Maziana

Groceries: There is a Harris Teeter in Carrboro. Also, Weaver Street Market. Those are a bit pricey.   If you live in the right place in Chapel Hill, you may manage to be near a Food Lion - I'd use Google Maps for that; there are a few around.   If you want to take the bus down Franklin St, you can reach a Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. It will take a little while though, depending on where you live. If you have a car, you can get to a Kroger somewhere. I also often take the bus to Target, Walmart, and the mall - be warned, buses generally don't run on Sundays, and have limited Saturday schedules. Buses around campus are free (the ones with letter names) and ones with number names (go to Durham, the airport, etc) cost, usually $2.    Grad students don't have to live in Carrboro; there are other places! (not that I'm a grad student yet) Be sure to thoroughly check out apartment complex ratings online before you commit - there are some places with bugs, or other issues.   I've lived in Laurel Ridge; I believe they have 3 bedroom apartments for $1100 - 1400. Very nice, no issues, quick to come out and maintain the area. The J bus can get crowded (Laurel Ridge is off a highway, and there are lots of other complexes around there) but it goes to and from campus fairly often compared to other routes. Also, there's a little back trail you can take to get to Harris Teeter and Carrboro if you want exercise/food. Quiet neighborhood.   I've also lived in University Gardens. The owner, Eric Plow, is laid back and reasonable, does his own maintenance. Some of these apartments are a bit less nice, but we got a nicely painted one for $800 (2 bedroom townhouse). Personally, I thought the garden style places were a bit weird (underground); but I like the townhouses. This complex is north of Franklin St. Buses run less frequently, but you could walk 20-25 minutes. Lots of families and students live here; it's fairly quiet. We had our own washer and dryer, though not sure if all of the apartments do.

My PI is seriously amazing! I brought a condensed version of our coorespondance with all of the worst moments and he was very troubled and took this very seriously. He said that on the scale of benign annoying crush to full blown assult that this is much closer to the assult side that he is playing on the borderline of expulsion. He said that putting that aside, he is unsure of whether he will be able continue working with the harrasser since he does not want anyone with that sort of character in his lab and making other students nervous. That really made me feel great. Especially since the harrasser if by far, the smartest, most knowledgeable guy in the lab and I know he is a huge asset to my PI. Also, he is a PhD student while I am an MS student so part of me worried that if my PI had to choose, the choice would be obvious. He said that legally he must involve his supervisor which he thinks needs to be done anyway to make sure this situation is handled properly. Since my PI will be out of town for the next couple weeks, he asked that I work from home during that time and that I forward him any correspondance that I get from the guy. He even told me that he didn't sleep at all last night out of worry about this situation and that he has been wondering why I seemed more reserved than usual over the past few weeks.
 
I feel so supported by people on here, my family, my department and especially my PI. I know that alot of women feel alone in these situations and I feel so lucky that I have had the exact opposite experience, with everyone in my life jumping my side to protect me.

Please stay in your own country. USA doesnt need more foreigners.

It's pickup artist gibberish. "Social value", the way they use it, is a bullshit concept. You're better off ignoring whatever you're reading and switching to something useful (i.e., not misogynistic).

"PhD Student". Like Eigen said, "Candidate" usually means you've passed comps and had your dissertation proposal approved.

So, should first or second years just not say anything? Or is there another term to use? Just curious; thanks!

Hi there fellow male!
 
My experience with roommates of a different gender are exactly the same as every experience I've had living with a roommate of the same gender, surprisingly. The only difference is that she sometimes locks the door to change in the room. But I'm pretty sure I have done that and many male roommates would do the same whenever we have locks. It turns out that women are people with individuality and agency and varying personalities. Shocker, I know.
 
You know how they say that girls tend to be cleaner than guys? HA. Yeah, that stereotype could not be further from the truth. From what I've seen it varies. Currently I live with... less than hygenic girls. Then awhile back I had a psuedo-roommate (a roommate's significant other who was also a good friend of mine who stayed over at our place more than she did at her own) who was fairly clean, fun to hang out with, and I had no issues with (she was my friend, after all). Then I've also had female roommates that were in the same apartment number, but different rooms. Also fine. When my roommates were more or less strangers, we generally kept to ourselves and within our social circles, no matter what gender. I found female roommates easier to talk to, but mostly because of my own personal tastes. There were varying levels of PDA/significant other-ship for either gender, but not much of a difference, really between genders. For both girls and guys, it varied between never really seeing the significant other and occasional to frequent sex, where I would sometimes be sexiled.
 
