TakeruK

I think I will have to disagree with you here, for the reasons I already said above. To clarify, I am not saying that the complainant must immediately go to the nearest Title IX reporter and file a report every single time they feel uncomfortable. If the complainant is comfortable doing so, I do believe directly discussing the matter with the other party is probably the most expedient and best path forward. It could lead to better mutual understanding and better interactions in the future. That's the goal. But, if the complainant is uncomfortable around the other person, for whatever reason (e.g. the other person is their superior or they don't feel safe etc.) then they should not have to confront or further interact with the person that is causing the problem. This is the job of the Title IX office, to mediate and intervene in these situations. Again, I think too many people believe that being investigated by Title IX office is the same as criminal prosecution. It is not. The whole reason Title IX exists is to allow an in-between that is a little more formal than the direct conversation mentioned above and a legal charge against the offender. Note that sometimes the outcome of a Title IX investigation is to recommend legal action to be taken. Title IX investigations aren't criminal charges on themselves. Reporting an incident to the Title IX office is **not** an accusation of sexual harassment. It is a report of an incident. Nothing more unless it turns out to be something more. If you place the burden on the person feeling uncomfortable to first have to talk to the other party and also "prove" that they are being made to feel uncomfortable, you are going to end up with a lot of unreported cases on campus and an unwelcome environment. Not every report made results in an action. If someone made a report involving you to the Title IX office but there is nothing that needs to be done, you might not even know about it. So while I definitely agree that being falsely accused is traumatic and stigmatizing, when the system works properly, this should not happen. An investigation only occurs if there is enough evidence to warrant one. Finally, I don't think it's our place to decide for anyone here whether or not the OP was "actually" sexually harassed or not. You mention morality and I think my moral code would encourage me to believe people when they say they are feeling uncomfortable or unsafe. They don't need to "justify" it. They are the only one that can define what uncomfortable/unsafe means to them. I think it is much more immoral to engage in practices that create an unwelcome environment on campus. This is why I think it is important to have offices like the Title IX office on campus where people can make reports. In terms of what would result in a better campus environment, I would rather the office have reports that aren't "justified" (and so no action is taken) than for serious misconduct to go unreported. I think it is more moral to encourage people to make reports when they feel uncomfortable than to make everyone believe that they must justify all of their feelings. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Thanks for pointing this out. No, as I said in the first post, Title IX is a US law and Canada does not have the same wording. Instead, there are different policies and laws that protect against the same types of misconduct. We just don't have a Title IX office. Many of the other resources that people (including you) suggested also exist in Canada. And as I wrote in the first post, but in case it didn't show up clearly, the additional resources that would exist at most Canadian universities would be the labour union representing students (if the role in which the student was acting was unionized---e.g. some places only unionize TAs and not researchers while others do both, so whether this falls under your collective agreement depends on whether or not you have union representation). These grievance procedures generally encourage direct communication (as we wrote about above) but in cases of sexual harassment or other if the complainant is uncomfortable, there is a procedure to escalate to department or university level procedures. If that is not resolved, since education and employment are provincial jurisdictions, students could go to the Province's Labour Board or Human Rights Tribunal. For criminal activity, the case goes right to law enforcement (as with Title IX in the USA). (My further discussion into Title IX was only in response to the general parts of rphilos' response)

