TakeruK

I strongly agree with fuzzy's thoughts and advice here. Talking directly and honestly with your department is what leads to a healthy relationship between student and department. In almost every case where I know someone who left or got kicked out, there was some kind of miscommunication or breakdown in this dialogue and by the time everyone started talking to each other, it was already too late to do anything about it. The way I see it, if you talk to the department now and say "this is the courses I want to take" and lay out a plan that includes all the department required courses plus the extra stuff you want to take, then everyone is on the same page and whatever happens next will be clear. The department may not be happy that you are taking the extra courses but if they don't actually refuse to authorize this study plan, then that's okay. You are set and you won't have to worry about being kicked out. The reason I say this is that the department will find out eventually about these other courses. During a PhD, there are many milestones where the department or a committee will review your progress and your future study plan. It can be a lot more trouble for you if they delay your admission to candidacy (for example) because they felt you did not make enough progress in your department's coursework yet. Or, if they all of a sudden say "okay you can take these courses but you must do X, Y and Z" and now you have way less time to do X, Y and Z and these things may even interfere with your own plans. I recommend laying it all out on the table now and getting the department's opinion. When you hear their response, make sure you can differentiate between what they would "prefer" you to do and what they are "requiring" you to do. Sometimes, departments are pushy and make it sound like their preferences are actually requirements. It's okay to ask for clarification. I know it's scary to talk to the department/professors about this but it's a normal and necessary part of being a graduate student. Students in my program talk to faculty all the time about getting waived from some of the introductory classes due to extra classes in undergrad (to be replaced with other graduate classes). The department rules and policies exist but ultimately, the reason they are there is to help students get the education and training they need, so they tend to be flexible if you communicate your desires with them. However, before you do all of this, you might want to consider two other sources for advice. First, talk to the other grad students in your department. If you find out that your department is actually not very supportive at all and being honest with them will hurt you in the long run, then you would have to reconsider what you tell them and perhaps stick to the minimal stuff only. You can also talk to the Graduate Office or equivalent office on campus that oversees and knows about all of the program regulations on campus. This way, you can get advice on what you need to do to meet the department's requirement and come up with a plan to talk to the department before they know anything. Finally, just a comparison with my school to provide examples of other policies: Here, we can take extra classes in whatever we want, but our advisor has to sign off on the classes. At another school, there are limits on the number of classes you can take in total because your tuition waiver only covers up to X credits. And at yet another school, taking additional classes is okay but we pay for them ourselves. Departments have the right to limit what classes you can take, especially if they will extend your degree and if it will cost the school (not just the department) more. If the above does not work and you really want to take extra classes for job prospects, have you considered taking something at a community college or another school where you just pay for the classes yourself and then you don't have to worry about getting kicked out of your own program? After all, it is a little dishonest to use resources (your funding) that is meant for you to complete your PhD program for other purposes.

When there is a system in place for students to try out different labs/groups before committing (i.e. rotations), I do think it's a little strange that a professor is trying to circumvent this at the beginning of the year! But I do agree that it's not unreasonable for a prof to say "If you want to work on specific project X, I want you to commit because I want to save this project for someone who will remain in my group". If the prof still would like the student to be part of the lab for rotation (but on a different project) then I'd say everything sounds above board. But if the prof insists on commitment instead of the typical rotation system, then it might (but not necessarily) be a sign of something weird.

There's no reason to think that they will throw out your application if you don't have it by Sept 18. Unless this school is very weird, there is not going to be an auto-reject because of missing LORs. You just need to have your LORs to them before they decide to make the final decisions. (i.e. it sounds like the first admissions committee meeting will be shortly after 9/18 but really, you just need to get it there before they finish making decisions) You already sent the profs an email on Monday. I think on Friday 9/18 you should send one reminder early in the morning. Let them know that the school told you 9/18 is the deadline and ask your profs to let you know if they will not be able to submit today. If they tell you that they cannot do it today, email the school and let them know that it will still be delayed.

