pterosaur

@ihatechoosingusernames. My go-to podcasts are Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Planet Money, Freakonomics, You're The Expert, 99% Invisible, Hidden Brain (the most psych related), Radiolab, Startup, Reply All, and Surprisingly Awesome. Also, if you'd like something with a bit more plot, check out Welcome to Nightvale.

Tomorrow is the leavers dinner for my fellowship here, and it's dawning on me how soon I'll be leaving. I'm really excited by my PhD, but I also really, really don't want to leave here! Also just started dating a guy here...

@hippyscientist - you're going to get to experience the joys of American health insurance instead of the joys of the NHS! They've both got their issues. (But from my experience, university health plans are usually a pretty sweet deal. By American standards. 8 months in in the UK and still haven't needed first hand experience with the NHS, thankfully.)

Lyme disease is not usually bad if it is caught and treated early. If you go in to the doctor with a tick bite from an area with the disease (bring the tick if you can!), they will possibly even give you anti-biotics before they get test results back. Because if they don't treat it early, it can become chronic... And THAT is what is rare and really horrible. I have a cousin who's been dealing with it for about 5 years and it's been debilitating. Chronic Lyme is also not recognized everywhere, and there's not approved treatment (since it's rare), so insurance companies also make your life hell. Moral of the story: if you find a tick that's embedded in an area with Lyme, go see a doctor!

For those of you starting PhDs, how structured it the course component and requirements? Mine basically requires 10 courses of my choosing, only 8 of which have to be somewhere in the school of science and engineering (the other 2 could be Russian literature, if I wanted). And 1 class has to be theoretical computer science. I could also take any classes I want at MIT. But my courses all have to be approved by some mythical Committee on Higher Degrees. I had to make a program of study for my fellowship, and some of the courses my advisor-to-be recommended don't even show up in the course catalog. So I have no idea what I'm doing or what my options even are. (I couldn't even find a listing of MIT grad CS courses??) So I can't over plan my future schedule. Argh.

I'm doing a one year Marshall (which I kind of regretted as soon as I met the other Marshalls as our retreat). But again - I didn't really know any better when I was applying. On the Hertz, going in I definitely didn't expect to win. But then I was surprised to get a first interview. And then the finalist interview. And at that point you really start to get your hopes up and it ends up feeling paradoxically worse than not even getting an interview.

Heh, I went from Wisconsin to Boston for my undergrad and during 5 years I never bothered to bring my winter coat or boots with me. I thought it was positively balmy! Then again, put me down south and I'd probably shrivel up and die.

The fellowship I'm doing now? The Marshall Scholarship, so I'm in the UK doing my masters. When they asked about autocorrelations, I momentarily blanked and almost asked for a reminder. But I have done stuff with that before - it's how data correlates with itself over time, essentially. As for applying again, I'll probably talk to my advisor about it once I'm settled in the fall. I'm also guessing Harvard might have more resources to help out with the prep than my undergrad uni did.

Like normal lasagna but adding chocolate and peanut butter...? Because that would be replacing an uncertain taste with a quite likely horrid one. I might stick to my naan and chocolate digestives.

I'll also be coming to Harvard. I'm admitted for a bioengineering PhD, but I'll likely switch to computer science. For housing, I was originally thinking of living with friends from undergrad (did undergrad in Boston), but ended up opting for GSAS dorms. Partly, it'll be easier since I'll be moving from overseas. And also, when I visited, all the students in my program highly recommended living in the dorms, because it's super convenient and a chance to meet people who aren't just engineers. One guy actually said he really regretted living with a friend his first year instead of in the dorms.

