rising_star

@SignalHill, it's not personal. It's more that the universities have no idea how much their budget will get cut by the state, so they can't even begin to estimate how many TA positions they will need to eliminate. Since most programs prioritize funding continuing students, they want to make sure they have money for them (even though they might not!) before they start awarding money left and right to potential students. It's a craptastic situation, I'll admit.

No reason to aim low. I got into a good MA program at a competitive university with a humanities bachelor's degree and no relevant work experience. I disagree with this completely. You can acquire the knowledge necessary while in the program and it's unlikely that a human geography PhD student would ever teach a GIS, remote sensing, or physical geography course unless they asked to. Leading labs is another story but, that knowledge is pretty basic and very easy to acquire.

In general, I would say that fit trumps all else. BUT, we are in extraordinary budgetary times. Are either of those schools state universities? If so, I would seriously look into what's happening with their university's funding and what will be happening in the future budget-wise. And, if the one year funding may not be followed by other years of funding, then school Y is the obvious choice.

There might be a couple of awkward moments, honestly. I have been asked, on numerous occasions, what other programs I applied to and/or where else I considered going. I don't think there's a single friend in my program that doesn't know what my 2nd and 3rd choices were. Since I didn't have just one offer, I can't answer that part of your question. I can say that there are a bunch of people in my program that didn't apply anywhere else and say that when they are asked. Plus, those questions really only happen in the first couple of weeks of the school year when people are trying to get to know one another.

Okay, I'm of the belief that your research interests don't have to be *exactly* in line with the person you work for. The match could also be theoretical, methodological, etc. In some ways, it's cool having an advisor that doesn't do exactly what you do. Why? 1) You have to sort of find your own way through the literature. Your advisor can and will be a starting point but, you'll get to explore in ways you might not get to otherwise. 2) Fresh eyes on everything you write and submit that are coming from an outside perspective and can tell you when and where your arguments are strong or weak. I find it particularly helpful when it comes to grant writing. Sure, you could probably leave with your MA and go to another program for the PhD. BUT, that will add to the total time for completing your PhD (you'll finish 6-7 years from now, rather than in 5 years) and you might burn bridges at this department depending on how and why you exit.

I'm not a computer expert but, I have to say that I've had the same Dell laptop since April 2006, and I still use it as my main computer. For me, buying a Mac would require also buying Parallels so that I can run software that is Windows-only that I need for my research. I also own a netbook that I use for fieldwork and when I'm in class. The netbook is great for that sort of thing because of its portability. If I were buying a new computer now, I'd probably just buy an inexpensive Windows laptop OR I would buy one of those ultraportable laptops. I think MacBooks are cool but, I don't have $1200 to spend on a new computer so I probably will never own one.

It'll be tight but it's doable to live on $13.5K in Arizona, especially if you decide to live with a roommate or live further from campus and take the bus to commute. That said, the budget situation at the state universities in Arizona is as bad or worse than that in California but gets a lot less press. The state is planning to cut universities even further, and had only not done so in the past to avoid losing stimulus funds. From the March 5 newspaper: "University representatives are lobbying hard to stop what they believe might be another $80 million in cuts beyond the $170 million that Brewer already has proposed." That cut will be spread across the state's three universities and is predicted to mean cuts of up to 1/3 in the number of TAs at certain institutions. It is also being accompanied by increases in fees, which are not covered by tuition remission, and plans to cut the health insurance benefits (currently, health insurance is provided at no-cost to TAs/RAs but either there will be a charge or the benefits will be further reduced).

I've had a pretty good social life, even though I'm in graduate school. A lot of this depends on the department culture. For example, my current department has a weekly departmental happy hour, attended by a group of graduate students and faculty. We also have a graduate student organization that plans social events for the grad students to attend. My experience, really, is that if you want a social life, you can have one. Sure, it requires time management skills to balance work with fun, but it can definitely be done. Like UnlikelyGrad, I am in a club that is predominantly undergraduates (including the leadership). I am the only PhD student, though there's also one med student, one law student, and an adjunct. It is a bit strange when a student I am TAing joins the club and takes the related class but, you get over it pretty quickly (and I was actually able to use seeing hir at the club's class to coax hir into coming to my office to get help on hir's paper). Why am I in an all undergrad club? Because I love capoeira. It's a great way to meet people, exercise, and have fun. Sure, that means we have events and hardly anyone is of drinking age but, we all have bonded over our shared interest in/passion for capoeira. Granted, it can be hard to find something like this but, it can be done. How do you know that you have nothing in common with all of these people if you never go to these get-togethers? On the surface, I don't have much in common with a lot of the people I'm friends with in my department but, over time, we've found things we both/all enjoy that we can do together. You have to search for commonalities, rather than just lumping everyone into the category of 'someone I have nothing in common with.' If you want to meet people you do have things in common with, I would head to the internet. Check out Meetup.com to see if there are any local meetup groups that relate to your shared interest. You could also check for local facebook pages that are related to one of your hobbies or interests. Some of it really just involves putting yourself out there.

