crazygirl2012

Interesting. I relied heavily on support from my peers throughout my undergrad, and then had to rebuild a similar network when I went to grad school. I focused on making friendships first, rather than just asking for help right off the bat, so it didn't look like I was only interested in talking to them to get help with my assignments. At first I felt similar to you, that people were competitive and wanted to keep their stuff to themselves. That was so not the case at all, which I soon discovered. I managed to break in by organizing a midterm study session where we could all do past exams and compare answers. This benefited everyone, as there were no solutions provided. This initial ice breaker activity paved the way to me being able to ask for actual assignment help.

If you're in the right area, work a fireworks stand. Managers get paid $2500+ and you get to hire your friends and drink all day. Then spend the rest of your summer researching and doing everything to get ahead you wouldn't have been able to had you a real job.

Weird how I'm comforted by the fact that I am crazy and irrational, as opposed to having sane thoughts. Thanks, all!



Also, this article is comforting as well. Merci beaucoup!

I'll do it. Message me and I'll give you my email address. I've done a lot of editing. Much of it was for a friend whose third language is English. I don't mind.

surprised nobody has posted this yet:
http://www.autostraddle.com/tag/queer-girl-city-guide/

I recently spoke to my thesis mentor who is the director of clinical training at my university about this exact topic.

She said make you actually read the professors website before you email them. One of the most annoying things was getting emails asking if she was accepting students when she had already discussed this on her website.

She said some professors love getting these emails and will respond enthusiastically. Others are kind of apathetic. She did mention that some professors don't really like getting these emails but that it won't negatively affect you in the application process. A brief email in early fall isn't going to follow you during apps, most professors will just forget about them. All in all, she said go for it. It can't hurt.

Say that you're interested in their work and applying for the next app cycle. Read some of their publications before hand and come up with one or two questions. Keep it brief and simple. You don't have to send your CV unless they ask

The reason most of us are in graduate school is because we are not good at settling. That is why we will always be a little be on edge because we always feel like we can do more and be better. If you didn't feel like you were hard on yourself, something would be wrong. So, feeling like that is normal. However, do not let that feeling sabotage what you have accomplished. You should reward yourself for small things (i.e. you got an A on a really hard paper, take yourself out to dinner) and make sure you acknowledge what you have achieved so far. As for the things you feel you are not where you want to be, put in a little more effort but do it efficiently so you are not working a lot and producing little.

Comparing yourself to other students will never get you anywhere. Everybody's situation and abilities are unique and if you used that time to improve upon yourself you would have no time to compare to others!

Many profs have assured me that it costs a LOT more than our stipends to pay for a graduate student. LIke Usmivka said, there is overhead as well -- I think the actual cost of an international graduate student is somewhere around 100,000 or more per year.

The school takes students because it is an investment in us -- one day, some of us will do great work and people will see that we graduated from School X. Or, we might even do good work while a student and we will be presenting at conferences and publishing under the School X banner, increasing that school's ranking and impact factor or whatever metric is used, etc.

In addition, even the best profs can only do so much work before they run out of time/energy! So, graduate students like us will be doing a lot of the grunt work. Sure, they could just keep hiring more profs, but we are a lot cheaper than profs! If, with overhead, our total cost is about the salary of a tenured prof, imagine how much it costs in total to have a prof on staff!!

And also, they subsidize the costs of their investment in grad students from other income sources such as undergrads or other programs.

Yes, I'm necro-posting, such is (un)life. I've just submitted my application for a masters program in critical infrastructure planning and management. It's part of an urban planning department that looks at building enough resilience into water, healthcare, power, and similar systems that they can withstand natural disasters, terrorist attacks, climate change, etc. When people ask what I'll be studying (obviously everyone assumes I'll be accepted, even though it's a stretch for a mid-life career change), I simply say "apocalypse management". They laugh and seem to appreciate the absence of any further explanation.

