TakeruK

As I have wrote elsewhere on these forums, I agree that the PhD should not be viewed only as an avenue for a specific line of work, if that specific line of work is a tenure track professor position. Statistically, we create way more PhDs than there are positions. Instead, as you wrote, I view the PhD as training in a set of useful skills that can lead to a multitude of careers which require these skills. Therefore, I think it only makes sense that a student pursues a PhD if they know that the training from this degree will help them achieve their career goals, whatever those may be. However, I disagree with the sentiment that a PhD "allows a person to study and contribute to a particular field of inquiry". Well, to clarify, I disagree with this view as the "primary" or "main" focus of a PhD! The PhD should do this but the school should also ensure their students are developing transferable skills. In this sense, I do view the PhD as vocational training or like a "professional school". I believe that the University has a ethical responsibility to ensure their graduates are employable and to provide resources to non-academic career paths, to ensure the degree requirements don't interfere with a student's ability to make themselves employable elsewhere etc. What do you mean by "Get a PhD for free?". I would never spend money or go into debt for a PhD. In my field, we are "fully funded" which means that we do not pay any tuition or fees and we get paid a stipend for our work (not a ton of money but enough to live on). However, this is a big cost to me, because most PhD students in my field can earn a lot more money if they were not PhD students. In terms of this opportunity cost, I think most students lose out on $10,000 to $20,000 per year. For a 5 year degree, this is up to $100,000, but also 5 years of raises, and 5 years of experience. This is a lot of money over a working lifetime, especially since missing something like 2% raise for 5 years adds up to a lot over 30-40 years of working. Of course, after getting a PhD, I should be employable at a much higher level, and when I made the decision, I decided that there was some risk but that it would be worth it. I would be better off financially and with a better chance at career satisfaction if I had a PhD vs. a Masters degree (In Canada, Masters are also fully funded). So, I would say that no, it's never worth the time/money getting a PhD if you don't see any job prospects for you (not necessarily just in the field). I think a PhD is such a big financial risk that I would never go into a program without clear career goals and a clear path of how to achieve them after you graduate. To increase your marketability for non-academic jobs? This really depends on what you want to do outside of the academy! My advice is to keep your options open and pay attention to career center events on your campus. My school regularly hosts seminars where they invite recruiters from various sectors to come and talk about what it's like to work in their field. You don't get to hear very much outside of academia, so attending these events taught me a lot about what the options out there really were. As you learn about these other options, you should develop the skills that allow you to pursue these options. Also, a lot of the time, it's not necessarily learning new skills but how to "translate" your academic skills into the jargon that your desired career path uses, so that you can "speak their language". I was pretty vague in the above paragraph since I wanted it to be applicable to a wide range of career paths. Currently, I am also interested in data analyst/data science type positions. I am learning how to describe the computational aspects of my research into the methods that companies like Amazon or Facebook would use to describe their work. I am learning some additional skills to round out the computational stuff I just picked up as part of research so that I would have a stronger foundation. I am also learning about the process of hiring in these fields, e.g. how to prepare for that type of interview etc. I'm currently in my last year of my PhD and I'm applying to jobs. At this point, I've only applied to academic ones (postdocs) because the postdoc job cycle happens a lot earlier. Non-academic jobs have much shorter turn around times and I may be applying to those later this year, depending on how the postdoc cycle goes.

I agree that you should not lie in the application. However, this scenario is different. It sounds like the subject GRE test is optional. In addition, with the new ScoreSelect option, GRE test takers can now pick and choose the scores you send. Therefore, if the application allows you the option of submitting a subject test score, I think it's perfectly fine for you to exercise the option to not report your score. So, I would have no ethical qualms about saying "no" to this question if the test was truly optional. That is, if reporting scores is optional, then it's not lying to say that you have not taken a subject test with scores you wish to report. If they require you to report GRE scores, then I agree with AP---the only ethical thing is to make your report. They can't contact ETS to ask about your score. Sending a score report is also providing permission for ETS to release personal information about you to the school. Caveat to the above: If you have already sent this school your scores in the past (e.g. the "four free schools" thing), then they might still have your score on file!

Yeah, Canada is very different too. Overheads are a lot smaller, tuition is a lot lower (even for international students) and stipends are generally lower. The best government PhD grants are about 35k CAD per year (there's one special one that's 50k but it's hard). I think in Canada, a grad student costs something like $30k-$40k total per year, a small fraction of the US system. Private schools are a good target for international students with strong backgrounds. At my school, 45% of the graduate students are international!! The on-paper tuition value is currently something 43,000 USD per year. Also, to be honest, most private schools have very little issues with money. They are almost always limited by professor time and energy, not funding. I know that in my department, there were a lot of people interested in one specific professor, so a lot of people that would normally get accepted into the program got rejected this year because that professor doesn't have time to take on more students. This means, as a corollary, some students with weaker profiles than the rejected students still got in because of research interest fit / limited professor time. Because of the above (it's very hard for a prospective student to know whether a prof is going to be overly popular or not) and because of the highly competitive nature of grad positions in the United States, people will apply to a lot more schools than they might in other countries. In Canada, I applied to something like 3-4 schools. When I applied to the US, it was 7 (+1 in Canada). Many of my friends apply to 10+ schools though.