Yup, it is indeed the Hertz. I know a guy who got it last year (he's in my current international fellowship program and went to CalTech - the only other school with multiple winners this year), but that's it. And since he only had his own experience to go off of, that didn't end up being hugely helpful. No one at my undergrad university could provide me with any advice on it, either, since I'm not even sure they've had anyone apply before. It was a strange interview experience - I was a finalist, so I went through both rounds of interviews. And the only woman I saw in the whole process was the woman in charge of the administration. Mostly a bunch of old white men. Somewhat it's the field and somewhat generational, but it did make me feel a little out of place. I didn't know how to prepare for the interview, since they ask you all sorts of off the wall questions like why cats have slit shaped pupils and what happens to the autocorrelation coefficients if you add gaussian noise to a system. (Actual questions from my first round interview.) I didn't think the first interview went terribly well, so I was surprised to get through. I actually thought the second round went better, but apparently not? They made some comment at the end about how everything was all good, but I didn't really have much independent research yet. (Apparently nothing I did in my 4 years of research was independent/creative enough? IDK) I'd be eligible to apply again next year, and if that independent research part is my biggest weakness, the start of my PhD research might be a pretty big boost to my application. Not sure yet, though. I'll let the taste from this experience wash out of my mouth before making any decision on that.

I also did my undergrad in Boston and biked a lot (including. 12 mile round trip bike commute to a co-op job). I came from a small town and the biggest thing to be safe is to be a lot more assertive than your instincts might be. With that in mind, I found it to be quite nice for biking. Especially up north of the city, it should be nice.

My PhD program forbids outside work (if they know about it...) and if I TA, my fellowship subtracts the money I earn from my stipend. I guess everyone wants me focusing on my research and not saving for retirement.

I've been putting money into a Roth IRA for a couple of years and wanted to continue in graduate school. The problem is that only "earned income" counts for this, and I received a federal fellowship for my PhD that counts as "unearned income." (Which is a BS term - suddenly I'm not earning it because I'm doing the same thing with money from a different source? Grr.) But this means I can't contribute to my Roth IRA retirement account. So I'm curious what other options people have used for retirement savings, if anything.

I'll admit being slightly bitter about not getting this fellowship (it's natural and it'll wear off), but they just released the 12 winners (out of 800 applicants): 9/12 male, 4/12 from MIT undergrad, 11/12 white. Starts to feel like something of an old boys club.

On the subject of advisors, Ione of the things I'm really excited about is that I feel like she can be a really great mentor, academically and as a role model for how to be a woman in computer science balancing life and research. (She wrote a great article called The Awesomest Seven Year Post-doc, which I'd recommend to anyone thinking about the challenge of balance.) We also really hit it off in the Skype interview and in person, and I can't wait to get started. Plus, there are couches in the lab next to the robot graveyard shrine.

I did my undergrad in Boston and lived less than a mile from Symphony hall and never went to the Symphony. I should probably do more when I'm in Cambridge for grad school...

Yep! I'm starting a PhD in SEAS (technically in bioengineering, but they'll let me switch to CS).

So glad I don't have to worry about visas this year! I accepted my PhD offer a few weeks ago and have started getting official things in the past week - request for transcript, info to set up login and email address. (I have a Harvard email! I feel so official!) I also got in touch with my advisor after I accepted the offer, and she said we can work out more details and project/research things over the summer. I'm excited to get started and chomping at the bit!

That usually means that they were applying for programs way out of league for what would be reasonable with their stats/experience.

Just got word on the last fellowship I applied for... didn't get it. It had a 1.25% success rate, and I made it to the top 5% by getting to the finalist round, but that wasn't enough.

I never knew hair could be so complicated... I get it chopped short maybe every six months and then wash it with whatever shampoo is cheapest at the grocery store. People compliment my hair, so I guess it's OK?

Welp, no NDSEG for me. It's weird that I've gotten one of the three fellowships I applied for so far, and it's been the most competitive of them. It's a crapshoot!

I thought I was infinitely more qualified for the NSF GRFP than the DOE CSGF, but guess which one I got and which I didn't? Don't get your hopes down too fast!

@hippyscientist- at least you have a transcript to send them. I'm doing an MRes at Imperial and won't actually have a transcript until the end of my program (since we only get a final mark), but Harvard refuses to understand that there is no official transcript for me to send them. It's so frustrating!