hi all! i’m new here so ill keep it short and sweet :)

i just started my masters in psychology program about a month ago, and my writing class is killing me. long assignments about topics that are sometimes related to psychology, and other times not. my professor is quite the character, to put it lightly lol.

he wants us to write our intro section to our thesis, and it has to be a minimum of 25 pages. i was wondering if you all have any advice or methods you use when approaching a long writing assignment. i usually make outlines, but i feel like i need something more. unorthodox methods are not only welcome, but encouraged! TIA! 🤍

I know in Grad School, 9 credit hours per semester is already full-time.

I'm currently at 13 credit hours for this semester. If I drop one course then it's 10 credit hours (there's a 4th course which is 1 credit-hour, which I am forced to attend for my degree in this semester).

My Master's is in Finance. I do have freelance work, which has hourly pay.

The reason why I was initially going for 13 is because I want to potentially finish my degree in 1.5 years instead of 2 years to save on student loans and cost of living.

So, should I drop a class right now? If I do, I'll study for 2 years. Would this decision be worth the additional costs of living and student loans (which I estimate to be $14000 more)?

I completed my 4th year of kinesiology and I am doing 5th year now. Why 5th year? Cause I didn’t know what I wanted to do in the future so I half assed up to 3rd year like an idiot. 4th year, I started to put more effort in and got up to a 3.8GPA for my 4th year. My Cgpa is now 3.10 after taking some more summer courses. Since I did horrendous in my previous years, I have prerequisite courses that need a 70% grade average requirement but I do not meet them. Therefore I have to retake lots of courses. In Canada schools look at the last 20 credits (last 20 courses) so that is why I am doing the 5th year. Not meeting lots of my prerequisite like physiology and anatomy is putting lots of pressure on me and I’m not confident in getting an A in these courses. I have looked through most Canadian schools that the competition is incredibly high. I also did research across the world and found that Australia and UK is very popular for canadian students. Still I want to look for a place closer to home.

Anyone been in my shoes? If so, what did you guys do?

I am considering a request for leave of absence… as the school still charges tuitions for doing your research…( as school forbid thesis student applying TA Position, no funding opportunities available for research and I am international students, the costs adds up fast ) Can I still work on my research while I am away ?

I am PhD student in Canada who was seeking my 3 supervisor for my committee. I had top 3 choices who were in different institutions, I emailed each of them asking to join my committee, I included my CV and gave the option of meeting. No one replied. I did end up finding someone from my institution who is in a different department but has research experience related to my project. He accepted to join and was excited and looking forward to mutual benefits of working together.

However, older mentors and people outside of my supervisory group said I should not have given up so easily on my main choices. They felt I should have kept emailing until I heard a response. I felt uncomfortable with spamming potential members but now these older folks keep saying I missed out on quality supervision because I did not continue to email. What do you think about this? I feel it’s not appropriate to email repeatedly if they aren’t responding and that possibly that is method from years ago that worked for these more senior academics.

I’m curious, should I have kept emailing these potential supervisors or was I right to let it go when they did not respond? I feel guilty that I did not try hard enough when i talk to older mentors.

I’m an EE master student and well my issue here is that before I began my master, I worked in research with a professor for about two years because he gave me the opportunity to join his project. After that ended one more year passed and then I decided to begin a Master degree in that same Uni where he is a professor, I did my bachelor in a different Uni so he was the only prof. I knew there and of course he was my main and only choice for an advisor for my Master’s thesis project, he also helped me with a recommendation letter to access the Master degree and all, but at the end when we talked about the research topics he had they didn’t really click for me, we met like two more times at the beginning of the first semester and discussed more about the topics he wanted to research but at the end it was a dead end for me, that was the situation all the semester and I began the second semester without any project or advisor in mind, but then one of the professors that gave me one of the elective courses I had to take for my masters offered me a project that was more aligned with what I liked and wanted to do and also was a joint project with another Uni that could gave me an advantage for my future plans in academia so I accepted.

I don’t regret this decision since there wasn’t another options that I liked after asking multiple professors in that Uni, but yeah I can’t stop feeling bad at the end for not doing my thesis project with my old professor whom was a big part of why I chose this Uni for doing my master’s degree and at the beginning of it I told him I wanted to do my thesis project with him but yeah life is strange and one never knows where it will take you to, never the less how can I stop feeling this bad about "betraying" my old prof? Thanks for your advises with this!

