Miro

Mine has been matched since i sent in the application. it has not changed neither have i received an call for an interview.

As a first year graduate student, I did TAing for five different sections.The work load was a lot hence i did not get any research done. This semester I am on track to be a TA again however I would rather be on RAship. How do i ask my PI to put me on RA? He has a lot of money however I am not sure how they are tied up.

3.5 I have lots of TAing to do, my classes are really hard and my lab is super competitive. Hopefully next semester i can make real friends and next year do not have to teach.

Thank you all very much for your thoughts.

Other things to consider before decided on a program. class size, do you want your incoming class to be 100 ppl or do you want it to be 5 ppl TAing, some lower ranked programs have more students TA The type of students each program attract. higher ranked program attract some very competitive people. depending on your personality, you can either be miserable to thrive. personally i went to a lower ranked chem. program but join a very competitive lab that is very well known in BME.

For those who applied this year, has anybody received an call for an interview yet. For those who applied last year, what was your experience like.

An undergraduate student at my illustrious university wrote his opinion on "affirmative action". He stated that affirmative action is " A crude, unproductive, patronizing practice such as this does not suit an institution with the credentials that [big name university] has". he went on to say that affirmative action allows minority student to be 'lazy', basically he was saying that all minority student we less deserving of the admission the university gave them. Personally shrug this off, however one of my students was deeply affected by it ( I am a TA for 65 students of whom 3 are black). Having worked so hard in high school, going above and beyond by leaps and bounds, to get to the university, He had no idea how to deal with it. Given the fact that I am black, he come to me for help. How do i reassure him properly that he is very deserving to be here, more importantly, how do i help change the culture of the undergraduate students? why do people not talk about legacy admission the same way the talk about affirmative action.

Dont quit before you give it your very best. make a commitment to yourself to finish this semester and amazing things will follow.

http://hqfunnywallpapers.blogspot.com/2012/07/top-20-motivational-posters-2012.html motivation does not work for me anymore. Demotivation however gets me going. Hope you enjoy.

Thank you guys do much. I will try this advises and see what happened.

I choose to take the classes in BME in order to build up my biology/engineering foundation and the also relate to my thesis more than my chemistry classes. Lastly my advisor requied all the first year students to take that class since he teacher the class. T

There is a successful professor in another school who i really admire, her research topic, her teaching methods etc. But more importantly she is double minority ( female and black) in our field ( material science). I have only talked to her once at a conference however i have read a lot about her since wanted to get my PhD in her lab. 1. is it appropriate to ask her to me my mentor? 2. how do i approach her?

The deadline is tomorrow yet two of my advisors have not send it their recommendation letters. Should I e-mail them again to remind them?

Happy Black Friday to all, This is my dillema, I got accepted into mid-tier chemistry program however i really wanted to do material science so I ellected to affiliate ( join) a huge lab of 40+ people in a BME program that is currenlty ranked 3rd in the nation in the same school, hence i am sort of in two programs. in chenmistry, we are expected to teach 5 diffent sections of labs ( mine is org chem II), and take classes , no research your first year. in BME, you get accepted into the lab right away and your PI pays for you, so you are expected to do research while taking two classes. Because i am in these to program I ended taking classes, doing research and teaching. this resulted in be falling way below my class average in exams. I catch myself I stopped doing research so i can focus on my classes however I am still failing.I think my continous failure is due to these reasons 1. my chem class is way over my head and the materials we learn in class does not correlate with the book. 2. I am playig catch up in my engineering class since i have never taken any engineering classes in undergrad 3. 90% of my students want to go to medical school so they are all very demanding especially when it comes to grading. I answer alot of e-mails in a day regarding labs we performed in class. 4. I feel very lonely ( i am a minority in a PWI). I personally do not want to get kicked out, what do i do. How can convince my professor that i can handle the work load? How do i approach my PI, who is teaching my engineering class (he is not really a people person)? P.S i graduated summa cum laude, received many competitive awards for research in undergrad, was accepted to top tier chem. programs etc.