Firled

I was accepted to a large state school and offered $13,000 per academic year plus a tuition rebate so I wouldn't have to pay tuition. I accepted a private university with a tuition rebate and $18,000 academic year stipend. It's not worth it to go into a Ph.D. program with no funding. Tenure track Jobs are hard to find so why go into debt?

Thanks to all you great folks at the GradCafe for those helpful posts. Last year I failed to win a SSHRC (score 15/30) and this year I scored 19.9/30 and got 1 year of funding in category B since I am in the U.S. I already completed 36 months of my program so it was my very last chance. Better luck next year for those who were in my shoes last year!

I disagree with the posters but I do agree that you don't want to get into debt for a Ph.D. It depends on the institution and on your work experience. If there are TA-ships outside of your academic department that you can apply for, then you may be able to fund yourself this way. My Ph.D. program does not provide guaranteed funding and I find outside funding by going outside my academic department.

My doctoral stipend is $20K. After tax I get about $1700 a month. My rent is $900 plus electric and digital cable, which is my luxury item. So the rest of the money goes for other living expenses, travel, and conferences. I supplement my stipend with a summer teaching job that pays well. I earn about $15K each summer teaching a full course load at a university.

I think most instructors just like to be thanked and also informed as to the outcome, which you did!

Professors are busy and get asked to write dozens if not a hundred reference letters a year. You honestly expect them to spend hours devoting themselves to your particular letter? My suggestion would be to ask the professor if they would allow you to write the reference yourself or in future provide them with bulleted points that include what YOU want them to say. Plus, you cannot fault professors for writing what they feel are honest evaluations of your work. It would be an affront to their integrity to demand otherwise. Just wait a year until you get asked for reference letters from many students and you'll quickly change your attitude.

Think of the workload as preparation for life as an assistant professor. TA workloads are not that high. This depends almost entirely on how well organized the professor is. If you work for an organized prof, you end up doing 15 hours but it can go up to 25 if the professor requires you to organize a lot of lectures, do all the grading, etc. Good profs will split the grading with you and generally keep it to 15 hours. I currently have a TA contract for 20 hours per week and get everything done in 10 hours.

You will find many Nigerians around campuses in the U.S. No worries there. Just google the institution, then google Nigerian Students Association and there you go! Good luck!

johndiligent, I don't think it's evil if it's the professor's fault for sending a letter late so you're entirely correct. The professor should offer to pay the courier charge if they are at fault, but not if the student requests late. This student had looked up my telephone number and called me at home to beg for the letter to be couriered so I felt sympathy for her at the time. I'm sure as I gain more experience, I will get a lot meaner!

I agree with you. My hope is that some student who reads this thread will think twice and remember to thank their LOR writer!

Thank you! I think professors just like to get a thank you e-mail at the very minimum. Otherwise, how do we know our LORs are effective? As for me, I give small gifts or at the very minimum a hand-written thank you card to my referees. I think with some students it's a sense of entitlement so they see letters of rec as their right and not a favor. They also fail to appreciate that part-time faculty don't get paid to write these and postage comes out of our pockets. What I have resorted to doing is to recommend that they seek a full time professor's LOR but since those professors are busy, the part-timers usually get hit with more requests.

*Elegy starring Penelope Cruz as a grad student and Ben Kingsley as her professor with whom she has an affair *The Human Stain-Anthony Hopkins as a professor *The Barbarian Invasions- about a dying professor *Wit- about a dying professor (sense a theme here?)

I was admitted to a Ph.D. program under such a condition. I got a TA/RA ship only for the first year and then the following year I was on my own. What you have to do is find out if there are TA or RA jobs available outside your academic department. If you have an undergrad degree in a high demand area, you'll be fine. If your degree is highly specialized then you may not find anything. Fortunately, I had an undergraduate degree in a field that allowed me to easily find TA positions in other departments for the following two years.

