TakeruK

I just meant that I think there should be some kind of transparency in the selection criteria for things like fellowships and scholarship applications. I don't think there is anything wrong with giving preference to alumni, donors, whatever, but I think it should be stated on the application information. For example, if an award says "applicants will be selected based on factors X, Y, and Z" and then the committee later decides that they will also use criteria A, B, and C as well, then I think it's a little shady (depending on what X, Y, Z and A, B, C are!) Or even worse, they publicly say that factors X, Y, and Z are important and only tell a select group of people about A, B, and C.

At many schools I've applied to, there were special scholarships and awards funded by the Alumni association or some generous donor that is only available to children / dependents of alumni or something. I think that these exist because they want to attract children of alumni to their programs, which means the policy must be known. So, if this is not publicly stated, I don't think you would get an advantage (unless there is some shady things going on!)

I guess we forgot to ask about the job with the company afterwards and the terms of employment. For example, do you know where you will be working / living or do they have many branches and you can be sent anywhere? Is there a clear job description of what you will be doing after graduation? And maybe most importantly, is there a clause for you to break the contract if you want, and if so, what is the penalty? I had assumed this was part of the contract and you are happy with it and/or decided not to share the details. But if the job afterwards is the same as the kind of job you would be seeking after graduation anyways (which was what I also assumed) then it is a great thing. My first impression was that this was a company seeking to recruit promising PhD candidates in order to tap into their talent upon graduation. But it could be an evil company hoping to underpay you for 4 years by first giving you a bit of extra cash now!

Okay -- I misunderstood. I thought financial aid meant financial support of any kind, including awards or bursaries. Loans would definitely be on top of whatever funding package I may have. Also, I do agree with you that the extra cost of being international and having dependents should not be on the school to cover and it should be a choice we have to make (i.e. go to a different school or go into debt). What I mean to convey by that post was my opinion on the status of funding in UC schools for people in my shoes. There were other offers from public and private schools in the US that would have been more than enough to cover costs of being international + dependents (and there was also one that would not). So, because I was asked for my opinion on California, my opinion was that the support (for people in my shoes) provided by the UC system doesn't stack up very well compared to similar programs elsewhere. I speculated (wrongly perhaps) that this was due to the economic situation. I am happy with how everything turned out in the end though. Thanks for the tip about budgeting for HVAC. As for climate, Pasadena may not be an ideal coastal climate, but according to Wikipedia, the summers in Pasadena don't get much hotter than where we live right now. Southeastern Ontario is very humid and hot in the summers and very humid and cold in the winter! At least Pasadena won't end up as cold! Compared to our other options (Arizona, upstate New York), Pasadena definitely has the best climate for our preferences. Just to be clear though, I am not complaining about the actual funding package I received from my school -- one of the reasons behind our choice was that the funding package was reasonable -- i.e. (just) enough to pay for rent and the living standards we want. The 18,000 figure was from what I saw posted as the UC schools' offer for people in my program (which I did not get accepted into anyways). Thanks for the transit information though. Maybe it sounds like money is (too much of) a big deal to me. I don't need to be making a whole ton of it, but we needed to find a program where the funding will pay all the bills and not force us into any debt. Our mindset is that we don't want to put our lives on hold for 5 years for me to finish my PhD -- we want to be a part of the "real world" as well (i.e. doing/having things like raising kids, living in a place we feel safe and comfortable in, eating properly, etc.). When my wife and I made the choice for me to pursue a PhD, we realised we had to set limits for ourselves so that it's not just me chasing my dreams and my wife "putting up" with whatever situation we end up in. We agreed that I would only go and do a PhD if we could meet these so called "standards". We also have discussed things that we would and wouldn't be willing to compromise on for jobs after my PhD -- i.e. where and how often would we be willing to move for post-docs (I know this is far in advance). While I really do enjoy my research, I don't love it enough to give up certain things in life for science. I admire those that are more passionate and hope they will do great things for humanity's knowledge. But the reason I am pursuing a PhD is to end up with a career doing something I enjoy. If I make it in academia/research, that's great. But if getting there requires sacrifice of one of our fundamental goals in life, then I'm ready to walk away and do something different. I'm not trying to say that what we decided for ourselves is the "right" way -- it just what currently works for us. I hope it doesn't sound like I think those with different priorities are "bad" or "wrong" in some way, because that's not my intention! Thanks for the honest assessment. I know that many times I am still young and naive enough that I still would point towards the idealist view even when I don't know all the details. But I think I can only learn about the nuances from experiencing and learning from it. I also have to admit that the pseudo-anonymity of the Internet has allowed me to be much more vocal in my opinions and how "things should be". Maybe my online persona does not reflect the real me. Or maybe it does, but I have not taken a step back to really assess how I think. So, I appreciate the reminder to get that chip off my shoulder so that I can understand the different circumstances better. I will be well aware that I am a "guest" in California and Pasadena -- that is, I'm not a resident and I'm not going to go and try to change things etc. If the topics come up in conversation, I will share my opinions and how I think "things should be". But I will make sure to remember to not let me preconceptions get in the way of learning new things.

