TakeruK

They will do a soft credit check (that is, they will check your credit history but it won't count as a credit request that hurts your rating) when you sign up for a payment plan with them because in these plans, you pay for some services after they provide them. No credit at all (because you are new to the US) is better than bad credit. At T-Mobile, they wanted a SSN but for international people, they are okay with your I-20 or DS-2019. However, if they don't like the fact that you have no credit (AT&T, my internet company, didn't like this), there are still other options. One of them is to sign up for prepaid plans. Another one is that some places (like AT&T for internet, in my experience) will charge you a deposit of a few hundred dollars. You pay them the deposit up front and it is applied as credit towards for your first few bills (but some places will hold onto the deposit until you close your account with them). Finally, I did have my bank account open prior to getting my phone so I don't know what would have happened if I didn't have one ahead of time. Bank accounts are easy to open though and I believe I had access to it the same day. But you can also get a prepaid SIM with enough minutes and data for the first week or so if you need to get all this sorted out before you sign onto a contract. It might even be a good idea anyways, so that you can get phone connection set up right away while you worry about other things first.

I do think that we can avoid unconscious bias without removing humanity/subjectivity from the system. For people who are willing to learn and change, education is a great way to reduce unconscious bias. rising_star linked to the articles similar to the ones I was thinking of. I was not worried about professors who are purposely undermining certain students, but instead worried about professors who are trying to say great things about their students but end up hurting them due to an unconscious bias in choice of vocabulary (for example). In general, I would advocate for more oversight and "watchdog" organizations within a University to audit the department admissions committee. I believe my school is moving towards this direction and the graduate students here support it. But this doesn't even necessarily require the student to view their own LOR. Just a shift away from the secrecy that some people seem to place on LORs, that it's a communication from one professor to another (or a few others) only. In the same vein, I hope Universities also move to discourage faculty from using information outside of the application to make admission decisions (e.g. private phone calls to a colleague at the applicant's school). In general, I would like to see much more transparency by admissions committee (not necessarily to the applicants, but to some other governing body) so that the admissions committee has documented reasons to support every acceptance and rejection decision. And finally, I think it's important to not entangle "asking to see an LOR" and "acting unethically to manipulate a LOR". I think students have the right to ask to see their LOR without being judged as unethical (if they are simply asking) and I also think it's perfectly reasonable (although it may be awkward) to ask something like "Will you be able to write me a strong LOR?" instead of just "Will you write me a LOR?". Getting an LOR should not be like a test, where the student is not sure of their result. I believe every faculty member should respond to a LOR request with something like: "Yes, you are a great student/researcher and I would love to write you a letter", or "Yes, I will write you a letter but I do not think I can write you a strong letter", or "No, I will not be able to write you a letter." I don't think a faculty member should ever write an actual fully negative LOR. They should not accept a LOR request if they do not want to recommend the student. This is not the same as saying they shouldn't write negative things in the LOR, but it is a letter of recommendation, not "confidential evaluation of student". That is, a faculty member should only write a LOR if they are doing it in the student's best interests, not for their own personal agenda.

You should include it only if it makes sense / fits in with the narrative you are telling in the SOP. Otherwise, having it in the CV is enough.

Good luck!!

I had a 3 day international student orientation where we talked about how to adjust to life in America, what American classrooms were like (e.g. way less formal), how to get along with Americans, how to navigate US health insurance and how to ensure we stay in compliance with our F-1 or J-1 statuses. There were panels from senior students as well as faculty members on "culture shock" of moving to America. Most of it was not very useful! But I learned a lot from the F-1/J-1 compliance stuff (also covered post-PhD extensions like OPT and AT). There was a little more culture shock than I had expected though. Felt a lot of it a few weeks after moving where I found myself feeling super homesick in the middle of a grocery store because I didn't recognize most of the brands / couldn't find the brands I liked / found the brands I liked but had different labelling! I never expected to feel that way and upon reflection, it sounds silly, but since the US and Canada are so similar, little differences sneak up on you and then suddenly you realise "hey, I'm actually in a foreign country!" Some of the culture stuff was new for me though. I learned that "Hey, how are you?" is a greeting, not a conversation opener. (i.e. the proper response to someone walking past on you in the hallway saying "Hey, how are you?" is to also respond with "how are you?" or "fine, how are you?" instead of stopping them to chat). And that Americans don't show up to parties until 30-60 minutes after the stated time. And that Americans say "sorry" way less--tip: If you ever run into your Canadian friend and they say "sorry", the correct response is also "sorry" As for international TA training, I didn't have that in my year. But this fall, I'm involved with the TA training for the new students and we've planned a special session for international TAs. 40%-50% of our incoming grad students are international, and this session is meant to be an introduction to how the classroom and professor-student dynamic might be different in America vs. in their home country. Also, basic American academic terminology like "freshman", "recitation" etc.

