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Everything posted by TakeruK
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Your calculation is not quite correct. However, you are right that the impact on each person is very different because of the huge range in stipends and tuition levels. Let's set up some basic facts first. To keep it simple, we are going to consider the case of a single, resident tax-payer with no special deductions. I'm going to look at your case, and also compare to students at my PhD school (I've since graduated). There is a huge difference depending on your current stipends and tuition at your school. Important data Current law: Total deductions allowed: $10,400 (standard deduction of 6350 + personal exemption of 4050) Relevant tax brackets: 10% for income up to $9350, 15% for income between 9350 to 37950 Proposed law (Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, TCJA): Total deductions allowed: $12,000 (standard deduction of 12000, no more personal exemption) Relevant tax brackets: 12% for income up to 45,000, 25% for income between 45,000 and 200,000 "Effective tax rate on stipend": I use this term to mean how much of your stipend you have to pay in taxes, calculated as tax owing divided by stipend. Your case (tuition 15,000 plus stipend 25,000): Current law: Gross taxable income is 25,000. After deductions, your net taxable income is 14,600 (25000-10400). You pay $935 for the first tax bracket (10% of 9350) and $787.50 for the second bracket (15% of 14600-9350). Your total tax owing is $1722.50, or $144/month. Or to put it another way, out of the income you get to take home, you pay an effective tax rate of 7%. Proposed TCJA: Gross taxable income is 40,000. After deductions, your net taxable income is 28,000 (40000-12000). You are sole in the new first tax bracket, so your total tax owing is 12% of 28,000, which is $3360, or $280/month. Now, your effective tax rate is 13%. The difference is that you owe twice as much taxes as before. "My" case (tuition 49,000 plus stipend 33,000): (not really me but for an American single taxpayer currently at my old PhD school) Current law: Gross taxable income is 33,000. After deductions, net taxable income is 22,600. I'd pay $935 for the first tax bracket (10% of 9350) and $1987.50 for the second bracket (15% of 22600-9350). My total tax owing is $2992.50 or $244/month. Or to put it another way, my effective tax rate on my stipend is 9%. Proposed TCJA: Gross taxable income is 82,000. After deductions, net taxable income is 70,000. I'd pay $5400 for the first tax bracket (12% of 45000) and $6250 for the second bracket (25% of 70000-45000). My total tax owing would be $11650, or $971/month. This is an effective tax rate of 35% !! The difference is a 4 times increase in taxes! Note: For a non-resident taxpayer, you cannot claim the standard deduction, so for most international students, the removal of the personal exemption means an increase of $3000 in taxes owed (now the tax rate is 45%). In my opinion, the real problem is not necessarily taxing the tuition waiver benefit. I think it does make sense to tax employer provided benefits. Canada taxes them. However, Canada also provides a lot of tax credits to offset the cost of school so that for a grad student in Canada, the net effect is that you pay zero tax on income (from whatever source) used to support your studies. But if you're a wealthy professional with an employer-provided benefit to pursue an advanced degree like an MBA, then you would fall in higher tax brackets and would likely have to pay tax on that benefit. I think that's fair though. The other, more relevant-to-USA part of the problem is that at many places (like my old PhD school), tuition is not a meaningful number. That is, it doesn't really represent the value of the education you're receiving and more importantly, it doesn't even represent any actual funds being paid from one entity to another. It's just a figure used for internal accounting. It's not a number meant to represent value and to tax on a meaningless number is going to be very harmful to a lot of people. A tax on tuition benefits should at least be calculated using real values!
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I don't have any helpful stories about my own romantic life, but I can say this: As I have gotten older, the men I meet/encounter are less and less of the type that would feel insecure being with a woman who is educated and successful. However, as I have gotten older, I meet more and more people in academia so the correlation may be with being a researcher rather than with age (but probably both). Whatever the case may be, I would say that it may not be a good idea to "extrapolate" past experiences with the future, since if/when you are looking for a partner, you will likely be meeting people older and more experienced and these people might be more interested in who you are as a person instead of who they want you to be.
