red_crayons

I keep getting that inadequate feeling, too. Despite the fact that I'm already on good terms with my future advisor. And the fact that his class is fun and not super hard. So far he seems great at talking me down from my random anxieties. It seems like the start of a beautiful friendship... I can't recommend enough to other people to talk to people in the program. Professors, students, even administrators. I keep bugging people and they're AWESOME, comforting but realistic, with interesting perspectives and a MUCH more diverse background than I would have guessed (I come from a different discipline). Seriously, it's great therapy. And it's getting me more and more excited...! I would be much more nervous if I were teaching my first semester, but fate has it that I won't be, not quite yet.

Ok, I just deleted my post, BOO! Google and its silly sensitivity to double return/double control... grrr.... I'm pretty sure Red Bomber is just recycling other landlords' listings. What I've seen them advertise are mostly apartments in complexes in hard to reach places with wall-to-wall carpeting. Most complexes in general seem kind of unimpressive, and are in hard to reach places. They also cost a lot more than a comparably sized apartment in a house that will almost certainly have better access to campus and/or transportation. I've also heard bad things about the structural soundness (!) of complexes from a colleague, including one that was filled with mold and another that was slowly sinking into the ground because of irresponsible zoning on the outskirts of town (where complexes necessarily tend to be built). Come to think of it, the few people I know who lived in complexes - even reputable ones! - eventually moved out because they could find places in better locations for less money by living in an apartment in a house. Be VERY wary of landlords who claim to be "on the bus route"!!! The buses are really inefficient in most parts of town. "On the bus route" often means a bus every 30-60 minutes during regular business hours - with little to no service after 6ish pm or on the weekends. Many of the buses don't actually go to useful places, either, so getting to, say, a grocery store could take over an hour even if you're "on the bus route". You could make it work with a car, but parking on campus also costs $600+ per year, and you still need to take a bus from the parking lot to many areas of campus. Unless an apartment is downtown or in Fall Creek, being on a bus route is kind of meaningless. Downtown/Fall Creek means "generally near the Commons", which is where the major bus stops are. Yet even with downtown, you could still have quite a walk to the bus. Definitely google the distance from prospective apartments to the big commons bus stop(s): Seneca and Tioga, and Green and Cayuga. You may have misinterpreted what others said on this thread about houses. Renting a home may work if you have enough people. But you really want to rent an apartment IN a house. Most houses in the Fall Creek/Downtown area have 3-5 apartments. Most landlords in those areas only have a few properties, and tend to be clueless but eager to make you happy. Really, the more properties someone owns, the less you should trust what they tell you about their apartments. In general, though, apartments in houses downtown/Fall Creek tend to be charming, with lots of hardwood and original windows, mostly grad students and young professionals, close to everything, parking with the property or easily and safely on the street, lots of porches and yards, etc. Laundry can be a pain; many houses don't have it. But there are several strategically placed laundromats which make this completely tolerable. There also seem to be some nice apartments in buildings on the Commons (part of downtown), over restaurants and stores. They're more expensive, but there's something to be said for being 500 feet from 15 restaurants, 5 bars and the biggest bus stop in town. I've retyped all this too many times in the last month - look at my post here for some searching strategies:

Checking the Ithaca Craigslist would be one option. Looking for open rooms in an occupied unit might help with getting honest answers about what the apartment is really like, rather than just getting the landlord's pitch: http://ithaca.craigslist.org/ Off-Campus housing is another. I recently met someone from that office, and she was energetic and dedicated to helping students: http://dos.cornell.edu//dos/ocho/ International Student Services Office might have helpful advice, or mentors who you can talk to. Duh, if only I had followed through and BECOME a mentor this year, I might be able to offer you formal help!: http://www.isso.cornell.edu/ Also, talk to your department. Ask to be put in touch with current students, postdocs, or young faculty. Some of them may be looking for housemates, or have friends who are. They'll probably be very honest and willing to help, since you'll be their friend and colleague for the next few years!! Talk to people. Get in touch with landlords, current tenants, or someone you might be able to sublet from via email. See if they'd be willing to talk on the phone, or via Skype. Everyone has a camera, at least on their phone, so ask if they'll give you a photo tour of the apartment (may work better with current tenants than with landlords). All of this carries the caveat that I haven't done a long, blind move, but this is what I would do. I charted this out for myself when I thought I might be leaving Cornell for Madison or Boston. Also, you can PM me with specific questions.

