Cat_Robutt

You can do it, @The Interdisciplinarian!!!!! My pard and I got married on May the 4th so we can say MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU to each other every year like the total dorks we are. Hopefully you find out before then, and avoid Caesar salads maybe?

Argh! Well, best of luck! If you get admitted and decide to go there, I can give you tips on cool places to go!

@smw0805 It's kinda funny how the places you've been admitted already (as well as where you're waiting to hear back from) have drastically different climates! What kinds of factors are you considering as you make your decisions?

I'll send you a PM with some ideas!

@hippyscientist The strangest thing is...I was able to get this college's first ever Gender & Communications course pushed through the Board of Directors. It's a small step forward that I hope has huge repercussions. The new faculty member? They will have to be qualified to teach this course.

After reading these stories, I wanted to ask a similar kind of question regarding the other side of the podium––have any of you dealt with sexism/racism from students? I currently teach in a really patriarchal geographical location, and have had male students question my ability, authority, and leave sexist comments on evals, e.g. "lipstick was distracting" or "lady tried to force us to be feminists." As an adjunct in a mostly male department, I feel like my frustrations won't get heard. Interestingly, the department head is a woman, but told me we can't remove students from a classroom for being sexist/racist, and that it is "just part of life, so learn to deal with it like I have." This has been incredibly disheartening over the past year, and I'm glad to be leaving, but I wish I had a way to express these during my exit interview because the dept. is about to start a full-time hiring process, and I feel like a female faculty member would not want to work with the kind of male students/faculty I've had to teach. God, I'm so glad I will be escaping. I didn't realize how much I truly hated this environment until I left for a bit and was surrounded by faculty who cared. Also....do any of your departments have strict policies on faculty/student or senior faculty/junior faculty relationships? These exist in most workplaces but our college has non! I have no uni policies to point to when a student hits on me for a better grade or a senior, full-time faculty member says something sexist. I know who benefits from the exclusion of policies like this, and it's maddening to think about.

If you decide to attend here and need some Los Angeles things to do, HMU!

@Nirvik and @Pink Fuzzy Bunny I feel really fortunate in that one of the professors really DID do this! They'd let us know what was going on, what the adcomm was doing, and would ask how I was doing as well! It was totally different from some other programs where I applied...like....still waiting to hear back from a few programs and they've been dead silent about responding to emails, even the email where I was like YO I'M OUT PEACE BYE.

If it isn't too late, I'd like to say a few things, although everyone here has done a fantastic job of covering ground in both depth and breadth! I'm currently teaching Interpersonal Communication as part of my teaching load, so I'm going to delve into Julia Wood's description of friendship (summarized) here: Friendships, relationships in general, can be difficult. They take things graduate students, and adults, have little of to spare: time and energy. With a solid friendship, the investment of both must be equal, or an unbalanced dynamic is created where one person is doing much more work and the other is mostly reaping the benefits without investing their own time and energy into making the relationship flourish. We have several levels of friends––friendly strangers, casual friends, friends, and close friends. Generally, we have 1-5 close friends at any given point, and we maintain these friendships in a variety of different ways. We either do things together or we talk together, and this can affect the relationship if one party is physically removed. Distance can breed distance, or it can make the heart grow fonder. If you have friends you mostly did things with––working out, watching movies, going out––it may be a bit harder to maintain a friendship on an intimate level. If you mostly talked together––met for lunch, drank coffee and chatted about life, shared frustrations and excitement––it may be a bit easier to maintain over long-distance, since most of our tech-enhanced communication is based around talking. We may also have friendships where both parties are more dependent, needing more communication in order to feel validated by the relationship. More activities or communication is required, unlike a more autonomous friendship where you may go months without talking, but when you do, you have a 4-hour conversation and it feels like no time has passed. Neither of those are wrong, but if the unspoken rules about how you communicate change, then the climate of the friendship can also shift unexpectedly without one or both parties knowing why, or how to fix it. And, yes, there are friends who are just not good at communicating via long distance. I'm highly autonomous in friendships, and my closest friends are as well. We're scattered across the globe, and don't regularly talk, but when we visit or chat things are fantastic. With more dependent friendships, those tend to fade when proximity does as I'm not super diligent with sending regular texts, answering phone calls, etc. Your style might be more independent or more dependent....and that may be different from your friends' styles. It can be challenging to make new friends as well, because our friend groups can solidify when we become adults. Going to meet ups, finding things like book clubs, free yoga, campus events, all of those can be tools to find someone who has some similarities with you. If you are introverted (like me), it becomes even harder. If you're at an event, look for someone who looks out of place, maybe not speaking with anyone or looking a bit uncomfortable. A friendly face, even an awkward one, can draw out a fellow introvert and cause a conversation to flow well. Sorry for my rant! I just get excited by communication and also know how tough it can be. Hope at least a small bit of this helps.

@hippyscientist That is much to deal with....I've had some bumps and rough patches and mistakes as well. There is a whole bevy of shouldacouldawoulda I could travel down, but I know the past informs who I am now, and that I can't change who I was, only who I am. That's hard, but life is also hard. But...it's also worth it, and I know that now and didn't before.

This.....this is just good advice for LIFE.

Words of wisdom right there.....feel like I need to print that out and periodically ponder it while getting ready to move.

