jeffster

The question that comes to my mind is, why do you get to expect something from your professors if you've done no work? It seems like this should have been a serious concern of yours in the first week, not in the first year. I am very sorry to hear about your illness, I can't imagine how tough that would be, and the negative affects that would have on PhD studies. Maybe we need some more information. Did the illness keep you out of school work for the entire year? How come you couldn't seek a deferment? It seems like there's nothing we can really say to help you here, anyway. You need to have a frank discussion with your professor about the previous year, your expectations, and their level of help. I think approaching it as "you never offer any help" is ill-advised. Instead approach it that you're having problems and hope they can help you figure out what can be done better. Maybe one of those things is closer contact with them, or maybe they just need to be clear about how self-driven they expect your work to be. Either way, you need to have that talk as soon as possible, since there's no going back on this first year whatever the cause may have been. Good luck.

I think it usually comes in the form of a tuition waiver all together, and you only have to take loans to cover the difference (if there is one). There are also various outside funding sources that grant money to people based on all sorts of criteria. This will vary widely by school and area of study. Your program should have more information on these things - many of them are merit-based in one way or another.

The answer is "it depends." Usually as part of the application approval, or at least close thereafter, a school will notify you of whether or not they're offering you financial aid and/or a stipend. Some top schools have lots of money and fund all their students, others have very little money and fund none of their students, or maybe one. Funding can be partial or full, or full plus extra money for living. Most offer a stipend in exchange for doing teaching or research, which also gives good experience. You can do some research on any individual institution to find out what the norm is there for the program you're interested in. That might give you a good starting point at least.

It's been my pretty consistent understanding that more recent performance far outweighs past performance. If you finished up strongly and also have good letters of recommendation, and none of this shows on your transcript, you probably don't even need to pay much attention to it in your statement of purpose.

What you're describing sounds similar to cold-calling in sales, and it has a very, very low success rate. You can drastically increase the chances of a successful cold call by having a referral from someone the person you're calling knows. So, since you actually work in the field in this area, maybe you can find a co-worker or supervisor or other local contact, and see if they can recommend someone in academia who could co-author this with you? Or maybe since you work for an aid organization, the organization itself might be able to help. I would think "Hello professor, you don't know me but when I spoke with Bob-mutual-contact-of-ours he recommended I get in touch with you..." sounds way, way better than "Hello professor so-and-so, you don't know me but I thought we could co-author this paper..." Or if you can't get any lead-ins to someone in academia who would do this with you, maybe you could look for other journals that would publish it, and accept a submission from someone actually working in the field? For that matter, you wouldn't have anything to loose contacting the journal in question and asking if it's a hard-and-fast rule, or if they would still consider your submission anyway.

Hi Bimba, it's great that your employer is willing to invest in you like this. However, I don't see how you would make it through an econ PhD program as you've described it. If you don't like math and haven't studied more than calc 1, and you don't even like studying, or econ itself, the whole thing will be an enormous struggle. Also, I'm really, really surprised to hear you got into an econ program with just calc 1. I would definitely worry about whether the program is legitimate, or worth your time. Maybe they would be willing to pay for you to study in an area you're actually interested in? That would work out better for everyone! Honestly, your deficiency with math and econ classes could be overcome with hard work and time, but the fact that you're not terribly interested in it seems like a deal-breaker to me.

How close? Both UofM and Eastern are about 45 minutes from downtown, and MSU is about double that. Those are all big schools that might have what you're looking for. Or Wayne State is actually in Detroit. Whether any of them have the program you're looking for, or are any good in it, I couldn't say though.

Yeah, a lot of programs require the GRE. Is there any chance you might want to apply to such a program, nor or in the future? If so you may as well study it and get it out of the way now, when it can benefit your current app.

Sigaba, I'm afraid I can't tell if you're just trolling, or if you're really this unfamiliar with how internet forums work. The effectiveness of a forum is undermined when no one posts; it is not undermined by people posting similar questions. I'm pretty new here, but I don't think most of us view this as a information repository so much as we view it as a discussion community. There are a lot of reasons that users should post new threads, which TakeruK outlined quite thoroughly above. In fact, a perfectly valid reply from you would have said "Hey, you can also check out these past threads on this topic. Good luck!" That would have been something a helpful member of a forum community would do. Unfortunately you chose to share some links then couple it with a rant equating poor (in your mind) internet forum behavior to grad school research habits. And just to avoid contributing even further to the hijacking of this thread, I'll add for the OP that I don't think you should give your dog away. There's another thread around here somewhere about pets in grad school - plenty of people manage it!

Well, the ones on the website are going to be averages, probably based on what ETS expects to see based on past testing. Actually even two scores of 144 aren't necessarily comparable; that's why they give the percentile for your score for that exact test along with the number. A 144 in one case might put you in the 60th (my numbers arbitrary) percentile, while a 144 on a later version of the same test might put you in the 65th percentile, compared to everyone else who took it. So, once you take the test and get your scores, you'll know your exact percentile.