I second checking out the Tcat website. They recently changed some routes, too - although bizarrely not for the better, and not on popular routes that could have USED some improvement. In general, Belle Sherman and lower Collegetown ("middle of the hill") don't have direct bus service. But they're also walking distance. It's easier to get quick bus service by living farther from campus, near the Commons or in Fall Creek. You'll get to campus faster taking the bus from Fall Creek than walking from Stewart and Seneca.

I'm interested in this, too. I don't really understand why grad students are stressed all the time. As an undergrad, senior year I took 18-20 credits (with 4-8 of those in grad humanities classes, and the rest in hard sciences) and worked 15+ hours a week while partying 5 nights a week and got a 3.9. Now, I work 50+ hours a week, have recently been spending 5-10 hours a week on doctor's visits, and get A's in grad classes... Can grad school really, possibly be any worse than what I've already been through? Can someone explain? One of my friends from undergrad has been shocked by how little effort is required in her grad program. Her hypothesis is that our undergrad was just so, so insane that anything else is going to be better/easier. That strikes me as kind of elitist, but I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary. I'm genuinely curious and want to hear from current grads!

Living on campus, in brief: You will pay about twice as much as living off-campus with 1-3 roommates, and as much as a beautiful 1 bedroom apartment near cool places. You will probably live in a really stupid place and have a hard time having a social life. There have been bed bugs in university housing several times this year. The furniture is awful and the on-campus housing literature said they won't remove it for you. There are about 800 on-campus housing units and thousands and thousands of grad students, meaning on-campus housing is by no means guaranteed!!! Just FYI. Also, let me reiterate that Craigslist is totally legit in Ithaca. Real landlords, homeowners with an extra studio apartment, and rental agencies all advertise on there. It's really the easiest way to find housing. The Off-Campus Housing office also has some nicer rental listings that are around general market prices (a bit higher) that are exclusively for students. Also, in July, there will be few options off-campus and you will have to just take the first thing you can find, because there will be no guarantee that there will be anything else at all opening up. It's a ridiculous student rental market in Ithaca, so that's what happens, bleh. I'm sooooooo excited to be a student again! I already live in Ithaca and I'm not moving, but I'm going to decorate! I've lived in the same building for a few years now, so my rent is well below market, and my landlord is doing all kinds of repairs and putting laundry in the basement! I'm sooooooo happy to just take a few classes and be on fellowship and not have to work two office jobs for more than 50 hours a week!

Program Applied To: Science Journalism/Communication Schools Applied To: MIT Science Writing Program, BU Science Journalism, University of Wisconsin Madison Life Sciences Communication, Cornell Dept of Communication (PhD) Schools Admitted To: Cornell, BU Schools Rejected From: MIT, UW-Madison Still Waiting: Undergraduate Institution: Cornell Undergraduate GPA: 3.53 Last 60 hours of Undergraduate GPA (if applicable): 3.85-3.9 (educated guess - big improvement through undergrad) Undergraduate Major: Biology; Minor in French; significant coursework in Linguistics GRE Quantitative Score (Percentile): 660 (don't remember) GRE Verbal Score (Percentile): 710 (97%) GRE AW Score: 5.0 (80-something%) Years Out of Undergrad (if applicable): almost 3 Years of Work Experience: almost 3 since graduating; 2.5 relevant part-time as a student Describe Relevant Work Experience: science museum, some outreach/communication in pesticide-reduction program Strength of SOP (be honest, describe the process, etc): I would say very strong - I worked on it for 4+ months! However, I got feedback from BU that it was "too academic" for journalism programs, although they were SO KIND and let me in without funding anyway. I wrote completely separate statements for each school, since the programs were all very different. Strength of LORs (be honest, describe the process, etc): All 3 letters came from people that I'm still in touch with: former French professor I talk to at least twice a year who talked about my writing/critical thinking skills; former research professor that I worked for doing lab and field research and literature reviews, who has been a reference for a couple jobs and whom I stay in touch with; and former coworker/supervisor from when I worked at a science museum who I'm very friendly with, and who is also leveraging her experience at the museum to pursue grad school (museum studies). I was lucky to have such great, supportive people!!! Other: I have a hard time reconciling "doing something useful and concrete" with my hyper-reflexive tendencies and love of critical theory. So, I applied to a couple interdisciplinary research programs (Cornell, UW-Madison) and a couple strictly professional programs (MIT, BU), and made my final decision based on where I was accepted, financial offers, and feelings I got about the department through the application process. I'm very happy with where I ended up. Even though I'm going into a research-oriented PhD program, several of the faculty and grad students have worked as journalists and will hopefully offer insights into getting published beyond academia. I think I'll be walking the practical/vocational vs. intellectual/academic line for my whole life, regardless of how hard I try to pick sides. Both have so much to offer! Certainly Cornell won't restrict me to one side or the other, and I'll have 5 years there to figure out what's best for me. But really, how could I possibly decide??

