TakeruK

I am not in this field but I am curious how philosophy students (well, all students) feel about boycotts in academia. I hope this is along the lines of the type of discussion you wish to have! Last year, a boycott was discussed in my field as well. A brief summary: There was a very important meeting in the field about a NASA mission to be held at a NASA science center, hosted by NASA. However, there was also a directive to NASA that they are not to spend NASA funds hosting Chinese foreign nationals. Because of this, a graduate student (who was a Chinese national) working for a prominent American researcher was not allowed to attend the meeting. The prominent American researcher then chose to boycott the meeting to protest the unfair rules and several other prominent American researchers also joined the boycott. Some of these prominent researchers simply chose to boycott the event but a few encouraged their entire labs/groups to also boycott and also encouraged everyone else to boycott the event as well. This raised a dilemma, because the consequences of boycotting an important career event is very different for established, prominent researchers vs. young researchers that are new to the field. Some people thought that it's okay if a professor chooses to exclude themselves from the meeting but it would be unfair to expect their students (who might be meeting their future employers) to miss out on the opportunity as well. I think there is an analogous issue with boycotting this program as well. First, is it fair to expect new graduate students, who might have the best fit possible with one of the other profs at UIUC, to give up this chance because of this controversy that has nothing to do with them (and potentially nothing to do with the prof they want to work with)? Secondly, to all the profs that are cancelling seminars at UIUC: is it fair to deny the current students at UIUC the chance to benefit from the seminar because of a controversy that has nothing to do with them? Personally, I think this is a very tough decision to make. I feel that as a young researcher just starting out in my career, academic boycotts would do more harm to the community than good. But I think it might really depend on each individual case. Anyone have other thoughts about the role of boycotts in academia?

This might be a difference in field thing, but I usually only list the presentation once because the people that publish that abstract are the same as the people that run the conference. For example, one entry in my CV is like: Name, "Super Awesome Science Project", Proceedings of the 45th Annual ABC Meeting, 5-9 May 2013, Poster Presentation. In my field, this signals to the reader that I gave a poster presentation on this topic and if they search the meeting title, they will also find my abstract indexed. Sometimes I present the same work at more than one meeting, so I usually only list the most recent or the highest impact (e.g. I might present it at a student conference and then later present it at a professional conference; so I'd only list the second one). However, it sounds like you have a special case (or maybe it's common in your field?) where the abstract is indexed separately from the organization that ran the conference? If so, I think your format seems concise and displays the information clearly. What is the context of your invited in-class presentation? Was it a presentation of work you did for the class, or did you get invited to "guest lecture" for another class? If it's the first one, I would probably say to not include it in your CV--the norm in my field is to not include any coursework on your CV but this might be different in yours. However, if you did "guest lecture", it might be a good idea to list this as a completely separate entry under "Presentations & Publications" because I'd say a guest lecture type presentation is very different than a poster presentation at an undergrad research conference! Finally, for references, I generally do not see these on academic CVs unless specifically requested by the application form. Normally, you would just input this information separately on the application form.

Thanks for the clarifications, Quantum Buckyball and Eigen. Other than the whole "evaluation" thing, your extended clarifications make sense and I think I probably just read the tone/mood wrong/not as intended (or interpreted the frustration as much more negative!) And I guess the whole "evaluation" thing is a big difference between Chemistry fields with labs and a lot of students/supervision between senior/junior students than fields like my own. There really isn't a hierarchy in my field at the grad student level, I think. Good to learn something new

I was surprised by this too! I talked to my American friends and it seems that US schools tend to work on two 16 week semesters per year (or three 10 week quarters) instead of a typical 12 or 13 week semester that Canadian schools follow! So, they have to start a little bit earlier in order to fit the 16 week semester in before Christmas break. For schools on quarters, they don't tend to start until late September / early October.