I'll try to answer one question at a time: Does guaranteed support mean different things in different places? Yes, you should read your offer letter carefully to see exactly what they mean. Some schools will guarantee X dollars per year for Y years, while others might only guarantee TA and RAships depending on availability. When considering an offer for a school, definitely clarify any unclear points before accepting an offer. One very good question to ask is what you allude to---ask whether or not everyone who wants a TA or RA ship will get one. How does TA stipend work if you have a fellowship? This depends on the school. As you said, some places will pay you X dollars for a fellowship and then give you the option to TA for additional Y dollars. Other places will require you to TA in order to get X dollars. Yet other places will promise you X dollars total without making the offer contingent on working as a TA. However, if you do end up being asked to TA, you don't get paid more money (in reality, your fellowship gets reduced by Y dollars and you earn Y dollars as a TA, but your total stipend is still X). Is your stipend guaranteed for the whole year? This also depends on the specific offer. I have seen offers that say you get X for 12 months. Other offers say you are funded by X dollars for 9 months as a TA and you have the opportunity to get Y more dollars for the summer months if you can get an RA position. In these cases, see the response to question 1 above---ask for clarification and find out how likely you are to be able to get work that summer. How much tax? For most stipends in the US, you should expect to pay between 10% and 15% in taxes. If you are an international student, you will pay more tax because as non-resident aliens**, we are ineligible for a lot of the tax deductions. Also, as non-resident aliens, the school is likely to withhold 15% or as much as 30% of the income in taxes, and you'll only get this back when you file your tax return. So even if your tax rate is only 10%, the school might withhold 15% and you will have to budget accordingly. Note that these numbers can be very different based on your personal situation (family size, etc.) as well as whether or not your home country (if you are international) has a tax treaty with the USA. (**Note: If you have been in the US for more than 5 years plus a bit (e.g. perhaps you did undergrad in the US), then you may be a resident-alien and your taxes will be different. It will be lower and more similar to Americans).

In the United States, an international graduate student could cost something like 70,000 to 100,000 USD per year after including all costs such as your stipend, paying for your benefits, your tuition and the overhead charges that professors have to pay out of their grants. So, any additional money you can bring in is very helpful, but it's unlikely to be able to make you completely "free". Even so, money is not the only limiting factor in terms of admissions. Another finite resource is time and efforts of a professor to mentor you and to teach classes for you. Schools want to ensure that they have enough resources (time, money and effort) to properly train their students, so being "free" doesn't really help admission. Having extra money though is usually great because 1) there is a correlation in the quality of the student and the ability to win things like the Fulbright and 2) if the extra money reduces the cost for the school, it can make you be considered more like a domestic student. However, at private schools, there is no difference in tuition/costs for an international student vs. a domestic one.

