LwT

Obamacare seems to have similar quotes as those previously mentioned, which is pretty decent even if my wife and I both worked in coffee shops hah. I do not have specific manager responsibilities and do not supervise individuals. However, I do still manage my own projects for specific product development ideas. I form a team of individuals from other departments that aren't necessarily my superiors nor am I their supervisor- however I do assign specific tasks to individuals and do general accountability and make all projections pertaining to the development process. We're essentially "Project Leads" from a specific department, and the project manager depends on the focus of the product. Because I am not super engrained right now and most of my projects are waiting for equipment installation, I am very replaceable, but it will still be a hassle because I've worked in other departments and was already trained in most methods related to my new position. I would not be essential for a smooth transition which is partly why I don't think they would find it necessary to employ me much longer. Most people have until mid April to make a decision for programs, so I may wait until the end of April to determine a timeline for informing my supervisor. Hopefully we can keep things quiet for that long, and I think May would be a good time. I'd only have 3 months to worry about not having a job and could likely accumulate enough supplies to last medically, and pay out of pocket for anything else. Always a risk of an emergency, so perhaps even just the lowest form of obamacare would be smart. @Sigaba I really appreciate your perspective as well. I think @TakeruK replied with a good combination of perspectives. The main goal is not just to maintain integrity but stand out as an opponent of the exact system @TakeruK mentioned initially. The "it's their job" mentality and power differential is only perpetuated through our equally blatant disregard for our employers. I do think my first responsibility is to my wife and myself of course, and hopefully we can plan a timeline that would ensure our financial security while not just going unscathed, but having outstanding integrity.

I appreciate your guys input. I understand your reasoning and originally planned on just giving them a 1 month notice. However, the more I sit in on meetings regarding products I'm responsible for creating over the next 5 years and have direct contact with my supervisor about which conferences I'll be attending this year, booking flights for times I won't even be here- it makes me cringe. I also live in a very small town, so despite my best intentions to keep things under wraps I'm very worried this will make its way through the grape vine. I'll have to check on a summer start for the program though for sure. Also, isn't obamacare absurdly expensive if you don't get the tax beak haha?

Hi, I currently work in R&D at a small company and will be attending a PhD program in the fall in a totally unrelated field to my current industry. Right now things are on the WAY down low as it pertains to my acceptance to a program. I'd like to maintain some integrity, as the company I work for has been very generous and caring for me. In fact I took a promotion in January which makes this situation increasingly uncomfortable. They do have a small R&D team as well, which is why I've encountered this predicament. I'd like to tell my supervisor of my plans so they don't feel blindsided and I'm also worried that in our small community word will get out that I'm leaving the company before I get to tell them personally. The issue is that I'm afraid they will not find it in their best interests to employ me all the way until August. Maybe they will, but maybe they won't. I'd like to be prepared if they don't. I'm married and my wife is a waitress without a degree. We have our health insurance through this company and that is our primary concern because I am a diabetic that needs monthly supplies. Even if we COBRA our healthcare...we'd be homeless. And run through all our savings lol. ~5 months without healthcare isn't feasible either. Has anyone encountered a similar issue where their employer was not supportive of their choice to attend graduate school and let them go? It seems most people are able to treat this transition just like any other summer as an undergrad (i.e. still have parents health insurance and get a summer job). I'd be fine with moving to where I would attend grad school and work at a restaurant for a few months, but again, we wouldn't have healthcare. Part of me thinks unemployment and obamacare would actually be more beneficial than getting a low paying job without healthcare anyways. Any advice or experience with this, I know it may be a unique situation given health complications..? In an ideal world I'd work in a lab for the summer at the university I'll be attending. However my program does not start until Sept, which is also when the stipend and healthcare starts of course. Would it be appropriate for me to contact the program coordinator people to discuss if any profs would consider taking me on in their lab over the summer? or discuss other potential options. I'm worried I'll come off as a moocher and would prefer not to start off on their bad side. I'm appreciative of any input:) Thanks.

