Official Ph.D question/advice thread

[ayfu]

At the earliest, you can apply to the NSF GRFP as a graduating senior.

Eligible Applicants:

1. Are a US citizen, US national or permanent resident alien, and

2. Are a graduating senior; have completed a B.S./B.A. degree; or are in their 1st year or the first semester of their 2nd year in graduate school, and

3. Are pursuing a research-based master's or doctoral degree in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields supported by NSF.

http://www.nsfgrfp.org/how_to_apply


NSF GRFP results come out in April (Full results came out in May this year). You hear back from Graduate schools January-March. I'm sure there are some that can secure funding before applying to schools by taking a year off, but I wouldn't advise this route because it is arguably more difficult to get this type of funding than getting into a high profile PhD program. Other prestigious funding orgs work like this as well.

[Black Peter]

Originally Posted by smudgie

I got my PhD in Cognitive Psychology from UCLA (1998),

Were you cohorts with Dom, Jim and Aaron?

[smudgie]

Originally Posted by Black Peter

Were you cohorts with Dom, Jim and Aaron?

I'm Aaron Who might you be?

[Wyman]

Originally Posted by furyshade

so what does it generally take to have a shot at funding? i know the Putnam winner gets the same sort of thing, is it all on that level of being a superstar?

Luck.

You apply, and hopefully the things that you bring to the table make you stand out more than the next guy to the crew reviewing your app. I got a NDSEG fellowship for 3 years, but not an NSF. It just depends.

[Wyman]

OP,

You are setting yourself up very well for grad school. Definitely keep asking questions, but I wouldn't worry about it at all. Some specific recommendations:

1) Get your GPA up. 3.7 is not bad, but you don't want it to be a reason for them to compare you negatively to anyone else.

2) Get at least 1 publication with your advisor. Any more than 1 will set you apart in a good way. It will not be held against you if you haven't published.

3) Get good letters. Plural. You should have at least 2 solid letters. So if your advisor collaborates with someone else in the department, get to know him as well. Take a class or two with each, so that they can say something positive about you in the lab and in the classroom. Lab is more important.

4) Ask your advisor the questions you're asking here. Keep a dialogue open with him, and he'll want to help you as much as possible. He'll probably call/email people he knows on your behalf if he likes you.

5) Ask yourself if you'd go to grad school if it wasn't going to help your career. Think of grad school as taking 5 years off to join the peace corps or something. You don't do it because it will help you later on; you do it because you have a passion, and it's something you really want to engage in and experience.

I'm a math PhD student at Michigan, but I might as well be in EECS. There is a fine line between mathematics and theoretical CS. Feel free to PM whenever. I'd like to hear what you're working on, too.

[Max Raker]

Don't try to work with more than 1 prof at a time, you would be spreading yourself way to thin. I have alot of experience with undergrad research so I'll tell you my experiences. When i first got to uni, I was on a need based scholarship that required me to work 10 hours a week on campus. After getting fired from some menial jobs like library work or working in the gym, I was given one last chance to work directly for a prof in computational math. I didn't even have a resume at this point, but the prof didn't have to pay me and i would get kicked out of school if I couldn't find something so he said what the hell and took a flyer on a me.

This ended up being pretty much the perfect type of research for me to do at that time. I had pretty much no understanding of anything, but the topics that he was doing required pretty much no outside knowledge and could be done if you are reasonably bright and work hard enough. A month or so in, I was basically a full member of his team and I ran hot so I was able to publish 3 papers, and as first author on 1. I was spending way more than 10 hours but I didn't really care as I was having fun.

After freshman year, my focus started shifting to more pure math topics. I got lucky and a very famous prof who was doing something very close to what I thought I was interested agreed to take me based on some intense lobbying from my first adviser. This prof hardly ever works with undergrads and made it clear that if I wanted to work with him he would treat me no different than from a senior level grad student. I insta-accepted. I figured that I already was basically a grad student in a different field so if I worked as hard as I did before, which i was willing to do, I'd be fine.

Sophomore year was pure hell. My new adviser was insanely demanding. Multiple times he threw me out of his office for wasting his time with gibberish and such ill formed concepts. I remember once when he called a method I tried to use on a problem unbelievably sophomoric. In my head I was thinking no **** sherlock, i'm a sophomore !!! This is the only time I remember crying about school/work and I did it multiple times, luckily only in front of my roommate and girlfriend though. I went from having 3 papers as a freshman to not even sniffing a publishable idea my whole sophomore year. I also failed 2 non-math classes partly as a result of trying so hard in research. To his credit, my adviser never threatened to fire me though I thought about quitting practically everyday and maybe even taking a year off from school to do nothing and play poker.

