overworkedta

Well, I booked a room in Centretown with an en suite and a really well-recommended couple who was very helpful. It's 5 blocks for my fave Ottawa restaurant and nut-free bake shop and 5 blocks from the National Archives. Thanks for all of your help, guys I will keep my blog updated on how it's going - good or bad!

A lot of the extended stays say "unavailable" or they have a bad case of bed bugs. They weren't when I first put this app together in February (well there were always some with bed bugs, let's be real but they weren't booked up). FML. I chedked with the uni about accoomodation there and they can get me in if all else fails but I don't want to live with an undergrad or in a dorm preferably. However, worse things have happened to me and it wouldn't be the end of the world for a month where I will be extremely busy. I'm okay with slightly weird and slightly avoidable hosts. I can't handle dorm life again. I spent 4 years living ON CAMPUS (even abroad) and it makes me shiver. There are apartments, though, they are just out of my pricerange sans-roommate.

No kidding! It's not like anyone forces you to date anyone. And, I'm assuming none of these were really, really serious relationships with shared property that would make you think twice. So, that can't even be a reason to stick with someone you don't like! And if you want to date non-academics, online date! That's how I met the BF. Be realistic on your profile and about the process in general and you will probably be okay. But again, I don't understand why people force the issue.

I don't know. The fact that my current school is in a TOTALLY different conference from Indiana was a selling point. I won't lie. That's not even in the top ten reasons I came here, of course, but it was a factor haha. I didn't apply to Purdue for undergrad for a number of reasons (much more rural, didn't have as strong a political science program, etc) but "basketball" and "family legacy" were all reasons I avoided it. I also had a preconfigured notion of campus when I toured and hated it (much to my father's happiness). Good school but I wasn't interested. I didn't apply for grad school either.

Thanks. I've already checked kijiji and CL for options but it seems like they either lack features I need (furniture, internet, parking) or they are huge and built for a family or they require a 4-month lease, which I wish I could do but can't afford to do haha. I also could stay at a hostel or an "executive" type hotel because a cheap studio is in the budget but I'd love to save money for doing more interviews in other places if I can.

Congrats!

After travelling around Europe and living in hostels with randoms (and finding out that's a huge, fun part of meeting people), I think it could be for me. Plus, it's only a month. And I will spend a lot of time training on my bike and, most importantly, in my office, the library, or the archives. I am gonna try to run around as a "single" person while not trying to get upset over not having my SO nearby and enjoy my last moments of singledom. We're probably getting engaged soon, so I think it will be good and frustrating both but we will be fine. He's just encouraging me to go so much. I will need to entertain myself with all things bike and work (which is why I'm there).

I might try airbnb. Or VRBO. My friend and I may like to get a condo. It's what my parents usually do (rent a condo) and cook meals, so I grew up like that. It saves money. But thanks for the reminder!

It's a useful exercise. I had a faculty member say just today "someone will give you funding" and "each application makes you better at applications". He's right. Each interview, application, etc. makes you better at it. And it's a very useful skill for those of us continuing on in academia. And, boom, I found out I got funded today! This is why I didn't get down when I missed out. I was happy to see others succeed on here. I hope only the best for you. But I want the lurkers who didn't get it or won't to take stock in everything.

True. And for those of you that do, it's gonna be AMAZING I'm sure. I hope all of you who've gotten this far get it The application process, though, is INCREDIBLY useful for getting other grants, though. I've helped others with their apps already and I got this one because of strong application alone. My program wasn't obviously in line with the mission of the org I got funded by but it was close enough I could make a good case thanks to my Fulbrightin skills.

Good luck to all still in the running! Sorry for those who it didn't work for. Just popping in to say to all of those (like myself) who didn't get it that it can still work out! I just got funded for summer research in my chosen country (Canada) through my home institution and the host institution in combo! It can be done

Love it? Hate it? I'm trying to find a LT rental place for myself for a month while doing research in Canada and airbnb seems like a good place to look. Anyone used it? Good results? Bad results?

That's a good strategy!