All of the PhD programs in my field do 4 years of funding.

Roccoriel, I would ask for some specificity about what "in good standing" means, since that varies from one department to the next, and from one advisor to the next.

6-8 weeks is pretty typical in my experience.

There are ALWAYS going to be slow weeks, trust me. There are slow weeks even when you're teaching your own course and doing all the prep work. When teaching a course by myself, I probably put in about 8-10 hours per week to do the readings, make lecture notes, etc. in addition to the teaching. And that's because it was a class that's not in my field. This semester, I'm grading for someone else's class. Mostly, I just show up to lecture (3 hours/week) and hold office hours (2 hours/week). I use the time in my office hours to update their participation points and grade map quizzes, since no one ever comes to see me. So in a standard week, it's just my 5 hours. This week, I'm doing closer to 20 but that's because I have short exercises to grade. Next week, I'll be grading tests so that will also be closer to 20 hours. Then, it'll go back to the 5-6 hours weekly for a while.

Depends on what precisely your focus is, who would be your advisor at each school, and what theories and methodologies you're into. PM me if you want to talk further.

If you go to the "City Guide" section, you will find links to cost of living calculators. Alternately, you may wish to contact current grads in the program and ask them if the stipend is enough.

Neither my current nor my former graduate program hosts an accepted students weekend or recruitment event. In fact, I can only think of 2-3 departments in my discipline that do. So, I would say that the very existence of them is dependent on the department and the university. Plus, in these budgetary times, such events are likely being reduced or eliminated so the money can be rerouted elsewhere.

In my program, written exams are based on a list of readings that you develop in concert with your committee. We have a few days per question (questions are written by committee members based on the reading list and one's project) to write 10-15 page responses to each. Then, 2-3 weeks later, we do our oral exams, which cover the material we submitted in our written exams and our dissertation proposal. I'm pretty sure they are pass/fail only, and you can retake them at least once if you fail. Also, if they don't like your written responses, they can postpone the orals.

I voted for what my contract says (20 hrs/week). I don't usually do that much work, except when there are papers to grade. There are weeks where I literally do 6 hours of work, with 3 of those coming from attending lecture. So, it definitely balances out at times like right now when I have 120 1-2 page essays to grade over the next two weeks.

I think you have to consider other factors. Location, fit, prestige of the advisor, placement record (both of the department and of the advisor), how much work does each TAship require, etc.

You don't actually want to teach that much. 3 courses a year is a LOT and introductory language courses have a fair bit of grading that you have to keep up with. Go with the fellowship. You can always teach in the summer, at a community college, etc. if you want to get more teaching experience.

Like fuzzylogician, I turned down more money and less work to be in a more desirable (to me) location. Totally worth it. And it's worth it particularly right now when I'm not having to shovel my car out of the snow or walk to campus through snowdrifts.

I just want to add to this a bit. I worked with an assistant professor (not tenured, but got tenure while I was there) for my master's. It was NOT a problem. I had asked before campus if that person was going to be around for a long time and was told yes, so I wasn't concerned about the professor not getting tenure or leaving for another school or something like that. And really, EVERYONE should ask if their POI is planning on sticking around and, if they don't, if you'll be able to go with them. My current advisor moved here from another school and brought along 3-4 grad students that were early in their programs.

Given that I make less than $8000/year after paying rent, it sounds like a good deal to me. Definitely find out how much health insurance and fees will cost you before accepting any offer.

I used to work in the ticket office of a theater when I was a MA student. A lot of it was time where I just waited for phone calls, so I could get some reading done while getting paid.

What you should do really depends on your interests. You could go to art gallery openings, plays, meetings, yoga, etc. depending on what you're interested in. What I recommend is picking up local paper and looking at the events calendar and then choosing a few things to go to.

In my department, it means both of those depending on the person and the situation. For example, last semester I taught an upper-level course for students in the department by myself as the instructor of record. This semester I am assisting a professor with his course (a large general education course) doing all of the grading and giving the lectures when he is traveling. This is in the social sciences and, fwiw, I know that this is what happens at other universities in my discipline as I have friends that are PhD students and teaching classes and others that are PhD students and assisting/grading for someone else's course. At most schools, master's students are not allowed to teach their own course. Rather, you have to have the MA/MS in hand to be qualified to teach a course by yourself.