TakeruK

I think if you wait longer it will be even harder for the school to make other options work for you. Did you mention that your partner will be visiting with you when you asked if you would be sharing the room? In my field, even at the interview level, I would definitely ask for them to allow me to make my own accommodation arrangements instead and ask for them to cover the equivalent amount that they would have spent on half a hotel room. In my opinion, if they are completely unwilling to work with you to arrange something to help you get your partner to visit as well, then it would be something I would be worried about. But maybe you didn't mention your partner and it's understandable to not want to "rock the boat" at the interview stage. I also agree with Loric--I'd be upset if a school did not mention sharing living arrangements when making bookings for me! It's perfectly understandable that for budget reasons, it makes sense to put 2 people in a room, but they should at least inform everyone up front and give them the option of making their own arrangements if they don't want to stay with another person. Some people might have personal/health reasons to need to stay alone and this method does not respect that. Even if the school will make alternate arrangements if the student brings it up, it requires the student unnecessarily revealing their personal/health reasons. If it was presented at a choice (book your own hotel, or stay with us for a reduced price etc.) then it would be much more inclusive of all types of needs.

I think the level of detail obsession that went into describing this meme is itself a meme for applicants at the GradCafe! Meta-meme?

I think a safe thing to do that would not offend anyone is to ask the school that invited you second if it is possible to reschedule. If not, then ask the first school if they could reschedule. In the rare situation that both schools are unwilling to reschedule, I would probably visit the school that I already got into because it would help me make my final decision. If I visited a maybe-admitted school, that visit might not amount to anything if I don't end up getting admitted. Of course, this is going with the assumption that the visit isn't an interview and that the visit itself isn't part of the admission decision. I think in the process of asking for rescheduling, you will probably get a sense of how important the visit is to admission. If it is part of the admission decision, then I think it will be a hard choice to make. However, I really doubt you will have to only visit one of them. Ask to reschedule and see!

I did this and here is my story: My wife visited a school with me. They were originally going to have me stay with another graduate student and I asked them if my wife could visit with me (as she would have an equal vote as me as to where we move to) and said that we would prefer to make our own accommodation arrangements instead of overcrowding a grad student's place. It worked out for us that we lived within driving distance and my wife had employee benefits that gave us greatly discounted hotel rates. So, I said that since driving would save the school a lot of money compared to the students that were flying in, I asked if we could get reimbursed for the hotel instead. I asked what the maximum amount they were willing to reimburse and that we would see if we could afford to stay at a hotel within that budget. They were very accommodating and understanding to our request. They gave us a maximum of $500, which was more than enough to cover the mileage and 3 nights at a hotel with my wife's employee discount. They covered food expenses for me, including meals during the drive, but not for my wife, of course. The school also invited my wife to join in as many events with me and the other graduate students as she would like. So, she was invited to the social events and even the meals that the department provided. They even made sure she had something to do while I was in my one-on-one meetings with various professors--they gave her a campus map and set up a small desk for her to work, check email, etc. --- Overall, I don't think you need to worry about the school being upset. I do think you should let the school know though, just so that it doesn't even look like you are trying to hide something. Also, you might actually end up sharing and just not know about it! So just to be safe, I would let the school know. Personally, I would not be "afraid" of the school's negative opinions because I want to be in a place where my spouse would be welcomed! I would probably be better off not being in a place that would reject me because involving my spouse equally in the decision was frowned upon. For what it's worth, one school did directly ask me what factors I was considering when making the decision. I was honest and gave the true answer which is an even mix of location/personal fit and academic fit. I always mentioned my spouse and that she would have an equal say in where we live for the next 5+ years. For the hotel itself, if your school confirms that you will have the room to yourself, then I wouldn't worry about informing the hotel ahead of time. Most hotels do not charge an extra cost for a second adult in a single room. Some more budget/economy hotels might do this, and the charge might just be for an extra breakfast, so I would just worry about this at check-in. It would be reasonable to expect to have to pay the extra cost of the additional occupant yourself, but that should be like $5-$10 per night. Hope this works out!

Definitely wait for the phone call, unless there is some absolute urgent reason you must know right now. Urgent reasons might be another program giving you a short deadline to respond so you need the information to decide, or you are planning a school visit in the area and you would like to know if you can combine both visits in one trip to save money for everyone! In one case for me, I later found out that it took the school a few more days to contact me because there was some miscommunication between the profs on who was supposed to call me (people thought other people were supposed to do it). Or it might be like icydoubloon said and the person is just away/busy!

