runonsentence

Can your writer provide that information on the application? Your first post had me thinking s/he couldn't, which was why I said it might seem fishy to an adcom. (If so, perhaps s/he can state somewhere in the letter that her/his title and organization have been disclosed on the application itself?) As long as your writer can provide enough information to seem like a legitimate person (hah), I think it's going to be okay. It's not so much that they're necessarily going to Google your writer—though they may very well routinely do this, I'm not sure to be honest—but you just don't want your letter to look like Uncle Al wrote it for you pretending to be a legitimate recommender. But I'm not in your field; it's possible this is routine. Hopefully some others applying to policy programs can weigh in.

This is absolutely true. My students were oblivious to many of my smaller missteps in front of the classroom my first term, which horrified me. The ones that they did notice were not nearly so awful as I perceived them to be. You're probably doing better than you think you are! Even if it doesn't feel like it. And when you DO make a mistake, admitting is actually the most helpful thing you can do. You'll feel better acknowledging it, and students actually really appreciate it. (They prefer to learn from someone human, anyway!)

FWIW, it's possible that the OP is referring to a different kind of situation—I taught mostly freshman during my MA, and several asked me for letters for local scholarships and the like, not grad school. OP, my advice mirrors others' here: simply let the student know that it will be difficult for you to write a strong one at this point because of X, Y, and Z. (For example, "Well, I'm willing to, but at this point I can't say that I knew you very well because my attendance roster shows you were absent for half of our class meetings so far, and if you'll remember the feedback I gave you on your last essay draft, I feel like I haven't been seeing your best work so far.") If you want to be kinder about it, you can tell the student what kind of performance it would take for you to consider the student having turned a new leaf ("I'll feel better able to write a strong letter if your next essay draft were really strong and your attendance improved"). Maybe that will have the dual benefit of allowing you to write the letter and also turn around the student's class performance.

Can your writer mention these circumstances in his letter? That might be a bit of a help, to start. I would think it would look a bit strange or even fishy...but then again, committees in your field might be used to these kinds of contingencies, if other applicants have worked in government positions.

That you have to pay for: http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/prices/ It costs money to use Skype to call phones (instead of other Skype accounts) or to receive calls from phones. It is currently free to use Gmail to call phones (though another poster hints this won't be the case forever) and impossible to receive calls. If you want to be able to receive calls, you should either spring for a pay-as-you-go phone or look into MagicJack.

We're on the quarter system, and I've often found, as Phil Sparrow notes, that professors will assign at least some reading for the first day, even if it's light. When they don't, my experience aligns with most others here—introductions, discussion about the course, and sometimes even a bit of lecture. Sometimes we sign up for presentation days as well.

Glad you found a resolution. Good luck!

Yep. I always forget just how many there really are until they come flooding back.

A lot of popular publications advocate you use a narrative, but really, that can just go wrong so easily. It's certainly nice if you happen to have a compelling story that tidily tells the committee about you and what you will do in grad school, but how many of us do? It's just so easy to get the tone wrong, or to slip into the trap of making the story so important that the document loses its focus.... I think that telling the committee about what you will do and how you will do it is most important. Especially for an engineering program: think about the kind of writing they'd expect from you as a student. It may be easy to turn off the adcom with a narrative, unless you've written it expertly. I say go with your gut and follow the golden rule of academia: ATDQ (answer the darn question).

On the topic of Skype: it's also possible to make free outgoing calls (to landlines and cell phones) from Gmail, now. I think it even works internationally. I use this feature to save my minutes when I'm making an outgoing call before my unlimited minutes start at 9pm. (When you're in your Gmail account, if you look on the left sidebar where the chat is, there's a green phone icon labeled "call phone.")

Here's how I think of the SoP and personal statement and the differences between them. (Note: this mostly applies to professional programs, or other programs that ask for both. If a program only asks for one statement, it's probably an SoP by another name.) I'd say you're correct that the personal statement isn't supposed to be overly intimate or personal—while it gives more of a picture of you as a person, it's still there to give the committee an idea of why you're prepared to go graduate level work. SoP = forward-looking. Concerned with future work and goals. Personal statement = back-looking. Concerned with how your background has shaped your research interests, given you the experience you need, and generally shaped you into the applicant you are today.

Most big box stores sell pay-as-you-go phones—you pay a flat fee when you purchase them for X number of minutes, and pay to reload minutes on them whenever you get low. No contracts.

On one hand, it seems a bit early to tell whether or not you're going to like your field, since you've only been in class for (I assume) a few weeks now. On the other hand, if you're just now realizing that attending this program in the first place was an impulse decision, then this seems like an optimal time to get out while you can with minimal monetary investment. Something else for you to consider: If you do leave before the refund period, will your program allow you to defer enrollment until the next year? I assume it'd be easier in your case because you're unfunded (they don't have to hold a line of funding for you), but it would be a good idea to make sure that you'll be allowed to take a leave of absence, especially since the term has already begun. Last, if you decide you're going to leave and make attending law school your goal, definitely definitely definitely try out something in the field (secretarial position, or whatever else you can get) to make sure it's really something you want to do, and not just something that sounds better than international affairs.

