red_crayons

That's a tall order! As you said, your office will be on the south edge of campus. Looking at the grad housing guide, you would have 3 Cornell (but not really on-campus) living options: Hasbrouck, Thurston Court and Maplewood Park. Maplewood Park is southeast from campus, kind of in the Belle Sherman neighborhood. It's up a slight hill, a 5+ minute walk from the center of Collegetown, 15 from Upson, and 20-25 from downtown (but downtown is VERY downhill - you could take the bus up/down the worst part of the hill). You'd also be about a 5-10 minute walk from East Hill, where there are banks, grocery stores, a bakery, and a CVS. You'd also be pretty near one of the best kept bakery secrets in town. It's also a great neighborhood for running, if you're into that. There are no convenient bus routes to campus, though. You could walk the 10 minutes to East Hill to catch the 2 or 3 times an hour bus, or just walk to campus. It would be a good location for getting to/from Collegetown restaurants and bars. It's about a block farther than most undergrads live, so it would be quiet, but still quite walkable to campus, collegetown, basic stores, and bus routes to everywhere else. Thurston Court is on north campus, probably 20 minutes walk from Upson, with Upson being down a mild incline. You could try to crowd on the morning buses (every 5-10 minutes) with the freshmen, but it is unpleasant. You'd be pretty stranded as far as Collegetown/downtown for walking (20+ minutes to Ctown, more for downtown), but you could take the bus every 10ish minutes during weekdays, 30 minutes weekday evenings, and 15-30 minutes on the weekends. You could also take the bus every 15-30 minutes to the mall area, where there's a Target, couple grocery stores, a bunch of banks, chain restaurants, and mall stores. It's about 15 minutes to downtown via bus, and 15 minutes to the mall area via bus (in the other direction). You'd probably have to rely on the bus for a lot of your transportation, rather than being able to walk everywhere (in the winter, at least!), but on the weekends it runs to/from downtown and Ctown every half hour until 2am. You'd be surrounded by undergrads, though, and mostly younger undergrads. You'd probably hear the frat party caravans from Wednesday-Saturday night. Hasbrouck is north of north campus, north of the freshman dorms, and quite uphill from campus/Collegetown. You wouldn't necessarily hear them, but you'd have to walk through the hordes/take the bus with them on weekend nights. It would be a 20+ minute walk to Upson, 25 to Collegetown, and downtown would be effectively unwalkable. There would be good bus service to campus every 15 minutes right from Hasbrouck during weekdays, but only from 7 am to 6:15 pm. If you walk 3 minutes across the street to a parking lot, you'd have similar service to campus, but every 5-10 minutes. You'd have to transfer to another bus on campus, or walk 5-10 minutes to the twice hourly mall-downtown route to get anywhere else. Nights/weekends you'd be able to take the mall-downtown bus to collegetown/downtown (same route as mall, in opposite direction). Without a car, you'd be very dependent on the buses, and potentially very isolated. It's far, far away from the areas where the majority of grad students live (downtown and Fall Creek). I also see lots of families with babies coming from/going to Hasbrouck - it might be unpleasant to have a crying infant next door. I would say it's the least appealing option, at least by my standards. I think Maplewood Park could be a very excellent place for you. It's nearest to Upson, and easy to walk lots of places. Living in Hasbrouck could end up being very time-consuming and isolating. None of these locations are actually ON campus, though, although they are Cornell owned. Good luck!

But you want to seem interested!!! I have been pestering people with questions about the program, other students, labs, etc... They're really excited about me, and the more I learn the more excited I am about THEM. Great interactions, and a great dynamic to have established before I even attend the open house!

Yeah, once they accept you, you can bug them all you want! I've been inundating people with questions since I got an acceptance to a program I'm likely to go to. I'd definitely follow up. Send an email ASAP, and call on Monday!