I think it's the first year that sucks, not just the first semester. But different programs have different paces. Also, I think sometimes it's a matter of how much of a perfectionist you are. I think one major skill I had to learn in the first few years of grad school is handing in work that was not my 100% effort. There is just not enough time to do research, teach, and complete all of your homework/assignments the best you can. You just have to prioritize! This is very dependent on what kind of program you are in though. I would imagine people in course based programs would want to spend more time on courses, but for research-based students, I would recommend doing the bare minimum on coursework. It was a very big switch for me to go from undergrad where I always worked on everything for classes until I knew I could do no better, to grad school, where we are encouraged/expected to basically just complete the assignment, no need to excel at them. So, I often handed in work that I knew I could have done better with another few hours or skimmed a reading instead of doing something in depth with notes etc. In my experience, grading in grad programs reflect this too--an "A" in undergrad usually meant you had to be at the top of the class, while an "A" in grad school usually means "completed all requirements". No marks are awarded for going above and beyond because it's not really expected (or even desired by the profs, who are paying you for research). But this is very dependent on the nature of the program! Finally, I decided that having free time is important to me. I set a limit of how many hours I am willing to work and I work that many hours (about 40-50 hours/week). If something doesn't get done because I am out of time, then so be it. This was my attitude going into my past thesis defenses and qualifying exams. I knew how much I was willing to work to remain in the program and if that was not enough, then I think it would be better for everyone, especially me, if I didn't remain in grad school. So far, it has worked for me! Everyone else may have different priorities/goals though!

At my Canadian undergrad school, I think it's something in the mid to upper 60%, which is a C+/B- grade there, which is also 2.8-ish (maybe you're also from Canada lol). I am not sure if "average GPA" is a useful indicator for anything though. But, I would say that in my undergrad program, something like the upper 1/4 to 1/3 of students would be "suitable" for graduate studies and this is approximately the fraction that successfully apply for grad school.

I've done "first year of grad school" twice and I can sympathize with how you feel and agree with the others that told you that first year is the worse. Here's my brief story: In Canada, the normal path is to do a 2 year Masters then a 3 year PhD (if at the same school) or a 4 year PhD (if at a different school). Both programs are fully funded and there is little difference between a Canadian Masters student and an American PhD student in the first 2 years of their program. You have to re-apply (including transcripts, LORs, etc.) between Masters and PhD programs, even if you stay at the same school with the same advisor! However, I decided to go to the US for my PhD so I started all over again last year! There are a few rare graduate students that absolutely 100% know for sure what they want to do with their lives. They have a research plan mapped out, know what they want to do with postdocs (or if they are going to go in industry etc.) They have set long term career goals and are confident in themselves! But I think that the majority of graduate students, including me, are not as certain about what they want to do with their future. Outwardly, at school, we all try to put up a positive front, but we all have existential crises. Personally, I go through phases where I think "wow, what am I doing with my life?", especially when things are not going well research-wise. I find it really helpful to have a strong social network to help you get through these phases. I feel a lot better when I can talk about how I am feeling, whether it is to my super supportive spouse, or my friends at school who have the same feelings as me. When I start talking to people about it, I find that almost everyone feels this way, and it helps. I've also attended panel sessions where professors tell stories of feeling this way in grad school, and even when they have tenure track positions! I think it really really helps, for me, when I realise that these feelings are normal and a lot of people share them. I don't know what field you are in, because in my field you can't just take the summer off--you're expected to work on research and earn your RA pay! However, summers are excellent for finding new motivation and interests. In my both of my first years, I had so much coursework and teaching requirements that fitting in time for research was almost a chore. I was already exhausted from everything else (not to mention adjusting to a new place, with new people, away from family!). This is not ideal, because for most of us, our interest in our research was the main reason for grad school, and having it become something to neglect or avoid is terrible. But in the summer, our only commitment is research. I found that this changed my perspective completely! I had time to focus on research problems that I was actually interested in without additional outside pressure. I also had more time to schedule things I enjoyed doing outside of school, without feeling guilty for not working. Summer is a great refresher and I hope this summer goes well for you! I also keep myself motivated by reminding myself of the perks. As others said in this post, most entry level positions for people our age do not grant us so much freedom. I've worked in mindless jobs in college to pay the bills and it sucked. My whole family have been working class and my main career goal is to end up in a job that values me for my "brain" instead of my labour. So, compared to a lot of others things I might be doing instead of grad school, grad school is hard but pretty rewarding. Also, in my field, you might not be able to take summers off to travel or do fun things, but your supervisors will send you to many conferences. I always try to tag on a week before or after each conference for personal travel (joined by my spouse when possible). My family were immigrants so we did not have the money to take family trips outside of North America when I was growing up. We mostly did road trips which was also a great experience. But a lot of my college friends did things like backpack in Europe and traveled the world a lot more extensively. In academia, going to conferences is finally giving me the opportunity to see things I really didn't think I would ever be able to see! My advice to you would be to stick it out for the MA and see how you feel after that. In Canada, the general mindset is that a student interested in research would do the 2 year Masters and then at that point, decide whether they want to commit to this for a career (and then go on to a PhD) or decide that they would prefer to do something else and then use their Masters to do other work, sometimes in related careers (e.g. teach at a college, be the science officer at a museum, use their analysis experience to work for a startup, etc.). About half of the people who start a Masters program in Canada will not go on to do a PhD. This is a similar attrition rate to US PhD programs, except the Masters is a natural stopping point (with a thesis defense and everything). Personally, I think having the two distinct program is much better--it doesn't force someone to commit to 5+ years right away and stopping at the Masters is a smaller drain on resources (and the student's time) than quitting after 4 years or something. So, I think you can treat the first two years as a "trial run". See how you feel about everything and then decide if you want to stay. I think the academic year is very lopsided, and if you're only partway through year 1, then you haven't seen a full "cycle" yet! If you decide that academia isn't for you, try not to feel like you've failed or anything. I think there is a lot of stigma with "quitting" a PhD program but it's far better for everyone, especially you, if you go do something that you actually enjoy instead! (Again, another reason why I think there should be two separate programs, as that lessens the stigma on someone not going on to a PhD!).

