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Questions tagged [graduate-school]

On schools that award advanced academic degrees, such as master's and doctoral degrees. This tag is mainly for questions about the structure and organization of a graduate school or the fundamental experience of being a graduate student. Do not use this tag for questions about research in graduate school (use [research] instead), coursework in graduate school (use [coursework]), gaining admissions to graduate school (use [graduate-admissions]), etc.

A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees (i.e. master's degrees and Ph.D. degrees) with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate (bachelor's) degree.

A distinction is typically made between graduate schools, where courses of study do not provide training for a particular profession and professional schools, which offer specialized advanced degrees in professional fields such as medicine, business, engineering, ministry or law.

Note: This tag wiki has content adapted from Wikipedia, used under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.

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Is it okay for a professor to leave the classroom only 5 min past the class start if nobody has shown up?

Last week, because of a subway delay due to bad weather I arrived 15 minutes late to class to find out my professor had left 10 minutes before because nobody else had arrived. Was it okay for him to do that? Would it be rude to complain about this…
Ann Greene
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How to get back on track after falling behind

I'm a first year master student currently taking courses on the second semester. For the most part I did pretty good on the first semester except that I got behind in one course which is specially demanding and hard. Now I'm taking the equivalent…
Prastt
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Do professors change their impression of a previously bad student?

One of my friends (a math graduate student from my department) didn't work hard during his undergraduate studies, and his GPA was, naturally, low. He barely (and with some luck) got into grad school, where he works harder. The problem is that as it…
Pandora
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What are some good questions to ask current graduate students when visiting schools?

For the record, I'm visiting the University of Chicago as an accepted PhD student (in the geophysical sciences) next week. In particular, I'd especially appreciate creative questions that few other visiting students ask.
InquilineKea
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Studying a second undergraduate degree part-time while doing a PhD?

I was wondering if it would be okay for a full-time PhD student (in biology) to pursue a part-time degree in an unrelated subject. I had an undergrad experience that was pretty "focused", which was great in that it gave me decent training for…
Lin3
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How do I not get impatient when other people ask me to describe my research?

I mean, I really should be glad when they ask me this question. But inevitably, different people will ask me the same question many different times (over many different interviews), understandably so, and response fatigue does start to set in. I…
InquilineKea
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What is the purpose of the weekly research meetings that advisers often have with their research group?

Does it usually happen even if all of the adviser's students have very different research interests?
InquilineKea
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Does Pop-Science involvement hurt one's reputation?

There is a divide between the scientific community about involvement in popular science. I would define it as involvement in NatGeo/Discovery type documentaries, writing columns for newspapers/magazines, blogging about articles of popular nature…
user107
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Academic dismissal from PhD program. What next?

A couple semesters after beginning my PhD program (in the US), I was dismissed from the program because: My GPA was slightly below the program's minimum (after being on academic probation for one semester already). After months of work as an RA in…
user10165
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How do successful undergraduate and PhD students differ?

I was recently speaking to a university lecturer about studying at undergraduate and PhD level. He spoke about how many successful undergraduate students ended up doing poorly at research level, as the skills needed to succeed at undergraduate and…
Christopher U
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As a student, how much time should I spend helping other students with research?

Assume that one has a skill (assume, programming) and is one of the very few in the department to have it. The other students need a bit of this skill for their projects and you help out when you can. Where do you set the limit for how much…
user107
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How do I respond to a professor’s email refusing my recommendation request?

My professor has refused to provide a recommendation that I requested from him and directed me to approach the head of the department. How do I close this communication with him? Would a thank you email be necessary?
user86986
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What are the advantages and disadvantages of having multiple advisers?

Could multiple advisers mean that it might be easier for you to get funding? (since you're not just limited to one person?) Could it also mean that you get more overall input in your project (the input of 3 different people), and that maybe your…
InquilineKea
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Are relationships between faculty and graduate students at different universities acceptable?

It is commonly understood that romantic relationships between faculty and students at the same university are frowned upon, or explicitly forbidden. However are romantic relationships between faculty and graduate students at geographically far away…
Anonymous
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How should I deal with feeling dumb?

I am a graduate student in mathematics at a top school. Most of other students achieved gold medal in International mathematics olympiad for high school and/or other similar competitions. Most did their undergraduate in the very best school. I came…
Georgia
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