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No, this is not a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest in LOR would be if the person was going to purposely sabotage your application through an untrue letter because they didn't want you to leave or because they had another student applying to the same program that they want to succeed instead of you. Although no one can know for sure what your advisor meant, I would say that it does not sound like they are trying to purposefully harm you. Despite the literal meaning of the words, I think the more common interpretation is that this is meant to be a high compliment. In writing letters of recommendations, some writers will often say something like "If this applicant was a candidate for my program, I would not hesitate to accept them" to indicate that you are strong candidate. i.e. they are not just saying that you're great, they would actually act on it if given the chance. In any case, no school is going to think "Well, Desklamp is an amazing student but their old advisor wishes Desklamp would stay so I guess we can't accept Desklamp". Even if your advisor was serious, another school isn't going to let your old advisor choose whether or not they will accept you.
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GRE - Results down to the wire
TakeruK replied to snickus's topic in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition
It's not clear if it's business or calendar days because the big range means that getting it 13 calendar days later might correspond to 10 business days. I remember getting my scores 2 calendar weeks after the test, so that doesn't quite help. You should contact OSU to see what you should do. I was in a very similar situation where it was Nov 25 and I realised one of my schools had a deadline of Dec 1 for international students (it's Jan 5 for domestic students). My scores would not have been ready until Dec 12. So I contacted the school and they said I can just submit my scores late and it will be fine. -
I would suggest that you cover three things in a description of your past research experience: 1) the main research goal/question, 2) what you specifically contributed and 3) what you specifically achieved (either solely or as part of a team). I think techniques is actually important because that's part of how you "show" instead of "tell". On a CV, you might list the techniques but you probably don't have space to show the committee what you know. Later on, you should condense your research experience part of the CV to not really list many things at all besides where and when you worked but as an applicant, having bullet points for these items is okay. An example of "showing" instead of telling: Let's say you wanted to tell them you are able to communicate scientific results clearly and effectively. You might mention that as part of the project, you regularly presented updates at group meetings, or that you presented at monthly collaboration telecons, etc. For critical thinking ability, you can discuss your role in the analysis and interpretation of data. If you did something like create figures for a paper or wrote part of the discussion section, that's valuable critical thinking right there. For less tangible things like this though, the committee look for critical thinking from your PI's LOR too. For the last thing (achievements), I think you have the right idea but I want to also emphasize that you should explicitly say what you personally did as well as what the team did. For example, many people might write that their work lead to a paper, which is awesome! But it would be even more awesome if the applicant also wrote what they contributed. Did you perform the analysis that led to the key result? Did you write parts of the paper? etc. And if you presented the work at conferences, make sure to include that too!
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I would recommend doing this! Although due to the different nature of the schools I applied to, I had to swap out the equivalent of one entire paragraph, not just the names. Since I referenced specific research facilities and framed my interests differently to each department that aligned better with the professors there. For example, in the sample paragraph above I wrote about understanding the origin of hot Jupiters to help us learn about our own solar system, which works well in a department with researchers studying planets in our solar system and elsewhere. But I could have framed that interest to place the formation of hot Jupiters in context with planet formation everywhere else in the Galaxy, since hot Jupiters are only 1% of planets, but they are a very interesting special case. I might have done this for a more general astronomy / physics department.
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Everyone is also wondering what this means for state taxes, especially in California, where state taxes are quite high! The US tax law change should not change your taxes in Canada because the CRA does not care what the US does with deductions etc. However, if your school changes the way they award money, charge tuition, and grants waivers etc. then that could lead to a change in Canadian taxes. Specifically, Canada already taxes tuition fee reimbursements/benefits from your employer (but you do get tax credits for tuition) so if a school switches from "You get a scholarship due to your student status that pays for tuition" to "You get a reimbursement for tuition based on your employment status as TA/RA here" then it could go from untaxed in Canada to taxed in Canada. That said, this change won't help US taxes either so it's not clear why a school would choose to do this. They might do this in conjunction with massive decrease in tuition fees, but if that happens, then at least the tax impact in both countries will be much smaller.