The process is simple (probably vary on your port of entry and your country of origin though). You go up to the customs desk and you give them your passport (with your visa, if applicable), your DS-2019, and I believe your boarding pass. They will check it over and ask if this is the first entry to the US on this status/visa. They will probably ask you a few random questions about your plan in the United States--what school you're going to (even though it's on the DS-2019), what you are studying, etc. They may or may not ask for additional documents to support your DS-2019, such as an admission letter etc. so you should have them easy to get to (but don't give it to them until they ask). They will also ask you general customs questions that they would ask for any visitor on any status, such as items to declare. They will know about any bags you have checked because they will scan your boarding pass and images of your checked bags will appear. They might ask about the contents of the bag. Overall, it's just a series of simple questions (and sometimes just confirmation of stuff in your documents) to ensure that you aren't lying. Answer honestly and calmly and everything should hopefully go smoothly. There is a small chance you might get "secondary screening" which means you will be taken away from the main area and there will be more questions in another room. I haven't experienced this, but an incident a few years ago made the number of secondary screenings for international students rise dramatically for that short time and my school's international office sent all of the international students an email letting us know that it might happen and to not worry etc. Unfortunately, if you miss a flight due to immigration, it is considered your fault and the airlines aren't obligated to help you out. But if you ask nicely and politely, they can do a lot. My friend once accidentally booked a return flight on an entirely different day (departing 8pm on Monday instead of 8pm on Sunday). He arrived Sunday afternoon at the airport, explained his mistake, and they put him on the 8pm Sunday flight at no charge even. Obviously, you cannot count on this, but if this happens, you would hopefully only have to pay the change fee instead of buying a whole new ticket (or also paying the difference).

I think it is certainly a student's "right" to ask to see the letter but that's not the same as saying it's a good idea to exercise this right and it's definitely not saying that a professor should always agree to show the student the letter. I have yet to write a LOR (I redirect all students who ask me to a professor that could write one with infinity more weight) but I would decline to show them the final version and instead, explain why LORs are confidential. Sometimes I do wonder about LORs creating an unfair playing field because they are not transparent and thus people cannot be held accountable for unethical behavior contained in a LOR. For example, there are articles written about how some LOR writers use unequal language to describe women and men and how this unconscious bias can lead to unfair outcomes. But because LORs are so secret, it's tough for a neutral party to evaluate/audit a department for transparency in its admissions committees. But I don't think requiring professors to show their LORs to their students will solve this problem. It would bring unconscious bias to light but it would also make LORs not relevant so we would have a fair and equitable assessment tool that no one uses. Although I don't know how exactly, I think the best way forward is to have some kind of internal auditing / "watchdog" at the University/Institute level that monitors each department's admissions committees. In my opinion, this will lead to a useful and equitable assessment tool for admissions.

Do you mean literally write out the entire abstract, or list the abstract as a bibliographical reference? I agree with eteshoe--you should not include the actual text of your abstract in your CV. But you should definitely reference it! In the astronomical fields, all of our major conferences index our talk and poster abstracts online, so if you properly reference/cite it in your "publications list" then an interested reader can look it up and read it. I say "publications list" but usually people might title it something like "Publications and Presentations" or have separate subheadings for peer-reviewed work vs. conference abstracts etc. One tip though: If you presented the same work at many many conferences, then I would only include it once or twice (pick the most prestigious ones). I usually title my section "Selected Presentations" and for each work I presented, I only list the highest impact presentation I gave. One exception is that if you are an undergraduate, it is normal to only have 1 or 2 or 3 presentations total, and even if they are all the same work, I would list all of them (up to 3) to show that you have decent experience talking about your work. But once this list starts growing, you would want to start pruning it so the best items can shine

I don't know how strict they are about the 450 hours. I think it's a very bad idea to be cheating the system that is awarding you money, and especially since this is public taxpayer money that we, as academics, rely on the public's trust to get continued funding. And for practical reasons, given that you will be probably be filing an income tax report, it will be pretty hard to lie about it if you get audited. And, another practical viewpoint: 100 extra hours might mean something like $2000 if you manage to get a great job that pays like $20/hr. This is far less the value of the funding that you might disqualify yourself for. Is there some way to accept the job but work fewer hours?