For some reason I stuck in there and by the summer before my junior year things were starting to gel. One of my favorite undergrad experiences was over christmas my junior year. I had stumbled onto some pretty useful and unexplored ideas mostly by luck which involved a connection between 2 different topics in algebraic geometry. I actually emailed my adviser on Christmas morning at 4:45 AM (after staying up for like 30 hours working on it) with a summary of my idea. (His graduation gift to me was a framed copy of this email with the time and date on it which is one of my prized sentimental possessions ) He wrote me back and said it was wrong for a few different reasons. Some I knew would be raised and I had already worked out but a few were things that I had missed and I had to go back and fix. By the time I saw him again after New years I had it fully worked out and in near publishable form.

We published it and I was even invited to give a talk at a few other schools. From here on out everything was great, I got quite a few citations and started getting emails with questions from people whose work i had admired greatly from other schools. When it was time to go to grad school, my adviser told me to give him a list of all the schools I was interested in and that I could pick ultimately anyplace but my undergrad institution. I had 5 schools and he called them all and got them to pay for plane tickets/accommodations and arranged meetings with profs in the fields close to what I had done. After I made my decision he called the department head for me and i was accepted the next day without having to fill out a formal application.

Now my old adviser is the person I call when I get stuck or frustrated with research. I've asked him why his was so hard on me at the beginning and he said that almost everybody in our field gets broken once and it is easier the earlier it happens (I joked that he was probably thinking of chickenpox ). He also claims that he knew I could handle it but I'm not sure he could know that as i sure as hell didn't think i could initially. So i look back at the whole experience with incredible fondness but by no means was it an enjoyable experience every step of the way.

[furyshade]

wow, that is a pretty incredible story. i think for me it is sort of a blessing and a curse that my professor currently isn't working with any other students. it is good because his attention seems to be focused on this project but is a negative as he doesn't seem to be currently actively researching so i'm not sure if he plans to go to that sort of full scale research with me.

[Max Raker]

Originally Posted by Max Raker

Sophomore year was pure hell... I also failed 2 non-math classes partly as a result of trying so hard in research.

I just remembered a funny story related to this in which I had to set some sort of record. During my second semester i was taking a course in computational methods of mathematics. The prof for the class has read my freshman year paper and recognized me since he worked with my adviser. He told me the first week that he wanted me to give a guest lecture in a month or so about my paper. I did this and things went well and people asked questions and he was generally pleased.

The problem was that when our final project was due that was almost all of our grade, I was trying so hard with research that i didn't have time and turned in a horribly incomplete final project. In a class of 22, i got the absolute lowest grade out of anybody despite being invited to give a guest lecture!!!! I got a pretty harsh email at the end of the semester from the prof saying how disappointing my performance was.

[Max Raker]

Originally Posted by furyshade

wow, that is a pretty incredible story. i think for me it is sort of a blessing and a curse that my professor currently isn't working with any other students. it is good because his attention seems to be focused on this project but is a negative as he doesn't seem to be currently actively researching so i'm not sure if he plans to go to that sort of full scale research with me.

Yeah, it would be great if you were his only student and he still intended to do real research. How old is he? If he is getting up there, he might be looking to slow down more than devoting alot of effort into doing something new.

[furyshade]

Originally Posted by Max Raker

Yeah, it would be great if you were his only student and he still intended to do real research. How old is he? If he is getting up there, he might be looking to slow down more than devoting alot of effort into doing something new.

that is the problem, he is 77. from his mathematical geneology page it seems he hasn't been a Ph.D advisor for anyone since 1999. i think that he still publishes some mathematical problems/puzzles/games in things like the american mathematical monthly but his research homepage seems to be extremely out of date, looks like it was last updated in 1992 so who knows. looking around the internet i found a list of publications not from him but it has much more recent publications as early as last year which is encouraging. i feel this is probably me being overly concerned when i have a good thing going for me so i should probably be happy where i am

edit: on a lighter note, apparently recently he published a paper titled "Hypercube Tic-Tac-Toe" which seems like a pretty awesome idea

[Wyman]

Originally Posted by furyshade

l this is probably me being overly concerned when i have a good thing going for me so i should probably be happy where i am

+1. Max's story about publishing 3 papers as a freshman is awesome, but by no means should it be your benchmark.

