go3187

If, burnout aside, a PhD and the career opportunities that follow are what you really want, then my advice would be not to give up the offers you have. That said, while an undergraduate degree can be demanding, especially towards the end, a PhD program is even more so -- a friend who already graduated called it "a test of endurance." There will likely be times during grad school when you'll feel burnt out and will not want to hear anything that has to do with courses/research/TAing... I think it's something most grad students go through at one point or another. I finished writing a paper a couple of weeks ago (been working on it for more than a year), which was followed three days later by a project proposal deadline, and by the end of it, all I wanted to do was hide under a cover and sleep for a month. Unfortunately I don't have quick fixes or foolproof solutions, but here are the main things that help me stay sane: - a healthy diet (if you're curious, I eat paleo) - exercise -- it's not a waste of time, even though it often seems there are more urgent things to do - slowing down -- going for a walk, taking time to cook, reading, meditating (regarding meditation, a book I liked is Wherever You Go, There You Are, by Jon Kabat-Zinn; there's also a great interview that Krista Tippett did with him, which you can listen to -- while you take that walk -- here: http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2009/opening-to-our-lives/) - getting enough sleep - keeping my work organized (that includes things like summarizing each day's results in a notebook, keeping my to-do list up to date... or just keeping my desk clean -- which is a challenge! ) - talking to my advisor (I'm lucky to have a wonderful PhD supervisor) - when things get really bad, I re-read the acknowledgments section of a friend's PhD thesis... which I find inspiring, for reasons which are too complicated and personal to explain here (I left the cheesy stuff for the end of the list ). As I've said though, things get crazy at times, or I get a little lazy with my routine, and burnout can't always be avoided. Sometimes I just have to push through... but that too can be a satisfying lesson. ETA: Re-reading my list, it almost sounds as if I'm suggesting MORE things to do, doesn't it?

We're a small university, but I don't remember anyone taking notes on a laptop in any of my grad courses. As ANDS! wrote, that's pretty hard to do in physics/astrophysics, where you're dealing with a lot of equations. Even in my research, although I can't avoid working on a computer, I use regular notebooks to write down ideas, keep a to-do list, record my daily progress (or, more often, lack of it, lol)...

If you accept an offer but later decline it, don't expect the school to be happy about it... and definitely don't hold your breath waiting to be accepted again!

Some things psychology students do at the university I attend is to offer a small amount of money to each participant (usually about $3 for 30 min), or a chocolate, or to enter them in a lottery (prizes range from smaller stuff like theater tickets, to iPads). Of course, most of these ideas depend on how "wealthy" the research group is. Students also spam all the university mailing lists about their experiments, which can be pretty effective... or at least gives the satisfaction that it probably annoyed those people who weren't convinced to participate. Good luck with your research! PS: May I suggest that you add a link for something like "Return to the main page" or "Go to the next part of the experiment" on the thank you pages? It would make it easier to go from one experiment to the next.

Having a lot of money (or not) has nothing to do to me with getting a PhD. I'm already in grad school, and I'd continue even if I won such a jackpot.

In my case, I would answer both questions with something like, "During my undergrad I've been doing some research on ................ using integral field spectroscopy, so this is one field I'm interested in. However, I also became interested in X-ray observations of .........., so if a research topic on this is available, it would be my first pick. Particularly, I would like to study how ......................" BUT... I'm 3 years into my grad studies, and I don't remember having such a clear view of what I wanted to do when I applied for grad school. So, if I didn't know for certain what I wanted to do, I would take a look at the professor's research, figure out what her other students do, and base my answer on that, while also mentioning that I'm not certain at this point. Projects morph a little anyway, and professors have projects that might not match EXACTLY what you have in mind, or projects that are more urgent than others.

I won't ask if you're crazy, I'll just say that in Europe the GRE is not mandatory. Soooo... if you don't mind studying abroad, you might want to look at universities in Germany, Netherlands, UK, etc. Even universities in Germany or the Netherlands offer some programs in English. However, they normally require that you already have a Masters. Some make exceptions though, and some offer combined Masters+PhD programs (these are usually 4-5 year programs).

I wouldn't tell them that if they make me an offer, I'll accept it. I thought exactly that when I was waiting to hear from grad schools 3 years ago, so I totally understand you. I guess it might depend on how you phrase it, but in my mind a couple of years ago, that thought was a little... um, desperate, and I wouldn't have written it in an email. I also don't think it wouldn't increase your chances of getting an offer -- I'm pretty sure the order in which offers are made to waitlisted students has nothing to do with the (unknown, in most cases) probability that they'll accept it. I don't think you'd be told what's your position on the waiting list (our university doesn't do that, although things might be different in the US), but you could try. I would ask that if I had another offer that I had to accept/decline soon. Otherwise, I'd probably wait another week or until April 15th (waiting is hard job, I know). Do you know when's the deadline for accepting/declining offers at this university?