For other people reading this, this will highly vary from state to state. So make sure you check out your state's requirements. For example, in California, no international driver licenses are accepted and international students are considered residents for DMV purposes and must therefore get California licenses. I had a Canadian license for 10 years but I still have to do both the written test and the road test all over again! It's straight forward though, just a time hassle (and had to convert all of my metric distances to the US units for things like "how far away do you stop from a railroad crossing" etc.)

I've had multiple accounts, for similar reasons to rising_star -- more ways to get at my money. Also, my first adult bank account was a credit union that didn't have a very wide network so I soon got a "big bank" account for use when I travel to a city without my credit union's network of ATMs. Then when my spouse and I decided to get joint accounts, she didn't like the bank I had and I didn't like the bank she had. And, we both didn't like the fact that our old banking plans didn't meet our needs so we now mostly do our banking through yet another bank that we both chose. But both of us still keep our old accounts (switched to low service free banking plans). In the US, I first opened my big bank and then I opened my university-affiliated credit union account because I needed to have a bank account with them to access their very low rates for car loans (1.45 APR). My account with them is almost empty--each month, part of my pay check goes into that account and then it is withdrawn automatically a few days later to make my loan payment.

Yes, it exports all of my references as a .bib file (i.e. a BibTeX file)

My school's university-wide graduate student orientation is a full week of receptions: every breakfast, lunch and dinner is provided for 3 days. You all eat with the entire incoming graduate student class and it's the best way to meet someone and make friends outside of your department. Each meal also have various guests of important/useful people on campus (e.g. Dean, Health Center etc.). On the last day, the President hosts a dinner for all new students and their spouses/partners/children at their official residence. There are also a lot of social events organized by grad students in the evening with a range of options from a pub crawl to sports to a quiet board game night so there's something for everyone, hopefully. It was a strange experience because my undergrad orientation was just a single day of events, and only one meal provided (pizza lunch). In any case, while I don't think anyone's parents would be turned away if they went to the lunches and dinners, I agree with all of the above that it would be very odd and probably not reflect well on the student that brings their parents with them. That said, for the University-wide stuff, if you prefer to spend time doing other stuff with your parents, then I don't think you need to worry too much about first impressions and it being weird that you didn't attend. Even at my small school, the University wide events are large enough that people won't really notice you're not there. In general, most people hung out and socialized with people from other departments so it's not like your whole cohort will be bonding that week and you'll miss out (but perhaps experiences may vary). I do agree that in general, the department specific events are more important to attend (although you only asked about University-wide ones here). But, I can certainly think of many reasons why one might choose to skip those as well, if they are not mandatory.

I remember thinking that was pretty funny too! Last year, I helped out as a volunteer and there was a skit of "life in America". However, almost every American character was actually played by Canadians (most of the volunteers are international students rather than Americans).

Okay, I didn't realise that this is a post-graduation job, not a temporary/term position while you are finishing a degree. I agree with rising_star that because the R2 school job sounds like you will be given more responsibilities and "own" a project more than just helping another person get their work done, the R2 position sounds like a better route to go! Especially since this is a post-BS job (unless I misunderstood?), you would want to show that you are more than just an undergrad researcher, and I think the level of responsibility in that job will be very good in the future! The R1 school job also sounds very good though. During my undergrad, I took a job like this (my program had us do two 8-month stints of full time research so our degree length was 5 years). The data was already all collected and I came in to do the analysis (i.e. writing scripts). The timing worked out very well for me because I arrived just in time to be a part of a slew of publications that the team produced based on analysis work I was hired to do. The advantage of being the person that is hired for their expertise and analysis skills is that you get the chance to be part of a large number of projects. You'll get to contribute to a large number of discussions and a large number of people will look to you for advice and expertise. This can help you a lot in forming good working relationships with many people. And as I said above, you'll get a chance to be a coauthor on many papers (although co-authorship protocol might vary based on school). Being at a R1 school will help this, after all, the R1 school is an R1 school because they really prioritize research output. To be honest, both opportunities sound really awesome and I don't think you can go wrong with either one. The R2 position will let you have more meaningful responsibilities but at the same time, if that one project you are working on does not do well, then you might be stuck on a less than exciting project. The R1 position will allow you to contribute smaller amounts to many more projects. But on the other hand, being part of a large group might also mean that you are more easily overlooked and you don't get to be the "owner" of any one project. There's a risk that you'll be relegated to just doing grunt work and not getting recognized for it. Both have their pros and cons but I think both will be good opportunities

