TakeruK

As fuzzy said, it is impossible to do this and keep up in ALL fields. It's hard enough as someone who specializes in just one field to keep up with the literature in that field! Ask any academic and you'll find that many people have to work hard to keep up to date on just their subfield! So I am assuming you are not asking to keep up at the professional academic level in all subfields. If you are asking for leisure reading / hobbies, then I would suggest subscribing to some broad journals. For example, for the sciences, two top tier journals are Nature (https://www.nature.com/nature/) and Science (http://science.sciencemag.org/). If you are not familiar with these journals, they are top tier journals in the sciences and are very competitive to publish in. They often require your result to be of especially high impact. They publish in all fields of science (Nature has many other "brands" for individual fields too). So a subscription to either (or both) of these journals will give you a good taste of a broad range of research in the sciences. But as I said, these journals only publish the articles/work that they feel is most impactful, so you'll definitely not get all research, just one slice. Since the audience is meant to be very broad, the articles are also often written so that anyone with some science background should be able to get the main point (although many researchers will tell you that articles in their subfield feel very shallow since the main article doesn't go into very much depth). These journals also have good summary articles where another scientist will write about the impact / importance of one of their feature articles each week (issues are published weekly), usually meant for a non-expert to understand the article. Nature costs $200 per year to subscribe (in Canada) and Science costs $50-$100 per year if you just want the digital version. Of course, if you are a current student or member of a university somewhere, your school likely already subscribes so you can just access them through your library. But if you are not in academia right now and just want to read some scientific articles as a hobby and you have the money, a subscription like this could be fun.

Usually departments don't rescind offers unless you end up doing something that would result in you getting kicked out of the school (and even so, they would just ask you to decline their offer to save everyone the hassle of going through the process). One potential thing you could do that falls under this category is to misrepresent your background/experience/accomplishments in your application. At the graduate level, academic probation tends to mean something different than undergraduate level. At many places, it's not even a real formal thing (unlike the undergrad level). For example, at your "annual performance review" (some programs have different names for this), you might be told that you are lacking in areas X, Y, Z and that you should do A, B, C to remedy them before the next review. If you don't make satisfactory progress, this might result in being kicked out of the grad program, so that "review" is kind of like a probation but there's not always a formal note on your transcript or some formal status that gets applied to your student record. Whether or not you need to earn your MA before your PhD program depends on your PhD program. If you put in your application that you are expected to receive your MA in 2018 before starting their PhD program, then they will expect you to have a MA before starting. @FishNerd above pointed out that some schools may even require a MA to attend, but note that even if the general requirement does not include an MA, if you applied stating that you have an MA, then you should have an MA before you attend. Otherwise, it would count as misrepresenting yourself as I wrote above. In addition, it might have been the case that the school would not have admitted you if you did not have an MA (since admissions are holistic, every aspect counts) or they might have not admitted you if they knew you would be leaving your MA program. At my PhD program, no Masters degree was required but since I said I was finishing a MSc, I was required to submit evidence of completing my MSc within a few months of starting my PhD program (they allow some leeway especially since my degree requirements were finished but the degree itself was not awarded until later). If you end up not finishing your MA, then what you must do is to inform the PhD school that you will not be completing your MA despite what you said in your application. Be prepared for a change in admission status and/or funding. If they know about this change and have no problems with it, then you would be okay! Very few places will have transfer graduate students. Some programs waive or change degree requirements if you have a MA or have previous graduate coursework. Often, this change is not a reduction in requirements, but let's say you already took a very similar course that is a required course at the new school---they might then require you to take the next level course (or an extra elective) instead. I wouldn't worry about that part. As you said yourself, many people go into a PhD program without a MA and they do fine. As I wrote above, just because it is possible for those with a Bachelor's to go directly into PhD programs does not mean that you specifically can go into this specific PhD program without a Masters. If you are serious about dropping out of your MA program, you have to discuss this with your PhD program. If you do not, you could be removed from the program when they find out (as I wrote above, in my experience, I had to provide proof of Masters degree since I applied with one). Also, considering that your MA thesis advisor is well known to this PhD program, they will likely find out even if they don't look for your MA evidence. --- I hope that answers your questions. I tried to focus only on the formal stuff as you requested, and I understand that there are lots of "human" stuff that gets in the way. I don't need to know exactly why you can't finish your MA (or that it might be very hard to) but I want to end with a few notes/advice: - Don't treat your last 3 years in this MA program as something you can throw away and similarly, don't treat your MA thesis advisor as a bridge you can burn. In general, and especially in your case (since your MA advisor and your new school are closely connected), a PhD program really isn't a "fresh start". It's the next step along your professional and academic career/development. - If finishing this MA thesis is not at all helpful to you and causing you a lot of real life problems (stress, health, etc.) then I hope you can find resources/help. You also need to discuss this (to some extent) with your MA advisor. Maybe they can help you find another way to finish. If you and your advisor decide that it is not in anyone's best interest to have you finish a MA thesis when you have a good PhD opportunity ahead, then you should also talk to the PhD program in order to let them know that you are going to start their program without the degree you included in your application. With your advisor on your side, they will be much more likely to waive the requirement. - However, if you don't feel motivated to finish your MA due to a lack of interest, then I strongly urge you to do what it takes to finish it. Seek help, get resources etc. Talk to your advisor or other mentors for tips on working on a problem when you have low motivation. Remember also that a good dissertation is a done dissertation. Your MA thesis can be very minimal and just barely meet degree requirements. That's all you need. (Sure, doing the bare minimum might not make your MA advisor happy, but it won't burn bridges or cause other issues mentioned above).