Yeah, that. Meh. I'm lucky to be going into a family-friendly department at a family-friendly school in a medium-sized, family-friendly town. With pregnancy-friendly insurance - it would cost $300 to have a kid as a grad student, period (I already looked it up). Having a kid during my PhD would still be tough, but at least this school situation leaves that as a possibility. I feel like I have the option, which seems like more than most folks around here.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Also, pay attention to what catches your interest outside of school. What part of the paper or evening news are you most interested in? What are your hobbies? Are there any social issues which are important to you? You can look for opportunities related to those interests, and spin your English degree as, "I'm a good communicator and I know how to organize my thoughts." I know one person who pitched his interest in D&D to a local university in those terms, and now he works part time running games with local schools! Trying a couple jobs or volunteer opportunities out can really help you narrow your potential graduate school field, too. Looking back over the last 3 years, I realized that I've worked in 3 distinct fields and taken courses in 2 subjects. It took a little bit of time and perseverance, but it also got me tuned into a really cool idea that I'm excited to explore in grad school next year. It's scary to leave school and go on the job market, but it's really rewarding to find yourself feeling motivated and dedicated to a particular field of study once you have some experience under your belt.

I was also an undergrad bio major who wanted to do linguistics. I was lucky to be at a school with a solid linguistics department and a linguistics major. Many of the faculty repeatedly stressed to those of us interested in linguistics that relatively FEW schools have majors in linguistics, and that solid coursework and specific interest could overcome a major in a different field when applying to linguistics grad programs. Eventually I found a way to combine my interests in biology/health and language. I took linguistics and literature classes AND finished my biology major. Now I'm going to be looking at food and pharmaceutical advertising (using my biology background and agriculture research experience) through the lens of literary theory (=why do we say what we say?) and hopefully discourse analysis (=more qualitative/ethnographic side of linguistics). If you have any neurosci background, there's always the cognitive science angle on language, which fits well with your interest in language acquisition. Since you're still in school, find a couple ling professors to lend you books. See if you can stay in your college's town through the summer, and really glom onto them for the next 5 or 6 months. Read what they recommend, and find times to talk about it and build a rapport through the summer. Making and keeping up connections will do a lot to help you find the right academic niche. Plus, it could possibly lead to becoming involved in research, or a letter of recommendation. I didn't apply in linguistics though, so this is just my two cents!

You could work off the books to make a little extra. Tutoring comes to mind. Being an artist's model is something I've done in the past (while working an underpaying OFFICE job), and it pays well.

I waited a month to get an official letter from one school after getting a phone acceptance. By the time it arrived I had attended an open house at a different school and decided to attend. I told the co-chair of the department - who had given me the acceptance phone call - who told me to register my decision once I got the official offer letter. Which came a week later. In this case, though, I think the delay is related to the fact that it's a big department and they probably sent all acceptance letters at the same time, once all decisions had been made. There were lots of things wrong with that program, though, including uncommunicative staff leading me to think they had never even received my GRE scores, meanness during my acceptance phone call, no financial support, and a visit day on April 16 - the day AFTER I would have had to decide! So maybe there was also a general attitude of not caring about future students (or, at least, me).