I think I understand where you are getting at, but I believe this type of advice is very bad advice because of the way power dynamics work in academia, thinking like this will led to very few things being reported. In many cases, whether it's sexual harassment or other types of bad behaviour, it is easy for a grad student to incorrectly blame themselves or assume that the behaviour is "normal" or "expected". When an incident like this happens and someone thinks they need to make a Title IX report, the complainant (to use the policy's term) should not have to justify or investigate or determine whether or not the action they are complaining about fits whatever the definition of "harassment" you want to use. I think a lot of people misunderstand what actually happens with a Title IX report. The point of a Title IX office and a Title IX coordinator is to collect these reports/complaints/whatever-you-want-to-call-them. If anyone feels that something is amiss, they should make a report/complaint. Making a report does not "ruin someone's life" (see the many cases in the news where people who are found guilty yet still continue to work) nor does it label someone as an offender. Making a report is exactly what it sounds like: you report it to some central office. If the Title IX coordinator decides that the report/information is actionable, then they will start and coordinate an investigation. This due process is what will determine if someone violated the policy and what actions needs to be taken. Note that sometimes, for small offenses, such as situations where someone just doesn't know the social norms, the "action" can simply be education or training. I will also note that often the worst offenders will use this excuse as a reason to behave badly. For years, I worked as part of a group of grad students advising the Title IX office on policy education and outreach. So I know the process very well at my school (could be different at others). But, at our school, we always encourage people to say something if their "gut feeling" tells them something feels wrong. If it's not actually wrong, then no big deal. But if it is actually a problem, then no one can do anything unless information is collected. This goes back to my first paragraph: often, the people in positions of less power might assume that action X is okay even if it feels wrong. I believe it's far better to encourage people to report "X" to the Title IX office whenever it feels wrong, rather than to have to "investigate" it themselves to find out if it's wrong. The authority and responsibility to investigate lies with the Title IX investigators, not the complainant. Finally, I would also have to disagree that harassment (or Title IX violations) must happen at least twice (or whatever you decide) to count. Harassment could be repeat occurrences, but it could also be one single severe occurrence. In addition, it could also be many moderate severity occurrences happening to five different people, but only once to each person. These are all things that the Title IX office should be aware of, and if people don't report "X" when it feels wrong, it may never proceed to investigation and the offender can harm a large number of students one at a time.

What the heck?!! As others said, yes, this is totally sexual harassment, and no, you are definitely not overreacting just because he didn't physically harm you. There are lots of good advice above, but some of it won't apply, unfortunately, since your sidebar info says you are in Canada and things like Title IX is an American law (which protects students against sexual or gender based discrimination/harassment) at US schools. Depending on the school, the Title IX office can be an excellent resource, or not very helpful at all (based on my experience at US schools and talking to American students). However, the common theme in the advice above is that if you want something to be done about it, you need to go beyond your department. You did the right thing by talking to your advisor first, after all, it makes sense that you thought you could trust her with this. Unfortunately, it turns out that she will not be supportive. Just want to say that you didn't do anything wrong by speaking to your supervisor....she was the one that let you down and it's not your fault. Canadian schools operate differently depending on your province, but the best people to ultimately go to would be the university ombudsperson or the Graduate school. However, although there are systems and protocols meant to protect students, sometimes they (intentionally or not) protect faculty and harassers more than students. I would also suggest considering first seeking help from a source that will be your advocate, that will be on your side first, not a neutral third party like the ombudsperson or Graduate school. Find someone on campus who will listen to you and who will help you navigate your options. Some potential groups are women's groups on campus, student government, the Union (if your school unionizes their grad students), etc. Take care of yourself first, and find this support. Meanwhile, document everything so that if/when you are ready to speak out about this, you have data/evidence. Keep records of any emails sent so far. Take notes on all conversations you had about this with any person. Know that while you have every right to speak out about this and let people know, you need to also protect yourself. Unfortunately, there are so many cases where students speak out against faculty members doing bad things like this and there is very little action taken, and it ends up hurting the student. I'm not trying to scare you into silence, but it's important to protect yourself as well. There is no shame in waiting until you are in a position of power yourself before taking more serious action. At the same time, know that some of your options might include telling someone like the graduate school but not taking further action. Maybe you're not the only complaint and your report becomes the 20th report on this faculty member and allows someone to actually do something about this person. I'm sorry you have to deal with this. I hope that the supportive groups I mentioned will be able to help you navigate the pros/cons of what you could do next.

This is good advice. Also, keep in mind that almost all schools want to index/database/catalogue their students' theses in some way, so for details on how to submit/deposit your thesis, it might be the school's library or other entity that will publish your thesis. They might have requirements for things like getting permission from the publisher to include published materials (e.g.articles) and if you want to include other media (my Masters thesis has some videos). So check there too. I'm just really grateful that my PhD thesis did not have to be printed at all so I didn't have to worry about the paper type etc. Submission was electronic-only. I did choose to print some copies to get bound (one for my advisor, one for my parents, and one to keep for myself).

