sociologo

In my PhD program, Caucasians are the majority... I would say about 70%. The rest of us are a mix of international students (mainly from Asian countries like China, Korea, and India) and Latinoes. The problem isn't so much that the US population is already diverse--it's that people of different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds have unequal opportunity to learn and become successful. If you look at the population of university/college professors in this country, the majority are white and male. In some departments, such as engineering, I've noticed more professors from international backgrounds, like India or China.

So, I know you're referring to your experiences in Canada, but here in the US, especially in more elite universities or grad programs, I would say the majority is still white (I have absolutely no data to back this up... I'm sure it's around the web somewhere, but too lazy to look it up).

Love seeing all the photos of everyone's pets!
 
Here are our three crazy cats:


My husband is allergic to cats, but fortunately isn't allergic to Sphynx! (Some people with cat allergies can tolerate Sphynx, some can't.)

As I type this, the youngest is curled up in my lap, purring away. They are the sweetest, most affectionate cats I've ever met.

It's just so backwards to say that anyone who doesn't have the strength of will to see past the limitations that society places upon them are the ones at fault. This is the textbook definition of internalized oppression. The fault lies with those with prejudice, not for those of us who have to suffer it. I repeat we are at fault for being victims.

I applaud your ability to succeed in the face of prejudice, I really do. And I like your message of positivity and am in no way trying to delegitimize your personal story of success. But to pretend that it's just as easy as pulling yourself up by your boot straps and everyone who doesn't is just "setting themselves up for additional stress" is frankly just naive. It's good that you see yourself as it should be: an American. But you know as well as I do that there's probably a majority of people in the country who will see not you, but a host of stereotypes. I'm not into total victimization, I'm being a realist. Unfortunately, the way that society works is that these peoples' perceptions of you will often have a direct and salient effect on your life. These real, tangible issues of power that daily keep some people of minority status from rising up need to be addressed, not de-emphasized.

There are millions of people out there that are living the "hurdles" that you speak of and it's not due to any lack of determination on their part... some simply cannot face those odds like you have for a multitude of reasons. To whitewash over all those complexities by saying "Just ignore peoples' perceptions of you and be you! It's easy!" is doing a disservice to the real issues of oppression that people of minority status face. We (a general 'we', not that I'm saying all people of minority status are accountable) need to talk about these limitations and what leads to them instead of just ignoring it and letting people in power do what they will with no consequence.

My first brush with discrimination happened not long after I arrived at the US at age 16... despite having good grades from K-10, my high school counselor discouraged me from applying to four-year universities. She said my education in Latin America had not been a good as if I had lived in the US... for instance, she dismissed my A's in Physics saying that the Physics I had studied was not the same as what was taught here. Then she suggested a vocational school so I could "help my family." Maybe cosmetology?

I ignored her, applied to several highly-ranked universities, and got into every single one. And that's when I realized that I was going to ignore counselors and forge my own path. I also told myself I would NEVER let anyone else define me... she defined me as a minority, and thus someone inferior. Never again.

Although I can easily be l labeled as "Latina," I don't identify myself as such. I am very proud of my heritage and I'm very much in touch with the culture I grew up in, but I'm an American. I don't see myself as a member of a minority, and I don't feel I have to prove myself BECAUSE I'm a "Latina." I already work hard because I set very ambitious goals for myself... and it's not worth it to stress myself out over whether others will have some preconceived notion based on how they wish to define my identity.

I think sometimes people who are members of minorities pay way too much attention to others' perceptions of one's minority status (whether it be race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, etc.) and set themselves up for additional stress... your "status" becomes yet another hurdle to jump through, and in my experience as a student and as an educator, it often is a hurdle of our own creation.

Just go in there and do the absolute best you can do. Don't ever let them see you as a "black female" and treat you as such... Let them see you as the brilliant student and scholar you are, and demand the respect you have earned by being so darned awesome.

Right and I disagree. I'm only speaking for myself, of course, not for the OP. I know you said you weren't making a comparison and that you don't know the minority experience, but stating that "but I think you should feel a bit comforted that these feelings you have might be due to the fact that you're just a grad student, and we all have those feelings." is reductive and is making a comparison.

I'm not trying to be confrontational or start a fight. I merely find it borderline insulting to bring up some universal student insecurity as a "comfort" for the vastly different experiences of ethnic/racial minorities in predominantly white environments.