Depending on the school and the field, not all of the work/content that goes into a dissertation needs to be work that is performed solely/mainly by the author. Obviously, the majority of the work must be original and "belong" to the author, but whether it needs to be 80% or 90% or 100% depends on the regulations of each specific PhD program. For example, in my current program, I can include a paper, verbatim, in my thesis that I did not write nor even have first authorship. In all these cases, the author would have to declare exactly what is theirs and what is not theirs of course. So I can still see a situation that is ethical where one section of the work is "done" by someone else (ideally while still involving the author though). But I think asking the advisor about clarifying what you should/shouldn't do is a good idea too, in addition to clarifying authorship privileges.

I was going to write a response to Loric, but Usmivka just beat me to it! I would say even if the SO is slightly less qualified, I would be in support of this action if the net amount of "qualified-ness" is greater with both applicants than just one. No one can put an exact amount of the qualifiedness of a candidate, so I think as long as the SO is within the uncertainty of the "qualifedness" estimate then it should be kosher. I am even more in support of this at the faculty hire level. For pretty much the same reason as Usmivka said, I think more universities should be more flexible with their hiring policies to accommodate double/spousal hires. For example, I know my undergraduate institution will allow departments who have one opening now and one opening expected in 2-3 years to actually just hire both people now and give up the future hire opportunity in order to get 2 people at once. Obviously, if the SO is just not qualified at all of the position, then this makes no sense. But there are so many other people with two-body problems that will have qualified SOs that the department can have its pick. Also, Loric, you asked why so many graduate students end up dropping out and what departments can do to lower this rate. I think keeping partners/families together goes a long way in ensuring retention/completion.

Just to add to what fuzzy said, the I-20 itself will include how much it costs for the first year as well as how much support you will get. So, you don't have to worry about the Embassy/Consulate staff and/or border agents not believing you when you say you are fully funded. My International Office says that technically, when you cross the border, you should not have to bring evidence of funding (e.g. the letter that states you have funding) because the I-20 does that, but it is still very strongly recommended to have!

