TakeruK

Sometimes the "personal statement" is titled "Statement of Personal History" or "Personal History Statement", but sometimes it is just a synonym for "Statement of Purpose" (SOP). If you are only asked for one, it is probably safe to assume that they are looking for a SOP-like document, but sometimes the prompt encourages you to briefly address things that might go in the "personal statement". If you are asked for both, the prompts usually make it clear what they want. If you are still not sure, it is probably a good idea to ask the department's admissions secretary/admin person for clarification.

Graduate school admissions, like most of life, do not happen in controlled environments. Unlike games, sports, courtrooms, or exams, these messy parts of life do not have well defined rules. I agree that if you consider information outside of the scope of the application, then you risk missing out on the best candidate as defined by the information in the application package. That is, you will miss out on getting the people that might look best "on paper". But it is often the case that people are different "on paper" vs. in reality. It's also possible the application process is imperfect -- that is, perhaps the things it is asking for does not actually line up with what the department/professors want to know about the applicants.

This is a bit of conjecture, but I think that the term "send your scores" is a bit misleading. What I think actually happens is either Case 1: You take your test and your scores are stored along with your test registration number on an ETS server somewhere. Grad schools can log onto this server and look up your score when you provide your test registration number in your application package. If you have "sent" the score to the school, then the ETS server will allow the grad school to access your score. OR Case 2: You take your test and every so often, ETS sends the score of each test to every school that the test taker has authorized. These scores are stored in some electronic database/computer at each school's grad office and when you send in your application, the school tries to look up your test registration number in their own database to get your score. In either case, I don't believe that ETS actually sends a physical piece of paper via snail mail for every score report. I think this guess/theory is supported because a bunch of people above noted, you can use your free score report to send your scores to schools before you actually apply. In addition, for one of my schools, I took the subject GRE test pretty late and my scores were not actually available until 1-2 weeks after the application deadline. As soon as they became available, I ordered the score report online for this school (in the evening) and the next morning, the secretary contacted me to let me know that they have my latest score. This made me believe that the process is actually electronic, and that "sending" a score report is more like "authorizing a school to see your score". Just my theory though!

I definitely don't think it's unfair to create a website when it isn't asked for. For example, I had a research website when I was a MSc student applying to PhD programs. Why should I have to remove my website just because one application didn't want to see it? Also, what if one application wants the website and another doesn't care. Also, even if the application instructions say "don't include a URL" and the applicant includes one anyways, that is still not unfair behaviour on the the applicant, it's just poorly following instructions. I think the sole responsibility in ensuring the admissions process is "fair" or transparent rests entirely with the admissions committee. However, as others said above, this is not what happens in reality nor is it realistic to expect. After all, admissions committee members will receive all sorts of information about some candidates from sources other than the application package. For example, when I applied to PhD programs, there was a big conference in the field in the months beforehand so I emailed my POIs to arrange to meet with them at this conference. At one of the other schools I applied to, they explicitly gave us the names of the profs and their students who will be attending another conference just a week or two before the admissions committee planned to meet and suggested that we make some time to talk to the profs/students if we were planning to attend. I'm not saying all of these other sources of information necessarily played a large role in anyone's admission decision, but my point is that while it might be nice to think of the application process as a rigorous, strict, transparent process, I don't think this is actually the case. Profs are humans too and you can never be 100% certain that a prof isn't using information outside of the application package to make the decision. And I think this is perfectly fine, as long as the criteria used by the prof is relevant to the qualifications needed to succeed as a grad student in the department (e.g. website, personality, ability to communicate science etc are all fine, but obviously things like gender, race, etc. are not!). I actually think it is a good thing that profs use more than just the "on-paper" stats about an applicant, because some people are very different "on-paper" than in real life. I still agree with this point though -- that if you probably should not try to "sneak" a website URL in the application information. If you really really want them to look at your URL, one thing you can do is include it in your email signature. Then, when you email profs from the department asking about their research interests (if this is something that is done in your field), maybe they will see it (probably not though, since a lot of email programs hide signatures and people usually gloss over it anyways). I also agree that if you have to choose between making an optional website or something else more relevant to the application, it's probably better use of your time to do the other thing. That is, I don't think it's worth it to make a website solely for the purpose of applications, unless it's a requirement. The research website is a very useful thing to have though, when you want people to be able to find out about you and your work, so that should be the motivation for making your website, not admissions! Usually this means people don't make one until they have started grad school but if you have a lot of work/presentations as an undergrad, a website might help you there too.

