TakeruK

Definitely agree! In addition, the University guarantees the professor a salary no matter what, so the overhead helps ensure this is possible. The alternative in my field is to work at a "soft money" institution where the overheads are really low (I've heard 20% or so?) but then you are responsible for paying for all associated expenses yourself out of your grants! Personally, I'd prefer the security of the University providing for "overhead costs" in years where my grant successes are not great instead of having the uncertainty of your ability to pay yourself/overhead expenses fluctuate with availability of grants. Especially since grants don't really allow you to ask for more money to "save up" for a future "bad year" of grant writing.

Here are my thoughts on the general CV (broad comments only, won't comment on wording etc.) 1. I think the order you list things is very good. 2. I would remove the References section (same reason as gorki) 3. I would shorten the technical skills section to be relevant to what you are applying for. For example, in my field, you are applying for a program to build telescope instrumentation, then it makes sense to list lab/experimental technical skills and if you are applying to data analysis programs, then it makes sense to list computer/coding skills. I agree with gorki that some of these skills do not seem relevant to an academic program, but it depends on what you are doing in terms of research! 4. Also agree that your bullet points in "professional work" can be reduced--maybe limit it to only 3 points per item 5. Finally, I feel like there is something a little "wrong" or "off" with the formatting/layout. Maybe it's just the way it shows up on my screen, but it appears a little "wide". That is, you have critical information spanning across the entire width of the page! For example, you have the dates on the left margin, then the position title in the middle and then the location right-aligned. I think this makes it very hard to focus and read because I have to scan across the entire page to read the first line of each item, which means I am constantly scanning to see if I am missing anything. In addition, the shaded header lines add to the effect that this is a "wide" CV. My suggestion for this would be to remove the gray background. Also, move the "location" tag to go right below your position title instead. This will clear up your right hand side a lot and the reader will no longer have to scan across the entire page for almost every single line. They would only read to the right hand side when they need to (i.e. when one of your bullet points is long enough to read across).

First the legal stuff: Is this tutorial part of your duty as a TA? I think you are at a Canadian school right? This means that you are probably on a TA contract for your specific course and if someone is asking you to do a tutorial for a different course (i.e. one where you are not contracted for), then you have the right to refuse the additional work. Check with your collective bargaining agreement (CBA) if you are not sure. At my previous Canadian school, if the department wants to you to TA a different class, even if it's just a single tutorial, they usually have to draw up a new contract for something like 3 hours (prep time included) and they require your agreement. However, if this tutorial is part of your contract for the course you are the TA for, then you cannot refuse this work. It is your responsibility as a TA and a professional to do the work that you are assigned to and committed to doing. As graduate students, we are paid to complete this TA work, and the money is generally public funds or donations. Actions like skipping tutorials or shirking other responsibilities just because you don't feel like it reflect poorly on your colleagues and other academics as well. Second, practical advice: If you have a legal reason to not accept this TA duty (first paragraph above), then it's up to you to decide whether or not to exercise your right to refuse the extra work. There are pros and cons: accepting the work even if you don't want it means that the school is more likely to step over other TA rights in the future; however, rejecting the work might damage your future relationship with the TA manager (even though technically your right to refuse work protects you against actions). However, if you don't have a good reason, I would suggest that you accept that it is going to be sucky for the one day and bring your own work to the 8:30am tutorial and do that if no one shows up. Or, be honest and say that you don't think people will show up next week because it's the end of the term. I would think that the second choice will do you more harm than good and you will likely have to work the 8:30am tutorial anyways. ---- Finally, I reread this and now I am not 100% sure if you meant that you are asked to do a single 8:30am tutorial coming up really soon, or you are being assigned to a 8:30am tutorial for the upcoming semester as part of the department's TA scheduling. Everything above assumes that this is a one time thing in addition to whatever you have been TAing this term. However, if you are talking about TA assignments for the next semester, then there is nothing you can do. Employees (TAs) do not get to choose their own work hours -- this is the prerogative of the employer (i.e. the Department). If they want to assign you to a 8:30am tutorial then it is well within their rights to do so because I don't think any CBA in Canada prevents this (nor should they). Sometimes you can hope that the Department allows for some legitimate excuses (e.g. picking up/dropping off children at daycare, bus schedules not matching up etc.) but if it's not in the CBA then they don't have to honour these requests. Sorry that this is not what you want to hear, but in your case, given that you admit there is no real reason for you to not do the 8:30am class (other than you want to sleep in), I don't think you have a choice and it is your responsibility to take the assignment given to you as you are the employee! If you are seriously worried that students will suffer because the tutorial time is inconvenient for students, you might want to talk to the professor in charge of the course to reschedule, but given that classroom scheduling is often very tight at many schools, it's unlikely that there are other open spots (you can still try though). Edit: one last option that I highly do not recommend, but I'll include it for completeness. If this is your TA offer for the upcoming semester and you have not yet signed the contract, then you are also within your rights to refuse the TA appointment. This will mean that you will give up the TA salary and depending on the agreement/policies, potentially give up future years of guaranteed TA employment and/or other funding sources contingent on receiving TA salary. It will also very likely damage your relationship with the department. It is highly not recommended but it is usually an option.

