wilderbeast

I've been in grad school for a few years now and have one first author paper that's been published for a while now (it was written well over a year ago). I recently started working on something that requires the same numerical techniques as the work in this previous paper, so I revisited the methods that were used in this paper... and discovered to my horror that a key calculation in the paper was not done quite correctly. At first I thought that this would just mean one plot in our paper would need to be fixed (that was bad enough). I discussed it with my advisor and he said that we can submit errata to the journal. Fine, redoing a plot is bad, but I guess it happens. But as I've been redoing the calculation correctly (it takes a long time), it is looking more and more like at least an entire section of my paper, as well as an appendix, are just plain wrong. I mean, not just the plots... like, the entire science we built behind them. And I am freaking out. I can't imagine I'm the only person on the planet to ever have a stupid semester and discover after publishing that I'm horribly wrong, but what happens now? Obviously we have to see just how off our results are, but if they're really far off as I suspect then what?? Do we somehow withdraw the whole paper (can people even do that?), or do we just submit all the corrections in errata? And I know this might sound silly, but am I totally doomed here? I mean, this is my ONLY paper at all, and although I'll probably have one or two others by the time I defend, I'm not sure what long term consequences this screw up will have. It's a totally honest mistake -- I mean, it's a really hard calculation, and out of two journal referees, my advisor, and several other faculty members, as well as myself, no one noticed this mistake -- but I feel like a total moron, I should have been able to catch this. Why wasn't I being more careful? Has this ever happened to anyone else here? What did you do? Any advice for a panicking student?

I applied last year and didn't get one, though my reviews indicated that it was mainly GRE scores. Having prepared to redo the GRE, I'm getting everything else ready to reapply. However, my previous research experiences have changed very little (I did a little more research in my final undergrad. semester, then started grad school). Can I just make tiny changes to my final research experience essay and leave the rest of it alone, or will that be considered plagiarism? Can I do similar things - make small changes to my personal statement, or do I really have to rewrite them all from scratch? Also - what do you do for reference letters when you've just started grad. school two months ago and haven't started research yet? I don't know any of the faculty very well and haven't even taken my first midterm yet, so I don't know how anyone at my grad. institution would be able to write me a letter. I already have two of my undergrad. professors to write for me, but I don't know who the third will be...

I find the health insurance thing to be very complicated. I don't really understand how it all works yet - thus far I've been covered by my parents' insurance plans. I guess as a graduate student I get to pick a plan and pay premiums? I don't know how I'm going to afford it with my stipend... for some reason I thought that I just got some kind of coverage automatically. I didn't realize we have to do the premiums thing. I don't really know how it works...

So there are a few professors at my undergrad. institution that have done a lot for me over the years. Mostly I plan to give out hand-written thank you cards, but for the two professors I've worked with for the last 2 years (and pestered for LoRs, bugged about research, asked coursework problems, traveled to conferences with, etc.) I want to do something nicer. One of the professors I know quite well and have spent a lot of time with in the last four years (even doing non-academic things, a couple times, as we have an overlapping hobby of sorts). He really likes scotch, so I bought him a nice ($65) bottle of scotch. I think he will like it, but I also don't want to make him feel really awkward or weird... do you think it is too much? (I hope not since I don't drink the stuff, and already bought it... ) I am not sure what gifts are appropriate for the other professor. He's not the sort who would really enjoy chocolate (and is kind of a rough-around the edges character), so I was thinking maybe a bottle of wine, but I don't know... any ideas? what are your thoughts on this? I think he likes scotch as well, but don't know his taste, and don't want to spend another $65 if I can help it (hoping to stay under $50 for this one).

I have been wondering about this too. In the city I'm moving to, the housing gets considerably less expensive around 8-10 miles from the university. But that seems so far to me (I live within a mile of my undergrad school). I've heard that graduate students typically live further off campus than undergrads, but what's a reasonable commute? Is 20 minutes commute by car too much? Is it worth it to pay $200-$300 more a month to live within 3 miles of the campus?

That's awesome! I love how our brains put random things together in dreams like that - for some reason it's always the weirdest things from a day that make it to the dreams.

So I'm going to be visiting the school that's accepted me soon, which has me wondering: as a female student in the hard sciences, are there questions I should plan to ask that specifically cover women-related issues in graduate school? For instance, I'm currently not married, but if I were to meet someone in the next year then it is plausible that I could have a child by the time I finish my PhD. Is it wise to ask now about things like taking maternity leave, even though I'm not planning on it? I don't want to them to get the idea that this is my plan, but I do want to be informed. For the women on this forum who are already in graduate school, are there things you wish you'd asked about before deciding on a school?

