ktel

I would say enhance. You could get some excellent LoRs from your supervisors, and the fact that they hold PhD's makes them look even better. In addition to that, the experience itself would look good. I find it strange you would even question whether it would help or harm....

Why didn't you apply for Master's programs? I assume because you want funding? Apply to Canadian schools if that's the case (they often fund Master's degrees).

I know several people like you, who constantly insist on playing the victim. Until you stand up and take responsibility for yourself, you probably will continue to fail. It's impossible to succeed when you blame others for your failure. Many people on this forum have attempted to help you and give you advice, which you have ignored. At this point it is difficult to feel badly for you when you insist on doing nothing to help yourself. This may be harsh, but I have never been able to feel sympathetic towards people who do nothing to help themselves. As a strong, independent woman myself, I have never been able to put myself into their shoes and understand their thought process.

I just look at active topics anyways, so I don't even go on particular forums. There are newly accepted and current grad students in all of the forums anyways

What field? Not that will make a huge difference, but it could. It also depends on what your goals are. I am doing an M.A.Sc. in Aerospace Engineering and am not sure whether I would like to work after, go directly into a PhD, or work then do a PhD. Based on my goals, I would jump at the opportunity to do an internship and gain some valuable experience in my field. Now if your goals are different, for example if you want to become a professor only, then this internship might not be such a high priority to you. I would also speak with your advisor to get his thoughts on this, as like you said, you wouldn't want to strain your relationship with him, especially so early. That sounds typical for most funding packages, they pause your funding during internships, but as long as it will resume when you return, then it shouldn't be an issue.

I would assume they would emphasize the Master's, as that is likely your more relevant and more difficult degree (assuming you're applying to a related PhD program). Taking an average of the two doesn't make sense at all to me.

I got an RA job by speaking to one of my undergrad profs back in March. I probably could have made more money if I had gotten an industry job, but the hours are great and the work is interesting and is somewhat applicable to my Master's. Makes for a very relaxing last summer in my hometown.

Typically you have to get loans from the state/country/province where you live. As an Alberta student studying in Ontario, I have to get Alberta student loans, for example. You have to be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident to get any sort of government loan. Most of the major scholarships are the same, you will have to look for those for US citizens that allow study outside of the country. I'm not sure what program you're applying to, but U of T guarantees funding for almost all programs. For my program the funding was $15,000 + a tuition waiver. This gives an idea of previous funding structures: http://www.sgs.utoronto.ca/Assets/SGS+Digital+Assets/current/Awards/Graduate+Funding+Structures.pdf However that stipulates it is for Canadian students. Best to contact them and ask

Have you told your sister that she is basically bankrupting your mother? Have you talked to your mom about saying no? Hopefully you can find a program with funding. Then you can pursue your goals without being a financial burden

I love driving. I love being in my car by myself listening to music. Besides, in my city it's practically unheard of to not own a car and commute. Public transit is just not that good.

Keep in mind that the internal deadline for your school might be quite early. The deadline at my school for NSERC was the second week of September I think. See if you can find out and start contacting people for letters of reference and look for a potential research project to write about (this can be just filler, I think they just want to see how you can write a research proposal, you don't have to stick to it)

They wouldn't necessarily know. Although I personally don't think I could pull of looking like a genuine PhD student if I knew I was going to leave after my MS. Perhaps someone with less of a conscience could do it, but not me.

Ahhh I remember you...You're the one who couldn't stand up for yourself enough to distance yourself from your mother and not attend grad school. You were doomed from the start. You likely would have hated any school you went to simply because you were being forced to attend. You have control over your own life. Don't expect us to pity you for the decisions you make.

These are all things you could have easily found out about by doing a little bit of research. Lack of planning on your part does not mean your school is terrible. If you feel an MFA is so worthless, why even waste your time and money?

The passive-aggressive approach could be a good first attempt at setting boundaries at this stage. If the problems escalate or don't improve then a different approach must obviously be taken.

You better be applying for NSERC. I applied with a 3.94 GPA, limited research experience at the time, no publications, OK LORs (I didn't really get to know my professors super well until later on in the year, after the application was due) and I got a CGS-M. Having your own funding makes you that much more attractive as an applicant.

For my undergrad I lived 20km away from campus. Taking the bus sucked because I have to transfer at least twice, so about an hour and a half total. It's a 30 minute drive in good traffic. I would typically drive to an area near campus then park and take the bus (we have an included student bus pass), and that would take about 45 minutes. For grad school I live 13km from the Aerospace Department and 5km from main campus. I don't know yet how my time will be split between the two, but I'm planning on playing varsity rugby, so I will have to be on main campus at least 3 times a week. It's about a 45 minute commute on transit to my department and 15 minutes to main campus.

My SO basically only did a Master's so he would stay with me while I finished my undergrad. It was course-based, so just 1 year. Now I've chosen to do my Master's in the city where he works now. We'll see what happens after but we're both obviously committed to making major life choices based on each other.

I personally don't think I would ever listen to the tape again. I find my note taking to be more than sufficient. In addition, make sure you ask special permission from each professor to record their lectures. They also have the right to say no.

I contacted professors in November and December and my applications were due in January and February. I sent them an e-mail telling them a little bit about myself and my interests, why I was contacting them, then I attached my transcript and CV. Almost all of them replied to me. A few of the e-mails I sent out very last minute in December, hoping to set up a meeting while I was in Toronto. When the professors didn't respond right away, I simply showed up at the school and was able to speak to the prof in charge of graduate admissions who then referred me to one of the professors, who then spoke to another professor about me and we had a Skype conversation later.

I think that's a terrible way to handle it initially. Going over his head without speaking to him or trying to resolve this matter between the two of them would make the OP look childish and as if he couldn't deal with problems by himself. That being said, my advice is to speak to the other student. Explain to him that you don't have time for unnecessary meetings and that you are collaborating, he is not your boss. If it continues, then perhaps going over his head is necessary.

While I must say I was not as miserable as Poppet, I did work very hard in my undergrad, and I too am sort of miffed that my funding from U of T gets reduced because I won an external scholarship. In the absence of external awards they provide $15,000/year plus a tuition waiver. Now that I have won NSERC it's reduced to $12,000/year and no tuition waiver. Since tuition is $8000, U of T has basically reduced my funding by almost half. I'm still getting $6500 more than I would have without NSERC, but it still bothers me a little bit.

Yeah the commercial software is useful for a general CFD analysis, but when analyzing more complex flows its use diminishes. For my undergrad project we were trying to predict a drag change of 1-3% and we couldn't even get mesh independence after getting access to a prof's research cluster and maxing out at around 1.5 million nodes

In my experience most Master's TAs either do grading or run tutorials or lab sessions only. Only PhD TAs will teach a class

I'm going into Computational Aerodynamics, Prof. Zingg will be my supervisor actually. While the Aerodynamics course was not offered in my year, I did get to take an Introduction to CFD course, and my design project for the RBAR also involved extensive CFD work. We were using ANSYS CFX, however, while my Master's work will focus much more on developing your own CFD code or using already developed code.