For most STEM PhD programs, the stipend is intended for you to live off completely. As others mentioned, you are often not allowed to have additional work on the side as part of the "contract" associated with your stipend. For programs that admit international students, they usually try to ensure the stipend is livable because international students must show that they have enough money (either in savings or from the stipend) to survive. And if the school doesn't ensure the stipend is enough, then they are going to lose good international students that don't happen to have a large amount of savings. There are at least two places you should go to get information about the stipend. First, find your graduate school's financial page where they break down the cost of rent, books, transportation etc. All schools tend to have this breakdown for FASFA and immigration reasons. Here are a couple of examples of various schools. I found these by googling "School name graduate student budget" (sometimes "cost" instead of "budget"). UCLA: http://www.financialaid.ucla.edu/Graduate/Cost-of-Attendance#495241508-2016-2017-graduate-budget Michigan: https://finaid.umich.edu/cost-of-attendance/ Princeton: https://gradschool.princeton.edu/costs-funding/tuition-and-costs **Note, if you have a tuition waiver, be sure to subtract that out of these budgets!! These budgets are "minimum to survive" and it's not the same as "stipend needed to live at the comfort level you want". However, they are a good start because it answers your main question here: Are the stipends offered with the intention of surviving in mind? I would be very hesitant to accept a stipend offer that is below the "best case" numbers provided by the school in order to survive. But it will at least tell you whether the department even thinks about grad students when setting these numbers, or if it's just that they have no money so they offer as much as they can. The second source of information is to talk to current students about their finances. No need to ask for details (I've had some prospectives ask questions that were way too personal, like literal line item numbers in my household budget....not cool). Instead, ask them if they feel the stipend is enough to live on. Ask them about their current living conditions and whether or not they are in debt. Ask if they are saving money per year and whether they can do fun things like vacations. Also ask how often the stipend is adjusted for cost of living increases. My grad student government just convinced our school to raise the minimum stipend on our campus by $2,000/year to a value of $33,000 per year due to recent increases in rent. We did months of research to make this case. This is the first raise we've had in 2 years and typically the increase is $1,000 every 2 years, so it's double the amount we normally get. When people ask me about the stipend in my area, my answer is something like: For a single person, the stipend is enough to live comfortably if you share a 2 bedroom place with another student and you live some distance from the school. You'll likely be able to eat out several times a week, but probably better to pack your own lunches. Most students can afford one or two trips home per year to visit family, assuming their family is in the USA, otherwise, they go home once per year or much less, if they're international. Typically, you might save a little bit of money each year, and most students can afford to buy a used car after 2 or 3 years of saving in this way (sooner if they save even more). Students who want to live closer to campus typically find a house that they share with 4 or 5 people total, or live on campus housing, which are either 2-bedroom or 4-bedroom shared units. The only students who can afford a 1-bedroom apartment typically are students who are couples and both couples have some income source (i.e. both students or the partner has a "real" job). So, getting that level of information is what you want to learn from students when you visit or Skype or email them! Finally, all of the above methods are ways of getting information on how others use the stipend. Every person's situation is unique. I also recommend actually looking up some apartments in each city as well and getting a sense of what you can afford on your stipend and whether you would be happy with that. Do exactly the same work as you would if you had already accepted the offer and were moving. So, look up ads on craigslist and whatever else you use, call up people who are renting out their apartments, etc.

As @Neist said, schools often offer a subsidized health insurance plan to their grad students. Even if it's not subsidized, the student plan is often much better and/or cheaper than a "market" plan because the insurance company knows that, in general, a group of students in their 20s are much less likely to have high medical bills than the open market, which includes people of all ages! If you are concerned about the cost of maintaining your illness (a very valid concern!), you can check the health insurance plans available to students at the schools you are interested in. However, that said, unless a school was particularly bad (i.e. no plan at all), I would not automatically exclude that school from my application. You need to consider the health plan costs as part of your expenses/cost of living. Some schools might have worse coverage but pay you more, so you might still end up with more money. Other schools might pay you a lower stipend but cover more of your medical costs, so you might end up better off there. So, as long as a school's plan is not completely crappy, I would wait until I have an offer with a stipend value before deciding if the cost of maintaining my health is affordable. Note also that although you may check things now, with the new US President, the health care laws in the country may change drastically by the time you start school. If you are looking for support in other ways, most schools will have things like meal/food options that are diabetic friendly and if you need additional accommodations for things like exams, you can get that from your school's disability office. In my field, sometimes you go on long field trips away from medical centers and if you have a medical concern where you cannot safely be away from doctors etc. you can definitely get assigned alternate work instead of going into the field. Just some examples.

I think this also depends on field. But to clarify, you will still be listed as a coauthor right? That is, you were originally expecting the work to be authored by your prof & you, and instead, it's now authored by your prof, you, and 2 other people? In my field, this is normal, your prof seems to be the one in charge of the project, and they have the right to decide who else to add to the project. When I am the first author of my work, I freely seek out additional help if I want and invite new coauthors (with discussion with my advisor since I'm a student) but I don't talk to the other coauthors about it. When the work is finally ready, I send the draft around to all coauthors and formally invite them to join the paper at this stage. The coauthors who helped me don't get to choose who else gets authorship (unless I asked a prof for help and they said well, my student actually did all of the work, can you add them? to which of course I say yes!). I guess one source of misunderstanding may be that you thought this was a joint project between you and your prof, but from my reading of your post, it sounds like this was actually a project lead by your prof, and your prof recruited you to help with an aspect of the work (translation). Here's how I would proceed: First, find out the authorship order---maybe you can get this from the existing documents. If not, talk to your professor about it. Also find out the standards in your field: in mine, the first author did the most work, the second author did less work etc. but in others, the ordering is reversed. Ensure that your place on the author list reflects how much work you put into this manuscript. If you do not feel it does, talk to your professor about it ASAP. Don't put it in an accusing tone though, because you do not really know that this other person did no work (just because you didn't interact with them doesn't mean that they didn't work on it). Listen to what the prof says and hopefully you will be in the correct authorship position. Again, this may be different in your field, but in mine, the number of authors does not diminish the contribution of your work. A work authored by Prof & You is just as good as a work with authorship order Prof & You & Other Prof & Other Prof 2 & Other Prof 3. In my group, whenever it's not clear if we should add a coauthor, we always extend the invitation. Our way of thinking is that it costs us nothing to have a new coauthor but pissing off someone can be harmful in the future. And in your case, have coauthorship with established researchers can build new connections for you too. In summary: I think you need to clarify with your prof that you will be in an authorship position that is congruent with your contribution to the work. I would put aside any feeling of being blindsided or slighted for now, because you don't really know how much other people have worked on the project at this point. If you have the mindset that you were "leading" this work, I would also advise you to shift that, because the description here sounds a lot like that the prof is the lead and you were one of the 3 people he recruited to help put the work together. If it turns out that in fact you did most of the work and aren't getting the proper credit, then it's time to talk about next steps!