Well, here's food for thought. When I was 12 years old I joined the US Air Force Auxiliary, the Civil Air Patrol. And for the entire duration of middle school and high school I planned and planned to be an Air Force officer. I had SO much experience by the time I was 18 - I *knew* that it was the perfect career for me. I didn't get into the Air Force Academy, but started doing Air Force ROTC in college. It was my path, my dream, and I had all my ducks in a row... UNTIL, pressured by budget cuts and forced to reduce the size of ROTC programs, the Air Force promptly informed me my second year of college that because I'd had childhood asthma (I only had it before age 10) that I was disqualified and had to leave. All this, despite the fact that I had vast Air Force experience, wore a uniform and marched perfectly, outperformed all the other women in my detachment in physical fitness (I have NO asthma at all now), and had aced the Air Force Officer's Qualifying Test. I would have made a very fine officer, I think. Of course, I was devastated - in one afternoon everything I'd worked hard to achieve meant nothing, and my dreams were worthless. I had no idea what I could, or would even want to do with the rest of my life. Things were pretty glum for a while. But then, I discovered physics. I changed my major to physics. And now, several years down the road, I could NEVER picture myself as an Air Force officer. I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to do that now. I am actually GLAD that they kicked me out, because I would have gotten there and been unhappy. And I love physics, and I love the prospects of a career doing something with physics -- and none of this I ever could have discovered if the Air Force hadn't given me the boot. I guess what I am trying to say is that you never know what will come of the future. Having your dreams shattered is difficult and sad, but in the end, you will build new dreams and find new paths - and who knows, you might even like the new path better than the old one.

You all need to learn to write in LaTeX!! It's kind of a different approach to making documents. The idea is that you, as the author, should be more concerned with what you're writing then how to format it and make it "pretty". So you type your stuff in plain text and put in commands to tell the program how to format the page. It produces beautiful PDFs. Now as for the original issue, this is more about how to catalogue books and academic articles for citations, but there is another program related to LaTeX called Bibtex. You can make a single electronic database of all the stuff you own. Then when you go to write papers, etc. in LaTeX and want to cite something, all you have to do is type a single line \cite{so and so} and it does it for you. This is great - you don't have to make new bibliographies for each document, you just tell the program what references to include and where to put them, and it does all the rest!!! You can have a massive database of every citation you will ever need. Then you use whichever ones out of it you want to, and never format anything. Check it out, http://www.latex-project.org/ and http://www.bibtex.org/. There's a little bit of a learning curve because you have to pick up on what the various commands are, but it's soooo much nicer than typing anything in Word. It's big in science (easy to make nice mathematical documents), but I don't know how popular it is in the humanities...

My dreams haven't been at all about acceptances or rejections... they've been about the GREs!! Never in my life have I freaked out/panicked about anything so much. In real life I did badly on the physics GRE, then made myself completely sick with anxiety to point that I psyched myself out and messed up the general GRE too (it was really all just nerves and panic and dread - I couldn't eat for days before the general GRE!). Ever since then, I keep having nightmares where I have to take the GRE, or where I have just taken and bombed it.. it's awful! Usually I don't take the test in my dreams, more just like I dream of the feelings of total dread and despair that I felt upon getting my scores. ick! I can't wait for my life to move forward again.

These cracked me up! Thank you, because I haven't laughed like that for ages!!

As for whoever said they were nervous about moving to a small town, I have the opposite problem. The one school that's accepted me is in a major city; my undergrad. institution is in a rural setting (more cows than people) and less than 40,000. I have no idea how to survive in a big city without getting mugged or shot! I'm paranoid that I'll accidentally get lost on the seedy side of town and get shot for it! I also feel the imposter thing... my GRE scores are apparently what kept me out of most programs, and I feel like the qualifying exam is just like another GRE. If I couldn't ace the GRE, what will happen with the qualifier?? I'm pretty sure that otherwise I'll be able to pass my classes and whatnot, but it's going to be ridiculously hard...

Wow, quick replies! Yeah - it's basically a check that you've mastered all of undergraduate physics. It's crazy. I guess I thought it wouldn't be until the end of the first year, but I talked to a professor there today and it seems that it's first thing in the fall. It's almost like the physics subject GRE, but will test higher level material (junior and senior level physics). They told me it's two days of testing back to back, 5 hours each day of solid tests! :shock:

Hi everyone. So this might only be a hard sciences thing, or maybe a physics and math thing (not sure how common it is) but all the schools I've applied to have a qualifying exam that must be passed before you can get your PhD (you get kicked out of the school if you exhaust all the tries without passing :shock: ). At the school I'm accepted at so far, you get 3 tries to pass; you have to take it every time its offered until you pass, and that means taking it first thing in the fall semester this year. Having already dealt with the GREs hindering my career (i.e. keeping me out of two schools), I don't want another test to block me from my career goals. Anyone else have to do this? Are you worried? I haven't even seen the practice qualifiers yet, but I'm already nervous that I'll not do well.. are there other fellow commiserators out there? And if so, what will you do to prepare for the quals?