Yes it is harder for an international student to get funding. I have experienced this as an international student applying to schools and "flesh and blood academics" (i.e. faculty at schools I applied to as well as my current school) have told me it is true as well -- so that's at least a secondary source, I think! But this is more likely to be true in public schools, where in-state and domestic student tuition is subsidized by American taxpayers so us internationals cost a lot more, which means our departments have to spend a lot more money to fund us. With overhead, a prof who used to work at a US school told me that we cost over 100,000 USD per year, each. It does make sense that international tuition is higher, but Canadian taxpayers subsidize our tuition a lot more AND international tuition is lower, just saying We also don't qualify for as many external awards. For example, when I got accepted to one school, they sent all their students a message saying "apply to NASA grants X, Y and Z". When I checked the conditions for eligibility, it clearly says "US citizens only". I think your best bet for external awards is something from your own government, some multinational exchange program (e.g. Fulbright), or internal awards specifically for international students (rare). However, my profs here have told me that they expected me to have a much higher chance of getting into a high ranked private school than slightly lower ranked public schools. This did turn out to be the truth -- I'm going to Caltech this fall but I was rejected at all the UC schools I applied to (Berkeley, Santa Cruz). In addition, 30% international student rate seems to be normal from looking at the NRC(?) Doctoral Program rankings data but the UC system has only a 10% international student population!!

My test experience was almost the same! They did tell us that we had headphones that we could use since there will be people coming and going at all times. In addition, the computer test centre was used for all kinds of testing, not just GRE tests. But the waiting room was a quiet zone, so there was no noises when the door was opened.

I'm not sure about your field specifically, but in the sciences, I don't think having your spouse apply to the same program will hurt you. I'll explain why and maybe the reasoning will also be applicable to your field, but if not, then please just ignore my ramblings I've heard stories where having a spouse apply worked to their advantage because when it was decision-time, one spouse said "I'll only accept your offer if you take my spouse too" and it worked (this was in Astronomy). However, if one spouse is much less qualified than the other, it might not work, or the school may accept the other spouse and weed them out with coursework or exams. I don't think it will hurt your chances because if the school only wants to accept one of you, then there is no reason they would refuse admission to that person just because they have a spouse applying to the same program. They could just offer it to the one person and let him/her decide if they still want to accept. As for helping each other with work, what's stopping any two other unmarried students from working together anyways? Or what if two friends apply, or two people from the same undergrad university? I don't think it would make sense to exclude applicants because they happen to know another applicant!

I would also advise to definitely not just "move on". This is something unethical that the advisor has done, not "oh well, it's part of research life", unless students allow it to be "part of research" by treating it that way. Advisors are humans too, they are not all-powerful and faultless, and we should not treat them that way either. I also don't think there is a lesson to be learned here, because it sounds like the student has done the right thing -- getting a contract signed regarding a manuscript is not that common (maybe it should be) and probably the most you can do to protect yourself. I could understand if someone chooses to "let it be" and not pursue this legally because of the extra work it would cause. But not doing anything will cost a lot too -- firstly, you would have wasted all that time and have nothing to show for it. If you allow someone to take advantage of you now, what's stopping them, or someone else who knows about this, to do it again? And lastly, you are allowing future students of this advisor to be taken advantage in the same way, and by not speaking out, you may be helping other unethical advisors take advantage of their students too. Okay, maybe the last point is a bit dramatic, but what I mean is if everyone decided to "move on", then the problem will never get attention and it will keep happening.

