TakeruK

Congratulations!

You are not legally committed to anything unless you somehow sign such a commitment. I have never heard of a legal commitment for an academic program though. A deposit is usually non-refundable so you are usually only as financially committed as your deposit. i.e. if you change your mind, you will lose your deposit. I don't know what kind of program you are signing on for, so my only other advice is to check whatever you're signing to ensure that it's not some kind of agreement to commit yourself to also paying further deposits.

There's a good book by Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, which you might enjoy and find helpful if you haven't already read it. I also often recommend Marc Kuchner's Marketing for Scientists: How to Shine in Tough Times. This book is written by an astrophysicist who is also a country music songwriter and wrote a book applying what he learned from the music/marketing world to science. Not everyone necessarily agrees with everything in that book, but there are some really good chapters discussing how one crafts their "brand" as a scientist that is really enlightening and helpful. The chapters on telling an engaging story in your writing or oral presentation are also very nice.

I am also a person that does very poorly "on the spot" but I can manage to get by when necessary. In some discussion groups, I really dislike it when there is no moderation of who speaks, so it's basically whoever can talk over others, or whoever can say something first gets credit for the idea or credit for "participating". It is really tough on students like me who take time to think more deeply about the topic and need a bit of time to craft a response. I really prefer discussion groups where the question is posed and everyone is asked to spend 1-2 minutes thinking about it before asking for contributions. It's even better when there is a moderator to ensure a small group of extroverted or less-shy students do not dominate the conversation. Good science and thought should not be about who can speak the quickest or the loudest or with the most confidence! Unfortunately, it's not really practical to expect a student can change how an advisor runs their group. This is the type of thing I would classify under "advisor fit". Depending on how well you get along with your advisor otherwise, you could consider telling him that you are not able to perform optimally when put on the spot like this. But if he is not a person that different people might have different needs/abilities, then it might not be helpful to you. The good news is that as Eigen and fuzzy both said, with time, you will get better. It took me more than half of my time in grad school to be able to think of questions on the spot and actually ask them at things like seminars or to be actually able to participate in group discussions when it's no moderation (whoever speaks first). I still struggle with being asked questions on the spot though. One strategy I find that works well for me is that when I am asked a question I'm not even sure what they are getting at, is to ask for clarification. It's okay to ask a question back. Later, when you are more experienced, you can also answer a similar question instead of their question. For example if they ask a bad, unclear (or an unfair) question, you can redirect the topic to something you do know (again with more time, you will know more things). You can say something like, "I'm not certain what you are asking exactly, but if you mean [[rephrase the question into something you know the answer to]] then I think.... " ; usually if it was just a poorly thought-out/bad question, you won't get a followup. If it was a question they actually want an answer to, the followup will clarify more things. In any case, this allows you to actually show that you know things and lets you demonstrate your knowledge / avoid having to blather when you don't even know what the other person is getting at. Another tip: Listen to how politicians and school officials deflect bad questions or questions meant to trip them up. Obviously, you can't employ all of the strategies and I would be careful to avoid doing this for sincere questions. But I think that if people like your advisor or other students are just asking questions to "posture", then it's fair game to use some of these tricks back at them.

My advisor got tenure a few months ago. Similar to Eigen's case. My advisor announced the decision to the group mailing list and said that group meeting for that week would be a celebration with snacks instead of our usual stuff. A couple of students and postdocs decided to intervene because we didn't think our advisor should have to provide cake for their own celebration and tenure is an achievement worth celebrating! So, we got a cake, and made a nice card related to their research and had everyone sign it. Note: I did tell my advisor that we were planning to get the cake and champagne for them so that they wouldn't also get stuff (and to make sure they were okay with it).

wow! lol! time to plan a revenge prank

I think you will be fine, but it might be a good idea to talk to your advisor about this just to get more perspective. It is a little embarrassing, but trust me, many grad students (including me) have admitted more embarrassing mistakes before! Normally these scammers are in the business of stealing your money, not your research ideas. I am guessing that if you answered the next set of questions, they will probably ask for payment for the application or for the program itself. So I wouldn't worry too much. In the worst case scenario, they might use your text to either scam other people (list your abstract as a fake attendee to their future fake events) or sell it to unscrupulous people looking for academic text. But this is pretty unlikely as this implies they are able to distinguish good vs. bad academic text and if they could, it's unlikely they would be running this sort of scam. So I wouldn't really worry about it. Also a good idea to talk to your advisor in the future before submitting things like this. Even if it is a legitimate thing, I generally would want to discuss how much uncompleted work to reveal in an abstract with my advisor!

