BassAZ

Have to chime in. My wife and I eat for ~$330/month with a $65 eating-out budget. Buying food such as cheese or butter in somewhat bulk and freezing it is a way to go - take note of what the food costs on sale per pound (or whatever unit it is sold in) and save the non-perishables. One needn't cut meat out of their diet, just supplement with veggies/fruits/rice. Avoid getting the morning Starbucks and make your own coffee (or don't drink it at all). If you do pasta, grab some onions and perhaps zucchini, cook that and add that to the sauce. Baking your own bread is also very cheap and not all that labor intensive (and can be WONDERFUL - adding rosemary, parmesan and garlic to a french bread recipe is my favorite). I think the biggest thing about keeping costs down is making a list of meals you want to have for the week/month and try to stick to those (along with a couple other snacks to supplement). You'd be amazed how making multiple trips starts to add up.

Stop for a second, look at the schools that you have listed as your "top" and visit their websites. Take note of people that do research in the area that you're interested in. See, the thing is (and I'm sure if you haven't already heard this, you will hear it a lot) the pedigree of the program only matters so much. A lot of this stuff is going to come from who your PI ends up being and/or whether you have a few choices of who your PI is at your chosen school. There might be one guy at Stanford who is just PERFECT for you but maybe he's not taking students for the next three years and no one else is really working in your desired topic. If you end up at Stanford in this situation, your quality of life might drastically drop. And this is not a knock on you - this forum is filled with brilliant people that just need to be reassured - but you'd be a fool to think that with a 3.6 from a top program you wouldn't be competitive. Do decently on the GRE and places will give you a look, don't worry. So, in short, it's great that you've looked at the programs in general, but unless there is someone that you know you want to work with at Tufts or BU, don't apply there because there aren't any safety schools. Apply to schools with people and specific areas of research you want to work in/with. With what you've written here, you're going to be looked at by practically any school you've listed. The only schools you should apply to are the schools where you know you'd be happy to get in and wouldn't hesitate to agree to attend. (This might actually be what you mean and you've just listed them in terms of your preference, and that's fine: if that's so, please stop listing things as "safety schools" etc. because it gives a bad connotation to both the program and your desire to do research there).

My paper is due on Wednesday and I'm pretty sure my oral defense of my quals will be this upcoming Tuesday - I'm right there with you. You aren't going to be as efficient. Something's gotta give. It's either going to be the quals, your lab work, your life or your sleep. I think it's just one of those hoops we're expected to go through. We HAVE to come to grips with the fact we're not made to do everything at one time. It's just another part of time management that we have to work through. I'm curious why your PI has any say whatsoever in your passing or not. He/She most likely isn't on the standing committee and shouldn't have that much input into the process. If you don't go through this, you're no good to your PI anyway, so they should give you a little leeway to get what you need to get done accomplished. My labmate and I did similar things: about a month to go, we reduced our work loads to about 1 major experiment a week. Took the week before everything was due off. I know I've been working on this thing 'til about 1am each night, so I chose to neglect my sleep. All of this to say, what you're going through is normal (at least the way I see it) and there are a number of us right there with you. I empathize. Take heart. =)

I'm also in the same situation. It's nice because I'm the bridge between the two researchers: my main PI works mainly with gut microbes and focuses mainly on the host-side of things whereas my other one works on the bugs side of the science. I'm working in similar things but looking at lung pathogens.My main boss likes to describe me as the child of a divorced couple: I live with mom but I spend some weeks with dad. (Not to make light of divorce - it's a good analogy though). The BIGGEST thing I can see is that you're using these two as resources to help your networking as well. Obviously they have to talk to one another about the directions that you are taking your research/they're suggesting you take. But as science gets more and more collaborative, it's an excellent way to learn to work with multiple people. It's also convenient if anything comes of your research because there's a natural possibility for a PPG or other collaborative money efforts. I also know some people treat having a co-graduate student as a feudal marriage; that is, to show the powers-that-be there is peace between the two labs, they say "Look, we share this student! We must be friends!". It's subtle but some people really do think about the politics of grant writing, etc. As was said earlier, make sure these two talk normally - you don't want to have someone feel left out. You also want to make sure they have a strong collaboration between each other - you don't want to be caught in any pissing matches. I haven't experienced anything bad thus far, so those are the only pitfalls I've looked at for now.

I'm a little over 30 miles from campus, have been doing this for ~2 years now. The fact that bus/train transport doesn't work on your schedule is a little frustrating. If I'm doing some cell culture/in vivo stuff that needs to be in off hours, it's completely infeasible to use public transportation. So I would only suggest doing a vehicle commute (your own or carpool). I would suggest that you really weigh the pros and cons - there have to be some VERY important reasons for staying where you are and commuting. It works for me because my wife works in the city that we live, we have an amazing community and I'm more introverted so I don't interact with my cohort all that often. If it weren't for the community, we would probably be moving out to where the campus is located.