My parents warned me when I told them I would have female roommates that they might falsely accuse me of sexual assault, but I think that's kinda bullshit (and a harmful assumption, given how unlikely people who are actually sexually assaulted end up being believed). For me, roommates of either the male or female gender turn out to be decent people with their own lives who are only sometimes casually racist or sexist. But that's from my personal experience (did not include non-cisgendered experiences because I do not have any, but I expect it to be more or less the same).

As the clock winds down, I would like to state my appreciation for this forum and for what a wonderful resource it's been for me. 
 
This forum - and particularly this I/O sub-forum - was a life-saver for me through this process of preparing to apply, actually applying, and then the nail-biting weeks of waiting to hear back.  And I want to thank all of you for commisserating about the stress and the disappointments, sharing insights and information, and being cheerleaders at times. 
 
I hope to run into many of you at I/O conferences in the next few years (even if I don't know you were one of the many compatriots on this forum!) 
 
I'll still be checking in on here to see others' decisions, but I just felt like telling you all how much you've helped me through this process.   Cheers!

Personally, as a NC native, I'd say Food Lions are cheap but sometimes a bit eh. They tend to have most of what you want though, and lately most of them have had small (but not too tiny) healthy/vegetarian sections. I forgot about the Food Lion in Carrboro, but yeah, that's a good sized one. I mostly remember there's an ABC store nearby, if you want liquor!

Harris Teeter is super nice, with free samples and all, but you pay for it. I'm a fan of Krogers and Trader Joe's, myself... a nice balance of selection, healthy options, and price.

Groceries: There is a Harris Teeter in Carrboro. Also, Weaver Street Market. Those are a bit pricey.   If you live in the right place in Chapel Hill, you may manage to be near a Food Lion - I'd use Google Maps for that; there are a few around.   If you want to take the bus down Franklin St, you can reach a Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. It will take a little while though, depending on where you live. If you have a car, you can get to a Kroger somewhere. I also often take the bus to Target, Walmart, and the mall - be warned, buses generally don't run on Sundays, and have limited Saturday schedules. Buses around campus are free (the ones with letter names) and ones with number names (go to Durham, the airport, etc) cost, usually $2.    Grad students don't have to live in Carrboro; there are other places! (not that I'm a grad student yet) Be sure to thoroughly check out apartment complex ratings online before you commit - there are some places with bugs, or other issues.   I've lived in Laurel Ridge; I believe they have 3 bedroom apartments for $1100 - 1400. Very nice, no issues, quick to come out and maintain the area. The J bus can get crowded (Laurel Ridge is off a highway, and there are lots of other complexes around there) but it goes to and from campus fairly often compared to other routes. Also, there's a little back trail you can take to get to Harris Teeter and Carrboro if you want exercise/food. Quiet neighborhood.   I've also lived in University Gardens. The owner, Eric Plow, is laid back and reasonable, does his own maintenance. Some of these apartments are a bit less nice, but we got a nicely painted one for $800 (2 bedroom townhouse). Personally, I thought the garden style places were a bit weird (underground); but I like the townhouses. This complex is north of Franklin St. Buses run less frequently, but you could walk 20-25 minutes. Lots of families and students live here; it's fairly quiet. We had our own washer and dryer, though not sure if all of the apartments do.

I find it horribly tragic that educated individuals pursuing graduate study can study discrimination for a living in an effort to stop it, all the while preaching that it is okay to use derogatory language. If you ever want the world to change, you need to treat everyone with respect and stop justifying hate speech.  The ideological mindset you preach toward your “wonderbread cousins” is what perpetuates racism and pejorative behaviors. Your diction is divisive and serves to reinforce racial divides.  
 
In short: You are part of the problem, not part of the solution. 

Discrimination toward any group of individuals should be approached with disgust. The goal here shouldn’t be to weigh what is more offensive and what is less offensive--it should be to treat everyone with respect and recognize that all discrimination is harmful to society. 