Yes, absolutely, every student will have some feeling of insecurity and having to prove themselves when in grad school. Is that relevant to the scrutiny that many, if not all, ethnic minorities must face in those institutions? Not really.

It's strange that you start off by making the requisite statements about not knowing minority experience but then by the end, your rhetoric starts sounding somewhat "colour blind". Statements like: "grad students are prone to feeling they need to prove themselves- regardless of the 'stereotypes [that] have been foisted' on them." really, really rub me the wrong way. It's here that you're, again, making comparisons, and I vigorously disagree with that.

Hi there,

I have not been in a situation where I have felt like a minority, so I can comment on that...but I can say that 99% of graduate students feel that they have to work harder than the next person to re-enforce that they are a competent student. I think graduate students always feel they have to meet some unknown bar that is set especially high just for them, and that they have the responsibility to themselves, their department and advisor to meet an unrealistic goal. I think that's just who we are.

I hope others can offer more advice to your specific question about being a minority...but I think you should feel a bit comforted that these feelings you have might be due to the fact that you're just a grad student, and we all have those feelings.

The OP isn't saying that they want to go to grad school solely to meet a future spouse, right? To me, the post reads as someone who is concerned about meeting a future spouse while in grad school. More generally, worrying about how grad school may affect the non-academic parts of our lives is a legitimate graduate student concern!
 
I don't think there is anything wrong with choosing to go to grad school for other reasons in addition to academic ones. I think it's even okay to have non-academic reasons to have similar priority to academic reasons. For example, my wife and I have thought about starting a family while I'm in grad school. So, when we were deciding where I should go, we picked the program on lots of non-academic reasons (close to family, good stipend, good health insurance, childcare benefits, safe environment, multicultural city, nice weather, etc. etc.). Most people would agree that these are all important factors to consider when picking a school. And, I don't really see a huge difference between any of the factors I picked and something like "potential to find a spouse" (e.g. picking a big city). 
 
Graduate students should not be expected to, nor should they need to put their personal lives on hold while they get their graduate training. I'm not saying it's a bad thing when people choose to focus solely on school/work while in a graduate program. However, if you don't want to do this, you should not have to, and I don't think it's fair for people to say things that imply one does not belong in graduate school/academia if one has non-academic priorities. The only factor that matters is whether or not the applicant wants to go to grad school / believes it's the best course of action for them.
 
To answer the OP's other question about experiences with dating in grad school. I started grad school with a significant other and for most couples I meet with one (or both) partners in grad school, they usually had begun their relationship before grad school. But I also know plenty of couples that begin relationships while both partners were in grad school, or one person in grad school and the other not. Grad school is definitely time-consuming, but it's not time-consuming to the point where the only thing you can spend time on is school. Granted, I don't know the workload of a MSW program, and it might be way more intense because it's a shorter program than a PhD. I think that with good time management skills, grad students can definitely find time to date, to spend time with their spouses, to raise a family, to play on a competitive sports team, to volunteer in the community, etc. (obviously not all of these at once!).
 
Grad school can easily take up all of your time if you let it, or if you want it to. You have to make time for your own activities if you want to have time to do other things.It's not necessary to always put school as your priority. There will be times where you will have no choice but to buckle down and get the work/studying done, but it's important for me to have balance and other interests/priorities as well. 

i'm super jealous of you folks with fall breaks! my next chunk of time off is the second weekend of november, a whopping 3 days total; my more bearded half & i will be spending it in glacier national park looking at views like this:

I decided to go to a conference right before fall break to ensure I'd get an actual break and it's awesome. I fully recommend this strategy to those who aren't tied to labs...

My spouse and I made geographic preference a big deal in our PhD search (we didn't in the MSc search) even though we knew that jobs in specific geographic locations are rare! However, I think a tenure track position is even harder to get so like fuzzy, we decided that why suffer through a PhD in a horrible location without any real guarantee that there will be a tenure-track position at the end, regardless of location!
 
In the end, we decided that location is more important than anything else so starting with the PhD, we're only going to move to places we both want to live. I'd rather leave academia than live somewhere I hate, since we both feel confident in our abilities to get decent work in our geographic location of choice. Although it is hard to say how we will feel in a few years when it's actually time to job hunt, during the PhD search, I weighted location/quality of life/personal motivations on equal footing with academic fit / quality of research and other academic reasons.
 