U of Guelph TAs are unionized (part of CUPE -- Canadian Union of Public Employees), I think. So you should try to find out (either from the department staff or union website) if there are any rules about hiring TAs. For example, at my school (Queen's University), we are a part of PSAC (Public Service Alliance of Canada) and our Collective Agreement requires the school to hire TAs according to a list of preferences. The jobs first go to *qualified internal students* who were guaranteed a TA position as part of their offer, then to internal students who either ran out of funding years or were not promised a position, then to external (outside of department) students. I know you said your whole program is self-funded, which I think means that no one in your program was promised a TA position. However if your degree program is not its own department, then other students in the department may have priority for TA and/or RA positions. Also, if your department does not offer courses that require TAs and you want to try to TA in a different department, their own students may have priority. I don't know how Guelph's Collective Agreement works, or how your department works, but I just want to point this out because it might be a good idea to ask about this soon so you know your chances at TAing!! As for my summers before grad school -- 2 years ago, before starting my MSc, I worked part-time (20 hrs/week) with my undergrad thesis advisor in May-June while spending the rest of my time doing things in my hometown that I didn't get to do (or wanted to do one more time before moving) and hanging out with my friends. In July, my girlfriend (now wife) and I drove across Canada in a combined vacation-move to my MSc school location. In August, we arrived and spent the month setting up our apartment, getting used to the town, etc. This summer, before my PhD in the fall, I plan to finish writing and defending my MSc thesis and then move again!

The way I understood graduate school offers, is that the total funding package IS inclusive of financial aid. Most of the schools I went to told me that if I received external aid, they would decrease their (internal) funding for me so that my total take home income would be equal to or slightly greater than the original offer. This happened for my MSc in Canada for the first year (they just moved money from one pot to another) and will be happening for my PhD coming up this fall too. In addition, "applying for financial aid" is not a solution to "funding level does not meet living standards" -- I would not want to gamble having to go into debt for 5 years on the result of a financial aid competition (unless of course, I knew the results before April 15). When budgeting, I always consider financial aid as "a nice bonus", not part of the income required to pay for necessary expenses. Finally, as an international student, I qualify for almost zero financial aid awards in the US. I did apply to and receive financial aid from my own government (Canada) and I will have that for my PhD program, but as I said, it results in no direct increase in income except that (a) I will get my money as 2 lump sum payments per year instead of in monthly installments (this is great for startup costs) and ( splitting my income between 2 countries means less US income, which is taxable, while my Canadian income is probably not. Of course, you could say (and I would agree) that "it's my own fault" that I have a dependent. But the combination of US Immigration not allowing dependents of student visa holders to work in addition to the low level of financial support (and benefits such as subsidies for health plans) from UC schools makes California public schools a very unattractive place for international students with dependents. Maybe that's the way it has to be because of budget problems, but that is why I have this opinion.

I agree that a 1 year MS probably won't help you towards a PhD at whatever school you transfer to. But, since you do have a little bit of time now, maybe you should look and check the transfer details at the schools you are interested in for PhD. One of the programs (different field though!) I looked at would have waived my minor course requirements (about 1 quarter's worth of classes) for those coming in with a MS. However, if the MS is fully funded and you don't have anything else planned for the next year (i.e. relevant work experience), then maybe the grad school experience (research, courses, teaching) might help you do well in your PhD program in 2013, but it probably won't help your application much, especially if you are already competitive enough for top tier programs.