I don't think grad school admissions people will really care about what's on your Facebook, as long as you aren't constantly writing stuff about how you hate research/school etc. They might Google you to find out if you have e.g. a research website or any other relevant things about you online. I think profs are smart enough to realise that people selectively post certain memorable events on Facebook and it's not a good indicator of a person's character.

This is still true, I got my no annual fees student credit card from Citi Bank in Fall 2012.

I am a proud smart phone cyber witch! I used to only have a flip phone until last September and I am pretty happy to have a smartphone now. I am paying the same monthly rate in the US for my smartphone with data, unlimited talk & text as I did for my "dumbphone" in Canada with only 100 minutes and unlimited text. It's true though, that if you only wanted to use your smartphone as a GPS nav. device, then there's no need for a smartphone! Even if you bought a brand new GPS nav device ($100 ish?), it would not only work better than the phone's GPS nav function, but also be cheaper in the long run! With nav on, the battery drains my phone in about 2-3 hours, so I usually use an external nav device anyways (or plug my phone into the car). However, I do love the convenience of smart phones. There's lots of traveling in grad school, so it's super helpful at the airport to look stuff up. Last month, I was at the dentist and I was supposed to have emailed my x-rays from my old dentist to the new one but I accidentally sent it to the wrong email address. Fortunately, with my phone, I could just resend that email with the corrected email -- no need to bike home in the heat, yay! The power of technology can be used for good too, not just evil anti-social witchy behaviour (although I do like my ability to do "evil" -- e.g. play with my phone when waiting in public so that random people don't try to talk to me).

I suppose you could ask your department (e.g. the people your mom said) but they aren't going to personally help you out. What they might do is to forward the request to the rest of the grad students and ask if they could help you out. But this would be weird -- wouldn't it be better for you to just ask your colleagues directly? Personally, I'd help a colleague move, even if we aren't close friends or anything. Providing beer and/or pizza generally helps! Like Eigen said, if you need help moving, it makes more sense to ask your peers. Or hire professionals to do it if you are unable to do it and/or don't want to inconvenience others. If your mom means you should ask your department for financial assistance in moving out, then this would vary a lot from department to department and depend on their own policies. I would say that since it's uncommon for a department to provide support for moving expenses, it would be even less common for a student moving out! Unless you are in a situation where you absolutely cannot handle this on your own (e.g. no one is available to help and you're broke), I think it would be better for you to be responsible for your own move-out, without involving department staff on a personal matter.

I wouldn't use spreadsheet software to make graphs, unless it's a weird case where I have a whole bunch of data already nicely formatted in Excel and I just want to quickly look at a histogram or a trend or something. Otherwise, I find that spreadsheet graphs are slow, clunky, and not very portable! My old plotting software of choice used to be gnuplot, which can plot from ASCII formatted text files. But, the syntax is a bit strange and there are some weird limitations (or require weird workarounds). Now that my school has a MATLAB license, it is currently my favourite! I used it all of last year for almost every problem set in my courses. However, this summer, I am trying to learn Python and I think I will like matplotlib a lot. It will be very similar to MATLAB, but free! I think the example plots even look nicer than MATLAB. Personally, I would like to make plots in a language/software that I can script and run in batch-mode (to make tons of plots), and allow me to make them in PNG format (for presentations), JPG format (for sharing via email for example) and EPS/PS format (for including in papers) easily. I would also like intuitive and easy ways to make the text large/pretty, have nice colours and do multiple axes on the same page. MATLAB does all of this and so would matplotlib on Python. Gnuplot also does all of this but it requires a lot of trial and error and playing with parameters to get right. I think this is probably possible in something like Excel too, but I'm not sure if I can easily script it to e.g. make the same plot for 1000s of datasets and I really do not want to be manually clicking to change titles, colours etc.