I was interested in two topics, X and Y, when applying to grad schools. When picking schools to apply to, I picked schools that would be good fits for X and/or Y. For schools that were strong in X, I wrote about my interest in X and why that school would be great for me to do X at. I did the same thing for schools strong in Y. So, I would recommend you write at least two versions of "what are you interested in?" part of the SOP. In fact, this is a simplification--I wrote a different set of paragraphs to address this point for every single school, not just two versions! Think of it this way: the admissions committee is not necessarily interested in every thing you are interested in! Just pick and choose the interests/reasons/goals you picked that particular school to apply to and then write your SOP for that school around those reasons. It's perfectly fine to apply to one school to meet one of your goals and another school to meet a different goal.

"Home" is Canada, right, Catria? Are you using the term "community college" to mean a program where students tend to go for 2 years, get an Associates degree, then transfer to a 4 year university to finish their degree? (i.e. the American definition of CC), or do you mean the Canadian (or at least, the British Columbian) definition of CC: i.e. a trade or vocational school where students mostly earn 1-2 year certificate programs (e.g. in accounting, plumbing, hairdressing etc.). I think you mean the former right? (i.e. what most Canadians call "college") I've also considered this career path. The minimum requirements in Canada tend to be a Masters degree (but a Canadian MSc is different than American MS) but I agree with juilletmercredi that more and more schools are only hiring PhDs because there are more PhDs now looking for these types of jobs! I know that when I first started considering grad school (~7 years ago), I looked at the local colleges and saw their Physics departments: almost all instructors had MSc and the only PhD was the department head! But I'm starting to see more of a shift hiring people with PhDs as instructors. I also agree with juilletmercredi that more and more schools are hiring "sessional lecturers" (also called "adjuncts" in some places). Thus, instead of hiring on a permanent basis, instructors are paid per course and their contracts are renewed on a year to year basis. My first year English professor was one of these "sessional lecturers"--he taught 2 classes a week at my 4-year university and also 3 classes a week at a local college. These types of positions generally get paid as low as $3000 (i.e. $30k/year on a 5/5 load) per course per semester but I've seen positions that pay as high as $7000 ($70k/year on a 5/5 load). However, without some kind of permanent standing, it is pretty hard to establish a research program. Also, many of these lecturers will not have work over the summer, especially in our field of Physics, where enrollment is barely high enough to merit running summer classes. But perhaps summer would be a good chance to do research. I know that a PhD from one of the local colleges near my undergrad school actually does some research with summer students at my 4-year university. I think building a strong connection with professors at a 4-year university and thus having access to their students (especially the 3rd and 4th year students) can really make a difference in your ability to do viable research while employed at a college/CC. Catria's information is consistent with other info I've heard about grant overheads in Canada. We operate very differently than the US system, and in general, overhead is way smaller. Part of the reason, according to my profs who worked on both sides of the border, is that grant overheads do pay for things like our tuition waivers as well as other things like building upkeep, employee benefits and payments from the University to the various unions (most student researchers are unionized employees). In Canada, typical tuition for grad students range from $4k/year to $7k/year, while in the US, this number is usually much higher! Also, as far as I know, Canadian grants have a budget line item for overheads (consistent with what Catria said), so if a prof needs a $20k grant for something, they would write the grant for $20k+overhead. But I admit I don't have first hand experience writing a grant. Finally, in the same vein as CC positions, there are also other positions that might be part-time research and part-time something else! For example, Catria, you might be interested in this job posting that I just received via the CASCA mailing list. The job is posted here: http://casca.ca/?p=5255 and I've pasted the description below: I know that positions like this will be very interesting to me when I am on the job market!

Agreed that there are a lot of variations of how people speak within the same country! But I don't think the language screening at my school was at the level where it would differentiate between a Minnesotan and a Californian. And I don't even think it is a bad thing that people speak different versions of English -- there is no "right" version and I would say that Californian, Canadian, British, and Minnesotan English should be equally valid at any school that operates in English!