Craigslist is totally legitimate in Ithaca. Local papers hardly have any housing ads anymore (except for in the campus paper, geared toward undergrads) because Craigslist is so much better. Homeowners, small complexes, luxury, college ghetto, it's all there. If a rent amount looks very PRECISE, it's almost guaranteed to be a complex. Don't know why, that's just how they roll. Do a Google search for "apartment ithaca, ny". All the major landlords will come up in the first couple pages. But you usually find the real gems by emailing people who only own one or two properties through Craigslist.

We sound like TWINS, seriously. I'm going with the Versa - safer from what I've read, and I've driven them through a carshare program and they're quite comfortable. I agree that saving madly and having it shipped there would be a good idea. One thing I'm considering is renting a moving van and driving to the nearest Ikea (~3 hrs away) to get a bunch of stuff. It depends on the mileage, but because of my location it might actually be a little less expensive that way. Plus, going to Ikea!

Yay, linguistics! You said it better than I could have. I hate prescriptivism on this point.

Well, I know nothing about Comm, even though I was accepted to a Comm department. I learned (yesterday) that faculty in the department I plan to join run the range from social psych/quantitative folks, to historians/ethnographers/qualitative folks. It's anecdotal, but encouraging for your case. I don't care what my degree says. My undergrad degree is a mish mash of all kinds of stuff, but I've been able to apply my education and previous work to a number of pseudo-academic jobs. I then crafted a believable narrative about how my education led to my work experiences, and how work has inspired me to continue my academics. The degree is arbitrary; the story you can tell with it, or alongside it, is much more important, IMO. I don't believe in disciplines or fields or subfields. They mostly serve to create arbitrary divisions between people who are applying similar ideas to different problems, and produce different terminology to help perpetuate these divisions. Case in point: professor tries to write about performativity. Since he is a Social Scientist, he refuses to use the word, instead opting for phrases like, "performing but not really believing what they are performing". The prose is wooden anyway, and the phrasing of this idea just makes it even more unpleasant. Why not just say performativity? Because it's from critical/cultural theory and you're scared of theory? Why worry about arbitrary disciplines? If you can pursue the same ideas in comm as well as, or better than, at a social psych program, and the programs are similar in prestige/recognition/faculty in their areas, why not go for comm? More background: I originally applied in science and technology studies (history/sociology/philosophy of science) at Cornell, where I got accepted. The STS people said, "apply to comm!" and the comm people said, "apply to STS!" I also applied to a couple journalism programs with the same idea pitched as a plan for (basically) a book-length manuscript. I got accepted to one of those, too. I'm a believer in ideas being more important than classifications, and my application process has confirmed my point of view so far.

Hmmm, the English dept guaranteed funding and then reduced it by a lot, forcing my friend and others out of the program. "Guaranteed" doesn't necessarily mean guaranteed at UGA right now. But if your department is confident, than that might mean more than what's happened in other departments. I don't know what the insurance coverage is like, although I've heard it's poor. I was speaking specifically about the FACILITIES, which they are reluctant to let grads use. My ex moved there, so I spent a couple years essentially commuting and splitting my time between Athens and my undergrad school (...hellishly long commute). I also spent a summer there, and I've been back occasionally since. Flying into Athens is sometimes easier than going into Atlanta and taking the Athens shuttle. The planes are tiny, but the flight crew is fun. They sometimes do tricks to get you the best view, or outrun a storm... Atlanta is a major hub, though, and the shuttle takes an hour and a half, I think. As far as places to live, I'm not so well versed on that. I never really got around to learning neighborhood names. I'm pretty sure that the downtown is populated mainly by undergrads. There are areas a few blocks from downtown that are an easy walk to campus for very cheap. There are a LOT more options for housing if you have a car. I hope you're not afraid of cockroaches, though. They're everywhere. Inside, enjoying the cool AC. Outside, hangin' out on the sidewalks at 2 am. Meh. I love Athens! PM me if you want to chat more about it.

