liszt85

I still have no information from the grad school. I however know that its a rejection because the prof told me so

shameless bump. No takers?

My vote is Berkeley because its as you said #1 and still growing, and also as belowthree suggested, due to other minor issues like the weather. I don't think it matters a lot that you want to go into the industry and more MIT grads seem to do that than Berkeley grads. The industry wouldn't tell you "Oh we're looking for MIT grads, not Berkeley ones.. sorry" So my vote is definitely Berkeley.

When did I say that it was the school's responsibility to take care of my wife? When was I angry with a school?! I was only contemplating about whether I should accept a school's offer where the research fit was not as good as another which offered lesser money. Also, the school which sent me that reply understands fully about my commitment. They didn't make wise ass comments like the ones that were made on this thread. I've been in touch with them for months, discussing their work and sharing mine and we're both interested in working with each other. Now this other school offered an amount that was much more competitive in the context of the cost of living in that particular city. Though the research fit is not AS GOOD as the other, it still is a great place to study. Now it is at this juncture that these people come in and say "Look at us! We know what we're doing. We rejected a school that offered $5K more than the other because we only cared about our research.. we are the real deal. Did you even do your homework before you applied? Have you spent even one year with a real grad student? You have no idea what you're getting into" It was this tone that I took offense to. Good for you that your SO can work full time. I'm trying to find out if I can study on a J1 (so that my SO can work on her J2 visa) but the consulate in my country has put severe restrictions on those kinds of visas. The safer bet is to apply for F1 (but my SO would not be allowed to work on her F2) because if my J1 application is rejected, I can as well forget about grad school. I used up my last resources to apply. I'm in no mood to listen to condescending ignorant people passing comments on issues they have no clue about. I'm probably dropping my PhD plans to go for a MS first. Its fully funded. I like the program but the decision is also because its only a 2 year commitment. In case we're not able to manage our finances, she would go back to my country and we're prepared to live separate for 2 years if that's what it takes. It will be extremely hard. Some of you talk of "breaking up with my SO because a long distance relationship is impossible". I don't come out here passing a judgment on your virtues. I don't say "You don't deserve to be in a relationship if that's your attitude". I understand that we have cultural differences that make you say the things that you do and make me say the things that I do. I've been with my girlfriend for 3 years now and we meet once or twice a year. We're getting married this June. We're prepared to do the long distance thing for a little longer if that's the sacrifice we have to make (I'm lucky to have her, she understands how much my academic interests matter to me). So its highly irritating to see people assuming that I'm looking to lead some kind of luxurious life.

Whoever you are, you don't seem to comprehend that people come from different backgrounds and have different needs and expectations. I would have loved to go hungry for a few days if I got to do what I love at the best place possible but I simply am not willing to make my spouse go through any of that. Get that into your head. As for barking up the wrong tree and "have you spent any years with grad students?", this is exactly the kind of condescending attitude I was talking about. I come from a country where more than 25% of its population earns less than the poverty threshold of $0.4 a day. I've probably seen people go through worse shit than you have but I didn't ever bring it up here (until now) to argue that I was better prepared for eventualities, did I? We have power shortages here that you cannot imagine living with.. I have studied under candle light with no ceiling fans or anything for respite at 40 deg celisius heat for 10 consecutive days for board examinations due to a huge power shortage. I've spent two years working on research problems and a professor and two graduate students are co authors on my first authored paper. I've stayed in a room where there is just about space for a small single bed for five years. I spend less than $30 a month on food and other expenses (yes the cost of living here is low but do your research and you'll see that its an amount that is pretty low even for this country). I'm not going to try and convince any of you anymore about my view of things.. stay in your well believing that you're the only ones who've done your homework regarding grad school and probably the only ones who are passionate about their subjects and the only ones who think money should never even figure in a decision making process when it comes to deciding which school to attend. I plan to have fun with work as well as my short extra curricular life here on earth and I also want to make sure I don't trouble the people I love while doing that. That may be hard for you to digest and you may revel in boasting to people about your passion for the subject and how you gave up $5K a year to do what you wanted to do most.. good luck with that! There are cultural differences that some of you won't understand. All I asked you was not to judge people and not to preach to them and assume they hadn't done their homework and didn't want to pursue a PhD with the same enthusiasm as you seem to do. You seem to be opaque to all of these factors. I'm not going to respond to your ill informed comments about this issue anymore.

Ah, one more of those "You have no idea about what grad school is like, what the hell were you thinking while applying?!" And one more of those "I'm a grad student now, you are only a prospective one.. I sure as hell think my opinion is the right one!" scigrad, say hello to rising star (another sci grad).

