Later this week I'm giving a colloquium to my old grad school department (physics) about my experience getting out of #academia and working as a software engineer. It'd be interesting to crowd-source this: grad students and other former grad students of Mastodon, what would you want to hear in this kind of a talk?
Reader, my grad school lab group has a paper due Monday and I am the sole contributor thus far. Just added figure 5 and I'm at 3 pages. #engineering#gradschool
Want to help striking TAs at McGill who've been fired or suspended from their other campus positions for participating in the strike? Here are a couple of mutual aid links for funds to support students facing financial hardship. 🧵
Five years ago I decided against a doctoral fellowship at UVA because even at a distance it was clearly a rat race. now they dont even bother feeding the rats #UVA#charlottesville#gradschool
Accepted my offer for #GradSchool with Charlotte, Master of Arts in Counseling. Enrolled into two courses, deciding on the third.
Watched Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Great film, special shout out to little baby Suko who stole every scene, especially when Kong used him as a weapon.
Back on the peloton. I always have to take a few days off when things get busy and mind gets too crowded but I’m that first ride always feels amazing.
Are you overdue for a thesis committee meeting, but feel like you have nothing to show since your last meeting? I'm begging you to schedule that meeting now!
Either, your research is languishing and you need help! This is what your thesis commitee is for.
Or, you are doing fine and the committee is there to tell you that.
While I'm super-busy with #GradSchool right now, I'm managing to squeeze in a couple of opportunities to perform #magic. Step right up to see the #WizardOfTheWabash at a couple of good causes.
What are the consequences if I can't make the full monthly payment on my federal student loans? They want $500/mo starting in November and I can't do that until the car is paid off. #StudentLoans#college#GradSchool
PSA for prospective grad students going to in-person interviews.
Meeting with the specific faculty you want to work with is important for deciding if the school is right for you.
If someone is not on your schedule, contact them BEFORE the interview date and let them know you want to meet with them.
Most schedules have social time with faculty and the specific faculty will usually try to find you during that time if they know you are interested in their work.
This thread about Stephen Greenblatt (named by others) reaffirms that the person who will steal your ideas is most likely not a stranger who reads your preprint but your professor who knows about the paper you didn't post as a preprint. Posting might protect you from this. #Academia#gradschool https://x.com/doctorvive/status/1738258471827419185
I'm having problems making my brain focus on the last week of my grad school class (at Purdue Global). The weekly grind is tough. Oof.
How's it going? This is my final week of my 3rd class out of 15. So far I've gotten straight A's. I'm finding it pretty easy so far. Some of my classmates seem to be struggling, and some have mentioned in threads that I'm the smart one in the room. Not really - I have 30 years of experience going "blah blah" about tech stuff.
Good thread @mattblaze on PhD application processes for potential candidates.
It is written with STEM in mind but applies to social sciences as well. All disciplines, really.
My 2 cents: Individual profs don't usually make acceptance decisions on their own. They don't have power on admissions policies, scholarships, or visas.
Universities need to be more transparent on the actual process of acceptance.
(This will be a very long list by the end of the year if I keep it up. We'll see.)
Your statements are basically done after the first few deadlines. I always thought I'd customize extensively for each school.
Nope.
On a week like this (with so many apps due Sep 15), you just don't have time. You have to trust that you already put in the work with your base template. It's a mental shift from fellowship apps.
Advice is only helpful if you're in the right headspace to receive it. At some point, you have to start taking only what you need. Filter out the rest.
Example: This article was shared with me before my first campus visit. It seems perfectly fine (and I'm choosing to share it here), but at the time it felt like a list of additional stressors.
An offer is great, but then you have a decision to make. Fast.
And I gather that it's not uncommon to have to make that decision before you hear about other options.
Generally, I try not to post about a stage (i.e., job talk) until a few weeks after I've experienced it. Time to process and such. But this one is in real-time. And boy it's tough.