Oooh, how is UGA funding going to be next year??? I know several people who got severely screwed by cutbacks. The last I knew, the state legislature seemed to be operating under the assumption that no one needs no fancy larnin', and seemed determined to destroy the university by cutting funding. Of course, the folks I know were in the humanities, not social sciences, so YMMV. Still, I would find out HOW certain they are that you'll get the funding that they may be promising, and the circumstances under which it might be taken away. I don't know anything about the program or your willingness to go into debt, but I would advise you to BE CAREFUL. They're also very stingy with providing on-campus health services to grads, if that's a concern. HOWEVER, UGA gets HUUUUUGE points for a gleaming, glorious gym and a fantastic bus system. You will never stand out in the 100 degree sun for more than 4 minutes, I promise. I have dreams about riding those buses, 4 years later... Also, lots of people go to Athens and never leave. It's a great town, but there is little gainful employment and lots of ways to lose ambition. None of this has anything to do with the program directly... but important considerations nonetheless!

I was thinking of the apartment complexes up by the airport/Community Corners/Convenient Care/the mall. There's a bunch that cater to grad students and young professionals in those areas. Some of my professional colleagues have had good experiences up there, but the location doesn't lend itself to nighttime bus service or walking to restaurants/bars/campus, so it might hamper someone looking for an active social life. But if you are looking for wall to wall carpeting and furnished apartments, and don't need to go out much in the evenings, they would be a good option. I would not at all recommend that a grad student should live in 312 or Eddygate (both apartment complexes in Collegetown), oh my! Anything downtown/commons/Fall Creek will have bus service to campus every 10ish minutes until 8 pm or so, so the distance to campus isn't a problem. There are lots of studios and 1 bedrooms to be had in that area, a preponderance of 2 and 3 bedroom apartments, and a *few* whole houses and larger apartments. Many of the downtown apartments are in houses with only a few apartments and landlords with only a few properties, which has its pros and cons.

At my Ivy league undergrad, a number of the younger English/French lit profs are from Berkeley and Yale. At least one I can think of is from UC-Irvine, too. This may be due to the prestige of the programs, links between older faculty and faculty at those schools (...the 70s/80s Yale crew...), or both. I doubt it's random. School can matter, but whether you take it into account depends on what your goals are.

I'll just quote myself from the city guide Ithaca thread... I live in the Fall Creek area, FWIW. I love it. Coffee shop is around the corner, buses are all 2-4 blocks away - almost every bus line in town! - people are nice and mostly young, I know my neighbors, I even had the space and landlord cooperation to start a garden on the property! Just need to get my act together to find a roommate so I can stay here AND afford getting a car... In this area, you could pay as much as $900 for your own place, or as little as $400 to share with 2+ people. I'm finding that $450-$500 each with some utilities included for a 2 bedroom gives you plenty of appealing options.

Fair enough. I guess I'm just a little bitter since my hippie parents gave me all sorts of homemade herbal supplements growing up, when it turns out that there was a real, easily dealt with medical issue at the root of everything. So of course, the herbs did nothing - except maybe make certain things worse, since I react to lots of plants. All I really wanted to say was, don't rule out links to medical issues that may trigger/exacerbate panic attacks! I second your point about treating it like a headache. Another good thing is to have a person you can call/email/text/talk to when you feel the panic coming on. My dad works from home, so I can call him at any time and he helps talk me down from the rising anxiety cycle. We've become closer as I've explored my mental and physical health issues, and it's really, really great to know he's (almost) always there to talk to.

Valium comes from valerian. It's a slightly different form, I think. May as well stick with the benzos if you're taking valerian all the time... Especially if the real meds are covered by your graduate insurance. St. John's Wort, the other big herbal treatment for depression/anxiety, can REALLY REALLY screw with your head if you take it with other (antidepressant) drugs. My dad had hallucinations. YMMV. Me, I want to start seeing a psychoanalyst, and renew my Xanax prescription. Since undergrad I figured out that a lot of my panic attacks were due to allergic reactions to foods. I was having several reactions a day. Eating something I'm allergic to makes my heart beat faster and makes me dizzy and twitchy and gives me a slight stomach ache. It's a perfect recipe for triggering a panic attack! I would encourage everyone to explore that possibility. See an immunologist, though. Allergists might not do the right kind of tests to detect everything.