The above advice is all very good. I just want to suggest an alternative (or really, point out a fact that hasn't been mentioned yet): Choosing your MA program is not a permanent choice. If, after considering the advice above, you decide to choose your MA program, it's not set in stone. You can leave your MA program at any time! It sounds like you might have already considered it since you said that grad school will always be there but the MA opportunity might not be. However, if you choose the MA route, you can just give the MA program a try for one semester. Do the long distance thing for a few months and see how you feel. Are you growing distant? Is the MA opportunity worth it? After the first few months you can re-evaluate and decide if you made the right choice and if not, you can just not come back after the first semester and pursue your non-academic interests in the SO's city. Or, you can apply for PhD programs there later on (you might miss the deadlines for Fall 2018 so it might be Fall 2019). It sounds like you have been away from your SO prior to this summer (you said that you moved to be closer) so if you have a really good relationship, 3-4 months wouldn't cause any unrepairable "damage" to your bond. And to be brutally honest (hey, that's an advantage of a semi-anonymous online forum, right?), maybe if huge issues crop up from you pursuing your academic passions for just a few months might point to potentially more serious issues down the road.

I keep digital copies of all of my work (papers, homework assignments, notes). A lot of it is useless, I agree. But I have found a lot of my old work helpful in teaching. It's handy to be able to see what I have done in the past or what was assigned to me to inspire me to create new assignments. My old course notes (digitized) also help me think about ways I can present material. As long as there's no undue costs to you, it's worth keeping a wide range of materials, in my opinion. You don't really know what you're going to teach next and even though you might become an expert/scholar in one very niche/specific field, chances are, you will be teaching much more general/lower-level stuff to first year college students (if you go this route, of course). For example, I've tutored and/or TA'ed for things like first-year/general physics which is within the realm of my expertise but not really something I think about on a day-to-day basis as part of my regular work (i.e. the last time I took the course was 12 years ago in my freshman year).

I think it's a really easy trap to try to infer more meaning into what our advisors say than what they actually said. But if you want to overthink it, or if you know you will be prone to overthinking it, I like fuzzylogician's advice to think about the positive meanings too, not just focus on the negatives. After all, *you* are in charge of your overthinking, so why not, right? I also think that some advisors are not very good at mentoring their students. And that some advisors can make mistakes sometimes. One example I noticed in this thread is what @Hope.for.the.best's advisor said ("not convinced that [you] used other papers as a guide"). I think advisors should generally keep criticism away from their student's efforts, because they don't know for sure how hard the student worked. Instead, it's far better and far more helpful to keep the criticism to the output/product and discuss how the student could improve. If you don't think your student is spending enough time (or spending their time in the wrong way), there are many other approaches to helping your student manage their time/efforts instead of basically saying they didn't try hard enough. The reason I say this is because one thing that helps me and many students avoid taking criticism too harshly or too personally is to remember that not all advisors are great mentors and they screw up sometimes. Your advisor doesn't have absolute authority to judge you as a person, so even if they don't like your work, that doesn't mean you have no other value. For @serenade, fuzzy's tip above is helpful to manage how you feel towards your advisor's criticism. I think it might also be helpful to clarify your advisor's intentions when you feel this way. For example, from your post, it's not super clear if your advisor is saying these things to motivate you in order for you to pass these exams because they want to keep you as their student, or if they are trying to give honest career advice that they think you should leave the program. One thing that helps me use criticism effectively is to ask the person what they would suggest I do differently. If they don't have good answers, then it's easier for me to dismiss their criticism as someone who just wants to put others down. Even if they are right, I don't really have time/energy in my life to deal with non-constructive criticism. If they have good answers, then I know that they have thought about it carefully and care about my success and that helps me not feel as bad about the criticism.

