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shadowclaw

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Everything posted by shadowclaw

  1. When I first met my husband, his Mom and he lived in a pretty large apartment. However, the landlord had some very annoying rules. One of which was no overnight guests ever under any circumstances. I have no idea why - there were four apartments in a row and the landlord lived across the street. She would come check every night to see if there were any unfamiliar cars parked out back. If I happened to be there past 11 pm, she would come knocking and remind me that I wasn't welcome to stay overnight. Moral of the story - if you have any desire to bring guests over without planning it out ahead of time, you will get annoyed with your living arrangement. Very annoyed. I don't think the room size would be a huge issue, but personally, unusually restrictive rules would make me run in the opposite direction.
  2. Does the school not offer insurance or just not automatically provide to grad students as part of their funding? At each school I attended, I had the option of buying insurance. Insurance at my undergrad was actually pretty reasonable in price ($1600 for the year), although everything had to be done through the health center and there were annoying referral forms if you needed a specialist. At both my masters and PhD schools, insurance was kind of steep - over $3000 for the year. Glad I have my TA insurance which is only $50 per month and it includes dental. If they really don't offer insurance, Healthcare.gov is a good place to go. Since you're quitting your job, you probably won't be eligible for any amazing healthcare credits until next year because they base it on the prior year's tax return if I remember correctly. Also check to see if you can keep your insurance after quitting. I think COBRA insurance is designed for this purpose - you can continue your insurance on a temporary basis, but it might cost more.
  3. @Cheshire_Cat I've heard the argument from several people that free undergraduate education will flood the job market with college graduates. However, I'm not sure that's the case. I haven't look too deeply at the specifics of Bernie's education plan (because I think congress is unlikely to work with him on that if he is elected), but I am under the impression that only public schools would be free. So that cuts out all of the private schools off the bat. Across the board (public or private), there are more applicants than spaces in undergraduate programs (although I'm sure there are some programs that are an exception to this). That won't change if education becomes free. What will change is the competitiveness of programs since now those people who would not have applied due to lack of financial resources would be able to apply. I suppose this could change the overall profile of undergraduate students and thus also the typical profile of a graduate since schools will have a larger pool to select from, but the number of graduates shouldn't increase anymore than it would have without free public education, unless for some reason it also leads to a higher retention rate. @Need Coffee in an IV Like your family, my parents also grew up on the poor side. My mom wasn't really poor exactly, but her family was by no means wealthy. My dad, on the other hand, was legitimately poor (he occasionally tells people about how they should be grateful for what they have, because he had to poop in a bucket as a kid). My dad has pretty much exemplified the concept that hard work will get you somewhere... between him and my mom, they make about $100k right now, but only because he works 70+ hours per week (usually 20 - 30 hours of overtime, plus two side jobs cleaning a couple times per week). So yeah, you can make lots of money with just a high school diploma if you want to spend almost every waking hour working. But yeah, I understand how people with certain life experiences can have specific viewpoints, and I can certainly understand the desire to hold onto the money you've been lucky enough to earn.
  4. Well, to be fair, she actually does a masters degree, but she earned it part time while working full time and I believe her employer paid for part of it. Yes, Bernie's proposal is limited to undergrad as far as I know... she is against that part of Bernie's plan, too, but in this context she was really just referring to people who work full-time towards a graduate degree who need some form of government assistance while they do so (and she is opposed to paying taxes for this). Her rationale is that after you get your undergraduate degree, you should immediately get a job (which in theory comes with benefits like health insurance) and if you choose to get a graduate degree, it is a luxury so you aren't entitled to any sort of government assistance like publicly-funded healthcare. I'm on board with both of you. While a graduate degree (or even an undergraduate degree) is not a necessity, it improves the lives of the individuals pursuing it and more education generally equates to a better society. Plus I don't think receiving training that will increase your earning potential can legitimately be considered a luxury even if that wasn't true. Perhaps if someone was working in the medical field and decided to get a masters degree in philosophy or Russian literature for their personal enrichment, then we could call it a luxury. However, most people get graduate degrees in their field (or a field they would like to switch to), which makes them better qualified for better-paying positions, and that is not a luxury situation. I also would be quite happy to pay taxes once I get into my career - I'm all for using tax money for social programs. I think the real motivation behind this particular woman's opinions doesn't have to do with anti-intellectual feelings (although I agree that many people are opposed to education funding for that very reason). We went to a surprisingly good public high school, and she's been through graduate school herself. However, I think her actual motivations reflect a certain segment of society - people who come from wealthier families and earn a decent amount of money and don't want that money taken away, especially to benefit the lower rungs of society. The town I grew up in was populated primarily by doctors, dentists, tenured professors, architects - basically people with high-earning professions and big houses. A lot of my classmates got free rides to college - either through scholarships or more commonly because their parents had the money to pay for their education. So now these people have careers, families, and little to no student loan debt - and they have no idea what it means to be burdened by student loans, having to work to pay their way through college, or even just having to stay sick because you can't afford to go to the doctor. The woman in question is living a pretty privileged life - her husband makes over $100k, she just had a baby and has become a stay at home mom, they don't have any major bills beyond their mortgage... and she's openly said that she feels like her lifestyle would be at risk with Bernie's tax plan. It's true, though, one person's opinion will not end government funding of academia. I do, however, find it worrisome that so many people that I encounter are so strongly opposed to a tax plan that will go towards a lot of fantastic public programs like paid family and medical leave, healthcare, education, social security expansion, etc. And of course there's the original topic - calling a graduate school a luxury and suggesting those who pursue it shouldn't get public assistance.
