School

[Spaceman]

I wasn't too sure where to put this but I felt like sharing. As an engineering student I am in to mechanical pencils and finer writing utensils along with clothing. Here is my daily kit (smiling)

[bouquet]

Becoming quite frustrated with my Botany professor. I took the course hoping to learn more re: how plants work, how they've evolved, the processes that drive them, etc. The course has been somewhat helpful with that so far, but the teaching style is throwing me off.He refuses to use a book, and instead structures his labs and lectures around a series of extensively detailed (albeit well put together) handouts that he has created. He says that a book may be useful, but he does not teach based off of any one book because he prefers his own structure.

His lectures, like his handouts, often go into an extreme amount of detail. He likes to give the name of every little molecule involved in a given process and go on tangents about why they're important, only to end with "and that's not really something you'll need to know." In his next sentence, he'll talk about how he likes to talk about Botany in "broad, understandable terms" so that we can "piece them together to understand the smaller details." I do my best to take notes, but the powerpoints he puts up during lecture are very vague, and when he's talking a million miles a minute using Phd-level jargon that I don't understand, it can be hard to keep up. He also uploads "lecture notes" on his school site but these are equally complicated.

Basically, we're coming up on our first exam within the next few days here, and I'm pretty worried. He refuses to give out a study guide and cites his handouts as a resource for what to study, though those combine to be ~45 pages of pdfs, and I just can't fit all that information into my head. Any tips on dealing with this style of teaching?

[Mippipopolous]

This fall I really threw myself into applications for PhD programs, and after a couple months of anxiety attacks I now know I'll be starting at Notre Dame this fall! I'm so excited to be heading back, I missed it so much since graduating in the spring and was so worried these applications weren't gonna work out. Feel so lucky to be landing in a great place! I applied last year too during my senior year and got shutout, so actually having choices this year felt great. I really just missed being in an academic environment and the writing and research—it was great when I was at the recruitment weekend and got to nerd out with all the fellow applicants. Its gonna be so much work but I can't wait for it! Just really excited to start now.

[xinijia]

I'm applying for universities this year and waiting for admissions decisions is extremely mildly distressing. I go to a non-traditional high school program (IB) and it seems to me that every school counts your marks differently... some schools scale IB students higher while others don't consider that some classes are more difficult than others.
A lot of schools I want to get into might look at my grades and see a 85% while others will see the same grades and scale it to 98% so I don't know how lucky I'll get

[Spaceman]

I just got hired for an internship!!! Shout out my parents for connections, it isn't really in my field of study but its research and I'm so excited to be done looking for summer jobs!

[Ques]

after spending the last year in the library im graduating with departmental honors and phi beta kappa! just presented my thesis and it went really well. feeling happy. starting to think about grad school now for sometime in the future... i love the discourse and i never want to leave

[anotherdayhere]

Wrongfully given an A- based on the syllabus, e-mailed my professor and it was all a mistake in the end. Grade being changed, semester #3 of straight as in the bag.. only 4 more to go, plus i've taken the majority of my major coursework already. Going back to undergrad after being a fool for two years has done wonders for my focus and determination, going to college at 18 was a gigantic mistake that I am sad most people must endure.

[JewTurk]

Second year coming to an end, finals week not too crazy. Five finals but no classes are really stressing me out.

Working for two different research groups on campus this summer, same principle investigator though. Doing hardware design for a climate change research group and designing a software defined radio telemetry system, for tracking small animals, which has a lot of signal processing going on in it right now, which is good for me wanting to go into audio engineering. I'm presenting at a conference (Wildlife Society) in September about the radio project, very excited about that!

Next year I'm continuing to work for both projects but then also hopefully working on some personal projects to beef up my portfolio for music production/sound engineering. Which I'm beyond excited for as I haven't been working on my personal projects almost at all recently but I'm feeling more psyched then ever about them now that I have some free time on my hands.

