TakeruK

California will charge an additional tax on it if you pay federal taxes on it, whether or not it's employment related. But does NSF count as a "California" source? If not, then you would only pay California state tax on it if you are a California resident (so perhaps not during your first year), since you generally only pay state tax on non-state-sourced income to your home state (which may or may not tax you at all). 15% is a good estimate of how much tax might be withheld if your school withholds it. With the personal exemption and standard deduction, your total taxable income is something just over $22,000, and you pay 10% on the first $9000 then 15% on the rest, so the total tax you'll probably pay is about $3000 to the IRS. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States). State tax is a couple of extra percentages but generally much less than federal taxes. So your total tax liability will probably be a little bit more than 10% but not that much. Of course, individual circumstances can change this number! But if your school withholds 15%, you can expect to get about $700-$1000 back after filing your return

To be honest, I am not 100% sure where the money goes. For basic doctor visits, you go to your doctor (or walk in clinic) and show them your ServiceCard (if in BC) or OHIP card (if in Ontario) and you see the doctor. You don't pay anything and I am assuming the doctor will get paid by the government at some point. When you pay your OHIP or MSP premiums, the money goes to the government. Greenshield and other companies are not involved at this level at all. Yes that is correct. Is that more advantageous? I don't see why there is an advantage to doing this since if you don't make enough to have to pay premiums for OHIP, you won't have to pay premiums for MSP too. I found the MSP premiums page: http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/msp/infoben/premium.html -- basically you need to earn more than $22,000 per year to pay MSP premiums (and more than $30,000 to pay the full rate of $70/month). Since I was wrong about having to pay zero premiums for OHIP, there is actually no advantage at all, unless you want to get Ontario residency. To be clear, there is neither a clear advantage nor disadvantage. If you know you will change back to BC MSP after your degree, then it makes sense to just keep BC MSP so you don't have to change from MSP to OHIP then back to MSP.

I think I would only ever trade cell phone numbers with a professor if there was a need for them to contact me more urgently than the time it normally takes for email. Pretty much every time I have traded numbers with a professor was for things that required instant coordination (e.g. we are carpooling to go to the airport for a conference). You can always just let them know your new email address when you do change it, or as TMP suggests, give them your personal one that won't change. If you don't feel you have a close enough relationship that merits you telling them whenever you change your email address then as TMP says, it's probably you that is going to reach out first!

Our meeting schedules vary depending on our work schedules (ours and theirs). When we're busier (both teaching and TAing etc.) we meet less often because we're getting less done in between meetings. When we have a time that we want to focus on a task (e.g. getting a paper finished), we meet a little bit more since we're accomplishing more in between. I am working with two projects right now and the standard/background meeting frequency is: Project 1: One 30-60minute meeting one-on-one with advisor per week. Project 2: One 60 minute meeting with advisor and the 2 other students in this group per week and one 15-30 minute meeting one-on-one per week.

