maelia8

I'm starting my second year of graduate school, fully funded and not incurring any new grad debt. However, there is the matter of my undergraduate student loans, which have been deferred almost constantly since I completed undergrad three years ago due to various fellowships and academic research and teaching appointments. My loans are all federal government student loans and all are subsidized (except one), so the interest rates are quite low, and the grand total is not too big (less than $20,000). I'll be in grad school for at least another five years, and I want to at least start working on paying off my undergraduate loans during this time. Does anyone have experience with this? What sort of timeline did you set for yourself, and how much did you manage to pay off while still a grad student? Any strategies for keeping to a payment schedule?

Related question: Is it time to get rid of all of my tattered graphic tees (or at least stop wearing them in public)? None of them have cool designs or are from well-known events, and most are pretty faded/tattered. They are from things like my high school dance group, free pride Ts from my high school and undergrad institutions, and shirts from being a camp and retreat counselor. They have emotional value, but I'm starting to worry that I'm too old (and in the wrong profession) to be wearing those anymore and it makes me torn (pun not intended). Is it time to pack them all up and donate/throw them away, or can I still get away with wearing them? I've looked at the other grad students in my department for reference, and while a couple of them might have one or two such shirts (in great condition and with cool graphics), such things are rarely worn in my department.

I am on a fellowship, but I am allowed to work a 25% time job on the side as long as it doesn't interfere with my studies. I have a job working for a humanities institute on campus, both in summer and during the school year, though I work more hours in summer when classes are not in session. I work about 10-12 hours per week during the school year helping the institute run its digital communications, write blog posts, and help plan events. My hours are really flexible, and some of the work can even be done from home. The great thing is that the office is right on campus, so I can easily move between the institute and my department's building in less than 10 minutes.

@TMP yeah, a few times someone got the library copy before me and then I had to borrow it for a few hours to make a scan, which I then shared with the rest of the class. A few times, a professor has offered up an extra personal copy to be placed in the departmental grad library/study space for us as well, which I thought was really nice. I haven't yet failed to get ahold of a free copy of a book and had to buy it at the last minute, but achieving this feat has really required a lot of careful prep and planning. I think it's worth it considering the money saved, though.

I work for a humanities institute at my university as a part-time job (paid) and I also represent my department at the university-wide graduate assembly. As the GA rep, I work closely with the departmental graduate association leader and the union representative to make sure that our departmental concerns are coming up in GA discussions, but mostly I enjoy going to the meetings because it gives me a chance to see what people in other departments are doing, hear about lots of fun sponsored events for graduate students at my university, and understand how departments function, especially in terms of funding dispersal. I've always been interested in university administration and institutional dynamics, so I guess I'm the "kind of person who gets involved," but I think that anyone can dip their toe into university service work and get something out of it.

I haven't written a dissertation yet, but when I'm trying to create new material, I hold myself to a standard of 1000 words per day, and when I'm editing/revising/expanding, I make myself go through three pages per sitting, no more. If I let it drop to anything less, I just stop getting stuff done and lose momentum. For me at least, it's the momentum habit that keeps me going.

I recommend you post this in the city-specific forum (or create a new thread if there isn't one for your city) in the city guide section of the forums. You are more likely to get a response there.

@Telkanuru you're probably right. I know folks down at Stanford who get a cool $10,000 per year more than we do, plus they have guaranteed cheap sponsored grad housing. I knew what I was getting into when I got here, and I wouldn't trade my experience (which has been great so far), but it does require very, very careful management of finances to survive. I've been able to put 10% of my earnings in my IRA and save up for a laptop this year, but only by working part-time and budgeting obsessively to make a 9-month stipend last 12 months. Several other folks in my cohort were not as careful and were literally down to the last few dollars when they finally got summer funding deposits a month ago. This is one of the few situations in which I thank my tightwad dad for his frugality training.

@Telkanuru I'm surprised to hear that - at my institution we are only guaranteed $5000 of summer funding total for the entire Ph.D., and the 9-month stipend, while enough to stretch 12 months if you are very frugal and stay in town, is nowhere near enough to allow for research that involves travel and archival use. RA and TAships are almost never given to first or second year students over the summer, and the few positions available are not even enough for the upper level grad students who have first priority for them. Your best bet around here it to apply in late fall/winter for external summer funding through FLAS, DAAD, or something similar and hope that you get it, because otherwise you probably aren't leaving town and will spend your summer holed up studying for quals while working part-time to get some money saved.

