Neuro_Dave

Fully funded tends to mean that you will receive a stipend as well as tuition waiver for some degree of teaching/research/work while taking classes and obtaining your Ph.D. MA students tend to have smaller stipends with less benefits and a shorter amount of time in which they can earn their degree and receive funding. Not sure about your institution in general. Some Universities will accept you for their program, but not have available funding for you though. They will always let you know this in advance though. Typically this is not going to be the choice you want to make for graduate school though. The exception to that, being whether this particular program is 100% doing the research/work that you want to be working on throughout graduate school, and no other choices are really available to you. For that reason, as well as the competitive nature of grad program, you should apply to several that interest you. Financially speaking...be ready to have to pay a lot of first month bills before you stat your program. Especially if you're moving into a new home/apartment/room with new expenses. Even if your program is fully funded with a tuition waiver you will likely have at least $1000 worth of institution fees and health insurance fees to pay for every semester. You also won't typically have access to federal student loans until a few weeks into the semester, and your first paycheck (depending on the Univeristy) might not be received until the end of your first month. SAVE OVER THE SUMMER. Or take out private loans before hand. I would avoid those if at all possible though...

Amazon. They will likely ship all together as well. If you're a Prime member (students can be for free the first year), you get free 2 day shipping as well. Which has often translated into 1 day shipping for me. Nothing better imo. But Staples, or Walmart, or Target are fine if you need something right away. Decent prices and competitive selection.

Same feelings. I'm moving to my new town and school a few months early to get ahead of the game, start reading up on the first few courses I'll be taking, and hit the ground running with all the paperwork and training needed before I can start doing full time research. Anxiety and excitation about the move has peaked, and I'm jsut relaxing and trying to enjoy the fact that all the work for the past few years paid off. Finally doing what I want to be doing.

I havent started yet...coming up in the fall. But I tend to be a "carry all you could possibly need" kind of guy. I plan to ride a bike to school every day, so I also wanted to consider being comfortable during a 10-15 minute bike ride through Atlanta. With that in mind I will probably look into getting a Lowepro Fastpack 350. It's primarily a heavy duty backpack for high end DSLR body's and accessories (of which I have a ton). But it also comes equipped with a 17" laptop sleeve, room for books, papers, waterbottle, phone/Ipod on the shoulder strap, various smaller pockets for anything you could potentially think of. It's waterproof, high quality with padding and sweat absorbent material with a comfort strap and everything you could really need. Granted I will rarely need to take my camera(s) with me to grad school, it would be very nice to have this as a day to day bag for laptop/Kindle/books/food etc, while also having it as an option as a carry on for air travel. I always bring my laptop and camera equipment with me to research conferences, home visits, vacations, etc, and it is an incredible hassel to try and fit camera equipment into a carryon bag with your clothes, and personal hygiene supplies. It would be so much easier to just have a backpack that can literally do-it-all.

Not sure about every field, but in my graduate field (Neuroscience) the vast majority of information presented is at the poster sessions. The lecture series tend to be secondary for the recruitment of undergrads. Presenting a professional poster ie..go to Kinkos and pay money to print out a professional looking glossy poster with several days worth of fine tuning and editing having gone into it. Presenting at multiple conferences looks great on your CV. You are obviously dedicated to the field you've chosen. Not afraid to present in public the work you've been doing. Confident enough to present it. It tells a whole lot about your scholastic achievement and personal character. Take the initiative and if a lab director or PI you REALLY want to work with is attending the conference you're attending, email him/her and ask about their work, explain how it may overlap with your own, and express an interest in meeting with them and potentially having them watch you present during the conference. Great opportunities all around when presenting posters. Not the least of which is just getting more confident explaining the research you are working on to people who likely have little to no clue about it. Again- this is probably only specifically applicable to biomedical science conferences/conventions. But the practice in general is probably universal to some extent across graduate fields. Heck, I put my undergraduate poster presentations from the psychology lab classes on my CV, it never hurts.

I love my Amazon.com Visa with a $2500 limit. I get almost everything not food related from there. So you get amazon points+bonus points for everything ordered off Amazon = a bunch of free stuff. Get amazon points for purchases like gas and other stuff too.

My HP Pavillion Notebooks have never let me down. They go on sale often enough, they're not incredibly heavy, and have all the power I could need to do basicword processing, or high end photoshop work. Also gaming, but that really just depends on how much you want to invest in the graphics card. If you're on a tight budget get one of the lower end models.