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Is the entire $54,000 scholarship money or is it a mix of earned income (RA/TA) and scholarships? If it's all scholarship money, then I think the change doesn't affect you. Either way you will be taxed on the amount above your cost of education, which would be $39,000. Similarly, if the scholarship amount is larger than $15,000 then no change to you. Obviously check with tax experts since I'm just some person on the internet lol. If it's a mix where the scholarship is less than $15,000, then it's tricky because let's say you earn $44,000 from a RA/TA-ship and receive a $10,000 scholarship. I don't know if you can say that your RA/TA ship is for your education (since in Canada, it would not count as tax-free income). So you might end up paying tax in the US on $44,000. TA and RAships aren't that high in Canada typically (but who knows, maybe you're a special case!) so I think you don't have to worry about it as much. Hope that's the case! Note that in Canada, unless they have changed again, for employment income (TA/RA), you will get some form of a T-4 slip (equiv. to W-2). However, you should have the **choice** to consider this as employment income or self-employment income. These choices have different tax implications. This may also influence how your US taxes work.
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Don't have much to say in my academic CV/Resume
TakeruK replied to samman1994's topic in Applications
It's up to you if you want to include the private tutoring or not. I did not include mine, but I did include tutoring as part of work (volunteer and paid) with educational organizations (e.g. freshman physics exam review run by the physics student club and free tutoring run by the student government). Typically, an academic CV/resume has these sections, in roughly this order, for an undergrad applying to grad school. You should probably have Education first all the time, but the 2nd and 3rd sections can be adjusted to make it look good and to emphasize whatever you have more of. The "if applicable" sections at the end can also be in any order that you want depending on how much you have to say, but I roughly put them in the order that committees may care about. I left out sections that you might find in academic CVs for more advanced researchers since I am assuming (but correct me if I'm wrong) that you don't have them. Namely, sections for grants PI'ed, students supervised, invited seminars, etc. Education - List schools and degrees. Only detail necessary is your thesis title and advisor name (if applicable) and any notes/honours/etc associated with your degree - Exception: Some schools specifically ask for GPA or list of courses here, so in those cases do that of course. Often they don't want to see it in your CV though. Awards - Especially competitive awards granted based on your research, or based on your academic profile in order to fund research. But also include academic awards that are meaningful. Do not include things from high school or earlier, unless it's a very high level of achievement. Research - List all your research experiences. It does not have to be limited to the field of your grad study. You can add a few points to describe each appointment and what you did and what you achieve. Typically, grad students start to remove these bullet points and eventually these just become 1 or 2 lines by the time you leave grad school. But it's okay to be a little more verbose in the application stage Publications and presentations - Typically people subdivide this into "peer-reviewed" things like journal articles and non-peer reviewed things like conference proceedings and presentations. If you have a lot of peer-reviewed articles (e.g. 2 or more) then you can consider just having two separate sections - When you list publications, you should list the full and complete citation. Often people will bold their names so it's clear where they are in the author list. For a grad school applicant, reverse chronological order is probably best. When you have more publications, consider listing your first author works in reverse chronological order, followed by your co-authored works in reverse chronological order. - For some fields, it makes sense to include patents here too Volunteering/Service/Leadership (if applicable) - Pick one of the titles or make up your own that best suits what you're going to put here. Extracurricular activitiess goes here. Keep them short and limited to leadership roles especially if there is a lot (these entries aren't that important so you don't want it to take up a disproportionate amount of space). Teaching (if applicable) - Only include this if you have experience. Other experience (if applicable) - Here, you can list non-academic / non-research jobs if you want. It could be interesting or helpful. Depends on the story you want to tell. For example, if you had to work side jobs to support yourself through school, that's something the committee might want to know about and it's a good thing to have put down. ---- I know you said you know what is supposed to go in but I figure I would list it out anyways. Maybe it will help another reader. But you seem to be worried that there isn't enough. So I hope showing you what typically goes in will help you see that your situation is pretty common. A 1-2 page CV is the typical length for an application. Take a look at grad student CVs on the internet and you'll see that it's not much more. Finally, it's optional to include one or two lines at the top that summarizes what your skills/experience are and what you are seeking in graduate school. Some people do this, some people don't. I don't think it's a big deal, unless you do it poorly. So it's up to you! -
I agree with what was said above. It also really depends on who this employer is. If it is a government position or other similar job, then they may be more strict than if you were going to work at a private university. At this point, it is out of your hands now so I would just say don't commit any more money towards moving until you know the final decision!
