TakeruK

It is definitely not a good thing to have all posters look the same. At least in my field, the poster hall has several hundred posters up at once and no one can view it all. So you want your poster to stand out (in a professional way, and I think fun colours or designs are still professional) so that you have a higher chance of attracting people to your poster. One of my friends is extremely skilled at graphic design (he could do it for a living probably if he wanted to) and people love his posters. Even in years after the conference, people talk about his great looking posters. So standing out from the crowd is definitely a good thing. I find that this blog, http://betterposters.blogspot.com/, has very good advice. They often have posters where readers submit their posters for critique and you can learn a lot from these. You can also browse through the older posts and see the range in poster styles and find something that you like. It's amazing how small visual differences can really change how you feel about a poster. That said, I would still spend more time on the content than the design, so in your efforts to make it look great, don't neglect having impactful content as well Edit: I was looking for an example poster that doesn't look like the 100s of other academic posters but also did a good job of communicating its science. I found one on the blog (below). It is an award-winning poster from a conference (and I can see why) but it's worth reading the blog post on it to see some of the design critiques.

It's plus $10,000 because the quote you put in your post only refers to the tuition requirement, that is, you should read the quote as saying "a single student entering a four-year degree program with an annual tuition fee of $15,000 must demonstrate funds of $15,000 to satisfy the [tuition] requirement and not the full $60,000 which would be required for four years." (edited added in bold). When you see the rest of the quote, it is more clear that the sentence is using these numbers as an example to show that, for tuition, you only need to show the amount for one year, not the entire length of degree. If you read further in the linked document, you will see a second type of financial requirement. For "all provinces except Quebec", it says, Student base: $10,000 for twelve-month period, prorated at $833 per month, plus cost of tuition. So, the total financial requirements are tuition for one year plus $10,000 for 12-months to cover additional costs (the site describes it as "The base amount for students includes all requirements related to transportation and maintenance, including the cost of books, equipment, and supplies.") It makes sense to ask for more than just the tuition since you will have to pay for rent and such while you are in Canada too. But you don't need your financial offer to cover tuition plus $10,000. You just need to show that you have enough money in total for this, so you may have to borrow from a student loan program or your family to show the amount in your bank account. (For comparison, a foreign student in the United States has to show much more than just $10,000 on top of tuition in order to qualify, because Canada expects that foreign students can probably find work to pay rent if necessary while the US forbids foreign students to work outside of their degree program).

With the new information, I agree with @Purkachu. You really are in a tough situation here. I'll stick to ethical solutions only in this discussion since I believe that students acting unethically harms all of us. I think you have three options: 1. Take the risk with your first choice school. Accept their offer and hope you get the scholarship from your government. If not, then you will have to think of an alternate plan. Note that you should also check with first choice school that you would be allowed to keep all of the money from your government scholarship: some schools limit how much external money you can get before internal money changes. 2. Play it safe with the second choice school. Take their offer. By the way, can you still take the government scholarship to this school? 3. The ethical way to try to have both is to tell both schools what's going on. This might work out, or it might backfire. So, there's a different type of risk to it. But if you tell both schools whats going on, then maybe your second choice school will hold your scholarship for you until July. Maybe not though, but if you were going to choose Option 1 above, then you don't really have anything to lose by telling your second choice school what's going on and hoping they will hold a spot for you. Since if they say no, then you are in the same situation as if you chose option 1.

It won't be a burden. 3 or 4 is nothing!

I just want to clarify one thing: Not every single person on J1 has the two year home residency requirement. This is not automatic, there is a chance that it will apply only if 1) you are receiving funding for your J1 program (student, postdoc, whatever) from your home government or the US government, 2) if your program is on a special skills list deemed "necessary" by your home country or 3) if you are in some certain types of medical training program. You are right that schools don't generally sponsor postdocs on H1B because the process is lengthy (especially with premium processing for academics cancelled by the current administration) and expensive. This is a problem that STEM researchers face too. I think that J1 might still be okay for you. I know some postdocs on J1 right now without any 2 year home requirement because their funding is not government-based. I mean, definitely take advice from your immigration lawyer---maybe they know something about your specifics that I don't, but J-1 certainly does not always come with the 2-year requirement. Another option you can consider is the national interest waiver green cards, such as EB-1 or O-1 (i.e. self-sponsored rather than getting the university to sponsor you). I think if you are capable of getting postdocs at R1 institutions, you certainly stand a chance at getting this type of green card. One of my postdoc friends currently on J-1 (without the 2 year requirement) is in the process of applying for a national interest waiver green card. Another one of my friends who was in the same situation got one a couple of years ago and now has a permanent job in the US.