Usual disclaimer: I'm not an expert, just another foreign student sharing their experience. 1. You do not have to enter the US where you are going to school. When you enter, they will likely ask you where you are staying that night and what is your ultimate destination in the US. These are normal questions, just answer truthfully. Give the address of where you are staying that night and say that you will be heading to Boston for school. Just tell the truth and there won't be any problems. Whether you get asked for details just depends on the mood of the officer. Sometimes I get asked detailed questions about my field of study, other times I get nothing more than a "Thank you, welcome to the United States." Also, it's very normal for foreign students to enter the US not where they start school. For example, I entered from Canada and Canadian airports have US preclearance, so my original port of entry was a Canadian city. Many other students that come from Asia, for example, will connect in Los Angeles and since you have to cross the border/enter on F-1 at the first US airport, they will enter at Los Angeles and then make their way to the other coast (or elsewhere). 2. No, if you are staying for a long time, you don't need to have booked a return flight. If you are planning to return for Christmas and you already have a flight booked, then bring the confirmation since it doesn't hurt to have it. But I and many other students on long programs enter the US regularly with no return flight. In fact, my status will expire on June 30 (I am graduating) and for my last entry to the US (late April), they did not require a return flight booked.

What do you mean by visa documents? If it is the I-20 or DS-2019, just ask your MA school to print you another copy of them. If it is the visa itself, then I am not sure what to do. Ask your MA school's international office. Since the visa itself would likely be in your passport, I don't think this is the case or you would have even more issues, but I mention it here in case it's in your expired passport or something.

Just want to third @Eigen's and @fuzzylogician's advice! I waited until grad school started before buying my laptop and I'm glad I did for the compatibility issues. Also, many school computer/book stores have back-to-school sales and you can get the Apple education discount through them. I got my computer for $200 off the base price plus a $100 App store gift card which I used to buy some software. I ended up getting a Macbook Pro because back in 2012, I thought I would need a disk drive (used it for a very short amount of time lol); however, the additional computing power is nice. I can use my Macbook Pro to run short pieces of analysis, which is very helpful when I am away from my desktop for work. I try to not do a lot of work on my laptop, but I do occasionally need to do work on it when traveling and when working at the telescope. For more complicated tasks, I connect to my desktop (an iMac) and run the analyses there, then download the results onto my laptop. I'm going to start a new position in the summer, and again, I am waiting to see what configuration I should get. I have requested a iMac or Mac Pro for my desktop computer and I think it will be granted, but still making sure I have my work station set up before I get my laptop (which will be mostly personal use, but I want it to be as painless to do work on it as possible when I travel).

Did you make your poster in MS Word and the handout on Powerpoint, or vice-versa? If poster on Word, handout on powerpoint, you can probably skip the powerpoint. MS Word should allow you to save the poster as PDF. Then, open the PDF and print to the paper size that you want (just as Eigen suggested). No need to fiddle with MS Word and Powerpoint, it's best to go straight to the source file. If you must export to Powerpoint for some reason (e.g. you want to add stuff on the handout in addition to your poster) then try to see if you can select all of the objects in your MS Word document, group them, then "save as image". This will get you the full resolution image. Import that image into powerpoint. If I misunderstood and the poster is in powerpoint and the handout in MS Word, then it's even easier. Powerpoint definitely has a "save as image" option and this preserves the full resolution. Import that in MS Word and you're set. Or, you can also do the printing to PDF / scaled down as above.

