd like to develop a teaching resume and make bank.

So I received the award and am a second year student and only received one E. We only get the raw scores so I think it is pretty difficult to draw conclusions.

The problem with score sharing is that we get nominal scores, but they are normalized during the process. For example, it is not obvious to me that I should have gotten a third reviewer with my fist two scores VG/G and VG/VG. Glad I did though (E/VG) since I wound up get the award. To people who have said that their scores do not reflect the substantive comments, I think this is again due to the fact that different reviewers are "harder" than others and the NSF corrects for this. For example, my most detailed review with constructive suggestions stemming from their excitement in the project was nonetheless my "lowest" review.