In professional programs? My gut response is ABSOLUTELY. I'm generally opposed to debt, but for professional programs I would absolutely take the debt to get the name and the connections that go along with the name. Being a professional, especially in business, you have to rely on getting the right info at the right time to move forward in your career. Knowing the right people is the only way to do that. Elite universities historically have more well-connected people, so getting to know them by going to schools where they still have ties will be worth the money. I wouldn't even consider a non-name brand school for a professional degree if I had other offers. I'm going to start a very academic PhD at an Ivy in the fall. I'm not sure if I want to go into academia, so I'm keeping my professional options open, too. If I had had an offer from a state school with a similarly strong academic program AND an offer from this Ivy with name recognition in the DC area - the area where I'd probably end up if I left academia - I wouldn't even think twice about going to the Ivy. That being said, your signature has CUNY-Baruch and NYU listed. I know little about b-school rankings, but Baruch (and really all the CUNY schools) are relatively name brand in the region. CUNY would probably get you farther in the tristate area than, say, University of Iowa (just picking a name at random...). Plus, going to school in the city will put you in touch with business culture more than most other places, so you'll have that advantage. Also, look at alums. Maybe one school has ties to a certain company or industry that you'd like to work for, even though it may be otherwise unremarkable. That could change the balance between names. To back up my argument, I should also mention that I am attending 3 b-school classes this semester for work. All the professors say the exact same thing: In academia, people look at your work, but in business, they look at your school and the person who referred your name to them.

I think he does a lot of writing these days, but I don't know what he's up to on campus. I just read an article in my Comm class that he wrote for the Chronicle. He went to Carnival in Brazil in 2007 and met a dance troupe that did a routine that was supposed to explain evolution (or something else life science-y). So he's still active... just in unusual ways!

I mean, there is usually a slush fund that sort of rolls over from year to year, with a little put in from the budget every so often. I guess it's important to mention that my office is mainly grant-funded and non-academic, so that affects how we can use the majority of our money, with this other account covering miscellaneous things. TMI, probably... Moral: Well-organized departments would just have recruiting-specific money, and if that runs out, they probably have something else available to cover your meals. Don't worry! They're going to impress you as much as possible when you visit, Nytusse!

Chemistry! You'll get to meet Roald Hoffmann, I'm guessing? He's a nobel laureate and prolific author, yet he's super gentle and old man-y and teaches remedial intro chem (which I took, ha). I have a crush on that man from afar, even though he must be approaching 80. Most of the people in my French classes as an undergrad were in the sciences. But that might be skewed here because Cornell requires undergrads to be "proficient" in a foreign language. I plan to audit some French classes to keep up with it next year, which will be fun!

Departments have secret funds for things like this. The grad student will probably either use a university/department credit card, or submit receipts to their department to get reimbursed. I work with these funds a lot in my current job. From talking to faculty at other universities, these secret funds exist everywhere for EXACTLY this kind of situation (recruiting), as well as for unexpected travel, food for department/lab meetings, and emergency supply purchasing. I would be shocked if they expected you to pay for anything included on your itinerary. Students and profs even bought us lots of drinks during the open house weekend I just attended. Plus, why would you want to go to a school that didn't take care of you when you visited, you know?

Yay! More Cornell people! What fields/programs will you be going into? I'm going to be in Communication, and what I plan to do is to somehow make literary theory and social science work together to analyze pharmaceutical advertising. And my undergrad major was biology, with minors in linguistics and French. Yup.

Two hours is close enough to spend almost every weekend together. One weekend you go to her place, the next she comes to you...

The second one was MUCH more realistic for my overpriced, upstate NY college town when I compared it to Chicago and Brooklyn. I also liked it better because it broke down some of the differences - you could see differences in doctor visits, clothes and repair costs, and certain food items. If I bought a house, maybe the split would be as wide as the first one predicted. But for a renter, and given the town I'm in currently, the second one seemed more realistic.

