When you finally get your act together, all the deadlines have passed

glennmagusharvey

I am learning to hate this feel.

ClockworkUniverse

I know that feel T_T

InsanityAddict

>Slack off with committee work, which entails such heavy work as being there at parties.

>MFW it actually is seen as a valid reason for deadline extensions.

glennmagusharvey

UC Berkeley Energy and Resources Group - December 5

Duke University Program in Environmental Policy - December 8

Stanford Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources - November 29

Stanford Law School JD Program - February 1

glennmagusharvey

Columbia University
* Department of Political Science - December 1
* School of International and Public Affairs PhD in Sustainable Development - December 15
* Law School JD Program - February 15 (but can't use February 12 LSAT)

Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs PhD program - January 15

Syracuse University Maxwell School Department of Public Administration and International Affairs - February 1

University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment - January 5

glennmagusharvey

Yeah, this is really bugging me now.

glennmagusharvey

...I was looking in the wrong place at Wisconsin.

I was looking at University of Wisconsin Madison at their Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.  Their deadline was January 15, but I chose not to apply since I didn't see faculty members who worked on what I wanted to study.

However, the guy who just got a research grant to work on climate policy is in the La Follette School of Public Affairs.  Deadline: January 1.

LouieW

Glennmagusharvey,

That really does not sound like much fun at all. I mean, I can kind of understand why deadlines have to be set like that since ideally schools should have enough time to accept applications, look at them, and send decisions out to people and still give those people adequate time to choose and then plan stuff out. That is part of the reason why hearing about people not getting accepted somewhere until a couple months before school starts bugs me.

Still, I do think it is too bad that you were unable to those deadlines because of how early they were.

By the way, are you/were you interested in doing some dual degree stuff with a law degree/Masters/PhD? If so, (or if not), may I ask what you plan/planned on doing? I am more curious than anything.

glennmagusharvey

I understand why deadlines exist, and I'm not railing against deadlines themselves.  Just regretting that I didn't get my act together any sooner.

I'm interested in environmental politics and policy, particularly climate/carbon/energy policy and politics.  I already have a master's degree in this (or, more accurately, in a very closely related program), so I am looking for a PhD.

I'm also interested in law programs (i.e. JD programs), preferably ones where I can focus on environmental law.  This is because (1) my parents are getting annoyed at how long it's taking me to get into a PhD program, and (2) law is closely related to policy, and many policymakers and advisors (including politicians and government ministers) have legal backgrounds.  In fact, my boss at a place I interned at is a lawyer himself, and he's heads a climate/carbon issues nonprofit organization.

 

The really annoying thing is that I've pretty much had to reinvent the wheel by myself.  There doesn't seem to be any good way to find schools with a particular graduate program of study suited to oneself.  You pretty much have to take educated guesses, based on:
* where people in your research area of interest are working or where there are research centers doing what you're into.
* chatting with your peers and other people in academia (such as professors) who share your interests.
* searching Google.  This will, however, get you a ton of results, unless your field of study is obscure.
* using one of those rankings lists, such as U.S. News and World Report's rankings.  However, this only works for well-established fields, and almost never for new or interdisciplinary fields.

Now consider what my issues were:

I wanted to study something that was not my undergraduate major.  I majored in earth science.  It's very related in terms of content, and earth science forms the knowledge basis of climate science and carbon policy/technology, but they're academically separate: scientists focus on things like climate modeling, engineers focus on things like energy tech and carbon sequestration, and policy experts focus on policy design (including finance/economics issues).  The closest link I've found is some psychologists and communication scholars studying perceptions and public opinion on climate science and climate/energy/carbon policy ideas.

Because of this...

* I had few peers/mentors to ask about how to proceed, and even fewer that I'd feel comfortable asking.  Heck, it's even worse than one change of major; I originally majored in chemical engineering, then switched to earth science, and have gradually gone closer and closer to climate and carbon issues.  However, that means a lot of people I haven't really had time to build up relationships with.

* I actually didn't really have much of an idea of what I wanted to study, for a while.  All I knew was that I wanted to work on something related to climate change, and that my background was in science while I was interested in policy and politics, especially politics.  Thanks to my master's program, I got to find out a lot more about areas of research I'm interested in, and even discovered that psych/comm thing I mentioned earlier.  Still, I wasn't too sure about how to proceed with things.  With my undergrad background in science, I was constrained to a science research job during my master's program, even though I really wanted to work with the psych people, so I've not been very sure about my ability to get accepted into policy or polisci programs.  And, additionally, my politics expertise has to do with U.S. politics, while a lot of policy programs focus on international environmental policy--sure, I can study that, but I'd have to retool my message in order to make myself appeal to them, and I haven't been sure if I ought to do that.

 

TL;DR: I want to study environmental policy and politics, but changing majors between degrees is hard.

 

Fun fact: In high school, I focused my attention on the big three sciences: biology, chemistry, and physics.  I also focused on math, and figured that my career would be in a science/engineering field.  Ironically, my current field is based in on the oft-neglected fourth common high school science field, earth science.  It is also highly related to social science topics, including economics and psychology--two classes that I had crappy high school teachers for.  Earth science, econ, and psych were pretty much not on my radar at all, even going into college.

 

----

 

Oh, another one.  New York University Department of Political Science - January 15.  They don't have an environmental politics specialty, but they do have a political psychology specialty.