I personally found that most students actually are able to carve out much more than 30 minutes per day, especially if they follow the advice of protecting/managing your time. As others wrote in the threads linked by rising_star, time management and setting priorities is really important. I would estimate that most students in my program have something like 10-15 hours per week to devote to personal interests. In some years you might have more and in others you might have less. And some weeks of the year could be very work heavy while others not so much. But on average, most students I know commit to some sort of leisure activity that "costs" about 10-15 hours per week. I know students who are part of a band, some that train for marathons, some that pick up a new sport (e.g. tennis), some that get their pilot's license. Others split this time over several activities that require less time each. Or, just use it as open leisure time and not engage in structured activities at all. There's nothing wrong with using your 10-15 hours one week to binge-watch House of Cards, for example. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything

I also learn very well from physically taking notes. In the past, even when professors provide handouts of their slides, I usually choose to have them as a secondary source of information but I still write my own notes, even if they duplicate what's on the slides. Personally, I learn best when I have to absorb the information, decide what's important and write it down. I even took this one step further and when I am reviewing my notes to study for an exam or something, I will write notes on my notes, usually trying to condense my course notes into 1 page per week of lectures. When I learned to do this, I found that my ability to remember past material greatly improved. That said, I know that pedagogical literature also shows that students, because we are humans that learn in many diverse and different ways, I don't expect students I teach** to learn the same way I did. My strategies aren't going to work for everyone and I try to be conscious of this---my students are not just younger versions of me. So far, I have tried to avoid making rules like "no computers" in my classes. Instead, I might start the class with some information just like what Eigen wrote here to encourage students who might benefit from physically taking notes to do so instead of just relying on computer notes. I try not to make anyone feel like if they are using a computer then they are inferior in some way, since I know some people really learn so much better typing up their notes. To clarify, I'm not saying that @Eigen is doing this at all, I just mean this post to be considered in addition to what Eigen wrote! (** At this point, my teaching experience does not yet include being an instructor of record who is completely in charge of a class, so I am very much still learning and developing strategies.)

Yes, you should definitely apply to fellowships. Most schools that fully fund their students also require students to at least apply to these fellowships in order to be eligible for internal funding. The main advantages to applying are the prestige attached to the fellowship, potentially more freedom to choose the lab to work in or do the research that you want since a prof doesn't have to pay you out of their grant (or pay as much for you), and potentially saving your advisor money that they could spend on other things. Some fellowships also come with research funds that allow you to go to an extra conference.

Sorry to hear about this, but I'm glad to hear that you will still have funding to support you as a student during your 5 years there. With the "new priorities" of the current US government, I know a lot of my colleagues were/are very concerned about having funds to support them through completion of their degrees and/or projects. Some potential alternatives were things like changing projects or finishing early. Have you had a in-depth discussion about these concerns with your advisor yet? I mean specifically about field skills. Maybe there are other opportunities for you that you can still achieve within your own program. It might not get you sent to Antarctica, which I believe is quite expensive, but perhaps there are analogous skills you can develop in different places. For example, my PhD program had a field geology course every semester that was basically a week-long field camp. Or, sometimes different research groups will need some extra hands for their expedition (in my dept a few years ago, there was a call for an extra helping hand for an Antarctic expedition and my friend was able to go that way). Finally, there are field camps run by other programs in the country in the summers that could be helpful too: e.g. https://education.usgs.gov/nagt/geofieldcamps.html Not sure if this is the type of field work you're looking for but maybe there's something like it for what you want to do. With these suggestions, it won't be your data and your work so it's not the ideal case you're looking for, but it will allow you to get exposure and training on specific field skills. I think it would help for you to determine exactly what you wanted to get out of the original expedition plan and then talk to your advisor and find out if you can meet those goals in some other way. I think it's good to do this even if you think your fieldwork in your 4th year will happen, since things can change and there's no harm in learning more anyways. I personally don't think switching institutions and starting over at another school/program just because you cannot do this expedition is necessarily a good idea. You aren't guaranteed anything at another school either and funding/grants will always limit or dictate the direction of your research (to some extent) in the future. So, starting over and losing your coursework and current progress doesn't seem worth it. It won't be feasible to do this every time you reach a funding hurdle! But if your main reason to work with this advisor was the fieldwork, and you're not interested in the project without fieldwork, you could consider switching to another group at the same school. Or, if there are many other reasons why you want to leave this institution and this funding thing is just "the last straw" then it might also make sense to move. One thing that wasn't super clear though was whether your entire PhD project is now unfunded, or that you can still complete your project with the current samples (i.e. only the new data part is unfunded). If your whole project is not funded and there's no funding for you to work in this lab/group at all, then I'd put more weight on moving groups or even moving schools (but again, if you stay in academia for a long time, you will encounter other unfunded situations).