I learned a lot of useful things about school policies that ended up helping me or my friends from my school-wide orientation. It was also extra helpful for me since I had never been on a US campus before, so terms like FERPA, Title IX, etc. meant nothing to me. Of course, Canadian schools have the equivalent, but we have different names for them so the orientation was helpful for me to match already known concepts to their US equivalents. However, I agree with the others that there's nothing covered that you can't already find elsewhere. So I wouldn't cancel already made plans to attend it! Being an active member of my school's graduate student association, I would highly encourage everyone to attend orientation if possible (or take the initiative to find resources online if you miss it) because when a student comes to us for help, it is very often something that was covered in orientation. Although, even if they did attend, it might have been years ago, so I'm not faulting them for having to come to us, but if you're able to attend, you'll be in a much better position to help yourself (and maybe your friends!) I wish they did a better health insurance orientation for me though. All we got was 20 minutes of every single person in the Health Center introducing themselves. Very nice and friendly, but unfortunately, did not tell me anything useful

It is probably a glitch. I remember noticing this too once in awhile back in 2011. Usually, the testing centers in major cities should have dates every day, even Saturdays! Note however, that subject tests are only offered three times per year (one Saturday each in April, September, October, I believe)

The location / brand name may play a small role, but I think the quality of the work you would be doing is much more important. If you are just a "cog in a machine" then it doesn't really matter if you are a cog at a high rank school vs. a cog at a R2. But if you have the chance to do meaningful/impressive research, go for that over the brand name. That said, there are certainly "fringe benefits" of working in a prominent lab/group at a high ranked school. You will likely be able to make more connections and having a strong reference letter from a high ranked school will be very helpful. Also, sometimes these schools have good programs for undergraduate research--for example, my current school has a whole summer student program with seminars, mixers, mentoring and other enrichment events to help student researchers develop "soft skills" (how to apply to schools etc.) as well as give them networking opportunities. Overall, I would say things like brand name (and the fringe benefits that come with it) are more like multipliers. They can certainly enhance your CV if you are doing good solid research there. But they won't really do much if the research isn't very solid. I'd pick based on research project first, and then use brand name/fringe stuff as a tiebreaker.

Parents certainly help graduate students here move in but they are never seen at graduate student orientation type events. Like all the others said, once you get settled, it's normal for the grad student to show their parents around campus on their own. I've met some of my friends' parents in this way. But there is almost never any programming specifically for them. And, if they tag onto student-focused orientation events, it might seem very weird and it could be awkward. My school has 3-4 days of major orientation events, with lots of meals and games and events and while some of them state family are welcome, they really mean spouses and children, not your parents and siblings etc. Every fall, we do have a departmental family BBQ event where parents would certainly be welcome though! It is a very fun evening/BBQ where everyone (staff, faculty, students, postdocs) bring all of their families. Parents who happen to be visiting often attend (not just new students, sometimes parents of older students visit too). I think events like this would be more appropriate for parents or other visiting relatives to join.

In general, medical travel insurance is only intended for emergency services that you cannot wait until a return trip home. Once you are well enough to return home, you will be expected to return to Canada and complete any necessary treatment there. Insurers like BCAA and CAA seem like they will be okay without proof of return trip (at least, to get a quote) and they also have "annual" plans for frequent travelers. So maybe it will work out that you can tell BCAA that you have not yet determined when you will return, and they will be okay with that. Then, if you do get injured you can book a flight home and finish up the treatment in Canada (as the travel insurance only covers emergency costs that you cannot wait until you get home). Maybe this will satisfy the insurance companies, but maybe it won't -- we're not experts here. Again, up to you to determine the amount of risk you'd want to take. In my opinion, if you do choose to get insurance, you would be much better off getting it from a US provider instead of the travel insurance because you aren't really in the US for just those 3 weeks. If an unfortunate accident or emergency does happen, you may want to be able to get treatment and plan for recovery while in remaining in the US and minimizing the disruption to your studies. But this would just be my personal choice if I were to be in the same situation

