Queen of Kale

Not to derail an already derailed conversation - but was anyone else disappointed when they started reading the thread and realized the topic was not actually "prostitution for paying off student loans"? I thought I'd entered a mystical intersecting realm between GradCafe and SavageLove...

I'm a monster, likely of the many tenticled variety. It helps with both multi-tasking and intimidating undergrads. The giant squid beak is mainly for scratching hard to reach places and opening coconuts though.

I think the folilow-up email in the interview language is a really brilliant idea that you should avail yourself of.

I actually think if you take up precious essay space explaining away a B+ it's going to be a red flag that you don't understand that in grad school original research almost always trumps grades. Also it might make you look a smidge crazy on a personal level. Not saying I don't have crazy thoughts like these but I hide them from the world and would never put them into print, especially in application materials. Save these thoughts for the fridays you share beers with your equally crazy grad school buddies.

I have lived in several states all over the eastern half of the US but haven't ventured much on the western half. Other countries/locals visited: England, Wales, France, Italy, Vatican City, Turkey, Belize, Mexico, Honduras, Jamaica, Cayman Islands, and next up: Hungary & Canada (in two separate trips, obvs)

Two ten hour positions is less then my TA load and I still have time for coursework and relationships. But, of course, know thyself and thy limits of sanity/stress.

Speak with the head of your department as there is a huge range of what is considered normal from department to department. I am the only one in my cohort who hasn't received a C yet and when I received a B- for a course my committee didn't blink an eye. The norm is set by your peer group to a large extent although if you are applying else where for a PhD it will be paramount to have letter writers explain your grades in relationship to your cohorts favorably. Just my opinion.

I withstood my first committee meeting without anyone noticing I didn't belong!

I changed my project substantially although i got an HM my first year. I also reworked my BI statement to make it tighter and had different letter writers. So, I'm not sure which change was the most impactful, or if it was just the way the chips fell, but I was glad that I sort of started from scratch with my project. For one thing, even if I hadn't won the process of writing an application like that can be tremendously fruitful and really steer your interests.

I think one way to de-stigmatize counseling is to be honest about it. It's pretty much accepted in my department that most students seek counseling at one point or another. Not because they are weak or my department is particularly demanding; but because they are responsible and pro-active adults and the department culture has become tolerant of a certain level of openness about the topic. I don't view going to counseling as different than going to get my teeth cleaned periodically - it's a form of self-care and personal maintenance that may be a luxury but helps you safe guard assets you hope to be life long. And, since graduate school is a time when many of us have a higher quality of health care than we would otherwise it makes sense to avail yourself of it. Lastly, I know plenty of advisors who wish their students had more counseling or another sounding board but I can't imagine an advisor thinking - "I wish my student were just crying in their office waiting for shit to really hit the fan so they can bring it to me". Now, it's all in the approach and I think there is a line between being honest and being overly vocal. I periodically see a counselor and my advisor knows, but not because we had some incredible heart to heart, simply because before my first appointment I came to his office and said something along the lines of, "I might miss an hour here or there in the next few months because I've decided it would be beneficial to meet with a counselor periodically while I adjust to the city and to graduate school." That was it. All he said was, "every graduate student I ever had that graduated went to counseling" and the conversation was over. In fact, one of the benefits of having a counselor/therapist is not building up emotionally to the point where you can't stop yourself from inappropriately over-sharing with your advisor or coworkers.

My husband has a GED and we have been together for 12 years. He is my better half in almost every way. But, I feel pretty strongly that intelligence and higher education have little correlation except that higher education should be available as a tool for self-betterment if someone chooses to avail themselves of that particular course. It also helps that my husband's intellectual strengths are areas I am weaker in. He has an incredible memory for, and ability to pull from, many threads of literature, art, history, all in the course of the same conversation. I can do calculus. It's nice that we have each other but education has very little to do with out compatibility. Sure, he is articulate, informed, and excited about learning - attributes you may associate with education (although, I don't). But more importantly he is filled with empathy, compassion, and mercy when dealing with others. I like to think that higher education increases our capacity for these emotions but I have yet to see evidence of a strong correlation, despite some pretty long term (but laughable IMO) attempts to integrate "character education" into curriculums at all levels. Higher education is lovely but life experience, opportunity, and personal choice are paramount and higher education is just a personal choice to pursue one particular type of experience when given the opportunity.

We got our actual diplomas when we walked and had one big ceremony for everyone. The only unusual thing was because I went to school in New Orleans we had a second line (for those of you that know what that is).

I did an REU one summer, a DOE program the following summer, and a few stints with NASA at develop. I don't know how selective the DOE or NASA programs were but many people at the REU schools told us they are harder to get into then their respective graduate programs. Which, I put to the test a few years later and it turned out to be true with my very limited sample size.

I had to read this twice before I realized you weren't quoting me but, you know, the band... Nervous or not nervous, I feel like ya'll will be too busy and too brain dead (like me) in your first year to ever look back on this moment. So soak it all in, whatever you're feeling.