I think it's important to also consider the context/reason why these grad school websites suggest making an effort to make friends with your cohort. In my opinion, the reason is that you do not want to be isolated in your program. Grad school can be a tough time and having a strong social support network is important. So, building good friendships in grad school is one (maybe the most common) way of getting this support. However, for you, @SarahBethSortino, since it sounds like you are already going to be in a good place in your new city, with friendships already established, then this might not be as relevant to you. If you find your own support elsewhere, that's great. I would say that friendships in grad school can serve other roles too though. Briefly, here are some reasons to try to make friends with your cohort and/or other students in your program (in different years): 1. They can provide support specific to your department/school and look out for you. For example, when I was starting out, if I have a weird interaction with a prof, I can go to my older friends to see what it might mean. Or, now that I am almost done, I help my younger friends navigate things like picking a committee, preparing for quals, etc. My friends and I, of all years, also can share school-specific resources or help each other out because if one of us needs to know about X, another one might know someone who knows a lot about X. 2. If there's something difficult going on in your life at some point, your grad school friends can help you out. Maybe they can take notes for you in class. They can make sure you're not falling too far behind. They might be able to submit homework/paperwork on your behalf or do random things that you might not be able to be physically present for. And of course, they can still do all of the other stuff that friends do for each other, this is mostly a list of reasons why friends in your department can be helpful that non grad school friends might not be able to do. 3. Friends in grad school (whether it's your department or another school) can relate to your grad school experiences more directly and sometimes it's easier to talk to other students about difficult situations involving grad school. Friends outside of grad school are also great though, as they help put things in perspective. 4. Finally, if you want to continue in academia, your cohort and other grad students will eventually be your future colleagues. At least in my field, they will be the ones reviewing your papers, your grants, deciding who gets invited to conferences etc. They will also be your future collaborators, potentially. A lot of people think about networking only in the context of going to conferences and meeting people, but you can build some of the strongest networks within your own department because you have way more time/chances to create a strong relationship. And your colleagues are also going to go on and do great things and meet more people and they can be the link to someone you need later on in your academic life. This is more related to the second reason why I think these websites suggest you make friends to succeed in grad school (and beyond). That said, I also don't really think it's necessary to go bar hopping and to do all of the partying stuff in order to make friends in grad school. Sure, depending on your department's culture, it might be a really good way to do it, but it's not the only way to do it. Friendships take time to build and I actually spend most of the time building friendships during the work day and on campus. You don't have to be uncomfortable in a bar if you don't like it, and you'll find people that share your feeling too, in grad school. It's not like everyone thinks that going to bars is the only way to socialize. Some of my best friends in grad school don't drink at all, or very rarely. I do think that spending time with your friends outside of work, i.e. when you both choose to invest your personal time into the relationship, is an important part of creating stronger connections though. For me, I do go to an occasional party, play on intramural teams with my friends, participate or plan in fun outings once in awhile on the weekends (e.g. Disneyland one year). There's lots to do that doesn't revolve around drinking, bars, partying etc. I personally take the strategy of saying yes to everything at first, meeting everyone, and then being a little more selective and choosing to spend more of my personal time with people I click with better. And also as @AP pointed out, you don't necessarily have to make friends with only your cohort. You might click/have more chemistry with some of the older students, or the more mature younger students!

Disclaimer: I don't have experience with the education culture in the Netherlands or Sweden, so maybe this doesn't apply. But I think your idea is a good one. In your shoes, I would mention that I worked full time during the second and third years, which impacted my coursework. Then, I would say that I plan on devoting my full effort and energy on my academic program in graduate school because I will not be continuing my employment. That's about the amount of detail and space I think you should use to address it, in my opinion. No need to say that you were skipping classes, and no need to directly mention your poor grades.

