spectastic

relatively small midwest town to big city what ive learned (similar to above): 1. cars are a liability, most of the time. 2. rent sucks, and need to start looking early. sign lease in spring to save money over fall 3. live close to where you buy groceries, go to school, etc. (traffic sucks) 4. when people ask for money, because of unfortunate circumstances, they're usually full of shit

i should be doing homework, but instead, i'm watching television show. gratification monkey ftw definitely gonna regret this tomorrow

I'm that far yet, but if thousandhardships makes a valid point in worrying about whether you will get a good recommendation from your current research adviser. And it sounds like you feel victimized by the department, and your head is not in the right place to be productive with them any longer. Best course of action is to leave that environment. don't fight it. it might be a good idea to take some long weekends or sick days to meet/skype with potential research advisers from other schools and get some face time, to show commitment, and to have honest, unfiltered conversations (do try to keep them positive though). This is what I did when I was SOL, and would not be where I am had I not done so. If they like you, they can pull strings to get you in.

nooooo shit but it's not about the money. it's about the mission I mean.. it's a little bit about the money... have to put food on the table, and shelter over the head, and would be nice to eat out, have fancy things, and stuff like that. but money has a huge diminishing return. what's more important is the people you surround yourself with, and the work that you do. I can say definitively that while making engineering salary, I was much less happy than I am now, being a broke ass grad student

i agree. it's definitely a balance. pick one thing and go far with it, instead of taking on multiple roles that might land you decent connections, but they mostly end up being huge time sucks. when I started out like 6 months ago, I was faced with deciding between various activities like RAS, FSAE, university cycling team, and occasional pickup games of ultimate, all of which are either great skill builders outside research or good ways to unwind. I ended up doing none of these because they all require a lot of time/week to even get the foot in the door. RAS: lots of learning involved, lots of hands on tinkering before anything starts to work, lots of time required for projects and $$ for competitions. FSAE: same thing, you have to slave away for a couple of years and show commitment before you can move up. university cycling team: only one strong rider who can compete nationally, kind of disorganized, races are all far away, more of a social club. meh.. ultimate frisbee: I would pick this up again, if I'm not already committed to my current hobby. I know people who appear to be doing well don't have hobbies. they just go out or something. one guy i think is getting involved in outreach events related to the graduate student body. there's church too. these are just a few that comes to mind. the main point is to be active outside research, but also invest time wisely.

just looked at the specs. I'm less enthused about the product, but still impressed, at least by what the manufacturer claims... I mean claiming a 20 mile range on a 15 Wh battery is kind of wacky if you ask me. I assume that's the absolute best scenario, where the board is gently pushing 5-10 mph on flat terrain and minimal air resistance. I imagine the cost for these things to fall real fast as the cost of li ion batteries begin to fall rapidly from the fast expansion of EV market. Right now, I'll stick to my bikes. But who knows, people could be walking around in segways in the near future. exciting times.

anyone tried out those electric skateboards? I think those would be really cool for getting around.

hermit's the man

I agree beeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwbs

ye i don't see a problem skateboard or long board? i thought about doing the same thing. figured long board would be the best, because I feel like at 6', skateboard would be a little unstable, and penny board would just be a joke.. and then there's the decision between the different kinds of bearing, struts, shape, and whatnot, and things got hairy real fast, so I just forgot about the whole idea.

durango is apparently super popular cyclist destination. that town keeps coming up as a desirable destination among my group of people want to visit. that's on my bucket list

I was speaking more in terms of golden or boulder or colorado springs, where the state colleges are. from what I understand, they're pretty secluded from the big city nature of denver, and it's surrounded by nature. Austin is growing fast too. Austin and Portland are the two fastest growing cities right now. The city hasn't done much to compensate in infrastructure, so traffic has become a major problem here. But I'd still live here, because it's such a cool city.

I would love to be in colorado. oh man.. low precipitation. sunny all the time. elite cyclists everywhere to train with. mountains. hiking. gorgeous looking people (or so I'm told by a group on a bachelorette trip..). that's not a place for a bucket list. That's like a place to settle down and chill until you kick the bucket.

i miss nothing about iowa. NOT a THING

damn, this is some heavy logistics I remember just packing my honda civic full of crap and driving the 16 hour trip by myself. i owned nothing that was worth more than paying for a new one. simplicity is bliss.

I'll be a 2nd year applying for fellowships. I know I will probably need a publication (1st author) by this time in order to be distinguished from the pool. I already have a couple of project ideas that I've been trying out. Still need to work out the bugs, but I think they can become papers if I optimize my experiments. I'm also told that manuscripts don't mean anything, and that publications is what will be considered for these things. So for things like NSF, NDSEG, when do I need to have a publication in order for it to be considered with my application? So for NSF, I would imagine that it would have to be not long after December, maybe a week or two into January? anyone have an idea?

ok i'm sorry

i highly recommend renting a house, or finding a couple of rooms in a house, and speaking with the owner over the phone or skype, just to work out the details, but more importantly making sure the owner is level headed. i've dealt with apartment complexes, and have had a couple of horrible experiences. one of them, I signed the lease from 700 miles away and didn't do my due diligence. I ended up in a low income neighborhood where the apartments were falling apart, few people had jobs, people were selling drugs, and friend of mine living in the same place had a state trooper knocking on his door looking for a convicted felon who broke parole. I found a letter written in prison.. the situation had more to do with the area I was living in, which was a total shithole. But the apartment leasing managers in that area were a bunch of snakes who would sell you a bag of dogshit and tell you it's chocolate. But I digress. people are much easier to deal with if you're their only customer, in my experience. There is usually a little more wiggle room and room for compromise. but that also depends subleases also come to mind, especially if it's going to be temporary while you look for other options

yea, leggings are probably bad idea. if you want guys like me to take you seriously, definitely dress conservatively. otherwise, we'll be like "oh hi there.. how ar- beeewwwwbs"

all i saw was "busty"

my understanding is that internships won't really help you early on in the PhD, and instead only really set you back in graduation, because the work is likely un-publishable. However, they may play an important role in helping you network and build skill capital in certain companies that interest you when graduation is nearing. this is contrary to my undergrad, where internships and REU's are encouraged, because that's the best use of one's summer time, whereas for a grad student, the summer time is probably best invested in research without other distractions. do others share this perspective?

I'm planning to apply for the next cycle as a 2nd year, and have some questions. 1. what do the reviewers look at when they give you the E/VG/G/F? just the proposal, your overall profile like recommendations, GPA, GRE, all of the above? what's the order of importance? 2. do all the applications get reviewed at the same time? eg. undergrads, first, 2nd years all get looked at the same time. Or does are the rewards given different priorities to different categories such as research field, classifications? 3. what does a 2nd year usually have to do that's above and beyond from the others that would help distinguish the application? surely, they will be held at a higher standard than undergrads or first years. Thanks

that sounds like one of those interview questions where the candidate is not expected to know the answer, and the interviewer is more interested in the thought process of how the candidate would go about solving the problem, which is arguably more important than having a broad knowledge base.

fellow lab member got the nsf. I'm happy for her, but also jealous AF. some people get to have all the goddamn cookies. it's not over yet though. I still get to apply for it next year *fingers crossed*

I started writing an excel VBA script that would make my life easier by doing most of the grunt work in my data analysis. the coding turned out to have cost me almost an entire day, and then, I saved everything in the wrong format, and the script that I wrote fucking disappeared. OOPS. Good thing most of that time was learning the commands again, and by the end of it, I had a good understanding of what I wanted the computer to do, so it only took me an extra 90 minutes to write the whole thing again. It'll still pay for itself in time saved in a few weeks time.