I am not in your field, but I am a Canadian student with a Canadian partner that moved to the US for a PhD program in 2012. The transition is certainly a process but manageable. I'll be happy to discuss any specific questions you may have, either here, or in a PM if there are personal details. Most of my issues involve ensuring my spouse had the right to work in the US, which is only possible for me as a foreign student on J-1 status, whereas the typical foreign student status in the US is F-1. I'll address the two issues you present here first though: 1. The higher tuition rates does not directly affect us, assuming that your field fully funds graduate students (I think so, right?). Fully funded means that the department covers our tuition, higher rate and all, as well as pay us a stipend (whether the stipend is good or not depends though!). It does indirectly affects your chances to get in if you are applying to schools that charge higher tuition to international students (e.g. mostly public schools). At my school (a private one), tuition is over $40,000 per year for every student, but I don't see this charged anywhere (it gets charged directly to our advisors). Therefore, while being an international student decreases our admission chances at some schools, if you are admitted with a funding package, you don't have to worry about the higher tuition rate. In fact, at least in my field, in almost all cases, graduate students are paid better in the US than in Canada. 2. Health care: This is definitely a concern! When we first arrived, not all the provisions of the ACA (Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare) had been in place yet, and my spouse was denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition. My spouse had to then get coverage as a dependent on my school program (school plan covers everyone regardless of conditions) but that costs $7200 per year (!!!). The school awarded us extra money to pay for this cost, fortunately. However, this no longer became a problem when ACA kicked in and my spouse was able to be covered through an open plan. Then, my spouse eventually found a good job that has very good coverage. (Note: a few years later, the other ACA provisions kicked in and did not allow insurance providers to charge a higher rate, $7200, for dependents compared to the primary insured ($2700 per year)). For your specific case, I would still apply to US schools but look out for schools that actually provide you with health benefits. For example, the student coverage of my school's plan is great (the dependent coverage is great too but as I wrote above, potentially very expensive). Our plan costs $2700 per year, but the school pays $2200 per year and we pay only $500 per year. Overall, I actually spend less money and get more coverage in the United States than I did in Canada (in Ontario, OHIP is like $900 plus I paid $300 more for supplemental coverage). However, I don't have something like Type I diabetes. Your actual cost due to maintaining your health could be quite high and I recommend that if you are considering offers from US schools, you should talk to other students with Type I diabetes when you visit! But, for now, I have some info on what is covered by my school's plans (again I think my school has one of the better plans available to students, so don't assume all schools do this level of coverage, make sure you check!): The deductible per year is $150 (this means that you pay $150 first before some of the coverage starts). The co-pay (what you pay) for most services is 20% (that is, if you see a specialist and the visit costs $300, you pay $60 and the insurance pays $240). However, the deductible is charged first. The co-pay for most prescriptions is also 20%. Example: I have a nasal spray that costs $20. I pay $4 for each refill and the insurance covers $16. There's a caveat though: insurance providers are allowed to exclude certain medicines from coverage. Each year, they publish a new list of medicines and rank them as "Tier 1", "Tier 2", "Tier 3" and "Excluded". The higher the tier, the more restrictions there are on getting that drug covered. Most restrictions are things like you can only get X amount each time, or you must have the doctor get prior approval etc. The brand-name drugs are the ones that go on these Tier lists typically, as you are supposed to only get generic drugs unless there is no substitute or there is a special reason that you need the brand-name one. Note: for my plan, the deductible does not apply towards drug benefits. The co-pay for a regular doctor's visit is special because the deductible doesn't apply. My plan's co-pay is $15, which means I pay $15 every time I visit the doctor and insurance covers the rest of the cost (usually a visit is about $60 to $100). If I get a test though (lab exam, x-ray, whatever), that counts as a separate thing and there's the deductible and 20% copay. There are two other important numbers to look for when comparing US health insurance plan. There is the annual out-of-pocket maximum. If your covered costs (i.e. copays and deductible) reach this number in one insurance year, your copay becomes $0 for the rest of the year and the insurance will pay for everything. My plan's out of pocket maximum is $1500. This means that no student on my plan should have to pay more than $2000 per year for health care ($500 for the premium, $1500 for the out of pocket max). In reality, some people still have to pay more because they need services that are not covered. The last important number is something called Lifetime Maximum Benefit. This number is the most that the insurance company will ever pay for you in your life. Once you reach this number, you have to pay for everything yourself. This sounds terrible because it is terrible. Fortunately, it's so terrible that the ACA made it illegal for insurance companies to have this limit. So, right now, this must be "unlimited" by law. But I mention this because if the ACA is repealed, this law is also repealed so I don't know what the future will hold. Therefore, always check for this value when choosing plans. To summarize, the values I quoted above, $150 deductible, $1500 max, $15 doctor visit, roughly 20% copay for everything else is usually known as a "Gold" or "Platinum" plan. Other plans "Silver", "Bronze" etc. cost twice and three times as much. (e.g. Silver is $30 doctor visit, 40% copay, deductible is $2000! and Bronze is $45 doctor visit, 60% copay, $4000 deductible etc.). Just to give you an estimate on the range of plans available. I remember that some schools have absolutely terrible plans and some don't even have prescription coverage. All of the above is very generic and general and you'll have to determine the specifics for you when you have offers from US schools. I just wanted to give you a general idea. Basically, a lot of the horror stories we Canadians hear about the US system are true. ACA did fix some of them, but we have no idea what will happen next with that. In general, if you are well off and have a good job, you will mostly be fine within the US system. Sadly, a grad student with a livable stipend and a good student health plan is "well off" compared to the general US population---the ones really in trouble without ACA are people without the guarantee of insurance and/or a job. That said, because there are no longer any guarantees of future good healthcare laws due to Trump, I have no idea if this will be true in a year or two. No one knows.