I know it's tough for me to share negative personal feelings like this sometimes, so kudos to you for writing this down and sharing it with us! To me, it sounds like you are feeling some "burn out" or definitely getting close to it. So this part is "normal" in the sense that I think this feeling is common among many graduate students. However, it is not "normal" in the sense that this is how things are supposed to be and thus we should just suck it up and deal with it. I think that we should definitely take actions that will keep ourselves motivated, prevent burnout, and above all, be mentally and emotionally healthy/happy! Some general advice I would give you is to seek someone that you can share these feelings with. Maybe friends at school when they are around, or friends back home or family. I would also advise looking into resources on campus for mental and emotional health--it's a very important issue for many graduate students and a lot of programs will have these resources. The school might have a counseling center where you might feel better after just talking to someone, or they can also help you develop a plan to manage stress or other worries/anxiety so that you can get what you want out of your graduate program! I know this is tough because of the stigma of seeing mental health professionals, but these resources are there and a lot more people use them than one might realise. Whether or not you should continue is a personal decision that only you can make and I don't think I am qualified to help you make the decision! Maybe some of the resources above can help you figure out what the best path forward for you is though. I'll also comment on some of your issues presented below, because I have also encountered similar things and know many other students who also faced the same issues: I feel like this issue is often the root cause of a lot of unhappiness in graduate school, both from my experience and from others. My advice is sometimes to seek out an advisor that you click with and make that a bigger priority than working on exactly the specific research problem you are the most interested in. That is, if you can find another project that would still interest you and have it go along with an advisor you enjoy working with, you might be happier and ultimately, much more productive! I think you have done the right thing by reaching out to other profs and after only 1 year, it should not be a ton of work for you to change projects if necessary. It sounds like you are a good student and the profs in the department have a good opinion of you, which can help you find a new project too. One very useful piece of advice that I got before I started grad school and seen it "come true" over and over again is that your thesis project should not be about doing the research that you absolutely love. At the minimal level, you just need to not hate your methods and research question. But in the grand scheme of things, your PhD is a time for you to train/develop certain skills for whatever post-PhD career goals, which does not need to also be following your truest research passions. (If you are keeping score, I'd say that this is a common source of unhappiness for graduate students, but not one you should be expected to live with). To me, this sounds very fishy, because pretty much every school I've been at clearly states that a student's program requirements is determined by the Course Catalog/Calendar/whatever you call it policies in place in the year you matriculated. So at my school, they might decide to add an extra required course onto my PhD program this year but that will only affect students enrolling in Fall 2014, not those of us who are already here. It would be super frustrating if the "finish line" kept moving as we got closer to it. I would talk to the DGS and people in the Graduate Office about these policies and check to see if you really have to fulfill the new requirements in addition to your old ones. (I'd say that this is NOT a normal source of unhappiness for graduate students! It would be a good idea to clarify which rules apply to you). I felt the same way for my MSc program about the city and my advice is to just try to make the best of the situation (I know that's not super helpful but there isn't much else to do). Maybe a lot of other people have had their friends leave for the summer too and are looking for new friends? I am a little shy and usually telling myself that other people probably want me to start the conversation as much as I want them to initiate is what helps me get the courage to do so. In my experience, a heavy workload tends to bond me with my cohorts more than a light courseload because we're all suffering together! But perhaps that's not the case. I also felt "not belonging" and lost for the first few months at each of the graduate programs I started in. I found that it was a lot easier to fit in the second time around because I realised that for me, I really have to make an effort to build community in order to feel like a part of one. So when I started my second grad program, I tried to say "yes" to almost every invitation for the first few months since I learned that if you start saying no, people stop asking you to do things! Saying yes more at the beginning allows you to say no later without it hurting a relationship, I think. For your situation, I think even though it's 9 months in, this can still be effective as the summer is starting. Also, if your cohort is indeed friendly, they would probably be happy to form new friendships in a deeper way? Maybe they are shy too and are not sure if you want to be friends with them, so working up the courage to make the first move might help form some good bonds! I have been fortunate enough to start grad school already in a serious relationship and then later got married, so I can't help you much directly on this topic, unfortunately. Sorry All I can say is that I think this is a relevant and important issue that should affect how you feel about grad school, since grad school is *not* a time where you should put everything on hold. I think that many people feel guilty about prioritizing or worrying about anything other than school and I think that's not a healthy behaviour and probably lead to burnout even faster. I know many grad students in my program who have met their SO while in grad school (sometimes through online dating or mutual friends etc.) so it's definitely possible to date during your PhD and meet people. I guess all I can say is that you should not feel bad about making time for a social/romantic life (after all, no one gives me flak for putting aside time to spend with my spouse!). I am at a very research intensive university with very little emphasis on teaching, however, teaching is something I really care about and want to make a part of my career, one way or another. During my first year, I realise that my opportunities to teach are pretty low here and I talked to some professors to get their advice. In the end, I was able to find a course that was flexible enough to have me involved as more than just a grading TA and also a professor teaching the course that would support my goals and allow me to be more involved. I would say that at most programs I've been to, there is no "standard path" for a PhD. (Maybe this is not true everywhere though). However, if you ask a grad student in later years to describe their journey through grad school, I find that almost everyone has some slight differences. Maybe an exception here, or an extra thing there etc. I really think that grad school is what you make out of it, and I don't think the grad programs always know what is best for you so they can't just cater the program to you. But I do feel that at most places, they do want the best for you and they are often willing to be flexible so that you can get the most out of grad school. That is, I think if you do the above to help handle the anxiety and then determine some concrete goals you want from grad school and then sit down with the DGS or something, perhaps you can work out a plan for the remainder of the PhD that will fit within the current requirements and also allow you to achieve what you want. Sometimes when this happens, the department might create a new course, for example, that might cover a skill you need (and others might find it useful too!) So what I mean is that you need to take an active role in shaping the program to be what's best for you! Finally, back to whether or not you should stay--again, it's hard for someone that is not you to decide that for you. I hope my thoughts above have been helpful in providing some perspective on what my experience and other experiences have been like. I definitely encourage making use of whatever resources are available! Good luck (Edit: Well, while writing out this long post, I find that fuzzy basically said the exact same things in a more succinct way! )

To add to bsharpe's examples, there was a student in my program that recently graduated and is considered to be one of the most successful graduates of our program for someone with academic goals. This person was: 1. married 2. had a child during their PhD 3. has a pet 4. played in a band (actually recording and selling CDs) 5. had a lot of hobbies such as building and flying model planes The person achieved: 1. almost record graduation time (PhD in 3.5 years) 2. 8 publications (7 as first author) in the 3.5 years 3. multiple tenure track job offers *before* graduation Obviously, this person is an exceptional case, but I wanted to provide an example that "extra commitments" does not correlate with slower progress.