VG/VG E/E E/E => awarded Last year I had the same scores & very similar application and received an HM. In fact, a good friend in the same field had lower scores than me last year and was awarded. So yes, the process is slightly random but I am also reeaaallly really happy that the odds inexplicably fell in my favor this time & wish good luck to those of you with additional years of availability. Don't lose heart!

This is going in a different direction but you should prepare yourself to not be awed by everything at your new top-notch institution. I went from an unranked school to a top 20 & was disappointed to find that while the quality of research was exponentially better, the quality of teaching was much worse. At my unranked school my professors made $40k a year tops, and were either adjunct professors who worked in the field full time or were professors who began teaching after working in industry. They were not there for the money and were expected to do very little research. The quality of teaching was pretty high though. At my new institution teaching is considered a sideline at best and often an annoyance or hurdle, and that comes across in the classroom. My fellow "upwardly mobile" grad students and I often get together over a beer and joke about how if we had worked our asses off in high school to pay $40k a year to have poorly taught classes we'd be pretty irate - but of course most of the undergrads feel that they are getting what they (or their parents) paid for. And maybe they are; maybe the name recognition is more important than the quality of teaching. But right off the bat my gut feeling is that I'm not cut out to work in an R1 if I have to choose between teaching and research. And I understand theres only so much time in the day, so I'm sympathetic to everyone in this scenario. It just seems like an unsustainable system. Like, eventually top-notch schools are going to have to have two parallel faculty branches: one of star studded researchers who make guest appearances in classrooms and another of top notch educators that make it worth while to pay out the nose for an education. Just my long ramble thoughts - there's more that will be potentially different from your undergrad than just how smart the students are. As a small addition; you may also be surprised by how the students are similar to those at your first school. What I have noticed is that the top students at both schools are similar but that the spread is just much wider at my first school. Also, my newer & higher ranked school has more grade inflation but also covers more material in courses over similar timescales (but with lower quality teaching).

Lately with my husband we've been binge watching comedy, mainly because the weather is so depressing here: Ex. Louie (the Louis C. K. show) & Portlandia Our "classics" that we watch sometimes when we eat or something are West Wing and X-Files. Other things that we've binge watched together or that I have binge-listened-to while data processing at work: Orange is the New Black, Hemlock Grove (which we thought was quirky & funny but several of our friends did not like), Fringe, & Bones (which is super cheesy but easy to follow if I'm just listening to it while I work) I couldn't get into House of Cards. I need to care about at least one character on a show I'm watching, otherwise it leaves me feeling bad about myself for either rooting for someone I wouldn't like in real life or for rooting against the characters. Oh! Edited to add that while this isn't a binge-able show we did watch a random French movie that was charming and delightful and left my husband and I all bouncy and delighted and we've been trying to convince other people to watch it since: Populaire. It as so good that now when we are looking for a movie to watch on a Saturday night my husband always bemoans, "I wish we could find another Populaire..."

how about people who got the HM last year and anticipate getting nothing this year

I'd like to make a semi-dissenting opinion and say that if you are from a small & unknown school, and your other two letters are from people unknown in your chosen field, it is not crazy to ask for a letter from someone with a little extra name recognition if they can write more than an "A in class" type letter. I say this as someone from that very situation. Many times the letter from the more famous person was brought up during interviews as a highlight of my application because the POIs had very little way (besides my GRE) of comparing my high grades from Unknown U. to the applicants they had for the same slot from Clout College.

My advisor (and by this I don't mean a research advisor but rather my undergrad academic advisor, who I was close to but who also was just a terrible advisor as far as course recommendations, etc, and who I did not ask for LOR from) basically told me to pick the middle 2 schools from my ranks and not include any reaches or any safeties. I ignored him and am attending one of the two biggest reach schools I applied to and was accepted to the other. So, don't always trust the "expert" if they've been out of the loop or have their own prejudices which may be clouding their judgement. I did run my list very early on (like the previous spring) by a research advisor I had during an REU and who I knew had a much better understanding of the best labs/minds/personalities/and research fits in the field I was interested in.

I emailed POIs before applying to each school and had some sort of short phone interview with each of my POIs after submitting my applications. It worked pretty well for me but I don't know if thats why. There just a lot of luck involved in the process that has little to do with the applicants.

Well if you care to take a poll I would say I've gotten basically no results my first year but I have learned a huge amount. And it would be nice if the emphasis of the first two years of grad school could be shifted back towards building a foundation of knowledge & skills versus publishing & presenting asap. Just IMHO.

I feel like it happens a lot in my program but usually in a half joking & trying to motivate the student via getting their back against the wall. This technique really seems to work for very few students so I don't know why its popular other than perhaps it's been passed down through the academic generations where those who responded well were more likely to stay in academia and later employ the technique themselves. It's very silly. Also, it reminds me of the movie "Wild hearts can't be broken" but really just sliding that movie to struggling students would be a thousand times more inspirational than berating them.

So, So, So very antsy. I don't think I got it. I feel less confident than last year when I only got an HM. But I would just like to have it out of the way.