Different schools are looking for different things. Many (even most all?) successful applicants tailor their SoP to the schools that they are applying. Now, "tailoring" can mean a few things...it can mean swapping out a certain paragraph, or it can mean a radically different structure and focus. But in all, this means that there is no one ideal model for the SoP: a successful, ideal SoP will look different from program to program. Your best bet is to tailor your document to your audience as much as possible—show that school why you're a good fit with their program culture, their faculty's research, and the strengths of their program. And yes yes yes, if they outline specific expectations, it would be foolhardy not to address them! As for some general structural advice: if the school doesn't mention a length requirement, it's best to stick with a 1.5-1.75 page document (single spaced).

How far are you into your program? Do you have a year left? More? The answer might help make a difference. If you're close to finishing up and already in most of the way in terms of debt, it might be better for you to finish the degree.

I wouldn't suggest listing coursework at all unless there's a specific reason. For example, simply listing every English course you took if you were an English major ends up looking like padding. But it WOULD be helpful to list your language experiences in a section like harpyemma suggested; and when I was applying, I listed all my rhetoric/composition coursework, since I was finishing an MA in English and wanted to show committees that I had still built a background in my new subfield.

It's a very stressful process—you're surely not alone. I developed stress-induced TMJ (kept unconsciously clenching and grinding my jaw) and other embodied responses to the stress while I was applying last year, especially during the spring. Take a deep breath and take it one step at a time. I found it helpful to map out a concrete list of achievable (emphasis on achievable!) tasks for the day or the week. Instead of telling myself "OMG, I need to have my WS done soon!!" I told myself to have it sent out to a friend for comments by XX date. Or I'd tell myself that I'd have to email my LoR writers by the end of the day. As to some of your questions: honestly, it's never too early to get information out to your LoR writers, and it's one stress off your back. I found it kind of comforting and satisfying to get administrative tasks like that done, as well. (It's an easier "check" on the to-do list than, say, having the SoP done!) Why not make that your first goal for this weekend or the coming week? Get someone to look at your writing sample. Having an outside perspective will help and give you more motiviation: again, it'll give you more achievable, discrete tasks when someone else is focusing your revision to what needs looking at the most. I'd also recommend getting someone to look at your SoP—it's a good way to break down that process into goals, for one, and for another it's the best way to answer your question about how detailed it should be. Last, about contacting POIs: you're going to hear conflicting advice about whether or not it is helpful in the humanities (see ), and so IMO it comes down to whether you have the time and energy to do it. If you feel so stressed by the entire application process that you just don't think you can do it, then maybe don't and work on another portion of your application instead. I didn't contact faculty when I was applying, partly because I knew that it could sometimes be artificial, and partly because I was so stressed that I knew I couldn't handle it! I thought my time and energy was better spent revising my SoP into the ground (I had two professor's and two grad students' input) and adding to my WS.

Even for a PhD SoP, the goal isn't to propose a dissertation, the goal is to give the committee an idea of what kind of work you'd be doing as a student at their program. That is, how would your interests fit in with the department's offerings, strengths, and faculty research? What kinds of questions do you see yourself addressing? Remember, you're thinking more in terms of research interests, less in terms of "here's my project!!" Develop research interests and yes, give some specifics, but don't get lost in trying to develop a project proposal.

I agree that there's no rush. There's also no reason to feel anxious about having taken time off; it's a really valuable thing to do that helps prevent burnout and let's you consider more carefully not only whether or not to return to school, but also what to study. Take more time to think about things and save up some money. You said you're happy at your job and that you feel that it challenges you—that's the most important thing!

Citing sources in a formal reference style (e.g., MLA for English, APA for social sciences, etc.) seems odd to me, in an SoP. I don't think you'd need more than an attributive tag and a quick summary of anything by a particular author. In fact, looking back at my SoP, I didn't cite any authors. The focus of the document is your research.

The most helpful resources I found were websites. Here are two: http://lasr.cs.ucla.edu/alison/hapaxlegomena/index.html http://www.duke.edu/~tmw15/

Try looking in CompPile or search the WPA-L archives. Second the rec to look at the Chronicle, or also try Inside Higher Ed. Both regularly publish on issues related to contingent faculty in the university at large.

When I worked in publishing and corresponded with authors and editors, I always assumed the highest title, to be on the safe side—that is, a grad student is likely to be offended by being addressed as "prof," and I'd rather not accidentally call a PhD "Ms" or "Mr." I suppose my advice is the same as emmm and Eigen's. They're probably expecting a small margin of error anyway, in using "Dr." as a blanket statement. It's not really worth it unless you'll be developing a relationship with them. My favorite correction, which I use when I'm teaching and someone thinks I have my PhD already, is, "I haven't yet shed the blood and tears for that."

Well, I can understand why the OP used "professor" when teaching. The directors of the comp program have said to me before that they really don't care if we GAs let students address us as "professor" in the classroom—especially because we teach with full instruction responsibility—and even though I tell students NOT to call me "professor," they still do. To many undergrads, most especially freshmen, "professor" is just a fancy word for teacher. Most underclassmen don't understand university hierarchy. All that said: I wouldn't put it up on the Internet somewhere, where the expectation of your audience is that it does denote your position in the hierarchy. You're a graduate student, graduate student instructor, or graduate teaching assistant. I've also occasionally seen colleagues in my field use "PhD student" or "PhD candidate."