Jump to content

Deadmeat

Members
  • Posts

    51
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Deadmeat

  1. Did you find apartments? When I visited in Feb. there were almost no graduate/professional apartments left. I was lucky enough to snag 1 that was a bit pricey, but it's 2 blocks from campus and only for grad students. I also heard to avoid anything owned by 'The Apartment Store' apparently they are the worst.
  2. My gut feeling would be to go to a new school in a new area. Don't go back to your undergrad school unless you had no other choice. Trust me, you'll want the experience of meeting new people in a new part of the country. It's really worth the effort from my experience. Plus the school that is farther away is also more prestigious, so seems like an added bonus. My worry would being too "comfortable" with an adviser you know from undergrad in the same setting. Find someone new that has a different dynamic, you will have to adjust but I think you will grow as a researcher and person. Thats just my humble thoughts though.
  3. Top 5 for what ranking criteria? There are plenty of ways to rank schools other than US News... Hell how they rank programs is kinda crazy to me (100% peer reviewed score for the major?!?!). I would use those as 'ballpark' ranking. I'm basing this on Mechanical Engineering which ranks over 150 programs, so anything that is ranked in the top 20 to me felt pretty similar in terms of respect in the field. I even asked professor's at my current school and they said "yah, if you do good work in any of those programs you will get noticed" I think it is a little trickier if you are debating a top 10 programs vs something ranked like 40th. So you should be fine, plus you will be a happier student going where you wanted to go!
  4. I can't speak on the programs, but Penn State has a pretty awesome graduate culture from visiting and talking to current students. It's a huge campus with tons of people, so always events or activities to take part in. Might be something worth considering as well.
  5. I always get "Why didn't you apply to X, Y, and Z schools in the Philadelphia area (where I live)"... Because I want to get the hell out of this area!
  6. School B sounds like a better fit for your personal life from what you said in your last post. That is a huge factor, especially if you are in a serious relationship. High ranking and money don't matter if you hate your life outside of school and contrary to popular belief grad students still need a social life. Honestly I would go with school B. You are getting a great education, funded with a fellowship, and you get to keep your relationship strong living in a location you really enjoy. That would make for a much more balanced 4-6 years of your life.
  7. It appeared there was a couple hydropower projects when I visited penn state. They even have one of the biggest water tunnels in the world for testing things in water. Also, energy seemed to be a big focus there, but they have a large department so they hit on many topics. Did you email any professor's that match your interests? I think that might be a good way of figuring out if they have openings, etc.
  8. I got accepted to both but have different interest areas. Would you prefer a big city or a small town?
  9. One minor thing is when publications are from. I'm talking how ACTIVE are they now? I've been turned off by some very good POI because they havn't updated the website in 5 years, don't reply to emails, and clearly when spoken at interview they didn't have much going on in there lab at the moment. These were older professor's though who I think were just on autopilot, BUT if I just looked at publications/prestigious of the work they blew everyone else away since they had so many top pubs for so many years prior. Just a thought.
  10. It sounds like you should lean towards Penn since you have funding. Though I would always be wary basing a decisions on a single professor, it may not work out. Plus, since you listed it it seems you value being close to girlfriend, and long distance in grad school is not fun. The whole adviser might leave and you are screwed isn't really appealing. If you want to consider location more. Granted Ithaca is a low-key small area, but it is absolutely gorgeous and always rated as one of the best town in the country. If you are looked for a nice area but still lots to do, I would pick Boston over Philly. Traffic is horrendous in both cities, but I find Philly to be a grimey crime infested mess (and I'm from there). What do you value the most? I'd say in order of top to bottom: Distance to family or girlfriend: Penn, Boston, Cornell Location: Boston, Cornell, Penn Prestigious: Penn, Cornell, Boston Funding: Penn... other two? Options for adviser: Cornell, Penn, Boston Good luck!