I haven't had the same experience. I dated a couple of people who were great just not for me that were also academics and I had a pretty serious relationship with someone who was in my discipline (also an academic) who would fit under the "student for life/no real life desire to work" tab. He's still racking up student debt in school and this will be his 4th time going into a program, I think. He has no clue what he wants to do with his life and is significantly older than I am. We broke up when he left our program and it was most definitely for the best. He was severely depressed, angry, and irrational. I really do hope he finds something that he wants to do because i know he is capable of being great at teaching and research. I just don't know what that will be for him and neither did he (the main reason we would fight). I refused to solve all of his problems and he got angry about it regularly. I also had a very abusive ex who was a PhD student in engineering and CS. He was not a nice person but he also had a business on the side and understood the real world TBF. I think it matters more about the person in the short-term. In the long term, it matters more about the question of staying or leaving academia. Most couples face that crunch when on the hiring market. You can meet a flakey person anywhere, though. And anyone can be awful, abusive, terrifying, etc. I don't think that this is restricted to academia. I've had trouble dating non-academics in that they don't seem to "get" that what I do is not "college" and that my job isn't as easily located as theirs is. I had a relationship of about 7 months die out because the then-SO refused to understand that I couldn't just "give up" my work here and become a housewife or, after I graduated, make my employment plans all about his location. FWIW, I am now in a very serious relationship with a non-academic who works as a tradesmen/laborer. He's got two BA's and doesn't do anything with either right now because skilled jobs pay more.

My personal opinion: it's not worth it if you can find a smaller place for cheap. Find a decently clean place, nothing special and take solace in the silence. I have a roommate now. It started off fine, but it's become more stress and hassle than I've wanted all because I got an SO and am rarely home (which the roommate detests). It's been a lot of nonsense. I have had to do things I wouldn't normally do because my roommate is also one of my best friends and I would like it to stay that way. This coming year, I am living with my SO and I think we will be closer friends for it. I lived on my own when I moved out here and it was GLORIOUS. That said, I know it can be out of some people's budgets. My recs: room with acquaintances but not friends. Friends are great when things are great. When there are issues, those issues are amplified to the nth degree!

That is a good point. I think that "normal" majors that you would see at a large R-1 make sense in that way but something really, really specific may not be the best option. Likewise, I could see how it could help you if you were applying to law or med school. It just depends.

Yeah, individualized major was not something the "slacker" kids did. This kid was weird but he was also pretty smart and not a slacker from what I could see having a gen ed with him. And as someone who worked for athletics while there, I can say that it wasn't an excuse for athletes. Maybe here it would be (where I am now). Whole 'nother world here. But yeah, it wasn't for "slackers". I just am not sure how I would feel sitting on an admissions panel listening to a kid coming in for "comparative health policy" (that could have been my major). Mainly because many of us change our ideas about research after getting into a program here in the states. So, I am not sure it's an incredible asset to be so narrowly-focused. It may in some ways be a detriment if you are applying to a very interdisciplinary focused program or a program that has two subfields or very few people who do what you do (maybe that one person is the best in the field but they aren't taking students or only want to take one such student).

If you've done quite a bit of this, you can build it into your SoP if you want to show you are a problem solver that wants to do something interdisciplinary, for example. While this doesn't tie directly into what you see yourself doing, it's a great way to "show off" to an interdisciplinary type of program. I dated two different guys that worked on the CS side of bioinformatics at one time or another (it worked out neither time, though haha) and each of them were in programs that really didn't integrate those two processes well. I think you could make a point of that if you, for example, were applying to such an interdisciplinary focus. It all depends on what you want to do with your SoP and how you frame it. For research experience, I would take the advice of other hard-science types but for me, it was my senior thesis, which was all original research. it didn't get published but it was a qualitative attempt to solve a problem that was researched by me and defended by me over the course of two years of work. That seemed perfectly fine to put in there. There weren't a lot of other research opportunities for people in my field apart from a thesis or capstone.