I use Google Calendar the most. I most often access it through my computer. I like that it also syncs very well with my phone and find this really handy when e.g. I'm at the dentist's office and they ask me to schedule the next appointment! Or, if I'm at a meeting without my computer, I can still add an appointment to my calendar. For me, I pretty much have my phone in my pocket / next to me or I'm sitting in front of a computer about 100% of the time that I could be working (I don't have my phone with me when I'm in the shower or cooking of course, but these are very unlikely times where I have to urgently schedule a meeting ). I don't use planners because this means it is yet another thing I have to always keep with me! I use different calendars with different colours for different categories of things. It was pretty useful to keep track of classes etc but now it's mostly meetings since classes are over! For things like homework though, I don't record them anywhere since my classes generally have regular weekly homework assignment / due dates so I just remember it's every Friday for one class and every Tuesday for another etc.

Agree that it really depends! Another factor is whether or not it's the first time they are teaching a class (and thus have to develop material) or if they are just reusing/modifying existing lesson plans. Just to provide another data point: I'm at a research heavy school and the profs here teach 1 or 2 quarters per year (newer professors teach more). Each quarter is 30 hours of instruction. From my experience developing lesson plans for the lectures I taught as well as previous classes I've taught (not university level ones though), I find that the ratio of prep time to class time is about 3:1 if I have a lesson already outlined. From talking to my supervisor (who was also the prof for the class I TA'ed; and someone much more experienced at teaching than me), it seems like it takes about 5 hours to fully prepare for a 1 hour lecture including everything. So for a 30 hour quarter, that's about 150 hours. Then I spend about 7 hours per week grading problem sets and meeting with students as the TA (for a class size ~20 students; a large class in my department), so if the prof needs to do this too, it can add up to about 220 hours per course per quarter. So, overall, at my institution, I would estimate that profs spend about 10-20 hours per course per week on teaching-related work depending if they have a TA and if it's a new course. However, they would do this for only 10 or 20 weeks out of the entire year, so the vast majority of their time is spent on research. No one is ever assigned to teach more than one course per quarter, as far as I can remember (there's also not very many courses in my department).

I agree that you should try to stay under two pages. I think going onto a third page, even if it's only a half page, will make you stand out as having a longer SOP. My typical SOP was 1.75 page but one school wanted it in less than 1 page! I did have to remove some experiences but I also found that removing adjectives and adverbs tend to help cut down my sentence length quite a bit. Also, if you are leaving a blank space between paragraphs, watch out for wasted space when you have your last sentence spill over to the next line with just two or three words. Sometimes rewriting the sentences can save yourself a line!

To be honest, I felt that SymmetryOfImperfection's first post is a good satire of how some of the points in QuantumBuckyballs' list of advice sound to me. I agree with all of the points about being your own scientist, not depending on others, but wow, some of the other points seem very heavy handed. For example, the junior students in my program are definitely not "being evaluated by senior students and postdocs constantly". This sounds like we have secret meetings with the PIs every year and comment on their progress! I would also not tell a new student to "not get too comfortable". Instead, I say "believe in your ability--after all, you didn't get here by accident!" especially after they experience some kind of failure. And while I would not like it if a junior student constantly asked me things that can be found via google, I don't actually mind answering occasional questions that have "easy" answers. Sometimes Google gives you the answer but doesn't help you develop the thought process to come up with solutions to similar problems on your own and it really helps to have someone guide you through it once or twice. And, I'd rather have junior students ask me a few "unnecessary" questions than have them be too afraid to ask me any questions at all. Finally, I am not even sure what "don't ask for special treatment" even means. By definition, "special" treatment means there are some "special" circumstances that warrant this treatment. I think it would be a terrible environment if students are told to handle every problem on their own and not seek help (or "special treatment") to put them on an equal footing and give them a fair chance to succeed! For example, if you have children and need to pick them up from daycare at 4:30pm, you have every right to ask for "special treatment" to not have to TA from 4pm to 5pm etc. Or, if you have a learning disability, definitely ask for accomodations such as more time on timed tests through the school's accessibility center. Obviously, it is a bad idea to ask for special treatment when you don't need it, but I think it's really poor advice to make a blanket statement that no one should seek to be treated in a different way, ever.