  5. Someone I went to high school with whom I'm friends with on Facebook is very anti-Bernie Sanders. She likes to post a lot of stuff about how Bernie Sanders supporters are freeloaders who want everyone else to pay for their free benefits like education, healthcare, etc. So I engaged her in some conversation about it (which was quite civil), and someone else jumped in and said that low-wage workers get great state-funded health insurance that's better than the insurance he gets at his good job. So I brought up the point that while doing my masters, I was eligible for state-funded health insurance but the state didn't have the funding available to give it to me so I was without insurance for two years and many of my friends were in similar situations (and thus, not everybody making low wages has health insurance). So the woman I initiated the conversation with said that getting a graduate degree is a luxury and she shouldn't have to pay higher taxes so someone could pursue a higher education (and that's pretty much a direct quote). So what do you all think? Is a graduate degree a luxury? What makes an undergraduate degree not a luxury? I haven't asked her yet why she doesn't mind that her existing taxes go towards the stipends and health insurance of many graduate students (though indirectly). But any thoughts?
  6. Something to think about if you did send your cat by plane - you have to get some sort of health certificate from your vet. If your cat is due for its annual exam anyway, then it probably wouldn't cost much more (I don't know if they have to run any specific tests or if they charge for the actual certificate). However, it is an added cost on top of paying out the nose to fly your cat. Although technically, you also need this when driving to many states, but you probably aren't going to get caught if you don't have it.
  7. I just found this thread and wanted to offer some advice/information since I attend this school. If you are interested in obtaining a TA position outside of your department, you really need to make connections now. As in email the program coordinator for any department that you feel qualified to TA in. Many departments are starting to put together the fall (or whole year) TA schedules. There are also many offices on campus that hire graduate students for TA positions which aren't actually teaching positions but involve office work and other activities. Similarly, there are also many hourly positions (including internships) that might be useful for you since you don't need tuition remission. You can also take a chance on funding and plan to use loans, savings, etc. for living expenses for first term (and have them on backup for the following terms) and hope TA positions open up during the year, because they do. You just need to be high enough on the TA waitlist. Unfortunately, PhD students are almost always prioritized over masters students.
  8. My mom always grew herbs on the porch in small pots next to her flowers. Basil, rosemary, scallions, and parsley. None of them seem to require too much care! I might try growing some basil and scallions in potsl... I also have a slab of concrete called a patio that I can set up some pots on, or I could put them in the greenhouse. I was debating growing some regular onions, too. Like scallions, you can plant the end and a new plant will grow. I have also acquired a banana plant. We'll see how that works out. @sjoh197 thanks for the tip about hand pollinating. I just added some fertilizer to the soil... I need to get one of those awesome auger things to stir up the soil. I can't wait to plant my corn! It's gotta have it sweet corn from Gurneys. My dad has been planting it for many years and it's seriously the best corn I've ever tasted.
  9. I really hate the quarter system. I've probably complained about this before, but I really do hate it. The fall quarter isn't bad, just a little short. Then there's three weeks off and you're back in the game. Still not a problem. But then there's one week off between winter and spring quarter. Just one. It's like the winter and spring form one 20-week mega semester with spring break in the middle. I want to empty my head and not think about my courses or my dissertation for a few days, but I can't. I feel like I'm working all the time. After this year, it won't be so bad - this year was loaded with courses (12 credits each term). The next few years will be almost entirely thesis credits with occasional courses here and there.
