go3187

It's a little different for me, since PhDs in Europe don't normally last 5 or more years. You can see in my profile info what I study. I normally work from 9 until around 7ish though, and work most weekends as well (but only ~5 hours). However, before a proposal deadline, it can happen that I work from 7am to 2-3am. Then there are some days on which I don't do any work at all; this weekend I went on a bike tour with my boyfriend, for example, and we were gone from Saturday morning until (very early) Monday morning. So things vary a bit, depending on the work load.

I talk to my advisor in person, when he's around, or by email. If he's abroad for a long time (for e.g., he was on sabbatical two semesters ago) or if he's abroad and we urgently need to discuss a manuscript/some results, then we skype. The same applies to the interactions I have with all my collaborators. If my advisor is here, we normally talk daily. He has an open door policy, so when I take a break I just stop by his office to tell him how things are going. If I don't do it, he comes by my office, or often if he has to leave early, he sends me an email.

Yep! And the emails with a background image annoy me even more. Got a couple of those...

Congrats for getting in! There are older threads on the topic of declining schools after initially accepting their offer, so you might want to do a search on it. Here's the first one I found:

99.9% of the emails I send from my university email are signed just with my first name. My full name can be read in my email address. Of the remaining 0.1%, 99.9% are signed with my first name initial. If my department or position matter in what I have to say in the email, I usually just include them in the text of the email. G

I don't see either. I was confused since you wrote in your profile that you are in London. I wrote my replies assuming that you're doing a PhD in London (others thought the same, as you can see on the previous page of this thread). Had I known that you're doing your PhD in Cyprus, I probably would not have replied at all, since I don't know how PhD programs work in Cyprus, or what's expected of the students.

I thought you were in London...

You might want to read these two blog articles: http://science-professor.blogspot.de/2009/09/moving-grads.html http://science-professor.blogspot.de/2010/03/drawing-line.html Even if the tuition fees are waved for PhD students, who pays for housing, food, health insurance, etc.?

Isn't this the kind of "easy" you wanted? For what it's worth, I'm not "obliged" to be at the university at all, but I still go there daily and work, and I give my advisor weekly (at least) updates on my work. There've been students working with the my advisor who "got away" with not showing up and doing essentially no PhD work for years, and they ended up quitting. So, what you really want is an advisor who is okay with you doing nothing? If you do nothing for a whole year because you "do not have the time", then perhaps this is not the best time for you to do a PhD. Your advisor has to provide an annual evaluation for you, so what is he supposed to write in it if you "have done nothing"? Would you expect him to lie for you? Even if he didn't have to write an evaluation, you can't possibly expect him to be okay with you doing nothing for a whole year. You also can't expect to be one of his favorites if you do nothing.

You don't like your main advisor, think he "bashes" only you, consider that he doesn't care about your project, call him "lazy", feel ignored... yet your main concern is that you quitting is going to "hurt or embarrass him"?? What are you studying? It's important as a PhD student to be able to take some initiative and work independently, and that includes compiling your own bibliography. Your advisor can add to it, but the fact that he didn't hand you a bibliography is not a good reason to write nothing. You say you don't have a bibliography, but what do you have after your first year of PhD? I personally find it strange that even though you have three advisors, and there are several more advanced grad students in your department, you still have no clue how to proceed with writing a draft of the first part of your thesis (the layout of the draft should be your least concern). I think he's quite demanding of you for someone who doesn't care about your PhD and your project. To avoid alienating the people in your department, and potentially turning some professors against you, my suggestion would to sweep the "poor me" attitude under the rug. Your concerns about your work and your needs from an advisor (not those of your peers), would be best discussed face-to-face, calmly and respectfully, either with your main advisor, with that one advisor that you do like, or with another professor in the department with whom you feel more comfortable discussing your issues; I would avoid whining to the other PhD students if I were the only one having a strained relationship with my advisor. Out of curiosity, among the two PhD programs that accepted you, is the one you're currently enrolled in the one that best matched your research interests?