As a sociology of education doctoral student there are hundreds of studies which document your exact experience so you are not imagining things. Sometimes this occurs because the faculty member is unfamiliar/uncomfortable with minorities. So the professor might ignore or avert eye contact with you. Sometimes these are referred to as something called racial microagressions. They are tiny actions that go unnoticed by most of the class. If you mentioned this to your white colleagues, I would bet they never notice anything. I had this happen to me before but I would suggest whenever possible trying to speak to this prof informally so they get a sense of your background and start 'seeing you.' If the prof seems open enough, you can try addressing the subject using humor and see if the prof becomes defensive or laughs along with you. Since most people fear being accused of racism, humor often works to disarm them. It never ceases to amaze me how minority students have to work harder to overcome everyday things that go unnoticed by other students!

I have been at two institutions as a graduate student where I have witnessed inappropriate graduate student/faculty relationships. One married female professor left her spouse for a graduate student. Another married professor open-mouth kissed a female grad student at a party. There is a great movie called Elegy starring Penelope Cruz and Ben Kingsley about faculty/graduate student affairs.

I am a Ph.D. student who also works as a lecturer part-time so I have experienced both sides of the issue. Anyone else in this position? Having to write them and also request them too? My pet peeves as a writer: *Students who ask for several letters of recommendation and then neglect to say THANK YOU. I am disgusted by this rudeness. As a part-time faculty and grad student I wasn't getting paid to write them so thanks would have been nice. Some generous students have given me gift cards as thanks but I know I cannot expect this. One student wanted a last minute FEDEX that I had to pay $30 for since she decided on a whim to apply to a program with a deadline in two days. Never heard from her again. *Students who e-mail in a panic needing a reference letter in less than three days. Do they seriously think I can drop everything and write a letter? Students need to realize these letters take hours away from my own work. *Students who expect you to pay out of your own pocket for postage (my department DOES NOT pay for postage for part-time faculty or grad students) for sending letters. I have spent about $50 this past year on postage for students. My pet peeves as a requester: *Professors who forget deadlines and have to be hounded. I have lost out on fellowships this way. *Professors who write weak letters of reference and have to be re-written, replaced or substituted. All in all, the LOR process sucks for all concerned!

I have known many Ph.D. students to just write the Chair and refuse to accept the offer if the funding is not increased.

Once you enter the program, ask around for teaching or graduate assistant opportunities which may come with a tuition waiver and stipend. Ph.D. students have first priority, but any leftover positions go to MA students. Ask your advisor about this.

I applied for a SSHRC for the 2009 competition and was B-listed (rejected)so was looking for alternatives.

I am a third year doctoral student in the U.S. who was B-listed last year and just received a letter informing me that my application has been forwarded to the National competition. No idea what my score was this year though. Good luck everyone!

Write to some of the past winners published on the site and you will probably get a few helpful responses. I received great help! http://www.sshrc.ca/site/winning-recherche_subventionnee/results-resultats-eng.aspx

They post a list of winners on the web site. I wrote to a few and was amazed by the helpful responses I got. More advice than from my own department. http://www.sshrc.ca/site/winning-recherche_subventionnee/results-resultats-eng.aspx

As for taxes, out of my $20K stipend I pay about $2800 per year. You do receive a percentage of it back once you complete your state and federal tax.

Living off your stipend depends on lifestyle too. I am a Ph.D. student in a small U.S. town with no social life. So despite my $900 monthly rent, I saved $8,000 from last year's $20K stipend. The bank actually called to advise me that since I had so much money in the account that I need to start investing it. I am from a big city and would normally spend lots of money on dining and entertainment but I am saving more by despite making less.

Being first generation and minority, it's annoying to be around relatives who simply cannot fathom why a Ph.D. takes so long! I am only in my second year, but keeping getting asked "Are you done yet?" by family members. I then have to patiently explain that a Ph.D. takes a minimum of 4 years and involves a dissertation at which point I get a blank stare. The other problem is that amongst my working class family members, being an academic is regarded as lazy,effortless work with summers off (what a joke!). Holding down a full-time manufacturing job represents real work to them and I just seem to be lazy in their eyes!