riceandbeans

Yeah, I would definitely avoid jeans at the AAPAs. I generally do dress pants or skirt with a nice sweater, and a business casual dress of some sort for presentations (blazers don't really work well for me).

Ford Foundation has a dissertation write-up fellowship. Also (dependent on your gender), the Association for Women in Science have some awards for which late-stage grad students are eligible.

I'm pretty sure that since the DDIG covers research expenses and is not considered a fellowship (and is also in your advisor's name, not yours), you can apply for it while having a GRFP.

Another thing you'll need to consider is whether or not you can find a house/condo in a safe neighborhood for only $60K in an area where rents are $1000/month. Rents for one bedrooms in my area are $400-600/month, and even small condos go for >$80K. Unless you're willing to buy a fixer-upper (which, who has time for in grad school?), you would likely be looking at prices upwards of $100K, if not much higher (I recall in the DC suburbs, townhomes started at $300K). So, it really depends on the housing prices of the area to which you are moving.

I have not lived in graduate housing, but my understanding from those I know who have is that it's overpriced and not terribly well maintained. You can find much nicer places for the same (or lower) rent. The benefit of university housing is that it's much easier to get out of a lease than almost anywhere else in town, but you still have to be basically leaving the university for some reason to break the lease. Also, it's pretty much always available. I know several people who have lived in university housing for their first year and survived, but they have no plans to continue living there. If you're worried about renting a place sight-unseen, I would recommend you contact the tenant union. They will point you towards the reputable and grad student friendly property managers.

Because laughing is good for end-of-the-semester stress: http://ceejandem.blo...-barbie-tm.html

This is probably school dependent and/or up to the interpretation of your coordination official. Either way, your coordination official would be the person to ask.

It's listed right under archeology in the program solicitation. And in the list of proposed panels on the nsfgrfp.org website, the Anthropology and Archaeology panel includes bio anth, med anth and archae. Last year bio anth was listed as phys anth. I can't see what the actual application looks like, but if for some reason there is no way to choose bio anth, anthro-other would probably get you to the right panel. If bio anth for some reason really isn't available (which would be really strange, as all of the major anth subfields have historically been available), then ecology is likely your best bet. I didn't mean to suggest that you rewrite your proposals entirely, just that in the significance section of the proposed research maybe allude to how this relates to human evolution (like one sentence) if you are going for an anthropology panel. Archaeologists will care more about that than how your work relates to conservation.

If you're doing primatology, you might want to consider using biological anthropology as your field of study, because that is generally the panel that has the primate people on it. You'll have to spin the significance of your study a little bit differently (ie, why is it important to the study of human evolution), but you'll at least get people familiar with the primate literature reading your proposal.

UT San Antonio has a masters program in anthro and two faculty members who are primatologists. You also might want to look at George Mason's anthro program (they also offer a MA). For contacting POIs, sending a short e-mail saying you are interested in applying to the MA program at their school, talking about your research interests a little, asking a few questions (like, are you taking MA students next year), and attaching your CV would be a fine starting place.

There is very little student parking on the interior of campus, and you would pay a lot for it ($480 for 9 months), or feed a meter all day. Parking in the shuttle lot is only $127 a year, but is far from the center of campus (you would need to take a bus from E14 to Davenport). Most buses run every half hour, and usually well into the evening, but I don't know which lines go out to T&C, so I'd check out CUMTD to make sure it's feasible.

You can also see if there is a good used bike shop were you're headed. College towns will likely have one, who serve the purpose of selling reliable used bikes to students, buying them back when said student graduates, and fixing them up to sell again. And it's definitely possible to find a bike as a short person. I'm 5'5" and when I was looking for a used commuting bike in the fall I found several that were much too small for me. 26" tires are smaller than 700c, but they are also wider, cushier and mostly found on mountain bikes and cruisers. If you're looking for a road bike, look for 650c tires. Edited for bad early morning grammar.

The tenant union should be able to help you out with that. They seem to have a pretty good handle on which complexes are undergrad heavy and which aren't. You can send them an e-mail listing what you are looking for in an apartment, and they will e-mail you back with a list of rental companies and complexes that fit your requirements and are owned by reliable landlords (ie, no or very few complaints). They really are a fantastic resource, since they keep complaint records for every landlord in town and also will help you out if you end up having a problem with your landlord.

The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is to help ensure the vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce in the United States. (from the program announcement) 1. The GRFP is a prestigious fellowship. The benefit of winning it is not just getting a big stipend. 2. Having a fellowship allows you to focus just on producing outstanding research without having to worry about TA/RA duties. 3. Having students on fellowship allows a PI to stretch their grant dollars (or a department to stretch its university dollars) and take more students, eventually increasing the science workforce in the states. 4. 30k is well above any stipend you would see in some fields, outside of schools in NY/LA. Also, for many schools (ones not on the coasts), 30k is above the max stipend levels for any field. 5. Most people don't become scientists for the money... or go to grad school for the money...

The state thing isn't really about size of the state so much, but more about the fact that since Congress gives NSF their budget, at least one person from every state needs to get an award so that no congresspeople complain that their state was left out (at least that's how it was explained at the "learn to submit an awesome NSF GRFP app" panel at my uni). For example, if no one from Wyoming is in the original award-winners list, the top-ranked person from Wyoming out of the honorable mention pile gets promoted. But again, this is based on second hand info. I'm guessing being a minority or having disabilities gets you broader impact points if you play your cards right in your essays. Not sure how much it actually helps when it comes to the final applicant selection.

