ktel

I feel like last year was the first time they did the electronic system, but they still mail you the results. I think they e-mailed or otherwise electronically notified my department, however.

I will second what Sigaba delicately said about the sweating issue. I TAed my first lab on Friday, and luckily wore appropriate clothing, as I spent a good chunk of time in the very hot mechanical room for the supersonic wind tunnel trying to fix the valve. Somewhat of a different issue than stressful sweating, but relevant nonetheless.

I received an e-mail about the Innovation Challenge Awards, but these have nothing to do with the CGS/PGS or PDF awards. Because of mailing time my department knew about my award before I did (last year).

I'm not surprised that they say "It's up to the border". Strangely enough, a lot of this stuff really comes down to what type of border agent you get on the day. This goes for America to Canada and vice versa. I'll second new_to_kin's statement that you choose a large border crossing.

Everybody should probably just relax. They're not even close to being "late", and calling them is totally unnecessary and unhelpful.

There's a whole thread discussing this somewhere if you search. Nobody has heard anything yet, but the letters should come this week or next

Perhaps I should have put "crazy" in quotation marks. I was just pulling from the word she used for effect.

I heard that it used to. I wish so too. Luckily I've applied to some other funding sources for next year but won't hear back for a month or so.

There's no way one other grad student would significantly change the dynamic or the amount of time you would spend with your professor. I think you are a bit crazy, and I don't think there's anyway to communicate this to your PI without sounding immature. In fact you should support your PI in growing his lab and research group. Having other students can be really helpful to you too, somebody to bounce ideas off of.

^ There's no way he hasn't somehow misled the school if he has not told them about this in any way. Typically you are required to provide transcripts from ALL post secondary institutions attended. If he failed to do so, he has failed to give information specifically asked for.

I am going to guess the letters will come next week (based on when letters have been mailed in the past). Patience!

I can only assume school A is U of T.... I just moved to Toronto with my partner, and since rent can be expensive and apartments can be difficult to find, it was great. Since housing prices are so high so many people are renting that I found landlords to be very picky but was very happy to find a decent affordable place in a good neighborhood. I had to choose between U of T and a less reputable school, and I must say the reputation definitely factored in. I don't really know what my future plans will be, but I think a name brand degree can help a lot.

Yes, typically the supervisor is given the last author spot on the paper (at least in my field). They typically will do all the editing and whatnot before you submit. If they're tenured, they are still obviously doing important research but their main goal is probably to show how well their group is doing, as indicated by the number of papers they have last authorship on. Sometimes authorship can even come from just collaborating on a project. I did a research project with an outside institution, and they wanted a couple people listed as authors even though only one person did most of the experimental work. I would jump on the chance to be second author if I were you, but obviously do so ethically. You don't have to have huge involvement but you should know the papers well and be able to contribute to the editing process.

^ Socks and belt are key. I recently made my boyfriend replace his green Moosehead beer belt with a nice brown leather one, he's a working professional now. And white socks with nice shoes just look terrible.

I think a combo of less dressed top and more dressed bottom or vice versa would be perfect (i.e. black pants with a polo, or jeans with a button up)

I don't think FEA has any use in normal day-to-day construction, but I'm sure it has a place there somewhere. I'm dong my Masters.

Wish I could help you but I'm more on the CFD side of things. I just Googled it though and was reading a Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_mechanics and CM sounds like a broader description of computational modelling. I would think computational structural mechanics wouldn't be that different from FEA. It would be just as interdisciplinary (my CFD work is pretty interdisciplinary as you described). My boyfriend is a CivE and has not employed FEA once in any of his designs, but perhaps it would be used on an unconventional building design, but yes it is more often used for aerospace and other types of designs.

Sorry to hear about your current situation rkg. I think this sentence stood out to me the most. Everybody has different priorities, but it's unfortunate when you've been committed to each other this long that his priority is himself over your relationship. I'm not trying to say he's a bad or selfish person, that's just how it is, and that's just what some people decide. Personally, I'm the opposite, I would probably prioritize my relationships (whether that be with my boyfriend, friends or family) over many other things. I don't know your relationship, so I hesitate to provide any sort of general advice, but if someone didn't have the same priorities as me I would question whether there was a future there.

You should definitely keep anything important or fragile on your person when you travel there yourself. Whether or not you could use the above container typically depends on the dimensions.

548 posts is crazy!

I wouldn't go out of your way to make visits before you apply. I happened to be in town before I applied so I met with a bunch of professors at my current university, and it was amazing, but I wouldn't have gone for a special separate trip. Talking over e-mail/phone/Skype should do the trick. I first contacted all my profs in November and got great responses.

Most of the profs I talked to discussed funding, or had me talk to the graduate secretary to discuss funding. My school is a bit different though, they require a certain level of funding for all admitted students depending on the department, and that info is written down in a documnet. I also had the funding detailed in my official offer.

My advisor is a very busy person, and I only see him once a month or once every few weeks. I work with the post docs a lot more as well as people in my lab. For me it works pretty well, I really enjoy working independently. Although I think if he was on me a little bit more I would get a bit more research done as opposed to course work right now.

My TA-ship is 50 hours total over the whole semester. 20 hours seems like a lot to me