TakeruK

I agree with you that this email sounds very fishy and in fact looks a lot like a ton of other predatory emails sent by fake journals in order to trick academics into paying them money to publish an article in a "fake" journal. They basically will send an email to anyone they can find online with an email address and paper title. However, this email does seem a little different in that they are not asking you to submit to their journal. From this email only, it doesn't seem like they can gain anything out of you, however, a lot of scams do start this way and then begin asking for more. If you are genuinely interested in their proposal, I'd say it won't really hurt to ask for more information and then just cut off contact once they ask for money or something else fishy. That said, even if this is a legit request, you also want to consider whether this is actually a good use of your time! But that's up to you

I totally agree! Unfortunately the reality is that sometimes direct and open communication can do more harm than good, especially when one party (i.e. the advisor) has so much control and influence on where we end up after our PhD.

I was in your field, reinhard, and my new field is very similar. The dress standards are very low. But whether it's fair or not, people will judge you based on how you look and as junior people in our field, it's always better to err on the side of dressy than sloppy. Tenured professors might give talks in a t-shirt and shorts, but I think us graduate students should take a little bit of extra care to look nicer when we don't have a long CV to back us up! That is, if you dress sloppy, you risk someone pre-judging you to be a sloppy scientist, but there is basically no harm in dressing a bit nicer. I think a good dress standard for a presentation at a conference for a male graduate student is a dress shirt, no tie, khakis/slacks (not jeans), dress shoes and matching shoes (i.e. don't wear your white gym socks with nice black dress shoes!). Jacket is optional. On the days where you are not presenting, I think it's okay to dress down to a polo or other nice shirt (i.e. don't need to wear dress shirts every day). If you are attending the conference banquet, make sure you dress up--don't be "that guy" in tshirt and shorts at a banquet with a dress code.

Okay, that makes sense. I agree with the other posters about timeline for subject GRE (that is, do it when you are ready but keep in mind it's only offered a few times per year). For the General GRE, I just scheduled it for a time where I was the least busy. I lived 2 hours away from a testing center that offered the GRE every day so it was not hard to schedule (although the 2 hour travel time was very annoying). Sorry to hear that you no longer have access to the databases! My undergrad alumni association grants us lifetime access to our library (well, they issue library cards valid for 10 years at a time but you can renew it indefinitely--the 10 year limit is just so that they can cancel this program later on if they want to, I guess).

It's not clear to me whether or not you already have an undergrad degree or if you are still pursuing one. You say you start "general biology in 6 weeks" -- is that part of a current degree program or are you taking extra courses while working in industry etc.? If it's okay with you to share, maybe a little more information about your academic background might help others think of what to suggest/advise. As for research experience--industrial experience is good too, from what I know. You mentioned journal articles -- if you are taking courses / enrolled in a program, can you access them through your student account? If you graduated, does your previous school grant access to its alumni? I've used my undergrad alumni library card more than once when my current school does not subscribe to a particular journal I needed. Alternatively, have you considered joining your field's national society (if you are eligible?). The American Astronomical Society allows its members to subscribe to its journals (also the major journals in my field) for $25/year (on top of ~$100/year membership). It's not cheap but definitely better than buying individual articles. Maybe your field has a similar society/offer? Finally, you can also get a ton of information about who does research on what without reading the actual articles themselves. Most journals provide the title, abstracts, and reference list for free, which are very helpful. In my field, I would advise you to look at Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics and find several recent reviews on topics of interest. I am pretty sure Chemistry has an "Annual Reviews" journal (in fact, it might have been the first??) These reviews are written by very experienced researchers and the goal of the article is to summarize everything we know up to now and compare/synthesize that information somehow. Thus, the reference list is often a list of "who's who" in the field. Check out each of these articles!

I would not worry about being denied a J2 visa as long as you meet the requirements for J2 status. As far as I know, it is a routine thing.

GeoDUDE! is right that most of your troubles will come from the fact that you have two engineering degrees and nothing in physical sciences (physics/math/astronomy/chemistry), which are what most Astro grad students have backgrounds in. I think you can mitigate this by showing that you have the right background to do well in physics and astronomy grad courses, but the top schools will have the choice between you or people with a full degree in astronomy and you will still be disadvantaged there. I would also recommend you take advantage of your skills. Out of your list, it seems like your skills in MATLAB, C++ and SQL (and experience in Linux) would be the most valuable to an astronomy program. You would be a good fit for astronomical instrumentation type programs or to work on software development for astrophysical data analysis research. What type of work in astrophysics are you interested in?

