ktel

To add a different viewpoint, my university mandates a minimum level of funding for all incoming graduate students. The only way to get more than this amount is if you win external awards, in which case the university tops up your award with some internal funding, but your internal funding is reduced. In our case it is expected that everybody is getting the same stipend unless they have another award. In our department TAing is extra money as well, as it is not mandatory to get your stipend.

I plan on being around from September to August so applied for 3 terms.

Boots are my #1 splurge, and I have several pairs that I have splurged on. I wear them ALL THE TIME so it's not uncommon for me to drop $300 on a pair.

I took a class each semester with my advisor. It was certainly more stressful because I felt like I had to do that much better in his class than in my other ones. I did well in both, which is a relief! It can be stressful, but worth it.

I did a summer research position with a new faculty member at my undergrad institution. He had supervised students in the past as a post-doc, so had some experience as an adviser. I thought the experience was great, as I was his only student, so I got to participate in all of his research. Had some very amazing opportunities as a result. Even though it was just a short period of time, I thought he did a great job advising me and I really enjoyed my time with him.

An acquaintance of mine was recently in Houston, Texas. I appreciated all her Facebook status updates that explained how seemingly normal things here are inappropriate there. RE: Nose rings: " NOSE RINGS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE IN HOUSTON BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTS. People will ask you "has work said anything about your jewelry" and also "please cover up all piercings" "

This time last year I working a pretty cool summer research job that allowed me to watch a couple of open heart surgeries! And I was prepping for the move and visiting my boyfriend who already had moved. And playing rugby like I do every summer.

It doesn't sound that unusual to me. My semesters start in September, January and May, and any aid from the university isn't usually disbursed until the end of that month.

I didn't do an early start, but maybe I should have, and I easily could have. We have a student in my group who came early, and he's pushing through a lot of the coursework that he will need to do next year. I think I would have made a LOT more progress on my research if I had gotten a lot of that basic knowledge and especially those assignments out of the way. I was hesitant to start early because I didn't think I would know enough to do so, and instead did a summer research project at my undergrad institution to get me up to speed. Had I known that I would have just been going through coursework I would have been much more willing.

I certainly agree that I get a lot more done when I'm busier. Right now all I have is research and rugby and the abundance of free time doesn't really give me a sense of urgency for anything. What I really should do is force myself into a tighter schedule. I certainly could be training and working out more to reduce my free time but once again I'm having a hard time convincing myself that this is not summer vacation sometimes. Once September hits I will be back into my varsity season (my last one, tear...) and so will be a bit busier which should be good. I also will be TAing again in either the Fall or Winter semester. I might sit in on a class or two just for fun as well.

Welcome to my world. You sound very similar to me, in fact creepily similar. I was actually making decent progress and had motivated myself to do a lot of work, but then I went to France for 2 weeks for a tournament for one of my sports, and am now having difficulty getting back into it. I don't think I've done nearly as much work as I should have this summer, I really relaxed a bit too much. During the school year I was just terrified that I was going to fail and get kicked out so I was pretty motivated. Turns out I was actually completely delusional because I got a 4.0 and was recommended to direct transfer to my PhD (which I don't want to do) and received a bunch of external funding for next year. But that's another story. Without the pressure of deadlines and the fear of failing out I am now kind of stuck. The problem is my research isn't incredibly interesting to me. The end product is really cool but the process to get there is what I struggle with. I am not a very good computer programmer nor do I overly enjoy it, and that's all I'm doing right now. The only thing that really motivates me is the desire to finish on time and the fact that it is such a challenge. I have no advice for you but will follow this thread closely because apparently we are the same person.

In my communications with professors, it was typically them who suggested setting up a meeting if at all possible. For the case of one school I actually just stopped in unannounced and mentioned to the department secretary that I was just looking at the building because I was thinking of applying there. Next thing I knew I was in the graduate director's office for over an hour and was then introduced to several profs. The common thread in all of my experiences is that they were happy and enthusiastic to speak with me, and I would not have pushed myself on them if they weren't. I also think it would be worthwhile to contact a department secretary or someone like that and mention that you would like to just take a tour of the building, and mention why. From this you can gauge their reaction and willingness to want to meet with you otherwise.

PVR has become my best friend in grad school. Fastforwarding through commercials is key. Although it is less enjoyable to watch recorded sports games, in my opinion, because part of the excitement is that it is live and anything can happen. When the rugby world cup was on I had no choice but to PVR most of the games due to when they were on, but it meant I often somehow knew the outcome of the game before I watched it. This made it a lot less enjoyable to watch.

I think you are experiencing something very common among first year grad students. I know personally, every time something was going poorly in my program, I strongly wondered what it would have been like if I had chosen a different supervisor or school. I think there will be difficulties at any graduate program and the grass is not greener on the other side. Part of the issues I experienced were because I don't think I did due diligence when making my decision. Yes I visited and talked to supervisors, but I really didn't get a good enough indication of what any of the supervisors were like or what exactly my day to day research would be. So now I'm doing something I think is cool but I'm not exactly crazy about. Since I'm only doing a Master's, I'm going to stick it out. I don't know what I would do if it was a PhD. Since you have barely started I think it would definitely affect your reputation if you decided to switch now before giving School X a chance.

Since you are a personal trainer, why not just try to train some clients on the side? Run boot camps or that sort of thing. Should be able to get you some extra income. I think what your manager did sucks, but I do agree that maybe you should have told him. Although if you run through managers on a regular basis, I can also see why you didn't

I know my supervisor, for example, has PDF versions of all his papers on his website. No library access required. I also find a significant amount of papers on Google.

I had a research advisor who did an undergrad in engineering science, a Master's in chemistry, and then a PhD in some sort of other engineering. He definitely bounced around a lot and did a lot of different research. I think having more varied experience just makes you a stronger candidate. I don't think any researcher sticks to one topic their entire career.

I don't really see how this forum will help you that much, because we don't really know you that well! Everybody else here found out where they should apply by doing a lot of research. That means painstakingly looking through a LOT of university's websites and a LOT of professor's websites.

In addition, since you are probably getting all your loan money in one lump sum, you should be able to get certified cheques or something like that to your landlord. As long as they get paid, they shouldn't care.

Unrelated, but since the offending post above mine got deleted, it looks like I want someone to ban jeffster...

My upstanding boyfriend is now a convicted criminal (misdemeanor) due to some very unfortunate circumstances while on a ski trip with his friends. I have no faith in the American justice system and thank the lord I live in Canada after that. Well I guess the small town American justice system.

I think if you talked to a lot of Western women (or men) they would emphasize the practical as well. When a majority of marriages end because of money issues, a good job is important!

^ God somebody ban him already... To the OP, I would hardly consider a 3 year age difference significant, especially at your age. My mom is 6 years older than my dad, they met when she was about your age.

I think the most true way to figure out your GPA would be to convert each course percentage grade to a letter grade (which is where the 3.3 to 3.7 jump comes from, a B+ to a A-). Then you multiply each letter grade GPA by the course weighting, add all together, divide by the total credits. Make sense? So if you had: 78% - 0.5 credits 81% - 0.5 credits 80% - 0.5 credits You would get (3.3*0.5)+(3.7*0.5)+(3.7*0.5) / 1.5 = 3.56666667 I went to a Canadian school that used letter grades, and that is how our GPA was calculated

I think people are offended because it seems like your only concern is whether or not you can brag about being accepted into an Ivy League school.