SKN

I know, I feel like the idea is that you're supposed to do the bare minimum to get an A, but sometimes, it's a lot of work to get an A and they make it seem like it's lame to try hard, but you should be easily making perfect grades.

I think the idea is that if you're focusing on research and such, then your grades are bound to suffer, or rather that in the course of doing all the things that you have to do, if something has to suffer and it's not your classes, it's your research and that's worse.

I know, me too! all the profs are older than me, thank goodness, but yeah, the students, ugh. there are a couple of post docs who are my age but they're post docs. i do wish i'd known sooner, but i also know i just wouldn't have. i just wasn't ready, and that's that.

Yeah, my feelings are definitely a function of the fact that I'm in a new city and my support system outside school is basically non-existent. I'm definitely going to focus on finding something like that.

Thanks! Everyone in my program is so young, and though they're all really nice, I just feel like we have different interests and the thought of being here for five years with only people 7-10 years younger than me to socialize with makes me a little crazy. I'll have to find some other things to do, at the moment, I'm so busy that adding other things to my schedule would be difficult, but I think I might look into that.

I'm in a bio phd program, and I'm in my early 30's. I decided to do this after working for a while in a non-bio related field. I feel old. Really really old, and kind of starved for some interaction with other people my own age. I moved to a new city and though I don't regret my decision to do this, it's just been really lonely and difficult. Is anyone in a similar situation?

I had an advisor for my MA that was great because I was just doing an MA. He's really good with undergrads and high school students and teaching people the basics and letting them get very good experience. However, if you're a phd student in his lab, it's really rough. He micromanages and doesn't let anyone do anything and can be a little condescending and rude if he thinks you're getting ahead of yourself. He's also not great for people's careers - not great about publication, but great about presenting at conferences. Sometimes, I think he's threatened by the success of his students. I'm starting a phd program in the fall and my new advisor seems great so far. He's very available, but laid back, which I like. I haven't had to actually work with him yet, so I suppose it could change, but so far so good!

I applied to a school to which I was accepted, but my POI might not be doing the project we had spoken of, but they keep the file open very late to basically see if there are any takers or if my guy secures the funding for the project. I only know this because I called them, they never contacted me at all. So could be something like that.

Hey, so I think it would probably be difficult, but I'll tell you what I did. I got a degree in psychology, but did research in a lab with a psych professor who taught comparative psych and had marine animals. So I have a lot of experience with marine invertebrates because of my lab experience. I also did a masters in experimental psych and stayed in the same lab. Now, I've been accepted into a couple of bio phd programs with little to no biology in my background. No funding, so it's not all good news, but I think you could get into such a program if you can wrangle the experience somehow, and learn quickly on the fly.