I agree that the way you implement any of the above solutions totally depends on the nature of each professor. Some professors are very direct and want their students to speak plainly to them. Some professors would take a lot of offense at a direct statement. "Tactic 1" above does not even have to be the first thing you try; although for some people, it might be a good idea to start with Tactic 1 and then if it doesn't work, move on to one of the other tactics, so that at least your supervisor knows why you are doing what you are doing. But if Tactic 1 will cause more trouble for you than it would help, then I'd skip it.

Yes, you are right--the degree I got from my undergrad school is "Bachelor of Science". And, indeed, you would list your major/program instead of your department name when you refer to what your degree was in. We do not use department name in place of this, so in my BSc example, I would actually write "Bachelor of Science (Honours): Physics and Astronomy" as my degree program. However, my department name is "Physics and Astronomy" (which is conveniently the same) and our degrees are granted through our department, therefore, my undergrad honours thesis title page says "Thesis submitted to fulfill partial requirements in the Department of Physics and Astronomy". My diploma itself says "BSc (Hons.): Physics and Astronomy". I think this case is simple and I always call this degree a "Physics and Astronomy" degree on my CV. However, for my Masters degree, there was no official name for my program. I was just a Masters student in the department of "Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy". So, as above, since the department administers the program, my thesis title page says "...fulfill requirements in the Department of Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy". However, my diploma simply states "Master of Science" with no program name listed. So this is a little more confusing for me and I feel that I can call this degree "Physics", "Astronomy" or "Physics and Astronomy" because both Physics and Astronomy masters students in this program have the same requirements. After all this, I think I agree with the posters that suggest we just say "BSc, MSc, MA, PhD" etc. and then just use a descriptor line/phrase. Then you can describe your degree in any way you want without worrying about using the "official name". e.g. 2010, Bachelor of Science (Honours), University X Thesis title: blah blah blah Minor in blah blah (if necessary) This way, you can imply your field of specialization simply from your thesis work since in almost all cases, the actual degree name does not matter. This might especially be helpful if for some weird reason, you have a strange degree name (I know some people with official degree titles in the Arts/Humanities but actually did courses following a Physics program because of weird bureaucratic issues).

I also don't think the SOP is the right place to put this information.

I would not worry about it--if they really do not want people to send in community college transcripts, then they would not consider them very much if they are sent in. Also, I don't think it's strange that they do not want to see community college transcripts even if they make up half of a student's undergraduate education. Most grad schools care much more about the last 2 years than the first 2 years.

In my opinion, you can just upload the A4 size because you will only lose the last 0.02" (make sure nothing important is lost). In addition, most modern printers will automatically fit the A4 size into letter size. However, it might be a good idea to scan your A4 transcript and shrink it before uploading, as suggested above. I would say that the real reason for this requirement is because some schools issue transcript on legal size paper (In the US, that is 8.5" by 14").

Unless there is something else going on, that is really weird. Most PIs are grateful when their students have OGS/NSERC, they don't expect it of every student. In addition, the maximum NSERC Doctoral award is 3 years and most PhD programs are longer than that, so it's a really rare case for a Canadian graduate student to spend all of their years under a fellowship (even if you did a Masters first, there is a lifetime limit of 4 years total from NSERC/SSHRC/CIHR). The way to get the most funding possible is to do a 2 year Masters (first year on CGS-M, second year on OGS) and then finish your PhD in 3 years all under a CGS-D or Vanier. This works because NSERC years count against the limit for OGS but OGS years do not count against your 4 year limit for NSERC.

If you are not an international student then I would not list it (international students need to provide evidence for financial support to get a student visa), unless you are applying for needs based financial support and thus are required to do so (doesn't sound like you would qualify though).