In terms of acceptance chances? The school I’m trying to get in is rolling admissions though a lot more people are starting to apply now than I anticipated. I figured the main rush would come starting October

Hi y’all

Im a second year masters student who is trying to be more conscious of my autistic needs during grad school. I have just started week 3 of my second year and I’ve been noticing that Ive been dealing with a lot of overstimulation. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions??

Hi y’all! Long story short, I just started my master’s program, and I have a chronic health condition that flared up for two days. I’m good now, but I’m already behind.

One of my professors requires hand written notes (and checks them in class), for two of my three courses, and it is slowing me down a LOT. I just cannot write fast no matter how hard I try. For reference, two papers ~20 pages each took me 7 hours to take notes for. 30 fairly simple textbook pages took me 3 hours to take notes for.

I have 40 pages of the readings due Wednesday that I need all handwritten notes for. I don’t want to bullshit the process because the information is very valuable for the courses and my degree as a whole but I can’t keep up. I’ve started neglecting the work required my third class, which is arguably the most valuable to my degree and research, because it is slightly less dense and doesn’t require such time consuming hand written notes.

Anything helps. Thanks!

Hi everyone,
I am graduating with a B.S. in Artificial Intelligence in July 2027. My current GPA is around 2.8 (can realistically push it to 2.9 by graduation). I know this acts as a hard filter for traditional corporate roles and standard university admissions, so I want to be smart about my path.
However, I have focused heavily on practical research and benchmarking rather than traditional coursework:I am looking to move into Core AI, Generative AI alignment, Multi-Agent systems, or Vision-Language Models (VLMs). Because of financial constraints, I strictly require a pathway that is either fully funded (Graduate Research Assistantships, stipends) or tuition-free where I can work part-tim.I will be uploading my papers to arXiv soon to ensure my portfolio is fully verifiable. Any case studies or brutal, realistic advice would be highly appreciated!

I just got done with police verification for passport renewal.

Havent started preparing for applications yet or scheduling IELTS (as it requires passport).

Havent reached out to any professors yet.

I applied to masters at NYU in 2021, got in, dropped out after 4 months and just finished paying those loans.

What are the next steps? And how do I make sure what I am getting into is the best fit for me and I dont drop out this time around

Hey all, I need to cite a few guest lectures for my current chapter, but the audio is around 4 hours total. Tried running it through a couple of basic auto-transcribers, but they completely mangle the theoretical terms and author names.

Before I waste 15 hours typing this out by hand, does anyone have a workflow or a reasonably priced tool they recommend for handling academic audio? Or am I better off just manually timestamping the relevant sections?

Hello everyone! what are campus activities in your university that you enjoy? like karaoke night or trivia night or art etc
activists i can do for the students :)

Hi everyone,

I needed some advice on programs and schools. I recently finished my undergrad and have no jobs so I am planing to go back to school. My cum gpa is 3.5 but my major gpa is higher. I wanna go to a good name school because I believe that does matter when it comes to landing a job offer. Please advise what are some good schools preferably online but I am open to moving as well.

i recently started my phd in chem (yay!) and am also in my first ldr. my boyfriend is a med student and moved back to PR around two months ago. i moved from my hometown (east coast, major city) to the midwest for my phd so travel to see each other is a lot harder than when i was living back at home.

we have been doing pretty good with being long distance but i already really miss seeing him in person. we have been discussing visiting each other and honestly, it seems impossible. im about to start rotations and with the demands of research, it appears like i will not have many completely free weekends. as a med student, most of his time off is spent studying for exams/practicals or preparing for his next classes.

i know this relationship is worth this struggle but i am already feeling sad and discouraged that we can barely even plan a weekend together. we do have “date nights,” which are fun, but it really will never compare to being together irl.

for those of you who have been in an ldr during grad school (especially if your partner was also in a demanding program/career), how often were you realistically able to visit each other? did you schedule visits far in advance, protect certain weekends, travel during academic breaks, etc.? i would really appreciate hearing what worked for you!

Hello! I'm currently in my first year of undergrad as an international student in Australia. It might be a little early, but I've been considering prospects for when I do postgrad. I'm in a foundation program, but should start my Bachelors in Fine Arts next year (planning on double majoring theatre, public relations, and minoring professional writing).

