ktel

Whoever said roommates have to be friends? Often roommates end up becoming friends, but they don't have to be friends or even really like each other. As long as they pay their rent and other bills on time it shouldn't matter.

UnlikelyGrad makes an excellent point. You wouldn't have your real family members write you a letter, so it is obviously similarly inappropriate to get someone from your second family to write a letter.

I think I would do the follow up e-mail on the off chance that they remembered me. Otherwise I do think you run the risk of looking like you're just randomly e-mailing professors with no forethought.

Just relax until you get the actual mark back. You might do better than you think. Besides, I'm assuming you're doing a thesis? If so, your classes aren't the most important thing. Your research is.

I e-mailed most of my supplementary materials, which avoided having to have a second meeting.

Yikes. I am a dog owner but a meat eater. I don't actively seek out products that avoid animal testing. Yet I don't think I could do the actual killing or animal testing. Completely hypocritical, I know, but I think a lot of people are the same.

I applied to two different engineering departments at one school. Was upfront about all my applications, which was good. Was a bit awkward when one of the profs I turned down phoned my current supervisor to congratulate him on getting me. I could have sworn I told my supervisor where I was applying but I think he had forgotten and was kind of taken aback by the phone call.

I don't weigh myself so I have no idea. I'm pretty thin so I sure hope I haven't lost weight, although some of my pants are a bit loose. But I could have also bought these pants a few years ago after I got back from Germany and had gained just a tiny bit of weight. And my jeans are stretching out with time so aren't so tight anymore. Sometimes when I'm really stressed I forget to take eating breaks too. It's bad news. But since all of my work is on the computer now, I gladly look forward to my eating breaks to give my eyes a rest.

I visited a few profs when I happened to be in town for Christmas visiting my boyfriend and his family. Was then flown out for a paid visit later. I would say it was very beneficial for me, but I think I would have been accepted regardless. But if I had been on the cusp, getting admitted in my departments completely depends on whether a prof will pick you or not to join their group, so the visit can be very important.

I mean the department that you will be applying to. They obviously would know a lot about what they expect

I've also noticed a number of different personality quirks in the graduate students in my department. I would say they are probably the minority, however. I also do notice different personalities are attracted to different types of research (i.e. mostly solitary work vs group work). You get a few more socially awkward people in the solitary work fields.

That's really unfortunate that the postdoc reacted like that. I'm not going to be best friends with anybody in my group, but I can regularly get help without fear of admonishment at least. It seems your anxieties are founded, mine are really not. I really recommend that you look for friends outside of your lab and department. Most of my friends are from various rugby teams that I play on. My teammates are anything from high school students to undergrads to grad students to moms to working women.

Why don't you ask your department what they think?

I know how you feel. I am in a large group with a busy PI. I struggle with knowing when to ask for help and then actually doing it. I've actually been seeing a therapist regarding some of my anxieties about getting help and it keeps me accountable. This is important otherwise I lose motivation and procrastinate like crazy. We had two new students join our lab this year and I was really frustrated because I felt like they received a much better orientation than I received. I actually was just sitting there trying to overhear everything the postdoc was telling them, because I wasn't told this information when I joined. Would have helped me get started a lot earlier in doing actual research. I know I have to be really proactive about making sure I get the help I need, it's just difficult to do so.

I'm pretty sure I addressed it too...

I agree with the above poster. I think you should have the phone conversation regardless at least to find out what sort of projects are available. Treat this as a practice phone call, as you will probably have many more.

I would recommend that you just bite the bullet and talk to him. Check out his website first and a few publications that he or his students have put out. See what sort of work they do. Explain why you think said work is interesting and if he has any projects available. Or you could be even more proactive, and if you see an obvious project, mention it. That's how I've gotten into any research project ever.

I regularly take about an hour just to get from my apartment to my department, so that puts things in perspective for me. When I was playing rugby it wasn't uncommon to drive 3-5 hours one way just to go play a game and then drive back. 2 hours would be doable for me to want to visit weekly.

While I understand the noise issue, I really don't see the issue with anything else this roommate does. You are basically faulting her because you are lonely and miss your boyfriend. What is she supposed to do, pretend like she doesn't have a boyfriend that she sees often to make you feel better? Your jealousy of her situation isn't her problem, it's yours, and you should take steps to address it, rather than expect her to not talk about her situation. Based on your assessment I think the loud sex is the only rude thing she has done, and you should address this and only this with her.

I don't have that problem at all, but I don't base any of my friendships (school or external) on the requirement that they have to be able to talk to me about my work in depth. In fact I actually would like to avoid talking about my research outside of school. Some separation is always nice. I also don't have any close friends in my department, all are from elsewhere. But I totally get what you mean about being graduate students yet not being able to talk about anything in common. I am in engineering, and my boyfriend's father's wife is getting her PhD in a humanities field. She keeps trying to relate to me about the thesis writing process, but the fact is our work could not be any more different. I just smile and nod.

There's no point e-mailing profs if you're not going to do research.

I applied to Canadian schools where each department has their own separate admissions process. I applied to 2 different engineering departments at one school and was accepted into both. There was a little bit of awkwardness when one POI emailed my current supervisor to congratulate him on getting me, when my supervisor really had no idea I was applying elsewhere.

I will just say it would be completely inappropriate for you to write to this student's coach about this. That is not nearly the right plan of action. Talking to the lab instructor is where you should start. Whoever is in charge of you should be able to help you with this.

Excellent post lewin00, couldn't agree more. My department is very professional and friendly. Nobody here is my close friend, but that is not because they are exclusionary. It's simply because they have chosen separate social groups, and so have I.

Not exactly a lack of passion. I still think what I'm doing is pretty cool, it's just a LOT of computer work. A lot doesn't even describe it actually. It's all computer work. I think computational simulations are great, but I would much rather couple that with experiment as well.