  10. I definitely understand your pain. My grading as a TA has been all freshman/sophomore writing, which can be a bit rough, but what gets me is the inability of students to follow simple directions. Such as "write out the citation for the paper you are reviewing using the examples above" and then they proceed to write out the citation completely wrong, or "submit a list of changes you made to your paper or lose 50% of the points on the final draft" and a third of the class doesn't do it. Sometimes these things are clearly written in the assignment description, I tell them in class, AND I e-mail them the day before it's due and they still don't follow directions. This term, I decided to do everything electronically since they have to submit their assignments to TurnItIn anyway, and I told this to them on day 1, put it in the syllabus, put it in an e-mail the day before the first assignment was due, and I still had five or six students hand me a hard copy. As for poor writing skills at upper levels, yeah, it happens. I had a lot of my peers ask me to read through their lit reviews and senior project papers during my final year. Some of them were barely coherent, some were just completely disorganized like they never read or wrote a scientific paper in their life (which is impossible). As a masters student, I took a few combined grad/undergrad courses and had to do peer review in one of them. I ended up reviewing undergrad papers and one of them was pretty terrible for many reasons. I also had a professor in my masters program who for some reason would send out a sheet with the grades for everyone in the class (with our ID #'s instead of names) instead of individually giving us our grades, and it was surprising how poorly some students did on some of the writing assignments.
  11. I thought I would start a thread for anyone who gardens or is interested in gardening while attending graduate school. I know a lot of us are in urban settings (myself included) who don't have access to lot of space for growing flowers or veggies. So perhaps we could trade some tips and tricks for what works. My apartment happens to have a small enclosed yard that I can plant in. I have a space that is roughly 3 ft. x 20 ft. I also purchased a small greenhouse from Amazon that I keep inside. It has four shelves and a plastic cover which keeps the heat in (http://www.amazon.com/Gardman-R687-4-Tier-Mini-Greenhouse/dp/B000NCTGQE/), and I have two grow lights in it. Right now, I only have two pepper plants and a tomato plant in my greenhouse, plus several pots with ungerminated plants. I started 8 tomatoes and 8 peppers a while ago in those jiffy peat pellets that swell up when you put them in water. However, my plants outgrew them and they can't go outside until May. So I transplanted them into pots and added a bit of fertilizer, and I successfully killed 6 of each species. I now only have one tomato because my cats managed to get into the greenhouse at ate one. The tomato that's left doesn't look so good. I'm hoping the seeds I just planted will be more successful! I'm not worried about the peppers too much - they fruit fairly quickly so I won't have to wait too long for peppers. It's the tomatoes I'm concerned about. I also plan to plant corn and zucchini. I'm a little concerned about the corn - I've read that you need a minimum of 4 rows for proper pollination, but I only have space for 3 rows (and even then it's a little tight). I found a few posts on internet message boards where people have planted 3 rows and been successful, so I'm hoping for the best. I'll probably plant the corn next week. I wish I had a little bit wider of a space - I'd like to try planting the zucchini and corn together... the zucchini (or other squashes) are supposed to suppress weed growth by shading. However, I think the corn needs to be a little further apart for that.