If others are using your work, especially if it's directly used instead of just "inspired by", then you should be cited in the bibliography or acknowledged in some way, depending on the case. But, especially since you say "younger peers", this just might be inexperience of a new student. I think the right thing to do would be to discuss it with your advisor -- but I wouldn't come across as accusatory, just ask him/her for clarification on what is appropriate use of your work. As for intellectual property (IP), it really does depend on your school and the grant(s) that fund your work. Your school should have an IP policy that outlines who "owns" the work. If you are funded by a grant, then you should find out this information too -- you might have to ask your advisor if you are being paid out of their grant. However, in general, from the IP policies I've seen (we get an info package with this stuff when we arrived), for the relationship between the University and you, the student owns the IP of their work, but the University retains the right to use that work for their purposes (i.e. you own the copyright of your thesis, or other work, but they have the right to use it to train other students or in course materials etc.). For example, my University says: As well as However, this is just the agreement between the University and the student. If you work as an RA, you may be covered under a different agreement that depends on the terms of your employment. In addition, if you have external funding, that might comes with other stipulations on IP as well. Finally, just because they may have the right to use your thesis to train other students, that doesn't mean that it's okay for others to use your work without attribution -- it just means that they don't have to pay a royalty or get your permission beforehand etc., I think. Edit: Wanted to add that my University specifically says that the thesis in its entirety is fully and soley copyright owned by the student, even if the student used work from other sources (with appropriate attribution), and even if it's a manuscript thesis where the papers that make up the thesis are co-authored with other people (i.e. sections of the thesis may already be published elsewhere and copyrighted individually). It seems that copyright law will treat a compilation of work as a different entity than the individual pieces of work.

Even with a deadline, it's usually okay for a prof to submit a letter a little late (as long as it comes before they start really making decisions), so with a rolling admissions program, so it might be okay if you let your recommender know and she decides to submit a letter soon. Do what Usmivka says!

I think the biggest location-dependent factor is rent, once you've subtracted that from your income, then the rest of it can be compared relatively uniformly with where you live now, taking into account obvious differences such as sales taxes. When I was considering schools and trying to make sense of all these different stipend values in different cities, I did some research to find the average rent for the kind of place I wanted to live in, then subtracted out rent and insurance and other necessary expenses. I figured it was pretty fair to compare the remaining balance directly at each school. So, I think it might be a good idea to compare that balance with what you are spending now on food and supplies etc. to quickly estimate how much you would need. Food and other expendable supplies (e.g. toiletries) is definitely the second highest cost after rent, and my wife and I spend $500 per month on this (so $6000 per year)...I think if I was living alone, I would spend 2/3rds of this, so about $4000 per year. School supplies don't cost me very much, a few hundred if I have a lot of textbooks to buy. Not included in the above lists are clothes (will need to replace worn out ones), and most importantly, startup costs! (buying furniture, moving expenses, etc.) But make sure you divide these one-time costs by the total length of your program though. Finally, don't forget taxes if they apply!

Personally, I would wait until September because most people aren't in "2013-2014" mode yet! I feel like this time of year, people are still arranging for the 2012 grad students to come -- i.e. current students helping new ones find a place to live, some are arriving early, visa paperwork being sorted out, and the 2012 students are looking to line up their first research positions / rotations and so on. Also, I found that these conversations/contacts are pretty short, it will be a couple of exchanged emails or a 20 minute skype call. Then they won't hear from you again for another ~7 months -- to me, it makes more sense to wait until the Fall when people start thinking about Fall 2013. But there was a good point raised about people having more free time now. Maybe a good compromise would be to wait until closer to the end of summer? It probably won't make a big difference, but just saying what I thought about while considering this last year!

Wooo long weekend!

Ironically, except for the fact that my stipend will be taxed, California's 8.75% sales tax will be the lowest ever (BC was 12%, Ontario is 13%) for me. But I would say that a 100k town is a big town, not even a small city (300k would be the lower limit for city for me; 1m in the metro area is a big city). I guess it's all comes down to perspective! Personally, I wouldn't want to live a big city because of the crowds. I moved from Vancouver (~1 million metro area) to a town of 150k for my masters degree. I had lived in the suburbs of Vancouver and didn't really like being in crowded downtown so I thought I would like the small town feel of my current home. However, I found that small towns could be very homogeneous (95% of the population is basically the same here) and trying to find international restaurants, or even groceries, is very difficult. It is also very hard for me to relate to others outside of the University here too. So one big thing I learned about myself in the last couple of years is that I'm much more of a "city-slicker" than I thought! Even though I don't like crowds and traffic and all that, I would live with that in order to have multiculturalism and diversity! I guess this is another reason why I wanted to only live in Washington or California (the east coast is populated too, but too cold there). I'm looking forward to Pasadena because it's a small place (~150k or so I think?) but right next door to a really big place, which is similar to where I grew up, except LA is about 8 times the size of Vancouver!!