Instead, you could tell them that you remain very interested in their offer and you still need time to decide, but that you will let them know as soon as you do!

It is great that you are thinking about it but I do think you are worrying about it too much. Faculty members are busy professionals that are 1) used to things like this happening, 2) probably have been in your shoes before, 3) are too busy to really think about us as much as we think about them and 4) mostly professional and would not hold a grudge. So as long as you are not insulting or arrogant etc. in your email, you will be fine. The fact that you are thinking about how to word it and your past history with these profs suggests to me that you are wise enough to know how to write a respectful email. My only advice then is to keep it short and avoid giving reasons for why the chosen school is better or comparing the chosen school with their school. The general format would be to thank them for their time, tell them your final choice and say something vague about hoping to see them at future conferences etc. It's premature to discuss or even hint at future collaborations with them. Generally, grad students don't spend too much time on collaborations with external profs who aren't their advisor's collaborators until much later on in the degree or even after graduation. Not only you will be very busy, but these other profs will likely want to prioritize their time on their own students. The advisor-student relationship (what you have been seeking through these conversations) is very different than a professor-student/jr collaborator relationship (what you are proposing for the future). With these differences in mind, it's okay to shift the way your conversations go now that you aren't potentially attending. i.e. don't be insulted if they stop writing to you and don't feel like you need to continue keeping in close contact with them. I would say that unless you have a concrete collaboration in mind (and approved by your advisor/department), you probably shouldn't continue to email them and the normal way of staying in touch is to say hi when you see them at a conference, and maybe chat during a short coffee break.

Good point! I have not yet been to a school where the graduate students were charged tuition on a per-course basis instead of just a flat per-semester basis, but this is good to check! However, I have been to a school where the course offerings are quite limited so even in semesters where I had an extra course to take, there was nothing I could actually take that would count towards degree requirements! Indeed, especially for a program like the OP's where you don't start on research right away. For my PhD program, we did do research right away and had a big scary quals exam at the end of first year on our research, so the department purposefully assigns TA work to only 2nd, 3rd and 4th years and some 5th years by request. The idea is to give us a break in order to get prepared for the quals exam in our first year and to allow us to focus on finishing on time in the 5th or 6th years. There's also not enough TA spots for every student, but fortunately, our funding is not dependent on TA work, so if you don't have a TA assignment, you still get the full funding!

I would My friends who have won similar awards invited their advisors, too.

I agree there is a big prestige/ranking/resources gap. I don't know how Queens' fare for Gender Studies, but if you would like to chat about Queen's U as a school in general and/or living in Kingston, send me a PM (I chose Queen's for a masters degree because of a very good advisor fit too)

This sounds more and more like you should take more courses and get them over with, in my opinon. Is there a general academic advisor for grad students in your program? For us, during our first year, we had an academic advisor (the same prof advises all new students) that helped us with course decisions and is separate from our research/dissertation advisor (our academic advisor often ends up chairing your thesis committee). If so, talk to that person. Otherwise, talk to the director of grad studies (or similar title, i.e. the prof in charge of grad students specifically) or your department chair for their thoughts on taking more classes in the first semester since you're not TAing. In addition, even though you don't pick a PI until December, surely you have some ideas in mind and perhaps already talked to at least one prof about working in their lab. You should probably check with them too. Maybe you want to use the extra time to try out working in their lab a bit to see if you like it. It's only March now, so you don't even have to do all of this right now....at most schools I've been to, you don't finalize your grad course list until a week or two into the semester, so you can wait until you arrive for the school before worrying about all of this.

