LawlQuals

Not to be too plainly spoken here, but I have never heard a graduate student complain about "subjective BS." Isn't that what undergrads do? If you perform awesomely, no amount of subjective BS will deny you an awesome grade. I would recommend you aim for that. You got a B+, congrats! You are not going to be able to always do superbly in graduate level classes, as you have seen they are much harder and you have plenty of other distractions (research, and/or teaching, grading). Try not to sweat it, if you are not satisfied you can make a point to do better next semester. In the end, as the previous poster stated: this is part of life. You win some you lose some.

Grades matter in the sense that you need to be in good standing from an advanced graduate study perspective (in my department, as a masters student you require a 3.0 GPA, when you pass the qualifiers you obtain a new status which demands you maintain a 3.5 GPA). If you fall below, the can technically require you to exit the program; however, it has been my experience that people who drop below are given as many as three semesters to make it up before they officially do not permit you to continue. Unfortunately, I have known one student who was required to leave because of this.

Beyond this, your grades do matter still, for your first job or post-doctoral position. They may also be necessary for fellowships/funding. You do not want to waste your time though, classes are for learning so your principal priority should really be on that in my opinion, rather than on the letter grade in the end. I did know a few graduate students who would plan when they would take certain classes to maximize their GPA at the often compromise of having a less spectacular professor. I cannot understand this.

They're likely not going to rescind an offer if you fail a chemistry course, esp. as a math major, but you do need to show a final transcript. Why would you even want to put yourself in the position of having to explain "I just didn't feel like it"?

So what is the end result of this story?

Honestly, your stats look impressive. But there a huge "But". It looks like you think only those numbers are all that matter. How about your research experience, letter of recommendations, internships etc.? Any projects? These factors carry as much weight (if not more) as your GPA and undergrad institution. GRE won't help you, but a bad GRE (sub-500 in Verbal and sub-750 in Quant) will hurt you.

I am from south asia, but did my undergrad from a famous university in the USA (I have a 3.99 too, lol). Unfortunately, south asian students tend to think all that matters is grades. So, they do not invest time in anything else. Not to mention that there is almost zero research opportunity. This hurts them very badly.

What a lot of my native friends have done is- get an MS from an 'okay' university, go incredibly well with tons of research, and then shoot for the top 10 schools in respective disciplines.

1. "cherry-picking" does not mean what you think it does.

2. in graduate programs, you want your professors to know you. when they write you letters for grants or the job market, they need to be able to speak to your ability as a student, future professor, and researcher. graduate school is like an apprenticeship for becoming a professor. not only would it be nearly impossible to make that an anonymous situation, it's also highly undesirable. guess what? these professors form their opinions about you based on your work. they don't give a rat's ass about what you look like. whatever opinion they form about you, they do it through your writing, your participation in seminars, your lab work, as their TA.

3. if you feel as though a professor is judging your work negatively for something other than your academic merit, take the paper to the prof in his or her office hours and ask how you can improve in the future. just being proactive about seeking extra help, instead of assuming your grades are based on personal problems rather than the quality of your work, will go a long way to changing that professor's personal opinion about you. then, if you're right about them grading on who they like instead of academic merit, your grades will improve. my guess, however, is that if you're a really good student, any prof will see that. conversely, if you're an average student, they may grade a little more kindly to the students they like over those that they don't. easiest way to avoid this is to elevate your own work from average to good or great. then there won't be any question.

What would anonymous grading even look like? I mean, for it to be anonymous, I'd have to not ever send in drafts, never take enough classes with a prof for them to know my writing style, and probably change my research interests...

If you guys get accepted to your #1 Ph.D. program, will you notify everyone via your facebook status? One of my acquaintances posted that she got into her #1 program, and my personal reaction was that she's a conceited bitch! HAHA. Maybe because she actually is and that was just expressing her personality hehe

People often use methods develoepd by others (with citation), but I imagine your research is supposed to be original in some way, so if you do everything exactly they way the other person did, just in a different place, will there be anyting original about your research? what will you be contributing to your field? If the methods work well, there's no reason not to use them, but think about how you can build on previous work and make an original contribution.

I went to UW - Madison for my MS (nuclear engineering), though I did have ties with the ECE department as well. No one knows a percentage of who gets funding, but UW - Madison does regrettably have a habit (and reputation) of admitting students without funding.

Very few people who I met though were "rogue" students with no funding, though they did exist. Out of the ECE students I met, there were probably about 3 students I met who had to fend for themselves for one or two semesters while they tried to secure funding. That is not to say there were not more of them though.

"does anybody know whether or not ECE has a policy to offer TA positions to first-year international student?" What do you mean by policy? TA positions are fair game to anyone, I was a TA in my department, I do not know how they "selected" me out of everyone else, but it likely had nothing to do with measuring me against my peers, I just checked a box that said I was willing to be a TA for funding on my application. TAs come and go, some screw up so badly that they lose their funding. That is to say, there is no detailed screening process if that is your question, but you do need the bare minimum credentials, such as speaking tests in English.

I knew a TA in the engineering physics department who was an international student from China, we got that position his first semester there. I also knew several Indians who had TA positions. Plenty of international students get TA jobs their first semester. But, as I was saying earlier, which is (for want of a better word) the downfall of UW - Madison is that they do have a habit of admitting more students than they have funding for. All you can do is hope for the best. If you want to go there though, you can find some kind of funding on your own, you will just have to be patient and rough it until you can figure it out. Congrats on the unofficial acceptance by the way! I applied to ECE as a re-entry student, maybe I will see you there in the Fall.

