PhDerp

ALCON--
 
For those concerned with issues of crime and safety, start here <<LINK>>.
 
Try craigslist for apartments, sublets, and rooms/baths for rent.
 
I currently work in DTLA. For many of you, the experience here may be a lot different from what you may want. DTLA has come a long way but we've still got a long way to go. Moreover, a number of development / re-development projects are firing back up so you're going to be in competition with people your age who may have more money to spend on rent.
 
If you're looking for a walkable lifestyle, I recommend that you look at areas that are close to Metrorail stations or MTA red line stops in NoHo, West Hollywood, Glendale or Pasadena. Burbank is also very nice IMO but not quite as walkable. Please keep in mind that NoHo, Burbank, Glendale, and especially Pasadena are furnaces during the warmer months. (And it is almost always warm in the L.A. area.) If you find a place in those areas to your liking, you could have a relatively painless transit ride to Union Station and then use the shuttle service from there to the USC campus. 
 
I personally would not recommend Culver City nor Venice. Both have a "vibe" that does not appeal to me (YMMV) but also the ongoing expansion of the Metro Expo line is playing havoc with traffic in Culver City.
 
Also, if mass transit is going to be a central component of a walkable life style, please know that MTA service gets tweaked twice a year. Of late, these tweaks are translating to significantly longer headways during off-peak hours. For this reason (and others) I would be very leery of the ratings you see on walkscore dot com.
 
HTH. 

If you haven't looked at it already, I recommend padmapper for looking for places. It gets most of its info from craigslist, but it also maps where apartments actually are, as well as price comparisons for the area, and you can filter by size/location/price etc. It also searches for sublets, which may help in your case PhDerp!
 
turbina- It really depends on the apartment. All in all it took me two days to have my application approved and put in my deposit, but I didn't move in until a month later because I found the place mid-month and the current resident didn't move out until the end of the month. (I also had to wait a little longer because they were fixing up the place after the last resident's move out- new flooring, repainting, etc.) Some places will be available for immediate move-in, but if you have somewhere to crash for a bit, you'll have more options on rooms!

Whenever I get nervous about going in and I start to feel inadequate, I tell myself "they've had worse deadbeats than you" and I feel a lot better.

Whenever I get nervous about going in and I start to feel inadequate, I tell myself "they've had worse deadbeats than you" and I feel a lot better.

> comes to forum asking for advice
> complains when people give advice

Participate in on-campus research. Check psychology and linguistics departments for these opportunities. Sometimes they're pretty fun!

The best one I ever did was with my kinesiology experiment. Made $100 and a year-long gym membership to do certain weight-lifting exercises under supervision. So awesome!

Just curious: why NYU over CMU? Funding? Certain professor? Location?

Thanks for all the help! Everything was settled this morning. Turns out that I am only being supported for 8 hours this first semester, which is why I didn't think it would be covered. This is because all first years in my program are only expected to take 8. She is absolutely fine with me taking it, and was willing to even have them add funding if needed. I am just pushing back my research methods course one semester and taking this Sport Psych elective right out of the gate. 
 
cheers!

I have a few updates since my original post on Tuesday. I decided to call again on Wednesday, and the records coordinator was really apologetic for taking longer than she anticipated. The good news is that she told me over the phone that I was accepted! I got my official acceptance email today, and I'm so excited. I work for Undergraduate Admissions at the university where I got my bachelor's degree, and we don't get annoyed when people call us asking about their application status. Now that I'm on the other side (as the applicant), I don't know why I was so hesitant to call them until this week.

Thank you PhDerp, I've started looking forward to it now . I'm not looking forward to the roommate finding and house hunting though.
 
Good luck at USC!

My mother explicitly told me that she gave me a neutral-sounding name so that I couldn't be identified as black on my resume or in correspondence.  My father had originally picked a more ethnic-sounding name and she vetoed it.
 
But, I don't think that students should go to any kind of lengths to avoid this bias...not because I don't think it exists, but because I wouldn't want to work with a professor who doesn't respond based on perceptions of my race or gender (even unconsciously).  Moreover, while I'm aware that this happens - and has possibly happened to me in the past without my knowledge - I haven't really found it a significant impediment.  As with most kinds of discrimination, life has to proceed on in the face of it.  The bright side is that graduate students of color - and female grad students - tend to be incredibly resilient.  People always tell me I'm so chill and laid-back.  How else should I be?  I can't afford my blood pressure going up over this foolishness, lol.

@juilletmercredi I've actually had the opposite experience - I have a very unique name (actually made up, but sounds like it might be an ethnic/foreign name) and I've gone into interviews or events or courses and had the people I'm introduced to be surprised that I am neither a person of color nor a foreigner. It's always awkward when someone says, "oh, I thought you were French …." or when I get pamphlets from the black student union in my campus inbox … just goes to show that people are going to assume what they want to assume based on your name, regardless of the reality. In general, I just ignore it and blithely go on being a badass, regardless of my weird hippie-kid name.

> comes to forum asking for advice
> complains when people give advice

Xavier*

I made a three-step plan to graduate with minimal work this semester. >_>

How are you staying motivated? Or are you not?

Not that I remember, but we should hang out. I like you already. XD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5rUypc09_A

"Welcome! Why did you decide to join us?"

"Internet poll."

WPI isn't a top program, but it's definitely an option! Here's the main website: http://web.cs.wpi.edu/cs/graduatePrograms/msProgram/ (some links are broken)
 
Worcester has a train and regular buses to Boston (I think $10 for the train one-way), so you can visit each other pretty easily without a car. There are also areas to live in between the two cities, but they're more expensive than you'd think; I've been told that "east of 495" is the Silicon Valley of our coast!
 
Also, I grew up in Worcester about a mile from WPI, so I can tell you things about the area.
 
 
That being said, I think WPI might be lower priority for you. Schools that are decently accessible (as in, easy enough to get into, for the standard on this website) are: BU, Northeastern, Brandeis, Tufts, WPI
 
Of these, WPI is the farthest away from Boston, and lowest-ranked!
 
Then of course there's MIT, Harvard, Brown...

Oh, tech jobs are easy to find near Boston. That's a non-issue!

I can't speak personally on Brown vs. NYU. I just know Brown has great name recognition and is closer to Boston. My friend who went there truly loved it, but he went for his undergrad and is doing his master's elsewhere.

I don't know that NYU does not have these things (well, I know it's not as close to Boston as Providence is!), I just know that Brown does have them, off the top of my head!

I made a three-step plan to graduate with minimal work this semester. >_>

How are you staying motivated? Or are you not?

Whenever I get nervous about going in and I start to feel inadequate, I tell myself "they've had worse deadbeats than you" and I feel a lot better.

Whenever I get nervous about going in and I start to feel inadequate, I tell myself "they've had worse deadbeats than you" and I feel a lot better.

Whenever I get nervous about going in and I start to feel inadequate, I tell myself "they've had worse deadbeats than you" and I feel a lot better.

Spam.

Just kidding. XD