^ RE the stuff on 'whitey' above - this is off the subject of men in women's groups and probably opening a whole can of worms, but I'd've thought that we'd all now pretty much acknowledged that there's racial slurs and racial slurs. The difference between a term like 'blacky', which targets a group who are still the subject of widespread institutionalised discrimination and have a long history of oppression based on the colour of their skin, and a term like 'whitey', which targets a group who, by and large (I know there are exceptions, I'm talking generally here) aren't and haven't, is enormous. Both terms are insults, and insults aren't cool - but the weight of those insults is entirely different. If, in say Europe or the US, you insult a white person based on their skin colour you're definitely being a dick, but you're not oppressing them and you're not contributing to massive institutionalised discrimination. If you use racial slurs against a POC then you pretty much are. The two things just aren't comparable. 

2520 is slang, not a slur. The fact that you are comparing a WOC calling someone "whitey" to white supremacy or nazis, what?

I am incredibly skeptical of cis men in my women's studies courses, but have been won over by some. Same as 2520s in Africa American studies, or any other person who is part of the supremacy entering into subjugated spaces. Talking about masculinism as if it were equatable to feminism is how you'll get some side-eye though. That shows you don't have a true understanding of the patriarchy or oppression, and also that you're stuck in a gender dichotomy. Understand your privileges (esp. when it comes to dominating classroom discussions) and make sure you know what your endgame really is in taking the course. Susan Bordo does some work on critical masculinities, and may be a great starting place for allies. 

I would say just by being on the forum today, I apparently hate these eminently popular things other forumites love:
 
-the misogynist word "mangina,"
-withholding empathy from anybody who's fat,
-willfully disregarding the difference between prejudice and racism.

So I wound up purchasing a Chromebook for use during my first semester of grad school, and this is the review I promised to write.  My main reason for starting this thread several months back was to figure out if the Chromebook could be used as my primary computer in grad school.  After using the Chromebook for a semester, I’ve decided that, in a nutshell, the Chromebook is a great laptop (especially considering its very cheap price) that MIGHT suffice as a primary computer in the most favorable of circumstances, but really it should only be thought of as a fantastic supplement to a more traditional laptop/desktop.  As I have access to Windows desktop computers at my school, the Chromebook has worked out relatively well for me.  However, for those of you who want to use the Chromebook as a primary computer without having access to an additional Windows/Mac computer, I highly suggest you rethink this idea and spend a bit more for a traditional laptop.  Windows apparently makes some very cheap and light laptops/tablets that should allow for more functionality than the Chromebook, and I’d suggest looking at these before considering an Apple (just my personal opinion; obviously Apple laptops have their uses, but if price is a big deal and you just need a good computer, I think a Windows laptop makes more sense).  Below is a bullet-point summary of the pros and cons of the Chromebook, followed by a more in-depth discussion of certain Chromebook features / issues.  Let me know if anything I’ve said in the review is inaccurate, as I am certainly no Chromebook expert.
 
Pros:
 
Computer runs smoothly and programs/windows rarely crash
 
Very good battery life
 
Lightweight and easy to carry around
 
No pop-ups, reminders, etc. (e.g., “Updates are ready to install”, “Your computer may not be protected”); Chromebook updates automatically in the background
 
Everything is in the cloud; you don’t have to worry about loss/theft of laptop
 
 
Cons:
 
PDF usage is complicated and inefficient on the Chromebook due to Google’s failure to address a few basic things
 
Lack of screen clarity and size
 
Limited printing options
 
Can’t edit sheets offline (at least you couldn’t the last time I tried)
 
Google’s office suite is nowhere near as polished as Microsoft Office
 
Limited third-party software (you’re pretty much limited to whatever is available in the app store; however, you know this going in with the Chromebook, so you should be prepared for this)
 
 
 