My two departments were very similar to each other and my actual research interest is sometimes in Astronomy (or Physics) and sometimes in Planetary Science. But, at the top of my summary page, I also included a short 3 sentence paragraph that summarizes my research interests and what I want to get out of a PhD program. This was just a super condensed version of the relevant section of my SOP so that it's clear to my LOR writers what my goals are and gives them guidance on what I would like them to speak about. I also did this because I think it's helpful to have the LORs reinforce what I said in my SOP (some writers wanted my SOPs as well and I was using this brief summary as a placeholder for them until I got a polished SOP closer to the deadline). If you are pursuing fields that are further separated, you could consider writing a 2-3 sentence summary of your goals/interests for each major field you are applying to.

From my experience at the school you're going to, you'll fit right in! A person passing by you on campus will just think "Another day at [school]!" I also feel that individuality is strongly celebrated there and you will probably get a lot of positive feedback. (I'm avoiding mentioning the school name even though it's in both of our signatures in case you decide to not include this information later on and don't want the school name to stay in this thread).

As I said above, having your own opinion about what is important to you is fine and great because we're all individuals with different desires. But if you want to get off to a good start, I would ask you to reconsider what everyone else already said in this thread, particularly CageFree's last comment above. Then reflect on what you write and how you gave your opinion. To me, and to many others, you are not just stating your opinion, you are also casting a lot of judgement that you don't have a right to. This is why people are upset and I would strongly suggest that you reconsider how you state your opinions when you get to your new program, otherwise you will be alienating a bunch of people and I don't think that is a good start! In my opinion, it's the impact of your words that matter, not the intent. So if you intended to pass no judgement at all, it would be a good idea to take this opportunity to reflect on the impact of your words and try to make your impact match your intent.

When I asked my letter writers to write LORs for me, I gave them a summary sheet that listed the school name, the department name, the deadline and the names of the profs I was interested in there. I also applied to different departments at different schools but not two or more departments at the same school. In my field, one would expect the letter writer to basically write the same letter for each school, and just change the school name/department. Maybe one or two letters might be especially personalized due to the letter writer's connection to the school. This is what we students are expected to do on our SOPs too. I think a LOR that accidentally states the name of the wrong school or department won't be that bad. After all, the profs on the committee write LORs all the time too and probably make the same oversight once in a while.

Maybe I am wrong, but my experience is that you don't seek out TA and RA employment offers until you already have an admission offer. You did the right thing for Columbia where you first ask the school if they have TA/RA and they told you that it's up to each professor. That's good to know, and you should note it down so that you can seek out these opportunities when you get accepted. However, you can't ask the professors now for these positions because they are not going to promise a position to someone who is not yet admitted to their school! If funding is an issue, you should definitely ask every single school if TA/RA are even possible before applying. Also ask them about when you should apply to the TA/RA positions (sometimes you apply separately, sometimes you apply with the school application). Then, you should apply and wait for responses. Then, you will either get offered a TA/RA along with admission or be instructed to seek out these positions from professors.

It really depends on the school. Pretty much everyone who went to grad school in Canada is surprised to learn that some US schools do not treat TA/RA as employment at all. Every year, we get a letter that literally says, in legal-ese, that we were paid $X last year for no services whatsoever. This makes it clear that our schools considers us students only. One reasons that they might do this is to prevent our ability to unionize. If we ever wanted to do so, we would probably first have to challenge their classification of us as students-only. But this is also a very rich private school that is almost purely research driven so while a few minor things here and there might not be aligned with grad student interests, I really do feel that ultimately, the school's goals and grad students' needs/goals are aligned well enough that things work out. And, it's helpful for me that my US income is not taxable in Canada since it's not employment related. Oh, do you want to know what the "best" part of this is? Even though it's not employment income, our grad stipends are still taxable in the United States! Only the tuition waiver part is non-taxable (otherwise, egads!). And, a young person earning in the 20k-30k range in the US actually pays more taxes in the US than a Canadian earning the same (so much for that stereotype that Canadians pay more taxes). Anyways, I find it funny that last year was the first year of my life that I actually had to pay taxes to any government, and it was all to the US!

