rising_star

I think you're being ridiculous. Why does it matter that you're in Europe with your advisor if you've been in solid communication with her while she's in Europe and have been able to meet with her regularly? I just don't see why it's so important for you to physically *be* in Europe unless it's just that you want to live in Europe.

Depends on what you read before college. I read some theoretical stuff that has since proved useful. YMMV, of course.

I think that you're making things entirely too black and white. Why, if you have 4 people that have been working with you, do you think that you would be left without someone to advocate for you within GU? It's confusing to me because you make them sound supportive at the beginning and then undermine that when you list the pros and cons. And, when it comes to postdocs, where your advisor is won't matter. They can call/email/Skype if they want more information than what's in the letter. Given what you've presented, I think it makes the most sense to stay where you are and finish your degree. Go to AU for another semester if you want, or try to get a postdoc there (there are some programs, like NSF, where you can write your own postdoc rather than needing to fit into an existing position). Like UnlikelyGrad, I've seen plenty of PhD students finish without their advisor onsite. My current advisor left several PhD students behind when he took his job here but still talked to them on the phone, read their work, and attended their defenses. Moreover, and this to me is the most important thing, you already meet with your advisor regularly regardless of where she is. I sincerely doubt you'll be able to find anyone else as willing to meet weekly as the person you already have.

But, you have to figure out whether or not it's on the way or if you'll end up spending almost as much in gas due to the detour as an inexpensive hotel room would cost. I paid something like $45/night on my drive, and that was for two people at hotels with free wi-fi and free breakfast. If you wanted Motel 6, it's probably only like $30/night. I drove cross-country but didn't stop to visit any friends or family because it would've required a 2+ hour detour in either direction and gas was near $4.50/gallon then. I would just add a few things here. 1) I didn't take a GPS and have never needed it where I live. My new city is on a grid and all major shopping centers are along major streets that are easy to find. Plus, my route here was straight down two interstates, which didn't require a GPS to figure out. If you don't already own a GPS unit or have someone that will let you borrow theirs, you may find that you're better off going with your phone/iPad/nothing at all. 2) Roadside assistance can be invaluable, even if you just had your car serviced. True story: a friend of mine loaned her car to her partner two days after having it fully checked out. He started out on a 5 hour drive and the car broke down about halfway through that. Thanks to roadside assistance, he was able to have the car towed to his destination (which is also where the closest repair shops are). Considering that they share a car, she had no way to rescue him and he would've just been stranded on the side of the highway in 95+ degree heat. 3) It can be really hard to determine in advance what will and won't be useful to you. One thing you might want to look into is whether the books you're considering taking are held in a local library or not. Another is whether you'll need them for a course, a paper, revising your thesis, etc. Finally, you'll probably want to keep just a few books around that are pleasure reading for you. Oh, and if you're shipping via media mail, try to use medium-sized boxes. Otherwise, they can get quite heavy! Mal83, you might want to think about your packing strategy more carefully. I've done the whole move 1500 miles in suitcases with the help of family thing, and it wasn't really that bad, though that was when the airlines didn't charge for checked bags. You may want to try to fly Jetblue (one free checked bag) or Southwest (two free checked bags) so that you can transport more things than might otherwise be possible. Definitely something to consider when purchasing flights. You'll also want to price out various shipping services (DHL, FedEx, UPS, USPS, Greyhound, Amtrak) before deciding which one to go with.

If you haven't worn it in a year, don't keep it. If it doesn't fit well, don't keep it. If you'll never get to wear it where you're moving or where you do research, don't keep it.If you haven't used it in 6 months, don't keep it.If it's paper, try to scan it and keep it digitally (with a backup!) rather than moving it.For books, you may be better off shipping them via media mail than actually hauling them in a truck (they're heavy, take up space, and media mail is pretty inexpensive).If your furniture isn't all that nice, sell it and buy new furniture when you arrive.For everything you're not keeping, try to sell it via a garage/yard sale or Craig's List. Use the money you make to help pay for gas and hotels on the way.I'm totally serious about the clothing, btw. I go through my closet every few months for the gigantic swaps my friends and I have. Each time, I discover things that I never wear or that don't fit. I just recently gave away something I bought back in 2007 but have never worn. I've moved that damn thing across the country and four times in this city! Ridiculous.

"Study abroad" per se is not common in my field. However, a lot of graduate students in my department conduct their research outside the US, so they spend summers and/or an entire academic year living and doing research in another country. A lot of people also have FLAS fellowships in the summer that send them to various countries to improve their language skills for research. I only know of one person (a historian) that has actually done a study abroad program where classes were taken abroad. I guess what I'm saying is that yes, it's possible. But, if your research doesn't have an international component and you can't plausibly give it one, it may be more difficult.

How will they even know how old you are or that you finished your BA at a younger than typical age?

Will the degree say that you earned it online or from UBC? Because, if it just gets you a standard UBC diploma, you may not have to deal with some of the skepticism that accompanies online degrees.

When visiting universities, I always stayed with graduate students in the department I was visiting. It's the best way to get insight into the program and your potential future colleagues.

I wouldn't worry that much about a used modem breaking down. I also bought mine used off a friend and it's working fine. Here are my suggestions: 1) Keep an eye on the Comcast website for sales. I don't have Comcast but, I currently pay $20 less per month than the rate advertised online because I signed up under a promotional rate. 2) If you're living in an apartment, see if you can get a faster connection and then share it with a neighbor. Or, just see if you can share your neighbor's. That way, you can split the monthly charge.

What other expenses are you worried about?

Now you just have to make 1750 more and you'll have more posts than I do!

