GeoDUDE!

I hope he is a better advisor in other facets of your degree, because, this is a major red flag. here is some good advice: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16529/is-it-acceptable-to-write-a-reference-letter-for-yourself

The biggest difference between the i5 and the i7 is hyperthreading, which makes the i7 thermally more efficient as well as faster. Im using an i7 from 2011, sandy bridge model, and it still isn't a bottleneck for anything I do on it (numerical modeling aside, which requires a super computer anyway). It actually does not consume that much more power, what tends to consume more power are the discrete vs integrated graphics. a Haswell (current gen) i7 gets very similar battery life to a haswell i5 while being much faster through hyperthreading (more virtual cores).

So its a 2.2 Ghz minimum on a single core, but they recommend multicore or hyper threading. the 2.2ghz doesnt matter that much: all i5 and i7 processors will turbo boost beyond that. an i7 will give you hyper threading, which may nor may not be important depending on the size of your Raster and Shape files: your memory at 8gb I think is much more important. It seems in your case an i5 with 8gb is what you should be looking for, and if you want to spend a little more, go for the i7.

I would go with an Asus Zenbook configuration: Thats the PC brand I would buy if I were not buying mac hardware. A lot of people like lenovo, but as someone who has been a computer enthusiast for ~20 years, it seems that lenovo gets a lot of cache from the early 2000s IBM thinkpads. Not that lenovo is a bad brand, its just not "superior" like they used to be. If i were buying a lenovo, It would be the thinkpad. Matlab doesn't require that much processing power unless you traditionally program in it: avoid loops, thats what matlab is for. It has been a while since I used arc GIS (2010), but my feeling is you want 8 gb of ram. I think you are wrong on the reccomended specs of Arc GIS and matlab: while maybe older processors need 2.2ghz or higher to run them, 1 ghz != 1ghz from generation to generation. In newer generation processors, 1 cycle does a lot more processing than 1 cycle previously. Lower clock speed, hyperthreading and turbo boost all help in that regaurd, and ultra book with an i5 should be fine. I think you would be better off spending the entire 1200 dollar budget. While its certainly possible to buy a 1 year old model with nice specs. If you could stretch to 1500 dollars, I think you would get a spectacular laptop :http://www.amazon.com/Zenbook-UX301LA-XH72T-Quad-HD-Display-Touchscreen/dp/B00EPGHFQC/ref=pd_cp_pc_0 but if you cant, im sure there are offerings from dell, lenovo and HP all which are very similar. Really, people like to say brand matters from all the top OEMs, and they dont until you get into the high end. Just as many people hate one company form 1 bad experience, love it from a good experience. Also a thing I forgot to mention: You want the laptop to be prestine for the 3rd and 4th years of your program because thats when you will be doing the majority of the writing, god forbid something happens to your laptop then. So if you can hold out for a year or two, that might be the best option.

Yes, there is a big difference. In online education, the primary mode of learning is through the internet and the computer. In formal school, the primary mode of learning is through attending courses in person. That online school does not look like a good place to study, because their website is tacky, but I haven't looked too much into it.

Yes, a statement of purpose should, depending on the strenght of the canidate, be a research proposal that links you to the department. IE, here are my research goals, here is why this school is a great fit, take me.

Yes

What would happen if you got laid off from the job and tried to apply to others: are you confident you could have long term security that the graduate degree might provide ?

Another thing: If you dont use a proper power supply, you will short the motherboard on your computer destroying it. So using a normal USB battery pack, if thats possible, will likely kill it unless its rated for the amount of power your macbook consumes.

I'd recommend going to ifixit.com and replacing the battery yourself. I replaced the fan in my macbook pro with with one of theirs: super reliable and with patience and their guides its pretty hard to mess up.

This is a life or death decision, your PI will clearly kick you out of the program if you email him. lol just email him. put on your big boy pants.