Yes, this! Actually I think it's MORE about the change in attitude that comes with dressing nice and cleaning up, than it is about the actual dressing up or cleaning up itself. To turn it around, if I see a woman in something very attractive, but she is clearly very uncomfortable in it (for example, constantly tugging at a skirt that is too short), then it ruins the whole effect. Whereas if the same woman had just scaled it back a bit and worn something she was comfortable in, then her attitude would more than make up the difference. It's not about the clothes - no one wants to date clothes. It's about the overall impression those clothes contribute to. This is why posture is so important as well.

Ouch. You should reconsider your career in environmental studies and go for political punditry. With an attitude like that, you could be on Fox!

This can be great advice! I was never particularly shy nor extroverted; I never had problems meeting women nor did I go through women like crazy, the way some friends did. However, I had a good friend at university who was extremely introverted and had never had a girlfriend, or even anything close. He ended up with a random roommate who was a great guy, but really quite a playboy. Within one semester of hanging out with him, my nerdy friend was looking quite a bit more respectable, and by the time we all graduated he had had several good relationships. Obviously finding a friend who is more extroverted and has an easy time with the fairer sex is easier said than done, but it's something to keep in mind. Also, you don't actually need to do special things to meet women - they make up more than half the population! Put the idea of "meeting a girlfriend" out of your mind and just think about meeting people. Even meeting other guys (as mentioned above) expands your social circles and leads to meeting more girls in the long run. Rather than forcing an opportunity to ask someone on a date, this way you'll find someone with whom chemistry makes it a natural progression. And lastly, think about your appearance. If you pay no attention at all to your own looks and style, then that usually comes across to the people you meet. There are lots of easy ways to address this - ditch t-shirts for shirts with a collar, old jeans for new jeans, stop slouching, don't shuffle when you walk, etc. Whatever you wear doesn't have to be fancy or expensive, just make sure it's clean and wrinkle-free. Like it or not, our appearance is the first chance most of us have to make an impression, and it should at least not be off-putting.

I think we would need more information. Why do you want to take another econ course? Is your goal to study econ in grad school? If so, online classes aren't really a good way to go. Are you just trying to improve your undergrad gpa? I would think you would need to take the class at your university then.

I think what Dal PhDer said is good advice - if you go to the professor again, be very careful. Since they rebuffed you the first time, he or she clearly expects you to interact with your fellow students for the answer. I'm not sure coming in and saying you tried and failed is going to come across much better than not trying at all. If you're truly at wits end with your classmates, you could try to frame it all carefully with the prof as a last resort. Otherwise, as has been brought up elsewhere in the thread, you would be best off trying again with your fellow students. Sorry you're in a program with such bad inter-student chemistry. It doesn't have to be insurmountable though, so good luck!

Sigaba, it's rather funny that you chose to post that in a thread that has generated some really great replies. Rather than assuming that the OP didn't read any past posts and then hijacking their thread, maybe you should create your own post where this topic can be discussed. Also, thanks to juilletmercredi and Cookie Monster and TakeruK, those were really helpful posts!

People keep agreeing, but just to add to it, you can definitely get into a grad school ranked far above your undergrad school, but it does require stepping things up. A friend of mine did his econ undergrad at a state university ranked in the low 30s nationally, then got into MIT which is generally ranked number 1 in the world for econ. But he did it by getting good grades, building relationships with professors who would stand for him, and doing research.

Hi Keshob. I skimmed through your list there, and it looks pretty good. The fact that you got low grades in analysis and linear algebra hurts a little (assuming you at least passed them), but it's possible to get into programs without those classes at all. You would probably have trouble with top-tier programs, but there are still lots of good options available. Also, you'll need to have a good GRE quant score. And you didn't mention if you had any stats - that would be a good area to have.

I think the grades you get in these math classes, and your GRE quant score, will matter more than your grades in any of these other areas. A 3.63 cumulative is still pretty good, and if you do even better than that in the math areas my guess is you would be in good shape. Especially if you have a good plan that you can put in your statement of purpose that lays out the path you've taken, why you want to be in an econ MA, and where you want to go with it. Whether that's good enough for an MA at Oxford or not, I have no idea. Maybe if you practice a sophisticated British accent? That might help.

