Genomic Repairman

When I moved 1200 miles, I sold off all my stuff and bought new. But here is the trick, I bought my furniture at one of those national chains. So I purchased them at the store at my old location and got them shipped from a store from the new location so my delivery fee was only $150. I think with what I sold off and how much I paid to completely furnish a 1 bedroom apartment, including a TV I shelled out an extra $1500. For me it was worth it so all I had to do was pull a small trailer behind my Jeep when I moved and was able to forgo the giant ass Uhaul.

I used to use CS4 but now I am using EazyDraw. Way easier and more intuitive to use and saves a crap load of space on your hard drive.

I own both platforms but use the Mac about 95% of the time. The Mac is more expensive but then again they tend not fail as quickly as PC's from my experience. I use MS Office, which you can get at a discounted rate or free since you are a student. I think the main point to making your choice will be what software you need. Some stuff is PC or in my case Mac only. Also I find the Mac much easier for making figures for papers or if you do any type of video or film editing Macs stack up a little higher than PCs. But if you just need something a little less pricey to type up some papers or make a Powerpoint on, you should get a PC. The main selling point for me for the Mac was the Time Machine, which backups all my buttons with the simple click of an icon.

It can't hurt to ask, I brought it up and was granted some moving money (3k) since they couldn't up my stipend to a competing schools offer. Remember diplomacy is getting what you want while the idiot walks away from table still smiling.

I use them to look up folks who might have or have had competing or interesting research and then I tag there names in a weekly PubMed search for their publications so that I know what my competition is up too.

If you are a Mac user and you are making lots of presentations check out Keynote. It blows PowerPoint away and you can customize way more stuff. Love it. And if you have to give a presentation on a PC you can export your file to a .ppt file.

1. Email your top few choices first. 2. Tell them that you are starting in the fall and you are quite interested in doing a rotation in their lab (before emailing them, pull down some of their recent articles to be pseudo-up to date on what they do). Also make sure to ask them in the email if they are willing to take on a graduate student. If they answer no, waste no more time with these folks. 3. They propose projects, you just do them.

Has he though of applying for a Department of Natural Resources job with the state wherever you go, or game warden jobs. Another thing is if you move to the coast he might want to check out a job at NOAA

Never accept any offer unless it is in writing. You would never do it in real life so why do it now. Wait for the snail mail to arrive. Just say thanks for letting me know and I cannot wait for the letter.

What was valuable to me: -1TB hard drive to back up to -Bookcase (you accrue a crap ton of books) -Scanner (why have a filing cabinet when you can have a digital one that takes up no space at all) -Google Docs account (20GB for $5 a year ain't bad when you can access it anywhere) -Laptop (unless you are really stationary or you need the extra power of a desktop) -Alcohol (lots of it) -Specific hardbound notebooks (I use Black 'n' Reds) individually for taking notes in seminars and notes from meeting with the boss. It helps for refering back to stuff. -Digital recorder for class -Dry erase/combo corkboard (I leave myself profanity-laced messages in the morning so at least I'll smile when I get back home) -Sleeping Bag (one day shall come when you are working O/N at school so be prepared for it shall come and it shall come quickly)

On the Mac: 1. Time Machine (of course for backing up) 2. EndNote (makes citations a breeze and you can get a student discount). My only advice, buy it now. I mean now dammit. 3. Papers (keep a pdf of all my articles and I can attach my notes to them as well as look at them on my iTouch) 4. StatPlus (cheaper but more limited version of SPSS) 5. EazyDraw (great way to make figures and less space and monetary costs than CS4) 6. FileMaker (great for creating databases) 7. Aperture (takes iPhoto out back behind the woodshed and puts it to shame) 8. MacVector (only relevant if you are biologist)

I agree sba, I'm pretty sure if you go to a school and you have an email address that ends in .edu you can get the discount on Macs. That's what I did.

Go to rent.com and look up apartment rates between the two, ask grad students about utility costs (sometimes this can be a huge gap between the two), think about commute distance or public transit cost). Also think about what there is to do around each place and the cost of going out and entertainment. That is what I did.

Once again seadouche you give off the stank of pretentiousness. I too got accepted to every school that I applied but you know what these folks couldn't give a rats doodoo maker. We are all here to get and give information and commiserate about becoming/being a graduate student without smarmy comments by cockbites like you. And herself in a Utopian scenario, seadouche and I could get along at a bar. If he's on his best behaivor and stands in the corner of the bar, I might "accidentally" miss when throwing empty beer bottles at him. But in reality, it would never work and to quote George Thorogood & The Destroyers, "I drink alone!" And herself you are right the powerprep software still looks like that crap runs on DOS (I don't know if this reference is lost on half the folks in here?).

I guess seadouche doesn't like it when folks beat a topic to death like he does?

Looks like seadouche should go back and review his GRE vocab flashcards.

Nah, if they want you they want you. Stop tweeking and go relax.

Both allow you to take notes. I mainly use papers for notes and just endnote for citations but you can do it all in endnote.

Just write a short simple note that thanks them for taking the time out of their day to meet with you and how you enjoyed discussing their research (if they did). Since you are accepted you can write a blurb about how you look forward to joining the institution and interacting with them in the future.

Faustus your comment will have no effect on seadouche. He is beyond reasoning with and prefers to extoll the virtues and efficacy of the GRE while maintaining the vehement demeanor of an ETS fanatic.

Why buy that thing when you can just use Endnote to keep a digital copy of papers, your synpopsis, and EndNote is vital to maintain sanity and citations when writing. Or if you don't want to spend that much, check out Papers if you are a Mac user. I use both applications because I can pull up a paper quickly on my iTouch when I'm not near my laptop. Endnote is definitely the way to go and you should get a student discount on it from the grad school.

Just wait until you receive an offer from them and immediately reject it so they can go with (presumably) one of their backups.

Glad to help. I also use the NIH reporter to search keywords of grants and see who is doing research similar to mine. This system is such an upgrade over the old CRISP system.