Well then, you've just proven my point. I don't want to be "homeless", and I don't want to have all the above worries that you had because it would take my focus away from my work. Why is this so difficult to understand? You should be addressing rising star when you talk about your experiences of having been homeless and stuck with bills from years ago. By tagging my posts as a "whose life sucks hardest contest", you are doing exactly what you accuse me of doing ("insults from 'some people' to others").

This is a fairly new program. I've been offered funding. I wish to train myself a little better in the technical aspects and hence am leaning towards accepting this offer. Please see my signature for the other offers that I have (those involve studying music and language using a cognitive approach). Do you see any drawbacks in rejecting those very good PhD offers in favor of this new MS program in Music Technology at Georgia Tech? If you are a current student at Gatech, what do you know about this program? Is it well regarded?

Funny, I assumed rising was a woman.

Like sonnyday said, we were not comparing places like Harvard and some community college. We were comparing places that were more or less equal (with obvious little differences) research fits (or else we wouldn't have applied in the first place). Now as much as you talk about long term prospects, its important for some of us to be relatively free of financial trouble, especially in a foreign land, so that we can concentrate on our work. It doesn't help if I have to have worries at the back of my mind about how much I'd have to spend on groceries or how I'd manage in case we accidentally have a baby (we do not believe in abortions and I do not expect somebody to come here and preach me about that) while working on a research problem. Though you have been a legal independent since the age of 15, you do have people in the country you can turn to in times of deep trouble, don't you? Would you have to turn to the streets if you violate terms of a lease because you were short by $100 in one particular month? Do you have friends from whom you can borrow a few hundred bucks to pay unexpectedly for hospital bills for which you simply don't have the savings to fall back on? So no, I don't agree the least bit with rising star's ignorant generalization. I am passionate about my subject too and am not a moron not to wish to study at the best possible place (solely academic considerations).

Oh yea, you're right! I stand corrected.

Once you get accepted, Professors are more than willing to discuss prospects with you. I had let one or two of the primary faculty (within the department) know about my interest in cross disciplinary work and then went ahead and mailed those other professors. All of them, at a genuinely interdisciplinary place like Northwestern for instance, replied exhibiting great interest. I believe you should email one of the primary faculty, thank them for admitting you, and briefly talk about your interests and mention that you might be interested in cross disciplinary activity and ask if the department supports such activities. Then go ahead and email the professor from the other department. You can also ask about RA positions and the duties attached to such positions if you have been offered an assistantship. If not, you can ask about how good/bad the chances are that you might be able to get one after going there, maybe within a semester (quarter) or two. You are well within your rights to ask all such questions since time is running out and you need to make an informed decision by the 15th of April. Everybody understands that, including these grad schools.

I'm sure you're quite proud of yourself for the decision you made to let go of the higher financial offer. Some of us are not quite in that enviable position. It is not because we want to live a luxurious life. I am 23, going to be newly married and in grad school, supporting my wife on my stipend alone (as she would be on a F2 visa that strictly forbids her from working). $1500 per month in Chicago may be enough to live a REALLY frugal life in Chicago (after the $800-900 I'd pay for a 1BR apartment in one of the cheaper, shadier areas) but what happens if say one of us has to go see a doctor and have to pay some cash up front? We won't even have enough for that.. sometimes a reimbursement from the insurance comes much later. There are issues that some people have to worry about that may be non-issues for other people. So its not fair to preach "money isn't everything" to other prospective grad students. Taking a loan is not an option for me for various different reasons (my family's annual income is about $6000 (India)). I do know that investing in my education is a good idea (who wouldn't think so?) but like I said, I'm not in this all by myself. Its quite irritating to see insensitive comments like "If you want to let money make your decision, that's up to you. Personally, I turned down.."

One way to gain entry to a dream school is to try to do a summer project with a professor you'd like to work with there. Batchmates of mine, with very average profiles (compared to some others here) got to do projects with professors in places like UIUC, UTA, etc.. and made connections from there. One of them just got accepted to Berkeley. One person did his summer project at UCSD, his photo was on their lab website and he got accepted to their PhD program as well. So you may be better off looking for short term research opportunities at your dream schools than going all the way to the Stockholm Royal Institute of Technology. Also setting up equipment for lab is not exactly work I'd do to boost my resume. What I'd do would be to try and get started on some research with the hope of publishing some original work. If you have one or two strong first authored papers to prove your research orientation, schools normally find it easier to admit you because they would be confident that you'd contribute to their research activities (esp if you apply to be a thesis student). So that way, I'd probably go for the UROP (if I'm to choose between this and stockholm) even if it only pays for basic living expenses, esp since I perceive that money is not really a huge issue for you.

I fully agree with the above post. Edit: The one by fuzzylogician.

Please fill in this form instead of the previous one: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform ... ExPY0E6MA.. As fuzzylogician said, he/she didn't know half the artists on the earlier questionnaire as it was tailored to Indian responders' tastes. Now its fully westernized. Please access this new questionnaire by clicking the above link. Thank you!