I didn't want to start this thread... But I'm glad you did! I did my undergrad here, and for lack of any better ideas when I graduated, I stuck around and took more classes and started working on campus. Now I'm 95% sure I'll be doing a PhD in the Communication department. I was a biology major as an undergrad and have done a lot of other things since; I am not in much danger of committing the sin of academic incest. I don't like change very much, so I'm sort of psyched to be staying here. It'll save me moving costs, for sure, which means I'll be able to buy a car and spend more time exploring the surrounding area. I haven't had a car since my junior year of college, when I was too poor and depressed to do very much exploration. I'm super impatient for my department's open house next weekend! I want to meet new people and find someone to be my roommate. Gotta make sure I meet new people... Gonna go to grad school, yeah!

This thread convinced me that buying shoes is a good idea. Only so that I can have good business casual shoes for my open house weekend. Of course.

Cornell brags on their website about how they've been making an effort to increase their stipends over the last decade or so - increasing them several percentage points above inflation each year. I wonder if this policy will continue now that they're in the same range as their peers? Engineering school stipends at Cornell are, I think, MUCH higher. MFA stipends might be higher, too, and there is some variation by department/college.

Congrats, piccgeek!!!! I haven't heard anything from them yet. But I'll be super psyched and cheer for you WHEN you get in!

Don't think I've updated on here lately. Accepted to BU Science Journalism program, but had a weird interaction during the acceptance phone call. That, combined with dubious funding possibilities, makes me very hesitant about going there. Rejected from Madison's Life Sciences Communication department. Meh. I was feeling good about Madison. The department at Madison seemed extremely similar to the group of people at Cornell that I plan to work with, in terms of interests, background, etc. Cornell faculty agreed with me on this, too. But I also have a strange background and a definite point of view, and I can understand how it may not translate well to different programs, even if they are superficially similar.

I've been thinking about this. I applied to my alma mater at the last minute, mashing together sections from other (professionally-oriented) programs' SOPs to make a giant (academically-oriented) SOP. On the recommendation of two faculty members, I applied to two departments. At other universities, I think they are VERY different fields, but for whatever reason there is a lot of theoretical and course overlap between them here. During my undergrad I had a major in biology, a minor in French, and an informal minor in Linguistics. Since graduating, I've taken some comp lit courses in theory-heavy departments. The field I was accepted to at my undergrad university is traditionally in the social sciences. But, the person I want to work with lets his students veer pretty far into the humanities/theory, because of the ties with the second department I applied to. No one is ever going to understand my transcript at this point, let alone be able to interpret my reasons for the kind of work I hope to produce in grad school. I don't think I'm in much danger of seeming like I pigeonholed myself into one way of thinking; on the contrary, I'll probably seem sort of unfocused and crazy. However, I may come off as a little spoiled, for having stayed here so long where there's great academic and financial and social support, and (obvi) a LOT of opportunity to explore new academic areas (instead of being force to commit myself to My Field). THAT's what I love about my school - the huge array of opportunities available - and that's why it makes sense for me to stay. You find out about someone through the grapevine, you take their class, their class is interesting, and you get interested in a whole new field to take classes in for the next two years! Still, I'm not necessarily aiming for TT, so I can afford to ignore the academic incest stigma for now.

One speculation related to an experience I had: A few of you mentioned that the Oxbridge grading system is difficult to convert to an American GPA scale. When I was applying a couple months ago, a professor said to me, "Don't worry about your transcript; we know how to read XYZ school's transcript." By that, I took him to mean that there would be certain random things on my transcript (that were there because of weird college requirements and because of my choice of major) that they would give more or less weight to because they were familiar with certain curriculum quirks of the school. It's also widely known that medical schools ask questions to applicants from my undergrad about specific biology major requirements. Our school is known for certain things, and people within AND outside the university know how to sort through different kinds of classes and consider them in context. I would imagine that applying from Oxbridge would be the same. They're prestigious schools; there's inbreeding among prestigious schools; other applicants have certainly applied before, and there are probably even people with Oxbridge experience (collaboration, exchange, degrees) in most Ivy departments. There's gotta be people at comparably elite schools/departments who know what your scores mean. At the very least, they know faculty in other departments with Oxbridge affiliations who can explain the system to them. This may be a good reason to contact schools ahead of time, to let them know that they better get up on their facts. It also might suggest that applying to state universities as safety schools would backfire, since they may have less experience with applicants/colleagues from the British system, and that Ivy-plus schools might be a better bet because of closer ties to Oxbridge (WILD SPECULATION).

