Helpful note to prospective PhD students posting here

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Helpful note to prospective PhD students posting here

(43 posts) (4 voices)

Started 3 years ago by XJ220
Latest reply from Anonymous

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XJ220
Member

Dear prospies,

I do not really care all that much that you are cluttering up our board with your posts (though I do think you should stick to the grad cafe). But I do want to offer a friendly word of advice: think very carefully before posting any info about yourself that could easily identify you to professors at the schools to which you have applied. More than likely they are reading this site.

Moreover, this board is a snakepit and, however well-meaning and sincere your posts are, they will simply attract sniping, **** and trolling.

That is all.

Posted 3 years ago #
XJ220
Member

PS I think that the mods should sticky this advice. But it seems like they do **** all these days. The board has gone to hell lately.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

I'm planning to start a program this fall and posted a question about improving my future job prospects, if that's what you had in mind. I figured the responses on a site like grad cafe would be worthless, those people have no experience and this board is about poli sci jobs. I definitely tried to keep it anonymous with mentioning schools. I appreciated the suggestions, but I'm sure you don't want me posting questions from my classes all through school and I respect that.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Take it easy, XJ. Like professors have nothing else to do... 'I hear you have been admitted to several PhD programs and you chose our school. Scandal!' Yeah, right...

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

^Very few people on this site have found jobs yet. You are wasting your time.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

I'm one of those "prospies" you addressed to and I'm going to grad school this Fall. Whereas I appreciate your good intention, I don't really enjoy your condescending tone. Some of us are not that a newbie to this board. In fact, I've been reading it since the start of my senior year.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

I'm the one who suggested there be a prospective student questions section in the first place. I certainly think the answers you get there will be as helpful as those on gradcafe (although some/many will be junk or nasty), and those grad students and faculty members who don't want to look at those posts can ignore them.

But I would second the advice that both here and on grad cafe you be conscious of what information you post and think about how it could be triangulated to reveal your identity. When on the admit committee I was surprised to see how easy it was to ID some applicants from what they let on about location, GRE, subfield, transparent nickname, etc. when you have the files in front of you and can restrict your attention to the ones accepted.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

^Then you have too much time on your hands.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

I know, right!? Sadly I reached the point where I truly felt something was missing in my life when this board barely breathed under the registration experiment.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

^^^^I appreciate your independent spirit, but as an ABD who just got his first job, I can tell you that keeping up an attitude like that will do you no favors as a grad student. If a professor says jump, you've got to ask "how high?" Professors who aren't condescending are few and far between...when you get your degree, you'll understand.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Ha - do profs honestly have nothing better to do than read this dumb site?

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

^ Prospie here, again. Don't misunderestimate the informational value of this board. Professors come here for a reason.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

And what would that reason be? To try to figure out which one of their bitter, ABD students who will never get jobs might be spending valuable research time on this board?

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Everyone, whether professor, student, or prospective, has better things to do than read (or post to) this dumb site. Yet it exists.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

^^ Thus, the burden of argument is on you.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

As Dan Savage once said about sex, if you're being freaky with someone then you can't condemn them for being freaky. Similarly, if you're on this board, you're already just as bad.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

ARE YOU ALL MAD? Or just stupid?

Look, it's quite simple. From time to time, this site successfully serves a useful purpose. Ads get posted, interview schedules are leaked (thus putting others out of their misery, since they'd otherwise be waiting for months only to find out they'd been rejected for a position) and job advice is dispensed. Very occasionally, interesting debates about pedagogy, methodology or the profession as a whole unfold.

In between these times, this place is a cesspool, replete with disinformation campaigns, departmental sniping, and full-blown character assassination conducted by socially retarded, bitter ABDs against other socially retarded, bitter ABDs. In this regard, things seem to have gotten much worse lately.

In conclusion, this board resembles, UMM I DON'T KNOW, MAYBE EVERY OTHER DISCUSSION BOARD ON THE WEB.

Now **** off.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Easy, man. You can make your interesting points without using that kind of language.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Or, if you post identifying information...just don't be a dick and make an **** of yourself.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

or, if you're ABD and not going to get a job, don't be **** sadistic and try to ruin other people's lives because yours sucks so much.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

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Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

I just use this site to scope out victims.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

misunderestimate? condescending tone? Jebus. Isn't it a bit early to be acting like prima donnas?

Perhaps the first thing the prospective PhD students following this forum should do is get over themselves. Yes, you got into graduate school. That doesn't make you the **** (or anywhere close).

And since I'm giving advice, here's some more. Think about the following when picking a school (in no particular order):

1) faculty members you can envision yourself working with
2) geographic location
3) reputation of the school
4) strength of other departments that might be relevant to your research interests (the logic being you can learn a lot from the strengths other disciplines bring to the table)

Think about the following your first year:

1) Don't be a pompous ****. I don't care what your undergrad grades were, how extensively you've traveled, who you know (or have met), or where you've worked. You're not the **** (see above) and if you act like you are you're only going to alienate people and get a reputation for being a douche.
2) Remember you're in school to learn. The implication of that is that you don't know everything already. See #1.
3) Identify and follow your passions. You may get a job at the end of the day. You may not. It's a long, hard slog until you find that out and the only way for it to be even remotely bearable is for you to do things that you genuinely enjoy. Sure, take a course or two in stats or econometrics if you think it's going to give you a fallback option outside the academy, but don't put the majority of your energy doing things you think you *should* do.
4) Take advice (including what you're reading here) with a grain of salt. People can be well intentioned and people can be assholes. At the end of the day, you're the one making choices and you're the one who has to live with the consequences.
5) Do the best you can and let it go. You'll only make yourself crazy trying to control consequences - how people see your work, fellowship decisions, etc.
6) Take yourself seriously. Don't be an **** about it, but believe that you have something valuable to say, say it whenever you have the opportunity to, and fight for the research money to pursue it further.

Good luck with your choices. And don't be assholes.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

^Some of the most useful and forthright advice I've even read on this board. As a future grad student, I thank you.

Posted 3 years ago #
bianchi77
.edu verified member

^ The above is EXCELLENT advice. Most jobs go to workhorses, not prima donnas.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Thank you for that advice. Imagine - something useful on this site! I will remember it.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Also, when you arrive in grad school, if you had famous advisers as an undergrad, don't go around dropping their first names as if you are best friends. In fact, I had lunch with "Bob" last week, and he tells me you were an insufferable douchebag back then as well.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

^ is also great advice. You'll realize in grad school how little professors (even yours) cared about undergrads they advised.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

^^ In my grad program, we had someone refer to faculty by their first name all the time: "I was talking to Phil the other day and...." The guy came across like a complete idiot. That may be the reason that he quit the program after completing his MA.

Posted 3 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

^ That's odd. What else am I supposed to call my adviser and other professors? I always refer to them by their first name, and so does everyone else in my program.

Posted 3 years ago #

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