You should talk to the graduate office about the issue of patents and intellectual property (most schools have their own office of intellectual property as well) but in general all that you do, publish, etc. is the property of the school (basically anything you do for your boss while you're in school). While you are allowed to keep a copy of your own work, the actual rights and information belong to the school - I'm not even sure under the strictest interpretation that your boss would own the codes. As for documentation, I'm not sure if schools do it differently - I'll see if I can dig up some documentation. I still think if they publish anything or patent anything using it, you should get recognition + some kind of compensation but you cannot keep the code for yourself and cut them out of the loop.

Without knowing specifics, if the profs are being up front about their grading scheme and it's in a syllabus that was given to everyone, I don't see why an arbitrary grading scheme isn't fair. I know that many schools allow for bell-curve grading schemes where the average grade, regardless of the numerical value, is a B and the top 10% and bottom 10% get A's and C's, respectively. If you're getting less than an A for a 93 average and can logically argue that you deserve the A (going above-and-beyond in the class, engaging the professor frequently, showing interest in the subject matter, etc.) and it's that important to you, most profs will be willing to hear your argument as long as it's logical and not to the detriment of your classmates. That doesn't mean they'll agree with you and you're setting yourself up to be critiqued in that situation, so make sure it's really worth it to you. My personal feeling is that a 93% average is no joke and that you should be proud of the grade, regardless of the letter grade you're getting, and I would only argue with that grading if it was going to kill a particular cumulative average you have to keep.

I'm not going to be of much help to your initial question, so feel free to skip my statement if that's what you're looking for. From what you've written here, you're first priority isn't how you can make grad school and a job work; first, you have to figure out why you want to go to grad school. If you're looking for programs only because they fit into your schedule right now, it's just not going to work and whatever you do fall in to is likely to leave you feeling hollow later in life. Some may disagree with me, but I think the number one rule for grad school is answering "why I need to go to grad school". If you're looking at jobs outside of research, there's a likelihood that they won't require an advanced degree; for those that do, it will generally be MS+. Larger schools will sometimes offer part-time MS programs (Harvard's extension school is one such school, I believe. It looks like NYU might offer a similar thing with part-time MS degrees as well). With the sciences, though, I'm a firm believer in research, research, research and if you aren't devoting yourself 100% to that research you are selling yourself and the program short. So, again, most of this is my own opinion, but I think anyone here would agree you need to figure out what you would want to study and why before diving into "how can I make grad school work".

Grad school isn't the same beast as undergrad so I don't know if you can accurately describe what it is like going from a small school to a big school because you're also in flux going from undergrad to grad studies. For schools, ask yourself "If this were the only school that accepted me, would I be ok studying there?" A lot of times the answer will be yes because you've plotted out multiple people you're interested in working with. I ignored this for one of my schools and absolutely wrestled with the thought of going to this particular school until I was accepted elsewhere. It's not that it was a bad school; I have friends that enjoy their program, it just wasn't right for me when I got down to really thinking about attending. If you can say "yes" to any of the schools on your list, I'd say it's fine. A friend of mine told me to look for the 3 P's of the lab: PI, people, and project. Figure out which is going to be most important to you - are you someone that needs a lot of face time with your PI? Do you need the lab dynamic to be great and vibrant, or do you look more outside for your comradery? Are you just looking to get the PhD or do you want something that really is going to tickle your fancy (not to say that a bad project is easy - get something you like but does it NEED to be exactly what you're looking for right now or o you have an open mind about it)? Do you absolutely LOVE what the PI is researching, or is it more important that this particular person is your mentor? That type of thing. G'luck with the applications.

Just to further specify the difference between micro and immuno, it will be on what your focus of your thesis will be. In one case, someone might be looking at the effects of shigella on the M cells in the gut and the different kinetics/factors different shigella mutants confer. <--- Microbiology project Another person might look at the effect of CD8 CTLs and whether they play a major role along with neutrophils during an infection of shigella. Because this person is focused mainly host-side, it is likely this person will be in an immunology project. So basically, ask yourself if yourself if you're more interested in host-side or pathogen side. Choosing one or the other doesn't pigeon-hole you into anything in particular but generally the focus of the lab will be the focus of your thesis work. Case-in-point, I'm working in a micro lab but my project is focused mainly on host-side factors because we use a bunch of different bugs to model our system.