I was reminded of a funny story regarding names/authorship in a field close to my own and I thought of this thread. You might enjoy this very short read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.D.C._Willard Maybe something like this would never fly in History, but I think this story captures how flexible / how little importance is placed on using "legal" names for journal publications in my field.

Glad to hear that! I've heard that it could be helpful for these long-distance relationships if your husband brings proof of your relationship and wedding with him to the interview, as one of the "just in case" items. So, things like pictures, programs, whatever stuff you have leftover from the wedding. Pictures of you two from past years could help. Again, it's pretty unlikely and as you said, they probably won't be as harsh as an immigrant visa. I have a friend who married an American while in the US and applied for PR status and agents went into their apartment (with permission) to ensure they were actually cohabiting instead of just a "green card marriage". Extreme case, I think, but if your husband has these documents, why not bring them! Oh also: since your husband is not entering the US on J-2 for the first time with you accompanying him, you just need to ensure you have entered as J-1 for the first time prior to his entry.

Is the European university position for this fall (i.e. a few months from now?) If not, then there's no reason why you can't apply to the European school and also the US schools and then decide what you would like to do more later on. I think Australia has a different academic year, so that might be tricky to apply to both US and Australian schools, but definitely doable, especially if you are applying to start in the US in Fall 2018 and in Australia for Spring 2019. I am also not sure what is standard in your field, but applying to 4 schools is a very small number if you are considering the USA. In my field, it's normal for most students to apply to around 10 schools if they are applying to the US. Finally, to address the main part of your question! Maybe this is just my field being different, but I think it is a little strange that you are applying to graduate school with a specific project in mind already. I think it's more typical for students to apply with some broad interests in mind, but what you actually work on will depend on what opportunities exist when you get there. As you said, for this particular opportunity, there is research funding, benefits and a good salary! I feel that in academia, what you work on depends more on what you are able to get funding for, not what you are personally interested in. So, my approach has always been to focus on developing skills and experience that will make me useful/valuable to my field, rather than worrying too much about the specific project. This PhD comic strip is making a joke, but it's also kind of true http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1436

Hi! My spouse and I just moved back to Canada after being on J-1 and J-2 status for the last 5 years. Standard disclaimer: the following is just based on my experience, and I'm not an expert on this, so your experience may vary! Probably a good idea to contact your school about this and/or legal experts. But hope this is still helpful. The full information from the Department of State on J status/visas can be found here: https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/study-exchange/exchange.html Although there is no direct requirement for the marriage certificate, as with almost any dealings with US immigration/customs, there is always a potential that they will request documentation beyond what is minimally required. In theory, the DS-2019 should only be issued to your husband if you already proved your marriage to your school's international office. Therefore, in theory, they don't "need" to see the original marriage certificate. However, my experience with USCIS was that they often request things that have already been produced (maybe it's just bad organization, or maybe it's to make it harder to be fraudulent). For example, when my spouse (J-2) applied for employment authorization in the US, our first application was returned to us because they wanted a marriage certificate copy (even though this was already proven when attaining J-2 status). On the other hand, when we entered the US for the first time, they didn't look at the certificate at all (my spouse is also Canadian so no visa interviews for either of us). So my opinion is that your husband should do his best to have as many originals or copies of documents on hand as possible. It's far better to have it and not need it. If he doesn't get the original marriage certificate on time, he should have whatever version you submitted to your school to get the DS-2019 for him in the first place. If the original marriage certificate doesn't come on time, don't worry about it too much because it might not be asked for. Since you already have the interview scheduled, I'm not sure if it's worth rescheduling or delaying. But you should definitely talk to your school about it. Based on your sidebar info, it seems like your school might have a very good office, since when I have tried to search for international student related things in the past, your school's international office website pops up a lot with plenty of useful information! Also, happy to answer any other J1/J2 related questions if they come up later