  11. Were you at the Penn State Mechanical Engineering recruitment event about month and half ago or so? What area are you trying to study in? I would go with Penn State, they are funding you and if you were not at the event I'll tell you that they said pretty much they make sure everyone is fully funded throughout the program. Sounds like going to UT Austin is a huge financial risk. Also, I'm not really sure what you mean by reputation, they sound pretty equal to me. They are both in the top 25 for grad programs, but neither is in the top 5 or 10, so honestly I would put them similar. Go where you have money, do you really want to take out tons of loans that you have to pay off? Plus, Happy Valley is a sweet place and it's not filled with gross bugs and disgusting heat like Austin ;-) If you decide on PSU shoot me a PM.
  12. "In addition, although paying for tuition is not the biggest problem for me" - Is it because you have loads of money, or is it because you simple are not worried about taking out 2x the loans? I would pick Upenn if its half the cost based on if you have to take out loans. Otherwise I would pick wherever has the most people doing research that you want to be involved in (chances are the first adviser you really want won't have a spot for you), that way you have many options. I don't know about CMU, but Upenn is in Philadelphia, and being from there... well I wouldn't choose to live there. Good food and bars, but socially it kinda sucks, its dirty and filled with crime. So yah.
  13. That seems risky as others have mentioned. I chose a very large program that has several people I wouldn't mind working for. I don't have a locked in POI or lab group for the Fall though. I'm preferring to feel out the situation and get some experience as a TA first. That might be the safer route.
  14. I wouldn't go to a school unfunded in engineering, that's just my 2 cents though. It sounds like you are factoring in other things like the major (ME/EE) or the location as well, so those could be important in your decision, not just the school. Applied cold to the program? Isn't that what most people do? I surely didn't have 'contacts' to any of the programs I got accepted to. It's too hard to tell if someone is a good fit for you without meeting them in person and seeing the lab dynamic. That's why I'm sticking with being a TA for my 1st year to feel out everything. I wouldn't say you need to be in a lab from day 1 working on research. In fact in my interviews most faculty told me they prefer someone who was a TA for 1-2 semesters early in there career. This however might be skewed since my long term goals are academia. Good luck.
  15. You should really talk to the adviser you want to work with, they can vary widely in what they expect. A couple people at the school I'll be starting at in the fall flat out said "I expect you to be here 9-7 monday through saturday, and I expect you to only do your homework at home" others were more of the mindset "get your work done, put in a normal 40 hour work week and you are fine". The former was a little intimadating since I'm not what I'd call 'gifted' it takes me many hours to really read over class notes and do homework. I'm an efficient worker but I'm precise and slow, so expecting 50+ hours of research a week doesn't leave much for homework in there labs. So I think expectations of adviser is a key role, you can always work more than expected of course. I'm fully expecting the 1st year or 2 of my Ph.D. to require more effort than I'm used to due to qualifying exams. I'm only finishing my Master's degree right now, but I usually come in around 10am Monday-Friday, and leave somewhere between 7 or 8pm. Then I use Saturday as a bonus day, coming in for 3-5 hours in the middle of the day. That way I can still go out Friday night and sleep in Saturday but still get little work done. Then I have have all Saturday night and all day Sunday for a good work-life balance. I'm also home early enough each weeknight to still enjoy my free time and exercise. All told it's 50+ hours a week but never seems like that much. I felt like I was working 100 hours a week only have an 8-5 job because I hated it so much! In terms of coursework I usually budget about 1 'day' of work to each 3 credit graduate class I have. That's ~3 hours of lecture time, and about ~6-8 hours of homework per week, per class.
  16. Many reasons... but the biggest one for me personally is... I would always regret not doing it, its a personal quest.