Any grad students in here have thoughts on grad school? Did you pursue a program at same university as your undergrad? Glad you did? Wish you went to another?

[popcorn]

I guess there's a lot for me to write here considering my last independent post was saying I got into college.

I did not really do well this year. I mean, I kind of feel like I did well in the large-scale existentialism of it all AND I definitely felt like I'd fail multiple courses at the end of either semester. I'm happy to be alive and have two of my roommates from last year (who are the least judgmental people I've ever met) be my roommates next year. In fact, I'm even happy to move out to Queens, change is that shit I do like. But my GPA is kind of shot (I realize saying that is deeply contextual, but what's most important is how you interact with that number) and I think I should get connected with a therapist.

I think half my professors are awesome, uplifting, forgiving, and support students learning however it may happen, but then my physics professor is a self-absorbed, inconsiderate ass that works against the student body (he failed 1/6 of the engineering class last year, a 4 credit class) and he's part of the reason the school charges tuition at all.

I'll tell you all when (white! male! middle aged! unmarried!) organizational leaders lording themselves over brilliant students (and, the reader should note, mocking international students) and turning my small college into a competitive hotbed of anxiety is over. That shit is so over with me.

[sparkyoriental]

I am starting nursing school in August! :D My first degree was in CS and now I'm going to start a second BS in nursing. Yay!

Anybody here in nursing school or the medical field? Tips/advice???

[xinijia]

I'M DONE HIGH SCHOOL I'M DONE IB
I have time on my hands now
For the past two years I've done nothing but study and now I'm finally free
I'm starting University at Waterloo Engineering in September and I'm pretty stoked about that too
I'm no longer care-tags resident midget I'm old too, now :'(
yep :D

[popcorn]

i'm in the (very quick) process of signing for a HOME (overpriced nyc apartment) for my loving roommates and monself and it's very stressful but i'm excited to have my own lil space to fill with black & white modernist ikea shit and 90's-00's music posters

sorry this post isn't self-destructive academic angst but i'll definitely have some of that to share in like less than 2 months

yeah dw it's a 12mo lease lol, I have plenty of experience with furniture from my parents' antique mall and I know the sin implicit in particleboard

[cormac]

I'm gearing up for grad school apps and despite pretty poor preparation I might not have to take the GRE a second time, so that's nice. It's crazy to think that in a year I'll possibly be moving to a school across the U.S. from me, after years of painstakingly working to the point where I have the confidence to even acknowledge what I've always wanted to.

[eli7]

Want to link this article for all the women academics that struggle with this issue of the heartless female academic. It's a trope I've become really familiar with in my teaching experience and with my departments female faculty. I don't necessarily agree with all the conclusions drawn but I think it's worth reading...

http://www.chronicle.com/article/Heartl ... -an/239903

[INNIT]

finding graduate school very.... stressful. thought that i was hotshit with all of my post-structuralism but apparently that's dead and all anyone cares about now is affect theory. completely out of my depth on multiple projects; just faking it every single day hoping my profs dont realize im a fraud and havent actually read "capitalism and schizophrenia"

on the plus, have met some great people, and quit smoking weed also which has made me more productive. everyone around me seems so focused and like they have it all together but i suspect that theyre probably shitting-their-pants internally like me.

[ASTROCHIMP]

Part of my minor is assembling a business plan for something. I've been working with the idea of a clothing store and the more I work on it the more that I really want to go through with it. I feel like it would be a dream come true to be able to make money with clothing. Of course I have worries about how it would go but it could be an amazing experience. Anyone have experience actually opening a store? I'd love to pick your brain.

[oucho]

It seems like you would have a lot of startup costs with buying stock and paying rent on a storefront, not sure how you would get a loan for that other than from a family member, it would be very high risk as I guess you've never done anything like that before and these things are never straightforward. I wouldn't recommend starting a business like that without an older person on board/advising who has previous experience in the industry or in starting a business, or preferably both (I work with my mum who used to be a buyer and my uncle advises us who started a paving company and we are still learning things all the time). Why don't you try to do something that has a lower startup cost and risk and would be more manageable. It might not seem as exciting but I learnt a lot from just printing designs on t-shirts and trying (but largely failing) to sell them, with print-on-demand services I barely had to put any money in.

