inwhatway

That's HUGE! Congratulations!  

I was accepted at Michigan!  Wowza.  This decision is getting ridiculous.

I was accepted at Michigan!  Wowza.  This decision is getting ridiculous.

Yay! I got into BGSU.  (I know it's not a top 20, but it has an impressive family demography program.)

I received an invitation to the recruiting visit at UT-Austin this afternoon.

Bellatrix, never pass up any opportunity because of fear. You'll regret it and regret runs deeper and lasts longer than nervousness.

I actually moved from Texas to Ann Arbor in 2005 to attend a graduate program. EVERYONE warned me about the cold, but you know what? It really wasn't that bad. Southerners are infamously terrified of any temperature below 60 degrees. But, if you move to Michigan in the summer and slowly add layers as the fall and winter approach, you might find that it really isn't that bad. At least, I was shocked at how manageable snowy weather turned out to be.

Finally, yeah -- you'd be moving away. But, not forever. You'll have many breaks (winter break, summer break, spring break -- U of M even has a Fall break!) where you can travel home. Also, you'll have these new exciting experiences, meet different (and similar) people and perhaps even learn to ski on the cheap.

Having said all that, if you think the timing isn't great. Then, maybe it isn't. Find out if you can defer enrollment for a year and work on your separation anxiety in the meantime.

Good luck with either choice!

Bellatrix, never pass up any opportunity because of fear. You'll regret it and regret runs deeper and lasts longer than nervousness.

I actually moved from Texas to Ann Arbor in 2005 to attend a graduate program. EVERYONE warned me about the cold, but you know what? It really wasn't that bad. Southerners are infamously terrified of any temperature below 60 degrees. But, if you move to Michigan in the summer and slowly add layers as the fall and winter approach, you might find that it really isn't that bad. At least, I was shocked at how manageable snowy weather turned out to be.

Finally, yeah -- you'd be moving away. But, not forever. You'll have many breaks (winter break, summer break, spring break -- U of M even has a Fall break!) where you can travel home. Also, you'll have these new exciting experiences, meet different (and similar) people and perhaps even learn to ski on the cheap.

Having said all that, if you think the timing isn't great. Then, maybe it isn't. Find out if you can defer enrollment for a year and work on your separation anxiety in the meantime.

Good luck with either choice!

fuck, shit, ass

sorry, I was hoping for this one for personal reasons. I hope not all acceptances went out, but once again I have that feeling in my stomach that I'm rejected.

Anyone want to claim it?

Since Vandy only accepts 4 to 8 students each fall, I think those of us who haven't been contacted weren't accepted. Though, I suppose anything is possible...:/

There can be elements of modernity in pre-modern civilizations. However, if we are to understood 'pre-modern' as pre-social and pre-institutional, then I would suggest that 'pre-modern' people were concerned with basic survival and not with socially constructed, institutionalized forms of consumer ideology.




I suggest you re-read my statement; I did not - as you suggest - argue that "emotions are nothing more than social constructs". I was simply referring to the concept of "happiness" - an ideology that I believe is not essentially comparable to actual emotions. Next time, I suggest you actually read and comprehend my statements before interjecting your own knee-jerk reactionary perspective. I think we can all agree that there are psychological and neurochemical attributes associated with emoting. The contention is whether happiness is an emotion, not whether emotions are social constructs.





You know me too well.

"Hedgey"? I'll disregard that. You're possibly right, and I hope you are. Like ThisSlum points out: this may all be contingent on age and an assortment of personality, experiential variables. At my age, I simply do not see how one would, for instance, choose to go to an inferior school or a school that does not maximize one's academic interests in order to ensure the continued viability of a relationship. While this may not always be the case, I myself have witnessed this occur in multiple occasions.

That's an interesting statistic. Let me re-phrase my statement. I did not mean to imply that only graduate students work hard; although I acknowledge from re-reading my original statement that it seemed like that was exactly what I was implying. What I'm suggesting, particularly from discussing this exact topic with accomplished professors and publication-heavy graduate students, is that success in graduate school (not measured by graduation rate but by academic output, e.g. publications, conferences, fellowships, etc) necessitates, to a certain extent, a detachment from external time-consuming entities. Whether or not this is the ideal condition is up for debate, but what remains clear is the fact that, aside from a select few, it is difficult to have a successful relationship and a successful developing career.

I don't necessarily think it would be advisable to be in a relationship during grad school - at least not with someone who is an 'outsider' and who may not necessarily understand or accept the long hours of research, grading papers, etc. I'm a romantic like many of you, but it seems to me that there's inevitably a need to choose (at least initially) between the development of one's career and the emotional satisfaction that comes from being in a relationship. I, personally, intend to have an unabashed, passionate love affair with my statistical packages, data modeling software, and research literature.

I had a lot of anxiety about this, too. I'm a first-generation college/grad school student, so I wasn't certain if contacting prospective advisors was a good, or bad idea. After all, I didn't want to bother them so close to admissions season. But, this is one of those things that nearly all Ph.D. applicants do. It's a shrewd insider tipthat is so commonly done that it isn't even talked about, much like dropping by office hours to cultivate a relationship with a potential grad school reference or leveraging second- and third-choice financial aid packages to increase your first-choice school's initial offer.

I followed my instincts and emailed faculty at each program -- all but one responded with enthusiasm. Two POIs set up "pre-applicant" interviews where I got a chance to ask questions that weren't directly addressed on the Schools' websites. Also, this step has the potential to change that magic sentence from "I would like to work with Dr. Smith" to "Dr. Smith has agreed to be my mentor."