ktel

It's the fact that you keep calling them MA students, rather than grad students, for example. This alone shows that you think of them as separate from you, and in conjunction with some of your other comments, think that they are below you. We wouldn't have taken offense if you had phrased the problem differently. If you had said "I noticed some of the grad students at my school are immature and I have difficulty interacting with them" it would have taken a completely different tone. Instead you have decided to class them specifically as MA students, yet claim that you do not think all MA students are like that.

To be honest, I think it's kind of silly to throw all the MA students under a single label. Who cares whether they are MA or PhD or no degree, find people who you get along with, make friends, and don't worry about what it looks like to others. I sincerely doubt anyone is noticing or caring too much about who you are hanging out with, unless you are hanging out with drug dealers or something. Despite you claiming not to be elitist, these posts make you sound like you are, just based on your "Me vs Them" description of the situation. The fact is, they're students just like you, and they're probably only a few years younger than you. If certain behavior bothers you, avoid those students. But to lump all the MA students together seems kind of silly.

Just me, you are the exception, because you don't want to be in grad school. Of course that would make you depressed (you sound depressed, by the way) and would make you want to sleep all the time. If you don't enjoy your life and feel no motivation to change it, then you're not exactly going to be out there living it up, are you?

Does your transcript list upcoming courses you are registered in? I know mine always did. It would show the course name and number but there would be no corresponding grade.

Join a sports team? From my experience that is a sure-fire way to make friends. So many of my friends are from my university or club rugby team. I will be playing varsity rugby during grad school so should meet about 30 girls right off the bat. It will be nice because I'll be meeting people outside of my program.

Wow. This woman is literally insane. That is so unfortunate for this professor to have to deal with her.

No, I think I keep my relationships pretty separate. As soon as a guy goes in the "friend" category, he is not coming out of that category. Maybe this is because I've been in such a male dominated field, but I feel it's crucial to my success that I don't get attached to the men I work and study with. It would just be inappropriate and I feel it would cause me to lose respect.

I currently live with 3 dogs and I am going to miss them SO MUCH when I go away, but I know I won't have the time or flexibility to have a dog for a few years. And yes, while a cat is easier, it's not the same as a dog.

Your friend seems like she's an intensely jealous and competitive person. My suggestion to you would to just not talk about grad school applications at all. Remind yourself why you're applying to grad school. Obviously you thought you were qualified, and you probably are. Also remind yourself that you have the nicer personality. If your friend is being this nasty to you, who is to say that her tone is not going to show through in a Statement of Purpose or an interview? At one point at my grad banquet I found myself becoming kind of snarky to someone who was bragging to me about applying to grad school (he was applying quite late, I had received acceptances by that point). I just had to remind myself that it was not a competition and to not take his bragging the wrong way. He was just excited, and it did not make my accomplishments any less important.

Did anyone RSVP for the graduate orientation? What time slots did you choose? I was a little later than I should've been, so got the later time slots.

Absolutely. As much as you want to go to grad school, at some point you need to value yourself and realize that the school is not treating you with respect if they do not provide you with timely responses.

My graduating class had 190 students, and I thought the size was excellent. Because of the larger number of students, the department is able to offer a wider variety of classes. I was still able to develop close relationships with several professors. Being the only blonde girl and kicking butt academically probably contributed to that.

My current advisor is insane. He has 23 publications so far and got his PhD in 2008, MS in 1999. From what I can tell he had 15 publications from his Master's and was first author on 9 of them. He has 8 from his PhD, first author on 7 of them.

I've had a general policy my entire life that I wouldn't get involved with anyone I went to school with. In high school that meant guys in my high school were off limits. In university that meant no guys in any of my classes (so no mechanical engineers, but other disciplines were OK). This policy has been in place to prevent general awkwardness, either from having to see the guy you are dating way too often, or having to see the guy you just broke up with way too often. I like a little separation in my life. That being said you don't sound like you are planning on pursuing anything with this guy, just wanted a place to vent your feelings

Yeah, title it "Potential student" or something like that. Can't remember what I did... Just speaking from my experience I think contacting potential professors was extremely beneficial. Because of one professor I contacted, I was flown out to an open house for the "top applicants" or something like that. It was a great experience. I feel I probably would've been accepted regardless, as many professors I didn't contact beforehand contacted me after I submitted my application.

I just don't understand how students can afford to do this. My undergrad tuition was only $6000 a year, and if I had been buying papers, I could have easily paid double (well maybe not because I'm in engineering, not so many papers). It can't solely be rich kids using this service.

I definitely need to do this. I get a webpage at U of T and one day I will need to set it up. I also definitely need to change my CV to be more of an academic CV and less of an applying-for-grad-school CV. Hence certain things, like my GPA, would be removed.

Personally, I am going with a netbook and a desktop. I can't do any real work without a screen, and a large screen on a laptop makes it too heavy for me to want to carry around. I would much rather just have an awesome desktop and then a netbook for any basic things I need to do away from home.

I'm supposed to take at least 5 courses, one of which is a research seminar (which is a class to prepare me for my thesis). I'm supposed to complete my course requirements in the first year, and the course lists aren't out yet, so I don't know what the distribution will be per semester.

Ah sounds very similar to someone I recently worked with. He lived in the East, and I'm in the West, so we could only communicate via phone or e-mail. He would only correspond with us at his convenience, and would often leave questions unanswered for weeks. When we would send him reports, his comments made it clear that he had only read sections of the report. He would often berate us for not doing a good enough job, however would not provide us with the data and information we needed to do our job. While the issue was never fully resolved, these were the things we did to try to help: - First of all, since he was never very polite or respectful to us, my e-mails, while always professional, were often somewhat ruder in tone than one might typically expect. - When he would make comments without reading the report, I would point him to all the sections in the report where he could find answers, obviously suggesting I knew he didn't read it. - When berating us about the quality of our work, I would suggest to him how his uncooperativeness was preventing us from completing the task - Since it was for a 4th year undergrad course, we had an advisor at my school for the project. On more than one occasion he had to step in, as the client clearly respected him more than us. Ultimately we just had to accept that it was what it was. I'm just happy the project is done with.

This is a very interesting topic, and I have some examples to share. My father has a long and hard to spell German name and my mother has a simple English name. They did not get married until I was 10, so obviously she has always kept her maiden name, partially because there was no point switching after 10 years and partially because who wants a more difficult last name. When I was born I had my mother's last name, but when my brother was born they gave him my father's last name. They then switched my last name to my father's last name before I started school so that we would have the same last names to prevent any confusion. I would probably just change my last name if I was switching it to a simpler one. It would be so nice to not have to spell my last name every time I tell it to someone. The only problem I have with this is at the moment my brother is adamant he does not want to have kids so I would guess the name might die at my generation. Another woman I know is a prison guard, so safety is of concern to her (doesn't want convicts tracking her down). Since her maiden name is very common, she has kept that at work to make her somewhat more anonymous.

That articles is fascinating and shocking all at the same time. I can't believe schools are so blind to this. You would think it would be fairly unusual to see an excellent paper out of someone who can barely speak English.

I just always turn everything into a PDF document unless otherwise specified. It makes formatting issues a non-issue. Sometimes I submit both PDF and the Word or OO document, that way if there is formatting problems the person can see I'm not an idiot and that it's a software issue.

When I lose motivation I read the biographies of impressive people in my field or people whose life paths I would like to follow. If their bio particularly inspires me I might use the structure of it to help write a personal statement. This could work the opposite way for some people though and maybe make them feel inadequate. It works for me though.

How many classes are you taking already?