I've actually heard of undergrads leaving their name and phone number on their teaching evaluations at the end of the semester if they wanted to ask their TA out. Once the semester is over, it's totally fine! The degree to which people gossip about it (if at all) probably depends on the the university and the department. Personally, I see nothing wrong with it.

All the world's a minefield; watch every step? I'm afraid I have to respectfully disagree with this mindset - I'm not sure that's a very good philosophy for approaching anything at all, let alone a big chunk of your 20s! If someone above you is going to screw you for a petty reason without you ever knowing about it, there's no way for you avoid it anyway. If it's not relationships with fellow students (grad or undergrad) it could be something you write or something you say or something you wear or something you post, etc.

Also, you call it a short-term desire, but no one said these were one-night-stands. In fact the original post says dating undergrads. People meet future spouses all the time at university. It's possible to exercise common sense and adhere to rules and ethics without neutering all potential relationships just because you might step on some invisible toes.

Not everyone picks their significant others based on such rational criteria! It's possible they "picked" someone in their field because that's who they met, and who shared their interests. But really, it seems like it should be possible to keep them at arms-length, at least until you're not directly responsible for grading or supervising them.

Good thing Im in STEM field....gotta look for ladies in business department then, they surely know how to dress "properly"!

That is crazy! Wow. I went to a liberal arts college with no grad students, so this is all new to me. I wouldn't feel uncomfortable if an undergrad had a crush on me if s/he was subtle about it, but anything like that would be pretty awkward. I'm guessing it doesn't usually go quite that far, and could get the undergrad in trouble if the TA chose to pursue it as sexual harassment.

Like crazygirl, I have heard (and witnessed) some crazy cray stuff happen between TAs/students....like naked photos being sent to the TA, or sexual notes being placed in their assignments.

I've been in a situation where my close friends where in the class I TA'd for. If I ever felt that I couldn't mark them fairly, I would give them to another TA or to the professor.

As for dating- I think you're getting into a really sticky situation. As others have said- EVERYONE WILL KNOW!! Don't think that they won't...they will...trust me...TRUST ME! And as someone who is in a department with students who are trying to pretend 'not to date'...you will be talked about constantly! It might not bother you, but I would worry about how it might impact others' opinion of my credibility and or professional capacity...not to mention, it could be a huge liability for you for future work in the department.

I TA a lot, and I always am really careful at how students and other professors see me interact with the students I teach...I always meet in areas where there are lots of people and always have a history of our communication. I would never want to be in a situation where a student approached the department and said that they felt their mark in the class was tainted by our interactions/relationships. So dating an UG in a class I had would be completely off limits....

I might try thinking about the big potential picture rather than the short term 'randy' picture

This is the sort of stuff my mother shows me anytime I'm about to move in with someone/somewhere new. Although, I got a one bedroom this time around, and I'm wondering if she'll start sending me articles about the horrors of a young woman living alone. She always finds those websites where it shows the crime rates in a city or where the rapists live in your neighborhood. So full of positivity...

I'll play! A girl messaged me who didn't really seem like my type for multiple reasons, but I didn't want to discount anyone right away, so I agreed to meet her for a date. I gave her my number, and she started texting me all. day. every. day. When I began to ignore some of her texts (like the ones that just said "what are you doing?"), she got upset. I hadn't even met her yet, and I'm the type of person who would be completely turned off and downright terrified by anyone being clingy. I was very nice when I called off the date, and she seemed okay with it. A month later, she messaged me to say hello and ask if we could still talk online occasionally. A couple messages later, she casually mentioned that she had been arrested that week for assaulting someone (not in self-defense), but that it was okay and she just had a bad temper. Yeah, I didn't reply to that message. The story would have been way better had I actually gone through with the date... but I can't say I regret canceling!

