ktel

I definitely sailed through the admissions part, the grad school part isn't as easy. Mostly because I don't exactly love what I'm doing right now. The fact that the admissions process was so easy and I did have so many options makes me a bit frustrated with the choice I made. But there are a lot of cool things about the department I am in that I do like. And I'm not convinced anywhere else would have been magically so much better. Just different I guess.

I don't have personal experience, but I will note that there are A LOT of parents in my department. In my research group of 16 people, one is a PhD student and mom of 2 kids (both which she had during her PhD), one is a PhD student and dad of 2 kids (one was just born a few weeks ago), one of the post docs is a dad of one, one of the other post docs just had his fourth child. So obviously my department and supervisor are very supportive of this. I'm sure it will vary depending on the school, department and supervisor.

Precisely this. Definitely just a cultural/legal thing in North America where discrimination on the base of gender, age, sexual orientation, etc. is illegal when it comes to job applications. Besides, do you really want to be admitted just because you're a girl?

It's not appropriate in Canada or the US to include a picture with your CV or resume. In contrast, when I was in Germany it was expected.

While my department is friendly, I don't exactly expect to have close friends at school. I'm a year in and am just slowly making some headway in hanging out with people outside of school. I have focused most of my friend-making on other people, mainly my rugby team mates and my boyfriend's friends and friends of friends.

Yes, I very much look forward to coming home to my boyfriend and my dog. Especially my dog

I live with my boyfriend who is not in grad school. I think I put in less hours than most people in grad school though, try to make it 9-5 and then put in extra work when it's crunch time. Right now I'm super busy as it's my varsity rugby season, so I don't get home until 8pm most nights. He's very understanding and makes sure dinner is ready for me when I get home.

I'm so sorry to hear that. I will definitely not feed anything like that to my dog!

I don't think having strong opinions and pushing them on others is confined to academia in the slightest. I've come across these types of people everywhere. That being said, I do notice a stronger degree of social awkwardness in graduate school. Especially in engineering. Some of it can easily be explained due to cultural and language barriers for some students, but for others it just has to do with how their brains work. And I think that's why they are so good at the research they do. I find most of these personality quirks quite endearing in their uniqueness.

Is this necessarily new? I am pretty sure my OGS application went through a selection panel within my department before it was forwarded on.

margarets only posts occasionally, asks for an opinion, gets mad, cycle repeats... I forget about her for long enough to want to take her threads seriously, then once I'm reminded of her past behavior I immediately avoid posting in them.

I don't think his initial response shows a high level of committment to you. If he does actually respond you can say another professor already offered you a position. I doubt he will be too offended as he has no investment in you.

I just found certain races and religions to be really under represented in Edmonton as a whole as well as in certain neighborhoods. Probably partly due to a population difference and partly due to the propensity for immigrants to migrate to places where other people from their region already exist in a strong community.

If I am to assume your home town is Toronto (based on your location) and you have moved to another small town in Canada, I'm not surprised about you experiencing a bit of culture shock. I moved from Edmonton to Toronto to start graduate school, and there are very noticeably a lot more races, religions, etc. in Toronto. For example, I don't think I knew a single Jewish person growing up in Edmonton. A Torontonian would think I was crazy saying that. I also am not friends with very many people in my department. There's the odd social thing organized through the student association, and it's fun, but I'm not expecting to make lifelong friends. Instead I have stuck to my usual method of making friends: play sports. You could easily replace sports with any sort of club or external association. As for the "academic gobbledygook", I believe there was a thread on here about reading academic texts. The gist of it is, a lot of academic writing is unnecessarily confusing. I'm in a math/engineering field where it can get particularly bad. I often find myself going cross eyed as rows of formulas are presented.

I can relate to the "what-if" dilemma because I had offers from a variety of professors at a variety of schools. I often struggle with whether I made the right decision, as certain things like location, my relationship with my advisor and even my subject area are not ideal. But I have to remember that I would have struggles anywhere and the grass is not greener on the other side. My degree is 2 years and I'm halfway through, so I will just stick it out.

Your university requires you have a 10 out of 10 GPA? That's strange. I would imagine that's an internal requirement then and has little to do with the OGS requirements

I certainly read more than I actually post, but I don't peak during "freak out" season.

What program is she applying to? For a lot of the programs at U of T, if you get accepted, you are accepted with a minimum level of funding. This is for Canadian students: http://www.sgs.utoronto.ca/Assets/SGS+Digital+Assets/Graduate+Research/Graduate+Funding+Structures+2010-11.pdf For International students it is all unfortunately a lot more hazy as they leave themselves with a convenient amount of flexibility. Since I'm a domestic student I don't really know and most of my friends are domestic too.

I feel like I'm reading gibberish somewhat regularly when reading papers. I agree with the above that good writing is not valued enough, especially in my field which is more technical. If it's difficult to understand people are left with the impression that it's because it is an advanced concept, not because it's poorly written

I also moved away from home for grad school. My boyfriend and his family were around but I had no friends of my own! The first year was very difficult for me because of the coursework and research expectations. I found the summer difficult again because all of a sudden I didn't have coursework and had so much free, unstructured time that I felt overwhelmed and didn't know where to start my research. I also feel like an imposter fairly often and it prevents me from asking people for help when I need it. Things that I found helpful are: 1) I joined a sports team and know 60 new people now. We have social events on a regular basis 2) Talking to people. This usually included my dad but I have actually started going to an on campus counselor just to have somebody who is removed from me personally to talk to.

I rigorously keep track of all of my spending, and I definitely spend a fair bit more in the summer. About $100-200 more per month in fact. I attribute it to two reasons: 1) It's too hot to turn the oven on so we go out to eat a lot more 2) It's my summer club rugby season which means I'm going out with the girls every weekend I have never mastered the art of having fun for free.

Maybe my leg to arm proportions are weird, but there is about 5-6 inches between the top of my knee and the tip of my finger, hence why I think my dresses are too short when I do that! Must have long legs or something. I'm 5'9 so tall-ish.

I totally use this rule all the time. Although sometimes even when I follow this rule I still feel like my skirt is too short.

I have a bit of a different perspective, being in a math and computer programming intensive program that I don't particularly love. I am only in a 2 year Master's program, so I have decided to stay (since I'm also halfway through), but I could not see myself doing a PhD in this field at all, and if I was in the PhD stream I would strongly consider leaving or switching into a different area. Unfortunately I did not go in with my eyes as wide open as they perhaps should have been, and am now paying the price. Obviously switching a week into the program will have significant implications in regards to things like funding and people's general impression of you. These are all things you need to consider. What you also have to consider is whether switching into chemistry is really the solution for you. From what I understand you want to be doing research that is close to producing a final product. Something more practical. With this in mind, you need to very specifically look at who you would be researching with, as it has been my observation that a lot of research at graduate school can be incredibly theoretical. Do a lot of thinking, but don't let people play down your feelings as over reactions, because they might not be. Also be sure not to over idealize your options because you are unhappy with your current choice, as the grass is not always greener on the other side. You need to analyze exactly what you want and figure out exactly where you need to go to get it.

In my department it varies from research group to research group. I can probably count on one hand the number of times my supervisor has been in our office area since I've been here. We also share the room with another research group, and that prof pops in several times a day. All our work is completely computational so it can be done from anywhere with a computer. I have been going in less this summer, but typically try to do most of my work there because I'm more productive and it looks good.