Hi! I've lived in the middle of nowhere now for about 20 out of my 24 years of life. And if you would consider Madison in the middle of nowhere then I've spent 24/24. Haha this is a very common occurrence and I hear similar questions quite often regarding Madison. I have an important question regarding your question. You're entering a PhD program and your wife can't work, so why are you concerned about getting a job with a MS? what will your wife be doing? If she'd be going to school she might still be able to get work through the university. Depending on what you mean by "industry" jobs, Wisconsin is full of them. Chicago and Milwaukee are both close by, however Madison itself has many opportunities. I guess it depends on what type of employment you'd like? Wisconsin is notorious for catering to employee's needs and making them feel comfortable. The city high life is not on most people's priority list because people come to Wisconsin to avoid the cold hearted, dog eat dog mentality of the east coast...no offense to said area. Madison has the amenities of a city, but as most said is extremely affordable. I'm about to enter a Phd program there and many of the married grad students have bought condos that are within walking distance from campus. One couple bought a rather spacious 3 story duplex and said, after taxes, they paid about 1100/month. You could easily find a reasonable 1 bedroom place, or studio, for 800 bucks and you would never have to drive your car anywhere. There is approximately 2-3 months where it gets cold and you might want to drive to the grocery story or something. Or you could get a way cheaper and way nicer place about 15 mins outside of campus and drive everyday. However then you have to get a parking place on campus and probably buy a parking pass. Driving is never a hassle in Madison though. Especially compared to other cities including Milwaukee. Most people love Madison once they live there- most people actually come back and would rather not leave. I'll be a 4th gen UW (Madison also goes by UW) grad. Most of my family stayed in the Madison area because its contagious and generally voted one of the best places to live. Other random notes- bus passes are free, extremely biker friendly city, largest farmers market in the nation (during summer only!), lots of really really great cheese and beer lol. Although Madison is rather ethnically diverse, Wisconsin in general isn't. I worked at a company in a 5,000 person town and literally every single person was white from the production floor through the office. Let me give you an idea of my current situation, which I think is comparable: I'm married and my wife does not have a college degree. We currently live in a very nice apartment in a smaller town outside of Madison. We're looking for places to live within walking distance of the capital building (best area in my opinion) where essentially all the good restaurants and amenities exist- at least for the millennial generation. We would never need to use a car. However, we'd like a little bit nicer of an apartment similar to our current living situation. With our budget we are looking to get a nicer 1 bedroom apartment for about 1100$/month. She will be attending undergrad at Madison as well and will need to work 15 hrs/week making ~10$/hr (easy conservative estimate waitress job). Keep in mind we both have chronic health conditions that require us to spend about $300/month on medical supplies and we also tithe 10% of our income to charity. We also eat out twice a week, get coffee and drinks occasionally, and eat mostly organic food. So again, if you don't have a health condition and don't spend outrageous money, you could easily support your wife and still live comfortably. Also don't forget that after you get your PhD you can always move elsewhere... If you can't find the industry job you want in Madison then just apply to places in Chicago- or anywhere for that matter. The same applies to Seattle. Places don't really care where you're from after you get your PhD because almost everyone leaves their graduate school to do a postdoc someplace else. I think you should primarily be making your decision based on your anticipated graduate studies and which program you liked better, not which city. Unless you're obsessed with meeting all the right people at Microsoft, most of your time won't be spent building connections- it'll be getting your PhD. Good luck.

So...if a professor was to informally offer a position during an interview, how much weight should I be putting on this? "If you're interested, the position is yours" seems rather straight forward, but official decisions from the committee won't be coming out until late feb I think. They haven't even had their second interview weekend either. My wife and I would love to have as much time as possible to start looking for a place, but I don't want to jump the gun and find out they found someone better during the second interview weekend or something like that. I've never heard of an offer being made during an interview so was rather thrown off, anyone else have this happen or something similar?

anyone else apply to UChicago Integrative Neuroscience program? Difficult to see when they usually send out invites based on the results database. Interviews aren't until feb 20th though I guess

I'm very appreciative of all your input! This definitely helps calm my nerves. Perhaps I was being a bit irrational, but you guys confirmed my hopes and that makes me more excited than anxiety filled. I'll probably start getting acquainted with matlab through MITs online materials if I do indeed get accepted someplace. Or I suppose it might be a plus to mention I am learning it at the interviews, we'll see if time permits. Thanks again for your support and advice.