Do any of you successful Boren Fellowship applicants have advice for those that might apply this winter?

So, today might be a good day to buy an eReader if anyone is in the market. 1) Woot.com is offering a refurbished 2nd generation Kindle for $90. 2) Dailysteals.com is offering a B&N Nook for $85 3) Amazon now offers the Kindle with Special Offers for $114. The KSO shows ads on the home screen and screen saver. If you buy it right now and sign up for the Amazon credit card, you get a $100 Amazon gift card, making the purchase price effectively $14. Anyone jumping in on any of these deals? Or, anyone have advice for someone like me trying to decide between these deals? (In case anyone's wondering, the key for me is being able to download books while I'm out of the country doing research. The Kindle's 3G supposedly works where I'm doing research whereas the Nook doesn't have 3G outside of the US. So, I'm leaning towards the Kindle for that reason but, is it really that awful to download books over WiFi?)

psycholinguist, you sound like me! Seriously. Except that I don't really care much about having kids. To answer the original question, I think we all feel unsuccessful at times, particularly when our grants go unfunded, our papers get rejected, and we're slaving away for hours and days on a project that doesn't actually work out. But that's pretty much how it goes, right?

Some do, some don't. Some do it based on applications, others do it in the required courses. It all depends on the prof and their style. Storytime: As a first year student in my MA program, we all took this professional development thing where every prof in the department came in for an hour to tell us what they did, who they worked with, what they taught, and let us ask questions about their research. Each time, we all introduced ourselves and said like one sentence about our interests. One professor was different though. He asked us to guess which statement applied to which student and then read 1-2 lines from each person's statement of purpose that he'd pulled from our files and written down on index cards. Slightly embarrassing, depending on what once had written but good for laughs all around.

The taxes thing is really not a big deal if you use a program like TurboTax (Freedom Edition is free) or H&R Block to file your taxes. For example, I attend school in state X but am a legal resident of state Y. TurboTax figures all of that out for me. I stayed a resident of state Y in large part because you cannot get in-state rates for tuition in state X unless you live and work in the state for one year without being a student. Because I'm a legal resident of state Y, that's also where my car is registered and where my insurance is from.

Well, you just missed the Wenner-Gren deadline. I recommend going to talk to a grants specialist at your university about how to search for grants and identify appropriate ones. It may be possible to identify several small grants that you could string together to have enough money to get you started. It's hard to tell you exactly where to turn without knowing precisely what it is you do and want to do. You might also want to look into alternate jobs on campus or adjuncting nearby in case you can't get into the field in the spring. Good luck!

It can happen. Why not check with the school for an update on when you will be notified?

1) Summer hasn't started yet. 2) None of those things. Seriously. My MA advisor was a tenure-track assistant professor and she was fantastic. We didn't do research in the same subfield but had similar theoretical interests. She had no proven success in graduating scholars (but does now that she's finally graduated 2 students, one of which is me). She was hands-on when necessary and otherwise let me do my own thing. My PhD advisor is a full prof, well-established in the field, and has several former students that now hold tenure-track jobs at Research I institutions. He is far more frustrating to work with/under, damn near impossible to meet with, and often has no clue what I'm doing or working on. Based on your criteria, he is a great advisor. I, and many of his students, don't feel that way. 3) Best advice I ever got: Interview potential advisors and their current students once you get on campus. It's as much about them as it is about you. If you can't work under a micro-manager and Dr Superstar is a micromanager, you will be miserable working under her. If you need someone to set deadlines and force you to adhere to them, then Dr Couldn't Care Less isn't the right advisor for you. A great advisor is the one that will get the best out of you and push you to do and be your best. That's likely different for everything single person reading this. Good luck!

OleMiss, You can try looking to see if your school has an off-campus housing office. Also, check with your department and any related ones to see if they have housing lists or will let you send out an email saying you're looking to live with someone in the fall. If those don't work, there's always Craig's List and Facebook. Whether or not to live with roommates really depends. I had one roommate the first year of my MA (who was awesome!), three during MA year 2 (one of whom was batshit crazy), and two roommates for the first two years of my PhD (who were passive-aggressive). It's only in the third year of my PhD, when teaching my own course and taking comps, that I've lived alone. A lot of times, I miss having roommates, especially the good ones that are able to hang out, go to the bar, etc. It's a lot more work to muster up someone to go do something with when you live alone. I like the quiet but sometimes it's too quiet and I find myself craving conversation... So yea, there are trade-offs. But really, no one can tell you what to do. Living someplace expensive the first year can be extra hard given the additional costs of moving and having to wait for the first paycheck.

There are some other cons with condos that haven't been mentioned yet. Assessments are the biggest one. If the roof has to be redone or the parking lot repaved, every owner will receive a special assessment in the mail, which could be $200 or $10,000. You have to pay or sell basically. The way to avoid this is to make sure the condo association has a healthy reserve fund so you don't unexpectedly get saddled with large expenses. You also want to make sure you read all of the rules, regulations, and guidelines and that you're willing to adhere to them.

My advisor is also the dept head and he has no idea what the prerequisites for specific courses are. Consult the course catalog if you want to know, rather than expecting professors to know. Again, this is the end of the semester. Your classes start in August or September, right? So it's not like this has to be handled right this second or things will fall apart. Wait until June then call/email again.

You can and should report posts where a user is being rude or piling on to someone else.

During my MA program, I lived about 3 miles from campus. It was a 10 minute drive or a 20 min bus ride to campus. I moved exclusively to riding the bus once gas got above $3.50/gallon. Now I'm in my PhD and I've never lived more than 2.5 miles from my campus office. I commute on a bike pretty much every day.