You, of course, are wasting my time (well, making it less productive is a better way to put it), but that is exactly what I come to grad cafe for! So no hard feelings =D. Its happening fast, but you still have to go through the admissions process. So take a breath and realize that all you have to do is submit an application: decisions can come when you have a contract in hand to sign. One thing that you might consider is how much power he has in selecting his graduate students: he's going to want to recruit as many people as possible to get through the committee. He is likely able to choose whoever he wants though; His lab will be flush with start up cash and you will get to play with all the new 'toys' he buys for the the new lab. That is very exciting. Another cool thing about your situation: you will learn how to build a lab from the ground up! Most of us don't get that experience, joining already established labs. Thats a very cool thing to consider. Most papers that are published are fairly good to decent, that is true, but there are some clues you can look for on even a decent paper. For example, was the paper published on the normative time scale? Does the author thank the anonymous reviewers? How many revisions did the publisher require? Part of a good graduate education is learning how to publish, and people who have trouble getting papers through in a timely manner is almost as bad as publishing rarely because you have to expend much more energy than required. I don't think your undergrad department matters once you have a grad degree: I went from a reasonably high ranked liberal arts school to an unknown department for my masters degree, and then to a better known (though not sure how well known really) department for my PhD. I have been a part of a department much larger than FSU (about 3 times the size), and it was very very cool. Everyone was friendly, many social events to bring everyone together. You talk to people in your building mostly, but again, everyone comes together. My new department has about 30 professors, it seems that everyone is friendly: social interactions with everyone, but again, since people are in research groups you mostly interact with people of the same interests as you. At my undergrad, I was in a physics dept with 5 professors and everyone talked to everyone, for obvious reasons. I actually liked that the most, and the most isolating department i've been in only had 10 professors, with much faculty politics getting in the way of student learning. I think the health of the department is more important to happiness than size, and health is almost always directly related to relative funding (what is expected of them and how much are they producing). It is really important to visit before you sign anything, in my opinion. Especially since you don't know much about the school or the area. So a few things: Do your very best to on your FSU application (a given, but should put this down anyway) See if your POI will pay for you to visit if you get accepted Talk to graduate students there see if you can live there If all those things check out, I think doing a PhD or MSc there would be a good experience. Going to a lesser ranked department then before has its disadvantages and its advantages, but all you really need to do is make sure you do good work where ever you go. When I evaluated programs, I ordered these criteria to make my decision: Research Fit Advisor compatibility (on a personal level) Happiness of the graduate students Location Stipend Rank Another thing to consider is can your POI teach you "general" skills. For example, as you can probably tell by this post, I am very scatterbrained and unorganized. My new advisor is perhaps the most organized person i've met: I am hoping through observing her work habits I can learn to be somewhere in between where I am now and how organized she is. Anyway, I hope some of this rambling helps you.

There are a lot of criteria used to determine if a department is quality; Do they have a healthy number of graduate students to faculty ratio ( the ratio should be over 1 graduate student to faculty member). That largely means they are investing in graduate students, and that faculty grants are able to support a large number of them. You asked how you can determine if a department is strong by the faculty page: Did you google scholar any of the faculty there? Have you bothered to read any of their papers? Good scientists tend to write good papers (not just high impact, but also well written ect..). If there are people there writing good papers, its probably a good department. You know what kinds of stuff you are interested in correct? read the papers of the teachers you will most likely have. That might give you some insight in to what kind of education you will get. If you get an admission offer, you might want to ask if you can get the emails/contact info of some graduate students: Are they Happy? Is it possible for you to visit? Many great graduate educations don't come from "well known schools" (what does that even mean in this context). It seems they have a little less than 50 faculty; Thats a fairly large department, which signals good funding. It might be poorly funded for its size, I don't know, but departments that are big and lose funding tend to downsize quickly so my bet is they are pretty well funded. Another thing: Rankings do matter in academia. Its not a kiss of death, or anything, to go to lower ranked school, but it means getting through hiring committees might be a bit more difficult. There are professors who did not go to Harvard, Caltech, MIT, Columbia and Stanford, but there are many who have (this is from someone who isn't going to one of those schools, and apologies to the few other schools who should be listed there.) Another thing to consider is if its a PhD or a MS offer: All these things matter much more if you are spending 5 years there vs 2 years. It seems to me that you didn't do much of this type of thinking (or perhaps you did, and you are just asking questions to see if you have missed anything) when you were applying to the "name brand" departments, but doing this kind of analysis is important even if it is Harvard. Every research degree is unique, and how good that education can be is largely determined by the people who you interact with there. At a large department, you wont likely interact with everyone day to day, you will have a small group of people / professors that you know well, and ones you know less. What if you were, by chance, lucky enough to get admission into two top departments? How would you decide? The same way you would evaluate any other department. My guess is that its a good department that one should be proud of earning a degree at, but I don't know much about it as they have very few solid earth people there.