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Don't have much to say in my academic CV/Resume
TakeruK replied to samman1994's topic in Applications
The length of your academic CV is fine for an undergrad applying to grad school. Don't add things just to fill space. You should not include courses because it is on your transcript. Do you have any extracurricular activities related to academics? (e.g. student leadership, tutoring, etc.) -
Although I am no longer a student so this doesn't directly affect me any more, it does affect a lot of my friends and I think it will be overall bad for academia! I am hoping your point here is what will motivate schools to oppose this bill directly.
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Four letters of recommendation?
TakeruK replied to snickus's topic in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition
It's not a bad thing if you have more letter writers committed than you need. I absolutely agree with everyone above that you should submit only 3 if the request is for 3. (If it's for "at least 3" then under some cases it might make sense to have more. But that's another story). But if you have 4 letter writers who has agreed and you only need 3 (or 3 and only need 2) then you can think about which subset of 3 letter writers would be the best to submit to each school. You don't have to use the same three letters for all of your applications. For example, if one of your letter writers has strong connections at one of the schools, it might be worth swapping them in. Or, if one school has a different requirement (e.g. seems to emphasize something you might appear to be lacking in but this letter writer can speak to it well) then it's helpful to use them instead. Also, very few profs will be sad that you told them a letter is no longer required. They have hundreds of these to submit (for their undergrads, grads, postdocs, colleagues) every year, especially at this time of year, so one fewer obligation would likely be welcomed. -
Accepting and then rejecting a graduate school offer?
TakeruK replied to manuella56's topic in Applications
Can you write to this Canadian school and ask them for more time? My experience with Canadian schools (I'm Canadian) is that most of them do not follow the US convention of giving all students until April 15. Since it's much more like hiring for a job, admissions may even be "rolling" even if the application doesn't say so and has a deadline. That is, often the case is that when an application comes in, a committee reviews it to ensure it is good enough for the department minimums. Then, applications are passed to all profs and anyone who wants to fund you can make an offer. So, in reality, it's rare that the deadline is so firm that you must accept in 3 weeks. You should ask them about the possibility of having more time. In practice, what probably happens is that they want to give you 3 weeks where you have right of first refusal on this position. The time limit may just be in place so that if they do find another good candidate later, they might want to make another offer. So, if you ask for an extension, one potential response may be "Sure, you can reply after 3 weeks but the position may be filled by then." However, if this isn't your first choice school and you're willing to take the risk that the offer may not exist later on, then you may want to keep your options open still instead of committing. Like any job search process, you always have to weigh "offers in hand" vs potential offers that may come up. One other Q: you say this is for a program that starts next summer? That's not a usual start time and that might be why there's an earlier deadline. Are the other places you're applying to also summer starts or Fall 2018 starts? If it's Fall, then it's unlikely this program will keep your spot open long enough to hear back from programs in a completely different season! Is it okay to accept and decline later? Depends what you mean by "okay". Unless you signed a contract or paid a deposit, there isn't any legal or financial consequences to declining later (you may just lose your deposit if you did decline). However, the department will likely have committed funds to you and declining later will mean they may not be able to get another student. You could likely make them very upset. Especially since this is a Canadian Masters program, where you probably have funding and such (I'd give different advice for an unfunded US masters), I think this would be a very bad idea. If you are planning on continuing in this field, most academic communities in Canada are small so they might remember you and begrudge you for it. So, if the other options are Fall 2018 then you really should choose between this current offer or the potential of others. If the other programs are also Summer 2018 and will get back to you soon, then try asking for more time to think and hear back from other places and see what happens. Finally, to respond to your last Q: No, schools should not have automatic access and know where else you have applied or accepted. However, people can know people in other dept and since people are humans, they may talk and gossip. -
It might be field dependent and maybe even audience-specific. But I find the most compelling statements are the ones that read like research proposals. So I would write something like: I am applying to the Planetary Science PhD program as University of XYZ. I am interested in the origin of hot Jupiters, the class of gas giant exoplanets found at extremely close separations from their parent star. These planets raise questions that challenge our current understanding of planet formation. Any consistent model of planet formation must be able to reproduce these extreme populations as well as planetary systems like our own. At the University of XYZ, I hope to study this problem with <name a method/facility/resource/etc>. In my opinion, the compelling intro paragraph should state your goals. You should then state your research interest during your PhD. It doesn't have to be as specific as the example above but just so you get the idea. I'd follow up this interest with a justification/motivation: why this question? In answering the "why", I'd say you should focus on the scientific impact rather than personal stories that almost everyone would have. Then, end with a statement that expresses why their school in particular. What do you want to do to solve the problem? You can keep this short and general because it's not like you are committing to this path, it's just a taste of what you would be interested in, as a scientist, if they accept you. The rest of the SOP can and should contain more about you personally, but always in context of your academic work of course. Try to tie your past experiences to the skills required to achieve your grad school goals. And near the end is where you can go a little bit more in detail about your interests. Maybe name some labs you'd join for example. Some additional notes: - This example paragraph is more detailed than something I would have wrote when applying, since I have the advantage of knowing way more about the field now that I have graduated - This is just an example to show the format I have in mind, the questions I discuss has been somewhat resolved now. - This is certainly not the only way to do it, there's tons of good ways to write a SOP, I'm just sharing what I like best.
