TakeruK

The only way to get accurate information is to check with the office.

Ever since my 2nd year, I've been a very active member of my school's grad student government (i.e. 4 out of 5 years total). I find the work very rewarding personally, and while I do include it as a line on my CV, as fuzzylogician says, I am pretty sure it is never the deciding factor for anything outside of my school. At my school, our grad student organization is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit that is independent of the school, so it allows us to do a few things that might not be as easy at other places. I've been part of our organization as a department representative but also spent a year in a much more active role, leading our Advocacy Committee and being part of the executive of the organization. Here are some things I really enjoyed about serving on my student government: 1. A way to give back to the community. In my first year, I benefited a lot from programs designed to help students in need. Along the way, I learned a lot about how things work and how students can be helped. So I find that advocating for students through our student association and also helping make students aware of resources to be a good way to pay it forward. 2. You get to meet, make friends and work with people from all over campus. Otherwise, my social circle would mostly just be my department or research group. 3. The grad student association plans a lot of social and fun events too (in addition to great advocacy work) so you get to know about these first and also give input on future events. 4. During my year on the executive, I had a lot of regular contact with the Dean, VP Student Affairs, and the President of our University. We met with the President once or twice a year and the Dean and VP for Students every month. My school is a small school with a relatively flat hierarchical structure so it's easy to meet with people who can make a difference. Another nice thing about being at a small school is that I can email the Dean and set up a meeting within 2 weeks to talk about an important issue. 5. I've got to participate in a lot of job interviews as the interviewer. When hiring student services staff, they generally ask for volunteer student interviewers from the student government. I also was part of a hiring committee for the Associate Graduate Dean position at my school. I would say that if you are looking for career related benefits, this experience was the most helpful. Even though it was not for an academic research position, there are a lot of parallels in that process and postdoc/faculty processes (so I'm told). 6. I really do enjoy running events and workshops that inform people and make people happy. This Friday, I am arranging for the local humane society to take adoptable dogs on a field on campus for students to interact with as a de-stress type event but also to provide information on students who want to adopt a pet or volunteer. Next month, we're doing a workshop on navigating the US healthcare system. It's our third time running this and people are always very grateful for the knowledge. I find this very rewarding! Also, a lot of the things I learn from the research on these workshops are helpful to me, and sometimes, to people on these forums 7. Finally, in research, we often spend many long hours making small progress that we can't really see or things that take months or years to come to fruition. I find it helpful to have smaller projects (like planning an event/workshop) that doesn't take as much time and you can see it from start to finish in a couple of weeks. There is a definite end to these projects! I find that these small accomplishments help me get through research struggles and frustrations as they are a reminder that I am a capable person that can get things done! There are certainly lots more and some are more specific to my school and you can PM me if you want more information. You also asked about the downsides: - Not all of your projects/goals will succeed. There are some stuff I've been working on since my 2nd year on the government that is still slowly plodding along. It's frustrating when you run into administrators that either just don't get it, or are outright hostile to your goals. For the most part, 90% of the administrators here are very supportive of students but there are some that are much more challenging to work with. So it could add extra stress to your life. - Not really a downside but info on how much time this will take: For our organization, the minimum commitment is a few hours per month. When I was on the executive, I spend probably 20 hours per month carrying out my responsibilities. This is about half of a work day per week. On average, I do take on more projects than the typical member of the association so I would say I work 5-10 hours on student government stuff per month. - If your advisor doesn't support this kind of stuff, you might feel like you have to hide this from them, which makes it extra stressful for you. Fortunately for me, my advisor is very supportive. - In my past graduate program, I have also been very involved with the union and I put this on my CV as well. I could imagine that some non-unionized places and places fighting against unions could see this and not like it. I think grad student unionization is important so I choose to leave it on my CV. Not sure how much of a positive/negative effect this is. - Some grad associations/governments work better together than others. You might end up in conflicts with other students and this could add extra stress to your life. Our organization is run fairly well and we keep all disputes/debates professional. Most of the time, our votes are unanimous but even when they are contentious, everyone is still friendly. We all know that we are all working towards a common goal and debate is healthy as it leads us to the best decision we can make for our students.