 
Ultimately, the biggest downfall of the Chromebook is how it handles PDF files.  In short, as a grad student you will spend the majority of your time reading PDF files, and Google appears to have gone out of its way to make viewing and editing PDFs on the Chromebook a gigantic pain in the ass.  First, if you want to perform any editing to PDFs, you will have to download a 3rd party program (I used PDFescape) to do it.  While this may not sound so bad at first, consider the fact that you will have to upload every PDF twice (once for your Google Drive and once for the 3rd party program), which takes up precious time, in addition to the fact that the 3rd party software will lower the resolution of your PDF, making it harder to see on the already low resolution screen.  I’m not one to bitch about screen quality, but there were several times this year when mathematical formulas inside a PDF on PDFescape were impossible to read, and I had to switch back and forth between the Google preview version and the PDFescape version.  The 3rd party software will also be relatively slow when compared to the Google preview PDF viewer.  Lastly, Google Drive will only allow PDFs under a certain size to be viewed (I think it is around 30 or 40 MB or less); any PDFs over this size will have to be viewed with third party software, and PDFescape has size limits as well, meaning that several PDFs I had to read this semester were not viewable AT ALL on the chromebook.  Luckily I had easy access to computers at school, so this was not a huge issue.
 
These issues with the Chromebook’s handling of PDFs cause me to recommend the purchase of a traditional laptop for your primary computing needs: With a Windows or Mac, just download Adobe Reader and move on with your life.  You won’t have to worry about constantly moving over files and how to deal with larger PDFs.  In other words, your life will be simpler and less frustrating, in addition to the fact that you will waste less time.  I hope that Google reads this review, because it seems like the PDF thing would be an obvious and relatively simple fix.  However, it appears that Google is pretty bad about fixing obvious issues with Chrome, such as not being able to edit spreadsheets offline and not being able to use the CTRL key to highlight non-sequential cells in spreadsheets (a small gripe, I know, but it’s been brought up repeatedly in Google forums without anyone addressing it, to my knowledge).   
 
My last complaint is that the Chromebook is too limited of a machine to be your primary computer, even if you use very few 3rd party programs.  The vast majority of my time is spent online, but there are still a few programs that I would love to be able to install and use (e.g., Adobe Reader, Fluenz, iTunes).  At the end of the day, you know what you’re getting with the Chromebook, so you shouldn’t be surprised that you can’t run these programs.  However, it still sucks, and I feel like it’s worth mentioning just in case any of you fail to recognize the significance of not being able to use any non-Chrome programs on the Chromebook.  
 
With all of that said, I don’t regret buying the Chromebook, mainly because I do most of my work on a school computer and I like the small size and quick speed of the Chromebook.  For surfing the web, checking e-mail, and other basic tasks the Chromebook is awesome, especially on days when the Windows computers at school seem to be running especially slow.  The Chromebook is so much more efficient at these basic tasks than any other Windows laptop I’ve seen, which is why it is disappointing that the Chromebook is so deficient in dealing with PDFs.    
 
I could probably write several more pages on the Chromebook, but I’m lazy and planning on working on some other stuff tonight.  I just wanted to make sure I posted a review of the Chromebook as I promised I would, and hopefully this helps someone who is interested in purchasing a Chromebook.  I also hope someone at Google comes across my PDF complaint and addresses it, because that would really make my day [as you can probably tell from how much time I spent harping on how bad the Chromebook is at handling PDFs  ]  If any of you have Chromebooks, I’m curious to know how you feel about them...do you have the same complaints as I do?  Love it?  Hate it?  Let me know!

THANK YOU!
I don't understand what everyone loves about it

Here is one that I think many people will disagree with:
 
Bacon.

This thread clearly will suffer from selection bias. All the people who were stabbed to death while traveling alone aren't here to post. Just something to consider. Have fun!

My department (a psychology department that offers specializations in social and cognitive psychology and neuroscience; most of our students would define themselves as cognitive psychologists in some way) keeps pretty detailed employment/position data on our graduates dating back to 1985.  Although most of our alumni do take academic positions at various institutions, there is a good and large proportion (I would say at least 30-40%) that take non-academic positions.
 
Perusing the list shows that most of those who didn't become professors did stay in research in some form.  Many of them went on to do research for universities (often in the Office of Institutional Research, sometimes in other institutes and centers), hospitals, medical schools/medical centers/schools of public health, non-governmental organizations, non-profits, for-profit corporations, government agencies (city, state, and federal), and think tanks/policy research institutes.  Some of the potential companies include places like D.E. Shaw & Co., the City of New York, Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the WHO, Pacific Business Group on Health, RAND, Mathematica, RTI International, etc.  I also know that the Army and Navy hires research psychologists; I met quite a lot of them at APA one year and they were very nice and most really liked their jobs.  Cognitive psychology is one of their more in-demand fields.  There are literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of organizations in these categories that hire PhD-level researchers to run all kinds of studies for them.  When I looked, I was really very surprised to see how many there were out there for psychologists.
 