I'll just point out the red flag in this - while not to diminish what the PhD student has accomplished in their career, the point of LORs is to hear from someone who has had success in the field, achieved a higher standing and is accepted in the field as some kind of authority, and is able to convey to the adcoms that you have been evaluated fairly and found success under them. Again, not to push too far but what has this PhD student achieved? How well known are they in the field? Will this person be looked upon as your peer instead of an authority in their field? As Orst said, it might be better to approach this student and ask if the overseeing professor might be able to sign it.

So obviously the verbal section of the GRE is a little low. The quant could be better. That's the last I'll say about that. When you apply to these schools, are you emphasizing individuals that align with your interests? More and more fit and experience seem to be dictating where people are accepted - many people will look at your CV and say "well, they're a great applicant but no one at this school does RNAi in hummingbirds" or whatever it is you're interested in. By identifying what you're interested in and who you would be interested in working with, you're showing you've done your homework and THAT particular school is your best-fit. As Jbl said, your Letters of Recs should be glowing about how any researcher needs 4 students just like you working in their lab. If they aren't that glowing, the administration might red-flag you even with published papers and good grades. Lastly, is your background what you're interested in researching at school? I ran into a possible problem in that my background and papers have all been in cancer research but I came to school to look at microbiology in the vascular system, which is slightly different. It shouldn't be a problem in general, but I haven't a clue if that could've been another reason some schools didn't invite me to matriculate.

My apologies if my words were callous; I was merely trying to illustrate that I hoped the grief would not define you. There will be much joy in your life and the grief you are experiencing is not something that should consume your life. As Zeemore said, there are certain times you will feel regret and sorrow that the person is no longer there. I'm sorry that those words rubbed you the wrong way though - please take no heed to them if they don't help you. I wish you and your family the best.

In short, the PIs in my program have been asked to think outside the box because there are a number of students vying for labs that don't have the funding to accommodate all of them joining. Because of this, I have two PIs that are interested in co-mentoring me; I've talked to a few people about the benefits versus pit-falls but I haven't encountered anyone that currently is doing this here at school. Anyone had good/bad experiences with this? I can understand that it would be a little awkward now having TWO people giving me routes to take and I can also see problems with the PIs locking horns about where to take the research - I am not worried about that because these two have worked well over the years and my personality is such that I can take a project and incorporate different ideas to twist them integrating all of the general ideas given to me. I'm just trying to see if there's anything I'm missing that could be a great/horrendous aspect of this arrangement. Thanks!

It takes time. I had 2 family friends and my father pass away within a week of one another about 7 years ago (2 friends were of cancer, father was suddenly during complications of surgery). A few words of wisdom: Everyone grieves in their own way. What one person experiences isn't going to necessarily work for another. Expectations are unique. Please acknowledge this but seek someone to talk to. EVERYONE needs someone to talk to. Thankfully I had 2 friends that had lost their mothers around the same time and I was able to hash out anger with God and the raw pain with them. Going along with that, it takes time to heal. It's taken me 5 years to really heal - my family still grieves to this day. You WILL have to continue to live; you are still alive and your life will go on. While it's healthy to grieve, people will continue to die around you - it's life. It's a part of life. Some of them will be long and you will be able to say good-bye. Some of them will be quick and painful. But it's inevitable. Love the people around you knowing this. Don't let it get you down, but celebrate it. Take time off if you really think you want to quit something. Irrational decisions are made in the heat of the moment. You are not a victim. Your grief will not overcome you. It will heal. This will not define you, it will be a blip in your life. Talk to people. Express the difficulties you're having with the administration. Talk to your advisor about what you need. Talk to a counselor. Talk. That's all I have right now. I'm truly sorry for you and your family; normally the Spanish apologize with "Lo siento" which directly means "I feel it" - I feel your pain and hope that you find someone to talk to about how you're feeling.

So, you have a degree in Stats, very low GPA - have your job interviews been in areas where statistics would be an asset? I mean, "real" job has many different connotations for different people and it could just be that your CV/resume doesn't convey the fact that you love the area of work that you've been applying to and that type of thing. Are you actually interested in nursing or is it just one of those "this might be interesting" things? Do you have a general sense of what you'd like to do with your life? (IE "I want to work in health care", "I like actuarial science", etc.). Just because you have a low GPA, you can still emphasize the work and accomplishments you had in college - you received your degree just like everyone else, don't discount that fact. You need to let that motivate you to prove you're an exceptional worker and be a great team member, not dwell on how inadequate you feel because you couldn't regurgitate certain information during a 2 hour period.

MBTA.com has a trip planner that can help you plan accordingly as well as having the specific schedules you'd be looking at. I don't have any experience riding either of them consistently. The other thing that you can look at is taking the 503 or 501 directly downtown and hopping on the red line from there.