I agree with what you said above that sometimes, to meet a deadline, you just have to work more than usual. I definitely worked almost every weekend in the month or two leading up to qualifying exams or other periods that a large amount of work is needed. But these are not mandatory scheduled things that I must fulfill in order to maintain my status as a student. I definitely would choose to do more than the minimum amount of work so that I can write more papers, have a stronger dissertation and hopefully get a job. But I do think our work is "just research". Granted, in my field, our work has no practical or economical effect on humanity--it just fulfills some curiosities. In addition, I feel that the argument that "your work can save lives so you must work as much as possible" is a common way for governments and employers to force workers to work for unfair wages/conditions and refuse them the right to strike or otherwise take actions to ensure a good working environment. I know that in Canada, professions deemed "essential" such as schoolteachers and nurses and postal workers have a very tough time getting fair working conditions because 1) the workers themselves feel a responsibility to do their work and 2) the government/employers exploit this responsibility and enforce unfair working conditions.

Hahaha I am having a hilarious time visualizing this happening!

For the General GRE, which I took at a "Prometric" testing center: I brought my ID and the piece of paper they mailed to me which confirms my exam date and time and registration number. I was only allowed to bring two pencils, a pencil sharpener and an eraser into the room. Everything else went in a locker outside of the testing room (I guess I also had the locker key with me at the testing center). No scrap paper allowed--they provided the paper. Each testing station had a computer and headphones (no sound was played for the GRE test but the headphones are very good quality and can block out other people's scratching and typing noises). If I wanted to drink or have snacks, I could do so during the short breaks between sections (or the long break) or just give up test time in order to access items in my locker. For the Subject GRE, I took it twice in a classroom. Only pencils, erasers, sharpener, bottle of water, and our ID were allowed with us. Everything else goes in your backpack that goes to the front of the room (if you don't want to do this, don't bring anything else with you on test day). Subject tests are paper booklets, so the scrap paper was part of the book.

Some schools allow you to register as a "unclassified student" and take courses that won't count towards any degree. In some cases, this is easier to do at the school you did your undergrad. Also, in terms of cost, the cheapest option may depend on the schools you are looking at. Some undergrad schools have you pay tuition on a "per credit" basis, especially if you are an "unclassified student", while many grad schools charge tuition on a per semester basis (doesn't matter how many courses you take). So, if you find out that you will have to take an extra year to do your Masters because of the extra pre-req courses, you can consider whether it makes more sense for you to pay tuition for the courses individually or pay tuition for an extra year! In addition, some schools will offer courses in the evenings and/or you can take courses part-time as an "unclassified" student, which means you are more likely to be able to keep your job and keep earning money while you take pre-req courses. On the other hand, part time might not be possible in a MS program. These are things you can consider when deciding to take your undergrad bio pre-reqs before or during your MS program!

I'll second the suggestion to take first year intro courses in bio, chem and physics and then re-evaluating your plans for the future. It's great that you have Calc I and II and stats! I don't mean "re-evaluate your plans" as in "I don't think you'll still want to afterwards" but I agree with GeoDUDE! that you would need at least these courses to make an informed decision whether or not to proceed with plans. Also, I think this will show admission committees that you are serious about this change of focus. You may even have to take more bio courses afterwards too, since many Bio MS students would have Bio or Bio related undergraduate degrees.

I agree with this for the most part. There's just a couple of caveats: 1. In my point of view, my graduate program is my job. I am perfectly willing to put grad school ahead of all other priorities from 9am to 5pm, Mondays to Fridays, except holidays or my 2 weeks of vacation time. On evenings, holidays, weekends, and vacation time, my time is my time. I would gladly spend this time doing something important, e.g. a geology field trip, but all course time commitments need to be scheduled when the course is scheduled. I agree though, that exams are sometimes tough to schedule ahead of time, and it makes sense for a school to say something like "Exams will be held from Dec 5 through Dec 15" and expect us not to make any plans during this time period. That is, I want to and do prioritize school above other commitments, but only when I have enough notice to do so. I'm not going to keep all of my other life plans on hold while I'm in grad school (5+ years!). 2. I would agree more with the "if a school thing comes up, I must sacrifice for it" when I was an undergraduate student, because well, there are no real expectations on me back then (no one was paying me for school!). It would completely be my choice if I wanted to make the sacrifice. However, in grad school, students are paid so there has to be clear expectations on what the department/professors expect for my time. 3. Except for the anecdote above, my experience has almost always been good. My current school does all of its exams on the honour system--we take exams home and time ourselves and proctor ourselves. There's a written policies that proctored exams are not allowed here. So, I can always schedule my exams around my life (usually conferences happen during exam week so many students end up writing exams while traveling!). At my MSc school, I got permission to take one of my exams early so that I can fly home to do planning stuff for my wedding. That was a nice benefit--I just asked because I thought I would just see what happens but did not expect it in any way. 4. Finally, I agree that I would not e.g. ask to not take an exam because it's my birthday or anniversary. In fact, I actually worked an ~18 hour day on my birthday recently because I had to operate a telescope to get my data. I would never put something like "please don't grant me wonderful data collection time on my birthday!". But, my upcoming quarter is October through December. I am making plans to visit home during American Thanksgiving. I am also making plans to be out of town or do other non-refundable things (e.g. visit the zoo, see a sports game) on various weekends during these months. I think this is reasonable!