I had two advisers on the MA level. The first was a stereotypical "Professor Smith" from the PhD comics. It turned out that he was incredibly caring at the end of my program, but you could not tell it the two years that I TA-ed for the man. He was very... detached. In fact, he sort of avoided having an eye contact with you, but we did drink a lot of wine in front of his fire place while talking. His approach to mentoring was loading me up with books, loads so huge, that I once went tumbling down on the floor right outside his office. I transferred to a different adviser, and there were no hard feelings. It was over a difference in academic interests/methodology. In fact, my family still goes to his house for Thanksgiving 7 years later.

Second adviser was a dream. I remember sending her my thesis at 11 at night, and having it back with her hand-written notes at 7 in the morning the next day. And the thing was HUGE. She was thorough, respectful, fast. We ended up having a great connection. I flew across the country 5 years after I graduated to have a heart to heart with her about my academic career and what I want to do with it. Come to think of it, we stayed at "Professor Smith's" house that time.

So there you go

Haha, I will play too. I have done my fair share of online dating since in general, I just don't socialize with people in the conventional way. I have met some interesting people, and some not so interesting ones. The most entertaining as of late is people I will go on a date with and we will get into an argument about something random. One guy told me that he thinks if he had just done sports in high school he would have no problem gotten offered a full scholarship to a college program. I asked him what he based his assumptions off and told me "oh, I am in good shape, somebody would take me." So I had to explain to him the statistic of getting a college scholarship for athletics (thank you, quantative methods) and told him I was rather insulted that he felt that it was that easy to accomplish (I did my undergrad and grad on an athletic scholarship). Nevertheless, we never saw eachother again.

The worst thing you can hear on a first date, especially someone you met online, is "hey, so I will see you tomorrow?" haha. This has happened to me a few times, just because I met you one time does not mean I want to see you every day, I do other things.

Another man I met, who I actually thought seemed nice and hung out with a few times, told me that he believed "men only like women for 90% looks and 10% everything else." What a horrifying thing to say to a woman with a Master's degree that can probably kick your ass.

One of my least favorites is the "oh you work out" or "you competed this..." "I bet I can beat you..." Nobody cares.

I did get to listen to a man tell me a very involved story about him and his ex-girlfriend and how they were living together and she just left while he was gone and didn't tell him. Not something you should tell somebody on the first date if you are trying to impress them. I started to understand why somebody would want to sneak out in the middle of the night...

Okay, one more. I met up with someone and when he opened his mouth I realized... he had adult braces! I cannot remember last person over the age of 18 that I had seen with braces. I flinched a little bit when he started talking, but I was trying not to act too shocked, but it caught me off guard.

No replies to this topic? It seems like it could be good insight on the different flavors on advisor-student relations... I'll bite.

Previous advisor: super demanding and very cold. I did not work well with him in that he CRUSHED my self-esteem. However... I did produce some really cool results. To his credit, he always pressed me to do work. Even though I was miserable... well, I did produce. Out of fear, but still.

Current advisor: I get along a lot better with him. He is very invested in my personal success. However, he is a micromanager and that kind of drives me insane. It definitely slows things down, but he does complement my style very well. and I am learning a lot from him.

I'll play! A girl messaged me who didn't really seem like my type for multiple reasons, but I didn't want to discount anyone right away, so I agreed to meet her for a date. I gave her my number, and she started texting me all. day. every. day. When I began to ignore some of her texts (like the ones that just said "what are you doing?"), she got upset. I hadn't even met her yet, and I'm the type of person who would be completely turned off and downright terrified by anyone being clingy. I was very nice when I called off the date, and she seemed okay with it. A month later, she messaged me to say hello and ask if we could still talk online occasionally. A couple messages later, she casually mentioned that she had been arrested that week for assaulting someone (not in self-defense), but that it was okay and she just had a bad temper. Yeah, I didn't reply to that message. The story would have been way better had I actually gone through with the date... but I can't say I regret canceling!