[mahi-mahi]

I just fucked up my Chem and Math exams really badly and I don’t understand why. I revised for 20 hrs total over 4 day’s for each exam, went to tutoring and would stay up until early mornings studying on textbook and online.
I’m so upset. I don’t even know what to do, other than study for the next exam and I just don’t want to fail.

[ptozzi]

[Ques]

matriculating at uva's law school in the fall! very excited to move somewhere quieter, especially considering charlottesville is 1/462th the size of where i'm coming from... (excluding the millions of undocumented migrant workers living in beijing)

while not being in school for the past year has been revelatory in some ways, it's also reinforced my understanding that i need rigorous structure to my life in order to be happy and thrive, so i'm excited to have that imposed upon me again

[mknro]

anyone any good at writing personal statements for taught master programmes?

I'm applying a very competitive one and am already very late in the process so very low chance of getting in. applied for another one a couple weeks ago and writing those statements took me ages. thought this one would be easier but really struggling with finding the right balance between trying to show what I've done/seen/learned relevant to the course, but also not wanting to sound like I think I really know anything particularly advanced/come across a know-it all.

also obviously want to try to keep it quite concise.

What sort of things do people tend to say about the course and university they're applying to? Like I know exactly the modules I'd want to take and why they support the direction i want to go, but I obviously don't know much at all about the actual material of those units...

tbh I'm definitely overthinking this

It's a technical subject though so I'm worried about everyone else being these whizzkids who go into really deep technical stuff

[INNIT]

[vice]

Anybody have any experience doing grad school in Germany? Currently have a BS in Physics (from an American university) and am very interested in moving to Berlin for a PhD. Might have some connections to help me get there but I am just wondering if there is anything (organizational, cultural, curriculum, etc.) that contrasts with my current idea of American graduate school

[mknro]

So after a month of stressing and pushing myself a bit too hard (I have terrible work habits), I ended up missing the deadline for the masters application by 15 minutes... because I got an email an hour and a half before closing that my one other application to a different uni had been unsuccessful as well.

The reason for my rejection was weird though (not meeting some academic requirements) so I immediately called that uni instead of submitting my application for the new one. They explained it and I was like "oh ok..." but then looked at it again and went "nah that still makes no sense?", so called again and got to actually speak to the admissions tutor who had rejected me. Talked a bit and got to the point where she said if I made my case in an email she would reconsider or send it on to "the academics" (so I figured she was like an early step in the admissions process).

Spent like 5 days writing a "perfect" 1000 word email (a bit extra but whatever) and now this morning, a week later, I got an offer!

Can't believe my email worked! Literally got my dream place by following up on a rejection with multiple phone calls and a well worded email! When I spoke to the school last week they had about 40 places left with over 300 applicants still to consider, but I'm weirdly more proud of myself for the way I got it through persistence.

anyway hope this doesn't feel like bragging just really surprised, relieved, and I guess excited!

Edit: thanks everyone!

[INNIT]

one of my articles got cited and i've been riding this self esteem wave for the past two weeks. what is happening to me

[iralanwitnuk]

Graduated hs a few months ago and now I’m starting college (Tomorrow actually)! I’ll be studying music and something else—to be determined— at Indiana U.. I’m beyond stoked to begin this journey n now I’m joining the old people on ct

[INNIT]

i am officially a MASTER of the arts. waiting for a top grade coffee shop to scout me now

[JewTurk]

You rep'd my comment from (wow) over a year ago. I'm applying for grad schools right now. Some questions:

Did you visit any campuses before applying and or making a decision? I think for me, financially, it's best to just apply regardless of visiting then if I need to make a decision between one or two I can decide to visit the physical campus then, but for now I'm not worried I just want to get applications out.