Does your school run financial health / financial planning workshops for students? They are pretty helpful. Some basic stuff for making a budget and sticking to it: 1. A useful guideline on dividing your budget is to spend 50% of your money on things you absolutely need (rent, food, etc.), 30% of your money on things that are nice to have to make your life easier (owning a car, eating out, coffee, whatever) and 20% to save for the future. You can find more info by googling 50/20/30 or 50/30/20 budgeting etc. Sometimes it's presented as 50% "fixed" costs, 30% "flexible" costs and 20% savings. 2. If you find yourself having problems sticking to a budget, divide up your monthly income into "envelopes" for various categories and spend from those envelopes. The envelopes can be physical or virtual, depending on what works best for you. This is helpful if you find yourself losing track of where your money went when you just use cards etc. That said, the benefits of a credit card is great so you can make "virtual envelopes" either through apps like Mint (or your bank might have one too) or keeping receipts and being diligent at recording them in a spreadsheet each night / each week and deduct from your virtual envelopes (this is what I do).

If you are not sure, contact the CRA like others here and/or fill out the NR73 form (http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pbg/tf/nr73/README.html). You might not a non-resident for taxes in Canada, however, if this is your first year in the US, then we are talking about the 2016 tax year. Did you earn Canadian income in 2016? I think you will definitely have to file taxes in Canada this year if it's your first year in the US. For future years, if you don't have residency then you may not need to file anything. Note that when you file from outside of Canada, you must mail in your form, so do it soon! Also, you must include a copy of a the US tax return, so make a copy of everything too.

I agree with @rising_star and also want to point out that any student is free to quit their program at any time, even before starting it. So, you should not "fake-commit" to any school at any time. However, today, on April 15, you only have one offer and nothing is certain about the other two. There is nothing wrong with committing to this school today because you don't actually have any other offers. It would be wrong to take this offer with the intention of taking another offer that you already have. But at this point, you don't have any other firm plans so you can accept this current offer in good faith. Then, if something better comes along later on, then there is also nothing wrong* with backing out of your offer and taking something different. (Nothing ethically wrong, but you'll have to be prepared that the people at this school will be unhappy that you quit their program and if you want to apply to PhD programs there, it might make it harder for you). That said, the better approach would have been to ask for an extension and go with the above plan if they say no. But it's April 15 today, so it is probably too late to ask for an extension (you could try emailing right now though).

When I applied to grad programs in Canada, I did it about 1-2 months before applications were due, but our fields may be different. It's not too early to scope out programs and supervisors though, but I'd wait until the fall term has begun and is well underway before reaching out. One exception is if the deadlines for your field are in Feb, then I would suggest November instead of December.

In addition to what @fuzzylogician said, in many cases, it's in your advisor's own best interests to write these letters because any grant dollars you get reduces how much they would have to pay otherwise. But maybe there is a difference in field here? In my field, for the types of grants you're listing, these applications only require one letter and it's almost always has to be from your advisor.

Definitely unprofessional and out of line. I also second everything @fuzzylogician said about potential further steps / reporting it. I do have one thought about your committee though: you said it would be too difficult to remove this professor from your committee? Perhaps my department operates very differently but if you ask him to leave your committee, it would only sour relationships between you and him, and no one else. However, if this professor is also very influential then they can talk poorly of you after you leave. By default, our thesis advisory committee is also our examining committee, but this is absolutely not necessary. No professor, except for the advisor has a "right" to be on any student's committee, so if an advisor+student both agree that someone should leave the committee, it happens. That said, if you need this person in your professional life, then there is not much you can do. I personally would choose to cut off all professional ties with this person if this happened to me, but that's just me (especially since I would not believe they would write a good letter at all, so I don't really need this person in my life).

Definitely contact them and ask about the status of the official letter. My question for you is: Are you deciding between this school and another school? If this school is the only option you'd consider accepting, then you don't have to panic that it's April 14. However, if you would prefer to take another offer if the details of the letter aren't acceptable, then I would contact the other school and try to get an extension (assuming that other school is asking you to respond by April 15). But if this school is the only option you're interested in, then you should just contact them to ensure the letter wasn't lost or something. If they don't send the official letter until after April 15 then obviously they will give you longer than April 15 to respond to the offer. Finally, you asked about finalized TA appointment. No, you should not have an actual appointment at this point. Instead, you should have a promise of X amount of funding from source A. It could be range in values, and it could be X, Y, or Z amount of funding coming from A, B, or C sources. So in terms of funding, you don't really need to know exactly what work you are doing for the money, just that the money will be there. The exception is if you specifically wanted the money to come from a certain source (e.g. some people prefer RA funding over TA funding) then you want to ensure the letter says that. But if you are expecting TA funding, then you won't know your assignment at this point (usually it's decided over the summer and not final-final until a week or two before classes begin).