Ah okay. In my field, it's almost the inverse! Only the very top tier students get TT positions right after grad school. There has been one graduate in my program, out of the ~40 or so that graduated in the last 8 years that achieved this. And almost all of these students, at my school or elsewhere, will defer the TT in favour of a postdoc. There's nothing like the 2-3 years of 100% research to really jump-start your productivity and prepare you for the tenure clock! Some postdocs are externally funded so you can take your postdoc anywhere you want, and it's pretty common for someone who got both a postdoc and a TT position to take the postdoc at the same institution as their TT position, allowing them to start taking on students and start a research program without starting their tenure clock. Many other very good students will get some sort of prize postdoc fellowship and then a TT position in the next cycle. A large number of prize postdocs at my current institution go on to TT positions after 2 or 3 years here. The vast majority of people who end up in a TT position only get one after 2 or 3 postdocs. But there are tons of postdocs overall. I don't know the exact count for sure, but basically 75% of PhD graduates in astronomy and astronomy-like fields intending to stay in academia will have some sort of postdoc position. A smaller fraction are prize postdocs, which are funded with money awarded from national organizations (NSF, NASA, etc.) or private organizations (Heising-Simons Foundation, Carnegie, other similarly named organizations) or institutional fellowships (Miller fellowship at UC Berkeley, Harvard Society of Fellows, etc.). These postdocs pay really well and allow great independence in research. The majority of postdoc positions are not prize positions and they are more like staff scientists hired to work on a specific project. In astronomy, they still pay pretty well. Most graduates can expect to double their income going from student to postdoc.

My opinion is that you should not say anything to the effect of "I wanted to focus on my job, not my classes" when applying to academic programs such as the Masters programs. What do you mean by "poor" grades? I am not sure if you mean Cs and Ds or Bs instead of As. If they were Bs, then you should say in your SOP that you were also working full time while in school and that you had to balance work and school. If you were getting Cs and Ds, then I would just say you were also working full time---I'd leave out the balance part since if you got Cs and Ds then I am not sure you can really say you were balanced. Is there a good reason why you stayed in full time classes while also working full time? Most students would be expected to drop to part time status if they are also working full time. Unless you have a good reason otherwise, I would not say that your lower grades were due to not attending classes---skipping large chunks of your coursework and/or overbooking yourself are not good traits for graduate students. Maybe someone from your specific field can provide more details, but in regards to your last question, there is a reason why Masters and PhD programs want you to have a Bachelor's degree for admission rather than requiring work experience. You can't completely substitute your education requirements with work because graduate programs are academic programs. What are your long term goals? Is it academia or otherwise? You mention that you want to apply to Masters programs, but do you want to also do a PhD or get a Masters and work outside of academia? If you want to go into academia, you might be better off at a good university for your Masters so that you can get into a good PhD program. In this case, have you considered repeating the classes in which you did poorly to increase your GPA and then applying in a year? If you don't intend to stay in academia, then maybe this is not as much of an issue.

I also second the opinion of it being worth a try and to only apply for things you are really interested in. I would also add that you might want to ensure the time you spend applying for jobs this upcoming cycle doesn't cut too much into your productivity, otherwise you will hurt your chances of getting a job in the following year. I think this is really the only downside of applying this year, so as long as you are aware of this and can manage this, it should be fine. And you probably have very good time management skills to be productive enough to be competitive after 4 years I guess it also sounds like your field is one where you go from PhD to TT position without postdocs or other fellowships in between? For someone in my field, I'd definitely say to apply for jobs since you might as well get paid as a postdoc to do the work you're describing (since it won't start your tenure clock). I suppose that if you are going to start the tenure clock right away, that might make one hesitate, but if you are competitive enough to win a TT job competition, you can surely find a way to manage!