I agree with danieleWrites that it is unlikely that these two departments will normally consult/interact with one another for admissions. But I think this is exactly why you should inform them right now, instead of waiting! If you wait until the other department makes their decisions, it might be very hard for them to add an extra admission for your SO. My current department (not in either of your fields though) only does 1 wave of admits and does not waitlist. If the other department is like this, then once they have made the decision, it would require a lot of changes to get your SO in. In your specific case (you already have an offer and you are 100% certain you will not attend this school if your SO doesn't get an offer), I would inform your own department right now. Let them know that you are only able to accept their offer if your SO can also get an offer. Sometimes this is risky because you might not get an offer yourself by doing this but since you already have one and that it doesn't really matter that much if they get upset at you for not wanting to go without your SO, there is very little risk to inform them now. However, I am not certain how much help they can really give. They might not be able to anything at all, and you might just hope that your department informs the other department about your situation. But, what advantage does the other department gain from admitting your SO? So I am doubtful there is much chance of a positive return, but since I also think there is almost zero risk, I think you might want to go ahead and do this. The slight risk is that if your department does tell your SO's department about this, and for some reason, the SO's department finds this offensive, they might treat your SO's application more negatively. I don't think this is going to be a high risk because many people apply with their SOs and this is a common concern for many academics. So, ultimately, I would say why not try? If you were both applying to the same department, then you might have more sway. I know people who got admitted as a couple. This works best when both partners are equally competitive, but some schools will accept someone who might not have gotten in on their own because the "better partner" was worth the difference. I am assuming you are asking because you want to use your acceptance to help your SO get in, right? If that is not the case, (i.e. you just want to know what your SO's decision is going to be), then danieleWrites is right--it's too early to badger programs about making decisions. The only exception is if, for some reason, your own department gave you a short deadline to respond to their offer, and you want to ask them to give you more time because you need to know your SO's decision before you can make one. If none of these things are true (i.e. no need for extension and you're not trying to negotiate a position for your SO) then I don't think informing your department would be useful to you or them!

I can sympathize with how you feel. The first two years of grad school for me was not in an ideal location either and I ended up starting over at a PhD program elsewhere. In Canada (where my first program was), it's normal to go elsewhere after a 2 year MSc (and you can usually only get into PhD programs after a 2 year MSc) so I didn't burn any bridges by leaving though. The abnormal part is that most people stay in Canada (for a 3-4 year PhD following a 2 year MSc) instead of going to the US where I have to start all over. Another difference between our cases is that my new school is a better research and location fit for me! Although one thing that was the same was that my first school is in a tiny town and my advisor there was the reason why I wanted to go there. However, I had very strong location-based reasons to move away from my first graduate program after my MSc was over. My PhD program search was very motivated by wanting to live in certain geographical areas. I am happier where I am now and I think it is worth it to have started over but be happy with my non-work life. But again, I also think I am in a better place for my career as well, so it's not a matter of location vs. career here (not that the first place was a bad fit, it was actually the best fit possible for me in Canada) It is ultimately up to you and your priorities whether or not you want to start over. I don't think starting over is the end of the world! Here are some thoughts for/against starting over from my point of view, and hopefully they give you some things to think about: Reasons to stay: 1. Like danieleWrites says, you don't have 5 years left! I think the next 3 years will probably go by faster than the first 2 years. 2. You're in a really good program from what it sounds like, so it might be easier to follow danieleWrites' suggestions about changing your outlook and finishing up your program 3. The timing might not be ideal right now for you to apply to new programs because many deadlines have already passed? So by the time you would change programs, it would be only 2 years left in your current one. Reasons to move: 1. As Usmivka said, grad school is tough enough, so why make it worse? It sounds like you have already completed your MS requirements so getting that and leaving should just be a formality right? 2. For me, location is very important and I would pick location fit over research fit in most cases. The way I see it is that I can easily change my research interests/motivations to fit my work but I would find it extremely difficult to change my personal views and outlook on life. I would be very unhappy if I could not get ethnic foods (especially certain vegetables) where I lived but I would be way less unhappy about having to work on my 2nd or 3rd most interested topic instead of my top choice. 3. Research topics will change a lot and I don't think a PhD thesis should have to be your #1 love. I got advice that I should work on whatever will get me employed, not necessarily what I love the most. In other words, the only requirement for a thesis topic is that you should not hate it...you don't have to love it. I find that many people will not "love" their topic anymore after spending 5+ years studying it in depth! 4. Some people say "you won't get to choose where you live as a postdoc etc. so why worry about it in grad school" but I think about it another way. Since most academics have to go where the job is, I think grad school and post-doc is actually the rare time where you have more control over your location than others. So, I would say to make the most of this chance and pick nice locations now because you might end up somewhere crappy later. My personal goal is to go even more extreme and I have decided that location is more important to me than career, so I would rather not be an academic if I had to live somewhere I did not want. Just some ideas to think about. I think the main point of what I wrote is that, to me, there isn't that much difference between "#1 best research fit" and even "#5 best research fit"--if you are in a strong department and if you are a skilled worker, you will be able to find success without needing it to be your favourite topic. On the other hand, I think there is a huge difference between "#1 best location fit" and "#5 best location fit". So, if we are considering schools that are roughly equivalent in terms of research fit and resources available, I would just pick schools based on location (which was what I did for my PhD program as I was considering a few schools that were almost equivalent in terms of research fit).