Definitely agree -- I was assuming this scenario because of the topic title!

I think what you did is fine and you don't have to worry If it says "first class degree", I think that is a clear signal that it is the British system, in my opinion.

You can usually leave a note when you report your GPA in your application form. Otherwise, you can usually leave a note on the last page since most apps have a final "any other comments" text box. Finally, you can also include it in your CV under your BSc line item. Overall though, I think you can rest assured that you are not the first student from Greece to apply and definitely not the first student applying in the British system. The only reason to leave the comments above is in case it's not standard for Greece universities to use the British system.

It's not common in my field, but also not super rare either. I would say that most graduate programs have at least one current grad student that did their undergrad at the same school. I agree with bsharpe that in theory, working with #1 PI for 3 years then working for #2 PI for 5 years is better than working with #1 PI for 8 years. However, working with #1 PI for 8 years is not that far down the list....it would be better than say, working with #1 PI for 3 years then working with #238 PI for 5 years. In my opinion, working for #1 PI for 8 years would only be marginally worse than working with #1 PI for 3 years then #2 PI for 5 years. How much worse exactly depends on the stigma in your field but this can vary a lot from person to person and I would say that I feel the general trend in my field overall is that the expectation that one moves around a lot for most academic growth is reducing. Therefore, if there are reasons for an undergrad to stay at the same university for all their degrees, I would say go for it and worry about the stigma later. One very successful scientist I know has been at the same school for 20 years (BSc, MSc, PhD, multiple postdocs, and now hired as permanent research staff, all at the same school).

I'd also second listing the recommender's current information (title, institution, etc.)!

This is my plan after graduation since grad school will probably be the last time I will be in one place for so long (until landing some kind of permanent job I guess)!

Nothing. I did not do any work proposed in my CGS-M application (the research proposal is non-binding). However, there may be some consequences if you do not complete your entire year of the CGS-M (i.e. you decide to leave your program after one semester) -- I think you will have to repay any money paid in advance to you for the time you were not a student. Check your Awards Holder Guide to be sure.

My research website is hosted on my current department's web server. I built it from a free template and then edited it with a combination of WYISWYG editors (free ones since I can't afford Dreamweaver or Muse) and directly editing the CSS/HTML source code. My opinion is that one should not use a free commercial host like Wix or Weebly for their research website and one should definitely not have any advertisements on their website! If you cannot get reliable web hosting from your department, there are some pretty cheap options to purchase your own domain name. I feel like ResearchGate and Academia.edu are not very useful. I constantly get requests from random people in my inbox that goes to spam or gets deleted immediately. LinkedIn is probably more useful because it's a more standard format and you can use it for non-academic job hunting. I don't have profiles on any of these sites though. However, I do have a Google Scholar profile, and it is nice because it automatically finds and adds papers I author/co-author and I don't have to update it myself

Although I did not need to submit a writing sample for my graduate school application, I think this is a common theme for a lot of things graduate students face (e.g. homework assignments, term papers, research articles, grant applications, dissertations, etc.) In my opinion, the answer is "when you have other things you need to do and the time spent on this is no longer worth it". For things like this, we can always keep editing and working and after awhile, you quickly get to "diminishing returns". At this point, the time you spend on this is probably better spent on other efforts (SOP? studying for exams? relaxing to maintain sanity? etc.). But how do you know you got to this point? Mostly past experience -- you probably wrote a ton of papers in undergrad leading up to this point. You know when you've done a "good enough" job. Trust your instinct! An important part of graduate school is knowing when to let go and spend your efforts elsewhere.

The "English language screening" is in addition to TOEFL/other exams for those who did not complete 4 year degrees at an English speaking institution. The school justifies this as they use TOEFL/other exams as a bare minimum in order to understand courses (taught in English) at the school. So, people from English speaking countries generally are exempt from this requirement. However, the English language screening is for ensuring incoming students have enough mastery of the language to act as TAs and communicate information to others. If you do not pass the screening, you would be required to take some English language courses in your first year.

I should clarify that the "BSc->MSc->PhD" path in Canada is not the same as the "BS->MS->PhD" path in the United States. In Canada, the term "graduate school" refers to both MSc and PhD and both parts are fully funded. And, yes, if a student does complete both parts then there should be no difference between "BSc->MSc->PhD" vs. "BSc->PhD" at all. The only reason/advantage of the split process is so that a student who started grad school and then realises that they do not want to continue with a PhD will get something useful out of it. A Masters degree is often a requirement in Canadian jobs for any work that requires expertise in the field but not to the level of an independent researcher. The system does break down when someone (e.g. me) goes from the "BSc->MSc->PhD" stream to the "BS->PhD" stream. I basically redid the two years of my Masters degree at my PhD school because I made this switch. But I felt it was worth it for the much better research fit in my field.

