ss2player

Sounds like you guys aren't relationship compatible, and it's better you found this out earlier rather than later! I was stuck in a 3+ year relationship with an unambitious person and it was soul-sucking by the end. I gave her innumerable chances to prove me wrong, but the fact is, you really can't change someone; you have to date them for who they are, not who you *want* them to be. Would you be cool with a FWB with him? You guys have fun and you have no romantic feelings, so maybe he feels the same. Wouldn't hurt to broach it, but definitely tell him how you feel (or rather don't feel).

AirBnB is fantastic, would highly recommend. I saved a postdoc in my lab from $450/night hotel fees for AACR. :-D

DAMN SON. My friend at Vanderbilt got an extra 10K per year for like 3 years, so that certainly helped her decision (38K is luxurious in Nashville!). Would certainly make me look real hard at your fit as UC Irvine!

This is where the "unfollow" feature is the best thing EV4R. If only it worked in real life.

That's unfortunate, I wonder why? The Aggies I've met have been a diverse group, but that's just my anecdotal experience.

By all means go there, that one con isn't a big deal. As long as you can muster enough enthusiasm for their research to work with them, you'll do fine. It doesn't really matter what you do for your PhD research anyway, if you're planning on academia, your postdoctoral work will carry much more weight. Also: Fred Hutch is there, you can always collaborate for translational stuff.

I hear that, grad school can consume your life if you let it...there is always another experiment to try, paper to read, or part of thesis/paper to write. Like you ERR, I try to set both goals and boundaries; I don't want to go through school without a plan, but I can't live at the lab like I see some people do. I like to say I'm working smart, not just working hard. It bucks the academia expectation of never being off the clock, but I'm too in favor of worker's rights to let that happen.

I don't see anything wrong with factoring it in, quality of life will affect your grad school performance! Research fit is important, but there's no reason it also can't be a place you'd enjoy living. If there's several profs you could work with and the school has a good reputation, I'd lean towards the places with lower cost of living.

You can also do what I did: work as a tech and use benefits to take free/cheap graduate classes. Worked for me!

PhDs are completed on your own schedule, and it sounds like you understand that a work-life balance makes you more productive when you are actually AT work. I see people grinding away, but I feel there is a point of diminishing returns in regards to that and they could benefit from some leisure time. Maybe try setting realistic goals for yourself so you can gauge progress? For me, I write things down and cross them off: that feeling is SO satisfying, and I have tangible evidence I'm not a slacker. It's a bit of trial and error figuring out the effort/output ratio and how to optimize it, but once you get there you can lock in and adjust as needed. Would love other's thoughts too!

I'd say that's uncommon; they sound like they really want you! Hopefully you like them enough back.

Went to Rutgers for undergrad, identify as pansexual. New Brunz has a pretty strong queer community, my female friends who date women didn't have a problem. Plus, you're pretty close to NYC so you can include that dating pool as well! Thanks to the school, there's a lot of social events and organizations; I used to attend LLEGO, which is the LGBT people of color group, awesome folks!

Accurate. But for real, A&M is in a college town: that means everything there will be associated with the university in some way. This has both good and bad points, but if you want a larger city experience, Austin and Houston are <2 hour drives from College Station. Aggies (the students there) tend to be naive but good-hearted people; people joke about them in TX but we actually take pride in the school being oddball. It's fairly diverse too, 40% of the students are non-white, so it should be more accommodating to a student from abroad.

Also curious. There is a thread for awkward interview incidents on the forum somewhere...

I think it's much more competitive in terms of whom they invite; I looked at their immunology program and they only take like 3 people a year out of hundreds of applicants! Once you have an interview, relax and be yourself, you'll do great.

You'll be fine, it's none of their business what you do in your free time.

That's ridiculous, what an asshole program. Not that I'm surprised given the location.

I think we can conclude he DEFINITELY is Ron Swanson.

Most of it does, Houston does not. Austin, though dryer, often gets 100+ in the summer.

Summer is pretty intense, not gonna lie...but for the other 8 months of the year we have beautiful weather! It's 75 degrees and sunny right now, which blows my mind that this is the end of January and not like, mid-May. Plus I'd rather be hot than cold; you can keep well hydrated and sweat some and be fine, but freezing and shivering gives no relief in cold climates.

I make a higher salary in grad school then I did as an employee in the Northeast, thanks to nonexistent TX taxes. Plus food and general life items are far cheaper here.

To be fair, the UK is not known for their varied, healthy, and scrumptious diets over there.

I hear that: I didn't particularly want to *come* to TX, but the research here was too cool to pass up, plus it had by far the best stipend/cost of living ratio of any school I interviewed at! If you end up coming that marathon weekend I'll make sure things are as easy as possible for you. I interviewed at Iowa as well, so if you want to talk about it, PM me.

My partner and I budget $350 a month for groceries + $100 for eating out. That works out to ~$44/person/week for groceries, or ~$56/person/week including eating out. We also do $100 a month for "fun money": events, movies, other entertainment. I'm sure we could cut this down if we ate out less and didn't shop at Trader Joe's so much, but we're lucky to live in a cheaper apartment in a lower COL city so we have plenty to spare on both my stipend and her salary. Also helps that I bike to school and she works 1.5 miles away, so commuting costs are almost 0. When I was in Philly I had to budget way harder as COL was higher and despite my salary being higher in gross than my current stipend, taxes meant I actually earned LESS net (don't work in academia, folks!). I also had to live in a shitty part of the city to afford rent and lived without a car, which I enjoyed but was kind of necessary to maintain my checking account. Spend about $125 a month on groceries and maybe $50 eating out, so again ~$44 a week for just me.

I can tell you their 3rd and final weekend is March 5-7. Hope to see you!