inej

Hi - we moved here last year and it is a great city. It is dense and cosmpolitan and you should be able to find almost anything you need here. We considered it a permanent move since we have family here so we shipped a 16' container via PODS, the car and the dog. We looked at paying for 3 years of storage and still needing dishes, furniture and my tools - vs shipping - same, same - so we decided to bring it all. However, there are many fully furnished rentals here too, and its a somewhat transient place because of the military deployments, so it is easy to find used things. Our SUV was $1400 to ship from the CA coast, plus you have to have it inspected and either permit or register it right away. If you are not enamored of your ride or your stuff, only plan to stay for your masters program and your parents have garage space, I might suggest sell it or leave it behind. It takes 120 days of prep work to ship an animal in and avoid quarantine, but we were able to pick him up right after the flight and take him home. There is lots of info on the internet about that so do your research. There are very few pet friendly rentals here, especially if you have more than one animal. Our fella is big, so we didn't have a whole lot of choices. There are more mid-high rises than SF houses in town. If you want a house, best to look just outside of the city. The bus system is great, traffic is horrendous. Everything is expensive, food will be probably 1/3 higher than the mainland and electricity is insanely expensive, like 2-3X mainland cost. So just plan for that in the budget. Residency is harder to get here and UH has some odd rules about that so don't just assume you can get residency status in a year, it may not be possible while you are a student. I have a GA so it didn't matter. Campus is lovely, and my faculty has been great. Overall very happy to be here.

That is tough, since the visual is so important to the installation. A little cardboard wall will just get mowed down easily. One thing we use at the museum is little stanchions - we have a set that are just a foot high and a little rope goes through them. But they are clunky, in terms of pristine viewing. Honestly, people even run into those all the time, especially busy times like openings and tours. I might suggest rather than building a 'fence' type thing that is visually disruptive, that you build a platform that raises an area off the floor a bit (like 6"-8")and you attach your piece to the platform instead of directly to the floor. The larger the platform in terms of surface area, the less it will be noticed, and the more it will be effective. IE raise half the room up 6".

I think Snooki got the funding at Rutgers http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b234354_wait_snooki_got_how_much_speak_rutgers.html

So rather than pile onto the 94 pages of the freakout topic, where have you decided to go? What was your offer? Why? University of Hawaii at Manoa, MFA Sculpture I have been offered a curatorial assistantship at the University Art Museum including tuition and a 13k stipend. I have family on a nearby island, the faculty is a great fit and I currently work at a museum, so this is the perfect offer for me. I'm heading to Oahu!

I received a reject from UCLA sculpture last Thursday. They sent emails that you can log on and check your status here http://www.gdnet.ucla.edu/gasaa/admissions/applicat.htm

There are different levels of support at different programs. Several do offer tuition waivers + a stipend GA. One of my friends applied to several schools last year, and her choice was made in no small part by 'who was gonna pay me the most to go' I have other priorities, one of them being that my work is dramatically altered by a sense of place. So many good schools are in locations that would simply have a negative effect on me and my work in that regard. Where I live is a beautiful and it has a thriving arts community. I just won't go give up three years of my life to be somewhere that I am uninspired, in a place I don't really want to live and have no intention of staying long term. I only applied to the three places I really wanted to go and fit well with my work. I have a clear realization that yes, the connections you make in grad school have implications beyond just the MFA title, but also future opportunities. What is that worth to you? Your choice should get you closer to the ideal you to which you aspire to be, and for me location is extremely important, what the faculty does is important, US News rankings are not. Remember that grad school is a stepping stone, a direction you are heading, and not your final destiny. You should also think about funding offers in this way - what other jobs could you hold down in that location that you are qualified for? What would you earn @ 20 hours per week and would it actually build towards what you really want to do in the long run? So just say for example your choices are teaching for a tuition waiver or working as a barista. First, teaching has long term implications on your CV and teaching can make you better at your practice, Starbucks does neither. Second, what does is the comparative $ value of those two? Say your TA is aprox 45 weeks of work @ 20 hours per week, and at Starbucks you would earn $10/ hour in that same time frame (45weeks x 20 hours x $10=$9000) Is the tuition waived more valuable than that? Run the numbers in your particular situation and balance the answer with those other intangible questions.

Boulder doesn't really have cheap housing, and depending on where you are coming from, prepare to be shocked at what you pay for what you get. We used to live in a shoebox with a front door :-) There are very strict growth restrictions in the city itself, so demand will always be higher than the supply. The vacancy rate used to be like 1%, but that has improved. It used to be that when you went to look at a rental, you had to see it with several others and whoever bribed the property manager won the space. That has settled back a bit now, but the prices went up. If you want to rent and want the best selection, get there in June and sublet the tail end of someone else's lease, then renew. 'Boulder prop. management' are slumlords, so stay away from their listings. Students are everywhere since the university is like 20% of the residents. The highest student concentration is 'on the hill' especially east of 9th. As you get into the single digit street's, it gets more $ but nicer because you are close to open space and the foothills. East Boulder (east of Foothills pkwy) is cheap, but not so great. North of downtown is nicer and a bit more grown up than the hill, but similar in price. Martin Acres is just to the south of campus, mostly 60's ranches, and is an area where you will find an in town house that you could maybe call affordable. Longmont is about 15 min northeast and is getting better due to Boulder's overflow, but not my fav., but not so bad either. Lafayette and Louisville are more family oriented and in between Boulder and Broomfield, also about a 10-15 minute commute. If you want a shiny new suburban house, head up 36 to Broomfield, or east to Erie. Nederland is in the mountains to the west, and cute if you want to live up in the hills and you are a stout lover of snow type. Public transportation into Boulder is pretty good from all of the outlying cities, including Denver. The advantage to living in Boulder proper is that you don't need a car, and you can walk or bike to a hiking trail and lose humanity within an hour. It is very beautiful there and has low crime overall. Hope that helps. Enjoy 303.