I also used Mendeley for my MSc and I also use it for all of my projects, papers, and eventually, my PhD! In addition to what is said above, for those fields that use LaTeX, Mendeley also exports BibTeX files for use with bibtex! And I think it can also directly export bibliography entries in LaTeX form if you don't use BibTeX. Usually if you give a PDF to Mendeley, it will automatically read off the title, authors, year, etc. if it's a modern PDF file. Otherwise, it will try to guess and you can fix any issues. You can also add an entry without a PDF -- just add it manually. Basically, it would be the electronic version of writing up index cards, except now you don't have to type them up later into a paper, and you can easily organize, store, and sync them up between multiple computers or other devices.

I was also surprised to learn about this when talking to profs in Canada during my PhD program search. But their explanations make sense and here's why I think not all PhDs are the same: 1. The length! A European PhD is often shorter than a US PhD and there is less emphasis on classes than in the US. This sounds great to me! But, my prof pointed out that less time in a PhD = less papers, less research results etc. This might depend on field though, but this would put you at a disadvantage when competing with North American PhDs for North American post-docs/faculty positions,.unless you are superstar! But it seems like if you do a PhD in Europe and also a first post-doc there, then you would have the same, or even more, research/papers than a North American PhD and you would be at the same level again. This might make you ineligible for some fellowships that are for your first post-doc only, though. 2. The distance! Again, this may depend on field, but often times, the European and North American networks are very separate. There are different set of annual conferences, and it's not likely that a PhD student or postdoc from Europe will be doing talk circuits in Canada/US and vice-versa. It's already pretty rare when profs from the other continents come to give a colloquia! Because of this, North American scholars will be likely to know much about European graduate students and vice-versa, unless you are a superstar in your field of course. This effect might be less severe for jobs outside of the tenure-track though. Also, I don't think a European PhD instantly means you lose all chances of a US based job, but you definitely get a little bit disadvantaged because of the reasons above. So, if you have strong enough desires to go to Europe, it might still be worth it overall!

Your situation is sometimes called the "two body problem" in academia and if you want to find more thoughts about the matter online, it might help to google the term. Sometimes reading about others who have "found a solution" can make a tough situation seem easier! But to answer your actual question, I guess this is a little bit different than the "traditional" two body problem, where both people are applying at the same time. In that case, the two of you should just apply to as many schools as possible that both fit you and hopefully there will be some overlap. In your case, the first step is probably for both of you to make a list of schools you would like to attend. Then you should definitely apply to all the schools in overlapping lists. You would also have to have a deep discussion with your partner about your future together as well since this would be a big step. Consider all possibilities -- e.g. would you be willing to go to a school that was less interesting to you but better for her? Or the opposite case? Would you two rather be together and maybe go to a lower-fit school or would you two rather each go to your own best-fit school, no matter the distance? Also, the two-body problem will manifest itself again and again down the line at the post-doc level etc. so what are the plans for the future? To maximize your chances of being in the same area, it would probably be better for you (since you're going first) to apply to grad schools that are in areas of high density (of schools that your partner would want to go to). I guess this is obvious. But, if she is really only applying 1 year after you, I think it might be worth it for her to check the deferment policies of the programs that she is interested in. I know that in my program, you can easily defer your admission for 1 year. It would be a good idea for her to apply to all the schools that would allow her to defer a year, and that might help you decide where to go to as well!

You bring up a point that really resonates with me about working with other disciplines. Personally, I have found that I enjoy my work more and more as I moved from fields that were more or less its own discipline (e.g. Physics) to fields that are much more multidisciplinary (Planetary Science is a combination of Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, Geology, Geophysics!). Granted, these are all still science disciplines, but I'm much happier having a breadth of skills rather than extreme depth in just one or two things. This is also an interesting point! I haven't thought of our natural parks as a way to separate society and nature. I'm not sure if I am in 100% agreement that this is analogous to social vs. natural sciences, but it is interesting to think about nonetheless. But this made me think of my undergraduate school, which was actually located in a Provincial Park. The whole campus is pretty far removed from the rest of the city of Vancouver -- so much so that the few residents that live on or near campus actually vote in a separate electoral district. I always saw this as the University being removed from the city -- i.e. academic independence and freedom -- as a good thing, but now I'm thinking that isolating academia is probably a bad idea in terms of outreach and getting people interested in our work etc.