I think that the Canadian "Honours" degree program and the US "Honours" degree may have different meanings (and I know it's different in other parts of the world too). In Canada, the Honours degree requirements are usually not just additional coursework (typically 10% more courses than a Major/Specialization degree) but also different courses. So, it would be something on the level of a (small) change in major. (i.e. it's a bigger change than the date of the degree or a small change in GPA). However, I think most grad schools care more about the content of the degree than the title of the degree, so having everything you need for an Honours degree less one course is more okay than applying with the wrong degree altogether! The schools that officially list an Honours degree as a pre-req for their grad programs would likely have to petition for you to get this requirement waived, but this is a common (although formal sounding) process so it shouldn't be a huge deal. That said, the best thing to do is to call the schools you are applying to. You'll find out how important the requirement really is and whether they care about that one missing course and the change in your degree notation. My advice is also based on the Physics programs, which can have very different policies than Economics.

It's not an easy question to answer, so sorry for the long response but I feel I need to take 2 paragraphs to explain the history of my field to provide context. My (sub)field is very new! We study exoplanets, which are planets that orbit around other star systems. The very first exoplanet was discovered in 1992 (or 1995 depending on what qualifiers you use). So, it's a very young field. The researchers that are considered the best in the field are in their 30s, receiving their PhDs in the 2000s. Established researchers before that were experts in related fields before exoplanets became a thing. Another way to think about it: During my time as a grad student, I already lived through 25% of the field's entire existence. Exoplanets is generally considered part of Astronomy or Planetary Science and Planetary Science as a field has only existed for 50-60 years. So it's all very new and exciting. This means that there are a lot of new programs in my field opening up for the first time. When I started my PhD, Canada didn't have any programs for my field, which was why I went to the US. I'm now at a department with one of the oldest Planetary Science departments in the US (but it's only 50 years old). However, the exoplanet program here was brand new. When I started, my advisor was the only exoplanet researcher and they had been hired 1 year before I arrived. Now, when I am looking for postdocs, I'm applying to work in departments and programs that have exoplanet programs less than 5 years old (many of them in Canada that were created after I left). I personally find this very exciting. I want to be part of the first group of researchers working on the big problems and questions in my field! When I consider a new program, I look at all of their recent hires (not just the new profs). For example, there's a school in my field that started their research department just a few years ago and I think last year was the first cohort of grad students. The director of this program was hired from MIT and has decades of experience. They also hired several other professors with established careers, reputations and research excellence. In the last year, when they started their PhD program, they also hired several new faculty members who had just graduated 2-3 years ago. Other positive signs for this program is a large increase in funding set aside for this. Usually a brand new program have a big source of income somewhere (private donors, big grant, government support etc.) and these investors don't want to see their investment fail. I mean, it's not like a bunch of professors just sit around one day and think, "Oh, we're bored, let's start working on X." When a new program is created, it's because there's a motivated group of people that worked really hard to lobby for the program and secure financial and institutional support. So, I would look for evidence that this program is well supported internally by the department, by the University and like I said, by colleagues around the country. In theory, I would highly recommend this program and if I was a new PhD student, I certainly would want to apply and go there. (In reality, I personally would not go there because of the location but that's nothing to do with the fact that it's a new program and other people may like the location). But I guess not all new programs can be as good as the one I'm thinking of. I would base my opinion on the reputation of the recent hires, your impression of the director and faculty's vision for the program in the future, and the amount of support it seems to have from internal sources. If you feel that you will have the support you need and be able to get what you want out of your time, a new PhD program could be great. You might have more financial resources than typical and you might be able to have strong influence on how your program turns out. (Personally I find this influence very exciting as well because one of my ideal long term career paths is to be the Dean of Grad Studies and spend a lot of time setting policies and other administrative tasks but that's a long ways away lol).

