wildviolet

Yes, I would be concerned about my reputation, too! Is there another professor or senior grad student that you could ask about this?

Hmmm... I haven't had experience publishing yet (am getting ready to start submitting papers), but I too am under the impression that that is not kosher. However, I guess if you were accepted to the first journal, you could always retract from the second journal? My question is, what is the reputation of the second journal compared to the first journal? Does your professor think it will be very difficult to be accepted in the first journal?

Hi all, I can't believe I'm almost ABD! Just a few more hoops to jump through, including finishing up required coursework this year and passing comps. I *might* have the amazing opportunity to do my field research (dissertation data collection) next year (or a few months out of the year at least) in a city that is far from my current location. My question is, does anyone have experience doing your research in a location that is different from your university, especially over a long time period? (Moving is so hard financially, I'm tempted to finish the rest of my time--2 years--in this other city). I'm trying to think this through and what it would mean... could I continue communicating with my advisor effectively via Skype? Could I leave all the grad school friends I've made here? Could I do my analysis and write my dissertation from a distance? I think I could still get funding via the university since my RAs don't require that I necessarily have to be in a certain place (I would have to check this with my advisor and RA supervisors, though). I mentioned this "crazy" idea to my advisor, who said that it might not sound so crazy after all. Any help is appreciated! Thanks!

I think this is an interesting point. I have a different relationship with professors that I have for class vs. professors that I do RA or TA work for vs. my advisor. Gender and common interests also seem to make a difference. In this case, I am offering support because I am not in competition with her for this fellowship. Last year, I was more reluctant to share my proposal with others because a lot of us were competing for it.

Thanks, everyone! I sent her a quick email asking how she's doing with the application since the deadline is approaching... she responded positively and said that she's working on another draft and would appreciate me looking over it. I think I won't send any more emails unless she contacts me again.

So I applied for and received a competitive college level fellowship last year. This year, another graduate student asked me for help writing her application. She applied for it last year and failed. I read her rough draft a week ago and provided feedback, and I haven't heard back from her at all. I tried to be as diplomatic as I could--supportive yet pointing out areas she needed to work on in order to be competitive for the fellowship. My question is, do I ask her how she's doing? Or do I just assume she's busy and will ask me for help again if she needs/wants it? I would love to see her get the fellowship, but I don't see that happening unless she makes substantial changes in her proposal. I'm a bit undecided about what to do because she's not a super close friend of mine, so I'm still navigating the process of becoming friends with her. I'm glad that she reached out to me, and I don't want to come off as pushy. What would you do?

My advisor usually wears t-shirts (often with graphics), jeans, and sneakers. Sometimes he will wear a turtleneck or collared polo shirt. He wears an ill-fitting jacket and tie at conference dinners. BUT, he can afford to wear whatever he likes because of his status as a tenured full professor. I notice that the assistant and even associate male professors tend to wear slacks or khakis and collared shirts, tucked in with belts and matching shoes (no white socks). The more politically- and socially-minded male professors wear suits. None of the female professors, at any rank, ever dress super casually. Like myself, I think that most everyone at my institution makes a conscious decision about how to dress... and how others will read their dress, whether as "text" or as "art." The message I'm getting is that it's okay to dress casually if you can afford to have people not care about how you look because of your high status. If you are a woman, you'd better be dressed well or at least neatly. If you are a young professor, looks still count. If you are a person of color, no matter the gender, looks count. What I think is interesting is that some of our professors are critical scholars, yet they seem to conform very well to American cultural norms about what a "professor" should look like, act like, or be like. So, all of this is to say that the question of graduate student attire is no trivial matter.

Zigzag--there is such a thing as cute bright pink sweatpants, but, trust me, these were not it! No adult should be caught wearing them ever! I know another grad student who mostly wore yoga style pants with skinny strap tank tops to class and to research team meetings. I don't think the female professor looked favorably upon it (turns out she had a poor opinion of this student for various reasons; I think it would have helped to have dressed a little more professionally). The culture at my institution is definitely more business casual for female professors, with a tiny bit of hip/trendy thrown. I'm not saying that people shouldn't wear what they want, but... the reality (and perhaps normative pressure) is for grad students to at least look like they put some thought into what they are wearing and not look like they just hopped out of bed. For me, however, even sneakers, jeans, and a t-shirt (graphic or plain) look a little too relaxed. It screams, "I'm a grad student" and not "I'm an up-and-coming teacher researcher." But, of course, that's my own particular lens... others may not care what you look like as long as you're smart and can do the work.

Please, please, please, do not wear bright magenta sweatpants, even if you're just going to class. That's what I used to buy for my toddler.

Glad it worked out! I'm certainly guilty of being the overly chatty office mate sometimes. But, when I want to get some work done, headphones usually work.

Not bored, exactly, but I find that regularly scheduled classes and meetings help keep me on track. I don't do well with unstructured time, which is why I'm worried about what's going to happen once I've finished taking classes... will I be ABD???