Maybe years ago it might have been different, but I think most software makes it pretty easy to switch from one to another. They do want you to be able to change from another provider to theirs anyways. I am pretty sure in Mendeley that you can export your annotation into the PDF itself (but by default, they are not saved onto the PDF itself). Many schools now also provide free subscriptions for their students, staff, researchers and faculty to many of these services. At my grad school, they paid for premium access to many other similar services. If you are forced to use a certain software, it is likely because the school provides it for free. A lot of the premium software is, in my opinion, worth it. So if you can use whatever your school provides for free, it can really make your life easier. The tricky part is after you graduate, you may not have the same premium access. But by then, you might have your own funding or be able to afford it yourself, maybe! In any case, it's a problem for future-you to worry about.

What @Elephas said could work but School D might not like paying for 2 flights. However, if both legs from School D is still under $500 then it's no extra cost to you or them and they probably won't care. If School D does care but another school on the list doesn't care, then make that other school the double-leg-paying school. This might work out well if your beginning/end schools are far from home but the middle schools are close together. I would probably pick the double-leg-paying-school in a way that makes each school's cost as even as possible. Another option is to add up the entire itinerary and show the whole cost to all of the schools. Then divide the total cost evenly by 4 and each school pays their share. This could be much easier for everyone if no single school has extra strict documentation rules for reimbursements.

Wait, what? I've used Mendeley for 7 years and never had to pay. I checked out the website (i haven't logged in for a long time) and learned it looks completely different now that it's been bought out by Elsevier. You still get 2GB free though and I did a check: I have 1.6GB used after 7 years of collecting papers. So, at this rate, I will probably be okay for another 2 years or so. If they haven't changed their model then I will probably switch though. I am not giving money to Elsevier! (To be clear, I am happy to pay for a quality product and our research group pays for things like Slack, ShareLatex, etc. but I really despise Elsevier's practices).

I second fuzzy's comment that your PhD topic affects your career path and that it mostly affects the jobs you can apply for after graduation (at least in my field). The first postdoc position is often an extension of your PhD topic (e.g. a spin-off research question) because it's necessary in today's job market to publish early and often during postdoc. So you want to have something that you already know how to do (and maybe already halfway finished during grad school). Then, a lot of people in my field do a pivot during the second year of their postdoc. Their next postdoc (or faculty job) would include multiple research directions. And many new faculty start even more new lines of research once they are hired since now they can hire a bunch of postdocs and grad students to do the work (they "just" need to come up with the ideas!). Most faculty I know aren't doing the same research they did as a grad student, but research question choice will affect your near future. In my opinion, I would value: - advisor fit first - then research interest fit - then real world applications Here's my reasoning: I'm passionate and interested in my area of research and the act of doing research, but I don't feel like I need to work on exactly X to be happy. So it's much easier to shift my interest than to change an advisor to work well with me (not really possible anyways!). The only aspect of research interest that matters to me is whether or not academia even wants people trained in this area. If there are only 10 people in the country that study that subfield, then I wouldn't pick it for my PhD since that will really limit your job choices. I picked a research area that is the new fad in my field. As for real world applications, this isn't really important to me, personally, for choosing a PhD program. Being able to influence society and contribute to the world is very important to me though, but I don't see a need to do this through my research. Instead, I find other ways to be a productive member of society. I spend a lot of time doing outreach and education to local groups. And, if I really wanted to contribute good to the world, I would just leave academia and do something else. I'd get paid more, maybe have more free time, and be able to make more of a difference to the world.

Second what @rising_star said. Rotations isn't a bad idea but don't do it because you "owe" them---you don't. I had an experience where I had thought I really wanted to work in group X but my school requires what is similar to two "rotations" in the first year and I really didn't like X at all. I am glad I got the chance to try out a couple of options before committing. In my opinion, one semester rotating in a lab that you aren't as interested in (for now) is well worth it as an "insurance premium" in case you really hate the lab you want a direct match for now. You'll be spending 5 or more years in the home lab, so spending at least 1 semester in another lab is not a huge setback and will open up other opportunities too. Finally, to answer your question though, unless you are directly asked by this enthusiastic PI to join their lab, you can keep the news focussed on the positive. Write to them and say that you've decided to attend University X (i.e. their school) and that after talking to everyone, you are going ahead with a direct match to Prof. Y's lab. Then thank them for all their contact, support, answers to your questions etc. along the way.