What field are you interested in? For some fields, this is just not possible. For example, in the physical sciences, the only part time PhD programs are degree mills and fake degree providers. I don't think there are any good Data Science PhD programs---it's not a thing at this point. There are certainly 1-2 year certificate programs that could provide some useful training for work in that area though. As you said, there are some part-time higher education degree programs that provide training for specific career paths, such as Physical Therapy. But a research-based PhD program does not usually offer part-time status and you'll likely have to leave your job. They also take much longer than 2.5 years even with full time status so it's not going to be something you can complete before your contract runs out. If you think a PhD is what you need to move your career forward, you should probably think about doing this after the end of this contract (or terminate the contract early with whatever penalty) and plan to start school right after your contract ends. But, right now, I am not sure you are ready for a PhD program since you list a very wide range of interests! It sounds like you just want a PhD to have it appear on your CV but a PhD is a huge time investment (and opportunity loss) that this is almost never a good idea.

Sounds like a potentially very exciting opportunity I would ask the program director about their vision for the next 10-15 years. I would ask the faculty there what drew them to this program. Usually new programs recruit experienced faculty from other places, so there must have been something great about this program that made them want to leave their previous jobs and come here. I would also ask faculty I trust at other schools for their thoughts on this program. Are other schools excited to see a new peer institution?

Yes, you should definitely let them know, especially for STEM fields (it says you're in Neuroscience). At some schools, the only difference between acceptance and rejection could be your citizenship status. At other schools, it will make no difference at all but it won't hurt you either. A brief note directly to each department stating the updated status would be great (for schools that have invited you to interview, also tell the person who made the invitation). The reason I say it's important is not only for grant reasons, but for tuition reasons. Citizenship means you qualify for in-state tuition at schools where it makes a difference! That said, if you were a permanent resident before, sometimes PRs also have reduced tuition so it might not make a difference there. But I'm not sure if you went from no status to citizenship or if this change has little effect on this aspect.

Yes, you can just ask him, but I wouldn't phrase it that way (i.e. no need to refer to his title). However, note that emeritus professors may no longer compete for grants and other funding sources that may be used to pay you, so it might not be helpful to pursue them for funding! So, I would just ask something like, "I am interviewing with your department to secure funding with potential professors. I am interested in your work in X, Y, Z. Will you be taking on new students in Fall 2017?" Something like that should hopefully convey the message that you are searching for funding, so if he doesn't have any available, he can politely say no.

I think you've done a good job of thinking about your options and their consequences! My question for you is: are you going to be able to enter the research program you want at this alternate university? If you are certain that you can do what you want, that is, you have a promise from a faculty member there that shares your interests, then I think you should pick one of your options that will result in your starting at this new program in Fall 2017. I don't think Option 4 is viable---most schools will not let you start a program if you are on a leave of absence from another (unless this situation is special). Also, it's unlikely people will welcome you back with open arms if you leave them, try something different and decide you want to come back. So, if you are certain your Fall 2017 plans are going to make you happy, then take option 2 or 3. It really doesn't matter which one you take, do the one that you feel happier. I would pick Option 2, because it means more research experience and could result in a paper that will help you later. See also my note below on research interests. However, if there's no guarantee that your current Fall 2017 plan will lead to the research position you want, then I think you should aim to start a new PhD program in Fall 2018, or "bite the bullet". Don't just jump ship to the other school because it's marginally better than your current situation---I think if you leave, you want to take the time to get in a place that is as close to ideal as possible. Thus, I would recommend staying the course with the current program and applying to new PhD programs this fall/winter for Fall 2018. I would not switch formally to a Masters program until after the summer. That is, give it until it's time to start writing applications to decide if you want to stay or not. If you complete a whole year at the program, your advisors will be more understanding that your research interests just don't fit the school. You would have done a lot of work for them and they will be happy to write you strong letters that can get you into the school that you want. Regarding research interests: I agree with you that you should do what you want in life! But, I disagree that "life is too short to spend it doing what you don't want" applies here. I think it's true that you should not be spending your whole life doing what you don't want. But we are talking at most 1-2 semesters here, not the rest of your research career. As an academic, we all spend parts of our time doing research that are not our true passion. It's just the reality and nature of our line of work. I would encourage you to keep a more open mind. Your sentence, strikes me as very immature, in contrast to your other well developed and thought-out reasonings in your post. I chose to say this honestly because I want to provide helpful advice and feedback. An academic/researcher should not be so arrogant that they would not consider working on things that don't line up with their interests. Again, this is not your dissertation work nor the rest of your degree. It's just something to work on until you get into another program. There are many other benefits to doing the work that aren't related to your interest in it.