I agree that this is not the right correlation but I think there is some connection. For example, someone who is willing to put in 80 hours a week is someone who really loves what they do and this will probably help them. But I was not trying to say that we should all put in 80+ hours per week. However, because many profs did work a lot, and they see themselves as successful, many of them will also want their own students to do the same. And some students will do the same, either because of pressure from their supervisor, or that they also think working more hours is what they should do to be successful. Which was the original point of what I was saying -- that the people who work 80+ hours a week are mostly choosing to do so. It's perfectly possible to finish a PhD in a reasonable time while keeping 40-50 hours of work per week. You just have to choose to do so, and be disciplined in managing your time as well as managing what people expect from you. As I and other have said, grad school can completely eat up all of your time if you are not able to say no to things and force yourself to keep to whatever hours makes you happy.

In some fields in Canada (definitely physics, maybe not yours), the future advisor is the one that determines whether or not you get accepted -- i.e. you only get in if a prof is willing to pay for you. So it's more of a job hiring process than a committee that selects the best candidates. So, it makes sense that prof who sees your great application and thinks that you will end up somewhere else might not want to make you an offer. Because if they do, and you hold onto it for a long time while deciding your best options, you might end up declining it way later. At the same time, the prof can't offer the spot to another student because they have to wait for you to decline before the money frees up. If they wait this long, the next best choice might already accept another offer elsewhere and they're stuck with none of their top choices. So maybe that's why he waited for you to contact him first, to show that you're actually interested in the position. I think in a lot of these cases, it would make more sense, to me, for the prof to offer the position anyways to the best student with a time limit, or to ask them outright if UVic was their top choice. Either way, I am sure that the prof is thrilled to have you in his group and might feel like they were able to "poach" you from another school.