  12. Since you're in public health, I'm going to assume you would be TAing for science courses (although I imagine there are other options as well). I attended a small private college for my undergrad degree (about 2,000 students), a medium-sized state university for my masters (about 10,000 students), and am currently at a large state university for my PhD (about 30,000 students). So, to give you some insights from my own experiences as a biology lab TA - 1. I have been fortunate to have had a course coordinator at both of my graduate institutions that have provided a lot of materials and preparation for TA's. This includes weekly meetings to go over the lab materials, a copy of a basic power point (which can be customized) for the introductory lecture, and a key to the lab manual. In addition, where I am now, we also have access to a quiz bank for making our lab quizzes, sample syllabi, computer files for past activities previous TA's have done, as well as a weekly seminar to improve our teaching skills. However, I know there are other departments where TA's are essentially handed a copy of the textbook and a list of chapters to get through and are told "good luck." 2. I don't see why a TA would receive their own personal laptop for work. As a TA, I do have access to a room that is only for the TA's of the series of courses I teach which has computers, office supplies, and a copy machine. At my masters institution, I had access to a similar room but it did not have computers. However, there was a graduate student-only computer lab available, as well as computers in the lab space for all of the professors (so every graduate student had access to a computer on campus). So there doesn't seem to be any reason for a department to provide laptops to TA's when no specialized software is needed and computers are available. Both schools also offered extra financial aid (beyond that allowed for tuition and typical living expenses) for the purchase of a computer. 3. From my observations at the three schools I've attended, students definitely tend to do poorly in introductory biology and chemistry classes no matter what type of school it is. Class averages for lecture exams were typically in the high-60's to low 70's. The lab components of these courses are a different story - lab grades tend to be in 90's because a lot of the grade is based on showing up to do the work and doing lab reports or other easy writing assignments outside of class. However, there are always those students who are really excited to be there and those who don't give a hoot and turn in half of the assignments. I don't think this would ever differ between types or sizes of schools - there are always going to be students with different levels of enthusiasm. 4. Since I do labs, the class is interactive by design. However, I do give a brief (15 min) lecture at the beginning of lab. I try to incorporate group discussions about some of the lab topics during this time, as well as short drawing or writing activities that they care share with the group.
  13. They did surprisingly well. Both of my cats typically scream during the entire ride to the vet's office (which has always been a short drive), but they were relatively calm during the trip. First off, we rented a relocube to transport the majority of our things (furniture and banana boxes full off clothes, books, movies, etc.). I highly recommend it for very long distance moves - it can work out to about the same price as renting a uhaul truck (depends on how much stuff you have), but you don't have to pay for gas (or worry about driving a big truck around). It also helps that I have a Subaru Forester, which has quite a bit more space than a car. We crammed the back "trunk" area with the majority of the stuff we were taking by car, and also had stuff on the floor by the back seats and some things on the seats (mainly suitcases and duffel bags). I had canoe paddles forming a barrier between stuff on one side of the car and where the cats where placed in case something shifted. Each cat was in its own carrier and I lined the bottoms with puppy pads for accidents. I didn't bother trying to take them out during the day to use the litter box. The general wisdom of the Internet was that they wouldn't use it and taking them out of the carrier in the car is risky (mainly because you might have to open the car door while they are out). They screamed their little heads off for about an hour on the first day, then got tired and just gave sad little mews now and then. Every so often they'd break out into loud meowing, but it would usually be brief. I made little dishes from the bottom of coffee cups at a gas station and put ice cubes in them for the cats to lick during the journey and to prevent a big watery mess. At the hotel each night, I let them roam around the room and I made a travel litter box out of a big tupperware container with a lid... I put it in the bathroom at each hotel since it's fairly easy to clean up spilled litter from a tiled floor. I also sprayed the carriers with Feliway each morning before leaving... it's supposed to keep them calm. I also added a few drops of some Rescue Remedy to some treats before leaving (also designed to calm). So overall, moving the cats wasn't hard. Packing the car was very tricky and I don't think the way we packed it was particularly safe if we got into a high speed accident (then again, I'm not sure there's really a way to pack a car to be safe for a high speed accident unless you tie everything down). However, we obviously didn't get into any accidents and I had to keep the speed down anyway due to the canoe and kayak on the roof creating amazing drag at speeds above 60 mph. My gas mileage was so bad between all of the stuff in the car and the boats killing the aerodynamics. FYI - all La Quinta hotels are pet-friendly and they don't charge pet fees or require pet deposits. I stayed at a mix of places - La Quinta, Sleep Inn, Travelodge, Comfort Inn... you just need to check out websites and look up the pet policies. I feel like no one wants to deal with that kind of hassle nor would they want to deal with the liability.