I think it sounds like you feel that the best choice for you is to drop the class and the notation on the degree, and I don't think anyone should fault you for that. In addition, for your situation, the schools may choose to waive the requirement for you given that you have fulfilled most of the honours requirements already. For the GPA issue, the last two years would be 20 courses, so one course out of 20 is not a big impact on your GPA. Assuming you take 5 courses per semester, this means you have approximately 15 courses with a 3.96 average. If you get 1.0 grade points for the minimal pass, at most you'll drop is down to like 3.81, well above an A-. Doing poorly on one course won't be ideal, especially for things like applying to scholarships while in grad school, but it's just one course. The reason why I suggest this is: - If a school only wants to accept you with an Honours degree (i.e. some weird reason they can't waive it), it's better to have an Honours degree with a 3.8 GPA than a specialization degree with 3.9 GPA. - If you decide to not follow the graduate school path, your GPA won't really matter anyways. People will only see the degree name and the "Honours" tag may carry more value. I don't think these reasons by themselves would be enough to convince me to change my mind though, if I were in your shoes. Again, just providing thoughts (which I hope are helpful). Do what you feel is the best thing for you

Are you applying to Canadian programs? I am not sure about Economics, but in Physics, there are some graduate programs in Canada that specifically require an Honours degree to enter (i.e. a major or specialization degree is not enough or would require special justification to qualify for graduate studies). So, I think you really only have to worry about any programs with this specific requirement. However, that said, the requirement isn't really about the "Honours" annotation. Instead, in Physics, it's the advanced classes and honours thesis requirements that graduate schools want to see. So if the only requirement you won't meet is a single class, it should not be a big deal in the end. I think this is something you only need to bring up after you receive admission decisions. Only you can make the best decision for yourself. I just want to suggest another solution that is a compromise between dropping the class and losing time for yourself and your family member. What's the minimum grade required to pass this grad level class and still graduate with an Honours degree? Is it possible to just do the bare minimum to get a pass in the class and still get the time you need for yourself and your family? Note: I don't mean this post as an discouragement from dropping the class. Again, only you know what's best for you and if you need to drop this class, you should do it. I am just presenting two alternative perspectives to add to the good advice you already received from others here.

I understand what you mean. When we lobby our governments for science funding though, we do indeed compare ourselves with other countries and we might make statements like, "Canada should support [[telescope]] to allow Canadian astronomers to contribute to the international astronomical community". So you can consider it more like a "friendly" competition where we all encourage each other to be better. But in politics, we may want to spin it in a more competitive way in order to lobby for more funding

There isn't a single "common" lab experience/environment. Your thoughts about grad school (pairing with a mentor and branching out) is a relatively common way I've seen labs run but so is your current way (where everyone works independently on their own). So I don't think your lab is abnormal either. However, that doesn't mean that there is a problem with you! There are many ways labs are run and there are many ways that students require support. Usually this means that the advice given to students is to find a lab that fits well with the type of support, mentoring, oversight, etc. that they would like from their advisor. Unfortunately, it did not sound like you got this opportunity due to the nature of your appointment. I'm not 100% sure what the best advice moving forward for you would be though. It would really depend on what you value and what your short term and long term goals are. But here are some options. You can decide that this isn't a good fit for you and look elsewhere for opportunities. You could do this by resigning and leaving this program and then apply for new programs that begin in Fall 2018. This may raise some questions in your profiles when you apply to other schools but if you are very unhappy with the current situation then I don't think you need to continue to suffer through it. You can decide that you will make this lab culture work for you. This means you would need to change your expectations on the type of support you would like to get. It won't help either to compare other labs to your lab. I think you would need to identify the next few steps you need to accomplish in order to "get results" as your advisor wants. I'm not sure whether you currently have a project yet (not necessarily a full fledged one, but do you have an idea on what general research question you are trying to answer and how you might go about doing this?). If you don't, then I think the first step is to determine whether or not your advisor is willing to help you figure one out or if you should be talking to senior students, postdocs or other staff. Once you determine that, then you need to figure out what other help you need for the remaining steps and ask for it. It is absolutely important to advocate for yourself when you are in this hands-off type of lab situation. Keep conversations going with your advisor too, to let them know what stage you're at and to make sure you are both on the same page in terms of what progress is expected. Choosing the second option isn't permanent either. You might want to stick with it for a year and if you decide that this type of lab environment is not going to support you in your long term goals, then it's fine to change your mind. Having something completed might help you transfer to a different lab more easily and it can help you apply to different schools too. At least you'll have something to show for your time there. However, if the situation is not bearable or you have no way of helping yourself succeed then leaving the program may be the better path in the long run.