To clarify, when I said application package, I mean potential problems in both the content of the package but also with the schools that one is applying to. In the sciences, it's very possible to have a perfectly fine application package content but if an applicant is applying to schools that they're not well suited for, then one might not get any offers. But if one is able to find 10 good-fit programs (both in terms of research interest and educational background/experience) then not getting any offers out of 10 would suggest that one is doing something wrong in the essays or other aspect of the application. I am not familiar with the humanities / literary programs of course, so maybe you do mean that even with 10 good-fit program selections, it's common to have no offers. But in case it wasn't clear, just wanted to say that by "problems with the application package", I also include not picking schools that are good fits. I forgot to mention this! Good point! Usually not available to foreign students but a great resource to consider for American students applying to US schools. I agree with you that with unlimited resources, applying to more schools is certainly better than fewer! I also think echo449 makes a good point that there is an actual cost to these applications and so each (pair of) applicants will need to do their own cost-benefit analysis. For some concrete examples, let's say there are 4 schools in the LA area, 4 in the Seattle area, 7 in Boston, 3 in New York City, 2 in Philly and 2 in Ithaca. That's 22 programs. If a couple can afford all of them then of course applying to 22 programs will maximize the chances of getting what they want. But with limited resources, they might choose to skip the Philly and Ithaca schools and only apply to 18. (or perhaps even narrow it down to 15). I think this is also an important factor because most people don't have goals that they want to achieve "no matter the cost". It's very reasonable for a couple in this situation to decide to pursue other career paths or options other than both partners attending PhD programs in the same place at the same time. Perhaps a couple might decide the cost of submitting 7 additional applications ($1400, potentially, plus time taken away from working on the other 15 applications) is not worth this extra cost. So, I think it still makes sense to include context when discussing tips/opinions/advice. Applying to 20-30 programs isn't the best path for everyone and depends on each person's goals.

(emphasis added) Definitely need to consider this! Although I would also personally not be able to spend $4000-$6000 on applications and most people I know would not be able to either, I didn't address this directly since money means different things to different people. I would note that I'm in the sciences and all of the dual-academics I was thinking of before were also in the sciences, where the grad funding is better (two fully funded science PhD students should be able to pay the bills and even save a bit for the future) and the job market prospects are better (in terms of availability of positions and salaries in and outside of academia). So all these application fees might be a more reasonable "investment" for science fields. My advice for those limiting the number of applications for whatever reason (time, money, effort etc.) that it would make more sense, in my opinion, to apply to more** schools within a smaller number of geographical areas instead of fewer schools across more geographical areas. (**to be read: "as many as would fit your interests")

Most dual-academic couples that I know cast a wide net, but the actual number of applications really depends on the situation. When I think "wide net" for academic couples, I would think that both partners would pick a couple of geographical areas that suit their needs (whether persona, professional, or otherwise) and then apply to everything in those cities that makes sense to. Definitely only apply to schools that you are actually interested in, but I would consider the location to your partner as part of this determination. So, a wide net, to me, really means that you might be applying to schools that might not have interested you on its own, but if your partner has a position at a nearby school, that might be enough to make the school interesting to you. Whether this is 7-10 schools or 20-30 schools just depends on the locations the couple is considering. There are some places in the world that have 5+ schools within a 1-hour drive, so if you are considering 3 or 4 such areas, that adds up fast. On the other hand, another couple might be casting as wide of a net as they can and only find 10 schools that are worth applying to. There is a lot of random-ness in applications because of the many factors out of your control. Perhaps these numbers vary from field to field, but for my field, if you are a good fit for a program and you have decent application materials, there's probably a 20%-30% chance of admission. I agree with @echo449 that if you carefully selected 10 schools that would be good for you and prepared accordingly but still got rejected from all 10, then it probably has more to do with your application package than the number of schools you applied to. A good candidate might get into 2 or 3 programs out of 10, and rejected from 2 or 3 other programs where they were on the shortlist or just below the cutoff. However, when you are trying to have both partners go to the same city, if you only pick 10 carefully selected schools, it might be the case that the schools you get accepted were the ones where your partner just barely didn't make the cut and vice-versa. If you and your partner has decided that you must live in the same city, then my advice is to treat each city/area/region as its own independent competition. Hopefully there are 3+ good schools for each of you in each city (some couples only choose places where this is the case). I wouldn't worry about whether the total number of applications overall is high enough; just that each of you are submitted enough applications to one area. It's fine to pick one or two places where you only send one application if they are both really great fits for you (it doesn't hurt to aim high!) but I would optimize the location picking to ensure that most of the places you are applying to has ample opportunities for both.