The second largest group were consultants of all kinds.  Some of them went on to be research consultants (consultants who help individuals and organizations plan and execute research studies), either at established firms or by setting up their own freelance consulting companies.  Some went on to be educational consultants, if their research overlapped, which yours does.  Some with strong stats skills went to be statistical consultants.  And some went on to regular management consulting at firms like McKinsey and BCG.  I go to one of those universities where the top consulting firms come to recruit, and they are always looking for bright young recent PhDs to staff their firms (I was invited to interview with one of them myself), especially if you have quantitative and computational skills.  They even have special seminars especially for what they call "Advanced Degree Candidates," which are potential consultants with graduate degrees that aren't an MBA.
 
A third group that kind of overlaps with the first one is the group who took non-academic positions at universities.  One of our most recent graduates is a data librarian at a liberal arts college; another one works in the office of institutional research at a nearby college.  Sometimes recent PhDs can get jobs as advising deans/advisers, in student affairs, in academic affairs, or other affiliated educational offices at colleges and universities.
  Then there were the ones that didn't fit into any groups.  A small number went to do client services management/project management at corporations; another small number worked in science & technology firms as a behavioral researcher or in another role.  (At APA one year, I met an engineering psychologist who worked at a large game publishing company and helped them put together their games; he said that he worked on a team with social, cognitive, and experimental psychologists who did gameplay and marketing researcher as they developed their games.)  One became director of marketing research at a pharmaceutical company, although that was an older graduate and I doubt that was their first job.  Some got into investment management.  One listed themselves as a freelance editor, and there are at least two successful published authors in the group - one who was actually in my cohort and her book became a NYT bestseller.  Two became psychology teachers at private high schools.  
Basically, there are lots and lots of jobs that you can do with a PhD in cognitive psychology.  Some of them are essentially doing what academics do - just the research part, in a different setting.  Some of them will have you using your PhD and research skills, and require a PhD, but are still kind of different from straight research.  And others don't require a PhD at all, but you'll still use some of the skills you learned.  What I mean to say is if you really want to get a PhD and you don't mind the very real chance that you won't get a tenure-track job afterwards, you probably won't be unemployed either if you can get creative.
 
Pick up a copy of So What Are You Going to Do With That? Finding Careers Outside Academia. It's a great book and filled with tips for intrepid graduate students who either have an inkling that academia is not for them or just want to be prepared for the possibility that they don't find an academic job.  Also, here is some of my own advice (from a grad student who is not sure whether she wants an academic career, and knew that from Day One):
 
-Whatever you choose to do and wherever you choose to go, develop and cultivate strong quantitative skills.  If your university offers it, get a joint/concurrent MA in statistics (many many universities allow this, including Michigan, Penn State and Yale) or a graduate certificate in statistics.  Even if there's no formal recognition, take statistics classes, as many as you can.  It's also a good idea to learn some computer programming, if you can.  My ability to generate outside income has relied heavily upon my strong quantitative skills, and when I look at non-academic job ads the thing that most of them have in common is that they usually desire someone who knows how to use this or that statistical package or who can do at least intermediate level statistical analyses.  Even if you stay in academia, most job ads nowadays ask for someone with strong methodological and statistical skills and want someone that can teach stats and methods, so you're preparing yourself either way.
 
-Always do something outside of the department.  Even if you don't need the extra money.  How may be a little tricky, if you get an adviser whose head is still in the sand wrt the job market or who thinks you should be in the lab 100 hours a week, but as much as you can, finagle it.  Ever since I finished coursework I've been working a "side hustle" with the primary purpose of developing some skills outside of the general academic ones.  I've done freelance statistical consulting, I worked as an intern at a market research company, I was a hall director in the office of student affairs, and now I'm doing statistical project advising/tutoring work in the library.  Each job has given me a variety of skills that I can draw upon, and I think compared with students who have done nothing beside being a research assistant I have an attractive bevy of experiences.  Plus I've shown that I can work in teams and in more traditional office environments (e.g. the 9-to-5 life, meetings, teleworking, etc.)
 
