TeaGirl

I had a similar issue where my grad student stipend wasn't enough to cover the required annual salary in the rent contract, but showing them I had enough money saved in the bank to cover the difference for a year was fine.

Does not compute. I'm sure we'd all love to help, but you need to explain the situation first, chief.

That's what red ink is for. But, such comments can actually be constructive and can help a student to grow and learn from mistakes. Completely destroying a piece of work just sends the message that 'this is bad' with the implicit message 'you are bad' I just don't see it as possibly being constructive.
 
I also do think that even though graduate students exactly colleagues of the professors, we are certainly not undergrads anymore and most of us have professional experience. I've personally made decisions for companies worth tens of thousands of dollars (and more) and I would get quite upset if a professor isn't willing to trust my judgement considering outside of the ivory tower I'd be a well-educated professional.

In my field, when it comes to personal interactions, professors treat new students with the same respect they would treat anyone else. That is, they don't hold their "rank" over other (more junior) professors, or postdocs, or students. So, something like ripping up homework, or personal insults would be completely inappropriate and unacceptable. That said, although my field (and I think much of science) do have the approach that ideas are only judged on academic merit, not personality, most profs will be more skeptical of a "crazy new idea" from a grad student than if it came from an established faculty member. That is, I do second Eigen's statement that respect for one's academic abilities is something that is earned over time. But, basic person-to-person interactions respect should always be there, no matter your academic reputation/rank.
 
I have no idea what the norms in your field are when it comes to things like ripping up homework / respect for one another etc. In my opinion, this should have no place in any university no matter the field. Even though I know I am an outsider to the field, if this kind of action is normal in MFA programs, I would advocate for the University to take actions against this program to not allow this kind of action. I understand that some fields just do some things differently, but I would argue that no field should have the privilege of professors destroying their student's work.

Have you spoken to him about this candidly? Sometimes people are not aware of their actions: its time to be an adult. 
 
I would have found this incredibly insulting

The key is.... be an advocate for yourself and don't be afraid to fall flat on your face in front of your adviser.  Your adviser's job is to help you get back on your feet and steer you in the right direction.  A good adviser won't get upset as long as you tried and don't make assumptions about what s/he wants/expects of you.

Here's what I will advise, and it's all anecdotal and from experience. I have 2 siblings, both engineers, both went on F1 visas, and both successfully working in the U.S.
 
For the university/ies your are considering, now is the time for the Spring career fair. Go to their websites and check the list of companies which come recruiting. Ideally, you want several major large corporations that hire en-masse in your field (think of really big companies) Alternatively, go to the company websites and check their campus recruiting schedule and see which universities they visit. Some don't necessarily recruit in the career fair but on other days.
 
When you get in, the first year of your Masters/PhD, go to every single recruiting session, prepare your CV, and try to get a summer internship somewhere. This is critical, if you don't get that summer internship at a good company, it'll be that much more difficult to get a job post-graduation. International students on an F1 visa are eligible for a CPT, which lets you do an internship in the middle of your studies. If you do well in job interviews, and impress them in your internship, then you'll find it so much easier to get a job.
 
Additionally, F1 students are also allowed to apply for an OPT after graduating, which gives 1 year in which to work or search for a job, and it can be extended I believe 17months if you find work. In most cases, you can start working soon after graduation on the OPT which will give your sponsoring company time to  apply for the work visa.

This, after telling someone that I work as an instructor at my university and I'm applying for a PhD.

"Oh, you're applying for a PhD. But have you ever had a real job?"

Apparently, I don't have a real job. I just get paid for imaginary work.... sigh.

I just read through this entire thread and wow. I sympathize but if I were in your shoes I would've gotten a new advisor about 2-3 weeks in. I know we're on a PhD forum, but I don't think it's acceptable that working on weekends is taken for granted even if we do pull an all-nighter or work the odd weekend when there's a deadline. You're a human being with rights and not a slave. Personality clashes are one thing but it's another when she asks you to work every single weekend when you've already put in all your weekdays, let alone telling you that you shouldn't be sleeping. What kind of person even says that!!!
 
You've gotten some good advice on this thread. I don't know what field you're in so I'm not sure how it works, but in my field especially in the first year, no one expects that your first advisor is going to be "the one." It's pretty common for students to switch. You just have to find a professor willing to work with you, and then politely inform your current advisor that it's not working out and you are going to switch. I switched advisors and all I had to do was email our graduate secretary the name of my new advisor and let my old one know that I was switching.
 