The part time jobs available to you will also depend on your school's policies. Many schools in the science fields that provide a full stipend and tuition waiver might have funding that come with strings attached. Sometimes, these strings is that you must report and get approval for all "conflicts of commitment", which could include part time work, since you are expected to commit to your graduate studies full time. So, you will have to ensure that your work does not interfere with your studies. Personally, it's my opinion that schools should not have strong restrictions on outside work because it's your own time. However, if taking on extra work means that you will have to take longer to finish your PhD, I can understand why schools should rightfully be concerned/prohibit this (since if they are fully funding you, they should have certain expectations of degree progress). In practice, at my school, if the extra work is something like bartending or Starbucks barista, or tutoring, etc. (i.e. sometime low commitment and for extra income/fun) then it is rarely a problem. However, if the outside work is something like consulting, starting your own business, etc. then this might lead to issues. In general though, my school is supportive of grad student entrepreneurship, but they will likely ask you to take a leave of absence if you are interested in taking on a lot of outside work.

Another way to quickly see an overview of research is to find the website for a big physics conference in the US on your topic. Usually, they will have talk titles and abstracts online. Read those! Sometimes conference abstracts are written at a more general/broad level than paper abstracts.

I am sorry to hear that you did not get the supervision you needed to succeed. Picking a good supervisor is important because there are lot of different supervising styles and some styles don't work for some students. I think you can use this experience to help you find a better supervisor for a PhD program. It's easier to think about this time as wasted but really, I hope you still learned a lot about what works for you and what doesn't. On the other hand, I think the other aspects of your program is normal, especially for a Masters program. Most science is done on very little funding and most Master projects, at least in my field, involve analysis on data already collected. There's not that much time to collect new data, validate it, and then do science on it during the short MS program. Also, Masters projects may just be a lower priority for the professor than the other work. In my opinion, you don't need to have publications from a Masters program. I have zero publications from mine and it was a research-based Masters program. Sometimes, MS projects are not really even publishable. The point of a Masters is to learn research skills and "practice" on a project. Similarly, the first few things you try in a PhD program might not work out either and do not get published. So to answer your final question, I don't think it's a huge deal if you do not have a publication from your Masters program. In fact, it would be very difficult to do so (good for your cohortmates I guess) because you would be applying to PhD programs at the beginning of your second year, and in order to have a publication by then, you would have to have already written and submitted a paper during the summer, just ~9 to 10 months after starting! Instead, what's more important is that you are able to show PhD programs that you have significantly improved as a researcher while in grad school and did not just "stagnate". You will need to talk to your supervisor and see what kind of LOR they would write. Find other people in your BS/MS program that you have had a good relationship with to write you strong LORs. You should also think about how you will frame your MS experience in your application. I know what you wrote here is just frustration but ensure you don't pass on any negativity about your supervisor and your program. Focus on the positives. What did you learn? What did you achieve? Talk about these points when discussing your MS experience in your application. Sure, you might not be able to build off your Masters as those who have publications from it, but you have not shot yourself in the foot or anything. At this point, focus on what you have learned and the small things in lab that you have achieved, rather than flashy things like publications.

I write mine the same way too. It's one of the last things written since even if you have a good grasp of the literature, it's hard to know what areas to focus on or how to frame the story until you know how your results fit into the literature. Also, just before submission, sometimes our group sends our paper to key people that we know would be interested / also work on the same things. Often, they will point out interesting angles/references to the literature that we might have missed (especially if it's their own work, or their group's work). And, most people in my field post papers to a pre-print server upon submission so that people who feel that their own work has been missed can point it out and they can fix it in the first round of edits.

The Earth science fields have a lot of interdisciplinary areas of work but your two example fields seem a little too unrelated. Maybe it will come in handy if you were to do field research on specific sites in a French speaking country, but that would just be for your convenience, it would not really help advance the research. I do know some people who have switched from a science field to a humanities field. One person has a Physics MS and went to a Philosophy PhD (Philosophy of Science). Another has a science PhD and works in a history of science field.