Use your full legal name where you must in the application form. Note that some application software matches things like transcripts to your application form by an algorithm so if these don't match, it might take an extra step to link them (or the online software will show that they didn't receive your files, but a human has already linked them). As TMP pointed out, there are usually entries in the application form to indicate your preferred names. If you put your social/professional name there, it should be no problem. I would not write about this in the SOP or ask my letter writers to indicate this. Sometimes the application forms have a box at the very end for any "special notes". This is a good place to note that you use XYZ in your work and personal life, however, ABC is the legal name that may appear on some documents. I would also suggest that you use the name you want to be called in all other parts of your application. For example, your CV can have your social/professional name rather than your legal name that you never use. Finally, as TMP also pointed out, these profs can figure out your name from the above actions. If you really want to be extra sure, almost all application software assigns you an Applicant Number or something like that. Just include that in the header of all your attached documents so it will be quite clear which files goes with what. You can also put your legal name there if you really wish.

I second rising_star's suggestion to email first. Some conferences publish their list of attendees so if you see the name there or on the talk/poster schedule, you can open with that and say that you are interested in their program. Ask if you could meet them for a quick chat during a coffee break. If you are presenting, you can mention that too. Depending on the size of the conference and the preference of the prof, you might schedule a specific break time and a specific location, or they might just suggest that you find them during a break or poster session. Come prepared with some questions you want to get answered. At conferences in my field, you can probably expect around a 5 minute chat during a break. However, you might end up chatting longer if your interests really line up! But in my field, one shouldn't feel slighted if the meeting is only a few minutes. Also, a handshake meeting is still pretty good: I find that it was a lot easier for me to write a SOP about working with a person if I had met them before, even only briefly. And, it gives you the chance to make more contact later on. Finally, emailing ahead of time can also help you since the prof might also suggest you meet with their students or postdocs, which can be very helpful. Or, if they are actually not attending the meeting, they can connect you with their students/postdocs who are attending.

$2300 per year is pretty good in California. But I guess it depends on your coverage from this plan. The "Silver" plan from the California marketplace has been around $250 per month for a single person, which is about $3000 per year. But like others said, check out state provided aid, especially for your husband (unless he has a school or work program that covers him as well). Sometimes you can't get the state aid for marketplace plans if your school or work provides a subsidized program already. In my first year in California, there was no ACA and insurance companies denied my spouse coverage due to pre-existing conditions. We had to have coverage for both of us to satisfy our foreign student status, so the only option was the school provided plan for both of us. The school provided plan was subsidized for me and only cost $500 per year (full cost was $3000 per year). For my spouse, the cost to add a dependent was $7200 per year (After demonstrating financial hardship due to this, I got extra financial aid to cover this extreme cost). Also, this was before the ACA rule that schools/employers cannot charge a dependent more than the primary insured took effect. So, hopefully, with the current ACA rules, no one else had to be in the same situation as we were in!

I am sorry to hear about your troubles! Definitely talk to your dept and the funders ASAP. Has your original travel date passed yet? Time is of the essence because the earlier you cancel your tickets, the more options you have. Even "non-refundable" tickets does not mean the money is lost forever, they usually mean that you cannot get your money back, but your money spent can be used towards flight credit after subtracting some cancellation fee (usually $250 or so). Furthermore, if you inform them soon enough, it may also be possible to pay another fee to transfer the credits to another name (usually credits only valid for the original ticketed passenger). It's important to speak to the funders (the grad school?) right away because they might want to transfer your ticket to another student they have awarded a grant to. Of course, this all depends on what ticket price you're talking about...is it a domestic flight where the fees will eat up all of the value or an international flight that costs over $2000? In addition, I recommend calling all of the bookings you have made. If it's before the travel date still, you might be surprised about the flexibility some companies have, despite online barriers or policies listed. For example, for a personal trip, I had to cancel my Priceline hotel and car bookings because of a death in the family. Priceline.com requires you to pay upfront and has a strict no-changes, no-cancellation policy. However, when I called them and explained the situation, they immediately refunded my purchase. Also, do you have any travel insurance with these purchases? Check all the sources for insurance: if you booked through your school, your school might have something; if you used a credit card, check that card's policies. In the end, I think if you have shown you have done everything you can to mitigate losses, and that your crisis was unexpected, you can hope for the best case scenario where you repay the travel funds but the school will cover all of your cancellation fees (or whatever costs you are unable to recoup). However, this is not a guarantee, you should be prepared for (and also to fight against) the worst case scenario where the school expects you to pay for these costs out of pocket. Schools "shouldn't" do this, but I have no idea what your school might choose to do. In any case, taking the steps above will help you either get a good decision from them or fight against their complete-repayment policies if that happens. Good luck!