I found this post about how to make cold press coffee... I'm intrigued and might try it. I don't have any tummy issues, but it probably wouldn't hurt to go easy on the stomach, and the promise of tasty, non-bitter coffee is enticing, especially with cream and sugar, which is how I like it. http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/do-it-yourself/2011/08/how-to-make-cold-brew-coffee/

While some people say that graduate school tends to attract a certain type of person, I'm also inclined to say that there is variety within the grad student population... what I mean is, when I came to grad school, I felt like I had found "my people." But, as Quantum Buckyball so eloquently put it, there are bxtches and moochers. There are a lot of first-born go-getters in grad school, um, including myself, (at least in my program, we did an informal survey and found that the majority of my cohort were overwhelmingly first-born children). There are plenty of moochers--for example, people who don't really help with the work but still get their name on conference proposals and publications. There are bxtches--people who turn on you for no apparent reason. I spent my first year being friendly and helpful. I spent my second year separating real friends from potential enemies (yes, a strong word but grad school can be competitive for fellowships and things like that and you never know who's going to be your "friend" and then sudden enemy). Of the 100+ people in my program, I think I can safely count on one hand the number of people I would trust with my life. And that's fine by me, 'cause that's all I need. As one of my recently graduated friends said, "the first year is all rainbows and unicorns" and then after that you start to find out who people really are. That's life--no big deal--it's just that now I feel so stupid and naive about being so optimistic. I was just talking to a friend who has a sh*t advisor who doesn't really seem to care about her and makes assumptions about her life and how it will affect her work. I'm lucky to have an advisor who's awesome (even though I sometimes have to double or triple check his advice with others because every advisor is a little different about what they believe the grad student experience should be). Sorry, this has turned into a bit of a rant... I really do enjoy grad school!

Yes! I'm enjoying the work--it's intellectually stimulating, which is what I was missing in my old line of work. I even enjoy the deadlines, as they force me to write (a task that I find enjoyable in the editing stage but not in the beginning stages when I'm staring at a blank screen). You have to juggle many priorities--work, family, your own research, fun--but, at least in my experience in the social sciences (where data collection in the field is less time consuming than data analysis at home, in the office or a coffee shop), I have had more flexible time to spend with my kids. They've even said that they get to see me more as a grad student than they did when I was a teacher.

I used a basic planner for my first semester of graduate school. But, I switched to Google calendar on my laptop (not synced to anything else, even though I have an iPad and an iPhone) because: (1) I always have my laptop with me for research meetings and class; (2) events kept getting changed, which meant my book planner was full of scratched out events because I used pen instead of pencil; and (3) I can color code events in Google calendar and document how I spent my time.

^ I agree. While graduate students do not have individual pictures up on the college website, they are up on the wall in the department lobby! And the department keeps these photos in an archive so that when we win awards or do something newsworthy (even after we graduate), they can use the archived photo in a news story. Having your picture up on the web is unavoidable in academia--my main concern is making sure that it's a good and up-to-date picture!

Thanks! Yeah, I haven't thought about selling it because: (1) the smallest stone has a tiny but visible chip in it; and (2) I'm not sure that I want to take the time to sell it as a ring. What might help me make the decision is to get an actual estimate for resizing it.

I think I learn different things from reading literature vs. "doing" research. First of all, they are two parts of the same research cycle--read to see what's been done before, do something new, go back to the literature to try to understand your findings, and so on. Sometimes reading too much literature makes me more confused because there are too many ideas floating around and not enough coherent connections between them. That is when I go to my empirical data and subjective "sense" of what's going on with my target phenomena. Doing the messy and hard work of trying to make sense of my data is where I learn a lot about what it is that I'm actually researching. Theories and frameworks from the literature help me in that they are usually from established scholars who have thought about these issues a lot more than I have. On the other hand, empirical data offers a way to test those theories and frameworks and ground my research (as much as possible) in the social reality of teachers' everyday lives.

I've never done this before, so I'm soliciting advice about whether to sell a 14K gold ring or resize it. It's a nice design--five graduated amethyst stones in a curved arc. It's just a bit too small for me to wear, so I never wear it. I'd have to resize it larger to wear it, but I'm guessing that resizing will cost about as much as the gold is worth. So, my question is: do I sell it or resize it? It doesn't have sentimental value. I bought it for myself as a reminder that "life is a journey" (because the stones form a little curved path). And sometimes I think that you do things at one point in your life... and then later you don't need it anymore... or do you? Anyway, any experiences that you've had with this issue would be welcome!

I'm really hating FB right now. In the beginning it was good to keep in touch with people far away. But now in grad school? People posting every single outing with other grad students? And I wasn't even invited? You know what? I don't post every single frickin' event that I go to. And I hate seeing that stuff on FB. So I think I'm going to get off FB now, at least for a little while... still good to keep in touch with family but I'm not keen on how some of my colleagues use FB.

fuzzylogician is spot on. My sister hit the six-month mark with her long-distance boyfriend (plane ride away, he lives in Hawaii). I'm utterly amazed and hope for the best for both of them. It seems clear that they BOTH want to make it work. Me? When I told my now ex-husband that I was leaving him for four weeks to visit my family across the country because he obviously didn't seem to care about being a family... he let me go... didn't even try to stop me. Took me to the airport and f*cking walked away. And now when I look back on it... I didn't leave him. He let me leave him because he was too cowardly to be the one to stand up and say that something was seriously wrong in our marriage. Seriously, it was the best decision of my life to leave him, even though I didn't know what the future held. If you truly love someone, would you just let them go without a fight?

I think crochet is a lot easier--I can make a scarf in a few hours. It's nice to knit/crochet little projects because you feel like you've accomplished something. With graduate school, the payoff is so long term, it is sometimes hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I actually have a knitting group of fellow graduate students--we talk about all kinds of stuff and get some knitting projects done!

Please set aside some "me" time for yourself. Whatever it is that makes you happy--a hobby, a place, a get-together with girlfriends--set aside some space and time to rejuvenate. I find that I need it at least once very other week. Even if it's an hour or two. Also, setting up a support system--babysitters, friends, family, anyone who can help out during those crunch times (often at the end of the semester). Sometimes I've had my mom stay with me for a couple of weeks while I travel to conferences, and it helps tremendously! Best of luck to you! There are lots of moms in graduate school--know that you are not alone.

Graduate student. Some people will then ask, Master's or PhD? Then I say PhD.