breakfast

My university's email system is run by google, and my personal email is gmail, too, but still, I just use them separately. If I am emailing somebody about a university related topic, I use my university email account. If it is something non-academic or personal, I use my personal email address (which is still professional - first initial, middle initial, last name). It's not that difficult to check two email accounts, and by doing this I maintain some sort of barrier between my academic and personal lives.

Nobody I know in my cohort started in the summer, and i know several professors who advised against it. It will really be your last "free" summer for a long long time. This summer I have to read for my MA exam and then do a bunch of research for the fall. Go take a vacation or do something exciting/time-intensive, like camping or hiking or whatever. I do recommend moving to your new town/city early, though. That was a huge help, getting settled and learning my way about, but I still spent that time doing non-academic things, like taking in the sights in the region (moved to opposite coast), but really, don't start working early unless you're getting paid for it (like those who start early in the sciences sometimes do). You will be so swamped with work in the fall no matter how much you think you prepare now, that you will wish you just relaxed before it all began.

Short answer: it has everything. No matter what you are in the mood for, you will be able to find something to do, and it will be easy to get to.

I wouldn't underestimate the value of your last summer before graduate school. You will never again have that much free time to do anything that isn't related to your field or research. Unless your adviser specifically gives you things to do over the summer, I would just relax and go hiking or camping or whatever leisure activity you enjoy, since you will have so many constraints on your time once you enter your program.You say you don't have a summer vacation planned? Plan one.

Do not rent in University Plaza. They are expensive off-campus dorms inhabited mostly by undergrads . You can find a much better and cheaper living situation elsewhere in the city. Most students live somewhere on the westside, south of main st. There are also some pretty nice places on the southside. Some students live downtown, but I probably wouldn't - nicer apartments are on the west/southside. Do not live on Eastside or Northside. I found my apt on craigslist, but maybe try to talk to a grad in your department to get some leads. Do not rent an apt sight unseen here. Apartments here can be a real mixed bag. Tip for looking at the westside - the closer you are to riverside dr., the nicer the neighborhood/apartment probably is, while the closer to main st. you get, it is the opposite. Hard to say what the average cost will be. Some apartments here are total dumps, some are nice. A one bedroom apartment can cost anywhere from $400-600, depending on quality and if utilities are included. Studio apartments less, although those seem to be less common here. Keep in mind that your utilities are going to be expensive in the winter if they are not included in your rent. Budget ~$200 extra in the winter months for your heating bill depending on how warm you like to keep it. If you are funded, you will get paid over the winter break like usual. During the summer, you are on your own, though. As far as visiting other major cities, I wouldn't plan on doing it during the semester very often. It is a pain to get anywhere from Binghamton. NYC is about a 3.5 hour drive, although there are buses that go from Bing to NYC directly. Megabus recently opened up a route between here and there, so if you buy your ticket early enough you can snag a round trip ticket for 5-10 bucks. Greyhound is about $60 round trip. You won't want to drive to NYC anyways - parking in the city is prohibitively expensive. Before Megabus opened up my SO and I would drive to westchester county, park at the train station, and take the commuter train in. Sort of expensive, but cheaper than two greyhound tickets. Now that Megabus is here we'll be doing that from now on. Toronto is about 5 hours away driving. The airport here isn't that great - only goes to Philly, DC, and Detroit. Probably cheaper to fly in and out of NYC and catch a bus to and from Bing, but some people also use the Syracuse airport, and there is another in Scranton, both about 1-1.5 hours away. No Amtrak access in Binghamton. Cost of living here is somewhat cheap. Most grad students I know who are funded don't have any problems getting by. My utilities are included in rent, so unfortunately I can't help you much on that front. Gas is getting more expensive, but there is a pretty decent bus system here, and Binghamton is small enough that you won't be driving a lot to get to and from the university. There are a few diff. grocery stores here - Wegmans is very popular with the faculty and grad students. If you have any specific questions about parts of town once you start looking at apts let me know.

Maybe take the MA and try again for PhD programs after that? I only suggest this because you might be able to get into some much better PhD programs after doing graduate-level work. I know that even after a year as an MA student, I have a much better understanding of my field, and what grad. school is actually like. I could put together a much better application now than I did a year ago.