I actually think you should definitely ask for an exception. If you don't ask for things, you won't get them. In my opinion, learning to overcome the fear of asking for concessions from authorities is an important part of becoming a professional academic. If you ask politely, (i.e. don't come off as arrogant and expecting them to grant it to you) the worst that can happen is that they say no. Disclaimer: Maybe this is the norm in my field but not in yours---if in doubt, ask your advisor for advice on navigating this situation. However, since it's only one day late, what you should first do is try to submit it through their regular online system, as if it was not late. If the system lets you submit an abstract, you should go ahead and do so. Then, you should email the conference organizers** (see note though) to notify them that you've submitted your abstract one day late and you're very sorry but hope they will still consider it. If the system has already locked you out, I think you should "ask permission" to send the abstract and then attach it at the bottom of your email. By "ask permission", I mean stating the request in a polite, non-demanding way and then saying something like, in case you grant my request, I've attached the abstract below for your convenience. Make sure you include all the information that the web submission would have included and formatted in the right way. Having it all there makes it easier for them to say yes---they just have to confirm it and they won't have to ask you for another email. Note: By "conference organizers" above, I don't necessary mean the people who are listed as in charge of the conference. You want to contact the person that is in charge of the abstract collection/submission process. Depending on the size of the conference, it might be the chair of the organizing committee, or it might be a staff member assigned to this task, or a researcher on the committee that is assigned to this task. For the big national society conference in my field, there are thousands of abstracts submitted and there's a whole office of staffers that work on the conference logistics. Email them! Finally, it's common practice in academia to have fake deadlines because people forget and stuff happens. There may be one posted/published deadline but the true cutoff might be a few days later. Or, sometimes, for smaller conferences, they might publish a fake deadline 1-2 weeks before the real cutoff to encourage earlier registration to help them get an accurate count for bookings. Then, if there are still room for more people, they'll announce something like "Due to popular demand, the deadline has been extended by X days" etc.

When attending panels on career advice and reading books and blogs on the job search process, I came across one key piece of advice that would apply here too. The search process is not about the applicant. It's all about the employer finding the right fit for their position. Or, in this case, the school finding the right candidates for their programs. Their focus will be on the candidates they want to attract and when we are on their shortlist then we'll get information. Otherwise, no information is literally that: no information. It could mean that we are the next person to get information. Or it could mean that we are already rejected but they haven't told us yet. Note that being left in limbo doesn't mean you are at the bottom of the pile....most schools will accept 5% to 10% of applicants and maybe only the top 20% will receive interview requests or notification about shortlists etc. I'd estimate that in most cases, over 80% of applicants will hear nothing until they finish making decisions. Here are also some more practical reasons why most applicants are left in limbo: 1. The school wants to keep you in reserve in case they need to make more offers later. It's almost impossible to reject someone and then "un-reject" them and have them still seriously consider you for their PhD schooling. 2. The school has limited resources to communicate with applicants so they need to prioritize the accepted candidates. From the other side, I know that planning a prospective student Open House is a ton of work. My department accepts about 40 people and we invite them all to come on the same 2-3 days for a visit. It takes weeks to plan everything and to ensure we are able to meet everyone's food requests, accommodation needs, travel plans etc. And they need to arrange a personalized itinerary for every single visiting student. Some students need to visit on separate days. And there's all the reimbursements to process. Most people that get a rejection take it graciously but some people will write back to ask for feedback or other details. The staff doesn't have time to do everything. 3. The school has limited resources and they also need to prioritize the current students. In my program, we have one single staff member in charge of all things grad students related. This staff member does all of the prospective visit stuff but also helps the current student do our graduate milestone paperwork. They approve and prepare our candidacy paperwork. They arrange qualifying exam committees. They arrange thesis committees. We talk to them when there is an issue in our stipends not going through. Or if we have an issue with a professor mistreating students etc. Remember that most programs will not have dedicated staff simply for admissions/applications. My school does try to be very fast though. We make all decisions in January but the people who are rejected don't find out until mid-February, after all of the visit planning is done. I know that this information isn't very comforting and to be honest, it really is a matter of prioritizing limited resources to maximize the best outcomes for the school and the current students. But I hope that knowing some of the logic/reasoning behind the decisions makes the limbo less bad. I know it's easier to say that than to actually feel it, because I also felt high levels of anxiety while in limbo for post-PhD job applications too! But it will pass