I originally read this as the OP was looking for a syllabus for the class that the OP is TAing, but after reading it a few times, I think I'm wrong and it's for a class that the OP is taking. Definitely agree with everyone that if this is a class that you are taking, then don't expect the syllabus until the first day (or even the second or third day). In some graduate programs here and other places, the course schedule is not even determined until the first day! However, that said, although I agree that in general, being more relaxed is probably healthier, I do think that graduate programs and instructors should recognize that some students have much busier schedules than others and basically try to get information to the students as soon as possible. For example, the thoughts and ideas expressed in this blog post: http://tenureshewrote.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/curricula-and-reality/. Although the author wrote it for undergraduate classes, I think the same ideas should apply to graduate students too. That is, I think professors and instructors do a disservice to their students when they assume all of their students are "traditional" students that can always put their academics ahead of all other priorities all the time. A personal example was a core/required class I took last year that had a weekend geological field trip requirement. I did expect a field trip for this course since this course traditionally comes with a field trip but I was annoyed that we did not get confirmation of the field trip until the first week of class (10 week quarters are very short and the field trip was something like week 6) and the field trip was not actually scheduled until ~4 weeks prior to the actual date. I was annoyed because I felt that we were expected to suddenly drop whatever plans we had for the required and important field trip with very little notice. I want to prioritize important things like required course field trips and I definitely do not want to miss out on such a great educational opportunity. However, I have lots of other priorities (e.g. family) and while I am definitely able to rearrange things to ensure I attend the field trip, it creates a lot more hardship when I only have a few weeks advance notice. In my opinion, something like this should have been scheduled over the summer, or even better, at the time of course registration! Fortunately, this was an exception as almost all other classes have field trips or other big commitments scheduled well in advance! I bring this up because I want to say that while I agree that for this particular case (as presented by the OP), we should just relax and wait for the syllabus to come out, I do understand and share the frustrations of not being able to plan my work in advance and being worried of surprise commitments/conflicts. I think graduate school would be a much better place for everyone if expectations and requirements are well communicated as soon as they are known (i.e. no unnecessary withholding of course plans or neglect to communicate such plans!).

Oh I want to add that if you go the free online course route, I would choose something that provides you with real practical skills so it doesn't really matter if you get to transfer that course or not. For your case, perhaps a course in something like CAD or programming would be a good idea. Even if you don't end up getting credit for that course in, say, Python, it doesn't really matter because knowledge of that skill will help you a ton in future courses and employment! But I also agree with jenste--you don't necessarily have to do coursework related things. Earning / saving some money could be a good way to fill your time too. If I understand the original post correctly, finishing your A-levels means you are somewhere between high school and an undergraduate degree, right? So, I can understand if it is hard to find work in your field at this point, but gaining any kind of work experience can show maturity, which might be helpful in getting your first job in the field later on!

In addition to the above, remember that "average scores for accepted applicants" is not the same thing as "you must score this high to get accepted". By definition, a good number of accepted applicants will have scores under the average value! As spunky said, the applicants with below-average stats in one part of their application will probably have other aspects that helped them get in.