Some people think about doctoral programs as early as their first two years of undergrad, so definitely not the case to start applying as soon as you consider it! Here's the rough timeline I would advise for people in my field (but probably generally applicable to others as well). The years assume a start date of Fall 2018, but just add years if you are planning to start later. Winter 2017: Figure out what exams/test scores you need for your PhD program application. The reason this is so early is because if you need to write the Subject GRE for your intended PhD field, they only happen in April, September and October, so if you want to write the exam in April, you need to start the process now. If you do not want to write the exam in April, or if you do not need the Subject GRE, then you can probably skip this step. I don't know the timelines for the other exams that some schools might need. May/June 2017: - Start poking around department websites to determine which schools you might want to apply to. Make a preliminary list of everything you're interested in. Seek advice from other grad students, postdocs, faculty, advisors, mentors etc. - A good time to start studying for the General GRE (or also the Subject GRE if you want to take it in the fall). Personally, I think it's a good idea to do the GRE exam in the summer, before the school year and application season really begins, but it's a personal choice. If you want to write the exam in the summer, this is a good time to book them. - Start poking around various fellowships or scholarships that you might want to apply for. Note their due dates---some of them are fairly early! July/August 2017: - Write the General GRE exam if necessary. - Study for the Subject GRE exam if necessary. - Ensure you have a plan for all other exams you need. - Start making a shortlist of schools to apply to. - For scholarships or fellowships due in Sept/Oct, (e.g. NSERC/SSHRC/CIHR), start the application process near the end of the summer. Talk to your proposed mentor and discuss a possible project so that you can write a strong proposal. September 2017: - Write the Subject GRE exam if you booked it for this month - Decide which schools you would want to apply to. This doesn't have to be the absolute final list, but I would say you should know 90% of the applications you want to send by now. - Approach your letter writers and let them know your plans (if you haven't already included them in the conversation earlier on). This is a good time to double check with them that they are happy to write a letter for you, that they know which schools you're planning to apply to, and the approximate deadlines. Find out if they will be traveling or out of town. It's also a good time to seek their input on the schools you're considering in case they have suggestions. - Submit fellowship applications that are due October 2017: - Write the Subject GRE exam if you booked it for this month - Arrange for all transcript orders (or have a plan)---find out which schools need official transcripts, whether they need to be sealed, whether a scan is okay, whether they want your school to send the grades to the application school directly or not, etc. One of my schools takes 4 weeks to process transcript requests, and the earliest deadline is often December 1, so in October, it's good to have a plan to ensure you will have everything on time - Have some materials ready to send to your letter writers. For me, this is a sheet of paper with a list of all deadlines, school names, dept names and potential advisor names. I also attach a CV, transcripts and brief research statement. So, have these parts ready as well. - Begin drafting a SOP or other essays necessary for applications. At least have an outline / an idea of what you want to write - If normal in your field, near the end of October is a good time to start reaching out to potential PhD advisors and ask them questions about applying / let them know you intend to apply. I'd do things like update CV and write draft SOPs before doing this November 2017: - Write your SOP and polish it. - Update letter writers if any schools in your list have changed - Submit transcript requests if necessary December 2017 and January 2018: - This is when almost all deadlines are for my field - For each application: I send letter writer reminders 2 weeks and then 2 days prior to each deadline. I send another reminder 2 days after the deadline if they miss it. - Budget time to modify your SOP for each application. This could be as short as 30-60 minutes if they want the standard format, but could take longer if the school wants an especially short or long SOP. I usually start the SOP personalization process in the week before it's due. - I generally aim to submit between 20 to 30 hours ahead of the due date, to prevent last minute computer problems affecting submission. January-March 2018: - Wait to hear back, attend visits, make decisions!

I think these points are very valid and I feel the same way. To clarify, when I said to seek help to deal with it, I wasn't aware of whether or not you have already sought help. Your first post sounded a lot like other students under the stress of the oral exam, so I suggested some strategies that might help, but it sounds like you are facing much deeper problems. That said, the reality is that the skills that cause you a lot of anxiety and distress is absolutely essential in finishing your PhD program. Just like you cannot just magically overcome whatever is causing your distress, you cannot magically skip this part of your PhD program either. I'll ignore the part of your replies that make you sound very arrogant as if you already know what is necessary or not necessary to get a PhD in your field. The truth is that you do not get to decide this. Not all PhD programs are the same and not all PhD programs have the same goals/outcomes for their students. It seems like you are in a program that is not a good fit for you as it is emphasizing certain skills and experiences that you do not want/need (e.g. getting a job in academia). If you do not think you are in a good fit program, one solution is to find a new program. However, remember two things if you try a different program: 1) at some level, all PhD programs are going to be designed for the graduate to be able to have a career in academia. Some programs are solely focussed on this (bad idea, in my opinion) while others develop this alongside non-academic career paths. I think it is an oxymoron to seek a PhD program that doesn't prepare its graduate for academia. 2) There is always some sort of oral exam in a PhD program. Some quals or candidacy exams might not be as much oral exam work, but your final thesis defense will be an oral exam with questions out of left field. The other option is to seek additional help to manage this stress as best as you can. I don't know how much help you have already sought and your particular situation, so maybe you have already exhausted all possibilities. Sorry if that's the case. Ultimately, I disagree with you that these types of exams are not useful---I think these tests do select for attributes important in academics (again seeking a non-academic career doesn't mean you have different graduation requirements than those seeking academic careers). It is indeed cruel to force someone to do something for no reason, but you are not being forced. If the path of the PhD is not compatible with what you want to be doing, then you should seek different programs or different career paths.