What do you mean by family/spouses? I think visiting with your spouse and/or your dependents that will make the move with you should you accept the PhD offer is generally acceptable, but visiting with other family that won't move with you is often awkward. Note: I am not trying to say this is the "right" thing for academics to think or how it "should" be, but I am trying to convey how most departments may receive a request to include your family in your visit. Also a disclaimer: there may be differences in field! So if you are including people that will move with you (generally spouse and children) then you should let the school know ahead of time that you would like to have your family visit with you because they are moving too and would need to be part of the decision. My spouse (we don't have children) visited some graduate schools with me for schools where it was easy for my spouse to make the trip. I think you should tell them up front because 1) they probably need/want to know this to arrange accommodations for you, 2) they might actually be able to arrange additional activities for your spouse and family while you are in one-on-one meetings with faculty and students and 3) they can ensure your family is included in the social events that often happens in the evenings at open houses. And if there are meals, they can ensure they get the right dietary needs etc. If you are bringing your spouse and family, and the school is paying for your trip, be sure to clearly separate out what the school is and isn't covering. You don't have to take this suggestion, but my experience is that it goes better when you clearly state up front that you do not expect the school to cover any expenses for your family. So, for example, you might need to pay half of the hotel room cost if they normally have visiting students share a hotel room but you have an entire room for your family. And of course if you are booking a flight, figure out how the flight will be booked and paid for. Some schools prefer to book flights for the visiting student using their own system, so you will have to provide your family info and then somehow work out how to pay them for the other flights. Or, they might ask you to buy your own flights and then reimburse your own ticket. It will go smoother if you work this out ahead of time. Finally, having spouse and family around is super awkward if they just follow you around the entire visit. In follow up emails with the person coordinating the visit, you should figure out which portions of the visits might be good for your spouse/family to join (usually meals, social events and things like campus tours, housing tours etc.). Things like one-on-one meetings or orientation type sessions aren't great for family to be a part of so you might want to plan other things they can do while you are busy with the main Open House programming. The above was all for the case where you mean a spouse and dependent children that you support who will be moving with you. If you mean other family members that don't generally move with the graduate student (e.g. parents, siblings, etc.) then I have slightly different advice below. I know that it's certainly possible for a graduate student to have parents or other family members that might move with them too, but it could be a lot more awkward if you include parents and siblings in a Open House. It's up to you though on what you want to do! My advice for this set of family members is to not include them as part of the visit at all. I think you should arrange for their flights and accommodations completely separate from the school. I would also not have them accompany you to any of the evening social events. Note that these visits typically have very long days---our department has a fully booked schedule for our visiting students from 8am to 10pm. So, your family members that accompany you would basically be doing their own independent trip and they might meet up with you at the end of a long day. For this reason, I'd highly recommend against including these types of family members on this trip. They can always visit you after you move in and it will be a better trip for everyone! Again though, this is just my opinion/advice.

I don't know anything about living in NYC, but I can comment on the tax question. I'd recommend you to budget around 15% of your income to go towards taxes. This is likely a (small) overestimate but it's better to overestimate expenses than the other way around. (The real number for most international students is between 10% and 15%, with larger tax rates to higher stipends like yours and potentially places with higher city/state taxes like NYC).

I'm sorry about the frustration. If it helps, I had something similar happen to me years ago too. Like you, I also came away with the lesson to look up policies myself! I also learned to be flexible and that people can change their minds about things. Nothing is set until it is signed. I hope you are able to find a way to go on leave from your program to do this internship. I would talk to your advisor more to learn what the issue actually is. When you go on leave, you don't get paid so if they were just worried that you will still cost them money but be away, then maybe a formal leave of absence will solve everything. However, if they don't want you away at all, then I guess that's not going to change. One more thing you can do: If you know that ultimately, you value the internship more than the PhD, you could first ask for a leave and then if they say no, you could then inform the advisor that you would rather leave the program than miss this internship opportunity and ask if they would reconsider the leave. I'd be sure to ask this in a non-confrontational way and maybe a day or two after their first decision on the leave. Also, I would either do it by email or make it clear that you don't expect an answer right away.

Just to add to what fuzzy said, when you meet these people at future conferences, don't bring up the fact that you chose another school. Maybe they will mention it if they meet you but most likely, they are over it and you should be too

Sorry that these thoughts aren't comforting. And I'm sorry to add another but you need to find a policy that says you can take a leave in order to do summer work. The onus is on you to find an exception that allows summer work. The burden is not on your advisor to prove why they can say no---by default, when you are a student, you aren't allowed to do stuff in conflict with your school/student commitments. The good news is that you don't really need to find a leave policy that is specific to internships, you just need to find one that lets you suspend your studies and allows you to return after your internship. The leave policies can be very general to accommodate many different student needs. Finally, sometimes the Graduate Studies Office at your school can help you figure out how to get your leave approved. That said, if it's really true that this opportunity will do more for your future career plans than the PhD could, then perhaps pursuing this opportunity is better for you even if you are not able to get a leave granted.

Okay so that's $5400 per year on tuition (and maybe a little bit for fees?). The west coast schools have much lower tuition than the ones out east (I paid $7000 ish per year for my MSc school in Ontario). In any case, you will be at around the $25k mark for take-home pay so that's great!