  14. A story you will no doubt appreciate: In undergrad, I took a precalculus class. It was during the spring semester and we regularly get lots of snow in January and February and have snow days. So the professor's exam plan was for mostly in-class exams for each chapter, with I think 2 take-home exams planned. The policy in the syllabus was that the lowest in-class exam grade would be dropped (not a take-home). However, it also stated that in the event of a snow day on an exam day, we would be given a take-home exam in its place, and if this happened more than once, the lowest exam grade would no longer be dropped. It makes sense - you should ace a take-home exam since you have access to the book, your notes, and the Internet. So as it happened, we got nailed with a lot of snow and had several exams switch to take-homes. At the end of the semester, our last test before the final was a take-home, and for some reason, about 90% of students bombed it... one student even admitted to not even trying because she planned on it being dropped. So when the professor handed this last exam back, she mentioned that none of the exams would be dropped per the policy in the syllabus... and the class flipped out! Students were literally screaming at the professor about how unfair it was. The students even went so far as to go to the dean's office and complain about how unfair it was. Meanwhile, I was just sitting there like wtf? And since we're venting, I had a few students last term who just didn't follow directions and apparently didn't read their e-mail, either. There were several writing assignments throughout the term, and a few had very specific instructions printed in the lab manual, such as "grade your paper using the rubric in your manual and submit the completed rubric with your paper or lose 50%" or "turn in your answers to the brainstorming questions along with your paper for full credit." So many students forgot to attach these extras, and I would e-mail them the next morning giving them the opportunity to hand it in at their leisure before the weekend for full credit (and usually they didn't), and come the next class, they'd get their paper back with the lost points and they'd get upset and ask if they could hand it in now (NO!). For their final paper (which asked for the completed rubric), I told them about it in class twice and e-mailed them the night before about it, and they still didn't hand it in. As they were handing in their papers I reminded them to include the rubric and over half of them came back up, took back their paper, filled out the rubric at their seat with perfect scores, and then brought it back up. One thing I am having a little trouble with as a TA is getting the class to quiet down when I want to speak (such as to start the class or continue with my lecture after they discussed a question in their groups). I don't know if it's gender-related or just because I'm not super loud, but it takes a good 10 seconds for the class to get quiet and I usually have to wave my hands around. I need a megaphone.
  15. I got a summer job as a wildlife technician and started 2 days after graduation from my masters program in May and worked until mid-July. I spent the rest of July and August floating in the pool with my mom who had knee surgery and was out of work for a while. Also did some reading and watched some tv shows, and drove down to the Carolinas to visit a friend. At the beginning of September, I drove across the country with my husband and cats, doing some limited sightseeing along the way (mostly stuff that could be seen from the car or was at a stop since we had the cats). Once we arrived in the Pacific northwest, I still had about 3 weeks until classes started and we started exploring the area.
  16. SAS can be a huge pain in the rear. I took a stats class that used SAS and while I didn't have too many issues with the language, I was extremely annoyed because I will never use it ever again and it would have been far more useful to learn how to do everything in R, which I actually use and people in my field actually use. The worst part is that the professor normally teaches the class in R, but for some weird reason he thought it would be more beneficial to teach us SAS (even though the majority of us were ecologists). I feel like I was able to grasp SAS so easily because 1) I have taken a lot of computer science courses, and 2) even though it was a graduate course, we learned extremely simple statistics (t-test and its different variations, ANOVA, and linear regression - nothing else). Since I already knew how to use all of the statistics, I could really just focus on learning SAS. The good news is that there is some help out there on the web. You just need to google it.
  17. Devoted a significant amount of my time this past term to a side project one of my professors was working on. Between doing things for my own dissertation, my TA position, my 12 credits of coursework, and this project, I had no life and I was very cranky. My advisor was ok with it and it consisted mostly of analyzing data and attending weekly meetings. Even though I felt like I was drowning all term, I was fine because I was supposed to get two publications out of it. Now, the lab group has decided to make it into a report published by a state agency the professor is affiliated with and then after it's published, we'll see about submitting something to a journal if there is additional analysis we can do. I wouldn't have agreed to take on the extra work if I knew there was a good chance of not getting a peer-reviewed publication out of it. Plus, in January we were shooting for having a draft of the first manuscript finished by the end of this month. Now we're shooting for having the report drafted by June. If we ever get to the journal manuscript, it probably won't be until the next academic year.
  18. shadowclaw

    Reno, NV

    Fyi there is a lot of bicycle theft in Reno if you plan on biking to get around. I found this out the hard way when I stayed there one night en route to my new city. I had a nice bike and someone went through a lot of trouble to get it off my car. The police do make a good effort to find them in pawn shops (which is where they typically go), but I never saw my bike again.