Before applying, I made a list of all the schools that interested me academically and personally and showed that to my spouse. She then removed all of the places she did not want to live (considering both personal preferences and the potential for her to find work) and then I applied to all of the remaining programs. After the results came in and it was time to visit, I told all of the schools my 50-50 personal/academic weighting and my spouse even visited a few programs with me. We then both independently made our final list and showed them to each other. Fortunately, the top 3 rankings were exactly the same on both our lists so it was an easy choice! But if they were not, I would like to think that we would have been able to sit down, discuss the options and figure something out (one alternative would be to not do a PhD at all). When it is time to apply for jobs and postdocs, I think we will be following the same strategy.

I had clear geographical preferences when applying to grad school precisely because I knew that I would have little or no freedom in choosing my preferred location when applying for academic positions. Even so, some position that are on the market this year absolutely do not seem like places that I could live in, and I'm not applying for them. I don't want to make a life choice that I know would make me very unhappy just for the sake of having a (bad) job, there are other solutions here. I think quality of life is very important and there are reasons to make it a priority -- perhaps not the top one, but still an important one. If you can apply to a good selection of schools in places you also want to live in, why not do it?

This was asked in 2010. Just saying.

I think it's really different on campus versus off campus...

I love Fuzzylogician's categorizing.
 
Here's what I do.
 
Local stress:
-Put the work down
-Exercise
-Go for a walk, usually in a public park
-Read a non-academic book
-Surf the Internet, watch stupid videos on YouTube
-Go out with my friends, even if it's just drinks at their place
-Watch TV, especially TV where other people have a lot of problems (Grey's Anatomy is really good for this).
-Play video games.  Smashing things rules.
 
Existential stress:
-Talk to my advisor
-Talk to a therapist or counselor
-Cry and call my mother
-Complain to my husband
-Talk with my friends
-Exercise a lot
-Neglect my work for a week or so, sometimes more (one time an entire summer)
-Sit in the park
-Drink coffee for hours at a coffeeshop
-Get really drunk with friends
-Sleep
-Smash things in video games
 
Lately I've been finding healthier ways to deal with stress.  Running is awesome; normally I hate running, but there's something about it that's so mindless and helps you shed the stress.  When it starts to creep up on you, you just run faster.  I'm planning to start swimming 1-2 times a week this year.  Also when I eat and drink healthier, I feel less stressed.  Drinking more water has done wonders for keeping the stress down, surprisingly enough.
 
I also really like being outside, so sitting in the park on a sunny day (even when it's cold) calms me down.  I have really understanding friends, many of whom have gone to grad school so talking with them about how much I hate it and listening to them make sympathetic noises is also really helpful.
 
I've also started always doing at least 2 other things that aren't grad school, but are long-term that I can feel proud of.  Years 4 and 5 I worked part-time in student affairs, so when I was having an existential crisis for my doctoral work I turned to my successes as a hall director.  I really liked that job and there were lots of little satisfactions and gratifications (helping students solve personal crises; supervising my resident assistants; advising students on planning careers; writing recommendation letters, etc.)  I also started volunteering for an organization that helps low-income minority students go to college, and this year I am considering doing volunteer SAT tutoring for a small group of low-income students (reviewing my time commitments).
 
You just really have to remember that you are a real person with a full life outside of your doctoral studies.  It's a marathon, not a sprint, so make sure you pace yourself and get yourself involved in your community and your hobbies outside of schoolwork.  Don't isolate yourself, and don't feel like all of your friends and interests have to be related to school.

If you go through your local animal shelter(s), they will sometime run specials in which they waive the adoption fee. As well, if you adopt an older cat, they will usually have been spayed/neutered already. Plus you're less likely to have to worry about toilet training with a slightly older cat! These were things when I adopted about a year ago. The shelter happened to be running a special on adult cats - they'd had an influx of strays come in recently, I guess. I also noticed that some of the pets were sponsored and so had had their adoption fees paid for already. If you're worried about the costs of vaccines, some vets might be wiling to do a payment plan of sorts - doesn't hurt to ask!

My way to get out of a slump: allow myself to go deeper into the slump and recognize that I deserve the time off. My logic: I'm not being productive anyway, so I might as well take the time to recover. I try not to work (for a day, two or three, depending on how much time off I can afford myself) and get work completely off my mind. Go away or stay home, sit on the beach or hike, whatever it is that helps you relax completely. It's important to be conscious about the choice to take time off from work, because it's a way of acknowledging your hard work and that you have a right to some sanity. Normally after some real rest I feel refreshed and I can slowly think about getting my head back in the game.  