I don't think you can really expect to find a short course that is free, online, and have "worth" in the sense that you can use it as credit towards a university degree or is a stand-alone qualification. Keeping courses updated, accredited, useful etc. takes a lot of effort of instructors and organizers so there is usually some cost involved! You can usually pick at least two though. If you want free and online, you could sign up for a lot of the "Massive Open Online Course" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course) through services like Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/). These courses are generally taught by professors at schools like Stanford, MIT, Yale, etc. as a series of video lectures and online assignments. It's self graded and you do get a certificate of completion at the end, but you can't use it for credit towards degrees and I don't think many people will accept it as a qualification. However, my school recently taught courses through this system and it's really the same lectures as the "real" course that students enrolled in my school take. So, you can definitely still learn a lot and while it might not count for much on its own, it can help you get a head start in your studies next year. If you want online and "worth", many universities allow students to enroll in online courses. You will have to pay for them and you need to watch out for "for-profit" universities. Sometimes you are allowed to take these courses without being formally enrolled in a degree program (i.e. as an "unclassified student"). They will cost money and I am assuming you would do this to get credit towards your university degree, so make sure that the courses will transfer before you sign up. This would mean looking into the transfer credit rules for all the schools you are interested in.

I've seen a few departments have a formal peer mentoring system set up. In my option, it was informal in the sense that just before prospective students visit, one person introduced themselves to each prospective and that person remained in contact afterwards. However, we're also small (two dozen ish grad students) so there really isn't much division between the "ages". We all hang out together and most of us have lunch together. Because of this, it's pretty common for senior students to ask us how we're doing and offer tips as necessary. It also makes it very easy and natural for us to ask for help/advice on tricky situations! Even second year students can be helpful to first year students because quals happens at the end of first year for us! But even if you don't normally interact with senior students, I definitely agree that the onus is on the junior students to seek help and reach out when they need to! Sure, I'd say that it's a good idea for senior students to keep an eye out for students that might need help, but as fuzzy pointed out, it's a bit pretentious for senior students to just offer to help when help might not be needed at all! So, definitely seek out help from senior students if you are feeling lost. I think I get just as good advice from talking with the older students because no matter how good a relationship I have with my supervisors, I want to just bounce some ideas and/or not be afraid to say really dumb/naive things with my peers!

Well, if you want to make your application even stronger, I guess it won't hurt to take upper level E&M and then you would basically have a Physics degree (give or take a course or two). I think the "do a Masters to see if you like it" is a great approach to grad school, personally My only advice left would be to recognize that despite there may be very good personal reasons to not want to go to the US, they do have some of the best programs in the world. And that if you do want to end up in the North American workforce eventually, most people will advise you to do graduate school in North America, but I'm not 100% certain how strongly you have to stick to that. But perhaps it might be a good idea to apply to and visit a few Canadian or American schools to see what they're like. I found that my preconceptions of many places were a lot different than reality (in both directions). Keeping an open mind is good! However, if you are not prepared/scheduled to take the PGRE this fall, that might limit your options in the US. ** Just to clarify: I'm not saying that because the US have great programs that you should put academic reasons ahead of personal ones. My wife and I definitely weighed personal reasons at least as importantly as career based ones but I do think it's important to keep an open mind and know all the information/consequences either way. This is the purpose of the last paragraph (provide information)--it's not meant to sway you one way or another!

GeoDUDE! makes a good point that if you want to get a US PhD eventually, keep in mind that grad school works differently in most Canadian, European, and Australian schools vs. US schools. In "our" system, we do Masters first then PhDs afterwards, but the US system is a "direct entry PhD". So if you are still planning on a non-US PhD then a Masters at any of these schools should get you into PhD programs at other schools not in the "direct entry PhD" system. But if you do want to end up at a top US PhD program later, keep in mind that a Masters degree will not be as useful here and you basically have to start from scratch (like I did!). This is not always a bad thing, but just good to keep in mind. I guess there may be at least two reasons why you are looking for "MSc" programs instead of "PhD". If, like me, you are used to the Canadian system so MSc really means beginning grad school, then keep the above in mind! But many Americans might read "Masters" and think it's a different path from a PhD because in the US system, people go to Masters programs mostly when they do not feel prepared for a PhD program or if they are switching fields. So, GeoDUDE! might also be saying (although I'd feel bad if I interpreted their words wrongly!) that you don't have to do a Masters first just because you didn't do a Physics undergrad. And I agree! Finally, just curious as to your reasons for the countries you listed?