I have a bigger collection at home too, but it's pretty small still. I think your "overflow" is comparable in size to what I have at home! Someone in our department has a connection with a wholesale mineral retailer nearby and for one day a year, the department are invited to come and buy stuff at half-off the wholesale price. So, we've been slowly building a collection of minerals and cool rocks that intrigue us. I'm not a real geologist so I don't have deep knowledge about the rocks---they are mostly things that look cool or happen to have cool properties that I randomly learned about. They are mostly small things though, just a few inches in size!

@sjoh197, we have very similar bookshelves and desks in our building. I also have the same file tray thing (from IKEA?). Maybe it's an earth science dept thing lol. I don't want to post a picture, but I'll describe it. The room is fairly big, probably 20 feet wide and 25 feet long. There are 6 students in my office. We don't have cubicle walls separating our desks, bookshelves kind of divide up the area. There are 3 students on each side of the room, and the middle "aisle" is a common space with chairs for visitors to our office, a couch, and a table with a bucket that I sometimes fill with candy for guests (and officemates). There's a whiteboard in the back of the office that we all use from time to time. I have a desk like yours (old metal one) and a table behind me that I use as a bookshelf. I also have a 4-cabinet filing cabinet. Other students have actual bookshelves but no filing cabinet. I estimate my own actual desk area is something like 6 feet wide by 8 feet long, including the furniture. On my desk, for decoration, I have some rocks too, but not as much as your collection! My favourite item is a sample of Ulexite. I also have a sizable Obsidian cube (polished) that I got because it looks very ominous! I saw some giant obsidian spheres that I had also wanted but they were way too expensive. On the walls, I have a Canadian flag and a framed print of this comic (advice from astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield) for inspiration. @jmillar, I love your stuffed statistical distributions !!

The source of the research position doesn't really matter. You should choose the research opportunity that is more interesting to you and/or will provide the skills that are more useful to you in the future. I also would not be worried about going to the same school(s) for research positions. At this level, I think the experience themselves are much more important than where they are or what program they're part of (or not part of).

Yay! I am glad it worked out It's sometimes tough knowing what expectations are so hopefully this semester will allow you to calibrate these expectations for future terms. Also, it sounds like you have already set up a good support network in case you do need it in the future. Best of luck!!

When I was comparing stipends, I didn't find the COL numbers very useful for direct comparisons. They are good for big picture comparisons between cities but I wouldn't use them in a numerical calculation because I find that grad student expenses don't always scale with COL indicators (at least for me). My method was to determine the major variable costs of each school/city. The first one is rent. I find that actually taking a look at rent costs in the areas you want to live in for each city works better than just scaling with the COL number. (i.e. a small town with little transit options might have a low COL but there may still be high rents near campus). The second major variable cost, from my experience, is health insurance because the coverages vary a lot from school to school. At some places, I would only pay a few hundred dollars per year for my premiums but at others, I would pay at least $3000! The third major variable cost may be things like vehicle maintenance and insurance, if you plan on having a vehicle. (Or maybe you'll need a car in some places and not others so this is a big cost in some places and not others). The last major variable cost, for me, was travel costs to visit home. A school on the other side of the country likely means it will cost a lot more if you plan on visiting home fairly often. Once I determined these major variable costs, I subtract them from the take-home stipend and see what's left over. I compared these numbers directly to determine the "value" of each stipend offer. In my experience, the cost for things like food is fairly uniform across the US/Canada, except for really remote places. Yes, food does cost more in some places, but I figure I spend around $50/week on groceries, so something like a 10% difference is only a few hundred dollars. This variation is a lot smaller than the major categories above. Finally, I think the non-adjusted cost of living numbers are also important because I'm interested in saving the money. The stipends in my field generally will cover all living expenses and my goal in making comparisons is to determine how much I'd be able to save each year. Putting $1000 (or whatever value) per year into your bank account is still $1000 no matter if it's a high COL or low COL city.