Usually, the financial aid office has very little to do with the TA and RA appointments. TA appointments are usually handled by the department while RA appointments are usually handled by each professor separately (although there may be department wide guidelines). What is your status right now? Are you already accepted to a school and would like to know about how to secure TA and RA funding for this coming year? Or are you in the application stage and want to know what would be available if you were to get accepted? If you already have an offer, hopefully the offer indicates whether or not funding is available. Sometimes the offer will say that TAships are available and that you should arrange for an RA offer independently if you want one. In this case, you would want to email professors individually and let them know you would want to work for them and ask what is available, if any. If you are still deciding on which schools to apply, you should direct these questions towards the department graduate admissions person (it may be an administrative person or a professor). Since you don't have an offer, you would be only asking about funding for your program in general, not for your specific case of course. Ask if there are TA and RA positions available for your Masters program, in general, and ask how often students are funded. You will probably find that in most cases, US schools will not fund their masters students. You might also want to inquire about any university-wide scholarships and fellowships you might apply for if you apply for the school.

I just want to clarify that when I said second-tier, I didn't mean that it's not worth going to for grad school. But I know in my fields, often the big schools like UBC, Toronto, McGill are clearly in a lower league compared to MIT, Harvard, Yale, etc. But obviously these top schools are not the only place that produces good work

A lot of CRA wording is very confusing. I called the CRA directly and they confirmed that basically what we said above is true. More specifically, if the fellowship is awarded to you because you are/were a graduate student during tenure of the award then it is non-taxable income. For example, I am now at a US school where the stipends work differently. I get a tuition award + stipend package that is valued at $70k (tuition is MUCH more than half of this though). In practice, I do have to perform research work and teach as a TA to get this money, but the school policy specifically says that they are just paying me my stipend because I am a student and the TA and RA work is required as part of my degree requirements. Thus, all of my income is considered "received in connection with my enrollment in an educational program" (since I am getting the money due to my enrollment, not due to my employment). On the other hand, when I was in a Canadian grad program, my internal and external fellowships were awarded just for being a student, without any work required. So this is also not taxable income. But, in order to receive my RA and TA pay, I had to perform work and thus considered an employee so the income was taxable! The CRA has a hotline during tax season that is very helpful!

Yes, in the eyes of the Canada Revenue Agency, there is no difference between fellowships and scholarships. In fact, it's just a naming difference. In addition, the name of the award does not determine whether or not the income is taxable. Your money that you make while TAing might be titled a "Teaching Assistant Fellowship" but you will still pay taxes on it. The simple definition of taxable income is what I said above--an award granted to support you while a full time graduate student is not taxable. The precise definition is slightly more complex, if you are filing a T2202A that lists you as a full time post-secondary student, then income that appears in Box 105 of the T4A will not be taxable. So, my internal fellowships/scholarships and external fellowships/scholarships all came with T4As with amounts listed in Box 105. You do pay tax on any income due to employment as a TA or an RA, so if you are paid for research through an RAship, then yes, that income is taxable. You will get a T4 for this income instead. At some schools, you may choose to be considered "self-employed" if you are an RA as long as your employment meets certain conditions, such as NOT being directly related to your thesis / plan of study. This is really only useful in a small number of cases. I would not worry about it. One easy way to gauge whether or not the income is taxable is whether or not taxes were withheld when you first get your paycheque. This doesn't always work since it's your responsibility to get it right, not the school, but the school has a lot of experience doing this. I did miss your other questions, I'll answer them below: Basic medical care in BC and Ontario are covered by MSP and OHIP, respectively. This means doctor visits, some vaccinations, checkups, etc. People often choose to purchase additional health insurance coverage through companies to cover things like vision, dental, prescriptions, physiotherapy, etc. Many schools will require its students to enroll in the student plan, usually run by the student government, because more people enrolled = cheaper and better coverage for all students. However, if you are covered by another plan (e.g. a parent's or spouse's plan) then you can opt-out of this fee, which is about $200 to $500 per year. As a student, it makes no sense for an individual to get their own plan unless they have high enough needs that the student plan offered by the school is not good enough. Some companies I know in Canada are GreenShield and Pacific BlueCross. It's much much more expensive to get private plans through them than through your school. Before I got married, I was on my parents' plan and they used GreenShield. Afterwards, I used my school's plan, which was also a GreenShield plan. I am not 100% certain because I have never been self-employed. But for other tax related purposes, being self employed means you are BOTH the employer and the employee so you definitely pay as well. You also would normally pay twice as much into other benefits like EI and CPP because usually the employer pays a portion and the employee pays the other portion. This is just an educated guess based on how governments treat self-employment for things like EI and CPP. If you do end up being considered self-employed for some reason, then you should probably seek additional advice from the actual sources. I was wrong about OHIP being completely free (as lewin pointed out). So it really depends on your situation. If your income is low enough that you won't pay any (or much) MSP premiums, then there is no financial benefit to switch to OHIP.