i personally wouldnt go into any debt to go to graduate school. So worth it is a subjective term.

http://www.eoas.fsu.edu/people/faculty that info seems pretty useful. Its a pretty nice website actually.....

If you choose to go through these types of situations thinking you are the center of the universe, thinking that these people were put on the Earth to fulfill your needs and they are getting in your way then you will always be unhappy as a result. What if the person who was supposed to write your decision letter was diagnosed with some sort of cancer, and in all his/her thoughts about mortality your letter slipped their mind. This isn't likely, however, it isn't impossible. It isn't to say you shouldn't enquire, on the contrary, but enquire out of humility. if they are rude to you, sure you will be mad, but that wont stop hundreds (or thousands) of applicants applying to that program. As long as they have a strong department/program, they will always get applicants. They only need to please the admitted students; they have probably accepted the fact that they can never appease the rejected ones by nature of rejection.

I'm not really sure that exists. I havent seen any evidence of it, especially if you go to a top teir school for your undergrad.

It is normal to go to different schools.

Actually my CV was quite weak, and really only people who have weak CVs should send them so your intuition is right.

my answer from : Hello Professor A I am currently an English student in the UK and want to continue to study X in graduate school. I am particularly interested in particular X, and think that because your work "specific paper" is related to specific X, I think that you and your department would be a great place for me to continue my studies. Are you taking on graduate students for Fall 2015? Attached is a copy of my CV. Thank you for your time, Peachpenumbra. I used a very similar email to all my POIs and got a response from every single one. Even the ones that didnt take on graduate students, they referred me to someone else who they think I might be a good fit with. The email does a few things : 1) it states who you are and what you are interested in. 2) It shows you have at least read 1 thing of theirs and it relates to what you are interested in. 3) It is very short and doesnt waste the professors time. I would send 4 line emails and get back essays from them in a response. The CV attachment is important; If your CV is good or impressive they will be more likely to respond knowing you at least have a shot to get in. Many students who contact professors dont have a shot.

YOLO

I read Nature, Science, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Journal of Geophysical Research, Reviews of Geophysics, and G^3. Those are my main journals, occasionally I'll pick up Lithosphere or Physics of Planetary Interiors (and this one is gaining steam in my community). As for a search engine, you can't beat web of science and google scholar.

It is only a 1 hour plane ride (i'll be in northern california). I think i could leave friday afternoon, come back sunday morning and it would be cool.

I really want to go for the weekend... but I think it might look bad if I went? While I'm of the general opinion that grad school shouldn't stop you from missing "life", its the second weekend. What would you guys do?

I have a goruck GR1: It's simply the best backpack on the market but comes at a steep 300 dollar price, but also well worth it. The GR1 not only has a lifetime warranty (something available on cheaper backpacks) but can easily be used as a school, office backpack as well as be a weekend bag or a camping backpack. One of the reasons it functions so well is the top of the bag lets you completely zip down the main compartment, functioning more like a suitcase and less like a backpack. It also has a plastic sheet frame inserted in the back (removable) to give sturdiness when carrying loads over 20 lbs or so. you can read Jason's ( Goruck's founder) essay on it: http://news.goruck.com/gear-explained/gr1-explained-by-jason-gorucks-founder/ Goruck is kinda the flavor of the month in the carry enthusiast circles (yes, we exist), but its also probably the 1 bag i would own if I couldn't own anything else. If that is out of your price range (which it is for most people, I understand that I am a freak for spending that much money) I would go to a place like REI and try out a bunch of backpacks. A good backpack should cost at least 100 dollars, and really shouldn't be skimped on.