I think you'll find the advice to this sort of question is always "more math." If you can get through the math classes you listed, plus real analysis, you'll be in great shape. In fact, getting good grades in those classes will be more important than anything else you might do, so if you think you'll need to limit other activities to do good in those, do that. If you're a math wiz and workaholic rolled up in one and thus are confident you'll succeed in these classes, then worry about other things. Definitely do not waste time on any more undergrad econ courses - if you've met the requirements to graduate and have done well in them, that's the best you need. Instead either see if the department will let you take a graduate econ course, or take a quant-heavy stats course. The only problem with these two is that you will actually need much of the math that you'll be taking before you can do them. I think if you get through multi-variable calc though, you should have enough knowledge to start on them. But again, these are a lower priority than doing well in those math classes. When I asked my professors about getting a MA in econ before applying to a PhD, I received mixed replies. It certainly wont hurt, but will it help enough to be worth the extra 1-2 years? Most seemed to think not, unless you're getting into a top econ MA program, like Harvard or LSE. But you don't actually have to decide on this before you apply - put out some apps to the PhD programs you are interested in (make sure you research what schools actually specialize in the field you want to study, and have faculty you want to work with, so you can tell them why you are interested in their school beyond "you guys are ranked so high!"), then put out a couple MA apps as well, then review your options when you get your replies. So to summarize: take math classes through real analysis, and do well on them. Don't take any more econ undergrad classes than you need to graduate. After that you're dealing with icing on the cake, but if you have room for it you could try for a stats course or a grad-level econ course if the department will let you. Good luck

Calm down Sigaba. You didn't write the word "minefield." I read what you wrote and interpreted it as being equivalent to seeing the world as a minefield, which I thought was pretty clear. To be more explicit, I thought your post suggested that there were hidden dangers everywhere, and that by engaging in dating with fellow grad or undergrad students, you would likely screw yourself without even knowing it. I think a minefield is an apt metaphor for that. You also did not write the phrase "Do not get involved with undergraduates." However, your entire post led to this conclusion. Sort of like a limit on its way out to infinity! We all know where it's headed. And you also did not use the term "one night stand." Instead you talked about "short term desires." That's a very diplomatic way of saying one night stand, in this context. Unless you meant two night stands, or one semester stands? If so, I stand corrected. However, my point that people find valuable, long-term relationships amongst fellow students stands. So now that we've talked about my apparently objectionable use of metaphor and hypoerbole, I stand by what I said. Your post portrays school as a bad place to engage in relationships, where you're likely to mess up your academic career by doing so. I think this is a bad way to view it, since people can develop very meaningful relationships this way, and approaching it full of fear of unknown hazards is going to stymie any chances of that. Adhere to rules and ethics, and don't worry about every little invisible unknown hazard, because doing that tends to be paralyzing, and close social relationships aren't something you should simply discard for five years.

One thing to keep in mind is any student loan debt you may have left over. If you move to a country with a strong currency, like the euro or pound, you would have no problem paying on your loans, or possibly even an easier time. If you move to a country with a weak currency and/or a low cost of living, like non-euro Eastern Europe or much of Asia, then it may be difficult to make payments on loans denominated in USD. That said though, I lived in Prague for two years and the place is loaded with foreign professors, particularly from the US and UK, so it's definitely doable.

All the world's a minefield; watch every step? I'm afraid I have to respectfully disagree with this mindset - I'm not sure that's a very good philosophy for approaching anything at all, let alone a big chunk of your 20s! If someone above you is going to screw you for a petty reason without you ever knowing about it, there's no way for you avoid it anyway. If it's not relationships with fellow students (grad or undergrad) it could be something you write or something you say or something you wear or something you post, etc. Also, you call it a short-term desire, but no one said these were one-night-stands. In fact the original post says dating undergrads. People meet future spouses all the time at university. It's possible to exercise common sense and adhere to rules and ethics without neutering all potential relationships just because you might step on some invisible toes.

That's a good question, and I don't know the answer. I know undergrad math is more important than undergrad econ, but there could very well be a diminishing return to that. At the least it seems like you should have an intro macro and an intro micro course... otherwise how do you even know you want to study econ? You've never tried it! If you can fit two semesters in - maybe a summer and fall? - then you could do intro micro + multi variable calc, followed by intro macro + matrix algebra. Actually any of those four courses could probably be taken concurrently, even the two maths. It would just be difficult, so make sure you're up to it before you try. Frankly it should even be doable to take all four at once, although I wouldn't recommend it if there's an alternative! Getting bad grades in math isn't bound to be much better than having no grades in math, so make sure you do a realistic assessment of your own abilities before you dive in head-first. On the plus side, doing something intensive like that would be a tangible way to show a econ grad committee that you're serious about this, and know what you're getting into. Best way would be to fit in another year though, and take some econometrics and a few electives in with that. All depends on your situation of course. Edit: Oh, and I've heard pretty routinely that online courses count for almost nothing when it comes to grad school entrance. That's just what my professors told me though, so it's possible others have had different experiences.

I'm not sure there are any fields in the social sciences you can go into without even a grasp of basic calculus - virtually everything in social sciences involves some degree of statistical analysis. And it seems to me the trend is leaning even more heavily in that direction over time. You might try taking it again and doing well with it, but you're still stuck with explaining away three failed attempts. Maybe you can go back and take a trig class and/or a pre-calc class, then go on to calc... work on that foundation a little before trying yet again. Not to discourage you from trying - by all means give applying to grad school a go! But don't hang all your hopes on a PhD in a social sciences field if the quant side isn't for you.