One thing I have heard other TAs do is do a sort of "midterm" informal evaluation about halfway through the semester. If you get some negative feedback or suggestions to improve, you can implement those ideas/suggestions before the official end-of-term evaluation, and hopefully turn a few of the negatives into positives.

I'm going to jump in really quick and advise that nobody should think of law school as a safety option. New grads from law school are facing a worse job market than a lot of humanities fields right now. I don't know why the idea of law school as a path to guaranteed success has persisted, but unless you go to one of the best law schools in the country, you are going to graduate with a mountain of debt and a useless degree.

You are just going to have to adjust to a much lower quality of living than what you might be used to. At my institution, we are only paid over the academic year, so it is up to you to find work or a fellowship over the summer, but you are almost certainly not going to be allowed to take a second job during the academic year. Even if you were allowed to, you would not have any time to do your own grad. work AND do your TA duties. I also don't know many people that supplement their income with loans. This is probably a bad idea. If you are moving to a city with a high COL, you are probably going to have to get a roommate or two. Not really any way around it. And to second what the person above said: learn to cook and eat out less. Take the bus, walk, or bike whenever you can. Don't get cable TV - not worth it and you probably won't have a lot of time to watch it. Buy your books used, and if they are books you don't think you will be using again, try to find them in your uni. library or inter-library loan them.

Most funded grad students in my department TA every semester they are funded (minority fellowships work a bit different). It has been challenging at times, but not as bad as some people might make it out to be. Plus, it really all depends on what your exact TA duties will be? Grading, leading discussions, or teaching an entire course on your own? The grading is easy, and leading discussions isn't bad, but I couldn't imagine any program would expect you to design and teach an entire course on your own your first semester. It just requires good time management, which is something you need to succeed in grad school anyway. If you don't have them, teaching your first year really forces you to get time management skills quickly.

At my university it usually depends on how the professor chooses to format the seminar. Most of the time, though, there are readings for the first 1/2 to 2/3 of the class, then we work independently on our research projects. These can either be historiographical or primary research. Sometimes you have a choice, sometimes you don't (although, if you don't have a choice, it is almost always a historiography paper). Some seminars have reading up until the last week of class, but usually the papers you write in those seminars have lower page requirements and are much easier (in terms of assignment and expectations). Research seminars are different. In those you work on your own project from day one, and the class meets once every few weeks to touch base and talk about their projects/discuss broad general readings. I don't know as much about these, since I have yet to take one. That is coming up next semester. Sometimes the seminar is cross-listed with an undergraduate course, but even then, that only ever happens with the senior-level capstone seminar courses, so there are never any exams.

I was speaking about Amherst specifically, but it seems like you got a better offer from them than the people I know.

Is it true that the tuition waiver only covers the in-state amount, and out-of-state students have to pay the difference on their own? I heard some stories from people who applied last year.

Yep. I'm really happy with my credit union. They are great.

A lot of credit unions actually have those kinds of deals with other credit unions, to extend their "reach". Even though my credit union only has physical branches in part of my state, if I go online I can give a zip code and find out where there are a ton of free ATMs anywhere in the country. A large ATM network is not a reason to choose a large bank over a credit union. If you really need cash that often (why not just use your bank card?), almost every business offers cash back on purchases. I can go to the grocery store, buy a pack of gum, and get cash from them.Or, just go use one of the many free ATMs that your credit union probably has deals with somewhere.

My experience with NYSHIP is much different than you. I go to a SUNY school, and my coverage is much better than what you are describing here. Maybe you are just exaggerating? There is a 10$ copay on office visits (usually limited to 15 visits a year for normal check-up situations), with the same amount of copay for tests (meaning that your "no coverage for tests" is not true). You have some numbers mixed up on the dental coverage. You get two cleanings every year, NOT one cleaning every two years. Every six months you are eligible for a new cleaning, and I believe the co-pay for that is $20. You can get up to two fillings per year at $10 each. The vision insurance does kind of suck, and you may have been confusing it with the dental. You get one eye test every two years ($10 copay), and a crappy frame allowance. Plus, you can only get glass lenses, not modern plastic lenses. You can easily get around this by ordering much better glasses online after getting your bi-yearly eye check-up. It's pretty decent insurance for ~$7 each paycheck (for a single person), and better insurance than a lot of graduate students get, especially since we get any dental insurance at all. Since you seem to be pretty confused about your benefits, you might want to refresh yourself. Here is a link to the most recent benefits handbook: http://www.cs.state.ny.us/ebd/ebdonlinecenter/gseu/sehp_bensum_11.pdf

Cash cow. Unless you are independently wealthy, it probably isn't worth taking out those kinds of loans to pay tuition AND housing for an MA program.