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Congratulations! I second what everyone else said: This is not up to the shitty professor and in many countries, you do have protections (Title IX in USA, similar policies in many other places). I think @telkanuru summed it up best: If this prof is someone you need on your good side for research purposes, then you would need to be a little more careful. Otherwise, it really doesn't matter too much if he's a superstar $$$ grant winner or not. If he's not related to your research field and your relationship with him goes bad, just make sure you have a faculty member on your side (e.g. your advisor?) to ensure this person doesn't end up with some major decision making power over you (i.e. do not have him on your thesis committee or any other exam committee). I'm glad to hear that you have a union and you already talked to your union rep. Keep working with your union to ensure that you get all the paid leave you are entitled to. Then, work with campus offices as @rising_star suggested in order to help manage your relationship with this prof. If your union was like mine, then you should have the right to view employment records after this year. You should do so after you are finished with this contract. If the prof wrote something unfair in it, you should work with your union to dispute it and potentially have it removed. In the USA and Canada (and many other countries too but these are the ones I am familiar with), it is illegal to discriminate against a woman due to pregnancy and the employer is obligated by law to make reasonable accommodations for pregnant woman workers. Even right now, if you are tired due to anemia, you should be able to request some accomodations. Work with the on-campus resources to find out what's possible. I am not sure what your current duties are, or if there are other issues than the walk you mention. But to address the long walk, perhaps you can get a parking pass for a parking location closer to your workplace or be excused from attending some things in person (i.e. do more grading at your home/office instead). It's nice to think about the other three TAs but it's not really your problem to worry about them. If the department is doing the right thing, they will hire another TA to take your place when you go on leave. Otherwise, it's the department's fault that the TAs are over-worked, not yours. In fact, the union that is helping you get the leave should also help to ensure that the other 3 TAs are **not penalized with more work when you leave**. At my last TA-unionized position, our hours of work are all in the contract and the employer cannot increase our duties without paying us more hours. So the dept would have to either hire someone else to work your hours or pay overtime to the TAs (depending on the contract, the TAs might be able to decline it or they might not, but they need to be compensated for the additional work). In any case, this is not your problem but after you have your leave and everything settled, you might want to let the other 3 TAs know to not stand for being given extra work. Finally, when you talk to the professor, you should let them know how you feel. Be honest about what you need and don't feel pressured into saying "yes" to something you are not comfortable with. As @telkanuru said, you are informing the prof that you are exercising your right to maternity leave as per <whatever contract/collective agreement terms>, you are not asking permission (unless the contract requires permission). At my last TA-unionized workplace, you are allowed to have a union rep with you during these discussions. They will have your back and they will be there to help you in whatever way that works for you. For example, they might be able to step in and say, "sorry prof X, you cannot make that request of student because that would violate Section N.N of our collective agreement". That way, the union rep is the one going up against the prof, not you. When I was the dept union rep for the last school, every time I had to do this, I was acting in my position as union rep, which puts me on the same level as the prof. I did not feel the need to be deferential since as far as the union is concerned, the prof has the same power whether they bring in $0 of grants or millions. I always worked with professionalism and aimed for mutual respect, even though I got called some pretty bad names from some profs on some issues. If you do want to bring in a union rep, make sure you talk to your union first so that you're all on the same page with what you need. Then when you request a meeting with the prof, you should inform him that you wish to have a union representative with you so that you can ensure it's scheduled at a time where your rep can be present. The prof probably also has the right to bring in their own rep and they might do that to intimidate you further but in the end, the law and the contract is likely on your side.