Here's my experience with Canadian banks. When my wife and I moved in together and decided to switch to a common bank for the majority of our stuff, we researched a bunch of Canadian banks. RBC -- I had their junior account as a child. After reaching adulthood, I changed banks because their student plan (the only one without a monthly fee) isn't very good. I would not recommend this bank since you can get much more services for less money elsewhere. CIBC -- From my experience, this bank is more useful for business clients than personal banking. HSBC -- Same as above. TD Canada Trust -- I have an account with them but it is not my main account. They are open 7 days a week, so that is nice. The "TD" stands for Toronto Dominion, so the majority of their locations are actually on the east coast, but I know there's plenty of branches in Victoria too. They also have locations in the US (mostly in New York, I think) which is branded as "TD Bank" instead. If you have both a Canadian TD account and US TD account, you can conveniently transfer funds from one to another online, I think. I probably would be using this more if I moved to a US city with a TD Bank. Bank of Montreal (BMO) -- This is where my wife and I do most of our banking in Canada. We really like this bank because you only need to keep a minimum deposit in one of our accounts and the banking plan (unlimited transactions etc.) is free for all of our accounts (e.g. savings, chequing, our joint and individual accounts too). This is much better than TD, where you need a minimum in EVERY account to get free transactions etc. Also, under their best banking plan, you can withdraw money at international ATMs without extra charges (from BMO) up to 5 times a month. In addition, if you show proof of being a student, you get the Student Price Card for free (attached to your credit card) which gives you a lot of discounts on stuff. I think BMO has the most benefits for students -- instead of having a low services no-fees student banking plan, they give you $8.50/month in banking plan credit. So, if you don't meet the minimum, you still get the standard banking plan for free! The down side of BMO is that it is also an east-coast based bank, so there are fewer locations out west, but there's still a good amount in Victoria. Oh, since moving to the US, we have created a US dollar account with BMO so that when we need to move money from one currency to another, we can do so with few fees. Bank drafts and money orders out of the US dollar account is free with BMO. Coast Capital Savings -- This is a credit union that is only in Victoria and Vancouver. This was my main bank before BMO. They are very nice and so far, have given me the best banking service ever. They are very plentiful in Victoria and their basic free account includes unlimited transactions already. Obviously, a big downside is that they aren't very widespread so it might be hard to find an in-network ATM if you travel elsewhere in Canada. In summary, I would probably recommend BMO or TD Canada Trust, depending on what you need. Check out their websites (make sure to get the Canadian version of the TD website) and see what fits you better. I know that TD sometimes will have offers like a free iPod if you sign up an account and put X dollars in it. You could open a bank account ahead of time in Toronto, but then your "home branch" will be set to something far away. This is no big deal though, because when my wife and I moved to Ontario, all our home branches were in Vancouver, and there was no real issues with that. Once in a while, you might need something specifically done at the home branch, so they might have to fax or mail stuff, and it could take a few extra days. But that is pretty rare and if you have a good reason to set up the bank account early (and perhaps transfer the money early), then it's probably worth the hassle of having a "home branch" that is not in the place you're living. Also, you might be able to change the home branch anyways, once you get to Victoria. ---- Cell phones: The Canadian market isn't as good as the US one! We were very pleasantly surprised to see how much better the US market was. For example, long distance works very differently in Canada. Basically, if you make a call outside of your city, even if it's the same area code, it will probably be long distance. Thus, if you sign up for a cell phone in Toronto/Ontario, you will get a Toronto number and using it in Victoria, BC would count as long distance!! You would have to pay extra for nationwide calling, which you probably do not need! Also, you might have to pay a fee to transfer your phone number from the Toronto one to a Victoria one (this fee might be gone now). The three big telecom companies are Rogers, Telus, and Bell. They each have their own spinoff company that offers a less expensive plan for lighter users. Rogers has Fido, Telus has Koodoo, and Bell used to have Solo (but they aren't taking more clients). There are also other companies like Verizon. However, I think the new big thing is WIND Mobile (http://www.windmobile.ca/en/Pages/default.aspx) They seem to have the best rates but checking their service map, they haven't expanded to Victoria yet (although it is a "planned expansion"). Overall, be prepared to pay a lot more for cell phones. I used to be with Solo and paid $25/month for 100 local minutes, unlimited texting and then an extra $10 for voicemail and caller ID. I didn't even have a smartphone. My wife and I pay the same dollar amount today for smartphones with unlimited talk, text, and data as we did in Canada for the above plan with "dumbphones".

I think that is an interesting point, but I don't think it's always true. For those of us without lab work, we can pretty much come in at 9, write code for 8 hours, and punch out at 5. If we plan our time efficiently, and with a bit of luck, we can even time it so that running our data analysis (which could take hours or days) so that we write stuff in the day, run it before we leave, and then check back in the next morning and fix anything if necessary. So, in the physical sciences, in non-lab fields, you might be able to say your hours are a product of how smart you work too. However, I don't think that part is true either! I actually think your hours are really a product of how much you want to work, which might be influenced by how much you are expected to work. I don't think this is field specific either. If you're a student that is working smart and get a lot done in 6 hours a day, many profs and students would just expect that person to work really smart and hard for 8-10 hours a day instead and get even more done than someone who works hard but not as smart for 8-10 hours a day. In academia, students are expected to work as much as they can. Whether or not this pressure is explicit or implicit, I think it is there at some level for everybody. This is one big valid complaint against grad school! This is why how much you will work really depends on your choice. Many profs I know (in the physical sciences) all told me that they didn't get where they are today by just working 9 to 5, Mondays to Fridays. I'm not surprised to learn that the biggest names in the field worked 80+ hour weeks during grad school and post-docs. After all, even if you are smart and/or work smart, to get ahead, you have to use that to your advantage, and the way to do that is to work more. However, my goal in life is not to become a big name in my field, so I don't push myself to work that hard. And I think grad school will be better for everyone if profs realise that not all of their students want to become like them. There's no doubt that what you get out of grad school is correlated to how much work you put in. It's important to realise what you actually want to get out of grad school so that you put in the right amount of work to achieve your own goals.