I feel like the power dynamic between you two is all tilted to her side. Maybe it's because I worked prior to starting a PhD but my advice is that you need to take some of that power back. I feel the only way to do that is to become more independent and develop an inner meter of how well you are progressing and what needs to be done, and care less about what she thinks. I think this is exactly what she's pushing you to do. It's hard but as long as you are looking for external approval from her, she's going to be the bogeyman. My second piece of advice is don't be available all the time. I can't stress enough how important this is in a power dynamic especially in a work/academic environment. If she emails you, you don't need to drop everything and respond. In fact, if she emails you on the weekend, unless there's a Monday deadline don't respond till Monday morning. You should really make this into an absolute rule.
 
And for goodness sake, take the weekends off and get some rest. I go nuts and get depressed if I don't get enough sleep and at least a day per week where I can decompress!

Look, I get what you're saying. I agree with you on the statistics. However, keep in mind that statistics are an average. That means you'll have cases on both end of the spectrum. My personal experience doesn't negate the experience of thousands of women, but neither does theirs negate mine.
 
1) I figure you're just using my example as a general point. In my personal example, I figured that out by by seeing them objectively do better in exams and manage more difficult projects than what I could do. I don't suffer from false humility, but I give credit where credit is due.
 
2) I never said academic discrimination didn't exist or wasn't even more prevalent, I just shared my own personal experience. You say that you accept both cases might exist, yet you argue vehemently against one when it does? I don't understand.
 
3) Well, my undergrad department chair, who was my prof and who I did some research with and interacted with quite a bit was a woman and one of my role-models. She was, in my opinion, one of the best in the dept. if not the best and she's now the vice-provost. I had a male advisor during my MS who treated me pretty equally to my male project partner, and both he and I were pretty similar down to our same gpa's. My advisor was supportive and helped me a lot in my career. My two current co-advisors are male and female. I also have worked with both male and female students. I base my purely personal experiences based on those comparisons.
 
Finally, I'm sorry that you seem to dislike my own experience because it doesn't match the data, but I dislike having to offer up my history as evidence for making a simple statement, and then having my every statement questioned for validity. While it's great that we're having a discussion, I've experienced far more discrimination than just gender based in other areas of my life. I know what discrimination is and what it's not, and I'm intelligent enough to recognize it without needing someone who has never even met me to question my ability to do so. It feels very patronizing.

I'd love to talk about the studies, especially about the inequality in pay and promotions. However, you're right, I'm feeling personally singled out in this thread for being a bit different, which is making me feel defensive and on the whole is a little ironic considering the topic of this thread.

I think you just made me wake up my roommate with my unladylike bark of laughter.
 
 
 
Oh dear. I'm not proud to admit that I do this sometimes. Not act on it, but at first impression I become intimidated by very well dressed sexy women and imagine them as mean or not nice. I learned to keep a tight lid on my reaction though, and luckily enough, one of these women ended becoming one of my best friends.

Tea girl, I often find myself in the same position as you are, having to "defend" my personal experience.  I am not able to point to an situation in my past where I can say that I have been discriminated against due to being a female in academia.  I just can't.  I know that it is prevalent, and I know lots of people who have experienced it. I just have not experienced it myself.
 
But no matter how many caveats I stick in front of that statement, people still get pissed.  The most memorable occasion was a semi-blind date that I was one with another female grad student in my university.  She asked me if I had ever felt discriminated against as a woman in academia, and seemed shocked and disturbed by my negative response.  The remainder of the "date" deteriorated into her positing ideas for how I had really truly been a victim of discrimination, but just wasn't willing to admit it.  Was I just too ashamed to talk about it? (no.)  Had I been programmed (as noted above) to automatically assume that men are truly better (No.  Despite the arrogance of the statement I am the best/smartest student in my lab).  Did I just never notice that I was being discriminated against? (... maybe?  How the hell do I even answer that?)
 
Needless to say, it was one of the worst dates I had ever been on.

To be perfectly clear, I was never discriminated against academically and I was never "hiding" anything.
 
I've never felt the "boy's club" thing in my field whether socially or academically. Socially speaking, being a male dominated field, you will see male students hanging out in groups a lot of the time (especially when there was only 8 girls in class of 80 in my undergrad). If I'd felt intimidated by intruding on an all-male group perfectly naturally doing male-oriented activities, I might've stayed away. If I'd thought about gender discrimination a lot, I might've attributed my inability to fit in to gender discrimination.
I didn't though. Perhaps, naively, I wasn't aware that I was supposed to be discriminated against based on gender. I just walked up to the all-male groups, said hello, introduced my awkward self and made friends. The group naturally adjusted its social dynamics to suit everyone.
 