  19. I am a complicated individual. Everyone is really, but I feel like I am more complicated than most. Let's start with choosing my field. When I was younger, I was interested in nature (a bit broad, but there were many different aspects), astronomy, computers, and writing. I got a lot of discouragement along the STEM lines. The biggest discouragement was in math - once I hit algebra, my parents couldn't help me with my homework anymore, the school didn't have any sort of after school help, teachers didn't have time to devote me and actually made me feel like I was too stupid for math and science (except for one teacher who really encouraged me), and online homework help didn't exist yet (it was the mid-90's). So I gravitated towards language and writing which came easy to me, and I was highly encouraged. I ended up getting into computers and coding by the end of high school, so that's what I initially went to college for - computer science. But once I got there, I realized how much math and science went along with the degree and I panicked. I aced my computer science courses, but I really suffered in math and I really had this thought in my head that I couldn't do it, and I switched majors before I got to the science courses. Long story short, I flip flopped between several majors, some in computers, some in the humanities, and I honestly didn't think I would even get my B.S. Then I finally decided to take a chance on studying something I had always been interested in but thought I was too stupid for - environmental biology. So I did really well and the department and school I was in was so supportive and positive. However, there was still this expectation by my family and a lot of people I knew that I would graduate and sit behind a desk somewhere and do the 9 - 5 thing. Since I was studying biology, maybe they expected a little outdoor work, too, but research or an advanced degree? No way, I was supposed to get a job (I can't tell you how many times my mom told me to just get a job after graduation). Lucky for me, my professors steered me towards graduate school (and explained what it even was and that you could get paid) and helped mentor me in research. My first taste of research was an ecology course with a lab during the second year of my program where we did an allelopathy experiment and wrote it up as a research paper. It was also my first experience reading journals articles and that's when I really started to understand what research entailed. By the time I got to my third and final year of the program, I knew I wanted to do ecological research as a career. I decided then that I wanted a PhD, but I ended up getting a masters first. There was still some discouragement on part of my family and my husband against going for my PhD after getting my masters (everybody just wanted me to get a job and settle down), but I really wanted to go all the way, especially since only one person in my entire extended family has a graduate degree (my brother has an MBA) and only three of my siblings have undergraduate degrees (none of my aunts, uncles, or cousins do except for one second cousin who coincidentally graduated with me from undergrad). I could get the job I want with just a masters, but it's important to me to get a PhD and I probably will make more money in the long run.
  20. As someone who has long suffered from social anxiety, I very much understand your feelings. Back in the early days of my very long trek through undergrad, the hour or so prior to giving a presentation in class was filled with worry, quivering hands, elevated heart rate, nausea, and occasionally some vomiting. I have since developed a better ability to cope with the stress of talking in front of people (although to be honest, it was less about being in front of people and more about the fear of strangers thinking that I'm a complete idiot or me screwing up everything I say), but I still get nervous before presentations and before I teach my lab. So my tips for you - first off, when doing a lecture, you will have a plan. Maybe you'll be using a power point presentation, maybe you'll be lecturing to them and writing some notes on a chalk board or white board. There are other situations as well, but since you're in history, those are probably the two situations you'll be in. Either way, you come into the classroom with a plan for what material you're going to cover, and ideally you will either go through your presentation slides/notes a few times and go over in your head what you will be saying, or you will practice out loud. I find that going through the presentation out loud helps me remember the order of material better and makes me feel more comfortable when I actually deliver the lecture. Since I only lecture for about 10 minutes before biology lab starts, it's not very time consuming to run through the lecture one or two times. If I had to lecture for a full hour, I might not have time to go through the whole thing once out loud, let alone multiple times. However, I would still want to read through my slides a few times and make a few notes. My second tip is that it's perfectly fine to have some notes written/printed out on some paper with you to help you if you forget something or just to guide you along. Don't feel like you have to have everything memorized perfectly - maybe there are some numbers or names that you can't quite remember, and that's ok. Maybe you just covered something really interesting for 20 minutes and you can't remember what comes next - that's ok! Just look at your notes! I've seen TA's do this and I've seen seasoned faculty do this. Third, break up the lecture if you can. No one enjoys talking for an hour (or more) straight, and no one likes listening to it, either. Plan for some discussion, include interesting materials to class if you can that will add to the lecture, like videos, photographs, even books that you might want to read a passage from. If you can, include some type of activity for students to do. Fourth, I also understand what it's like to have a quiet/soft voice. Depending on the size of the class and the acoustics of the room, it might not matter. It's probably best to encourage your students to let you know if they can't hear you. As long as you make it clear that they aren't being rude if they interrupt to tell you to speak louder, I find that students have no problem letting you know if you're being too quiet. A really good tactic to use though is to move throughout the classroom or stand close to/in the middle of the students instead of staying up front by the board or computer. A wireless clicker is great for this when doing computer presentations. If you're stuck handwriting on the board, you'll have to move back and forth. This will allow them to hear you better and if you move about the room, will probably keep their attention better, too.