[Max Raker]

Originally Posted by furyshade

that is the problem, he is 77. from his mathematical geneology page it seems he hasn't been a Ph.D advisor for anyone since 1999. i think that he still publishes some mathematical problems/puzzles/games in things like the american mathematical monthly but his research homepage seems to be extremely out of date, looks like it was last updated in 1992 so who knows. looking around the internet i found a list of publications not from him but it has much more recent publications as early as last year which is encouraging. i feel this is probably me being overly concerned when i have a good thing going for me so i should probably be happy where i am

edit: on a lighter note, apparently recently he published a paper titled "Hypercube Tic-Tac-Toe" which seems like a pretty awesome idea

Yeah, i wouldn't worry too much about finding the perfect adviser when you've only had 1 year of college. Doing anything puts you ahead of the curve and paradoxically having research experience to put on your resume will help alot when you are applying for positions to get research experience.

[GoCubsGo]

There's some really helpful advice in this thread. I'm glad I stumbled across it. Also, Max, that was an awesome story. Where was that at?

I'm going to be a senior next year in psychology. GPA is 3.8, 3.99 in psych classes. I don't have much research experience - I had a menial job in a lab for just one semester while studying abroad. But I am now working on my honors thesis. How much weight will that carry, relative to, say two or three years of working in the same lab?

I'm thinking that even though I'll have completed my thesis, I should probably also spend my senior year working in a lab. I don't really want to, because even though I enjoy doing research, my plate is kind of full for this year. I'd like to spend more time taking classes outside of my major, like economics, just to build general life knowledge. But if I work in a research lab, that would probably come at the expense of taking classes like that. How valuable would more lab work be on an application? Another thing to consider is that I'll be applying around November. On the application, it will say I've worked in the lab for only three months so far.

Another additional benefit of working in a lab is that I'd likely get another recommendation letter. The problem is this: My thesis mentor works closely with the prof whose lab I'd like to be in. I'd like to be in his lab because his research is a bit more interesting than my mentor's. Also, I think my mentor could already write me a good letter. I have two solid candidates; I need a third. Is it a slap in the face if I work in his lab, after my mentor took me on and helped me with my thesis?

Last thing: The GRE...I got a 1520 (760/760) on SATs and figured that GRE would be no trouble. I've been studying and mostly it is review. For math, I'm getting around 600 on practice tests. Pretty low. But for vocab, I'm getting like 550s. WTF? I think my vocabulary has markedly improved in university, yet my score has fallen. Are the practice tests offered by companies such as Princeton Review notoriously difficult? That is the only explanation I can come up with. I can't understand why else I'd be performing so much worse.

I'm looking at mostly top 10 programs - UC Berkeley, U of I, Stanford. I'd also like to go abroad, but it's difficult to find information on foreign programs and funding.

[Black Peter]

Originally Posted by GoCubsGo

I'm going to be a senior next year in psychology. GPA is 3.8, 3.99 in psych classes. I don't have much research experience - I had a menial job in a lab for just one semester while studying abroad. But I am now working on my honors thesis. How much weight will that carry, relative to, say two or three years of working in the same lab?

I'd spend your time prepping for the GRE instead. If you get a 1400+, then with your GPA, you're likely to get into a lot of top grad programs in Psych. I can't even begin to count how many students reject this advice, waste a bunch of time in labs, blow off the GRE, then cry because they got rejected at all 15 schools they applied to.

Last thing: The GRE...I got a 1520 (760/760) on SATs and figured that GRE would be no trouble. I've been studying and mostly it is review. For math, I'm getting around 600 on practice tests. Pretty low. But for vocab, I'm getting like 550s. WTF? I think my vocabulary has markedly improved in university, yet my score has fallen. Are the practice tests offered by companies such as Princeton Review notoriously difficult? That is the only explanation I can come up with. I can't understand why else I'd be performing so much worse.

The practice tests are not anymore difficult than the real thing. You have a lot of work to do if you're stuck at 1150. The math section is typically easier than the SAT, but 4 years off will mess up your abilities. Spend a lot of time doing the math problems over and over and get used to the patterns.

The verbal section is typically a lot harder than the SAT. Basically, you need to memorize the 1000+ words in the PR book and practice the different types of sections.

Some schools require the GRE Psych test as well. It's a pain, but not that hard if you study the Psych 101 book for awhile.


Disclaimer: If you're going into Clinical Psych, then all the above doesn't really apply. No one knows what goes on in the heads of Clinical Faculty when they choose who they want for grad students.

[smokeandmirrors]

Anyone here completed/doing a phD in education? I'm looking into the UCLA program and they estimate 3-4 years for completion...what makes it easier/shorter than other phD programs?