Best = Good bread (not weirdly fresh for a week grocery store bread), sharp cheddar, tomato, grilled onions, salt, pepper, garlic powder and oregano. Pan-fried like grilled cheese. Second best = egg in a nest (maybe not technically a sandwich since the filling is in the bread, not between two slices of bread).

This is from the fastlane faqs: 9. Can I work while holding the NSF GRFP fellowship? If the employment is short-term and is directly related to your graduate research program, NSF may grant permission on a case by case basis. Contact your institutional Coordinating Official (CO) for details. 10. Am I allowed to hold another Fellowship together with the NSF GRFP fellowship? You cannot hold another major Fellowship while holding the NSF GRF. Contact the GRFP program office with details of your Fellowship to find out whether it would be considered major. It seems it would still be possible to go on reserve status in order to TA or RA for a year, but not to accept another fellowship (ie, no more piggy-backing NDSEG and NSF in order to get 5 years of support).

I think a MA in general four-field anthropology (like the one offered at GWU) wouldn't hurt you. For something like brain evolution, a psych MA or bio MA also likely wouldn't hurt (and many brain evolution people are in psych departments anyway). You also might want to consider masters programs in the UK (Oxford's MSc in cognitive and evolutionary anthro or Durham's MSc in evolutionary anthro?), since a few well-respected researchers who study brain evolution from an anthro perspective are over there. But the general idea behind getting an MA is to prove that you are capable of graduate level work and/or to make up for any holes in your background (ie, you don't have an related degree, you don't have stellar grades or GRE scores, or you don't have much research experience). The work as a lab grunt backup plan is also valid for bioanth people. Reapplying next year and getting some work experience in the mean time won't hurt your application, especially if it's work that teaches you some research or teaching or life skills. Basically, as near as I can tell, if it will make you a better graduate student (and you can articulate that in your personal statement), it won't hurt your application, even if it isn't exactly the very specific thing you want to study.

Columbia has a MA in Conservation Biology that is housed in the Ecology and Evolutionary biology department. There are quite a few masters only programs in bioanth, but you might have to search a little bit for them (Penn, Northern Illinois, Cal State Fullerton come to mind immediately, but there are definitely more).

Basically, living west of First St in Champaign and more than a couple blocks east of Lincoln St in Urbana will keep you far enough from the frat/undergrad population. Rent is higher in downtown Champaign simply because it's in the 4x4 block area that has bars and restaurants frequented by they non-undergrad crowd (and the level of hustle and bustle really doesn't compare to that of a big city). I know both grad students and professionals who live there. My opinion, however, that the rent difference between living downtown in a "fancy" condo/loft above a bar/restaurant and living 2-5 blocks west of downtown in a slightly quieter more residential area (but still easily walkable to downtown) is not worth it. But, that's my preference. And some people really like living in/near downtown Urbana. If at all possible, you should visit so you can see what the towns and downtown areas are actually like. Also, the tenant union (http://www.tenantunion.uiuc.edu/) is a great resource.

In many places in the midwest, $13.5k would be enough to live on (and possibly also in the south). It would be really tight, but totally doable. I would ask current students in the program if 13.5 is a reasonable income (and also what you can expect to pay for housing, food, etc). Also, check at what income you would qualify for food stamps in that area. If you are above food stamp level (and 13.5 is where I live for a single person with no kids), you very likely make enough to make ends meet. You should definitely check with your POI or someone in the department about whether or not you can expect funding to continue past the first year or not. It's possible that it's a program where you apply for funding every year, but that you will continue to be funded as long as you are "in good standing."

You're fine. It will continue to say submitted until it says whether or not you got it (or at least that's what has happened the past couple of years). In other news, you can't access previous years' rating sheets anymore!

Well, there's this whole sub-field of anthropology called biological anthropology... But, seriously: human genetics, human evolution, ancient dna analysis, morphology, primate stuff (ecology, conservation, development, cognition), paleobotany, etc. I'm definitely missing some stuff.

Not sure what your interests are within bioanth, but some of the Smithsonian internships have stipends (and they also sometimes have jobs open for people with bachelors degrees). Also, if you're a primate person, you can look here for jobs: pin.primate.wisc.edu. The NIH also has post-bac programs with stipends, and there are couple of primate behavior labs there and tons of biomedical labs (obviously). You could also consider contacting PIs at local universities who are in your specialty of interest and asking if you can volunteer a few hours a week as a research grunt. Also, teaching experience is relevant, even if is elementary school (not that there's anything wrong with teaching elementary school, but it's just about as far removed age-wise from university students as possible), so you could look into becoming a substitute teacher. You would just need a bachelors degree and could likely get very close to full time employment during the school year.

My school doesn't take out medicare and social security. This is what they have to say about it: "Under Internal Revenue Code §3121((10), a student who is registered for at least a half time (defined by the University as a minimum of three credit hours for the summer term and six credit hours for fall and spring terms) who is not a career employee qualifies for the Student FICA exemption on earnings from the institutions of higher education in which they are enrolled. The exemption covers students enrolled during school breaks of five weeks or less providing the student was eligible for the exemption on the last day of classes prior to the break and is eligible for enrollment for the first academic period following the break. The exemption does not include student employees who are not enrolled in classes during school breaks of more than five weeks. Under this criterion, foreign students who are resident aliens for tax purposes also qualify for the FICA tax exception." Basically, if you're not working full time, aren't receiving benefits, and are a full time student, your appointment at the university is exempted from FICA (because your appointment at the university is primarily based on you being a student there). At least that's how my university is interpreting the tax code.