la_bonera

I just had a crazy dream last night about this exact situation happening to me. I'm so curious to see how it turned out for Cpie!

I literally just figured mine out yesterday. What a relief!

Hi! I just graduated from UofA in Fayetteville! I'm going to go to CU-Boulder for my graduate work. I have a few options for what group I end up joining. I'm not entirely sure if I want to go the classical synthetic organic chemistry route or something more organic materials related, so at this point besides reading some publications there's not a lot I can do. Unfortunately the sophomore organic classes at UofA weren't as comprehensive as I would have liked. I'm pretty sure I need to go back and teach myself the last 10 chapters or so to learn some carbon-carbon forming reactions and basically everything about carbonyl chemistry.

Hello all! I'm getting ready to start my PhD in organic chemistry. Just out of curiosity (and boredom, and anticipation), I'd love to see what others are doing during the summer to help prepare for their program. I wasn't able to continue my research this summer since I'm no longer an undergraduate student and so I've been feeling pretty bored and concerned that I might be losing my skills. Silly, I know. Mostly I'm just trying to focus on enjoying my time off and the extra time with my family before the big move. I may or may not try to brush up on some reactions and gen chem stuff before I start teaching this fall. For those that have already been through this, what did you do during the summer that was helpful and worth your time? What was bad?

Well, not exactly. I'm married, but my husband doesn't finish undergrad until May 2016, so he won't be moving until then. So it looks like he gets to hang out with the dog in Arkansas and I'll move solo for now. So I'm trying to find potential roommates that are ok with him and dog joining in May. So far it seems like it's pretty early to find stuff for August. Have you had any luck?

I'm going to be there in the fall for chemistry. Now the distance apartment hunting begins!

Thanks! Yeah, I'm not sure where I'm going yet, except that if I don't go to my undergrad institution then we're gonna be apart for the first year of PhD. I think in some ways it might be good- I won't know anybody and I'll really be able to dive into the workload. But I think it's going to be kind of lonely and expensive-to be paying for 2 places to live and for flights and such.

Has anyone ever had the experience of living apart from your spouse for a year? And I mean 3000 miles away apart. If so, how did you make it work?

I'm curious- at what point after the first round of acceptances go out do you contact someone to see what your status is? I'd like to know, but I think it would be counterproductive to come off as pushy.

I went through my e-mail history with the graduate recruiter at one of the schools I applied to, just so I could see at what time 'boundaries' they sent out e-mails. Now all I can think is, "so, you sent me an e-mail at 7:30 am one time, now I MUST CHECK THE EMAIL"