All of these academia and motherhood threads ignore the fact that having children while holding a 9-5 job (which is really more like 8-7, in my experience, with extra work and lunch and commute, etc etc) wouldn't work very well, either. Working sucks. You have no control over your time. This is a big issue for me these days: how do I fit in doctor's appointments and schedule around health concerns when I'm expected to be a butt in a chair certain hours of the day? At least in academia you get more flexibility with the hours you work, and choose whether you work from home or the office or somewhere else some of the time. I'm going to grad school partially with the intention of having more flexibility so that I can resolve some lingering health issues. No joke. I'm super psyched to be able to work from 7am-11am, take the afternoon to go to class/gym/lunch/socialize/run errands, and then work again into the night. A regular work schedule doesn't let me work when I'm actually productive, early morning and late evening. My parents owned a business when I was growing up. My sister and I learned how to cook, do laundry, and amuse each other early on, and got good at leveraging friends' houses and parents for getting around to after school activities. And when we were little, there were neighbors and family friends who took care of us if our parents needed to get extra work done or be away until late in the evening. You need a support system to make this work - but a lot of academia is about building networks anyway, right? Colleagues and cohorts and blah blah? I suspect a lot of the tricks used in my family to enable parents to work at home would translate well to taking care of children as an academic. I guess having seen how it worked for us, I'm not so scared of trying it myself when the time comes. I also have a tendency to not care about what people think of me and do what I want for my own reasons; aiming to have kids by 30 probably falls into this category. That personality trait may mean I'm screwed in academia ANYWAY, so...

I love that someone voted this totally benign (although, yes, not extremely useful) comment down.

Sanity! I love it. The second school I got accepted to seemed pleasantly surprised by my thoughtful and honest answer to the "have you gotten in elsewhere?" question. I told them I was starting to hear back from the small number of programs where I applied, and that I wanted to gather as much information as possible by talking to faculty and students at all the programs. That is true - I'm hearing back from a couple programs, and I'm not making a final decision until I investigate each one, even though I have a preference already. The professor seemed impressed with my answer and said it sounded like a good stage to be at at this point in time. I didn't have to tell them specific schools, but I got across that I was being thoughtful and methodical about the process, and that I have other options so they better be working hard to woo me. If you assume the people you want to work with can't handle your honesty and lie/act evasive with them, why would you trust them as colleagues to be honest to you in the future? The golden rule. This process really isn't a game, and it's not random. It's carefully thought through and people are looking for integrity, a good personality, and interesting ideas in addition to your scores. How you answer this question is tied to those non-numerical questions of personality and integrity.

Ithaca residents are dog friendly. Ithaca city regulations are not so dog friendly, but steadily improving. There's now an official dog park, and people will turn a blind eye if you bring your dogs to somewhere labeled "no dogs allowed". If you're persistent, and don't mind walking a little farther to catch the bus, Fall Creek has pet-friendly housing a little further out from the commons. I know people with big dogs often find housing in the "Northeast" area - by the airport, Warren and Hanshaw roads, or near Sapsucker Woods. Bus service isn't great - once or twice an hour during weekdays - but it's doable. It'll be harder to go out to bars living up there, but if you're not a big drinker and don't mind driving to all your social events, then it's fine. I'm facing the opposite problem. My allergies have gotten so severe that (if I stay) I need to find a building that has NEVER had a pet live in it EVER, and a roommate who is willing to put up that kind of pickiness!