It started as a prompt for an interview we had to do, but I ended up doing very well and it had me feeling motivated. I thought it wouldn't hurt to dream big while I have time to think things through. My main goal is to become an actor, but I am interested in getting involved in areas like Archaeology, Museum/Heritage, Public/Humanitarian, Communications ...

I would love to plan for a masters somewhere in the UK area, possibly Oxbridge, Glasgow, or Edinburgh. For those who have had experience, would you have any advice to share? If there is anything I could aim for to prepare early, or if there are any alternatives, that would be really great.

TLDR: What are some accessible (in-demand) jobs at universities that a BS grad can fill while waiting for the next semester to start?

I'm expecting to apply for grad school (USA) but at this point I wouldn't be able to begin until fall 2027 (next August). I have failed to get a job in my field (space engineering) due to my background in R&D and business (not enough big industry xp). Being in a team environment is highly socially rewarding for me, so I'm really trying to get that back. I've really set myself back by trying to work by/for myself for the last three years.

Obviously if I start school, I'll have all the socialization I'd want. But I don't want to continue to be depressed in the year until then, so I'd like to get a head start by getting a temporary job at a prospective uni then transitioning into schoolwork once the 2027 fall semester starts. My BS is in mechanical engineering, but I'd be happy doing almost anything as long as it's social. Any thoughts?

Okay. I'm an undergraduate (not sure if that's illegal here, I'm going to soon be a grad student?) and currently in a role as a TA for a computing course. I feel grad students know about TAing more than professors, so...

I've just started, and it feels like I'm set for failure in so many ways. I love teaching, I'd always took to helping peers kindly as a student, but I think I'm just okay for teaching because some of my first classes were just average. Along with this, I've made some grading mistakes in a rush that some of my seemingly precocious (olympiad winner, extremely smart) TAs never make, not sure how they're so good at it the first time.

I really like teaching, but I don't want my classes' quality to take a hit due to my poor time managing skills or my zeal to share what may be helpful. I don't want people to attend because it's mandatory. I also realized in the first class that my students are not very open to share, which is okay because it's the first class, and likely their first uni class in totality. Yet, I would like to get them to feel free in the classes and not feel shy to share, and I'm ready to make resources like polls and quizzes to the purpose as well. Are there things I can do to get people to speak up and feel more comfortable?

I'm so tired of the bureaucracy around the work. The head teaching assistant loves an opportunity to reprimand me, and I just feel like I fuck up when I simply must not. I just think there's a lack in professionalism, or I'm too sensitive to think basic courtesy to first-time TA is just a baseline.

There's a responsibility in me, but I don't love dealing with my fellow TAs. I feel they have it figured out (some of their students have given them feedback when mine barely approach me). I don't give very hostile vibes either, I've had TAs myself who had a full prisoner face but were super approachable. How do I seriously navigate this stress? These mistakes, though small, and the dealing with the head TA and the lecturer is becoming far too cumbersome and I'm thinking retracting away from the job.

I'm asking the question in the title because I want to know if this is common throughout graduate programs in general, or if it's just my university that seems to defer research skill development.

I recently started a chem PhD at a mid-tier university in the US. We don't sign with a research advisor until 3/4 of the way through our first semester. In the first three semesters we take classes. Going into the program, I thought that my classes would expose me to applications of the titular chemistry subjects, but so far (only 2 weeks in) that has not been the case. As it stands, none of the 3 classes I'm taking seem to have any plan to develop my research skills, other than one project asking me to summarize one research paper. I'm wanting to gather data on the question "is this because my program actually isn't that strong or is it just convention in PhDs to delay research skill development until the student joins a research group?" I came to a PhD to become a researcher, so I would like to know what's going on.

Hi everyone! I’m an international student looking for a STEM-designated Master’s in I/O Psychology in the US for Spring 2027.

From my research, most of the more well-known universities only offer Fall admission, and I really don’t want to wait another year to start. So far, I’ve mainly found Roosevelt University and University of New Haven, but I’ve heard they don’t have the strongest reputation.
Since international tuition is a significant investment, I’d really like to choose a university with good program quality, career opportunities, networking, and ROI.

Are there any other good STEM I/O programs offering Spring 2027 admission that I might have missed? And if you’ve attended Roosevelt or UNH, how has your experience been?

I’d really appreciate any advice or recommendations. Thank you!

Hello! I am 23 years old and I hold a Bachelor's Degree in Statistics and since the age of 19 I was sure that I would love to do a Master's degree.