My current process in applying is:
1. Check they have the program I'm interested in (M.Eng or M.Mus in Acoustics/Signal Processing/Music Technology/Audio)
2. Check what their program looks like/what options I have (traditional thesis, in-person, 2 years completion, RAship/TAship options for work)
3. Check what their research labs are doing to make sure I have the opportunity for work I'm interested in
4. Public information about average income on graduation, accreditation etc.
5. Location is decent (enjoyable to live for two years+)

Beyond that I'm not too picky, am I missing anything obvious? My ideal is that I have a few options and at least one or two of them offer a full fellowship/TAship/RAship but I don't know how optimistic that is. I feel fairly competitive but I don't know.

Could I send my statement of purpose/resume your way for a quick first-blush opinion? I feel fine about my resume but I haven't found any good advice about statement of purposes on campus unfortunately, our career resources at my college aren't the best.

I signed up for the GRE this month and have been studying but I'm not too worried as only a few of my possible schools require the GRE but none of them state an explicit minimum score I need, just that the GRE scores could be used to determine fellowship details. Any advice for studying?

Advice on thanking my recommenders? I have three good ones that have all been very communicative/open to responding to all of my recommendation requests. Is there a professional/academic norm around this? I feel bad now since I have 5-6 different schools that have all requested my recommenders fill out an online form as opposed to accepting a generic letter of recommendation that I already have from them. I keep stopping by their offices every week to check in on them to make sure they still have the recommendation on their to-do list by xyz date.

[eli7]

Okay, first off, I think this might vary a lot between pursuing a Masters and PhD, I went straight to PhD so I can only speak from that experience. One thing that I think goes for both is that you need to have established some kind of relationship between yourself and the adviser you are seeking to work with. Read their work, know their research, and you should like them/feel comfortable with them as a person too. You'll spend a lot of time communicating with this person so you want to be as sure as you can be that they will advise you in a way that's productive. Like, some advisers are really hands off (like mine) which is good for some students but terrible for others. You want someone who will read and comment on your grant applications and respond to your emails (this seems obvious, but I assure you it's not).

So yea, for me, I only applied to programs that I emailed with and met with the person I was proposing to work with. I didn't want to waste time composing shoddy applications and I tailored each app to the person I was writing to. This means I literally changed details of my project to be geared to those people, and sometimes cheesily citing those peoples work where it fit---this makes no difference in the long run because your project will become something very different from what you are writing in your statement. I don't think advisers accept students who they solely read their app but haven't communicated with. Do all that cold emailing, it works in academia, everyone is used to it.

Other than that, everything you are doing is good. Money matters, but it's not the only thing that matters. I took the offer that was giving me slightly more money and the institution I believed I would have access to more grant money, but now, sometimes I think I could be happier at my second choice (so it goes...). Some programs make you TA, sometimes you can get NSF or other grants so that you can pass over institutional funding and not TA. Personally, I love teaching, it's the only concrete aspect of success that I've encountered while pursuing a PhD thus far and it breaks up the monotony of research and writing.

GRE is highly dependent on the program/world you're in. I took a crash course because I was worried I'd fuck it up and when I met with potential advisers they were like "we don't even look at those". In my field, they care about one's writing (sample + statement), past academic success, and recommendations. You always need to hound your recommenders (something you will get very used to and tired of). Once they submit, you can make them cookies or make them a card. I don't think gifts are appropriate but if they put time into the rec, it's nice to acknowledge their effort.

Also, definitely feel free to send me your statement/resume. And on that, send it to anyone who you like their writing and is familiar with your stuff because it's very useful to have a variety of insights. I do this regularly now, but I basically wrote my apps the day before I submitted...

[can-]

im in grad school getting my masters in social work and i forgot how much i hate school but i do love social work