Others have made arguments on how other serious commitments can actually help you do well. But I also want to say that even if they are not necessary for you to do well, I don't think it's healthy for anyone to be so focussed on any one goal that they do not want to do anything else. It's not realistic for an academic to avoid every "non-necessary commitment". All the successful ones I know have serious commitments that are not academic, because they are human. And as many many others said, grad school is not a slight bump in your life where everything will be super hard but, somehow, magically, everything will be great afterwards and you'll have time for everything else again. Grad school is just the beginning and an academic career will demand more and more time as you progress.

I would also second the recommendation on Aetna, they have been our school's plan provider for the last 2 years but next fall, the school has decided to switch to United HealthCare--we'll see how that goes!

I agree that because the top Canadian universities would probably be on par with second tier US schools, a US PhD has more job market value. But, I just want to point out that Canada does a much much better job of funding the humanities than the US schools! However, as poliscar said, this almost all comes from SSHRC, which is only for Canadian students.

Nope, scholarships that are meant to support your graduate studies are not taxable income as long as you are a full-time student.

Ah okay, my TA/RA income didn't reach that much while I was in Ontario so that's why I never saw it

Although the CYA aspect might be useful too--I've seen or heard about enough "he said, she said" type stories of interactions gone wrong in the news and by word of mouth that I think it's always good to keep copies of every correspondence, in case the other party intending some kind of harm.

That's good to know--I did my own taxes while in Ontario but I must have overlooked it (or it doesn't show up on UFile unless you meet some income requirements?). Thanks for the pedantry (is that a word?) As for the second note--these plans usually cost between $200 to $500 per year, depending on the school and the actual plan, in case you are worried about costs.

In my opinion, perhaps Sigaba's advice in practice might take a more serious tone than required, I do agree with the motives behind the advice. When we are starting scholars/professionals/academics/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, we don't have much of a reputation in our field so the few actions we do take will strongly influence how others perceive us. And unfortunately, due to people's unconscious and conscious biases, we don't want to take actions that will confirm any negative stereotypes people have about us. To use a personal example, I am a visible minority, a little shy/quiet and have a bad habit of mumbling when nervous. When I meet people for the first time, I take extra measures to make sure I portray a professional version of myself that I want others to see me as, and not the stereotype of "international student who doesn't fit into the Western world". So I think Sigaba's advice of being extra careful initially is sound! I would keep copies of any physical mail too, but I honestly have not written a single physical letter to any professor ever and gmail allows for easy archiving of emails. But being careful does not mean being overly serious and cold. My email updates to my old supervisors/mentors after I graduate have been in the style of Gnome's examples. I agree that there's no need to overthink. Actually, most of my exchanges with former supervisors don't happen over email--we have occasional Skype chats just to catch up and we try to meet for coffee/meal/drinks if we happen to be in the same city (usually conferences or when I visit home, which is where my undergrad school is also). That said, even though I consider my former advisors as my friends and even invited them to my wedding (and they attended), there are some things that I would not consider appropriate to share with them. I do share my frustrations with life / career / school occasionally but I am mindful to frame them in an appropriate way. I save my frustrated venting about crappy things that happen for other types of friends. Similarly, I think they do the same with me--to use a made up example, they might share their frustration with the policies of a certain journal with me, but they would not bad-mouth their colleagues in front of me etc. Finally, I think what you write also depends on your goals. I intentionally wanted to build a more personal relationship with my former mentors so I purposely did not keep my initial conversations to be academic only, because I don't want our relationship to be academic only. So I think Sigaba's advice to make sure your initial exchanges reflect what you want your relationship to be is great, but I'll add that it's okay to create a more informal relationship with someone you already know kind of well.

I don't think this view is as widely held anymore in the past decade. I've talked to professors who said they used to think this way but has now adjusted their point of view. I think this is a healthy change for academia--the old-guard view puts people who are able to transplant themselves at an unfair/unearned advantage, in my opinion. I agree that there are lots of ways to mitigate this!