My experience is that while it's good to be well-rounded, it can be hard to sell these things. Indiana had an "individualized major" program while I was there (still does, as far as I know) but it was kind of a joke. The whole point was to challenge traditional ed, which I think could be good, but it really didn't "do" anything. This guy was in my year (graduated with me) and he was in my dorm freshman year. Apart from being incredibly weird, forcibly hitting on me and all my friends, and showing up at odd times to stalk my next door neighbor, I didn't know him much but BOY did he get a lot of press when we graduated. Despite that, he's apparently a bartender and does gigs at TGI Fridays. Far be it from anyone to tell him what success looks like because he's allowed to be happy regardless of what anyone thinks but it's not like a magic major provided him a whole lot else. Even the press on graduation didn't make him super famous. So, I think these sorts of programs should have limits and should also allow students resources on "marketing" when they graduate. This kid was an out of state student, paying about 30-grand per year base price (not sure if he had aid or anything, obviously) and now he has debt. What did he get for it? I am sure the programs you are talking about aren't this off-the-wall but there are reasons you take certain "core" classes and learn certain methodologies and ways of reasoning to prepare you for grad school and jobs.

Schafly and O'fallon are local brewers that make good pumpkin beer. I am pretty partial to the Schafly's. A friend of ours made his own brew (a clone of the schafly's basically) and had a party where he rimmed glasses with pumpkin spice components. I highly rec that option. The beer is a bit more complicated than a typical ale but not bad if your pH is right. The problem was it wasn't. For wine, things are even more complicated as memory serves but I haven't made wine in ages. I had a hefeweissen by widmer tonight. Bland. I was in the mood for the real thing and nope. Living in Europe makes you spoiled, I'd like to find a recipe for a wheat beer.

God, whatever our friend used as the recipe for the pumpkin ale we made last fall sounded good but wasn't. However, he also didn't listen to us when we pointed out he probably had very hard water which wouldn't help him brew well at all. Turns out, his well water really screwed with the beer and he now has a water softener that actually is helping the beer. It wasn't bad but it wasn't great. The fun part was making the pumpkin pie filling, baking it, and then throwing it into the brew. I will have to ask the BF since he is the keeper of the recipes. The cream ale we've used in the past is probably the most consistent but there is a chocolate cream stout also that is good along with an IPA.

I don't agree with the "everyone gets an A" philosophy and I think we have tons of grade inflation in the States for sure. The British system has its problems but at least getting a first there is a pretty high bar. It means something. The problem is, instead, with everyone getting an upper-second, I think. But at least the top is a high bar. However, I think an arbitrary "one A a semester" system is just as bad because, after all, it's arbitrary. The French department at my undergrad pretty much subscribed to that theory and it made people ragey. I don't think it made me a better student. I think it just made me break into tears a lot in my dorm room freshman year and curse the arbitrary standards set out for A's on homework (which were pretty subjective as opposed to exams). It was later told to me that year by an upper-division student in French that, yes, the reason for this was the limit of 1-2 students getting an A in the course. So, grades were artificially low on homework. I seriously just wanted to give up. Why bother if you always get a B no matter how hard you work on the homework? There's no incentive to try harder or to improve. And it seems rather prejudicial for one student alone to be "singled out" because you'd really have to chose that student which seems all kinds of wrong to me. So, long story short I don't think your having high standards is bad at all. I think arbitrary grades are just no better.

It is common and it generally means you aren't funded. Now, that doesn't mean you won't be funded but it means that you should not plan on it. Regardless, I would call and ask. The person to call is usually the DGS and they will either tell you "yay" or "nay" on funding and about any opportunities for funding. I know plenty of people who have been funded eventually but not everyone is.

The marriage plot - at least to some degree when it comes to being an RA or choosing to go to grad school, that book is depressing but somewhat honest. It's a good read anyhow.

Yeah, the books we read, for the most part, ARE the work because political science is about the books/articles we read or it's based around some lab manuals for methods courses. So, we will need them for a time after, I guess. IDK. I had one prof that put expensive stuff on reserve (one small reading book was like $170.00) and I would go to the library for that stuff. That was really nice. No one else will, which is a bummer.