I agree -- however, that doesn't mean it's not permitted/allowed for a student to try to submit a manuscript on their own and omit the PI's contributions. Not every contribution requires co-authorship. For example, I see many papers that acknowledge discussions and work from other people at the end of the article. I do agree that it's practically not possible for a student who originally intended to submit a manuscript with 2 authors (PI and student) to instead submit just their own work. Not practical, but not impossible -- they can still submit and the peer review process will take it from there. However, I recently saw an example (in science) where a student was trying to submit a manuscript based on their thesis work at their former institution. There are multiple people on a paper and one faculty member (who was the first author's former supervisor) was not "cooperating". That is, they refused to read drafts and kept saying "more work needs to be done" even though there was clearly enough done already. In the end, with advice from other faculty members from the new school, the student exercised their first authorship responsibility and privileges and wrote a final draft ready for submission based on the suggestions from the other collaborators who did respond. They gave an ultimatum -- this was the version to be submitted and those who disagree can withdraw their names. The paper was submitted without the PI (but it was not a single authorship of course). In another example, there was a large collaboration where some members of the team did not agree on an aspect of the analysis. The end result was that those who did not agree withdrew their names from the paper (even though they did work on the project) and instead wrote another paper presenting an alternative method. The result of the analysis was within error bars of each other though, but the people involved felt really strongly about the method used. The paper was led by a PDF, by the way. I'm not saying that students should or do publish single author paper regularly. I am just saying that there has been cases where faculty members who refused to participate in a manuscript end up withdrawing from the author list and reinforcing the fact that the first author has full control over the manuscript.

Okay I admit I might be exaggerating a little here. UC Berkeley and UCSC both rejected me but according to the results database here, those who got into my program were offered a funding package that includes tuition and a 20hr TAship valued at 18,000. Maybe these numbers are wrong though. Also, due to US Immigration rules, it may not be possible for my wife to work (I will be on a J-1 visa and she would be legally allowed to work, UNLESS we need the income to pay for basic expenses). So I am also considering support for dependents in the funding package as well. The biggest expenses are rent, food, and health insurance. We spend about $500 on food and supplies (toiletries etc.) per month so that's $6000. I'm not sure about the UC system health insurance program, but my new school will cost both of us a total of $6000. That leaves $6000 for rent per year, which is probably not doable. I can't imagine finding a 1 bedroom apt for less than $500 per month! And there might be taxes too -- I'm not sure how it will work yet. Even if I only had to pay my own expenses, at 18,000 per year, it would just pay rent, food, and other bills. I wouldn't really be saving up money. So that's what I meant! One could argue that I should include the cost of tuition in my income -- true but there is also an opportunity cost for attending grad school so I would say that kind of balances out. If I'm wrong about the 18,000 figure, which I admit is only heresay, then I take it back! My current funding package is around 29,000 and with the increased rent cost in Pasadena, it is just enough for the two of us to meet our budgeted expenses -- fortunately this means that my wife will probably be allowed to work and we can use that money towards entertainment and our savings.

I don't agree but maybe it's a program dependent thing. Unlike undergrad students, Graduate students' tuition are paid for by the department in our funding packages (but maybe this is field dependent!). So, an international student will cost much much more than a domestic student. Not only our tuition is higher, there are more overhead in grants that pay us too. So with hurting budgets, public schools are admitting fewer and fewer graduate students. The fraction of international students at the UC schools is only 10% (compared to the east coast schools which have ~30%). My profs told me that my chances were better at private high ranked US schools than lower ranked public US schools because of the funding issue. They were right -- I got rejected at all the UC schools but ended up accepted at private schools like Caltech and Cornell (which are much higher ranked in planetary sciences than most UC schools, I think). I also think the US does frown upon 3 year degree programs. A 3 year program is different from someone completing a 4-year US degree in only 3 years. The US grad school system seems to want its students to spend a long time in school. One grad advisor told me that if I wanted to do a post-doc in the US, I should not go to Europe for PhD (where the program is only 3 years for PhD) because US schools won't like that my PhD was so short (I could do a first post doc in Europe then go to the US though). By the way, this is from a Canadian student perspective. I feel that US schools would much prefer to admit their own students or at least students who went through programs similar to their own undergrads. But I could be wrong! Just sharing what I saw.