If you haven't read this yet, it's worth taking a look at: http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7245-468a

When I started my grad studies, 90% of the papers I read seemed like Chinese to me (the 10% were papers discussing EXACTLY the kind of research I did as an undergrad). There's the temptation to try to understand everything; but what helps me is to try to get the idea of the paper first, without trying to understand every detail. Then I can re-read it and focus more on the details, and I can discuss the details with my advisor or with other students/postdocs. As I've been reading more papers and done more research, things made sense more often. It also helped me at the beginning to read some review papers. There still are times when a paper is too difficult to understand right away; that happens to professors too, not only to students. Also, some papers are written so poorly, that it's not always your "fault" for having difficulties with them. Conferences are kind of similar. The first ones I went to, I barely understood ~20% of what was being said (usually just the first few introduction slides...). Now it's much better. I was actually at a conference ten days ago, and 90% of what was said was NOT Chinese.

I think it depends from school to school, and even from program to program. I usually come to the university in jeans, corduroy pants, or linen pants, with a tee, blouse, or sweater... depending on the weather. I wear (flat) boots, sneakers, or (flat) sandals. There are some occasions on which you might want to wear fancier clothes, like when you go to a conference dinner, give a presentation, etc. Here are some threads on that:

If you read my post more carefully, you will see that what you wrote above is not "exactly" what I did. I didn't give them zero points on the homework, and certainly didn't write that they can send me their "sober writing" if they wanted a higher grade. I try to be polite and professional with the students, and not act like a smartass. My intention isn't to give students a hard time, but a fair grade; that's why I need to understand their writing.

Haven't done it, and don't know anyone who has... I don't think it's common in my field, especially for a Master's thesis. What are you studying?

All my TA positions so far have only involved grading, supervising labs, and offering tutorials and office hours. For the labs, however, the professor rarely shows up, so I'm pretty much on my own in deciding whether I'm going to teach something before students start the computer tasks (some classes require theoretical background that not all students have), or just walk around, see how each student is doing, and offer help when needed. In the contract I sign before starting a new TA job, there are some rules that have mostly to do with ethical issues (e.g., don't share students' grades with random people -- obviously phrased differently, but I don't have a contract at hand right now). I've only TA'ed for my PhD advisor, and he's a jeans & T-shirt guy, and really not the kind who would tell me what to wear. But then, I also use common sense, and don't come to the labs/tutorials in sweatpants and a ripped T-shirt. Usually I'm in jeans and some nicer T-shirt; these are 1st and 2nd/3rd year courses, and it's pretty clear that I'm older than the students without dressing up. I discuss with my advisor the rules enforced in the lab, and I'm sure he gave me some guidance especially when I first started TA'ing (this year was my 5th), but he must have done it very gently, because I don't remember any specifics. I've had about one "problem student" every other year... the worst of them was one who was constantly checking the stock market data online during the lab. However, 95% of the students are easy to work with, so it was enough to simply mention the "rules" at the beginning of the semester. I think I always graded pretty much the way I thought was appropriate, and only asked for my advisor's help when it was clear that some students were copying, or when I was uncertain how something (mistakes, usually) should be graded. I remember that when I started TA'ing (as a 2nd year undergrad), my advisor used to ask me to write the grades in pencil, and I'm guessing he was taking a look over them. But he never made any negative comments about my grading, and I've been grading in red ink for the last 3-4 years.

I'd find it a little creepy if a guy I just met asked me out. I'd think he either asked me out mostly based on my looks, or he's quite desperate to date; none of which I'd like in a partner. Before going out with someone, I'd want to know that person a bit, and to know that we're potentially compatible. So, for me, it takes a few weeks of talking to someone before I even consider going out with him. To meet more new people, I would suggest online dating. Sites like Craiglist are full of creeps, imo, but OkCupid is one I've seen mentioned here several times.

You seem to be solely blaming this one person for you not getting the assistantship, but to me, it sounds like you mostly screwed yourself. I don't doubt that you want a masters (that's not enough for getting it), but you didn't really pursue getting the GA. Had I been in your place, I would have asked my potential LOR writers if they would be able and willing to write me strong reference letters. The answer to those questions is either a yes or a no. If they said "yes", I would have told them I need the letters by xx.xx.xxxx, then send them reminder emails as the deadline approached, or even arrange to meet in person. Instead of doing this, you "just moved on" after one of your referees gave you an honest and realistic opinion. Your LOR writer probably has a busy schedule, and either completely forgot about your application, or didn't know exactly how urgent it was. You gave up on it. Now, after he did write you the LOR, you think he wrote it three months after you told him about it just because he's a "******". Sounds pretty ungrateful to me, especially since his LOR was good enough to help you get in. Hopefully you didn't vent your anger to your referee. Unless you're never again going to need a LOR from him, and there's no chance his opinion of you could affect your studies/career, it's wiser to be as polite and courteous as possible with this person. He's clearly someone capable to write you a good LOR, and if you don't "just move on", you can probably arrange to have it on time next time you need it.