Academically, I have never felt discriminated against. I want to earn the respect of my colleagues and professors, both male and female, not because I'm a woman but because I'm good at what I do. It's how it's supposed to work. I worked very hard to be good but comparing myself to close male colleagues and friends I've never had to work harder than they did to earn the same respect.
If there were a couple of guys generally regarded as smarter or better, it was because they were actually smarter and put in more work than I did, and not because they were male and I was female.
 
Some men do think they're better researchers when they're not, but so do some women. I have two co-advisors, one male and one female. They both think they're always right and have the better idea/plan, but clearly they can't both be right when they disagree on scientific opinions so often. It's not some male specific issue but rather than a human ego issue. Unfortunately, the path to becoming a researcher/prof. tends to foster having a bit of an ego about how much better your research is than everyone else's. I've rarely met a "humble" professor to be honest, male or female.
 
I respect both of your opinions, but I don't understand why it's so hard to believe that someone didn't experience gender discrimination just because it contradicts your world view or personal experiences. While I'm 100% certain that there are plenty of women facing real gender discrimination, I find discounting the experiences of women who say they are not and looking for discrimination where there is none is itself discriminatory against both genders: It discriminates against women by belittling their minds and not assuming them intelligent enough to understand their own personal experiences, and by not treating them as adults responsible for their own shortcomings. It discriminates against men by belittling any success they have to favoritism, wrongly attributing gender discrimination to them and making them contend with some invisible unknowable meter of what exactly that is supposed to be.

But I think if you've really got so much internal doubt, anxiety, etc. it won't go away by September, it's probably something you're going to deal with your whole life (there's nothing wrong with that). That you say "I'm hoping...my life won't suck as much" is nothing more than a reflection of this insecurity. I mean, what actually sucks about your life? You don't have to post it online, but think long and hard about it. Do you have a supportive or at least loving family? Do you have hobbies you enjoy? Do you have friends? Or are you really narrowing your happiness down only to a romantic relationship (which, by your own account, is itself a cause of extreme anxiety because any indication a guy may leave you leads you to panic attacks)? Life is multi-faceted and amazing, and you're going to miss out on it if you don't open yourself to it!

Oh please - I would not assume that she was intimidated by you.  I have been impressed by many an undergrad - many who were more talented than I was when I was at their stage - but intimidated by none so far, and I've been here 6 years and have worked with a lot of undergrads.
 
I think she sounds like a person who does not know how to handle stress.  You have shown her that you are willing to take her abuse (inadvertently), so she uses you as a whipping board when she needs to lash out at something.  This has to stop - it doesn't matter that you're younger or at a different level.  You are both human beings and she needs to treat you like one.
 
If you want to make it work, then I would just be frank with her.  "Look, Sally, I would really like for us to continue our great working relationship.  But I've noticed that when you are stressed out, you lash out at me.  It hurts me and I would like for you not to do that."
 
It sounds like you said something similar to that and she started crying - again, don't blame yourself, as this is her, not you.  She either hasn't yet learned how to handle her emotions in an adult way, or she's having a really difficult time right now and just needs to work through it.  You can be friendly with her in the lab, but any time she snaps at you just remind her that she's taking her frustrations out on you and you don't like that.  If she persists even through the reminders, then I would just avoid her.
 
And please remember this for when you go into your own grad program and through life - you don't need to take abuse from anyone, regardless of their level.  Now of course when you start getting into adviser-advisee relationships and people who could destroy your career it gets a little more tricky, but that doesn't mean that you can't politely and respectfully address the abuse when it happens.

I don't think this is a problem with graduate-undergraduate student boundaries at all. You don't have to take crap from other people because you are an undergraduate or because you are on the "lowest rung" etc. and the graduate student does not have any right to treat you like less than a peer.
 
This situation would not be any different if you were both grad students, or if you were both undergrads. I have never treated an undergraduate as anyone different than a colleague, especially if they were working in the same group as me. So, to me, this sounds like you and this graduate student do not have the best relationship. You guys work in the same lab, so it's definitely easier if you were all friends, but people are not always friends with everyone! 
 
Thus, I would abandon all preconceptions about what an "appropriate" grad-undergrad relationship should be. You are two coworkers, working in the same place. If you want to be friends then do what you normally do with you want to make friends -- if the other is responsive, continue; if not, then probably back off and just not be friends. If there are mixed signals, then maybe talking about it would work but it can also be kind of awkward, in my opinion/experience.
 