This was a point that played a big role in the schools I applied to several seasons ago. I found that looking at job placements of recent grads was a good indicator of whether students were supported in entering non-teaching positions. You could also look at professor's CVs to see if they do work outside of teaching/publishing - what else are they involved in? 

I am a Masters in Economics and I am choosing to do a PhD in Information Sciences. It's a decision that most of the people around me are looking with a sense of incredulity.
 
But he's got quite a bit wrong according to me.
 
Well, any PhD in a field which the industry uses gives you what the blog post talks about.
Engineering PhDs live a good life with good pay in good companies doing good research.
PhDs in Business pay much much more that a PhD in Economics even though both require very similar backgrounds and are often much easier.
PhDs in Finance and Stats trump a PhD in Economics in the job market
(Most PhDs in economics do work in statistics. My doctoral colleagues during my corporate stint never really went beyond econometrics. Ever. Rather boring mundane work for these economists.)
 
But all of this is isn't what it's about.
I think in the end of it all, you should do what you love doing. And I think most of PhDs are natural progressions to most people. They WANT to research and they do, in spite of a thousand blog posts such as this.

And am I the only one who is a little bored and tired of the methods of economists?

I once wrote a paper about how hot sauce consumption is a display of masculinity, males try to assert that dominance by consuming the hottest possible hot sauce. Look around for the Sociology of hot sauce, I think there's a few articles out there from professors at Emory and Kentucky.

I was in this situation last year. I had to accept an offer by April 15, but received an email about a week later saying I was off the funding waitlist at my top choice. I felt really guilty about reneging my acceptance to the first institution, but I knew that I would be happier and do much better work at my top choice. I was expecting to get some sort of nasty email or something after I contacted the first institution, but I didn't get anything like that. The DGS emailed me to ask me a few question about why, but it wasn't accusatory, it was more seeing what the program could do to be more competitive in the future. He seemed really understanding about why I had chosen the other school. I think it helped that I very much made it a "it's not you, it's me" situation, and that it was not too long after the deadline - two weeks max. I felt really guilty (and I may have cried and given myself panic attacks while trying to finalize my decision), but I'm really happy that I ended up coming to my first choice. The program is such a better fit for me, there are so many more faculty who share my interests, and it was totally worth that little bit of anxiety. 
 
Another thing to consider is what type of funding (if any) you are being offered from the university where you are accepting in order to meet the April 15 deadline. Some funding packages are things you were specifically nominated for - such as fellowships. If you end up reneging your offer, the university might not be able to give the funding to someone else. For me, I was going to be funded through a GTA position, so that is much more easily transferred to another person. 

Yes, that is a reasonable price. I pay $550 for my one bedroom in West Knoxville. 

I was in this situation last year. I had to accept an offer by April 15, but received an email about a week later saying I was off the funding waitlist at my top choice. I felt really guilty about reneging my acceptance to the first institution, but I knew that I would be happier and do much better work at my top choice. I was expecting to get some sort of nasty email or something after I contacted the first institution, but I didn't get anything like that. The DGS emailed me to ask me a few question about why, but it wasn't accusatory, it was more seeing what the program could do to be more competitive in the future. He seemed really understanding about why I had chosen the other school. I think it helped that I very much made it a "it's not you, it's me" situation, and that it was not too long after the deadline - two weeks max. I felt really guilty (and I may have cried and given myself panic attacks while trying to finalize my decision), but I'm really happy that I ended up coming to my first choice. The program is such a better fit for me, there are so many more faculty who share my interests, and it was totally worth that little bit of anxiety. 
 
Another thing to consider is what type of funding (if any) you are being offered from the university where you are accepting in order to meet the April 15 deadline. Some funding packages are things you were specifically nominated for - such as fellowships. If you end up reneging your offer, the university might not be able to give the funding to someone else. For me, I was going to be funded through a GTA position, so that is much more easily transferred to another person. 

I think everything I say is absolutely awesome. I blow myself away.

Did you do formal prep before sitting for the GRE the first time?
 
Also, why do you upvote your own comments? Just curious.

I've been getting a lot of the, "Don't go to school X, the cost of living is way too high" comments from family lately. I appreciate the concern, but I'm anticipating poverty wherever I end up going, so it's not that much of an issue.