Im going to GSU this fall for a Ph.D in Neuroscience, and looking to move to Atlanta early on in the summer. I've been looking at apartments primarily in the midtown area and east of Georgia State along Decatur/Dekalb Ave SE. I have been told that if I can stand the heat biking 2-3 miles a day to school is entirely doable. Which is good since the majority of decent looking apartments in my search area average about $1000/month for a 1 bd/1br. I had heard good things about the MARTA and living in Decatur, and Buckhead as well...until I did a campus visit 3 weeks ago and talked to a bunch of current grad students and faculty. Nobody suggests living in Buckhead if you're attending GSU. It's inconvenient to get to/from, traffic is a pain, MARTA line doesnt really go through most of it, and nobody from GSU tends to frequent the clubs up there. Decatur was more positive, you can easily take the MARTA from there (depending on how close you live to the train line), driving to/from is only about 10 minutes in moderate traffic, and there's plenty to do with a safe environment. I do own a car I plan on bringing with me, but if I can bike everyday I feel like that would would preferable to me personally. Does anybody with more experience in Atlanta seriously disagree with my assessment of biking to GSU from the areas around southern midtown or east between Highland/Decatur(DeKalb)? I am also looking for a roommate(s) who will be going to graduate school in the fall as well. Could be GSU, Georgia Tech, or Emory. I'd be more flexible on where within the city I'd be living if I was splitting the rent and not having to spend roughly $1k every month.

I'm looking at apts in Midtown right now that are within biking distance of GSU. I figure the walking/biking distance of everything in midtown will end up being worth the higher cost of housing that comes with living in Midtown. $1000 / month average is still a lot though. Hopefully I can connect with anybody looking for a roommate? No luck so far though. I keep hoping I get news from the department that they can support summer funding for me so I can move down and start doing research early. Plus its always a good idea to be acclimated to a new city before the fall semester starts.

Dependson your program (both specific to the university, and the overall type of program). For instance, my Neuroscience Graduate program has all of the extremely time consuming and contextually difficult core classes crammed into the first year, and its lessens up a bit during the second, and dissapears for the most part beyond the third. All the time at that point is focused primarily on writing for grants, publications, dissertation/thesis, etc. They would likely not have accepted you into the program if they didn't believe you were intellectually capable of grasping the coursework, and suceeding overall within the program. Almost sounds like you might be overthinking and "psyching" yourself out. Don't let your unconscious prevent you from giving it your all.

Get a fellowship, or scholarship...there are tons of private funding available everywhere. My school lets you win a fellowship, and then continue doing a teaching assistanceship on top of it if you wish to. All added to the monthly stipend. Which is already generous.

I'm a 1st year neuroscience graduate student of neuroscience at Georgia State. Male, 24 years old. Was accepted a few weeks ago and after visiting the campus this past week I'm looking forward to moving down to Atlanta as soon as possible. I am of course looking for a place to live prior to making that move. I have quite a bit on money saved in the bank, so paying for an apartment prior to the fall semester starting (and my stipend and loans kicking in) won't be a problem on my end. But all the same, transitioning into a nicer apartment complex with a better location would be easier with a roommate or two to split the costs with. I'm a typical introvert with extroverted tendencies. Perfectly capable of entertianing and taking care of myself, but also looking to go out and have a good time with friends. At the same time, I never have any qualms about being the designated driver. I'll be bringing what I consider to be a lot to the table. Steady income, lots of entertainment things, Bigscreen TV, various computers and video game systems, I plan on building and stocking some kind of decent sized bar, and based on the apartment size, maybe a game room with pool, darts, lounge chairs, etc. That being said, I'll be a graduate student, with graduate student responsibilites, and time constraints both regarding my research and classwork. Parties would not be an everynight, or likely even an every week thing. Graduate students (or responsible undergrads) heading to or currently attending Georgia State, Emory, Georgia Tech, etc would be very welcome. I would like to move as soon as possible, and I'm relatively flexible about location. I am partial to the downtown area at the moment. Currently looking very hard at the 2 and 3 bedroom lofts at the Pencil Factory Lofts (I was impressed during my visit), but I'd be willing to choose a more centralized living area in regards to wherever the other roommate(s) were attending. Walking distance is a good thing though I assure you. Looking forward to hearing from anyone heading to Atlanta.

I'll be a 1st year Ph.D student in Atlanta with a moderate stipend. I plan on taking out a big loan my first year, and seeing how far that goes. Ideally I can pay a little more and live close to campus (off campus) and not have to drive very often. Having to pay minor car insurance and limited gas costs will be huge for what Im used to.

My understanding is that everythign is broken up by neighborhoods and each one has its own positives and negatives. Figure out whether you like high end clubbing, lower end trendy restaraunts / hangout spots, super cheap living arraignments, or neighborhood safety. As a future student of Georgia State I'm looking at Buckhead because of the nightlife (clubs, bars, restaraunts, kayaking scenes, etc, and easy access to the MARTA lines as well as overall a safe neighborhood. Still a 10-15 min train ride into the city center (downtown). But I think Georgia Tech is actually farther north than State, so it might be like a 5 min ride from Buckhead. Then again I'm only going by research and hear say from people I've talked to. Someone who lives there might be more informed. Decatur is a nice area too.

I got accepted into Dr. Pallas' lab, and I've been corresponding with her current PhD student Tim. They have both been amazing with helping me get acquianted with Atlanta and Georgia State in general. I havent had the opportunity to meet any other incoming students yet though, or current gradaute students. Hopefully that will chance in the next two weeks when I go down to visit.