pachydermatus

PhD students get guaranteed funding for 5 years (~$32k), tuition and fee waiver, and health insurance.

East Rock is by no means the suburbs. It's a residential neighborhood. There are tons of shuttles that run through that neighborhood, since it's informally known as the "Grad Ghetto".

I highly recommend setting up an account with www.mint.com It's by Intuit, and they have a bill payer, free credit score every 4 months, planning tools, and budgets. There's an app for your phone, and it will notify you when bills are due or when you're nearing limits on a budgeted item. It feeds info right from your bank and credit cards, so you don't have to worry about saving receipts or inputting spending into an excel spreadsheet.

I think you are right in people comparing Storrs to a city, or even a traditional college town. Storrs is in no way a city. It is a village in an historically agrarian town. To attract more people there, they just built/are building a kind of shopping center and residential development across from campus. I don't know all the details (haven't been to UCONN in probably 1.5 years), but here's the website for more info: http://www.storrscenter.com/ Other than that, there's not really much to do in Storrs proper. People tend to live in Willimantic because it's cheap and it's the closest city. There's another, smaller, state school there (Eastern CT State University). That's a mainly undergrad university, so lots of undergrads and undergrad bars in Willi. Since UCONN is a land grant in a very pure sense of the term, and it has a very large agricultural focus, you'll find your typical ag school stuff (farmland, livestock, dairy bar, etc.). If you grew up in a rural town and were fine, then UCONN and Storrs will probably be ok for you. You will definitely need to have a car there, since Hartford and Manchester (two largest nearby cities) are about 30 minutes away. New London is a good 45 minutes, but an amazing small city with a really interesting and rich history and worth the drive. Hope that helps, and if you're going into their Philosophy program you'll be making an excellent decision. Their program is fantastic! Best of luck!

How early is too early to contact the PI you want to do your first rotation with? I already know who I want to rotate with first, and I don't know how many other incoming students will want to rotate with this PI. Will I seem like a weirdo if I email the PI this week and express interest?

I am starting a Microbiology PhD there this fall. I started looking a couple weeks ago and already found an apartment (2br, 2bath townhouse $700/mo, 1.5 miles to campus). I also toured a bunch of apartments of current grad students as part of my interview weekend. If you want, I can send you the list of properties we looked at with contact info for management companies. However, I would try to lock in something soon, because I was finding that I would email about an apartment in the morning, and by the afternoon it was leased.

Also for the Yale BBS interviewees this weekend. We are supposed to get some more snow Thurs-Mon (at least the last time I checked) and the sidewalks are icy, snowy, and slippery. Even more important, I think, are hat and gloves. The streets are like wind tunnels, which makes the wind chill factor more important. I'll be feeling *so* sorry for all of you while I'm interviewing in GA this weekend (60 degrees and sunny?! Heck yeah! That's like a tropical vacation!).

I leave for my next one tomorrow, too! Trying to distract myself in the same ways you are, but it's definitely not helping!! Good luck on your next interview.

I've completed my first interview (YAY!), but now have that nagging doubt about how the interview went. How can you even evaluate something like that? I mean, everyone was really nice, conversations never really stopped, and there weren't really any questions I couldn't answer, but still... I am sure others who have interviewed so far must be dealing with the same thing. How are you all dealing with it?

I don't think it had any affect on interactions with current students or anything, but you have to think about the message you're sending to the program when you do something like that. Like are you there because you're really interested in the program, or because you want a free trip to whatever city to see your friend/relative/whatever? As for your husband scoping out the cities, I don't see why that would be a problem. Relocating with a spouse is a big deal, and much more is involved in the decision. I would assume that as long as he pays for travel and hotel and doesn't crash any of your functions it wouldn't be a problem. But I would definitely talk to the programs about it first.

Have you contacted the other programs you've applied to and asked where they're at? Or told them you have an offer but you're waiting to hear from them first?

Ok, so something similar happened to someone interviewing at the university where I currently work. The person met up with their friend in town during the interview weekend, and didn't end up getting accepted, partly due to the fact that the program felt this person took advantage of the fact that they were flying the candidate out here. Basically, the message was "We didn't fly you out here so you could see your friend. This is an interview, and you are here for that purpose." Use that info however you want, but keep in mind that you are traveling out there for an interview. And everyone is watching you all the time.

I have been looking at the tone of the email and how they sign it. If it's relaxed and casual (which they pretty much have all been) and they sign with just their first name, I address them as "Hi FirstName..."

I wouldn't say the market is terrible, but there is a lot he will have to do before he can start to look for teaching jobs! Your husband will have to get his certification to teach in CT. Also, he must begin his master's degree within two years and finish within six to meet state requirements. There's the option of teaching in private schools, but places like Hopkins can be difficult to get into and parochial schools just don't pay well, as they tend to be struggling financially. Without certification, if he wants to stay in education, he'd have to work as a paraprofessional or a sub until he can get certified. I don't know what state you're coming from, but we do have reciprocity with other states, so I would check the Dept of Education to see if your state is on there. http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/cwp/view.asp?a=2613&q=321230 That has all of the info he will need! Good luck and congrats. New Haven is a great city, you'll love it!

Did anyone else apply to programs in the Rutgers School of Environmental Science and Biology? It looks there are no interviews, at least for the Microbial Biology program. They just send you a letter in March telling you if you've been accepted or not.