My university dismantled almost all of its Master's programs, except for a couple targeted, professional degrees (MEng, MRP, MArch, MBA). For people coming into PhD programs here, they seem to get a balance of MS/BS holders in social and life sciences, and mostly people straight from BA in the humanities. It's just their preference, which responds in part to certain funding and image politics. One big contributing factor: In many fields, you're not eligible for federal research grants if you don't have a PhD. So to be useful at all to your institution in a research setting, you need a PhD.

My guess as well. I am so sorry. Good luck figuring things out...

That's almost identical to my experience. Good luck! Honestly, being in a different environment will help you make the changes you need to live on your stipend. If you're really worried, though, having a work history can give you more options for plugging the financial gaps. Depending on your work, perhaps you could do some freelance work in your current field? Maybe you could jump in on a project or two with your current/old company by telecommuting? Maybe there are consulting or tutoring opportunities that you would be particularly suited for given your work experience? Coming out of a professional position, you might be able to set up a business plan with less effort than someone with similar interests/academic background who has only been in academia. It's not ideal to work as a student, but... I guess I just want to reinforce what you already said: You have what it takes to hold down a job, and this gives you more options for supporting yourself than if you were coming directly out of school. FWIW, I'm getting a decent stipend, but I'm still super paranoid about money as a student. Since I'm starting a program where I already live, I'm reviving some contacts at side jobs I had in the past to see if I could work/volunteer outside of the university. That way I could get a little extra money, if necessary, or improve my profile for future employers by volunteering in a field that appeals to me (and is related to my grad work). There's nothing wrong with trying to establish contacts now, before you go to Ohio, to set up back up options, just in case. Plus, for me, making these kinds of connections and plans helps me focus on solutions, rather than just needlessly worrying about future possibilities.

Where you live can really affect how much you spend. When I go to the city, I spend more because there's more that's worth buying. Manhattan and Brooklyn and the whole region has lots of great restaurants and markets that I actually want to eat at. I know when I go down there, I'm going to spend a lot on eating out. Where I live upstate, there are only 2-3 restaurants worth going to at any given time, so I don't go out to eat that much. The same thing goes for clothes, or other things you might buy. I don't have an H&M in my town, so when I walk by 3 in one hour in Manhattan, I'll probably stop in and stock up for the long stretches I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere. There's not likely to be much you'll WANT to buy in a small Ohio town, so you won't bother buying as much as you might in the city, and you'll end up spending less. Then there are the other students. When I was friends with undergrads living off mummy and daddy - even after I had started working to support myself - I spent a lot of money going to the two nice bars in town, or getting take out every day with my friends. Now that my friends are mostly grad students or young professionals paying off loans, there are a lot more brunch potlucks, movie nights, and sharing bottles of wine rather than buying drinks in a bar. I guess I could be getting friendly with law or business students who have similar social lives (and budgets) as my undergrad friends did, but I don't cross paths with many of them. Through chance and common interests, I've become friends with English and Writing students who have stipends with which to support themselves. They live cheaply, and since I spend time with them, I end up living more cheaply than I did in the past (fewer restaurants, fewer bars, fewer nights out), when I had different friends with different standards.

Right now my job has me spending a lot of time in an Ivy League business school. Everyone is so well dressed and smells so nice! I looooove my Banana Republic's pants. I've finally converted my wardrobe to mostly black/neutrals, which was something I had resisted my whole life, since my mom would always criticize me for it growing up. I finally bought a pair of loafers for my grad open house this week, which I plan to wear every day once the snow is gone. The best part about working full time has turned out to be that I could learn to dress like a real grown up, and had the money that I needed to accomplish that, too. I still have some vintage treasures that I will NEVER get rid of and wear from time to time. It's nice to feel like my clothes fit and help me look good, instead of just being a generic something I throw over my body. It makes me feel confident, and it definitely helps people take me seriously in my office and in interactions with professors I hardly know. I'm gonna stick out in grad school (in the social sciences), probably. My worth won't be based on "negotiating group dynamics" anymore, which, like it or not, start getting worked out the second people see you - and judge how you look - so it won't really matter what I wear. But I'll feel great about myself, and adults (outside the department) will still take me seriously. And hopefully all the black will intimidate students when I start teaching.