ktel

I forgot to mention some of my cooking/grocery tips. Now I am not a very good cook or grocery shopper, but luckily my boyfriend is. He is very conscious of prices at the grocery stores, so is able to tell when things are on sale. When it comes to meat we buy it in bulk and as unprocessed as possible - that way it's cheaper. Typically buying a whole chicken and cutting it up yourself is better. We'll buy a whole mass of meat and then he'll cut our own steaks out of it. Now that was when we had a huge deep freeze. Now we will have a tiny apartment with potentially no deep freeze, however I think a 5 cubic foot one just came on sale and I told him to buy it! Otherwise we just buy things in bulk, go to Costco, buy no-name, etc. We still spend a fair amount on groceries for the two of us, but I seriously eat a LOT. When I'm training hard for rugby I've been known to eat 4000 calories a day.

I think it's been made pretty clear that your experiences aren't universal to all grad students. We don't think you should attend grad school if you have zero interest, can't afford it or if you don't want to be there. I don't think anyone would recommend you do that. In fact, when we asked for our advice earlier about attending grad school, we recommended to you not to do that. Hate to say I told you so.

Here is what my budgeting looks like: Stipend: $29,500 for first 12 months, at least $10,000 for the last 8 months - luckily in Canada this is ALL TAX FREE! Woohoo Tuition: $16,000 ($8,000 per year) Subtracting other lump expenses such as books ($1000), travel ($2000), gifts ($700) and moving expenses ($500), I'm left with just under $1500 a month. If I get a TA position I can expect to make at least another $2000, giving me an extra $100 a month. This is the breakdown: Rent: $500 (the rent on our place is $1200, my boyfriend is subsidizing me somewhat) Food/Eating Out: $300 Cable/Internet: $50 Cell Phone: $50 Transit: $100 Entertainment: $100 Clothing: $80 Personal Care: $100 Savings: The rest I've kept pretty detailed records of my spending habits for the last 4 years, so this is based on that. Luckily I don't drink coffee and I am still covered under my parent's medical insurance. My boyfriend just bought a car and will be paying all the expenses on that, so I will have access to a car without having to pay much for it. Reading how some of the students on here live makes me think I'm living a cushy lifestyle. Quite frankly I wouldn't be willing to sacrifice some of these comforts just for grad school.

We don't think you are a substandard member, student or human being, but you are allowing yourself to live a substandard life. Maybe you should take your own advice.

The statement in bold is what I particularly wanted to respond to. How could you know that if you've never experienced it. I'm going to go into grad school soon. I'm sure I'll be stressed out but I'm going to guarantee you that I will never feel depressed. I can also guarantee you that I will still have time to eat, go to the bathroom, play sports, spend time with loved ones, travel, etc. That's because I choose to. To the OP, is it possible for you to pursue your program from home? It sounds like it's not academia itself that is depressing you, but the combination of being away from the familiarity of your hometown and the somewhat unsupportive nature of your program/advisor.

I watch terrible reality shows. Don't know why. I love them though. Everything from MTV to Slice to E! to HGTV. Those are probably my main reality show channels. The only non-reality show I really watch is Criminal Minds. I absolutely love that show, but I need to catch up on the most recent seasons! I mostly just watch old reruns whenever they are on.

If you're doing more than 4 years of undergrad, you may have taken a reduced course load. If this is the case I believe they will take into account the equivalent of 2 years of courses. So if you're supposed to take 20 courses in your last 2 years normally, I believe they would look at the last 20 courses completed. For the study abroad semester I would imagine they would exclude that from the previous 2 years. All of these are questions best answered by the schools you are applying to.

Final two years = year 3+4 (even though you won't have all your grades for year 4 upon application) That's what I've been led to understand

I did, nobody ever had a problem. In fact they were always quite open about asking me who I had contacted and suggesting to me other professors I should speak with.

All of my friends are either from school or rugby. I have more friends from my club rugby team than from my varsity team. This mostly seems to be because I don't have much in common with many of the varsity athletes. A lot of them are just there to play sports and don't have very defined career goals. I don't have very many close friends, I don't think many people do. It's hard to maintain a close relationship with a lot of people.

I just got back from a visit to my future city (Toronto) and am now extra impatient. My boyfriend and I went shopping for several things for our apartment (bought a bed and a TV) and have our Ikea list ready for the end of the month. And I got to drive his new car! Miss him tons now that I'm back home again and won't see him for another 3 weeks.