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I am not sure where you are but in Canada and the USA, it's very very common to have a contract drawn up for pretty much any agreement for services in exchange for money. Not all contracts need to involve lawyers and complicated legal language unless you are doing something very specific (which you're not). Instead, what most commonly happens is that once you have agreed on a rate and talked a bit about the project, the provider of services will give you a contract to sign. It will likely be routine as the provider probably has templates of these contracts they have used with their other clients, making tweaks (timelines, rate, etc.) as necessary. The contract will likely contain all of the things @rising_star said above. If you are okay with all of the terms, then you should sign it. If you're not happy with it, then you could request a change. Note that it's not typical for there to be a back-and-forth on the contract negotiation unless 1) you're doing a specialized custom project or 2) you or the provider had a different understanding of the earlier agreement (e.g. rate, timing of payment, delivery of services etc.). Without a contract, you have nothing to ensure you get the services you want. I think confidentiality isn't even the biggest concern, it's the timing of the services. You don't want this to drag on forever after you already paid a deposit to the provider. With a contract, if they fall behind, you can eventually take them to court to get your money back and cancel the remaining payments. Meanwhile, this allows you to hire another copyeditor knowing that you'll eventually get your initial deposit back (instead of fearing that you will end up having to pay both copyeditors). Again, maybe you are in a different part of the world where the culture is different, but in Canada/USA, it's a very foolish thing to hire a professional without any formal written and signed agreement/contract. Sometimes emails can be enough in court to prove a commitment, especially if no contract was signed but the other side really has no case if you have a contract and they violated it.
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Once you get situated, you will likely know how to best communicate with your team and who to ask these questions to (maybe it should be the other RA instead). You will also know when it is a good time to ask questions and when it's not. I don't think there is a right answer we can give you since each person is different. You will have to get to know them to know when they are open to discussing details vs. when they are under other pressure and just need to give you the instructions or get things done without having to deal with your questions. One thing though, the way you phrased this question, it sounds like you expect them to answer your questions (e.g. "so they can ... answer it in their own time"). Be sure to not convey this tone/expectation. It's likely not their job to explain these things to you so if they are willing to do it, it's on their own time and out of the goodness of their heart. Some people are happy to do things like this, others hate it and will resent you for asking and others still will be in between and depend on their stress level, mood, availability etc. Get to know them and find out. Just don't expect anything. If they say "because that's how we always do it" or something along those lines, I wouldn't push it further.
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However, even in these cases, aren't some Math people supported by NSF fellowships and such? These awards have tuition funding that would be lost to the school. In regards to other comments about removing tuition or reducing tuition, there's a ton of behind-the-scenes money transferring to fund grad students. For example, even in a dept that funds students by TAships, the dept still likely have to pay some $$ to the university for tuition of their students. In return, the university provides $$ to the dept that run courses in order to hire TAs and pay for their tuition waiver. This system keeps things in check: a dept can't just give 100 TAs/tuition waivers out unless they are earning it by running enough survey/undergrad classes (resulting in undergrads paying tuition to the school that they can use to pay the depts). At other places, like my PhD school, tuition is paid for by the dept or the advisor and it is linked to the stipend. So it works kind of like overhead. If you pay your students too low, you get charged a huge tuition to discourage paying students below the university minimum. But the more you pay your student, the higher tuition you have to pay as well. On paper, tuition was like $45k per year but the profs say the real amount paid is something in between $10k and $45k (no one ever gave an exact amount). Tuition was still charged at the full cost, it's just that the grad school "discounted" it for the advisor or department if they meet conditions. Having a higher on-paper tuition value also allows the dept and advisor to request more money for tuition payment from grants, donors, and external funding sources, I believe.