I think this is a perfect case where you should visit both and see how you feel about the department, people, city etc. Both cities are pretty cool, in my opinion, in their own ways, but this is a personal choice only you can decide for yourself! Also, keep in mind that for any particular school, the graduate student population there tends to be very different from the undergraduate community at the same school! I think a lot of times, the general perception we get from schools comes from their undergraduate student body's reputation!

That's definitely a great reason to attend conferences! During my application year, I contacted my POIs ahead of time and asked if they would be at the upcoming major conference and if I could talk to them. I got to meet a good number of profs and their students/postdocs this way. This commonly happens in my field as prospective students applying to our school have come up to talk to my colleagues and I once they see the institution name on our nametags! Also, one school I applied to gave us a list of profs who were attending the upcoming meeting and encouraged applicants to seek these profs out during the meeting. In my field, it is abnormal for a student to present at a conference out of their own pocket though. Usually, the supervisor of the work will fund the trip and/or the student can get funding from agencies such as the conference organizers or groups at their home campus that will fund this. I do know a few students who did not present work that did end up attending some conferences for a few days just to make the networking connections. In one student's case, they had previously won an award at their home campus and were using that prize money to attend, which I think is a pretty good investment! Otherwise, spending $500-$1000 to attend a distant conference may be tough for many students' budgets and I am not 100% sure it's worth it if you can't spare that money. It may be possible to attend a conference for much much less if it's close by and/or if you volunteer to help with registration etc. (usually will get you free registration and maybe some meals too).

Glad that you found a solution and that you updated us I guess United has increased their fees from last year! Too bad

If grad students will be at the social (sounds like it?) then I really think it's important for your future 4-6 years that you go. Whenever our prospective students skip these kind of events, we are pretty disappointed. It might not leave a good first impression. I also want to add another point--during these interview events, you will rarely get to interact with the other visiting students. I know you already decided to go to this school but for some people, like me, my future classmates are just as important in the decision as what the current students are like. After all, I will be working with, studying with, socializing with these people more than anyone else. So I think this social event is a chance for you to meet the other visitors and compare notes about other schools you might have visited etc. In terms of having bearing on admission, like I said, it will be part of the first impression. I don't think anyone will reject you because you had to go to work, but if your interviews didn't go super well, they might hear or see something they like more when they talk to you in a more social setting. I don't know what your work is, but if there is a way to get out of it, you should. If it's academic related work, then I think your boss should understand because you're taking time off for academic related things.

To answer your question, I got the idea from seeing it happen. Not all graduate students are equally skilled. If a professor knows he/she has funding for only one more graduate student, they might have a "lower limit" in mind for what kind of skills/how skilled an incoming graduate student might need to be. So, it is possible that the OP didn't meet this standard and the POI was willing to wait another year for more applicants than to take a student at the OP's level. From experience at smaller schools, I've talked to profs that were looking for students, interviewed a bunch, and then decided that they didn't want any of the applicants this year. I don't think it's so strange to think about a case where the admission requirement varies from year to year. At my current school, we've accepted far fewer people this year compared to previous years (but not abnormal compared to the long term record) because of current capacity as well as current uncertainty of the future of NASA funding planetary sciences. It is possible that someone who was rejected this year could have been accepted in the past 2 years with exactly the same record. It's probably more likely in the OP's case that the POI had X spots free for students, and compared to all the new people applying, the OP was less qualified, so the POI decided to take on a new student instead of keeping a Masters student.

Some schools will allow it while others will not, from my experience. My current school does not but I have been at schools that did allow PhD students to be part-time. However, you also have to check whether or not your individual program will allow it as well, because although the Graduate School may be provisions for this, they may require you get permission from the department and advisor. As others said, you will be lacking a lot of benefits as a part-time student. I don't know anyone who completed an entire PhD as a part-time student. The cases I know of involve part-time studies on a temporary basis only. For example, a graduate student may choose to take a couple of terms part-time after they or their partner had a baby. Or, they might have to go home for a semester or two to care for someone. In these cases, some students prefer to take part-time status instead of a leave of absence in order to still receive some support and to have time counted towards minimum residency times. Also, depending on the policy, part-time status may result in lower tuition than off-campus full time status.