If deciphering the writing only requires more time spent on a homework, I grudgingly spend it. However, this year I had a student whose writing I really couldn't understand. All the characters he wrote looked pretty close to tiny (TINY) vertical lines, he wasn't leaving any spaces between words and between text and equations, and to top it off, his English was poor (he was an international student). It was an astrophysics course, and fortunately I could kind of guess some of the equations he wrote and a few final answers, but I wasn't comfortable grading by my guesses. So on the first homework he sumbitted, I wrote a comment asking him to either try to write nicer or type his homework, because I couldn't understand his writing. His second homework looked just the same, so I only gave him points on what I was sure I had deciphered correctly, and told him that he can stop by my office and explain what he wrote if he wants a higher grade. He never did... not for the 2nd homework, nor for the rest. I realized after the 3rd homework that he was actually copying his homework from another student.

I have the best advisor I could wish for. The most important thing for me is that he has confidence in my ability to do research. He's also super supportive, and easy to talk to whenever he's at the university (he travels quite a bit, but 95% of the time he tells me in advance when he'll be away, and he's always available by email). I used to be more shy in undergrad, and having a friendly, easy-going advisor really helped me become more outgoing; especially important for me for meeting and talking to new people at conferences.

From the university's website: http://www.coe.neu.edu/gse/admissions/newstudent.html Also, unless you have the assistant's permission to share her emails, I would remove them from the forum.

Other than what TakeruK wrote, I'd be curious to know if they considered people who only have a college degree, or those with a graduate degree too. It's essentially impossible to get a job in astrophysics without a PhD. Anyway, I don't know anyone who majored in astrophysics and is not unemployed. Most people I know just don't have jobs in astrophysics.

Maybe people don't reply because they can't honestly answer your questions? We could send warm fuzzies, but no one can really tell you what are your chances of getting into a program, when we don't even know for what program you're applying, let alone your GPA, scores, personal statement, letters of reference, etc. Even if we knew all that, all we could do is maybe make a better guess. If you read through the forums, you'll see students who were rejected by their safety schools, but got accepted into their top choice. Personally, I avoid making guesses (public guesses, at least) on someone's chances of getting into a certain program. Applying for grad school is stressful enough without my clueless guesses. If you were rejected the first time, I'm assuming you had to reapply, not just send the correct IELTS score... right? If that's true, then I don't think it really matters for this round if they saw your transcript, personal statement, etc. in the previous round. I don't know why it took 9 weeks to hear from them the first time, but (assuming again) they might be sending all/a bunch of rejections at a time rather than announce someone immediately after they notice that something is missing from their application.

It depends on the program, and (at least in Germany) also on whether you took any grad courses during your undergrad and can transfer the credits. I did that, and only ended up taking about 3-4 classes in my first three semesters, and none in my last semester. I've just looked at our course plan though. It shows about 15 courses for the first three semesters, including an "independent research" course (this can be work on your thesis, and typically you simply meet with your advisor and maybe other students he/she supervises) in the third semester. There are no courses for the fourth semester, during which one is supposed to focus on writing the MSc thesis.

I would do anything possible not to have a roommate. I currently live with two flatmates, and that is challenging enough. It really depends who you're living with though. My current flatmates are amazing, very clean and quiet. However, I've also come across some very (VERY!) messy ones, who never cleaned after themselves in the common areas of the apartment, not even after being told repeatedly to please do so. It helps that I'm at the university from around 7am to 7pm, so I'm not spending a lot of time at home. For someone who works from home, dealing with roommates/flatmates might be more tricky. My PhD supervisor will be moving to a different university this summer, and I'm transfering there too. It's in a different city, and I'm looking for a 1-room apartment. I prefer to pay about 150 Euros more just to live alone.