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Wangathan

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  • Location
    02143
  • Application Season
    2013 Fall
  • Program
    Physical Geography

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  1. Hey everyone, thanks for the feedback. Some definite food for thought. BU had been my gut choice for a long time but I'm glad that I'm thinking more about the other options. I'm wondering about the comment about prestige, since I'm not sure it matters how much a school's reputation matters so much as that of the department. I know when it comes to Geography, it doesn't get much more well-known than UCSB, but I thought Boston University was also fairly well-known, especially with respect to physical geography and remote sensing. The placement of the various labs tends to look pretty similar - everyone seems employed, some as academia, some in industry, many in government, in varying amounts that seem roughly proportional to how old the lab is. I think all the POIs know where I've been accepted, just through several casual conversations, but not anything about funding at other places. It seems like going to Berkeley or Santa Barbara would require obtaining significant external funding at some point, whereas that might not be the case at BU.
  2. Hey all! I've been really agonizing over this decision and would love some feedback... I would be pursuing basically the same research in all these places - remote sensing and terrestrial ecology (which ended up in differently named departments everywhere, I know it's confusing...). I was first really excited about Boston University, but going to Berkeley and Santa Barbara for the recruitment events have made some really compelling cases that I want to consider before pulling the trigger... I'm most concerned about prestige, rigor, and departmental community atmosphere, and a little concerned about the funding. I'm not 100% certain where I want to be after a PhD (leaning academia), so a place with a variety of outcomes would be appealing to me. Here are some thoughts of mine: BU (Earth & Environment): Friendliest/most supportive professor (perhaps less well-known in the field?), most generous funding (5 years fellowship), didn't get a clear picture of the grad student/department community (no recruitment event), greatest number of professors in department with similar research, I don't have to move UCBerkeley (Environmental Science/Policy/Management): Decent funding (4 years), large department and beautiful campus, plentiful resources and networking opportunities, prestige, super busy professor with little time to spare UCSB (Geography): Incredibly friendly and supportive community of professors and grad students, high level of rigor and expertise in the field, prestige in the field, low level of funding (2 years), busy professor with little time to spare I would super appreciate any feedback on these places! Thanks!
  3. It's far from necessary, but it's kind of nice to have a car. If you're looking for cheap rent, going off College Hill, over by Federal Hill, can be pretty affordable, if a little sketchier - okay with a car. Agreed with Ezzy, though the East Side and Fox Point are wonderful places to live, full of other college students, and the Grad Center Bar is fantastic. When I lived on the East Side, I paid between 450-550/mo. So, geology shares its building with chemistry, but I didn't really interact with chemistry all too much. They do some pretty interesting stuff, from what I could tell, and actually have some nice facilities - the geochem building is 2 floors of geo and 3 or 4 floors of chem, tons of labs for teaching and research. I didn't have many chemistry major friends, though, so I can't provide any juicy insider perspectives. I don't think Brown is particularly well-known for chemistry... like many departments at Brown, chemistry is decent, but not famous. My perception of the chemistry classes is that they can be good, when they're not too full of premeds, in which case they're a chore. But that's just undergrad. Easy access to a Boston is a huge plus. And yes, the food is really, really good in a variety of styles, especially once you start finding the little hidden gems.
  4. Brown's great! I only went there as an undergraduate, so I can't really speak to the graduate school experience, but I can back up the idea that Brown is an ivy-league with a huge focus on undergrads and less of a focus on grad schools. That being said, I know that the applied math and brain sciences programs are stellar, even though some of the other programs are vary around decent to great. I had a lot of friends in the CS department that seemed really great for the undergrads - lots of people ended up with great CS jobs at Adobe, Google, [insert start-up here], and I know that Brown's CS is strong in computer graphics and crypto... not sure about the grad experience. I used to work in the Ecology/Evolutionary Bio dept, and I've heard some of our own professors quietly admit that the program at Brown isn't that great. It's got some great humanities programs, too. Plenty of people from Brown have gone on to great things in theatre and literature (Sarah Ruhl!) I can attest to Emma Watson being on campus, though she wisely went by another name. My friend was in the room when she got the "ten points to Gryffindor!" shout-out, as well as during a stern, condescending lecture from a professor attempting to humble her from her (assumed) "oh my it's Hollywood" attitude. We almost got her interested in one of the student groups I was involved with, which was definitely exciting for some of us. I'm happy to answer more questions, but it's more likely to be along the lines of what life is like in Providence and what I've heard about the personalities of some professors in geo, CS, bio.
  5. I'm in the same boat as whatshername - in at UCSB geography - so I'd also love to hear more about it, if anyone has anything to share.
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