California is going to be my new home for the next 4-5 years! Here is the thoughts of one Canadian.... My wife and I were originally from the west coast of Canada. I applied to a fair number of schools in California because we wanted to live there. I think it's partly the " poorness" of the UC system that I didn't end up getting into the UC schools as an international student but I did end up being accepted at a private California school! I think the international student fraction at the UC school is only 10% and my program admits less than 10 people per year ... so on average ~1 international every 2 years! Also the UC funding packages are barely above the poverty line. California and Washington are probably the only two states we would like to live in as well. They are probably the two states that are most similar to the west coast of Canada (obviously, since they are on the west coast of the US!) in terms of climate, living conditions, politics, and the people. Although we had hoped California was moving forward, it was disappointing to see Prop 8 pass. Also it was funny to see the "governator" in action. Overall, we are excited to be in California for awhile. In general, we aren't so happy about the right-wing-ness and capitalism of the US, but it seems like California at least seems to be less right-wing in the urban centres anyways.

I just reserved my UHaul U-box service for late August! You can cancel up to 24 hours prior to your move so I figure I would book it now. It's an international move -- from Ontario to California and the estimated ship time is 12 business days. However, to other Canadians considering U-Haul (or any other pod service), apparently we cannot start the shipment until after we've already arrived in the US !! Also, with all the extra time to do customs related things, it is more than likely we will have to pay for more than 1 months rent on the box. I also read reviews online about this service -- it's significantly cheaper than other similar services (e.g. PODS) but lower in quality (box material, inability to track the boxes, boxes taking longer than estimated to arrive etc.) But basically it's still decent for small moves (1 pod only) and for those on a student's budget.

In addition, if your advisor doesn't have to pay you an RA salary anymore, they would also be pretty happy to save themselves some money! If you're lucky, that money might benefit you (more equipment, funding for travel/conferences etc.) too!

It could depend on field, but what you said applies to physical sciences as well. I'm not saying that it's generally a good idea to go behind your PI's back at all -- submitting a paper without your PI's support means breaking up a working relationship between you and your PI. You definitely won't get a good recommendation from that person either! But sometimes it is the right thing to do, especially if the PI in question is actually a bad person and trying to sabotage your career because they don't like you (so even if you didn't go behind their back, you wouldn't get a good letter anyways). Also I don't mean to say that papers get written in a non-collaborative way -- I was thinking of a situation where the PI is one of X authors (including a few other researchers and students). I am saying this from seeing a friend (a student who was the first author) go through a similar thing. One person on the collaboration refused to give the go-ahead, personally insulted others on the collaboration and dragged on the internal revision process for months (asking for an extension then only comment was "rewrite the whole thing" basically). It's never a good idea to do anything without PI support. What I meant to say is that there is nothing within the rules that requires a person to be on a paper because they paid for the work. In almost all cases though, the PI does more than just pay the student -- they provide the necessary support. But in the rare cases where the relationship is dysfunctional, it could be useful to remember that the first author is in fact in charge of the paper and suggestions from co-authors are just suggestions -- you don't have to use everything they say and in the end, they can either approve it or take their name (and their contributions) out of the paper. Again, the latter method is very damaging and it's likely that a paper solely authored by a student would not be as well received as one with an "endorsement" from the PI, but sometimes thats the way things have to go. It is in everyone's best interest if the first author worked collaboratively with everyone else of course.

What I meant was that the department should supply a decent ergonomic chair -- not one of the "floating" ones, but I've seen places where students get basically a folding chair or other painful-to-sit-on-for-hours type of chairs. I'm saying that students should get decent ergonomic support -- desks and screens at the right height, padding for keyboards/mouse if necessary, comfortable chairs and so on.