I don't see why an academic would be "put off" with a student that had troubles at home in the past. It's not your fault and it has nothing to do with your ability to pursue your program. That said, I can't speak for every person and there could be bad people out there that would unfairly hold this against you. But I don't think you should worry about it. At the same time, details aren't necessary in a SOP. I would probably recommend writing one or two sentences about this and describe it as "family medical issues" that were affecting your academic performance in your first few semesters but have now since been resolved. It would also be nice if you have a LOR writer that knew you well enough to say something about how they do not think your early grades represent your current academic abilities. I think this balance would hopefully provide enough details so that the committee knows that the first few semesters were abnormal for you, but not provide too many details to make the statement too personal (after all, a SOP is a professional document) and also avoids details that might cause someone to be biased or prejudiced against you. I think you don't have much to worry about because you repeated those courses with As and have mostly As and Bs. I think that speaks more strongly than anything you can write in a SOP anyways, so just 1-2 sentences is enough.

Definitely ask for your specific school. At my school, there is a high school tutoring program. Grads and undergrads are matched with 2 high school students and meet weekly for the school year. Grad students could potentially be paid (but they usually do not); most are volunteering. The set-up at my school was not employment if you were volunteering. This particular program was run by a non-profit that is related to my school, but it was not my school. The location was on campus. However, for international student status purposes, it was not on-campus employment because the employer was not the school. International students could not work for pay with this service unless they were going to use their OPT or AT periods. Since you will have to get approval for this work thru your international student office no matter what (even if it's on-campus because then you have to ensure you don't exceed 20 hours per week and your TA- or RA-ships also take up hours), it makes more sense to wait until you hear back from the international student office so that you get the answer specific to your situation.

It depends on the size of the program. During my Masters degree in Canada (the standard route is BSc -> funded MSc -> funded PhD here), I was the only student in my (specific) area out of 12 or so students for the entire 2 years I was there. But I still got a lot out of the program because I was working with one of the best people in my area in Canada! My supervisor was the only professor in this area (out of 7 or so in astronomy). There are certainly downsides to being the only student in your specific area. For one, the classes that would have been great for me were only offered once every 4 years, so I never took any relevant courses in my 2 year program. Colloquium and seminar speakers that visit would generally be about different areas of astronomy, not my research interest. Maybe 1 or 2 speakers per year in my field. Similarly, at paper discussion groups, journal clubs etc. people would be presenting about the other areas, not mine. My area of research is pretty small though. At the time of my MSc, the area that I was working in probably had something like 20 students in the whole country. And the department itself was small, about 7 faculty with about 12 students in total. So it wasn't a "red flag" to me to be the only one. However, I was very happy to move to my PhD department, in the US, where the field is a lot bigger (field basically invented by the USA) and I was in a department of about 24 students all in my area. In your case, I would consider the overall opportunities for people in your area before determining if it's a red flag or not. If the number of admitted students is small or the total number of students is small, then it might just be happenstance that there's no one in your area. If you have good research fit with a professor, then that might be worth the downsides I listed above that I experienced. For the application stage, my advice would be to not worry about being the only student in your area for now. If you think you would work really well with the professor, I think it's worth applying. If you get accepted, then visiting and/or talking with other grad students would be a good way to find out what it would be like to be the only student in your area at that particular school. If you really want to search for it now, try looking up what courses have been offered in the last few years, what the seminar schedules are like (who's speaking, on what topics etc.). Otherwise, you can also ask for these things once you get an offer from them.