I am sorry to hear about these struggles. You are a competent researcher. You have earned your spot in this graduate program and you have demonstrated excellence through things like the NSF fellowship. So, congratulations on the achievements so far! I have two answers for you. First, the philosophical answer: yes, I do think there should be better ways for students to demonstrate their competence. I don't think the oral exam is the best way but I do think it is one way for some people to really show their excellence. In my opinion, PhD candidates should have multiple different opportunities to show their knowledge is different ways. That said, I do think there is some validity to the open-ended oral exam format, that is, one where as you say, you cannot prepare for by reading up on your expertise but instead, you are being tested on whether you can think on your feet and surpass a challenge that you cannot prepare for. Exams like this can be well executed or become an unfair test, depending on how the exam is carried out, whether the examiners are trained, whether students are briefed on the expectations and whether the test is fair. Second, the more practical answer: despite the above and despite the fact that some faculty members might even agree with the above, the reality is that unless there is department policies or protocols for alternate exams, this is something you will have to do. I don't know you or this exam. What you say sound very familiar though, and I have seen many students in my department feel similar things to you and doubt themselves, when they really do have what it takes to pass the exam. I would suggest that you find some people that can help you get in the right mindset and approach this challenge in a way that will allow you to pass. I know that some people feel very uncomfortable talking about their science off-the-cuff, without any chance to practice or rehearse. So, if you feel this describes you, consider practicing impromptu responses. Some people feel uncomfortable when they have to speak about speculations or make statements that they are not sure of. It is also a helpful skill in science to find the right balance of discussing a new topic intelligently, without making unfounded statements. These types of questions require you to not just regurgitate knowledge, but to find connections between other topics you've worked on or studied in the past, and draw new connections while in the hot seat. These are just two examples that might not apply to you, but my intent is to say that you aren't just developing arbitrary skills to pass this exam but will serve no further purpose in your academic life. Again, I don't know the exam, but some of the things you need to learn to pass the oral exam will actually be helpful later on too. But I do agree that for some people, a big part of these exams just requires one to persevere and push through it. I hope you can find the support you need in order to pass it.

In order for the transition to go smoothly, I think you need to think about four angles: 1. Your financial cost to the new program 2. Your advising/mentorship cost to your new advisor 3. The new program's willingness to take you vs. other applicants 4. How your old program will feel about you leaving them Winning the CGS is helpful, and congratulations on that! This could help with issue #1, however, in the programs I've been in, the CGS doesn't cover the full cost to the advisor and the department. If you are also TAing while holding a CGS for example, then you will still cost the department more money. Some programs also charge each professor X dollars for every student they have, as sort of overhead, so you could still represent a cost. To tackle #2, I would say you need to have someone in the other department that already wants you to be their student. The above advice is great, I would follow that. Be open to the possibility that you will not just "transfer", but instead you might have to leave your current program and reapply to a new one. I am not sure if your CGS will allow this. I think so. But especially if you take a year or so to build up the right connections, you might have to resign your CGS and then you may no longer be eligible for new CGS awards. Again, I think you should be able to keep your CGS even across different degree programs, however, you should be open to this possibility if you really want to swtich. Related to the first two, whether or not the new program allows you to just join or asks you to reapply, you need to be able to compete with new applicants to the program in order to handle issue #3. So, whatever you do, make sure that you still meet all of the requirements that the new program asks of new students, otherwise you might face resistance. In other words, although the first two issues are best tackled by having a prof in the other department be willing and interested in having you come over, this one requires you and this professor to convince the rest of the new department that the costs of supporting you and training you outweighs taking on a brand new student that already met all the typical pre-requisites for admission. I'm not sure how different the new department is compared to your old ones, or if you already have the pre-reqs of the new department, but being able to demonstrate that you know as much and/or have as much experience as someone admitted directly into the department is important. Finally, the last issue is not about the new department at all, but depending on the people in your old department, they might be unhappy that you are making this switch, especially after they have invested time and money into training you. Ultimately, this is too bad for them---you must do what is best for you. But also keep in mind that some people might feel hurt by your move and it could impact you if you need reference letters from them or something. There are definitely ways to make the transition smoother too, for example, you'll leave in a better light if you enabled a smooth transition, training a replacement etc. but a lot of this will depend on the individuals involved. Some faculty members are happy if their students are happy, even if they end up leaving, while others only see students as an investment and will be disappointed that they "invested poorly", in their eyes. Just things to think about.