When I was younger, I used to drink it very sparingly (like a few times a year) so I can get that caffeine boost when I need/want it. I mostly did this because I saw my parents needing a cup every morning to fully wake up and I didn't want to be that dependent on coffee. Now, I drink it much more often and I realise that it's not as addicting (to me anyways) as I thought it would be. I usually drink some if I feel especially sleepy at some point during the day, if it's a coffee break in a long day of meetings or talks (e.g. conferences), or if it's a social thing, or if I feel like a hot drink. I do find that after a period of time where I drink a lot of coffee (e.g. a week long conference), I tend to drink more coffee for a few days afterwards but then I slowly ease back to my usual amount, which is maybe 2-3 cups a week. I really like the smell of coffee though! I like the taste of some coffees, but I usually like to add milk and sugar.

I agree with rising_star -- presumably you are in the Masters program now because you want to improve your credentials to get into a doctoral program later on. But, if you are applying this fall, then you won't have any benefits of the masters program yet (you would have just started!). It would make more sense to wait a year, then you can use the Masters program to help improve your application. It would be very strange for an applicant who is in a Masters program to not have a LOR from their masters program, and you wouldn't be able to get a strong LOR from just a few months in your new program this fall. I'm assuming this masters program would help you gain more experience or whatever you feel that you were lacking in your doctoral applications the last time around? If you think that your current qualifications are good enough to get into doctoral programs and that maybe you were just unlucky, or didn't apply to schools in the right range, etc. then you don't need the masters program -- there's no point enrolling at all and having to take out loans for living expenses etc. What I'm saying is that if you are confident of your ability to get into a doctoral program with your current qualifications, then why do a Masters for 1 year, drop out, and be in debt? If you want to use the Masters program to help you develop your experience and improve your chances to get into a doctoral program, then you should probably wait another year before reapplying!

I don't think it's strange, but maybe others have a different opinion. In Canada, when you apply to the Masters and Doctoral level fellowships (equivalent to the US' NSF fellowships), you need to submit a 1 page research proposal of a project that you could do for your MSc or PhD, but you are not bound to actually complete that project. You also have to list up to 3 schools and 3 professors that you could (but not bound to) take the fellowship at. When I applied for these fellowships, I sought out a potential professor who I would want to work with and explained that I was applying to the fellowship and asked if they had some time to meet with me (via Skype) to discuss a potential project I could work on. I confirmed that they are not under any obligation to actually hire me and that if I did get the fellowship and worked for them, it would save them a sizeable chunk of money. In both cases, I found someone who was willing to spend the 0.5 to 1 hour with me to help me flesh out a realistic research project. One prof even asked me to send them a draft so that they could make suggestions. I think writing up a real research project is much better than trying to make one up yourself. In workshops for these fellowships, one common thing that we are told is that often students will write projects that are too vaguely defined and/or too ambitious -- the profs are the ones with the experience to know what students can generally accomplish in the 2-5 years. Also, your case might be different, since for me, the prof's time commitment for the research proposal is pretty small. And, you should definitely prepare ahead of time to discuss an interesting topic or ask good questions instead of just Skyping with them and saying "help! I don't know what to do!" I think if you ask them in a way that does not assume anything and that you are properly prepared, then it shouldn't really hurt you, other than getting annoyed at you. If they are really too busy and got annoyed at your request, they would probably just ignore it and forget about you. But if you are not sure about that, then rising_star brings up a good point -- why not ask someone at your current school? I was not able to do that since my schools were small and my advisor was the only one working on the field I was applying to. But also, I wanted to take the opportunity to create a new contact with someone in the field that I had not talked to previously before.

I can't really help you since I decided to switch from Dell computers to Macbooks last fall when I started my PhD. But I have to say one thing -- stick with Powerpoint for presentations. LaTeX presentations (i.e. the "beamer" class) are not only really ugly (in my opinion) but all the presentations also look pretty much the same! If your school grants you a license to use Powerpoint, or if you can buy Powerpoint for cheap, I would definitely invest in it!