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In addition to doing this, please please also call their offices. I have talked to many people who work in science policy and specifically staffers in these politician offices. Calling and showing up at their office is the most effective way to be counted. Your phone call can be short, just call them and say that you're a constituent and you want to oppose (whatever tax bill number this is). It would have made grad school impossible for you because your expenses are currently X and they would be Y if this change happens. Then do this again every single day. Each time you call, the office will mark down a tally of how many people called on what topic. Each day, there is a report made for the senator/congressperson that X people called about each thing. This is how they measure which topics are important to them. If your issue only gets a few calls a day, it's not going to gain much traction. A lot of my friends have been making calling in part of their daily routine (they do it during their walk into work for example). They encourage each other to make 5 calls per day etc. Here's one article about it: https://lifehacker.com/the-best-ways-to-contact-your-congress-people-from-a-f-1788990839 I'm not in the US anymore so I don't know all the little details (bill numbers etc.) When I was down there, I was not a citizen so I couldn't call anyways. But I hope you and my US colleagues are able to get the message out.
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Could applying to too many reaches leave a bad impression on LORs?
TakeruK replied to TheLastJedi's topic in Applications
I did the same thing as you. All 8 of my schools were in the top 10 list for their respective fields (I applied to two subfields). I didn't want to move all the way to the US for something I could get in Canada, so I only applied to US schools that were better than the best Canadian school (in their subfield). You just need to talk to your letter writers about your goals and reasoning. My letter writers were also my mentors (i.e. I talked to them about a lot of other academic things prior to asking for letters). So I showed them my list of schools in the early stages and they helped me narrow it down and suggest advisors from places I didn't know about. -
I also suggest **not** sending an email. I don't think you need to bring this up again, just don't do it again. As others said, outside of academia, the world is a little different. It's not always about finding the best way to do things, but rather, doing things in the way that works to get the results you want. Each group dynamic is different and it seems like you misunderstood the environment here. Going forward in this lab and thinking about future labs, I recommend this piece of advice from Chris Hadfield: "Aim to be a zero" when you are the new person. Hadfield is a Canadian astronaut and he writes about this advice when joining any new team. He applies this advice when he was a new astronaut but also even when he was a super experienced senior astronaut joining a new group for the first time. This advice came from his book, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth. I think this book is full of great life advice and highly recommend it. You can read about the "aim to be a zero" part here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/11/20/chris_hadfield_an_astronaut_s_guide_to_life_on_earth.html What Hadfield means is that you can think of your contribution to a team as "-1", "0" or "+1". Most new people will always start at "-1" because you're new and the team needs to train you. Not knowing standard procedure can make you get in the way of others. A lot of new people with past experience will think they are great and try to be a "+1" and add something new to the team right away (e.g. your suggestions). However, this is likely to backfire. People might think you're arrogant or a know-it-all (e.g. in your situation) or you might go and try something new and screw it up and put everyone behind. Instead, Hadfield says to adjust your mindset and instead of trying to be a +1 right away, just aim to be a zero. Don't get in people's way. Do what the procedure says to do. Make sure you are a well functioning member of the team first, and then ask questions about the process later. In your specific situation, in your first few weeks, you should always follow the established protocol. There's probably a very good reason why that is the established protocol (i.e. they likely tried other ways before and found this one to be the best fit). I think the main questions you should be asking in this stage should only be questions to clarify steps if you are not sure about something. Once you are trained and can fit into the team, then it's a good time to start asking questions to understand the process. After this time, you will likely figure out the dynamic and know how to ask questions, or you could be very careful to make sure they know you are just trying to understand the reasoning behind the process better. And remember, suggestions like "why don't we do X instead?" aren't actual questions that signal seeking knowledge, they are the type of statements you make when you think your way is better. So don't ask it like that. When you do ask these questions though, don't be surprised or discouraged if the answer is "because that's how we always do it" or if they have been doing it that way for so long that they don't remember why. In that case, just go with the flow, don't make the group leader feel uncomfortable about it. Unless your job description requires understanding all the details, remember that you are not in a learning environment and it's not really their job to train you beyond what you need to do to get your job done.
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Yes, while nothing is certain yet, now is the right time to start calling your representatives to tell them to oppose this bill and tell them your personal story of how it will affect you personally. Unlike academic arguments which are often constructed as unbiased, dispassionate and impersonal ideas, the best way to engage with your politician is to tell personal anecdotes! At the same time, if you are already a graduate student put pressure on your school to oppose this bill because it's something that hurts them as much as it will hurt you. Definitely not a reason to panic yet. But a good time to start doing something!