But my opinion is that you shouldn't think of this as a "grad-student / undergrad student" issue, but just an issue between two colleagues / two people. 

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 just read through this entire thread and wow. I sympathize but if I were in your shoes I would've gotten a new advisor about 2-3 weeks in. I know we're on a PhD forum, but I don't think it's acceptable that working on weekends is taken for granted even if we do pull an all-nighter or work the odd weekend when there's a deadline. You're a human being with rights and not a slave. Personality clashes are one thing but it's another when she asks you to work every single weekend when you've already put in all your weekdays, let alone telling you that you shouldn't be sleeping. What kind of person even says that!!!
 
You've gotten some good advice on this thread. I don't know what field you're in so I'm not sure how it works, but in my field especially in the first year, no one expects that your first advisor is going to be "the one." It's pretty common for students to switch. You just have to find a professor willing to work with you, and then politely inform your current advisor that it's not working out and you are going to switch. I switched advisors and all I had to do was email our graduate secretary the name of my new advisor and let my old one know that I was switching.
 
I feel like the power dynamic between you two is all tilted to her side. Maybe it's because I worked prior to starting a PhD but my advice is that you need to take some of that power back. I feel the only way to do that is to become more independent and develop an inner meter of how well you are progressing and what needs to be done, and care less about what she thinks. I think this is exactly what she's pushing you to do. It's hard but as long as you are looking for external approval from her, she's going to be the bogeyman. My second piece of advice is don't be available all the time. I can't stress enough how important this is in a power dynamic especially in a work/academic environment. If she emails you, you don't need to drop everything and respond. In fact, if she emails you on the weekend, unless there's a Monday deadline don't respond till Monday morning. You should really make this into an absolute rule.
 
And for goodness sake, take the weekends off and get some rest. I go nuts and get depressed if I don't get enough sleep and at least a day per week where I can decompress!

I just read through this entire thread and wow. I sympathize but if I were in your shoes I would've gotten a new advisor about 2-3 weeks in. I know we're on a PhD forum, but I don't think it's acceptable that working on weekends is taken for granted even if we do pull an all-nighter or work the odd weekend when there's a deadline. You're a human being with rights and not a slave. Personality clashes are one thing but it's another when she asks you to work every single weekend when you've already put in all your weekdays, let alone telling you that you shouldn't be sleeping. What kind of person even says that!!!
 
You've gotten some good advice on this thread. I don't know what field you're in so I'm not sure how it works, but in my field especially in the first year, no one expects that your first advisor is going to be "the one." It's pretty common for students to switch. You just have to find a professor willing to work with you, and then politely inform your current advisor that it's not working out and you are going to switch. I switched advisors and all I had to do was email our graduate secretary the name of my new advisor and let my old one know that I was switching.
 
I feel like the power dynamic between you two is all tilted to her side. Maybe it's because I worked prior to starting a PhD but my advice is that you need to take some of that power back. I feel the only way to do that is to become more independent and develop an inner meter of how well you are progressing and what needs to be done, and care less about what she thinks. I think this is exactly what she's pushing you to do. It's hard but as long as you are looking for external approval from her, she's going to be the bogeyman. My second piece of advice is don't be available all the time. I can't stress enough how important this is in a power dynamic especially in a work/academic environment. If she emails you, you don't need to drop everything and respond. In fact, if she emails you on the weekend, unless there's a Monday deadline don't respond till Monday morning. You should really make this into an absolute rule.
 
And for goodness sake, take the weekends off and get some rest. I go nuts and get depressed if I don't get enough sleep and at least a day per week where I can decompress!

Is your advisor an assistant professor? She sure sounds like one, working frantically against her tenure clock and taking you on the crazy train with her. I have seen this a lot, always with untenured professors, and I think it's really sad. In order for the relationship to be successful, you'd need to be really comfortable pushing back, and knowing that no matter what, she'll always ask you to do one more thing - a beast that may never be satisfied. If imagining 5+ years of that seems unbearable, keep pushing to switch advisors.
 
Also, are your communications to the area coordinator as direct as your posts on here? From what you've written, you see to be very tolerant, polite, and accommodating in your interactions with your advisor (and others, I imagine). Could it be that your politeness waters down the urgency of your message? Sometimes faculty are so busy that you really have to metaphorically yell "Fire!" for them to take action - it might feel pushy or uncomfortable to you, but really, they don't notice.

I'm glad that you met with your DGS; I'm hoping the meeting goes well.  Let us know.
 