-Go to career center events.  I go to a lot of them.  My university's career center is rather excellent and has a whole series of events directly targeted at doctoral students who want non-academic jobs (as well as events for doctoral students who want academic jobs, both R1s and at LACs and other types of institutions.  In fact, I'm going to one tomorrow.)  They bring people to campus to talk about alternative careers; they have "turn your CV into a resume" workshops; they bring corporations who want to hire PhDs to campus to pitch their companies, etc.  But even if whatever university you end up at doesn't have a strong career center for grad students, go to the undergrad events without shame.
 
-Personally I always keep both an updated CV and resume on deck.  You never know when you're going to need either.
 
Final note: age-wise, as far as my department is concerned, you would be middle-of-the-pack.  At 22, I was one of the youngest in my cohort when I began.  Most of our beginning students are in their mid 20s to early 30s, and many either were married or got married and had some children during the program.  Actually, I was astonished and very pleasantly surprised by how absolutely normal everyone in my cohort is - we're just normal people living normal regular lives who happen to be huge dorks about psychology.  And everyone is considering non-academic careers, even though we don't say it in front of our advisers.  So you may not stand out as much as you think you will.

I wanted to post the following to the results page but discovered that lengthy notes are moderated. Nuts!
 
Highest weighted and unweighted GPA in the history of mankind. Perfect GRE scores, including for subject GREs both inside and outside of my field (just for fun). Exceptional LORs from the most acclaimed professors in the entire universe (3 from Earth and 1 not of this planet). A bajillion published first-author papers, short stories, full-length novels, and a zillion forthcoming. Volunteer experience out the wazoo. Hardly surprised. I knew 100% I wasn’t going to be accepted but applied anyway just to have options. Had I been accepted, I wouldn’t have chosen to go here fo’ sho’ as it would have been a TERRIBLE fit. In any case, I got way better offers (six-figure guaranteed scholarships + health insurance + deluxe flex meal plan + reserved parking spot) from every top-ranked school in the galaxy, including ones I didn’t even apply to, along with very personalized congratulatory hand-written letters from all the faculty and their immediate and extended family members, plus gold-leaf-framed oil paintings of their pets to boot.

Repping the Canadian front!
 
A U of T Creative Writing rejection (via postal service) from 2009: "To ensure their rejection would land enough punch, they addressed me as Ms. instead of Mr."
 
A rejection for U of T Philosophy from 2007: "I don't want to become a Canuck anyway".
Ouch dude.
This other person (who, granted, got accepted) has the right idea (U of T Econ 2009): "Canuckonomist!"
Yah!
 
There's a playful little back-and-forth on the UBC page for Architecture from 2010.
One person with a rejection wrote something to the effect of: "Well, I guess I'll go with plan B and sell ice cream"
and then another rejected person wrote: "I will be joining my friend in their ice-cream selling endeavour". (Side note: that's not a bad plan B! Canada is cold, but we still like our ice cream!).
 
BUT THEN there's a late acceptance (April 2010) for Architecture at U of T where someone wrote only: "Does anyone want my ice cream truck?! I won't be needing it anymore!"
 
That's awesome! Nice to know that the story for at least one of those applicants had a happy ending!

Uh, there are way more important things than free drinks... Just saying. Although I really should stop following this thread.

It really depends on what you want for furniture once you move. There will be Labor Day sales for sure that you could hit after moving. As for a bed, most places offer free delivery on mattresses so you wouldn't need to rent a truck. Or, you could rent a truck and then pick up stuff you've found on Craig's List, for example. I moved cross-country once just in my car and once by shipping my stuff but, the second time I had more expensive stuff that would've cost more to replace than to move. The first time, my stuff was mostly free or cheap so I either sold it on Craig's List or gave it away to friends and family in the area. There are lots of sites where you can estimate how much it would cost to move your stuff whether by renting a truck or by using a service like ABF U-Pack, PODS, etc. Maybe that will help you figure out which way makes more sense?