eklavya

wool ball

congrats, and welcome, Tuochi! 14000 per year is more than enough to cover your living expenses. although the U is situated right next to a metropolis, it is however very affordable to live in the vicinity of campus.. unlike places such as NY, LA, etc. so far, i've seen than single rooms in an apartment cost 300-450$ and studio/basement/one-person apartment cost 450-700$. so yes, with the amount of money you will be given, you should have no problem in living terms of living expenses. and although you cannot come here till august, you can start looking for apts early. i assume there's a chinese association in minneapolis. so, see if chinese people on campus are willing to help you on that. if not, you can email the international services and see if they can match you with a mentor/peer who can be your guide in minneapolis for few weeks, as you are new. or, you can simply email the housing ads and explain them the situation. that might work out as well. as a last resort, you can always apply to housing for grad students managed by the school. but i know that spots in these type of housing are very limited, so you might want to act early.

slimy juice

pop tart

Right now, my friend. Looks like you have at least one place to go to in case Duke backs out. Since you were admitted, you can rightfully and courteously ask the peeps in your department about the funding situation. Good luck there!

Congrats for getting the offer! Now before making a decision, you need to ask the department and/or your POI to elaborate on the financial situation. Ask them if the TA/RAship is renewable after a year. Ask them if there are other scholarship and fellowship opportunities that you can apply to in the following years. Ask them if there are no more funding sources, if you are allowed to work outside the school. One of my friends moved to CA, and the living cost was/is so high that his wife has a pretty busy work schedule to support them. If you are single, or even if you have a SO, you don't want to put you or your SO in a position where you/they have to work your/their butt off to support you in grad school. Taking out loans might be an option as well, but you need to ask yourself if that's really what you want to do. I hope that you will get better offers, for the whole duration and that you will be able to live comfortably with the stipend given.

sure!! i will be living in st paul area (of course!), so i am totally down with meeting and making new friends at a new place. don't worry too much about housing just about yet, as more openings will show up starting april. right now, i am looking at houses not with the intent of getting one right away, but for the sake of getting myself familiar with the roads, parks and lakes. it's a fun game, and little hard trying to remember the name of the roads, especially coming from city such as mine where we have 500 E and 500 W kind of coordinates.

light load

head bang

totally! only problem is that you and i are attending separate campuses. still, we can be sober epitomes in each campus! "D yea.. aren't those minnesotan awesomely nice people? i am already in love with my future cohort!

checkers board

cereal killer

team player

water lılıes

Hi there! I don't know enough of your field to say what's good for your and what's bad, but my one question to you is: have you YOURSELF done any/some research about the job market and potential career landings if you were to graduate from school A vs B? All professors can (and will) tell you is that their program is better than others out in the market. But it is up to you to pick one, and pick carefully, as it is going to represent you for the rest of your career. My advice is that you talk to current grad students ın both schools and see how it has panned out for them and their predecessors. Regarding the mood and coolness of the professors, it's hard to tell right away who is the better guy to work with. But you don't want to be stuck with a snobby, perfectionist. Or with someone who communicates poorly with his students, and such. We can't say choose A or go with B, because it's up to you to make the final decision. Whatever you choose, just be careful. Good luck!

April 15 is the hard deadline, but if you decide early, then that might help others on the waitlist and such.

super syrup

decapitated bacteria

wedding reception

faithful parrot

some banks might have mutual policies that allow fee-less ATM withdrawals if the transaction is made in ATMs of those participating banks, but for most part, this isn't true... i don't know of any banks so far that follow this, to be honest.

music piracy

with atm card from bank X, you can use in ATMs of banks a-z (all banks and credit unions - credit unions are down-sized version of big banks, and are locally operated, in most cases) but there is a charge. last time i checked, it was 3$ per transaction. so for example, if you have atm card (often called debit/bank card in the US) from bank A, you can use it to withdraw cash from ATMs of any other bank, but your account will be charged 3$ - no matter how much you withdrew. therefore, i see it is as a wise option to open account in a big bank. if you do online banking, you won't be dealing with bank people very much, so the PR problems as mentioned above shouldn't really bother you that much. and of course, you can use american banks' atm cards all over the world.. last summer i visited few countries in the europe, and i went home as well (nepal) and was able to use the cards with nominal fee. i was not very happy to spend those extra $ but it was convenient.

on the same boat. i have decided where i want to go (thank god for the acceptance from my top pick), and now i don't really care. well, i care about the rejections.. i don't want the rejection letters/emails. withdrawing is the way to go.. but then again, i think of all the benjies i spent during this process, and for benjie's sakes, i do want to wait it out and see how this ends.

if this helps, bionerd, i don't drink either, and i didn't drink in my recruitment visit either. and i have been accepted by the program. the grad students who took us out for dinner didn't seem to care if anyone opted out from drinking. so, worry not, you will do great. good luck!