I agree with LaSombra. I am a woman and I would not recommend dating another grad student in your department if at all possible. You are going to be together with folks in your department, especially in your cohort, for up to seven years or so if you're working on a Ph.D. I've seen firsthand how a bad breakup within a friend group can cause factionalism, isolation, and pain for half a dozen people, and I'd hate to see that happen in my cohort knowing that we'd have to deal with the consequences for half a decade afterwards. Most grad departments are small enough that it's literally impossible to avoid someone, so if a couple has irreconcilable differences, they will have difficulty with their daily social lives as they are constantly thrust together and might have a harder time moving on. I'm sure that it works out sometimes, and there are two or three couples in my grad department (150 people) that are still together, but it's a risky move that can cause lots of complications, so if you go for it, be aware of what you're getting into. In terms of dating in general, I've had no difficulty since being in grad school. In my first year, I dated one young professional and two other grad students, and the second grad student and I are now in a long-term relationship. I took advantage of graduate student events across disciplines that were put on at the beginning of the year by the graduate association, like meet and greets, bar nights, board game nights, and dances/parties, and I had an easy time meeting with other grad students outside of my discipline. Getting involved at cross-disciplinary working groups or institutes on campus is another great way to meet other grad students outside of your discipline. I had considered signing up for online meetup groups just to get to know people, but I was so lucky in meeting other people on campus that it turned out not to be necessary.

Just to put this out there, there are university jobs and funding that you can get that are not attached to either overseas/language study (like FLAS or DAAD) or a TA or RAship. At my institution, TA and RAships over the summer are almost never offered to first or second-year grad students - there is a limited number of positions and priority is given to more advanced students. I don't know a single person in my 1st year cohort who was able to land one this summer. Several people applied early (in late fall/winter) for funding outside of the department, like FLAS or a research grant from a study center or external organization, but I went down a different path and landed a half-time job at a humanities institute on campus where I get to participate in career trainings and run their digital communications. I get paid by the hour rather than receiving a stipend, but I'm making plenty of money, and the connections I'm currently making have made me eligible for a great yearlong fellowship starting this coming fall. Don't be afraid to explore other campus options for employment/funding outside of your department.

I have an "old" paperwhite (1.5 years old), and I use it to read PDF articles, highlight them, and bookmark key pages. The only problem is that the kindle display does not adjust to the size of the PDF that you uploaded manually the same way that it does to a kindle-optimized document, so you usually end up having to do a lot of zooming to get the text to a readable size or deal with column justification problems. Note-taking on the kindle is too painstaking, so articles that I read on the kindle generally do not receive marginalia. I also do academic ebook reading on my kindle but take notes in Evernote on my computer, using the kindle just as I would a paper copy. I think that the kindle is still not optimal for marginal note-taking and text searching PDFs, but it's a lot better than carrying around dozens of crumpled papers (which, for me, is the inevitable alternative).

There are several major events that happen every year in San Francisco, including Bay to Breakers, the Gay Pride Parade, and Outside Lands, but I've never managed to muster up the money/time/desire to attend them - so many people attend that it can get pretty wild, and that's not really my thing. I used to go to a lot of anime conventions all over the west coast before I became a grad student, but I just don't have time/energy to sew cosplays anymore these days, and some of the cons happen on weekends when it's pretty hard to get away, sigh. Maybe someday I'll get it together again and at least go to Fanime in San Jose, but for now, I'm taking a break.

Thanks for the advice, folks! I don't generally have problems finding the sizes I need, my only problem is that I'm quite tall and long-limbed and have to find brands with generous sleeve and pant-leg lengths. I'm not a big fan of shopping, but I guess I will have to suck it up and go on a bi-annual trip. At least now I have some ideas about where to start looking

I afford seminar books on a grad budget by not buying any at all I make careful use of the public library, the university library, interlibrary loan, library consortium book loans, google book samples, ebooks in the library subscription, scans of physical copies on permanent reserve, and, when I must, pirated pdfs in order to get ahold of what I need. I look over syllabi very carefully and reserve the books early, with backup copies bookmarked if mine gets recalled. There have been a few books that I decided to put on my buy list after reading them because I thought they would be good for future reference, but it's hard to know that before you've read the book, so I don't buy any class reading in advance. Because my grad seminars are on specialized topics and generally contain 8 students or less, there is rarely competition at the library for the book that I need, and if there is, I can usually get ahold of a copy through one of the aforementioned backup methods. Call me cheap, but I'm the only person in my cohort who managed to save money for a new laptop and put 10% in my IRA this year while paying Bay Area rent prices. I'd love to have a personal library, but my high rent and tiny space (there is a limit to how many books you can store in an 8'x10' room) make that impossible.