You're welcome. Sorry to hear about the frustration and agony of the non-response. But thanks for the update and I am glad that you feel good about the choice you end up making! Good luck next fall

Great! Can't believe I forgot about the TN option. I'm glad it all worked out and thanks for coming back with an update that might help others

This has now been moved to the Engineering subforum

A lot of this depends on your program's policies, your school policies and your fellowship. Your signature says you have the CGS-M, congratulations! As a CGS-M holder, you are expected to devote full work hours to your research and your studies. In this case, I don't agree with @ThousandsHardships because with the specific case of the CGS-M, it is not your choice on how you spend your fellowship time. Instead, you are obligated to spend full hours on your program of study. So, this means you should spend around 40 hours per week on your classes and your research. If you are able to do this and then spend 13-25 hours (per week?) on your extracurriculars, then that's fine. Just note that this is a lot of work hours though. If you are also TAing, then remember that TA hours do not count towards "completing your studies" since you are being paid separately for it. Fortunately, you are at a Canadian school so I think you have a lot more freedom on how you spend your time as long as you get the work done in addition to whatever extra things you want to do! Few Canadian programs require 20 hours per week of TAing (the CGS-M used to limit your TA commitment to 10 hours per week, max). And unlike US programs, Canadian programs don't require you spend *all* of your time in your studies (i.e. some US programs won't allow you to accept positions, paid or not, at other organizations while enrolled as a student). I am glad that you found a worthwhile program to spend your time on. I think you can do it, with very good time management skills. I also personally think it's important to have something else to be a part of at your school other than your work. I've been on my university's grad student government for almost the entire time of my degree, and in one year, taking on an executive position that did take a lot of time. I personally would not have taken on such a big commitment for the very first semester of grad school since it's nice to ease yourself into a new situation! I know in other places you have said that you are interested in PhD programs so my advice would be to try to avoid taking on too many more commitments until at least the 2nd year of your Masters (if it's a 2-year program). This is because when applying to PhD programs in your 2nd year, you only have work from your first year to show and so you are better off working more in the first year and volunteering more in the 2nd year than the other way around. I think contributing to the community and helping others is great, but don't forget your commitment to your fellowship (and i.e. the taxpayers that funded it) and remember that doing well in your career can put you in a position to help even more people in a bigger way later! Eventually you will reach a point where you have more opportunities to help people than you have time and then you need to prioritize how you spend your own time.

I don't think "lack of time" is a good reason to commit unethical acts.

@Thu.berc: I didn't know that you can file for tuition credits if you are a non-resident. But if you are non-resident then you definitely don't pay taxes on non-Canadian income, only residents of Canada are taxed on worldwide income. Being a student could qualify you for factual residency (see https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/living-abroad/taxation). As you said, it does depend on other factors. In my case, I was considered a resident but I have stronger ties** to Canada than what you have listed here. Another example of how taxes are a very much case-by-case thing and a reminder that everyone should seek advice for their own case after reading the general advice here (Note: Just wondering, did you tell the CRA agent specifically that you are a student attending school, since if you just say you are "seeking a PhD" and "working" in the US, it might not be clear that you are on a temporary student visa). ** for example: maintained Canadian bank accounts, kept most of my savings in Canadian accounts, maintain membership in Canadian professional societies, and intent to return to Canada (on my J-1 status with Canadian government funding, I am required to return to Canada). As I said above, my spouse actually files as a non-resident, so our taxes are always a little complicated/fun since we still file together as a household but one of us is a resident and one isn't! I got official confirmation from CRA that I should file as a resident because of my student status but my spouse (who have the same ties to Canada as me) should not because my spouse is living and working in the US, not being a student (like your CRA agent said, working 4+ years outside of the US is not "temporary").

Yes, that's what you do

My opinion is that you should not put the GPA on your academic CV unless you are specifically requested to include it on your CV. Usually things that care about your GPA will ask for it in a different form anyways. And if they are asking for a CV then they want to see that you are a good scholar as well, so the GPA isn't what they are looking for on a CV. In that vein, I would recommend that you look at CVs of your professors or post-docs in your field and emulate their format. I don't know about your field, in my field, the biggest difference between an undergrad/1st-3rd year grad student and a senior grad student / postdoc/ prof CV is the level of details for each entry. In the former, there are usually 3-4 bullet points for each entry. In the latter, we just list the entry with at most 1 bullet point and only in cases where extra clarification is absolutely necessary. So in my field, if you start adding GPA to your education entries (which would already have bullet points for thesis title and advisor) it might look a little tacky and give the impression that you're not as far along as you really are. But again, check what your field does and emulate those senior to you. Finally, not to put down your 4.0 GPA, but my school recently released the distribution of GPAs for grad students. Basically everyone has a 4.0, prompting our school to consider eliminating grades from grad classes altogether in favour of just granting "Pass/Fail" or "A / Pass / Fail". But most of the faculty didn't like this idea. I could imagine this change happening in a decade or so though.