Some schools are very fast and do it within 2-3 weeks. Some schools are very very slow, especially for people who aren't their students and employees, or for international visitors (like I was). But even for schools that were in my country, a good fraction of them reimbursed me in May for a visit done in February. This slow reimbursement "culture" is a huge problem across almost all of academia. It is especially tough for students but also for postdocs and new faculty. Most academics I know often have to float several thousands of dollars while waiting for reimbursements. My advisor was very good about this and offered to put my expenses on their card whenever possible in order to lighten the burden on me. I will try to do the same for my future students if I end up in that position. Anyways, knowing that this is a common problem isn't going to make your own cheque come faster or reduce the financial burden. But hope to give some context. For your particular situation, have you already submitted all of your receipts and paperwork for reimbursement? Have the school acknowledged receipt of these items? If not, then it's a good time to check in with the school. You can ask it as something like wanting to confirm they got everything they needed and whether they need anything else. If they have already confirmed receipt and said "expect it in X weeks", then wait for 1-2 weeks after that to check (give time for the mail to get to you, wait longer if you are in a part of the country/world where mail takes longer). Finally, keep in mind that once the department admin staff send off your request to the University's finance office, it's out of their hands and they have no idea when you (or anyone else they submit expenses on behalf of) actually get the money. So the finance office might be telling all these admins that it will "only take 2 weeks" to sound good but in reality, the University itself might be very slow. Just letting you know because it's not the fault of the department admins at all! But if you are polite and ask nicely, they might be able to follow up with the financial office at the University level. And I have never heard of a school refusing to reimburse a student because they did not attend (never a problem in my case, as some schools didn't send me the money until well after I declined them).

It's pretty common for interviews to not take the entire time they originally said.

If the recommended load is set with the expectation that the student will be spending X hours TAing and the OP has an exception to reduce their teaching load, then it might be okay to think about adding one extra class. In my field, this might be a good idea since you don't get that much research done in your first year anyways and this will free up more time later on. But definitely talk to your advisor or a prof in the department about this first to get their opinion.

What do you mean "have to". No, you are not required to apply for J-1 visa specifically. There are two main visas for foreign students studying in the USA: F-1 and J-1. Having a full funding offer means you are eligible for J-1 so if you want a J-1 and if your school is willing to sponsor your J-1 application, then you could apply for J-1. If you don't want a J-1, you can still apply for F-1 (let the school know what you would like). If you want a J-1, then while you have met the main funding requirement to be eligible for J-1, you still need the school to be willing to sponsor you for J-1 (not all schools would do this). If they do not want to sponsor you for J-1 then if you attend that school, you will have to apply for F-1.

It is a HUGE faux pas to ask to read them. Don't do it. Those letters are not meant for you to read and they were written with the expectation that you would never see them. Unless they offer to show them to you, don't ever mention wanting to see them.

Again, the exact time depends on how the housing/rentals market work in your specific area. Ask some current grad students to find out the best time to go. We did this three times if you include my postdoc. For my MSc program, we spent 3 days; for my PhD program we scheduled 5 days and for my postdoc, we spent 4 days. The MSc trip was short because we didn't have much money. The PhD trip was longer because 1) we were anxious about moving to a new country and 2) we stayed with our friends in town so a longer trip only cost more for food, not much else. The postdoc trip length was set based on the amount of time we were able to spare (we did it during my thesis writing), the fact that my employer was paying for it, and that there is a very very low vacancy rate in the city we were moving to. In all cases, we set up as many appointments as we could before leaving. For the months ahead of the trip, we scouted out listings online, pretending we were moving the next month. This gave us a good sense of what time of the month there were the most listings. So we scheduled our trip for that time of month when it was for real. Then about a week before we left, we called every place that had a listing to set up a visit. We checked the listings twice a day and made more calls as the trip went on. And we continued doing it while we were there too, in addition to just driving around and looking at signs. For my MSc and PhD programs, we looked at around 6 places before we found something that worked. And at both of these programs, the place we chose was not something we knew about beforehand---it was a place we found while we were there. However, the management company that owned them were known to us beforehand, so it was helpful to have seen ads from them before so that we knew to look for their buildings when we were in town. For my postdoc move, we ended up looking at 12 places before finding one that worked. It turned out to be one of the few places that we did schedule ahead of time. Some of our other pre-scheduled appointments got cancelled just before our time because the person who saw it before us took the apartment. There was one showing where we were one of 12 couples looking at the same place at almost the same time.