I was offered a similar amount for OSU (Columbus is cheap too but not THAT cheap either and I have to support my wife on my stipend). So the professor offered the highest possible stipend of $1610 per month for the summer months (3 months). So that made the total a respectable amount for Columbus. You should really ask about your summer funding!

Nel, some of us do know who Prof Lakoff is. I have read his papers even though I'm a Physics major. I'm however not going to ask you to go read books and papers by H. Dieter Zeh or Eric Joos or Zurek for you to be able to fathom what I write in my posts here (since I could almost as easily argue that you wouldn't understand what I'm talking about because you would need to know quantum mechanics to understand how the world works. You probably think quantum mechanics applies only in the microscopic world and would neglect the possibility that what I write here could have stemmed out of a collapse of a wavefunction of a superposition of different states that could have been possible, but that you would be right in the end because decoherence takes care and explains why you don't observe Lakoff's book to be in a superposition of two position states but only at a single position) Though that may not have made a lot of sense to you, it should at least tell you that you do not need to point to scholarly works to be able to communicate using language. Linguistics (and cognitive linguistics) is a branch of science (yes I believe its as much as science as Physics) that studies language and not the other way around. Also tell me this. Have you heard of two positives coming together to form a negative? It goes something like this: "Yea, right!" So lets say person A tells me that the moon is bigger than the earth and I respond "Yea, right!". What kind of fallacy would that be? I'm indeed surprised that you talk of cognitive linguistics and logical fallacies in the same breath! There is a logical fallacy right here! Can you see it?

Thank you so much! You are my first foreign national responder. Since I don't get too many foreign nationals to fill this up and since you've now told me that you've filled it up, I could guess which entry yours was. Please do read the section about economic capital on the wiki page about Pierre Bourdieu's classic work ("Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste") if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bourdieu To the others who might fill this up, please rest assured that your answers cannot in anyway be linked to your identities as long as you don't let me know that you've filled it. So please feel free to complete all sections (including ones that seem personal in nature) because I need as much information as possible to then try to trace out patterns in musical preferences and consumptions. Thanks!

I don't really know if its low quality. Maybe it is for CS. I have a professor of English here who is really great at what she does and she did her PhD at Wayne State.

Hey all, If you can spare 10 mins (maybe lesser), could you please fill out this form for me? http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform ... 0gyTkE6MA.. It is a set of questions that will help me gain some insight into the nature of musical preferences for one of my projects. Full anonymity is maintained. Your answers will come automatically to my spreadsheet. This could take your mind off refreshing your inbox for about 10 minutes Thank you. Regards, liszt85 P.S: You may want to check out "Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste" by Pierre Bourdieu. My study is based on this classic work. Its a great read! (but only after you fill out the form )

Excellent! Congratulations. I myself got into Psychology (zero prior experience) and linguistics programs due to strong SOPs and LORs and research work. So its definitely possible.

I think if you're entering an MS program, you will build a profile good enough for grad schools to accept you if you are passionate about the subject and research. As for students already accepted to grad school, we either have it or we don't. I suggested reading about subjects and sub fields that are interesting to us rather than wasting time on such books. Just how I see things.

Hey there, I'm in a real tight spot but consider myself lucky to be so. I have offers from places that do work that I like very much. 3 PhD offers and 1 funded MS offer. I'm leaning towards the MS offer though. I am motivated enough and love the areas of work enough to be able to successfully complete a PhD and lead a happy life in the academia but what this MS offer has put on the table for me is a chance to train myself in all technical skills required to make me a more independent researcher and also the option to take 2 more years to decide if I really want to go do a PhD. Also this MS is a fairly new program but in a well regarded university and people tell me that even if I decide to work in the industry after the MS, it would give me a lot of options towards that as well. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I'm leaning towards this as my undergraduate major was Physics and these PhD offers are in Linguistics (to which I've had decent exposure) and Psychology (almost no prior experience).

I have no idea about library positions but I can tell you the content of my interview about a GRA position. I went all prepared to talk about my research, my strengths and weaknesses, etc. All the guy asked was "what are you interested in? This is just so that we can place you in a project of your interest". That was ALL he wanted to know! These things are never uniform across departments, universities and people. There is however no need to be nervous as its almost quite impossible to bomb an informal interview that will probably ask you if you are comfortable working that job. For example, I told him that I was very uncomfortable coding as I had had minimal experience and would not be comfortable in a project which would demand that of me. He said that as long as I was a quick learner, it was not going to be a problem, which was perfectly fine with me. So I guess you should just say that you're more than willing to work at the library though you've had no experience and are sure that you will be a fast learner and will work efficiently.