This happened to me for one school and it was no problem at all

I agree with fuzzy. I would not pick a lab just on the potential of a single high impact paper in your first year. At this point of your grad career, there is no race/rush. By the time you finish, it won't matter if you had a high impact paper in year 1 or year 4. Sure, a high impact paper right away might help with external fellowships next year but you say you already have some! Also, you are the only one that can make this judgement since you are actually there, but be warned that some people are guilty of "false advertising" when it comes to these kind of things. Whenever I hear someone say "oh you just have to do these 2 or 3 things and write a paper", I anticipate there to be a good deal of work involved. After all, after one or two experiments, maybe you'll find something that stumps you or needs even more work etc. The way I see it, if it's really that easy to get it done, it would already have been done (either by the faculty member or a postdoc or a grad student already there). There's no such thing, in my opinion, as a faculty member with all these almost-complete projects ready to farm out of students because they simply don't have time to do it. Many faculty members "recruit" lab members in this way and while it is a good way to jump into a project that will likely result in a paper, these offers are usually in the "too good to be (completely) true" category. So when you consider this "almost completed paper" as a factor, I'd recommend thinking of it as something that will be a paper in a year from now, and not any shorter timeline than that! With that in mind, I don't really think you have anything to gain by committing to lab #1 now and lots to lose out on! I agree with fuzzy's advice as well to just tell lab #1's PI that you are interested but you would like to try out the other rotations first. Tell them you would be interested in the proposed project in the future and that you'll understand if someone else who is ready to commit will take that project.

Good point! I should have been more clear and say that these "most common" wordlists are basically educated guesses by the people that put together the wordlist based on their knowledge of how ETS picks words. So, the quality and reliability of these "most common" lists depends and varies a lot by listmaker. i.e. I really should have said "a most common wordlist", not "the" most common list

I agree that we should place as much thought and importance in the way we convey a message as the content of the message itself. What I am responding to is the fact that other people are telling another person how to convey the message. VM is an independent entity and VM did not seem to come here to ask for our advice on how they should go about their cause. I mean, if we are planning to organize as a group to work together and spread a particular message, then I agree that it makes complete sense for us to discuss the way we, as a group, want to author our message. But this is not what's happening. Why are people trying to edit another person's thoughts and actions (to be specific, I'm referring to the posts that imply that VM's ideas have a lot of support but maybe VM should phrase it differently in order to gain actual supporters). That is, I don't understand why one cannot disagree with VM's communication style but at the same time, respect their agency and individuality by not providing unsolicited advice about the way they say what they want to say. Again, while I would also not choose to use VM's style myself, since VM is not speaking on my behalf and since VM is not advocating for unethical or immoral actions that would negatively impact our community (in academia, not just GradCafe), I am happy to see VM's posts as one of the many voices and opinions that exist.

Nice to hear back from you! Glad that you were able to make a choice you felt good about I think others in your shoes would definitely find an end of year update useful!

That's weird. I only studied 400-500 words and I would say 50%-60% of the real test words were from the words I studied. Are you studying the "most common words" wordlists? Statistically speaking, it would be really weird if only 2-3 questions contain words from the "most common words" lists--i.e. that would suggest these wordlists are not picking the correct "most commonly used GRE words" anymore! I think if you are confident in your choice of wordlists, you should focus on practicing questions to understand their format better. However, you can do both at the same time: I practiced questions that used words from the 500 most common words list.

That's interesting. Maybe Miraly is from a physical science field? Most books in my field are just super extended review articles that summarize past knowledge. The only scientific books I've ever read are from my introductory classes and although one can still learn a lot from them, since the newest books can summarize e.g. new scholarship from 2005-2015 which would be very useful. When scientists come up with new theories and ideas, they are published in articles. When these ideas have enough evidence behind them and the community agrees that they are likely to be correct, then they appear in books. For example, if you read the latest book in planet formation (published in 2010), you will get the wrong impression of the current community's thinking on planet formation. This 2010 book still writes about ideas from the 1990s and while they do a good job of summarizing the models generated in the 1990s and updated in the 2000s and they also do a very good job at pointing out the current puzzles and mysteries, you will not get a full picture of where the field is at. In the 2000s, when the book was being written, new ideas to overcome these problems were theorized. But at that point, these ideas are not yet embraced by the community. So they didn't go into the book. An important paper in 2012 was the one that presented this idea with some evidence in a way that really excited the community. That was the start of this new piece being added to our model of planet formation and since then, that's where the community is at. That said, I still agree with rising_star that the start of your literature search should be books and review articles of past knowledge. For someone looking to solve problems in planet formation, it is essential to read that 2010 book I mentioned and to know how the field got to where it is today. Also, it will help you understand what the major problems are and why this new 2012 idea is required to solve some of these problems. And it will help you understand what problems are still outstanding. Otherwise, you will waste a lot of time reinventing the wheel. And I also agree with Miraly that (in the physical sciences), after reading the books and review articles, in order to really know where the community is at and what the latest knowledge is, you must read the niche journal articles. You will rarely see new ideas presented for the first time in books. In my field, I guess journals are not very conservative, because basically all theories can be published as long as they are logically sound. A common expression is that a theorist only needs to be right 1 in 20 times! In fact, most journals in my field will not publish anything that is just rehash of old ideas: you must always include something novel in order to merit publication. Overall, definitely agree with rising_star too that we need to learn the norms of our field and the differences between each journal. But also note that sometimes these vary because Editors-in-Chief change over time!

