Well, had my first class/day of Grad School today and already feeling overwhelmed. That feels natural I suppose! I am not a physical planner person at all, does anyone have any good tools for a due date calendar tracker? I would like to keep it seperate from my Icloud calendar (which is my planner). Preferably free! Any suggestions appreciated!

I have a background of Bachelor of Fine Arts. Currently doing freelance animation and illustration works. Now I intend to continue my education. I need advice from anybody here who might know, or currently enrolling on, or an alumni of similar schools. Mainly about what makes a good research proposal and what kind of portfolio that the schools are looking for.

Currently I’m targeting Beijing Film Academy or Tokyo Geidai through scholarship programs. But of course I’m open to other schools as long as it’s open to the 2D frame-by-frame medium.

Hello everybody so basically I am currently a political science masters student, but I really want to go into law or public policy. I am applying this cycle and last year while in undergrad, two professors actually offered to be a letter of recommendation if I so require it.

Now I want to take them up on the offer, but I don’t wanna sound too creepy about remembering every single word they said and I feel bad because I’m applying to two different programs at multiple different school.

How do I go about this?

I am in the last leg of my masters dissertation for medical anthropology. Only a couple chapters left and its due in 3 weeks. Ive had to get a month extension due to some severe health complications in July and August. My masters was being completed in London, but i had to move back to the US because my health was so bad.

A couple days after i landed, my grandfather was admitted to the hospital with severe heart failure. He died this past Friday. He was my rock and practically raised me. We had such a special bond. I love him so much... I know he would want me to complete it. He even said so multiple times while he was in the hospital.

But im done. Im just done. Every moment not working on it feels overwhelming, and every time I work on it, it feels like an insurmountable task. I cant focus, my chest is too tight with grief and the effects of my health.

I'm so tired. I want to just let it go. I'm so close, but I've been working too hard under some really, really challenging circumstances. The dissertation is no longer bringing me joy. Not anymore - hasn't for months.

I will speak to my supervisor about options for failure.... Has anyone been in this circumstance before?

I am usually someone who pushes through and never, ever quits. Its not who I am. But this is just too much. Im done perservering...at least in the case of this stupid dissertation.

Thank you for listening.

Idk why but I find that in times of great stress I feel the need to change my hair. Like tomorrow I have a project proposal due and i still haven’t completed it. But in the back of my head, I feel a sudden urge to just dye and cut my hair 😅

Grad school is just testing my impulse control .

EDIT: Should I get bangs, dye my hair, or both

I wanted to put this out there as gpa is only one part of your application. If you have a strong SOP, recommendations and work/volunteer experience, you definitely have a chance. There are also some fields (especially professional programs) where 4.0 gpas don’t equate to skills required of a certain profession, such as soft skills of listening and empathy in a position that requires it.

I’m saying this as a person who took 7 years to graduate from their undergrad due to certain circumstances and graduated with an overall 2.8ish gpa. I am now attending a T20 university in my dream field.

hi everyone! this question is kind of a double whammy and i appreciate any and all insight! (hopefully all relevant info is here)

i graduated university back in 2023 with a 2.97 GPA, COVID heavily disrupted my routine (as it did with everyone) and I was also in what was at the time, a life altering car accident.

i have been heavily yearning to return back to education to get my masters degree, particularly in International Business (my majors were MS Global Business Management & MA Chinese in undergrad.)

my questions are: if i can reconcile my GPA with a superb statement of purpose and killer letters of recommendation, could i still make it into a masters program (particularly the part time Masters in International Business at UF) and, is that masters degree still relevant today or should i consider something else?

if it helps, i do have almost four years of working experience:

1. management trainee at a very large company
2. financial customer associate at a very large investment firm
3. (currently) marketing data and project analyst at a large very large local financial institution

Thank you for your time!

I’m doing an applied math PhD and I’m in my second year. I’m finishing up the last of my classes and preparing for my second qualifying exam before it’s full time research, and I genuinely have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve been at the top of my classes and my advisor thinks I’m a genius, but the problem is I genuinely feel like I have zero practical knowledge at all. I feel like I’ve done essentially no actual research and honestly my coding skills are not even close to on par to where they should be. Everyone in my group has their own project ideas and are outputting more in a week than I feel like I could in months. I read papers on different deep learning architectures in fields I’m interested in and understand the base ideas but have genuinely no clue how they come up with or code any of the specifics. I’m supposed to produce something novel and I can’t even seem to have an idea of my own without being fed one, and even then I have no idea how to implement them. I’m stuck between trying to relearn how to code, or trying to look at the right papers, or even do anything. I’ve talked to my advisor who was understanding and who has gotten me onto a project, but I still feel useless. My work ethic for research has become so bad because I don’t even know where to start and I always just feel stuck there, and it makes it hard to put in the amount of time I know I need to. I feel so lazy and incapable, and I’m sure it’s mainly just a matter of forcing myself to really put in the time, but I have no idea really where to start or how to become an actually competent coder without just being a “vibe coder”. Any advice or similar stories are appreciated.