Looks like lots of Minnesota invites went out...@StrongTackleBacarySagna I'm assuming it was an email from admissions rather than a specific POI? Multiple interview weekends or only the one? @proton was there only one vandy interview weekend?

I apologize if this is lengthy, but my head is spinning. I just had my first informal interview with a POI over Skype. I knew he'd ask some generic questions regarding my previous research, what my current interests are, and arrange some time to tell me about his current endeavors as well as questions I had for him. It went okay- I explained my research poorly, and probably seemed a bit sporadic (too much coffee may have been my downfall there). He seemed surprised and happy that I had many questions about his research and was rather familiar with it. However, his facial expressions made me feel like he was a bit disappointed with my lack of "experience." Although, he also explained the opportunities I would have to ease into his methods. That got me thinking about why exactly people have interviews at specific schools. I performed well in my classes, did okay on the GRE, and have lab as well as individual research experience- just like probably 100% of the other applicants that get interviews. Most neuroscience programs have lab rotations the first year, sometimes 2, and students aren't assigned to a lab until after. Additionally, neuroscience is extremely broad- from simple behavioral tasks on a computer, to neuroimaging equipment, to biochemical interactions inside a single neuron. So is my admissions decision dependent upon the admissions committee and how well they like my application? Or, the number of professors that see me as a candidate to at least do a rotation in their lab? Is one POI even sufficient to get an admission in such cases where you aren't directly admitted to a POI's lab the first year? One school I have an interview at has 50 candidates and 15 slots. So are profs with openings picking like 3 or 4 people they potentially want in their lab, or was it an "overall" decision by an andmissions committee (which potentially consists of profs totally unfamilar with what you're interested in) and interviewees were simply better than other applicants? What exactly is expected of me, both experience-wise as well as my future aspirations? Am I correct in assuming that the professors are looking for people already trained in specific methods and techniques, not just interested in the stuff they do? My small school experience didn't include opportunities to work with imaging equipment at all- no I have never done any work with MRI tech, no experience in electrophysiology, no experience with MATLAB; so am I screwed? My POI said people entering his lab (he works a lot with MATLAB) sometimes have no coding experience, and sometimes tons of it. So he said while I learn that, I could work on his other work primarily doing electrophysiology and imaging, and I was like "Yeah that sounds favorable!"...conveniently leaving out my lack of experience with those methods as well. This experience is making me extremely nervous for the interview weekends coming up; I'm having daydream nightmares of myself saying "nope, never done that" to most of their questions as the frowns on their faces droop to the floor. Lastly, my undergrad experience was in a vision science laboratory, but my dream interests aren't necessarily in that field..it seems that those interests aren't an option though the more I speak with people. I feel like because my undergraduate work was with a prof that did vision research, I have to be set on this course of interest. Why the hell would I know what I want to study for the next 5 years with such a limited scope on such a diverse field? Most neuroscience programs prefer a year of experience in every scientific discipline- chem, bio, physics, math, psych...Am I naïve in thinking graduate school is an opportunity to learn more and hone my research interests? Yet it seems we are labeled with whatever we spent 1-2 years of undergrad researching in labs we were probably just happy to get invited to. Perhaps you don't have the answers or input for all of these questions, but any input would be great even to just one of these questions.

@Superres Where'd you get the info about Vandy NGP!? Appreciate it, give me a little hope! Looking for some input. I was just promoted at work today for a product development scientist position and am wondering if I should contact every school to notify them of this? Should I email the admissions/program office? Call them? Send an updated CV/Resume to each school? Or would that be negligible at this point in the process?

Yup I don't think they send out invites until early jan

Looks like some vandy emails went out on sat...any word on an interview date from anyone? POI contact or an official email?

@RM17 I received an invite but have not actually posted in the survey

Woo! Heard back from first school, interview/visit in January! Exciting! Seems rather quick because the deadline was the 1st and I know the school isn't on break yet. I had a few schools with deadlines on the 5th, 15th, and another not until mid January for those of you that were discussing application deadlines. Here's to everyone hearing back soon hopefully!

Awesome well I wish ya the best of luck! Maybe even see you in Washington...unknowingly hah.