I would say that it is a little bit unusual, from my limited experience, to see departmental level regulations on individual assignments within a course. Usually, I see many regulations that require a student to have a minimum final grade, though. So, I would say the only thing that might be atypical is that the requirement is on individual assignments within a course, instead of the entire course. However, maybe in this professional program, assignments are major projects, not something like a weekly homework set!

Oh that is probably better for you, because that means you won't be on the hook for any fees. It might put the school in a slightly bad position, because they are responsible for cancelling the flight. However, it's pretty likely that they will have the resources to be able to do so, and they might even be able to just transfer your ticket to someone else. Anyhow, it's their problem, not yours! So they probably won't be super thrilled to hear that you are cancelling, but they should also understand that these things happen.

I agree with everyone else that the social functions are very important to the interview and also the get-to-know-you process. I would consider them as part of the interview day. But they are more casual so if you cannot reschedule your work, then obviously you should not blow off commitments or otherwise terribly inconvenience yourself. In your shoes, I would try my best to reschedule my work obligations and in the future, plan to devote the entire day during visiting days to do things like this. For others who are about to go on visits/interviews, keep in mind that most official schedules will not list evening activities but in many cases, there will be a formal or informal gathering after dinner. So plan to be busy the entire day and don't make any other commitments at all during visit days!

Yikes, if that's true, why would they even change your status for just 1 day! That is just torture, like your title said!

I have three things installed right now that I use semi-regularly. I have "PrintFriendly" (http://www.printfriendly.com/) which I have installed as a Chrome Extension but you can use it as just a bookmark "applet". While on any page, if you click the applet or the extension, you basically create a "Printer Friendly" version of the page, with the extra option of having a dialog box that lets you click on ads or other annoying things to remove them from being printed. You can save the result as a PDF or print it out (this was more useful when I was on Firefox because Chrome Print creates PDFs very easily). I use this to save paper and when I was printing things like credit card statements for reimbursements, it lets me easily remove sensitive information I did not want to submit (account numbers, other charges not being claimed etc.). It's also useful for generally removing confidential information from any printout. I also use the Mendeley extension so I can click on it to add any webpage to my Mendeley library. It's pretty useful when you're on the Journal's official webpage for the article in question since all of the bibliographic info is in the metadata. And I use the "DOI Resolver" extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/doi-resolver/goanbaknlbojfglcepjnankoobfakbpg?hl=en) which lets me quickly copy and paste a DOI code and pull up a journal article right away. This is helpful when I have a pre-print or just a hard copy of a paper that I want to access the final published electronic copy. The extension also allows me to right click DOI codes on webpages and link myself to the destination, I think. This is not a super duper useful tool, because I can always just type in the DOI web address, but it's annoying to have to remember the exact syntax.

My goal is to learn about one other research project per day (this is pretty hard for me though, I don't think I have been able to accomplish this for more than 1 week in a row). There are 2-3 seminars per week in my department, so listening to one of those talks count as "one" that day, in my books. On the other days, I try to read one journal article but this is pretty tough when I had a lot of classes to also manage. I think I average 3-4 articles/talks per (work) week. I would like to work on getting this to 5/week. I don't follow specific journals or professors, but what I do is subscribe (or check online) the arxiv preprint server every work day: http://arxiv.org/ (maybe there is an equivalent for your field)? I mostly stick to my own sub-field and I see a list of abstracts every day. If there is an interesting title, an interesting abstract, or an author name I recognize, then that usually encourages me to read it. Sometimes, I also find interesting papers to read as a result of press releases, people posting stuff to Facebook/Twitter, or if a colleague/friend mentioned that they read something interesting. Finally, sometimes there are research group meetings where the goal is to discuss a paper that the prof assigned us to read. There will be times where I am reading more papers than normal. There are phases (e.g. starting a new project or writing a lit review part of a paper) where I might spend most of the day reading instead of other research work. In these cases, I am purposely following reference trails and seeking out specific papers. I'd call this a "depth" search where the goal is to find out detailed information about my project while the above stuff is more of a "breadth" search where my goal is to learn about what else people are doing. When reading for "depth", I take notes and carefully file/catalogue the PDFs for future use. When reading for "breadth", I usually do not save the PDFs/notes unless the article turned out to be very relevant/useful to my work. I think your question was mostly towards "breadth" reading, but hope this answers both!