Let me put your mind at ease. Well, sort of. It is highly likely that you will jump on your crank while wearing spikes at least once as you get used to the tempo of graduate school. (Indeed, you might be better off if you make a mistake earlier in the term rather than later--so you will have enough time to recover. I'm thinking of a classmate who wrote a paper on American films during the Cold War without knowing that Alfred Hitchcock was British until the day we handed in our papers and discussed them as a group. )

The challenge will be what you do afterwards. If (when) it happens, stay cool, don't freak out. Understand that making mistakes is part of the process of learning. Draw what you can from the experience, make the adjustments you need to make, and move on. (A lot of these kinds of issues can be worked out best by talking to a professor during office hours rather than wringing hands, comparing notes, and reading tea leaves with one's classmates.)

Unless a professors is a hard ass, he or she will likely let you off the hook (maybe after using you as a chew toy for a few minutes). And if there's a classmate who is a bit too snarky at your expense, just make a mental note and decide if (and how) you want to even the score down the line.

HTH.

I'm just startgin my masters in the fall but I've already decided that I MUST do my best to create a balanced lifestyle for myself. If I don't, I know my motivation will go right down the tubes. My hope is that school will be fulfilling in its own right...allowing me to do a lot of work without becoming resentful or burned out...and that my projects will pick up momentum from my enthusiasm. I feel like when we drown ourselves too much in one thing we spend time stressing and ruminating that we could be putting to better use taking care of ourselves.

And see, in my department, if we asked we'd probably be told it was fine to get a job teaching labs across town, assuming we framed it properly.

TakeruK:

You seem to be mixing two issues consistently. One is having a life while in a PhD program- most places, this is perfectly acceptable, and quite often encouraged. The other is working a side job while in a PhD program.

The issue isn't how much time you work vs. what you do in your free time, but rather how you split up your "working" time. And it's often based on the understanding that you really only have so many productive hours of energy in a day. If you're going to be expending energy working, then it should be on your PhD. In other words, working a second job isn't considered a "free-time" activity.

There's also the idea that you should be working primarily to build up your CV. Most advisors really care that you go on to do pretty well in the field, because it shows them in a good light, and is kind of the point of getting a PhD. Volunteering, teaching, and even "service" (committees, etc) are all part of that. It's not the most important part of your CV (your publications and research are), but it's definitely a plus.

Working waiting tables, on the other hand, isn't downtime, and doesn't contribute to your CV. Basically, even raising a family or spending time with your spouse, is an activity that is seen as being beneficial to your life long term, while a side-job really isn't.

It's just like any other job with a "no-compete" contract. Any employer can stipulate requirements for funding if you accept them, and if one of those requirements is that you not work a side job, so be it. As I mentioned above, most of the competitive national fellowships (NSF GRFP, etc) have similar wording that prohibits any outside employment without the express permission of the program officer/advisor. You won't find any other salaried, full time job at any company that allows you to have side-employment without express permission of the management, it's a quite common requirement.

But then, lots of people get hung up on the "10 hour" or "20 hour" assistantships. A funding package is for you, full time, and includes your assistantship, tuition remission, and any other packaged benefits. And it's intended to go to someone that's a full time student, between research, teaching, and coursework. And most places that prohibit outside work consider it to be a full time job, which doesn't leave room for other employment. The point is that the assistantship is only a (relatively) small part of the duties that you are being paid for, although it's the "job of record"- it's just like any other salaried, full time job. Once you're no longer being paid for the hour, but rather by the job on a yearly salary, the type of work changes, and you're technically on the job around the clock as needed, until the job is finished.

The point is that you could be making *more* progress on any of your other work if you aren't working an outside job, since that time can be devoted to work instead. This doesn't apply in the same way to other "free-time" activitites, that are required for a healthy, happy and holistic life. No one begrudges you for having a life outside the lab, but if you're going to be working anywhere, it should be on your research.

And as to completing all obligations, if one of the obligations you signed off on is "not having an outside job", then you aren't completing all of the obligations.

And maybe I'm one of the crazy ones, but I TA for free every semester, because it's a great source of teaching experience for my resume.