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Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi are the most prestiguous honor society in the nation (for all academic disciplines). They have a lot of scholarships and fellowships you can apply for, and they add a line or two of goodness to your resume. Definitely worth it.

Same here. Some faculty profiles looked amazing on the website, but they turned out to be much less awesome in person. A few don't even update their website, and no longer do what they advertised on their pages (!). And vice versa. Im heading to the school that was originally lowest ranked in my list of schools applied/accepted. It is now the best in my book for everything: faculty, research, campus, department environment, student support $$$, students happiness.

As we all know about the sequester, from next year the competition to get in those programs will be much much harder. I would say take this offer if the fit is good. UIUC is an amazing school!

I already started as soon as I made my decision because I need to crank out something for the big conference in Sept. But if you feel like chillaxing, take the time off ;-) as others have said, its important to refresh yrself before this crazy journey ;-)

season depression

instinct blindness

sadface, am so sorry to hear about your prof and the situation her health puts you in. Firstly, I have known only of the opposite situation (students in failing health, pregnancy or other problems that stagnated their progress). Their professors were true mensch and did their best to accomodate the students. In your situation, she is a new prof and you are her FIRST student. If you dont succeed, she doesnt succeed. I think that stresses her more than you think. You said she told you only 2 weeks ago about her cancer, which would have put her in a devastating mental and physical state. I would say that your professor would definitely have thought of YOU and your prospect, too. Maybe shes trying to figure that out. Probably a cliche that I say this: Give her a little time to adjust to her treatment, and everything else in her life. I'm sure that she considers you a big part of it, and would make sure you are in good hands. If I were you, I would calm down and just carry on with my work, and help out the undergraduate students as much as you can. Your work has not been affected. Have some faith in the person that chose YOU to be her first student (and most definitely has high hope in you).

Oh yes

I've heard some POIs paid for their new students relocation as well, but this really depends on their funding. If I were you, I would ask the dept chair and POIs.

ship keel

It is weird thinking about this: the school I choose to attend is the first school that accepted me, and also the first one I visited. It is also the lowest ranked among all I was accepted to. Even so, I had the best time there, I love the people I met and the campus is sooo beautiful. All the visits after that, I couldnt help comparing them with my first awesome visit... the heart wants what the heart wants

Plagiarism is a freaking plague. I'm glad you did the right thing, dood.

Tom Cruise!

Unresolved peak!

I can relate to this. I made up my mind mid March, and one night I just opened that accept/decline web page and stared at it for an hour Finally, I did it the next morning! We all worked really hard to get to this point when we have to pick out just one offer. Just think long and hard, and follow your heart Then dont look back, and just make it work

Yes, I do! Actually broad minded enough to know that! The Oatmeal's humor to me, can be crude at times (ridden with foul language haha), but the underlying ideas in his comics I can relate 100%. And as a religious person myself, I see no offense in that comic

I would advise you to find research opportunities (unpaid, at university research labs), to have a feel for what it's like doing research. As zabius said, taking science classes is nothing like doing scientific research. Doing well in those classes doesn't necessarily mean you will be great at research. And what is it exactly that you are interested in, science wise? Saying you love science is like saying you love everything (which doesn't mean anything, really). And no, never too late to follow your dream

I second this. No success is significant if easily earned, dood! :-)

Mentioning religion in a public forum? My bad :-)

Neither. Which school do you see yourself happy working at?

Do not do a science PhD without full funding. That's the universal advice from all my profs.

i just found this website, not academia per se, but the nerdy humor in the comics I really appreciate http://theoatmeal.com/ one highlight is this: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/religion

You can find a prof's h-index very easily with Web of Science database. Simply do a search with author name. From the results list, choose "Create citation report" link. You will get a lot of useful data including: published items/ # of citations in each year, and of course the h-index. Just be sure to remove the wrong articles from the results list, if that author has a common name.

I am thinking of getting one, actually. My prof recommended it, since the new MBPro is not a good value as it used to be. Since most of my work will be on a Mac desktop (my lab is a computer lab), having a MBA makes sense because I can get all the work transferred seamlessly. I'd go with 256gb though.

judgement day