lol, of course they would each think they are the most prestigious Although to be fair, the Trudeau foundation says it is "the most prestigious fellowship of its type", and I would count the Trudeau and the Vanier as two separate types of fellowship. The former is a fellowship awarded by a private organization that funds scholars and scholarly activities. Winning this fellowship also allows you to join the community of other Trudeau scholars, so it's more than just the money, it's admittance into a special group of people. Funding these fellowships furthers the goals of the Trudeau Foundation. On the other hand, the Vanier is a government-funded fellowship that is awarded to support the best student(s) at each school. This is public, taxpayer money that the Government of Canada has invested into science, engineering, and humanities. Funding these students further the goals of the Canadian Government. Ultimately, they all contribute to betterment of our society and it's great (in my opinion) to see both public and private organizations invested in the future of research in Canada.

Now is a fine time to start trying to initiate contact. In your email you can offer to contact them later in the summer if they wish, so that they know you're interested and then they can decide when they have time for you.

Just to add, for many programs, candidacy requires a separate exam that is separate from the qualifying exams. At least in my field, qualifying exams are considered the end of your "probation period". In my department, this happens after the end of your first year, after you have completed 2 research projects and the core classes (but not all of your classes---electives are still taken after quals). Passing quals signifies the end of your "trial period" as a grad student and some of the old fashioned professors will congratulate you on finishing quals by saying "Welcome to the department". So, in this sense, we treat the quals as a "rite of passage" and a transition between a "student" and a "colleague". To earn candidacy, we need to finish all of the course requirements plus a few other university-level requirements. Our department does not have a candidacy exam, instead, you write a 1 page summary of your plan for the dissertation and then your advisor defends it to you at the next all-faculty meeting. You are not present for this part, it's all about your advisor defending you and your plan. The faculty will then vote on whether to advance you to candidacy. By university rules, all students must reach candidacy after 3 years---if not, they must file a petition for permission to extend this deadline. The idea of candidacy is that you are finished all coursework and while you still have much more research to do, you have a plan in place for those last 2-3 years. Candidacy is an important milestone because there are many internal and external applications that require you to reach candidacy. For example, some summer programs in my field (i.e. one or more weeks long, meant to develop a particular skill or provide a particular experience) will only take you if you are a candidate. It also helps you get some end-of-grad-career fellowships or awards. I would say that for my department at least, passing quals is a rite of passage that counts you as a (junior) colleague amongst your faculty and the other grad students, while candidacy signals that you have a clear path towards completion.

Once you finish your degree requirements, F-1 students have a 60 day grace period to leave the country, unless you apply for OPT to extend the time you want to stay. OPT really sounds like the thing you should be applying for (I agree with everything fuzzy said). Generally you apply for OPT well in advance of starting your work, i.e. typically undergrads apply for OPT in like January or February for post-degree work (as most schools will end in May/June). While you are in OPT processing, you generally should not leave the country. You should definitely consult with your international office ASAP (tomorrow!) If you are going to finish your degree in May, then this might be really tricky to do. If your school year doesn't end until June then you might still be okay. You cannot start work until you receive your OPT authorization! Note that unpaid/volunteer work is still work---your F-1 status grants you permission to attend school/study in the US, not to work. But if you are finishing in like August or something, then you are probably okay for the timeline. However, there may be ways for you to make it work out. For example, you might be able to do the work as part of an independent studies course. This might delay your graduation (so probably not ideal) but your school might have some sort of continuing student status for taking courses after your main degree program is finished. Maybe F-1 OPT is fast for Canadians (no experience with this myself). Your international student office would know best and they would be able to give you all the options, so please talk to them ASAP.

In Canada, funding for MA programs are generally more generous than US programs because everyone needs to do a MA before a PhD. At some bigger schools, MA programs are funded almost as well as PhDs (i.e. TA/RAship that will cover tuition plus some living expenses, although generally PhD students will earn more than a MA student). However, at smaller schools, there are no University-wide minimum on MA funding (often there is a PhD minimum though) so MA funding can still be not-livable or barely-livable. Grad school works a little different in Canada, you can think of going from MA to PhD as a promotion and that promotion generally comes with higher pay (at some places the hourly wage for PhDs are higher than MA, so it's not just access to TA/RA/GAships but a higher wage too!) However, unlike foreign students in the US, foreign students in Canada can get work permits and work other jobs to earn money if RA/TA doesn't work out. I think if you are concerned about funding, you should definitely ask if you can talk to current MA students to see what they do. Definitely mention it to whomever made the offer to you as well, and ask specifically if you can find outside work if you don't have a RA/TA ship.