My boyfriend did his Master's pretty much only to stay in the city where I did my undergrad, so I decided I would only apply to the schools in the city where he got a full-time job. Luckily I didn't feel the desire to apply to US schools, and luckily Toronto has one of the best universities in Canada. Had I needed to go somewhere else I feel we could have compromised, however.

I have never met relationship-worthy guys at a bar unless I knew them beforehand and we just happened to finally talk at a bar. I have met most of them through sports (I play rugby, we're a very tight knit community) and I met my current significant other through an engineering design club. I am in an extremely male-dominated field, however, so that certainly helps, although I have only dated one engineer.

I know some of you have already moved, but I'm not moving until August 25th and it can't come soon enough. While I'm glad my summer research project is finally moving again, it is getting tiresome, and I'm ready to be done with it. I also can't wait to be in a new city, new apartment, new rugby team, meeting new people. Not to mention I'm sick of long distance with my boyfriend. I want to know what classes I'll be taking (the list isn't up yet ) and whether I'll get a TA position or not (for some extra cash). In short, this next month can't go by fast enough! Anyone else impatient?

I made a LaTeX document to display some of my research findings yesterday, and am so satisfied with the program. I am definitely going to learn how to use it, I think it will be incredibly useful for all future papers.

You have to be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident to apply for an OGS. I would guess that SSHRC is the same...

I know TheSquirrel is at a Canadian school, but I was wondering who else is at a Canadian school and what they notice. I think in the States it's more Us vs Them in the fact that you choose PhD or MA/MS, whereas here, most PhD students were previously in a Master's program. That surely must affect the perception of Master's students in the eyes of faculty and PhD students.

You are obviously not an Alberta student, as we love standardized tests over here. This is not a comment at anyone in particular, I just don't think the verbal or quantitative section should be discounted because you are not going into a verbal or quantitative field. From sample questions I've seen (I'll admit I have not taken the GRE), the math seems like basic high school math. I think it should be expected that regardless of the field you go into that you should be able to do this. I for one found it ridiculous when I was working retail and the girls would pull out a calculator to count money. For calculations like 7 * $10. I'm going into a highly quantitative field, and I would be embarrassed if I did poorly on the verbal section. Quantitative studies are useless unless you can communicate that information effectively.

I enjoy that I don't have to deal with mail, or worse, the university's internal mailing system. The MIE department at U of T has lost or not received my documents THREE TIMES.

Oh man. I would not touch Quebecois separatism with a 10 foot pole....A very sensitive issue is an understatement.

I only applied to 2 schools (3 different programs), which seems to be a lower number than some of the people on this forum. After a few meetings with some of the professors and/or graduate advisors I had no doubt I would be accepted. Not to sound arrogant, but I only applied to 3 programs to keep my options open, not because I didn't think I would get in. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to study or who with.

Sounds similar to the responses I received from the professors I e-mailed. All of them offered me a spot in their lab when acceptances rolled around. I also then organized to meet a lot of them after receiving this initial positive response (this may not be possible depending on location, I happened to be visiting the city my grad school is in)

I'm not suggesting you change your personality or remove that passion. I am suggesting that when taking part in an argument or debate you take a little more time to fully construct your arguments based on a thorough (and perhaps less emotional) reading of the post you are responding to. This is especially important when using the Internet, because the words you and others use is all there is to go by. There is no knowledge of your personality or tone. While I do not doubt that you are adept at reading and critical thinking, I sometimes notice your responses fail to show that you fully read and understood the post you are arguing against. It does appear, occasionally, that you do pick and choose which sentences and responses to react to, which does not give credit to the poster's full argument. This in turn makes your argument seem less well thought out, although I doubt that is truly the case.

I would argue that most people perform some sort of generalization, whether consciously or not. If you have a negative experience with certain types of people repeatedly, it's not unusual for someone to generalize the whole group. This is rarely done through a conscious decision on the part of the individual to generalize a whole group of people. You have a continuous habit of getting too emotionally involved in many of the discussions on these forums, and as a result you sometimes fail to construct a strong argument. You have stooped to insulting the OP, which is arguably immature.

While they may be separate from you in degree status, they are not separate from you socially, and you were asking a question regarding social interaction. Hence I (and others) see absolutely no need for you to have made a distinction. What are your friendships like outside of school? Do you have any? You general attitude suggests that you look down upon those that don't pursue academia as their main career goal. There is nothing wrong with students choosing a more professionally-oriented Master's degree, and in fact, they might have better job prospects as a result.