My two new first-year grad student roommates are arriving in just three weeks! I am going to make the apartment so clean and nice and pretty for them when they get here, I hope they like it I would have loved to have someone waiting for me with a nice lovely place all ready for me to move in to, so I hope I can pay it forward and make their move enjoyable.

Update: a couple of weeks after all of the big anniversary/birthday stuff, when we were on vacation and really relaxed/enjoying leisure time after the semester ended, I screwed up my courage and told him how I felt. It was really, really scary, but it was really a relief to do it! He wasn't surprised or upset at all, and was really happy that I'd told him what he'd been able to see for a long time. He told me that he cares about me very much, but he's not sure where things are going with him yet after he graduates, and he needs some time to think about his future and what he wants. I'm giving him time to think (there's no hurry, I can wait another few months), and am enjoying our time together more than ever. Sometimes I still get sad or worried when I think about him potentially moving away, but I try to remind myself to enjoy the moment and make the most of what I have with him right now. At some point I will bring up future plans again, in more concrete terms, but for now, I'm giving him time and respecting his need to find his own way. I really hope that the future involves us continuing as partners, but regardless of what happens, I've been honest about my feelings and have no regrets.

My program requires me to have an "outside field" in another department, but we only have to take one course in it - although a professor from that department has to be on our orals committee too, so you have to be careful about when and with whom you choose to take the class ... I signed up for one last semester, but ultimately had to drop it because of workload issues, sigh. I want to get back into German literature, it was such a sturm-y place!

I applied to six schools ranging from $50-$120 in application fees and didn't figure out how to apply for waivers until it was too late, so I paid in full, about $500 total I paid $200 for the GRE, taking it once with no travel costs, and about $25 for the prep book, $225 total I got four GRE scores sent for free and paid for two at $27 per score, $54 total My school charges less on transcripts if you order a bunch at once ($5 for 1, $10 for two, +$2 for each additional), so I only paid $18 for transcripts total My visit day costs were about $15 to pay for local subway transport - my flight cost was covered by the school I visited (just one), and I stayed with relatives for free, $15 total Grand total: $837, which was just what I could afford and no more.

I know that we've talked about dressing it up a bit when you start to teach at earlier points in this thread (such as upping it to business casual), but I am searching for some concrete advice on how to go about acquiring this sort of wardrobe. I have rarely worked office jobs, and my only experience of dressing up professionally comes from high school debate team attire, where kids basically dress to the nines in suits and pearls and overdo it to impress. I find myself at 26 with only two blouses, one skirt, and one pair of shoes that might be described as "business wear," and I am at a loss as to how to expand this wardrobe before I begin teaching in the fall. I don't want to invest in a lot of expensive clothes, but clearly my wardrobe of frayed t-shirts that I got for free at events isn't going to cut it anymore. Where can one go to buy decent, durable women's business casual attire that's not too expensive and not too matronly, and how much of it should I buy for teaching/part-time office work? I don't want to dress like a lawyer, but neither do I want to feel that I've put less effort into dressing than my students. All of the academic men I know wear collared shirts and nice jeans, corduroys, or pants, but the women wear such an array of clothing and jewelry styles that I don't know what to go on.

I emailed my professor this morning asking about a paper that I'd turned in a week ago and for which everyone else in the class had already received commentary and grades five days ago. He emailed me saying "I'm an idiot. I wrote your evaluation first and simply forgot to send it to you!" Facepalm. And here I was worrying that it was so bad he was putting off sending it to me so that we could have a talk about it ... so relieved!

My way of not paying for haircuts is that I just don't cut my hair. I get it cut once a year, by my sister, for free, and I just get the split ends trimmed. I find short hair to be a lot of maintenance (it needs daily styling and frequent cutting), but with midlength hair I just braid it, put it in a bun or ponytail, and then it doesn't need any extra work to look good. As long as you brush it and keep it clean by regular washing and deep conditioning, it will stay healthy and be pretty cheap to maintain.

I am so over editing my research paper for this semester. I am on the third draft, it's due in two days, and I just keep tinkering and tinkering away at the wording of the intro and conclusion to make it stronger but I don't think it's helping much at this point. Time to let it go and realize that this paper has had its life and taught me a lot, but it's never going to be a masterpiece.

The only shows that are currently airing that I'm watching are Once Upon a Time, Game of Thrones, and Outlander. I'm a devoted fantasy and historical fiction lover

I research German history from the mid-19th century to the end of WWI, focusing especially on overseas colonialism, imperialism, and exploration. Currently, I'm focusing on the ways in which German women experienced and influenced the colonialist project, most recently in the form of travel and settler diaries written in Africa, and my upcoming project will involve studying the intersection between German childbirth and reproductive policies and imperial and colonial goals both within and beyond the Reich.