This profile is amazing. It's impossible to make statements like "you will get in at all the schools for sure!" but with these accomplishments, I don't think there is any program that could be considered "too good" for you. I would say that your lack of a Physics BSc is not a big issue because you have some upper level physics course electives. I'm assuming that this means you have some of the lower level requirements as well? If you are still in school this fall, you could consider taking a Physics Electricity & Magnetism course and/or a Mechanics course if you want to fill out your physics breadth courses a bit more. A lot of people consider E&M and QM to be the main pillars of physics and sometimes people add mechanics and relativity to the list as well. However, I don't think this is absolutely necessary for you to still be considered a competitive applicant everywhere. Therefore, my advice is to not let your degree title keep you from any school you are interested in. If you find a school interesting, I would say it would be worth your time (and money, if applicable) to apply there! Good luck!

Like Dedi said, both numbers are the same value. Just to put it another way, in case it helps: You say that answer is r^2 /2 x sqrt(3); that is, in words "r squared divided by 2 times square root of 3" The answer key says it is r^2 x sqrt(3)/2; that is, in words "r squared times square root of 3 divided by 2" If you are only multiplying or dividing then the order does not matter. So these two answers are the same!! If you also want a concrete example (try these on your calculator if you are not sure), "3 times 4 divided by 2" is, in math, 3 x 4/2, which is equal to 6 but this is the same as "3 divided by 2 times 4", or in math, 3/2 x 4, which is also equal to 6.

In most cases, you will initially sign a one year lease with the landlord, which means you promise to stay there for one year. This means you will owe them rent for 1 year and if you wish to move out early, you may be able to negotiate some kind of settlement that gets you out of paying rent for the remaining year. You will have to pay at most the remaining rent for the year. However, if the landlord finds a replacement tenant and collects rent from the replacement tenant, then they cannot also charge you rent for those months. After 1 year, you and the landlord automatically go onto a month-to-month lease. The landlord does not have the option of ending the lease, only the tenant has the right to do so. The landlord must accept the tenant on a month-to-month basis if the tenant chooses to stay. The landlord is also not allowed to require you to resign for another year or any length of time. That is, the only time Ontario laws allow the landlord to cause the tenant to commit to staying for any amount of time is when the lease is signed. At all times during the lease (whether in the initial 1 year period or month-to-month), the landlord can only ever evict you if they have legal grounds to do so (e.g. not paying rent, causing a nuisance, illegal activity etc.). This means renting is very very secure in Ontario because once you find a place, you can stay there for as long as you like. Only the tenant can ever end a lease--the landlord would have to legally evict the tenant to get rid of the tenant. Finally, this is all for the usual case of a tenant renting an apartment from a landlord company. There are special exceptions that might apply if you are renting a room in a house or the landlord is renting the unit to a school (which in turn rents it to you). One example of a special case is that a landlord is renting a house divided into a few apartments and the landlord wishes to now live in the apartment themselves--then they are allowed to displace a current tenant that is on month-to-month. Reference: You can find a lot of this here: http://www.ontariotenants.ca/index.phtml

Thank you for providing this information. I am not in the SLP field at all, but I know I speak with an accent and I sometimes worry that this will put me at a disadvantage when it comes to jobs. I've seen the way some people tune out foreign speakers at academic conferences or the negative comments on teaching reviews for professors with accents. For an oral presentation class at my current grad school, my accent has been brought up as a negative trait as well. I feel that the view that some accents are considered "normal" and others considered negative is unfair and discriminatory. The person that brought this up (the instructor!) actually suggested I should get speech therapy to "correct" my accent, which was a view I found a bit offensive. In Canada, many academic organizations work on accent discrimination but I have not yet seen this as a term during my (admittedly limited) experience in the US school system. Anyways, I know this was not the original intent of your post, but seeing a stance like this by a professional organization does make me feel a little better. I know that official policies/statements and reality can be quite different, but it does give me a little hope that if a profession that is based speech has a position statement against accent discrimination, perhaps other academic professional societies can recognize this problem and establish their own position statements too. Again, I am sorry for derailing the thread a bit, but I really wanted to let you know about the positive impact of your post!