The language requirements are sometimes really stupid. My school has now changed this policy but in the past, all international students must pass "English language screening" upon arrival, which was just a short conversation with an English speaker. All international students had to do it, even those from English speaking countries, even students from England!!!

In Canada, there are some instances where it is what you self-identify as that matters (e.g. what jujubea mentioned and what the "racial diversity" question in US applications ask for). However, there are other instances where the government is not asking for self-identification but actually asking for legal status as a Canadian Aboriginal (e.g. Kleio_77 example). Whether or not you need to prove legal status depends on the circumstance (for example, certain retail taxes in Ontario are exempt for those with legal status). In addition, the term "Aboriginal" is a very broad term that covers a lot of different groups of aboriginal peoples in Canada (First Nations, Inuit, and Metis), so legal status can also vary depending on which group you identify with and whether or not you live on a reserve. Thus, in Canada, it's not surprising that whether the question is asking about "self-identification" or "legal proof" will depend on each school and each instance!

No one is arguing that you did not have the "right" to share information. No users on this board has any authority to say what you can or cannot do beyond the GradCafe. However, having the right/ability to do something does not always mean that you should. In Eigen's post, he explains that actions like yours cause people with useful information (like informant) to be adverse to sharing their useful information. I agree that there is no direct evidence showing that it was specifically and solely your action that cause informant to write that they will not share further information. However, I think that your action affects the GradCafe community negatively because if other members of the community feel that certain people will use information on this board and compromise their identity, our community will suffer. Everyone has responsibility over their own decisions. It was informant's decision to share the information in a potentially risky place. But it was also psych face's decision to take an action that jeopardizes another friendly user's anonymity. All users, moderators or not, are part of the GradCafe community and it's on the community members to decide what kind of environment we want our community to have. Speaking as both a moderator and a regular user, I think it is a bad decision that hurts our community when other users do things that jeopardizes each other's pseudo-anonymity. Finally, this practice of not freely sharing everything your colleagues say to you (especially if they are trying to help you at their own risk) is not new to the Internet or even academia. For example, both the "Astronomers" and "Young Planetary Scientists" Facebook groups have a pinned post reminding users that discussions within those Facebook groups are meant to be closed discussions so that people can speak relatively freely although not anonymously. Even though Facebook is obviously a public place. Like GradCafe, users on these Facebook groups are still responsible for what they post, but the expectation is that colleagues will respect each others' privacy and make sharing decisions that do not hurt the community. We're all on the same side here!

Ah, thanks for the clarification

I am was in a similar situation. My first language learned was Vietnamese but I started to learn English at age 4 and English is the only language that I am completely fluent in (written and oral). I also think in English. I am only able to speak/hear Vietnamese--I cannot read/write it even though it's my first language and thus my "native" language by some definitions. Most schools I applied to turned out to ask the question in a more clear way (i.e. "are you fluent in English?" etc.) so I can easily say yes. One school did phrase it as "Are you a native English speaker?" and I am not sure if they meant the technical definition (first language learned) or the practical definition (i.e. asking it to determine whether they need to do additional English language proficiency screening). So I asked them and they told me to answer "yes" to the question! So, you can check with each school if you are not certain, but I would agree with everyone else here and answer that you are a native English speaker.

None of the schools I've been to actually use graduate students to screen (i.e. actually reject) applicants. However, many schools have senior graduate students be part of the admissions committee. Most of the time the grad student rep(s) cannot vote but they can provide their opinion on applicants as well as the decision process. I think it is important to have graduate student representation on admission committees because graduate students have a vested interest in admitted students, since such students will be our future colleagues and it will affect our working environment. Also, I think it is good to include grad students for a larger diversity of ideas/thoughts (many profs may be very far from their graduate student days!!).

Good point -- for some reason, when I think "jeans", I think ripped/faded blue denim (sometimes pre-faded/ripped) that were popular in the 90s...not the more dressy kind that most people wear nowadays

Note: In Canada, we do not use the term "Indian" to describe people of Aboriginal descent. Instead, we use the term Aboriginal. I am not sure if you mean Canadian or American schools in your question. At Canadian schools, you will be given the option of identifying as "White", "Aboriginal", "Visible Minority", or to provide no answer. If you do personally identify as Aboriginal, then yes, you would be able to indicate this in your application. I'm not sure how American schools ask this question because non-Americans generally have to skip the questions on under-represented demographics.