  17. Hey, I went through this with a program I wanted to go too. My situation may be different though since during the visit they said our offers were the bare min. and better offers may come, though no guaranteed. I just emailed the graduate coordinator who signed my original letter and said basically "I'm strongly considering your program, but financial considerations are always a concern as I have received multi year/additional fellowship offers from other programs." or something to that effect. I didn't tell them specifics of what the program was or send them proof, I think that's a little heavy handed. They will get the gist of your email in just two sentences. Few weeks later I have a 1st year fellowship added, and now my offer is 3 years instead of 1 year (including summers where my original offer didn't include the summer). I did have some bargaining room since I'm starting a Ph.D. with a MS degree already, so I used that for leverage since all the other students I spoke with were senior undergraduates applying. I also asked another program and they basically said there offer was final. Nobody is going to take an offer back by politely asking for more. Good advice I got after undergrad from a professor, ALWAYS ask for more money, benefits, time off or something with a job. My first job out of college I just said frankly "I'd like 10% more", they ended up giving me 5% but it never hurts to ask. Every time I got a review for any job and they gave me a raise I always asked for a bit more, most of the time it didn't work but when it did sure felt good. I applied that mindset to graduate school and I think some people appreciate being assertive and bold.
  18. Hey Sogni, I'm moving there in Fall as well for my PhD program. Did you find an apartment yet? I'd advise you to start looking it was tough, but then again I had strict requirements (single, for grads only). Have you visited yet? I don't know a single person there.
  19. I'm not too worried because I got multiple years of funding regardless of my adviser if they lose funding the department pays me... even in the summer. Though I feel bad for my current MS adviser, we have two great grants for over 1.3 million in funding that scored well from NIH, but they are being slashed about 8% in funding with this he told me :-( I can see this effecting NSF/NIH/DOE funds more than DOD projects, that DOD money bucket is freakin huge.
  20. I don't think there is any normal way for this. My one program emailed me acceptance letter with the funding offer, then I got the letter from the actual graduate school almost a month later. Another program I was accepted then a week later got a funding letter. Just find out who is the coordinator and send them a friendly 1 sentence note. In my experience so far they are very friendly about answering questions. Good luck and hope you get funding!!
  21. "Perfect advisor who is well-experienced and well-known in my research focus" - Did you meet this person face to face for an actual conversation lasting 20-30 minutes? What is there work style like? Demands? Working hours? Do they respect a work/life balance? How long do they want you to be in the program for? If you did meet them then I apologize, but if not you NEED to meet this person and talk to them. I thought I found a couple great fits but when I met them in person I realized there was no way in hell I would work for them, just complete opposite fit. Don't pin all your hopes on a single person in one program, plenty of reasons why cited many times on these forums. I wouldn't take out loans for a Ph.D. program if a very good program is giving you a TA, tuition waiver, AND 25K fellowship?!? That's a pretty insane offer.
  22. I was worried about that actually, what happens if your adviser loses out on a grant, or you have no summer support? I did some haggling and got my offer to be 3 years of funding (as opposed to original 1 with no summer), they even fund me in the summer if I don't have an adviser or they lost funding. I doubt that will happen, they said it's very rare for a student to get funding and then lose it, but it is nice to know. As far as academic progress I think that is pretty standard stuff, like keeping above a 3.0 and passing the qualifying exam in a reasonable amount of time.
  23. Do you have visiting weekends? That is BY FAR the best way to figure out the answer, talk to faculty and other grad students. That being said why not ask the labs you are interested in working in what types of jobs the graduates get. If you want to do industry, maybe a university that has stronger ties to industry would be a good choice. Living is tough, Minnesota is in a large city, Penn State is pretty much in the middle of PA in a small town. Might want to do some research on the areas to get a feel, do you like urban or more rural/suburban lifestyles? It sounds weird but if you use reddit find the schools subreddit thread. I got lot of good info on things outside academics from there (what to do, campus culture, etc). That might help you decide too.
  24. In your sig it says you were accepted to Temple and UC Boulder? Go to UC Boulder, living in Philadelphia in the Temple area totally sucks... and I'm from Philadelphia. Never been to Boulder, but I'd imagine it's a much nicer area. That being said, getting a TA isn't that bad of a thing. I don't know about your field, but most graduate students and faculty at my recent recruiting event said how amazing the experience of being a TA was for preparing for qualifying exams and getting to know faculty before jumping into research. Though obviously a fellowship is much more prestigious and flexible, but I'd go with the department and university that is the better fit. You are funded either way! Also, it doesn't hurt to *hint* subtle that you got a offer fellowship from another school. I did that and they extended my offer multiple years and adding some bonus 1st year funding for kicks.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. See our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use