We do handouts in our field for posters too. But never more than one page. Often smaller than one single piece of paper. Sometimes it is just a scaled down version of the poster in case someone wants to "take home a copy", but this is less useful because 1) we all have camera phones and 2) most posters don't scale down very well. For my field, I would instead recommend a quarter-sheet that has your poster title, your name, contact info, and the main results (maybe just the main plot). Alternatively, if you have a business card, a quarter-sheet with the main plot, poster title and your business card attached is great too.

I think writing a letter to someone's boss to commend them for their work/service is generally a good idea.

I should have chronicled this. As the dissertation deadline loomed closer, it got worse and worse. It's slowly improving now, with brief forays into extreme mess as I empty out one drawer's contents on the desk and then start to sort them into "pack" or "trash" piles. But then I inevitably get distracted with some other task and the pile just stays on my desk for awhile

I personally like these types of policies better, instead of the "cheaters get an F no matter what, zero-tolerance" attitude. I definitely think that in some cases, the cheater should get a F. However, so-called "zero tolerance" policies tend to make people hesitate to report cheating instances, so it's not really zero-tolerance after all! I like my school's policy because it is more focussed on undo-ing the cheating and ensuring the student changes rather than just punishment. The punishment part comes from the Dean, not the professor, so it's not like one student can use the "it's the only time I've cheated" excuse in multiple classes (which could happen if instructors keep quiet about cases they resolve themselves). It's not perfect though, the main worry I have with my school's system is that since the focus is more on "undoing" and education, some students might choose to game the system by realising that if they don't get caught, nothing will happen and if they do get caught, it's not the end of the world. So the risks are lower. I think this is not a huge problem though and personally, I would prefer a system like this instead of one where students do cheat, get caught, but the system is so harsh that it will just expel students instead helping them learn from mistakes.

It really depends on the class and the policies. I don't proctor exams at my current school because proctored exams are against school policies. Profs are encouraged to have take-home exams whenever possible, but when profs decide that students must take an exam at a certain time, the policy is that no instructors or TAs are to be present. At my MSc program, I only proctored exams for courses where I was not the course's TA. They hire extra TAs to act as proctors for the really big classes (500-1000 students, split into rooms that have 50-100 students each). The policy for that course was that proctors are not to answer any questions about the questions in the exam itself, not even to clarify questions, because it's not fair for the students who have the actual course TA in the room vs. non-course TAs. The only questions we can answer are things like "how much time is left" or other logistical questions. Sometimes we have to do some checks like the type of calculator and ensure they don't bring more than the allowed amount of notes. At some other exams, the TA needs to go by each of these "notes sheets" and sign them and then they get turned in with the exam (not really sure how this really prevents a determined cheater but it's not my policy!) We didn't have much individual choice when it came to things like where to put bags. I think it was all in the front. For things I have control over, such as walking around, I try to really limit it to avoid distracting students (since I can't answer their questions anyways). Typically I arrange it so that I only walk down each aisle twice in the entire exam session. I like staying in the back most of the time because that lets me watch the students without them feeling like I am scrutinizing them. Like fuzzylogician, I tell students ahead of time about my "time left" announcements so they know what to expect, and I do what eigen does (1/2 time, 1/4 time, 10, 5, 1). To me, the listed behaviour sounds like a big distraction. It also sounds like the other TA is acting out of worry and concern for the students, however their actions are hurting the students more than they help! I would suggest that you talk to your co-TA first and approach it from this angle (recognize that they are trying to help, but show them why it's not helpful, gently). I think it only makes sense to talk to the professor if your talk with your co-TA doesn't work out.