But I also wanted a lot to have a job as fast as possible and gain the financial independence.

I managed to find a job in Budapest at a multinational bank in compliance area right when I got my Bachelor's Degree in July 2025 and the working schedule is from around 8.30 AM to 5 PM. There might be some flexibility in really special cases (like picking up children from school/nursery).

I started a Master's degree in Econometrics and Applied Statistics through distance learning in Cluj-Napoca (as I initially heard that this possibility exists), however by the beginning of the uni year 2025-2026 it was found that the professors will be much stricter with the presence on campus and there will be exams with mandatory presence on campus. I had no choice, but to take the reexams in February. Unfortunately, I also found out that it would become nearly impossible to finish a Master's degree if I hadn't managed to find a job by the second year of the Master's Degree, because there are mandatory internships that can be replaced with jobs, however it would be much harder to be accepted replacing these with jobs outside Romania.

I wanted to get admitted at university in Budapest as the tuition fees are more manageable and I can support myself throughout this process and I abandoned the degree from Cluj after the first year. I got admitted in Budapest, however I found out that the type of schedule is full-time schedule: 3 days per week where you have lectures and seminars and these can be anywhere between 8 AM to 8 PM and it's hard to manage with the working schedule.

I thought of attending just the practices (which are on Tuesday and Thursday and these are during the afternoon) as these are the only ones mandatory to be attended.

However, when I asked my TL about it on Thursday, she told me she will talk with the director about it so that they will find a final solution about this.

To this day, I haven't received any response about it (though the TL responded to my questions involving work), but I'm thinking of reconsidering this Master's degree, because I would rather prioritise my financial independence than being supported by someone else and having to pay loans right after my Master's degree.

So, I will have to talk to the director of the department about this and make it perfectly clear that in any case I will prioritise this job and if there's no possibility of flexibility, I will reconsider my actual Master's degree, because I don't want to be fired or reduce my norm (so that I would rely on loans). At the same time I'm searcing for jobs with flexible working hours so that it would be easier.

In my place, what would you do? How worth is it to take Master's degrees, especially now at 23 years old when I'm doing everything to consolidate my career and I would like to move from my actual position in compliance to the Risk department, preferably in market risk or financial risk or even credit risk? And how tragic is it that I would be faced with possibily abandoning a Master's degree for the second time in spite of both of them being in Statistics field? I was starting to think of trying a remote Master's degree from universities in Dublin in Data Science/Analysis or, at least, Financial Risk Management as these have lower tuition fees and the classes are during the week from 6 PM to 9 PM (Irish time). If not, at the very least taking a really valuable certificate in Financial Risk Management (FRM), at least FRM - Part 1, along with small certificates and projects in Python, R and SQL.

For some reason, I feel very sluggish and like having brain fog.

I feel stuck in my PhD, because for the past couple of years, all of my proposed proofs for theorems in my math papers have been either very elementary, or were just not precise enough i.e. I unintentionally oversimplified or overlooked something.

It's sad that either a proof idea sounds very creative but is somehow wrong, or sounds correct but is just not creative (and thus elementary at best and can't prove any more other difficult things).

I kind of feel like as if yesterday I was just a fresh undergraduate student and now I am in my 4th year of my PhD.

I don't know what kind of brain exercises could help me in this situation. I am not looking for "Ways to increase my IQ", but just for ways on how to get rid of this brain fog I have been feeling, not being able to find the mix between analytical thinking and creative problem solving.

It sounds weird but even just thinking about engaging with my brain in something makes my head hurt (I do have stress-induced migraines, confirmed by a neurologist), as if it was something so stressful and uncomfortable that I would avoid it and rather try to be the "smart lazy guy" - only thing is that it's not working out at all. Like even thinking about printing out a math paper and studying it for the whole day is enough to make me have a headache again.

In the end, I escape into watching Facebook Reels for the whole day and do the bare minimum required just to keep my advisor somewhat happy. When meeting other mathematicians my age at a conference, seminar, etc. I can't talk with them at all about mathematics, it's literally like watching the Big Bang Theory and seeing those guys talk in their own scientific language.

So my two more specific questions would be:

1. What activities engage the brain the most? Especially with regards to my main goals of improving analytical, precise thinking and creative problem solving?

2. How can I overcome this uncomfortable, stressful feeling - making me give a headache and escape into watching Facebook Reels all day long - accompanied by having to put in some effort in them?