A few things, though: your adviser is not your dictator or controller; she is there to advise you.  I remember what it was like my first year; you feel so intimidated and your adviser feels so powerful, but you are their junior colleague, not an employee or their child.  So you're allowed to make your own choices - for example, dropping a class if your course load is too heavy or choosing not to work on the weekends.  I take Saturday and half of Sunday off, and if someone gave me comments on Friday and said they wanted them on Monday I simply say "I can't do that.  I can get them to you by Wednesday."  What is she gonna do, come home with you and force you to work?
 
It sounds like this is your adviser's personality: very critical.  Maybe she's a workaholic herself and is one of those people who thinks that you have to work 100-hour weeks to be successful in academia (it's not true).
 
For example, if she send you an email back that says "What are you going to do on the weekends?" deflect.  Just say, "I only made a bare bones schedule with a few milestones marked on the calendar, but if you would like a more detailed calendar I can do that for you."  Write things in on the weekends, but make sure you give yourself enough time so that if you don't want to work all day Sat and Sun then you don't have to.
 
If she sends you a draft on Friday and you can't get it back on Monday - and there's no reason to, because the NSF deadline is still a month or so away - and she says something like you have to send her something before Monday, say something like "That won't be possible for me.  This needs some work and I want to be sure I can devote the time to it that is necessary to change it.  I can get it back to you on Monday at our meeting."  In other words, give her a little push back.
 
YOU have to be the master of your own schedule - and that includes making time for coursework and other projects but also making time for yourself.  One of the mistakes I made in my first two years was thinking I could work around the clock.  Then you just burn out and you hate yourself and everything by third year.  If you run religiously - make time to run.  Put it as an event on your schedule.  Same thing with laundry or cleaning or even just relaxing and watching your favorite TV series.  Monday nights are TV nights for me and my husband: I cook dinner, I step away from the computer, we settle down and eat dinner and watch TV for 2-3 hours.
 
And if someone asks you to do something when you know you need to run or clean or do laundry or whatever, calculate that time in your day when you are making predictions for when you can get things back - "I can't get this back to you this evening, but I can get it to you by tomorrow evening."  (Try to avoid apologizing - don't append "sorry" to the beginning or end of this statement.)  You don't have to tell anyone what you have scheduled or why you can't do it - that's not their business.  In my experience most sane people are like "Okay" and move on, unless your timeline is unreasonably long or you're working on deadline (like a paper revision or a grant that's due next week).

I second both of the suggestions here but I would like to point out that there doesn't need to be anything outrageously wrong with your advisor and even if you have nothing to document, it's still completely legitimate to feel that you two don't get along. That happens sometimes and it doesn't need to be anybody's fault. I think you should make a decision for yourself whether you can fix something in your relationship with your advisor (and it's worth investing the time in it) or you want to switch. Then tell the DGS and insist on finding other solutions if they keep telling you to try and make it work with your advisor. I would maybe also start thinking about who might replace your advisor, because the DGS may ask you for your opinion. Maybe even start talking to potential advisors to get a feel for the probability that they will take you on as a student.

Make an appointment with the DGS and start scouting options for a new advisor.

Make an appointment with the DGS asap.  Or email them.  This seems like way too much to handle!!

Something something about hills and valleys.
 
I started off great, now I'm just starting to feel burnt out.
 
 
I'm having the opposite experience. My Masters was a breeze. For my PhD, I felt on top of everything for the first 1-2 months of the semester, then it started snowballing. I feel like I'm constantly swimming against a tide of work with no end in site. At least not till after my quals in January. It's affecting my mood and it doesn't help that I bombed an exam, as in I think I was in the bottom couple of grades in class (my fault) because I prioritized a million other things I had that week (term project proposal, homework, TA review session+exam+extra office hours that I had to prepare for, research) over that second exam and didn't study properly for it. Added bonus, it's an area I'm not very strong in compared to most other classmates who seem to be experts. I think an A is still within the realm of possibility because I have near perfect scores on everything else in that course, just 100 times extra pressure and hard work on giving in a perfect term project.
 
I just feel like I'm working all the time to get things done, and when I'm not, I worry about things like internships, life after grad school and if this was all worth it, and WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE!!
I realize I'm very lucky that I'm managing, that I like my advisor and research, that I'm getting an RA next semester so I don't have to deal with TA'ing, and while I don't love my courses, they're okay (except one. Yeah, that one I hate, haha). It's just that I'm so mentally exhausted I'm having a hard time staying positive.
 
Whew... it felt good to get all that off my chest. Back to the hamster wheel.