Yeah, it's also very hard to get a PGS-D award while you are still an undergraduate student. This is because you are competing with other more advanced graduate students (if you are in Canada, then you normally apply to the CGS-D/PGS-D in your 2nd year of your MSc or your first 2 years of your PhD -- i.e. after 1-3 years of grad school + research experience). So, I would not worry that you already missed the deadline for this year. Make sure you make the Oct 15 deadline next year though (You can still apply for the CGS-D while you are in a US school!!) What do you mean "all the other students" have external funding? It's not that common--you must have very talented friends! External funding is not very common so you won't be at a disadvantage without it. Even in the US, most American students enter their first year without external funding and then a small number get one in their first year. The US system is also different -- you don't start working with a single prof immediately so most students are funded by "the department" instead of any individual prof in your first year.

Sounds like a good job to me, especially if you need it to pay the bills.

I would always be honest in your answers but there's no point speculating on future details. Right now, you do not have a PhD offer from a Canadian university so the honest answer is that the plan after your US program is finished, you are going to go back home. If they do ask what you plan to do afterwards, it is okay to say that you are not sure, and your options are working or going to a PhD program etc.

I wonder about this sometimes. I don't know what to use for my Canadian Masters degree. My degree itself simply says "Master of Science". The department name was "Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy" so that is the title on my thesis too. But it's very common for Canadian departments to offer more than one degree program! So, I usually write "MSc. Astronomy" on my CV because that's the main work I did. However, I also took many physics courses and astronomy is a subset of Physics so I sometimes write my degree as "MSc. Physics & Astronomy". I never use "Engineering Physics" in the name because I didn't do anything related to that field. Overall, I agree that you should use the name that is on the official record (either diploma or transcript). I am only flexible with my Canadian MSc degree name because there is no official specific name!

If you are Canadian and you have a degree from a Canadian school, you can apply for the CGS-D when you are at an American school. You would have to turn down the CGS-D once you get it and accept the PGS-D instead though. I am currently on the 3rd year of my PGS-D at a US school. American schools are direct-to-PhD so you would apply to a CGS-D award right away and skip the -M awards. As Canadians we are not eligible for the equivalent to the NSERC in the US (NSF). Most government fellowships are for the citizens of that country only! Finally to your last question -- yes. My program pays $30k per year no matter what fellowships you have. NSERC PGS-D provides $21,000 CAD and the school pays me the difference based on the exchange rate (I show them my cheque stubs).

Anyone can forge a letterhead too, especially with modern technology!

The application will provide all necessary instructions to the professor. You don't have to worry about this part.

If you have the housing job, can you still do research without a research assistantship? (e.g. as part of an independent study "course" or something). I would go for the housing job / financial security in your shoes. It sounds a lot like a "resident assistant" type job for student dorms? If so, this is fairly common for graduate students--all of the resident assistant positions in my school are graduate students (there are a few in my department too!)

I would not worry. None of those things matter. It makes complete sense that your recommender does not use company letterhead on a personal recommendation. Letters from non-academic sources will look different but this will not be the first nor the last "professional recommendation" that the admission committee will see. However, if you are not happy with the content (nevermind the style or formatting), then perhaps you should ask a different person to write the remaining letters!

I think the only reason to not tell both professors about the other is if the two projects are different enough that you are afraid you will appear unfocussed / don't know what you want if you tell them you are interested in A's work and B's work. So, unless you feel another compelling reason to not disclose it, I think you should tell both professors that you are interested in both projects. It's normal to be interested in more than one professor at a school, especially if you think both professors are good research matches. This is not much different than applying to more than one school -- no professor expects that their student is interested in them and them only. In fact, when you contact one professor at a school, they will often point you to other professors they know as well so that you talk to as many professors within your interest as possible. Summary: You don't have to be secretive about who you are talking to. Professors expect students, especially good ones, to seek out as many opportunities as they can and pick the best fit for them.

Great advice On a related note, I had a similar problem at some schools because my middle name is two words and some documents will hyphenate it, or allow for only one "middle initial" or put it as all one word, or think the second half of my middle name is my last name. To avoid all this craziness in my publication record, I always publish as just "Firstname Lastname", no middle name, no middle initial! Also, you can publish under any name you want, so many academics who do change their name (after marriage or whatever other reason) might use one name in their "academic/work" life and another name in their personal/social life. Many of my friends do this and they find that it has a side benefit of keeping their personal life more private and harder for people to find (e.g. students trying to Facebook friend their TA/prof won't find them under their "work name").