  21. Hey, any kind of service job can be a real pain in the rear when the people getting served are complete jerkwads. I used to be a waitress, and while I was happy to run around for my customers, give them free dessert on their birthday out of my own pocket, deliver their usual drinks without them having to order, and chat about life when it was slow, some people were just complete buttholes. I had no qualms complaining about doing extra work for them.
  22. Do you mean federal loans or private? Federal loans are pretty easy to qualify for (just fill out your FAFSA), you can also look into the PLUS loans if your direct loans are exhausted (and they are also easy to qualify for - you really just need to have a credit report free of deliquencies). Private loans are more difficult - not only are they credit-based, but they are income-based and they generally want proof of income. I drove with my husband and two cats. I actually didn't bring anything into the hotel aside from my suitcase (and the cats of course). It worked out fine until someone stole my bike off the car in Reno (the last night of the journey). I had actually planned to bring my bike inside since it was much easier to steal than the stuff inside the car, but the first night of our 8 day journey we were so tired that we just went to sleep. Nothing happened so I left the bike on the car the whole time. I REALLY should have brought it in while in Reno - the motel was sooo shady and I almost decided to just forget about the money I'd lose from canceling last minute and go to another place. I even thought to myself, "gee, I really should bring in the bike" while eating dinner. I still kick myself for that - it was a $600 bike! Anyway, I'm not sure anyone will go through the trouble of breaking into your car if it's just full of boxes and there's no indication of value. Probably depends on the neighborhood of the hotel. One tip - one of my committee members said if you get renters insurance prior to the move, the stuff in your car is covered. I didn't have it beforehand though, so I can't confirm it. Not sure if car insurance would cover it. Maybe under comprehensive coverage.
  23. I highly recommend Eigen's suggestion of moving with just a car load of stuff. I wish I could have done that, but between my husband and myself, we had too much stuff that had to come with us so we got a relocube to move the majority of our stuff. He has an extensive insulator collection that he wasn't willing to give up, and I have an armoire that my grandmother gave me that I didn't want to part with. His insulator collection was too heavy for the car (he has over 1200 pounds of glass and porcelain... we spent one night weighing it all to see if we could find some way to mail some and bring the rest in the car) and the armoire wouldn't fit. Without those items, we could have easily packed the car with clothes, our telescope, dishes, tv, pots and pans my mom bought me, etc. and mailed my books and any smaller items that didn't fit for under $100. I could have easily sold my furniture for $400 and used that money to replace most of it used at my destination. Then I would have saved the $2500 it cost for the relocube and uhaul to get my stuff to and from the cube. Also consider mailing things to your destination if you find that you can't quite fit it all in your car. Books, CDs, DVD's, and I think video games can be shipped media mail which is pretty cheap. I think the library rate is even cheaper if you ship large packages.
  24. Also, if your parents have good credit, they may be able to get a loan for you. You just have to make sure you pay them back! That's what I did, plus they gave me a few hundred dollars for gas money for the journey from east coast to west. You may also want to consider selling all of your furniture, particularly if you're moving far. It will give you more money to make the move (and you'll save money on renting a truck), and you can usually find used furniture quite cheaply if you don't care about matching colors and perfect condition. I bought a couch, an easy chair, 2 kitchen chairs, a tv stand, and a coffee table for under $100 at a used furniture store and a yard sale. I brought my bed, kitchen table, dressers, and night stands with me, but those items can also be found inexpensively.
  25. This thread might be helpful: Since you're in a position where your parents can't help and you can't get a loan, it's certainly more difficult to come up with the money. However, here are some suggestions I've come across: Find out if your school offers moving expense loans or emergency loans Get a summer job and save up Get a part-time job now if your schedule allows it - just 10 hours per week adds up after a few months Since we're still in the middle of the school year, you could try tutoring a few hours per week to earn some money. You can do this locally or explore tutoring on the Internet Sell your plasma - this route is only for the desperate as it's time consuming and can be very uncomfortable and make you tired. Depending on the plasma bank, you can make $200 - $300 per month going in twice per week
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