In addition to the guidance you've received from other members of this BB, I recommend that you avoid forays into psychology. First, the behavior you describe is not "passive aggressive" according to the criteria set forth in DSM-IV-TR. Second, you are not in a clinician. Consequently, you are not in a position to define why your PoI is behaving in the manner you describe and your efforts to do so in psychological terms undermines the legitimacy of your argument. (If you think this point is trivial, consider the way men have used issues of mental health to dominate and to control women. Now ask yourself: Do you want to play a part in this dynamic in any way?)

Additionally, I strongly recommend that in your subsequent discussions of this person, you only allege publicly what you can prove. (And by prove, I mean with documents and first hand accounts of conversations you witnessed.) Keep what you know (or think you know) in your back pocket. Those events are for other people to tell/document. You do not want to hinge your credibility upon others. Strive to build an argument that can stand on its own. Leave it to others to determine that the PoI's behavior towards you falls into a broader pattern.

Penultimately, consider the utility of rereading isobel_a's contribution. To the extent possible, take a "step back" from your situation and evaluate it from a disinterested viewpoint. IME, it is not uncommon for a group of graduate students to compare notes and conclude that a PoI is a this or a that and not go to the person and try to talk it out in private.

And finally, it bears repeating: document, document, document. This guidance includes documenting your state of mind.

The thing about LaTeX is that once you get a handle on it, you very well might end up loving how "involved" it is.

Start slow, and experiment with it on a few of your assignment submissions. I started out using 'getting to grips with LaTeX' tutorials, which you may locate readily via search. That helped me get started (junior year of undergrad), and I got better, learned more on every lab report I submitted, and every assignment I decided to typeset. I learned outside of this primer, from the not-so short introduction to LaTeX, talking with others for troubleshooting, but mostly by googling each query I had as it came to me. Now that I have been using it for more than 5 years, I have picked up a lot about it. Though, in no way would I still call myself an advanced user given the manner in which Iearned it, but I still am able to produce exactly what I want, the way I want it to look. Some universities have free seminars for LaTeX new users you may wish to check out if available.

There are shortcut applications that do much of the typesetting for you, such as Lyx, though I have not tried them out. I fear those would also be damaging for a new user's education in LaTeX, for it would not provide direct incentive to learn it in a raw fashion. If you use something like Lyx, you would use it essentially like MS word, which would prohibit you from knowing how to use it, and because of that lack of knowledge you do not know how much better you could be doing it.

Not to be too plainly spoken here, but I have never heard a graduate student complain about "subjective BS." Isn't that what undergrads do? If you perform awesomely, no amount of subjective BS will deny you an awesome grade. I would recommend you aim for that. You got a B+, congrats! You are not going to be able to always do superbly in graduate level classes, as you have seen they are much harder and you have plenty of other distractions (research, and/or teaching, grading). Try not to sweat it, if you are not satisfied you can make a point to do better next semester. In the end, as the previous poster stated: this is part of life. You win some you lose some.

Grades matter in the sense that you need to be in good standing from an advanced graduate study perspective (in my department, as a masters student you require a 3.0 GPA, when you pass the qualifiers you obtain a new status which demands you maintain a 3.5 GPA). If you fall below, the can technically require you to exit the program; however, it has been my experience that people who drop below are given as many as three semesters to make it up before they officially do not permit you to continue. Unfortunately, I have known one student who was required to leave because of this.

Beyond this, your grades do matter still, for your first job or post-doctoral position. They may also be necessary for fellowships/funding. You do not want to waste your time though, classes are for learning so your principal priority should really be on that in my opinion, rather than on the letter grade in the end. I did know a few graduate students who would plan when they would take certain classes to maximize their GPA at the often compromise of having a less spectacular professor. I cannot understand this.

Yes, your grades do matter, since they are a reflection of how your professors view your work. You sound a bit immature complaining about the professor's "subjective BS." Maybe some of that attitude is coming across in your classwork? Even if it's true, it's part of life, and everyone has to learn to deal with it. However, first year is stressful, and there's a lot to adjust to. It's entirely possible that your grades will improve as you get used to your program. While you shouldn't ignore your grades, you should not obsess about this one, either. It is satisfactory for your program, and you should move on -- strive to learn what you need to learn and to make the right impression on people in your program. They will be your network later, when you need advice, recommendation letters, etc. Congrats for making it through your first term of grad school!

Not to be too plainly spoken here, but I have never heard a graduate student complain about "subjective BS." Isn't that what undergrads do? If you perform awesomely, no amount of subjective BS will deny you an awesome grade. I would recommend you aim for that. You got a B+, congrats! You are not going to be able to always do superbly in graduate level classes, as you have seen they are much harder and you have plenty of other distractions (research, and/or teaching, grading). Try not to sweat it, if you are not satisfied you can make a point to do better next semester. In the end, as the previous poster stated: this is part of life. You win some you lose some.

Grades matter in the sense that you need to be in good standing from an advanced graduate study perspective (in my department, as a masters student you require a 3.0 GPA, when you pass the qualifiers you obtain a new status which demands you maintain a 3.5 GPA). If you fall below, the can technically require you to exit the program; however, it has been my experience that people who drop below are given as many as three semesters to make it up before they officially do not permit you to continue. Unfortunately, I have known one student who was required to leave because of this.

Beyond this, your grades do matter still, for your first job or post-doctoral position. They may also be necessary for fellowships/funding. You do not want to waste your time though, classes are for learning so your principal priority should really be on that in my opinion, rather than on the letter grade in the end. I did know a few graduate students who would plan when they would take certain classes to maximize their GPA at the often compromise of having a less spectacular professor. I cannot understand this.