Yay! Always nice to hear updates on what happened

Like others said, at most schools, you cannot take other employment while being a full time student. Many schools though will let you take a leave of absence in order to do an internship like the one you want to do. However, most schools will require you get permission from your advisor (and others) before you can do this. My advice would be to first look up the school policies and find out what is necessary to take a leave of absence to pursue this internship. Then, seek permission from those you need. Your advisor is likely one of them and you should specifically ask if they will reconsider and approve a leave of absence for you. Tell them why this opportunity is so important to you. At the same time, you should also confirm whether or not you need to be a PhD student in order to pursue this internship. Some internships are only for students while others are for everyone. After getting all of this information, if your advisor refuses to let you take a leave of absence (as it is within their right to do so), you have a hard choice to make. You will likely have to choose between staying in your PhD program or quitting and pursuing this industry option instead. This is where it would be important to know ahead of time whether or not you need to be a student to pursue this internship. If you must be a student, then you don't really have a choice at all, unfortunately.

I think the total dollar amount is roughly right for an "average person", however, the distribution of expenses can be a little wrong! For example, my school's cost of attendance/estimated budget shows $1200 for books. This is way more than most grad students spend on books (in my field anyways). But the ones for my school total around $30,000 (not including tuition and fees) and I would say that this the typical cost for a student in my area of the country (our stipends are a little bit more than that, but after taxes, it is basically equal to the expenses). I would also be wary of the rent estimates and the personal expenses estimate. I'm sure that some rents like they estimate exist, but your own preferences and needs may require you to have a different rental cost. Similarly, "personal expenses" is super vague and one person's personal expenses is not the same as others. "Transportation" is super vague as well: does this include the cost of owning a car or is it just public transit? etc. My recommendation would be to use these categories as reminders of what to check for, and then look up your own costs based on your own needs. Don't forget that their definition of "room" often includes utilities and phone service. So it's not just the cost of rent, but remember to add in whatever else you want. And another thing I often have to remind people is to budget for taking trips home to see family etc. if you plan on doing this. Distance from home (and thus the cost of doing so) is a factor when comparing costs of graduate schools.

I agree with @fuzzylogician's advice. I would add an answer to your specific question, I would say that as long as you came into the program with the intention to finish the PhD, I don't think it's bad form to leave early at all. If, after one year, you learn that the PhD program isn't getting you where you want in life, then by all means you should leave. There would certainly be consequences---it will make it a lot more difficult to get into another English PhD program and if you want to enter another PhD program in general, you'll have to demonstrate why this time is different from the last. You say you aren't sure that you are interested in academia. But this can be interpreted in many ways. Are you mostly interested in academia but you aren't 100% sure yet because it's normal to have doubts about future career paths? If this is the case, then I think you should join this PhD program and spend the first year "trying it out". Basically consideration it "probation" for this career path. Use this time to also conduct informational interviews about a career in journalism. After the first year, you can decide if you want to continue in the PhD program or if you want to move on to something else that isn't grad school. However, if by this statement you meant that you have no interest in academia but had applied to PhD programs because you are finishing up a MA in English, then perhaps joining a PhD program at this point may not be the best thing for you. In this case, I would advise you to try to ask Queens to give you a 1 year deferral (i.e. start in Fall 2018) and spend the next year figuring out what you want to do. Conduct those informational interviews, try to get a journalism internship, etc. If you make it in the more interesting career path, you can cancel your Fall 2018 entry. If you find that you really miss academia, then you can join the PhD program in Fall 2018.

Mendeley Desktop does exactly what you want Google Drive to do, and you won't have to switch to a different interface when it's time to write a paper. I know I'm a broken record at this point, and I don't necessarily think you even have to use Mendeley. But my advice is to pick one single platform to do everything. It will be a lot easier in the future, I promise!

Remember that in Canada, we have to pay tuition from our funding packages. So this is an averaged total funding package of $30k per year ($120k total over 4 years). After you pay about $5k-$6 in tuition and fees, that only leaves $24k or so for everything else. This is a very typical funding package. If this funding is in addition to a tuition waiver, then that's nice! $30k a year is a very good amount of funding. More generous than the minimums but certainly not exorbitant. Also are you a Canadian resident (i.e. would you have to pay international tuition costs and fees?) If so, do you get extra funding for that or will you also have to pay international student fees out of this funding? If it's the latter, then I would actually be worried that it wouldn't be enough funding, actually. For Vancouver, I think a good amount of funding is about $25,000 per year after paying all tuition and fees. You can certainly live on less than that, but if you are asking what a "good" amount is, I would say at least $25k take-home pay.