I carry my things in a laptop backpack that looks similar to this one, but without side pockets: http://img.alibaba.c...-web1_13553.jpg I think messenger bags look cooler, but I find them quite uncomfortable. EDC: - lunch (ditto for investing in a slow cooker) - wallet - eyeglass case - keys - pens, pencils, etc. - calculator - the notebook I use for my current project - a book or my Kindle Some days I bring my laptop to the university, as I did today, but most days I use only the computer in my office.

Love this thread! I'm reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, in dead-tree format. On my Kindle I'm half-way through The Best American Short Stories 2011. And I'm listening to the Librivox recording of Anna Karenina before going to bed or when doing chores around the house (most Librivox recording are bad, bad, bad -- you get what you pay for, I suppose -- but this one is quite okay... although not Audible quality).

If you don't mind working in Germany, OHB has been accepting engineering/earth and space sciences students from our university for short- and long-term internships. We're an international university and many students don't speak German, so I'm pretty sure German is not a requirement (although it does help if you speak it!). I think the way most of them applied is by sending a CV and cover letter... the company never had internship positions posted on their website, afaik. So, if you haven't applied to OHB yet, you might want to take a look at it. Here's their web page: https://www.ohb-system.de/ Also, I watched this video yesterday, and quite liked it: http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxCMU-Charlie-Hoehn-The-New-W

I would wait. I seriously doubt they'll get rid of applications today (way too soon, imo), and nothing is going to happen over the weekend.

I totally get it if you don't want to take meds. But as far as drinking goes, (1) I doubt your supervisor is going to order wine if he invited you for coffee [where are you going to meet him?], and (2) you certainly don't have to drink if you don't want to drink. A simple, "thanks, but I'll only have coffee. I don't drink alcohol." is enough. Some people just don't drink alcohol. I don't. And I certainly wouldn't drink just because my advisor drinks. So far (6 years, 3 of which during my undergrad) he never seemed to care what I drink or don't drink. Many grad students are socially awkward! Seriously, I'm sure you'll be okay. If your supervisor invited you for a coffee, he's probably a nice and understanding guy, and chatty enough to keep the conversation going. He's also likely to have a full bag of questions that he usually asks new students, in which case he's experienced enough to avoid awkward quiet moments. Awkward silences are awkward for both of you, and from what you've written about your supervisor, he probably has better skills to get both of you out of them.

A few months ago I bought a ThinkPad T420, which has a 14" matte widescreen. My previous laptop was a Dell Latitude D520, with a standard 14" screen (4:3 aspect ratio). I liked the screen aspect ratio of the Dell more, but I'm not aware of new laptops with a 4:3 screen. Anyway, other than the widescreen, I love the ThinkPad, especially the keyboard and the TrackPoint. However, I use my laptop mostly for programming and for processing X-ray data (the software I use for that requires a pretty powerful computer), and I run Linux on it. If I also cared about watching movies or listening to music, for example, then there might be better choices out there. The sound from the ThinkPad speakers isn't great, although things get better if you plug in some headphones. Also, the ThinkPad T420 isn't as stylish as an Apple, imo... the ThinkPad is kind of boxy in comparison. Those are not issues for me though. I'm not sure how this compares to other new laptops, but the T420 battery (one 6-cell) lasts for 3-4 hours if I run pretty heavy stuff, around 6 h if I only work on writing a paper (in kwrite... I think something like Kile would drain the battery a little faster), and more than I ever cared to wait if I put the laptop to sleep. I also have a small Windows partition on the laptop (it came with Windows 7, but I reduced the Windows partition to about 40 GB and installed Ubuntu), but I didn't test the battery life under Windows yet. If you're interested in the T420, there's a more detailed review here: http://www.studentbuyingguide.com/2011/04/lenovo-thinkpad-t420-review/

Oh, I never thought of that! Great idea!

I downloaded it about two years ago, and I was required to create an account. If you don't want things to be public, you can change your settings so that all your stuff is only visible to you.

I have a regular Kindle (4th generation, Wi-Fi), and yes, you can zoom in. I prefer to read papers in landscape format (you can choose the orientation of the text on Kindle) without zooming in, but for some the text might still be too small. One can zoom in on an individual text column though, and assuming a 2-column format, a 200% zoom makes a column fit almost perfectly on the screen (for all the papers I've read on my Kindle so far, the screen at 200% zoom is still a bit larger than one column, so you see one column and about 1/10 of the other). I personally don't find it difficult to scroll down the text or jump from one column to the other. One possible disadvantage with the regular Kindle is its black and white screen. How big of an issue this is probably depends a bit on your field. It generally doesn't bother me much, but there've been times when I had to check a figure later on my computer.