There is no "normal". Scientists are complex beings that are also known as humans and although some scientists like to pretend that we're all dispassionate and unbiased researchers, that is obviously not the case! So, being humans, each of us have different working styles, different personalities and you can't expect two people to be compatible. In fact, I think it's more likely that two collaborators are incompatible than compatible. You probably already know this but I'll say it anyways: it sounds like the friction in the working environment is caused by the conflict in working styles. It's not your fault. It's not the PI's fault. I don't think there is any one "right" advising style because it's just a matter of students finding advisors that they can work with. I'll be a little vague on the details but what you described here sounds very familiar to me. My first few research experiences had advising styles similar to what you described in your past and I felt like I really thrived under those circumstances. I was very productive and happy with my work. Then I had one experience when I started a PhD program (kind of a rotation too) where the advisor was not a good match at all for me. I felt miserable. I also thought that I was screwing up somehow, like now that I'm in a PhD program at a research-focused university, I'm way out of my league and didn't belong at all. Now I realise that many students have similar feelings and it's part of imposter syndrome. But anyways, I was miserable working with this advisor and even after I moved on to a different "primary" project, I was still trying to finish this old one up and it wasn't fun. Since then, I've worked with 3 other advisors including my thesis advisor. In my program, we aren't "tied down" to a specific group or lab and students are encouraged to be working on simultaneous projects with multiple advisors, so I'm working on 3 projects at once, not that I've changed advisors three more times ! My working style goes really well with my main advisor and decently well with the other two. But all three are much better than my first advisor. Also, my first advisor has other students that are thriving there and doing really well because that's the right style for them. So, don't let this first bad experience make you think that there's something wrong with you because that's just not true! It's perfectly okay that you will meet advisors in your lifetime that you will just not gel with. I do think that as young scientists, we should first be flexible and give new challenges a chance but eventually (as it sounds like in your case), we will just have to decide whether or not we can make a relationship work. And if it doesn't work, it's usually not either of our faults, just an conflict of personalities. I don't think the way your current lab operates is the "standard way" that most of science operates. My advice would be to learn from this experience and use it to help you pick a more compatible lab for the future!

I do think Ponzi scheme is a little bit more appropriate than simply a synonym for "scam" but it's not a perfect analogy. The way I see it, a Ponzi scheme is a scam where you lure future investors into investing their money with you and then uses this new money to pay off old investors (keeping a cut for themselves of course). However, this does not actually generate any new income so while the old investors may be under the impression that they are investing into something that is making good money, the whole scheme is unsustainable and eventually they will have no more new investors and then no one will get any more money! In essence, the scheme works by luring in future investors by false pretenses of rewards that don't exist. The analogy to academia is that the current professors need graduate students and postdoc to do research work for them. At least in my field, it's pretty clear that the majority of the research "engine" is work by grad students and postdocs. So, there is a lot of recruitment and not-quite-promises of a future career in academia if you go to grad school, or if you do this postdoc, or if you adjunct here or there. But like a Ponzi scheme, the whole situation is unsustainable--there are far more early career researchers than permanent positions. I think when institutions create postdoc positions that they know will not lead to TT or other permanent positions and when they recruit graduate students without telling them the truth that most of them will not get TT positions, that is where the professors and departments act like a Ponzi scheme. But otherwise I do agree that it's not a perfect analogy. For example, I can't think of the analogous equivalent of the part where they "pay out old investors with money from new investors". But back to the topic. Also, I just want to say this is me writing as a community member, not as a moderator. Why are we going around and trying to "police" each other's opinions and thoughts. It's not like VM is advocating that we do unethical or immoral things. I don't understand why we (as other community members) need to tell VM to stop posting their opinion and pass judgement or criticize VM's choice to advocate for their cause in this way. I think it's one thing to disagree and post counterpoints when VM posts their points (as was done at the beginning of the thread). But now, we are no longer discussing the content but instead, the way it is presented. It's not like VM's posts are speaking on all of our behalf, so I don't think we have any prerogative to tell VM how to advance their cause or how to write their posts! Just my two cents.