Is there a reason you feel like you should hide the truth? Unless you suspect something shady is happening (no indication of this from your description so far), there's no reason to tell them the truth. Remember that they have way less information than you. They don't know if you already have tons of other offers or if this is your top choice. So, I would say something that includes - I am very interested in your school. - I have applied to 3 schools in total and I am still waiting for results from the other 2. - If it's your first choice out of the 3, then say so. Otherwise, don't say anything about ranking since it's only 3 schools.

You should be fine. Although offers can be rescinded if your final grades drop too much, it's hard to know which schools will care and which ones will not. I would say that as long as you are still above the graduate school minimums for admission, you should be okay. Even if your GPA drops below the typical admitted GPA for your department, GPA is not the only reason you got in so they will still want you for other reasons. I don't know if the department will even see your final transcript. So, if you have questions, I think you should ask them to the Graduate School, not the department. Be sure you are above the minimum for admission and I think you should be fine.

The feeling is mutual!

I am really glad that my subfield is so new that >80% of the existing articles on it were written after the main journals make all of their text in the PDF searchable. It's only rarely that I have to go to a pre-2005 (ish) article that is indexed as a scanned version of the printed article! (The main journals in my field are electronic-only!)

@Sigaba is certainly right about online security. My answer was in the context of given that you are going to have a web presence for your academic life, there's no cons to putting up a CV in your first year vs. your 4th year (or after graduation) other than what I wrote about having better use of your time/efforts. That said, as @Sigaba advised, one should certainly be mindful of what gets put up there! Personally, I chose to not separate my personal and professional social media. Well just barely: Facebook for social/personal interactions with both my friends and professional colleagues which whom I choose to have personal/social connections in addition to professional ones. I use Twitter for more professional interactions and for posting things that most of my Facebook friends (family and non-academic friends mostly) would not find interesting (e.g. oh look I found a new algorithm that does X 4% faster! or tweeting at conferences). I made this choice for myself because I do not want people to see me as "only" a scientist. By "people", I mean my professional colleagues as well as the general public. I think part of removing the ivory tower image of academics is to show that academics are people first and their profession second. In addition, I freely post political stuff and advocate strongly for what I think our field should do in regards to equality etc. I know that this is counter to some advice (e.g. by "The Professor is In") and due to my junior status in my field, I have a lot less protections than if a tenured professor posted similar opinions. However, I decided that I can't just wait until tenure to be the "real" me (and I may never get there anyways). I think I can do more good by being outspoken now than potential harm (and that the downsides, to me, are worth it). And finally, I feel an obligation to do things within my power and to speak out where I can because in general, I'm in the majority group for my field. To me, I believe that if there is a reasonable action I could take that will help people, it's my moral obligation to do so.

I use Mendeley for exactly what you are doing with Dropbox. I save all of my Mendeley articles directly on my PC and it automatically syncs with all of my other machines. I have the Mendeley app too for use on tablet and phones. For me, the reason why I prefer Mendeley over Dropbox is that I don't have to worry about how to organize my articles. With the dropbox method (what I used to do), I had to manually organize each one and if I want to change the format, it's a ton of work. With Mendeley, I get a searchable database and with a few clicks, I can reorganize all of my folders and files. I also never have to actually search for a PDF in the directory, I just use the Mendeley database. And the second reason is that Mendeley automatically creates the metadata I need to generate reference lists for my own work. I've not written a bibliography by hand since I started Mendeley.

Yes, you must convert the dollar amount. You have two options: For every paycheque, look up the conversion on that day and provide it. This is not a good idea unless you were paid a lump sum once or twice. The better way is to use the official averaged conversion rate and apply that rate. More information and links to these rates here: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/tpcs/ncm-tx/rtrn/cmpltng/rprtng-ncm/lns101-170/104/frgn-eng.html

Good luck!! I don't envy your situation, I'm currently planning for a move back to Canada and already the paperwork is piling up!

First, I would say that you don't need to feel guilty. Sure, you can feel bad for your students because changing teachers is no fun, but you owe it to yourself to not feel guilt over it. You're not doing anything wrong! Is it possible to let your students know without jeopardizing your other job at the store? I'm not sure if the store is the same store where you teach the private lessons. Also, is there a compromise where you give the students more than 2 weeks notice but not necessarily telling them right now? I'm not an expert on when kids like to take music lessons, but do many children take the summer off because they are doing other things? If so, maybe telling them in June or so could help so that they get the summer to find someone new for the fall. In addition to the above, if you trust the parents and students, you can tell them in June but ask them not to tell others. Or, if you trust another teacher, perhaps you can arrange things so that when you do give your X weeks notice, another teacher will have spots open for new students if they are interested. Just some thoughts.