For those looking for housing around August and are going to BU, look on craigslist, sift through the apartments by owner. That'll give you a good starting point - try searching specifically for August apartments. The problem is that the realtors that you've been working with cater to college students who go June/July-Sept. for summer programs and September for the rest. You do NOT want to get in to the September rotation of moving because the entire city moves in and out on Sept. 1st. Cars double and triple-parked, crazy amounts of trash, horrendous traffic. Another key thing will be to look along train routes - try further down Beacon Street along the C line for somewhat quieter, more professional areas or the B line for cheaper housing or more apartment buildings. [On the C-line] usually going out as far as BC will be a 45min commute, Cleveland Circle ~30 mins, Coolidge Corner ~20 mins all going in to Kenmore. On other KEY note: at least once a year, someone tries to take a moving truck on to Storrow drive - do not be this person. Storrow has a max height well under most moving vans and, as such, will cause the moving van's top to shear off, causing your carefully packed van to explode all over the road. Just sayin'.

Whatever the issue, you won't have the qualities that they desire (concerning research experience - I don't want you to think I'm down on you as an applicant). It's not that schools think that you won't have the skills to do the research - it's that they want known quantities. Those that have done research and still want to pursue a PhD are people that have jumped in, know the water is ice cold, and still want to go swimming. Schools are trying to avoid people that jump in and immediately are like "this is not what I was looking for". Unless you can show them that you have the qualities they want, the reasons will be arbitrary. Sorry to be blunt about it. If you write about your initial goals during the clinical portion and then state what made you change your trajectory towards more of a molecular bio/wanting to be a prof. future it will help you and show them where your drive is and whether that desire is in line with the PIs/goals that the particular school has.

You're going to get the best response by contacting the administration at your particular school because each program may do it differently. From my own, personal experience there are usually slight stipulations such as given health insurance and stipend but going without dental for those first couple months in the "Summer-starts". Again, the administration will know much more about your personal situation than anyone on the board.

What would it matter? All your classmates chose to go to your school as well. Best advice I can give? Don't compare yourself to anyone any more. You are competing with yourself as to how good you can be and how far you can go. It doesn't matter if your classmates graduate in 4 years or 10 years, get that coveted journal article or don't publish at all; from here-on-in celebrate with your classmates on a job well done let all the comparison fall by the wayside.

Not that it was explicit in your post, but also talk to the ITS at your school before you finalize software in whatever machine you decide to get. Many schools will give free upgrades/OS/software/anti-virus programs to students which could save you a couple hundred dollars.

I take this kind of serious: graduate degrees are just like any other professional development. You do it to enhance your chances or the ability to open a certain employment door. If you don't know applicably why you are doing your graduate degree, you have to seriously ask yourself why you're getting into your program. And I feel like until you're able to answer the question "What will this do for me?", you shouldn't really pursue your graduate degree.

Getting in to a school is one thing - why do you want to pursue graduate school? The desire to get in to biology and not want that ceiling is fine enough for posting here but why would you want to devote another 6-8 years of your life to this? What specifically drives you; biology, being pretty multi-disciplinary, ranges from bioinformatics to evolution to medical research. Is there are particular branch, subject matter or person you're interested in working with? Make sure to analyze the schools you're interested in, the people that you may want to work with and the NUMBER of people that are doing research that might interest you. Obviously none of this is written in stone - my friend came in to her PhD wanting to do immunology, HATED her rotations and now is doing very exciting work in neurobiology. But make sure to take the ever abstract "fit" in to your equation when you're looking at schools and applying to programs. Not to put down any particular school or classroom setting, being in a lab for 40-60 hours a week is another beast and you should know exactly what you're getting into. It can be pretty darn frustrating, especially when many times you're doing something no one else has done - the let-down of continually failing can be very frustrating for some people. The fact that the MS isn't completely research, wet-lab based may be a detriment but it's much better than nothing, and the fact you're doing well in those classes should probably quell any fears program directors would have that you cannot handle the book-learning that comes from the PhD program in question. In the current education market, it seems like schools are looking for known quantities, those individuals with research under their belt and some biology background. I should say, none of this is to get you down or dissuade you from pursuing a PhD. These are all questions and things you will encounter and something you should have in mind before you sign off that the PhD is exactly what you want to do. Sorry this is pretty scatter-brained, I'm doing it in between reading a paper that is literally boring me to tears.

That GRE score is the only "orange flag" (it's obviously not a red flag, people do worse). What pathogenic bugs? TB? Strep. Pneumo.? Salmonella? E.Coli? You say organisms so I'm leaving out virii. Is there a particular organ that you're interested in? Not that you need to know the answer to these but it's just something to think about as you continue to narrow down your interests. And obviously interests sometimes change once you get into a lab and discover you don't actually want to work on a particular bug/project. Another question that adcoms will ask is "Why a PhD?" but you'll be answering that in a personal statement - again, just food for thought, not something you have to agonize over.