jdg

I looked at an apartment in Dorchester: super cheap rent, with reasonable-seeming graduate student roommates. The place is near Ashmont station, on Talbot Avenue. I was a little sketched out by the area, although to be fair this is probably because I had to drive through bad parts of Roxbury to get there. Is anyone familiar with this part of Dorchester? I would like to save money, but I do think I have to put safety first, and I am just not sure how much of an issue safety would be in that area. I know it's all relative, and it is the city, so nothing is going to be as safe as I'm used to being/feeling in a small town, but does anyone have thoughts on this?

What is cheap and still has T access? I've been looking on Craigslist and the bare minimum seems to be $1000 after utilities. I'm on a tight budget ($24k/year, taking out student loans to live so I can focus on school, might try to get a part time job after I am settled in), and I honestly can't figure out how people do it when the rents are sky-high.

It is Suffolk.

I have an offer for a program in Boston that I am thinking of taking. The issue is, most of the classes are evening/night classes, and I know very little about the actual public transportation schedule in Boston. I know that the T runs during peak hours and throughout the day, what I'm wondering is, how reliable are the trains at night? For example, if I get out of class at school at 10:00 PM at the campus (located smack dab in the center of Boston), will the T still be running to take me to whatever apartment in Allston/Brighton/other far-off neighborhood that I can actually afford? Public transportation seems like a logistical nightmare - I'm used to having my car and desperately want to keep it, but even I can see that this is probably a bad idea for a variety of reasons.

Everyone at my job knows - it's common knowledge because the owner (I work for a small business in a management position) wrote me a LOR. If I hadn't been out of school for several years, I might have just gone with academic recs but due to the length of time I've been out of school and the nature of the programs I was applying to, getting the professional rec seemed like it would be helpful. People have been mostly supportive, but I do feel like they have stopped investing in me in certain ways because they know I am leaving, and if I hadn't needed the letter, I wouldn't have told anyone. I will probably give two weeks notice when the time comes - that is more than enough for any job.