Well, I'm kind of in a similar position. Eventually, I want a tenure track position, but the school I've been accepted at isn't listed in US News rankings, so I guess it isn't ranked. I've been rejected from my two top 20 schools, and waiting on the top 30 school that's left. But it looks like I'll be getting my PhD at this other place. Granted, they are very, very good in my field. In my field overall they're not ranked, but they've got to be in the top 10 in my subfield (I think) and have TONS of NSF funding. You know, I'm just telling myself the following: * I am pursuing a PhD for my love and passion in the field, not money, fame or glory. It is something that I just *have* to know more about. And so, in some sense it doesn't matter where I am learning this material, so long as I am learning it. Job worries can come later and maybe I won't be able to find a tenure track job - that's life, and in that case, I'll find something else. But at least I've got this chance to spend 5 years diving into my favorite subject, and I'll have the knowledge of it forever in my head even at a different job! * I don't want to be tenured at an Ivy. Sure, it would be cool and good for my career, but I'd rather be the big fish in the little pond, and work at some state U. There are plenty of other universities where one can work if you're willing to move down from Tier 1, and if you look through faculty at lower ranked universities, it is not out of the ordinary to see professors from schools that aren't in the top 10 or even top 20. If you're not willing to move out of Tier 1, then I guess you have to spend your life worrying about rankings, but even they won't secure you a job in this economy. * From what I understand, it is less about where you did your PhD and more about who you did it with. If your advisor is well-known and respected, you will still be able to get decent postdocs, which will help with the job thing. So if there's someone at this school who's good in your field, I'd go with it - in the real world it's often about who you know as much as what you know, and you can still network, yes, even below top 10 schools. * Have gratitude: someone is giving you a chance to study what you love, and get paid to do it. We are fortunate to live in a time and place where this is possible - even for women. In my case, it would have been impossible to find a woman in my field 50 years ago. It's a good feeling to know that, as a woman in a male dominated field, I am helping to move times forward. Ok, I'd better stop rambling. Anyway, you're not alone in your decision, just keep thinking about what's ultimately the most important to you, and you'll find the answers you need.

Now wait a minute: in this time of economic crisis, will we have to worry about certain budget cuts, i.e. giving out border collies that ate shortbread cookies, rather than getting both collies and cookies?

Heh - don't forget that we aren't an accurate cross-section of all graduate students. So, this is not a nice representative sample to go by.

This is a simple physics problem, especially if the swallow is free-falling. Just incorporate a drag term and you're good to go. I can't see the pic for some reason, but if it's a border collie, then you're in - BCs are hard work, not the average dog. Anyone capable of raising a well-behaved BC is in!

This is a dumb question, but are we supposed to respond to acceptance emails to acknowledge that we've received them? My email came from a professor in the department but in another field - she said that the official notification will come soon, and cc'd the email to a professor in my field in case I wanted to follow up with him. Do I email her back to say I got the message and thanks? And also, what do I say to the cc'd professor? I'm not sure where to start - "hi, I've just been accepted to your program and would like to know more about your research" - that kind of thing would be a good idea?

Sweet!! I'll get working. I hope the bonus puppies are border collies! And chocolate chip cookies are best, but I understand that's not always possible in these economic times, so I'll gladly accept shortbread as well (huge border collie fan here) All physics and math students perusing this forum are hereby admitted to GradCafeU. Welcome!

Ban the GRE!! I claim the position of Physics Department Head! :-D

I just got my first acceptance today too! I was talking to my research advisor when his phone rang. We were done, so I left his office just as he answered it. About five minutes later I got an email acceptance. Turns out that the phone call was the graduate school calling my advisor to ask him about my freakishly low GRE scores, and once they were confident that I can indeed manipulate fractions, they were satisfied! Anyway, I was so excited after I saw the word "congratulations" that I couldn't make out the rest of the message for a few minutes. Literally, I couldn't read for a minute and for a few seconds I couldn't read the name of the university to see which school had just accepted me (they abbreviated UWM and in my excitement I couldn't tell if that meant Maryland or Wisconsin...lol). Congratulations everyone!

So this application & waiting & (so far) rejection process has made me extremely paranoid. Paranoid in the sense that I don't know *exactly* why things aren't going well. I keep thinking - what if my research advisor really thinks I'm a moron, and just doesn't have the heart to tell me, and that's what all my recommendation letters say? Or, what if I'm somehow a total fraud, and got good grades by luck or fortune, and I really don't know anything? How do I know how to rate myself? It's crept into my research, my thesis, everything. I feel like I can no longer gauge when my work is good, because thus far it's been "good" enough at my school, but how do I know that it's really worth anything? Maybe I'm a terrible scientist and I just don't know it, and no one will tell me... I have gone back and forth between elements of my research and thesis thinking one minute that it's great and the next total crap! It's making me feel like I am losing my mind, and I suddenly have no idea who I am!! :? has anyone else felt this way since the application process started?

Hey, those are my scores. I certainly don't mind trading them for yours

I'm with you! I applied to four schools and have had just one response, rejection! But I do think that this year is harder than most. The economy just HAD to tank the year we were applying... :roll: Who knows, maybe there is some grand purpose for us - maybe we are to be remembered throughout history as the generation that was unable to get into grad school and saved the world from global warming, or hunger, or something instead... I sure hope the economy improves by next year, though. I have a strong feeling I'll be stuck for a year with straight rejections, and be doing this again...