I think if you can explain that you didn't complete the second program because of funding issues, then it would not be a problem at all. If you do choose to leave it off, remember to read each school's application instructions carefully. Many schools require you to list all graduate programs attended/matriculated, whether or not you finished so leaving it off might mean that you are lying when you sign your application and this can have ramifications later on.

Usually financial aid applications clearly show that they are financial aid applications. But I would imagine they would ask you to fill out a FAFSA or something to demonstrate need, rather than trying to "figure it out" via a background check (how would this tell them anyways??). Schools don't run random background checks on people unless it is necessary for the type of work you are doing. I bet that the school is just trying to take a shortcut and get all of its information from you at the application stage. If you accept their offer, it will just go into your student record and they won't have to worry about asking for your SSN later for payroll etc. However, as we said above, I don't think it's necessary to give out and it puts you at an unnecessary risk!

I think if you want to make sure your application adds up, then if you want to include the grad assistant experience on the resume then you should just say you are in a graduate program. Be ready to explain why you want to leave your PhD program. There's almost nothing to gain by hiding the PhD program and a lot to lose if people are suspicious of what your application says. I don't think saying that you enrolled in a degree program that you never intended to finish is going to be good for a job application. This says that you are the type of person that starts projects and does not follow through! Can you come up with a reasonable and logical explanation of your motivations that will explain why you no longer want to finish your PhD program and why working at this new company will be better for your long term goals?

It might also depend on the field. In Physics, I know that employers often recruit people out of PhD programs and sometimes students leave PhD programs early because they get a good job offer and no longer want/need to finish their PhD. So, it's not always certain that being in a PhD program will limit your job options. In fact, from my perspective, I don't think being in a PhD program is any different from applying to a new job while currently employed at another company. As juilletmercredi suggests, you should mention in your cover letter why you want to leave your PhD program and what opportunities you would look forward to in your new job. This is exactly what you should/would write in a cover letter if you were currently working at Company A and are applying to a job at Company B. It sounds like you are starting the 2nd year of grad school and will complete a Masters shortly? If so, another way you can frame this is to list yourself as in a "graduate program" on your CV and apply to the job as if you were in a terminal Masters program (assuming that you will get a Masters degree soon). Or, if you recently received a Masters degree, you can just list your education as Masters with the year of degree awarded and don't even mention that you are a PhD student. If the Masters degree was awarded in the past year, then this will be fine. If it's longer than that, it is still fine to just list your Masters degree, but then you might have another problem where there is a gap between your Masters and present day and the company might wonder what you did in that time (and "nothing" is much worse than "current PhD student", in my opinion).

:(

Some places (like my program) do not offer terminal Masters degrees. So, a quick google search of the student's previous institution's academic policies will quickly reveal this (most programs in my field do not offer terminal Masters). In addition, my transcript indicate the date of matriculation with the name of the program I matriculated into. So, transcripts may also show a PhD program.

booksnlooks described all of my interviews for similar positions perfectly! (Note: mostly undergraduate research assistant positions but the one graduate one I did was exactly the same). To expand more on my experience with the "specific questions about past experience", I've usually been asked if I could do something or explain a simple concept. They are often clarification of something on my CV/resume. For example, one interviewer asked a question like "Do you know how to program a routine in C that would solve a matrix equation?". They didn't ask me to code it up on the spot though. It was a clarification on whether or not my computer science / linear algebra class covered that topic. Sometimes they would ask if I understood some fundamental concepts required for the project. A good way to say yes is to briefly explain your (basic) understanding of the concept. Finally, they will also often ask if you have questions and will usually expect you to ask questions! This is an important part as it shows you are interested and have been thinking about the project in mind. If you are interviewing for a specific project, be sure to read up on it and come up with some big picture and basic questions. If you don't know ahead of time, pay close attention during their description and ask thoughtful questions. Often times, the professor will end up deciding between many people who are all qualified for the position, so being interested/excited about the work can go a long way too!

We talk about different tones of LORs a lot in my field too. I almost want to say that most people know about these differences now, but I think supplying European LOR writers with a "instructions sheet" when applying to US/Canada schools is still a very good idea

Oh okay. Yeah, the key thing to remember is that since you don't need to know what x and y individually are, you just need to know which one is bigger, so you just need a relationship (i.e. an equation) that contains both of them

The method the video used to solve this question is actually one of the standard ways you would solve a system of 2 equations with 2 unknowns. Especially when you notice the coefficients (numbers in front of) the x and y are similar in value, subtracting (or even adding) the two equations together to form another equation is a good idea. To find more practice questions, just google for systems of 2 equations and 2 unknowns and try the adding/subtracting the equations method on them. You might even find a worksheet that is designed for this method!