(1) You can't help / control that. Your own needs are more important than what the department thinks of you on this regard. If the school/department offers deferrals, it would be wrong of them to think poorly of students that take what is offered. (2) All three of your reasons sound compelling to me and they are valid reasons for a deferral, in my opinion (not that my opinion matters to your department though!)

I can't think of any reason for a professor to think less of a student because they have a few Ws on their transcripts. I wouldn't even ask the student to explain it. If there's some recurring pattern or the same course with W's over and over again, that might be questioned though.

I have never heard of a graduate student in a graduate program being expelled for "moral negligence". Of course, some private schools may have their own code of conduct and expectations, but the majority of public schools (and I think the majority of schools, period). So if there is no explicit policy against it and if one is not breaking other school policies (e.g. not using school resources to conduct business) then I don't know what grounds a school would use to expel a student. That said, faculty and students are humans and it goes without saying that people don't need a policy to make a student feel unwelcome/unwanted. So if people wanted to be unfair towards a student who was a sex worker, there are plenty of ways they could do it. But then again, there are plenty of people that are unfair towards others anyways, for whatever reason. Obviously, I am only writing from my experience, and what I think might happen. Nothing is guaranteed!

Just to clarify, you quoted my response to a different user's question, and they seem to be in a different situation than you. For you, it sounds like you already submitted an application to be considered for assistantships so I think you should stick with the advice you got from @rising_star, which is to wait until the end of the month to inquire since you have only applied 1 week ago and you don't have to make a final decision until 1 month from now. However, if you are just asking generally, or if the assistantship application you mentioned above does not cover research assistantships (only other types, perhaps?), and you want to find out if there are research assistantships available, you should first ask if there is a process to apply for research assistantships. At many grad programs, these are awarded/assigned along with admissions so there may not be a separate application process at all. Or, maybe your already-submitted assistantship application covers RAs as well. If you are told to contact professors directly about RAs, as it seems like the case for @gradeschooldropout, then the first question to ask is the typical timeline for profs to make RA decisions. I would just ask it directly to the person that wrote to you about RAs in the first place. Then, when it's time to contact the professors, you could write something like, "Dear Prof. X, My name is ABC and I have been accepted into the [name of your degree program] program starting this fall. I am seeking a research assistantship in your group/lab in order to fund my degree program. I currently have ... ((list whatever funds you have from the department, if any)). Without a research assistantship, I would not have the funds to attend this degree program. I am interested in your/your group's/your lab's work in XYZ. [Write 1-2 sentences that specify what exactly about their work that interests you]. [Then, write 1-2 sentences summarizing your relevant past experiences]. Would you be accepting research assistantships for students starting this fall? I have attached my CV and transcript for your consideration. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you, YourName" Think about it as a job application and this email is your cover letter. If you wish, you can write and attach a separate cover letter but this isn't necessary in my field (could vary in yours).

Talk to MIT's international student office. They might have more thoughts and/or tips. I am sure you are not the first international student to go to their program to do a "Third Country Visa" application. I know that my own international student office would have not recommended it but would say it's possible. However, the main reason they don't recommend it is that if you are denied or have extra processing, then you will potentially be "stuck" in the third country. In your case, since you are already in Australia for other purposes, it's not like it would be a huge hassle to wait longer. But still, check with the MIT international student office first to ensure there are no other warnings against this. (Note: Many of the people I know who do Third Country Visa applications are from countries who are only granted a single-entry visa, so if they leave the USA for a conference or something in not-their-home-country, then they either must do a Third Country application from the conference location or travel to their home country on the way back to the USA. The other group are people with visas of a limited time (less than a PhD time) so they end up going to Canada or Mexico as the Third Country, which is much cheaper/easier than going home, but potentially can leave them stranded there for weeks if they don't get it approved right away). Sorry I can't answer the direct question for you though.

That's too bad. The email said that you could send them an email if April/May didn't work for you but it didn't promise an earlier decision. It sounds like they might be able to provide an earlier decision if they thought they would accept you for sure, no matter what the rest of whatever their process is pans out. At least, that could be one interpretation of what that earlier email meant.