riceandbeans

Yeah, I would definitely avoid jeans at the AAPAs. I generally do dress pants or skirt with a nice sweater, and a business casual dress of some sort for presentations (blazers don't really work well for me).

Ford Foundation has a dissertation write-up fellowship. Also (dependent on your gender), the Association for Women in Science have some awards for which late-stage grad students are eligible.

I'm pretty sure that since the DDIG covers research expenses and is not considered a fellowship (and is also in your advisor's name, not yours), you can apply for it while having a GRFP.

Another thing you'll need to consider is whether or not you can find a house/condo in a safe neighborhood for only $60K in an area where rents are $1000/month. Rents for one bedrooms in my area are $400-600/month, and even small condos go for >$80K. Unless you're willing to buy a fixer-upper (which, who has time for in grad school?), you would likely be looking at prices upwards of $100K, if not much higher (I recall in the DC suburbs, townhomes started at $300K). So, it really depends on the housing prices of the area to which you are moving.

I have not lived in graduate housing, but my understanding from those I know who have is that it's overpriced and not terribly well maintained. You can find much nicer places for the same (or lower) rent. The benefit of university housing is that it's much easier to get out of a lease than almost anywhere else in town, but you still have to be basically leaving the university for some reason to break the lease. Also, it's pretty much always available. I know several people who have lived in university housing for their first year and survived, but they have no plans to continue living there. If you're worried about renting a place sight-unseen, I would recommend you contact the tenant union. They will point you towards the reputable and grad student friendly property managers.

Because laughing is good for end-of-the-semester stress: http://ceejandem.blo...-barbie-tm.html

This is probably school dependent and/or up to the interpretation of your coordination official. Either way, your coordination official would be the person to ask.

It's listed right under archeology in the program solicitation. And in the list of proposed panels on the nsfgrfp.org website, the Anthropology and Archaeology panel includes bio anth, med anth and archae. Last year bio anth was listed as phys anth. I can't see what the actual application looks like, but if for some reason there is no way to choose bio anth, anthro-other would probably get you to the right panel. If bio anth for some reason really isn't available (which would be really strange, as all of the major anth subfields have historically been available), then ecology is likely your best bet. I didn't mean to suggest that you rewrite your proposals entirely, just that in the significance section of the proposed research maybe allude to how this relates to human evolution (like one sentence) if you are going for an anthropology panel. Archaeologists will care more about that than how your work relates to conservation.

If you're doing primatology, you might want to consider using biological anthropology as your field of study, because that is generally the panel that has the primate people on it. You'll have to spin the significance of your study a little bit differently (ie, why is it important to the study of human evolution), but you'll at least get people familiar with the primate literature reading your proposal.

UT San Antonio has a masters program in anthro and two faculty members who are primatologists. You also might want to look at George Mason's anthro program (they also offer a MA). For contacting POIs, sending a short e-mail saying you are interested in applying to the MA program at their school, talking about your research interests a little, asking a few questions (like, are you taking MA students next year), and attaching your CV would be a fine starting place.

There is very little student parking on the interior of campus, and you would pay a lot for it ($480 for 9 months), or feed a meter all day. Parking in the shuttle lot is only $127 a year, but is far from the center of campus (you would need to take a bus from E14 to Davenport). Most buses run every half hour, and usually well into the evening, but I don't know which lines go out to T&C, so I'd check out CUMTD to make sure it's feasible.

You can also see if there is a good used bike shop were you're headed. College towns will likely have one, who serve the purpose of selling reliable used bikes to students, buying them back when said student graduates, and fixing them up to sell again. And it's definitely possible to find a bike as a short person. I'm 5'5" and when I was looking for a used commuting bike in the fall I found several that were much too small for me. 26" tires are smaller than 700c, but they are also wider, cushier and mostly found on mountain bikes and cruisers. If you're looking for a road bike, look for 650c tires. Edited for bad early morning grammar.

The tenant union should be able to help you out with that. They seem to have a pretty good handle on which complexes are undergrad heavy and which aren't. You can send them an e-mail listing what you are looking for in an apartment, and they will e-mail you back with a list of rental companies and complexes that fit your requirements and are owned by reliable landlords (ie, no or very few complaints). They really are a fantastic resource, since they keep complaint records for every landlord in town and also will help you out if you end up having a problem with your landlord.

The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is to help ensure the vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce in the United States. (from the program announcement) 1. The GRFP is a prestigious fellowship. The benefit of winning it is not just getting a big stipend. 2. Having a fellowship allows you to focus just on producing outstanding research without having to worry about TA/RA duties. 3. Having students on fellowship allows a PI to stretch their grant dollars (or a department to stretch its university dollars) and take more students, eventually increasing the science workforce in the states. 4. 30k is well above any stipend you would see in some fields, outside of schools in NY/LA. Also, for many schools (ones not on the coasts), 30k is above the max stipend levels for any field. 5. Most people don't become scientists for the money... or go to grad school for the money...

The state thing isn't really about size of the state so much, but more about the fact that since Congress gives NSF their budget, at least one person from every state needs to get an award so that no congresspeople complain that their state was left out (at least that's how it was explained at the "learn to submit an awesome NSF GRFP app" panel at my uni). For example, if no one from Wyoming is in the original award-winners list, the top-ranked person from Wyoming out of the honorable mention pile gets promoted. But again, this is based on second hand info. I'm guessing being a minority or having disabilities gets you broader impact points if you play your cards right in your essays. Not sure how much it actually helps when it comes to the final applicant selection.