I don't think it's appropriate for you to email the department chair to ask to meet for this reason. Also, the department chair will probably not be able to help you or give you any insight--they have a lot more responsibilities and jobs than graduate admissions. Of course, you can do what you want, and it might work out well in some places but not in others--just giving my opinion here. I think the graduate director or graduate program coordinator or something title is the person you should be talking to instead. I would send them an email and quickly go over your background (1 paragraph) and ask them if they would consider you for admission if you applied. If you are in the area, you can even suggest a face-to-face meeting, or a Skype meeting if you're not in the area. Note that many people are reluctant to turn away applicants without the full application details, so you might get a generic friendly but not-too-helpful response saying that they look forward to seeing your application. However, I would not push a meeting too hard. I think asking whether or not you would still be considered despite your overall GPA is a legitimate question (since if they won't consider you, then why waste the time and money applying). But, beyond that, asking to meet with them and trying to make a good impression via a one-on-one conversation is close to crossing the line. In some ways, this can hurt you as it appears as if you are trying to gain an advantage over other applicants by requesting a special meeting. And on top of that, these people are very busy: being the point person for graduate students is not their main job! So, don't be surprised or offended if they decline and/or they ignore your email completely. Based on the norms in my field (which may not work for yours), I would suggest you do is to identify specific professors you might work with and contact them to talk about grad school research interests. Don't make the focus of the conversation be about your GPA, but instead, have a conversation about what you might work on together if you went to school there. If there is an upcoming major conference in your field, you could potentially meet the profs at that conference. Also, at the conference, you can seek out faculty in the schools you're interested in and talk to them about your graduate research interests etc.

I was in the same shoes as you! CGS-M for my first year of my Masters and I got an OGS for the second year. You are right that this is the only award at this level which you are eligible for. I found the preparation for the OGS easier than the application for my CGS-M. However, I did not apply to OGS as an undergraduate because I was from BC and I didn't even know what the OGS was (in 2009, when I would have had to apply, the OGS was still an award you applied directly to the Ontario government, not each school). I do agree that your OGS proposal should be more refined/specific than your CGS-M proposal. But after going through the process of writing an undergraduate thesis and beginning grad school, I think this is a lot easier and less daunting than when I was writing the CGS-M proposal. However, that might have been mostly me having zero exposure to this level of writing when I applied to NSERC awards so even a tiny bit of experience since then made a giant difference! I also think that in general, the OGS is less competitive than the CGS-M, so if you were successful in getting the CGS-M as an undergraduate, then the OGS should be attainable. Don't let that affect how hard you work on the OGS application of course, but if it helps relieve a little bit of stress to know that, then keep it in mind! Finally, another advantage of applying to the OGS vs. the CGS-M is that when you were applying to the CGS-M, you didn't really have an advisor lined up and invested in you (yet). But now, you have a graduate supervisor (I think?) and if you get this OGS, it would greatly benefit your supervisor as that's money they don't have to pay you. So, while you must write the proposal yourself, your supervisor is an excellent resource to help brainstorm thoughts, discuss ideas, and get feedback in writing a strong proposal. When I wrote my CGS-M proposal, I did contact potential advisors to help generate ideas but I got a lot more support when I was applying for my OGS and my supervisor was just down the hall and has a big incentive to help!

Just to expand on rising_star's post, I think it's sometimes appropriate to list additional details under your research experience to explain your duties. I did this when applying to grad school and I think it's the norm for undergrads to do this in applications to grad school. I think it's important at this level because you want to be clear what your responsibilities and contributions to the lab were. "Undergrad research assistant" can mean a wide range of things, from cleaning beakers and pipettes to running experiments under supervision to doing your own analysis etc. However, I don't see very many example postdoc application CVs going into a lot of detail here. Most postdocs/senior grad students in my field seem to still put one line that summarizes their research goal for that project but not as much detail as before. Finally, with a CV I think you would arrange the order of the sections differently. In academic grad school application CV, I would put the education, awards and research sections up front and only include non-academic jobs if they are relevant (i.e. I left out all of my random summer jobs in college to pay for school). In a resume for a job application, I put my work experiences up front and academic awards were usually left out.