You need to keep in mind that every level of the state government is run by crazies. The Tea Party, unfortunately, resonated very well with voters in that state. When I graduated a few years ago from one of the state universities, there were serious funding cuts and tuition hikes planned for the future. Faculty and staff were forced to take unpaid furlough days. I honestly can't imagine that things have gotten better these last two-three years. If anything, state funding for university education is probably even more under attack from the state legislature. If you want to do some research, go to azcentral.com or azstar.net and read up on the state financial crises and university funding cuts.

I'd like to chime in here, as well. I don't know how common it is in certain funding packages, but grad students at my uni. are unionized, and we get pretty decent medical coverage, including dental and vision. I know some grad students don't have full (dental and vision) coverage. Just something else to consider when weighing your options. Both of those, but especially good dental coverage, are pretty important and often overlooked.

The time to completion for humanities PhDs, is on average 8-9 years, sometimes longer. Here are some links about this: http://www.nsf.gov/s...brief/nsf06312/ http://www.insidehig.../2007/12/17/phd http://www.phdcomple...book1_quant.asp Everything I am about to write I heard from my DGS, so I don't know how well it applies to other programs, but I assume that most follow the same traditional time line. If you are an Americanist, it might be possible to finish in 5 years if you are extremely motivated and work very fast. They don't have to go overseas for their archival work, and most, at least in my program, have relevant archives nearby, but even then, they are probably looking at maybe six years. He said it is not possible for a non-Americanist to finish in 5 years. Six years is possible if you are extremely motivated and work very fast, and manage to do all of your archival work in the matter of a few months, but seven or more years is most likely. I know a lot of people assume that five years is the norm, since most funding packages are for five years of study, but that is not a realistic time line for most graduate students, especially the non-Americanists.

This is pretty awful advice. Location shouldn't be your first consideration, but it certainly shouldn't be your last, either. I don't know anybody who spends every minute of their time on their work. That's an easy way to guarantee your own misery for x amount of years. You need a life outside of your work, or you will quickly burn out. Your studies or research are going to make you miserable at times, and you don't want to find yourself living somewhere that doesn't allow you to have a release or life outside of school. You're right - if you choose a career in academia you will almost never be able to choose where you live. Might as well enjoy that for the last time when you are in grad school. As for your third comment, I don't think anyone would turn down a top program to attend a sub-50 ranked program because of location. When you have identified your top two or three choices, you should give some consideration as to the place you will be living for the next 8-9 years.

If this person is going to a "top 10" ranked program, they will not be able to work enough to pay the tuition. Plus, if they are attending full time (I don't know of a single "top-10" program that has a part-time PhD program), there are probably rules or expectations about working outside of school. If you are a PhD student, your studies should be your full-time job. That is why programs offer multi-year funding (4-5 years) to their students. What happens if you don't get institutional funding or external grants? What if you don't get an MA for the time you've spent at this program? You'll either have to take out a loan to continue your studies (which nobody doing a PhD in history should ever do), or apply elsewhere. A new program will probably not take any of the credits done over the last two years. You might get lucky and they will waive a class or two, but I'd be surprised if it is more than that. If the OP gets a real funding offer from a different program, even if it is "lower ranked", they shouldn't even consider this deal.

Agreed. If you can't get a free MA out of the deal, two years funding is just as good as zero years.

A two year funded offer is not that good. Depending on how the program is structured, your funding will run out at very busy and stressful moments in a grad student's career. If you have to complete and MA en route, you will be doing your thesis or MA exams. If you have an MA, or depending on the program structure, you will be doing comps. Now, imagine doing those while submitting grant or fellowship applications. Like another poster said (on my phone, so I cant easily see who wrote it), if you get your MA after those two years, it might be good to do that on move on to a program that wants to fully fund you, but I wouldn't make any long term plans to stay at a program that can only fund a small portion of your studies.

I wouldn't worry about it. One of the biggest faults I think this history forum suffers from is a lack of institutional diversity. Sometimes it seems like people forget that great advisors and programs exist outside of the Ivies or "top-10 programs." It looks like you have some great programs on your list. Good luck with your applications!