I don't think this is a bad thing at all -- you're not under any nondisclosure agreement (as far as I know) about your application status and you did not say anything unprofessional at all. There is nothing wrong with one applicant telling their friend about the current stage of their application. On this website, the results database and forum threads are often updated with speculations and concrete results as they come in. In addition, there exists wikis like this: http://www.astrobetter.com/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Rumor+Mill where hiring committees as well as candidates update the page to reflect when shortlists, hiring decisions, rejections, etc. are sent out. Specific people are often named as well. Granted, most of the above examples are anonymously posted and your Facebook comment would have your name clearly associated with it. But, for two of the schools I applied to, I actually learned about the decision through Facebook by friends already in the program about a day before the official decision was made. My friends knew because the faculty sent the names and contact info of accepted students to the current students in order for them to schedule prospective student visit events. Of course, everyone might have a different opinion, but I really do not think most profs will care that you wrote that comment.

I like to drink white wines -- usually the sweeter stuff like a Riesling or Gewurztraminer. I also really like the super sweet ice wines (i.e. natural sugars from the grapes, not added sugar) for special occasions. I don't really follow the "wine pairings" and just drink what I like with food that I like! Although, I could be convinced to drink something that I wouldn't normally drink (e.g. a red) if someone says it would really go well with whatever I'm eating. Wine is not usually my drink of choice though. I normally like fruiter drinks, such as fruit flavoured beers! My standard drink when I'm not sure what to get is a rum and coke. When I go out, I tend to be more likely to order a fruity cocktail since it's something that would take more effort for me to make at home!

On further reflection -- you're right -- I think I had less down time during my first year of my PhD than either of my 2 years in my MSc. The 3x 10-week quarter system takes up a lot more than the Canadian system, which is 2x 12 week semesters, so even though each quarter was shorter, I was busy with classes for 6 more weeks this year! I also didn't go home during winter and spring breaks, but I did take some days completely off to get some downtime. I try to think of my paid time commitment as a number of hours instead of a number of days, which helps me not think that I have to be constantly working. We officially get 4 work weeks off (2 weeks of institutional holidays plus 2 weeks of personal leave) so I compute the total time I "owe" the school for my salary to be 48 weeks x 5 work days x 8 hours = 1920 hours of research / teaching work. I definitely don't do 40 hours of research per week during the school year though, so there's a bit of catching up for me to do this summer!

A "better" generalization (if that is even a thing) would be to say that PhD students in a lab-based discipline might have to spend more hours in the lab or at work because of the nature of their experiments. I'm in the physical sciences and I probably work for about 40 hours a week on the things I'm paid to do (i.e. NOT counting my coursework). This is the right amount to me, since it's the typical amount of work that you expect from any other job. Also, if you divide the stipend by this many hours, then it's almost a fair wage! I know some people in the more lab-work disciplines don't always spend 100% of their time in the lab doing work. Sometimes they just have to wait there to watch an experiment or wait for another time point in their data collection. Many of them say that, for the most part, they might spend e.g. 12 hours a day in the lab but only actively doing work for 8 hours. But a survey at my school (all science PhDs) showed that while the mean # of hours worked reported by people in Physics, Math, Astronomy etc. is about 40 hours per week, the mean for Chemistry was 60 hours per week! It might depend on whether you would count every hour spent in the lab or just the hours spent working. I can see arguments both ways -- after all, doing Facebook etc. isn't really paid work, but on the other hand, if you are forced to be in the lab to just wait for an experiment, then whether or not you spend it doing nothing or on Facebook, you are still forced to be there, which is work. Indeed, at least in my home jurisdiction, if an employer forces an employee to remain on the premises during their lunch/coffee break, then they must pay the employee for that time. So if I had to work in a lab for long hours, I would probably count it as working time (and bill it as such if I was paid hourly). The only analogous experience I have is observing at the telescope all night but that only happens a few times per year so it doesn't add much to my annually averaged working week. Also, I agree that pretty much everyone in grad school do not have steady working schedules -- we might work more before a deadline but then we get to take time off during other less busy times!