Denis20202020

Wisdom teeth decided to rebelI against me in the beginning of July. so I had them removed in mid July. And I developed dry sockets T_T, so for about 2 weeks I couldn't really do much. Was given a rather badly designed research project to present in August. Didn't know about this until the end of June (originally thought my advisor was taking charge in preparaing the presentation; I merely helped with coding and some data collection). Started to work on it after I recovered from the pain medication. Most of the data analyses came out insignificant. Had to dig around the data for something worth while to write about (go ahead and call me an unethical researcher, I feel bad about doing this). Advisor is unsatisfied with what I came up with, reminded me that I am a grad student doing thesis-relevent research and need to take things seriously. July has been a horrible month for me... I'm done ranting... God I envy those who can write amazing papers...

Math, engineering, hard science are too difficult; humanities, history, philosophy are too soft... too poor for law/med school.... So here i am...

to think she really controls your life, until you graduate, it is OK to be scared. My adviser scares me also. but if you are terrified that you can't work with her, then you might need to do something about it.

yes I understand. Thank you for your advice... I feel really ashamed to feel the jealousy. It is hard to get rid of the feeling of sadness though. We are already on a long-distance relationship. One of the schools she applied to is closer to my school, and I really hoped she would be accepted there. But now, if she receives an offer letter from the better school, I want her to go to the better school. The distance between us will increase further...

Right now, I feel happy, jealous and sad. My fiance, who will graduate with a master's degree in education when this semester is over, just got interview requests from a top university. I am so happy for her, but at the same time I am jealous as hell. I applied for PhD programs in psychology after I got my undergraduate degree, and it was so difficult. Out of the 20 programs I applied, I only received offers from 3 (and one of them is a backup plan, so really, just 2). Now after gaining some experience as a graduate student, I found out that under most circumstances, in PhD programs, unless there are no more good applicants with master's degree left, professors will seldom consider applicants fresh out of undergraduate, with good credentials or not. Obviously, education and psychology are two different fields. There are usually a lot more people applying for psychology PhD programs than for education PhD (EdD) programs. But I just can't help it to compare my credentials to others, including my fiance. For example, apart from her thesis, she got no significant research experience. no conference presentations, no publications, no research what-so-ever. I helped her in developing her measurements, in selecting and running statistical analysis, in writing goal statements, in designing CV........ Hopefully I can get over this annoying feeling soon.

I contacted the graduate office concerning how will my current transcript impact me. The reply is "Your G.P.A. at your current university will not be reflected on ... transcripts. The transcripts from your current university, however, will be used to determine whether you will receive any transfer credits from your previous study." I do not want any transfer credits, since the two programs are completely irrelevant. Am I off the hook at least on that part? === At this point, it is impossible to drop or apply for incomplete. And I will not be able to retake them, since I am leaving the current institution after the semester ends (in about 20 days).

Long story short. First year grad student, did not like my program. I'm a psychology student in a mathematical psychology program, the course works I am taking are rather ridiculous: I am taking qualifying classes with the math graduate students!! I have an ok math background, but I am certainly not as good at math compared with math grad students. And unlike them, I was put directly into the medium/high level classes. I felt like being thrown into the deep side of a swimming pool, and I am not good at swimming. I applied for an actual psychology program, and was accepted, so I will start over this coming fall at a different university. Here is problem: I am extremely unmotivated in the course works i am taking right now, especially since I know I will leave the current program, and will never need to worry about theoretical math again. Plus I had serious problems understanding the lecture and following the course material, I am failing the classes. Will the transcript at my current school impact my future career in grad school? David

I know each school has different ways of dealing this, but what are some of the general rules about transferring to a different area in the same field? For example, I am in cognitive psychology, and I no longer feel interested in the research in cognitive, and I would like to find a new mentor in, lets say, social psychology. How should I go about this? what I mean is, I don't want to discuss this with my mentor yet, since I do not want to upset her before I know if i can transfer. some advice please edit: here are two specific questions. 1. should I plan on transferring beginning of the spring semester, or should I expect to transfer beginning of next fall? 2. I know some professors will be looking for new grad students, should I go talk to them first or are there others I should discuss with first?

I'm thinking over that as well. But personally speaking, I would wait till I finish the first year.

I am in the same situation. I am a psyc student taking pure math courses. They are fun to look at, to mess around with, but not so much if your grade is depending on your performance.. But, like you, I have to take them, and some more advanced courses, such as topology, to work with my advisor. I am doing badly in one of the course, and average in the other two. I figured if it comes to worst, I will just suck it up and retake them. I am sure I can do better than I am doing right now. good luck!!!!!

Thanks for the advice everyone!!! Let me update the situation a tiny bit. I am taking real analysis with the math graduates. I do not have much prior experience with analysis. well, at least not enough to consider myself prepared with the subject. So I consider this to be the first course in pure math for me. I am managing to hang on with the rest of the class. But I am rather inexperienced at it, for example, I am slow at solving proofs, and that is hurting me pretty badly in exams. I am considering either switching to another mentor or switch to another program if that is necessary. How would that work? for instance, I am in psychophysics, how should I approach the issue if I want to work with a cognitive psyc professor? Honestly, I am worrying if I would upset my current mentor. ---------------------------the magical line------------------------------------- another question I have is, suppose I have no other choice but to switch to a different program. How should I bring the issue up with my mentor?? For example, I am debating over I should leave after the first year, but if I do that, I will need to start apply for programs now. And I will need to inform my mentor. When that happen, it is really goodbye between me and my current program.. Also, suppose I fail the current course (real analysis). well maybe not fail, but get a C or things in that sort, how badly would it hurt my chance of going into another program? (such as IO psyc, Cog psyc and so on, not too math heavy)

Long story short, I got in a PhD program freshly out of undergrad. This is my first semester. During under, I was building myself toward cognitive psychology (psychology + stats + a little bit of programming). Turns out, no cognitive psychology program wanted me, and the only option left was a math psych program. Well, I decided to go for it. Turns out, I was put under an advisor who is very theoretical (I prefer to call him a mathematician than a psychologist or psycho-physicist). I am decent at math. But the two classes I was put in are very difficult, and are not what i was preparing for during undergrad. I am managing to hang on, but I feel more and more discouraged as time went by. My programming skill is not good enough to take over the programs left by a formal student who graduated before I got here. I have a lot of trouble understanding the details of my advisor's papers. And I am really struggling in the classes. (I don't have the back ground knowledge). I am not suggesting anything here, just felt like to rant for a little. i am wondering if this is common for first year grad students or not. feel free to leave some comments or suggestions (possibly?)