Eerie silence

[vsgajd]

Hi, 

My PI who told me that she will get back to me about funding " withing 2 weeks " has been silent for more than 3 weeks now.  I emailed her twice and no reply. Is it okay to call a week after my last email ? I do not want to appear impatient but I have a notice period at my current work place and my manager told me to inform him by 30th May. I did write this in my email but she still did not respond. Is it okay to call her ? 

[E-P]

Personally, I'd email the next level up.  Something to the effect of, "Hey, I reached out to <PI> a few weeks ago, and she hasn't had a chance to reply yet.  I'm sure it's just the usual chaos of being between semesters!  Anyway, I figured I'd reach out to you to follow up on <specific details of issue>.  After all, since you're <title> I imagine that funding decisions are probably within your wheelhouse too.  Thanks so much for any guidance you can provide!  It will be very helpful for me preparing to matriculate this fall."

 

That said, in my department, my PI is only useful for my research topics.  He's a wonderful person, but I gather funding/admin decisions go through his boss, the department head.  But if that doesn't seem "normal" for your department, see if you can reach out to another student.  They may have a better idea of what's up with the delay than you could.

[vsgajd]

 Thank you for the reply. I did try to write to Department head who had initially emailed me the offer, she did not reply as well. I emailed my co-supervisor and he said " I'm not in a position to know the answer". What do I do ? The silence is freaking me out. 

[E-P]

Check to see when the first day of the summer semester is, and if either the department head or the PI are teaching.  If they are, wait until that day and give them a call.  If they're not, give them a call sometime in the next week.

 

Also, check with senior classmates, or other people in your cohort.  Is this normal?  When did they find about about their funding?

 

That said, and file this under "unrequested advice," there's a certain peace that comes with the idea of "waiting will fill."  Any given problem, if you wait long enough, you'll either find the answer, or it won't matter anymore.  For this, if you get a shitty funding package, does that affect where you go?  Will you go anyway?  At a minimum, I imagine it would affect housing, so maybe you plan to do as cheap as possible (like, live in a dorm with roommates, 2-to-a-bedroom), and then if you get a lot, you can just save a ton of cash the first year.

 

I 100% understand the anxiety that comes with not knowing.  I'm very lucky to have responsive department heads and know a good number of people in the department.  Otherwise, I'd have either gained a huge amount of weight from stress eating, or lost a huge amount of weight through my system rebelling.

[ZeChocMoose]

Since you need to know by May 30th to inform your job, then yes I would call.  If you can't reach your PI when your call, I would leave a voicemail. I would also call the department head and/or the department admin to see if you can reach someone. Although summer can be a rough period to make contact especially since that is the only time that faculty get a chance to take a break away from the daily activities of the department.