@MarkMc thanks for your really helpful answers! The Nittany Lion statue is really cool; I took photos of it dusted with snow during my interview visit. It really is a beautiful area and seems quite walkable. @jlt646 A note about the airport.....as it is small, the planes that fly in/out are propellor planes. If you dislike intense turbulence, or small plane adventures, I would recommend driving to a different airport. Really; I'm usually fine on planes, roller coasters, etc. but that 50-minute ride to the Philadelphia airport was comparable to getting my wisdom teeth removed in terms of unpleasantness.

@mpp2016 Thank you for mentioning OfferUp––I had never heard of that before now and will definitely check it out. I've thought about Goodwill and have donated a few things already; alternately, I may list things on Freecycle.

@Demeter and @The Interdisciplinarian thanks for the clarification! Sad there aren't huge bonbon stores, but oh well....such is life. And @The Interdisciplinarian that sounds awesome, both with Edwardian lit and glam rock. Both of those are endlessly interesting

What....what is Bon-Ton? Is it a restaurant just for ten-ton bonbons? Wanton bonnets? Bonbon buttons? Halp. Also, @The Interdisciplinarian are you going to PCA/ACA?

@katpillow You applied to so many programs! Some don't send out notifications until much later....I'm not saying this to try and give you a sense of false hope, but don't give up just yet...there is still time in this whole long, drawn out process. @Demeter congratulations! Best of luck with....filling out paperwork? @raaawr I know Pasadena City College on the east side (https://pasadena.augusoft.net/index.cfm?method=ClassListing.ClassListingDisplay&int_category_id=8&int_sub_category_id=76), and West LA College on the west (https://westlac.augusoft.net/index.cfm?method=ClassListing.ClassListingDisplay&int_category_id=3&int_sub_category_id=128&int_catalog_id=) have non-credit classes. There are many community colleges around town that offer inexpensive classes; you could see if you could audit one as well.

@The Interdisciplinarian No! Don't let anyone try and beat you down about being a returning student...my older students tend to be some of my favorites. They know what they want to achieve, have the patience and wherewithal to attend class and listen well, and generally have better time management skills than my younger students. You're a rock star! @seaweed sheets congrats! And @Pink Fuzzy Bunny if I didn't congratulate you like a thousand times on your thousand admits, that's awesome! @Neist how are you doing today? This week feels very long....I feel awful for not being able to focus on teaching like I should; instead I'm thinking about food, and moving, and how to travel with an anxiety-ridden kitty.

@MarkMc Do you have any wisdom you could impart? I've heard to visit the Creamery, live off-campus to avoid undergraduates, and be prepared for snow. What were some things you liked to go see or do in the area? Pennsylvania is the first place I will live that has official seasons, and it feels both very exciting and very daunting to be moving to someplace where I don't know anyone and don't have inside intel.

@aberrant Yes, I mentioned the decrease in crime with the city data report, and I know most of the professors with whom I worked are against open carry...it's a complex issue. I love Tallahassee, and am not meaning to disparage it––violence occurs everywhere, in any city. Being from Tallahassee has perhaps given me a different perspective on the town now that I've lived elsewhere. @Limitless as @aberrant mentioned, there is much...gentrification going on along Gaines street, near Railroad Square, and on Tennessee and Adams. It has both positive and negative, but also means there are smaller businesses like the Railroad Square Art Park, All Saints Cafe, and the new Cascades Park are getting much attention. Speaking of, there are so many beautiful parks to take your kids to! Cascades Park (it's free and you can walk to the Capitol building, Soul Veg restaurant, the Capitol complex), Maclay Gardens, Lake Ella, the Park Street chain of Parks. There are farmer's markets throughout the week, festivals of all shapes and sizes, and many opportunities for free or cheap that families can enjoy. And, as FSU and FAMU are large schools, there are always talks, concerts, operas, plays, and events that are free or cheap for students. If you want a detailed list of recommendations, feel free to pm me! There are all sorts of hidden gems in and around that area of Florida if you know where to look.

@Limitless Well, there was a purposeful shooting last year: http://www.usatoday.com/news/ And a fraternity shooting that happened when I was a student there: http://knightnews.com/2011/01/2-shot-in-fraternity-house-at-fsu-student-ashley-cowie-dies/ Tallahassee is part of a southern region known by locals as "Lower Alabama," and gun rights are a pretty big deal; there's even a "campus carry" bill right now: http://jacksonville.com/news/florida/2016-02-03/story/florida-house-approves-campus-carry-open-carry-bills So, if you are wary of guns, then just know Tallahassee and the South in general are into guns in a major way. There are many parts of Tallahassee that are safe, but around FSU and FAMU, shootings are fairly common, as are armed robberies. I got used to it, so didn't think it was a big deal––it is something that happens in many cities, although Tallahassee isn't one of the safest places on earth, although it is getting safer: http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Tallahassee-Florida.html If you have any questions about Tallahassee, feel free to ask. It's a weird place, but it's also beautiful and has a thriving arts district and is a huge hub of civil rights history and scholarship as well.

I'm trying to figure out the whole moving stuff as well...I've moved cross-country before, but this is the first time we have any furniture, so we have to sell couches, tables, everything––we will just have our two cars, whatever fits in them, and our cat. Moving from Los Angeles to Pennsylvania will be...a long trip; but honestly I'm more daunted by how to get rid of our stuff! Any tips from those of you who have made a similar move?

I'm so sorry this happened to you! I hate it when programs (unthinkingly?) send out notifications like those. It seems so cruel! @raaawr and @sjoh197 I think all of Los Angeles is a suburb! I think Huntington gardens in Pasadena is one of my favorite places to go, or solstice canyon in Malibu (I like hiking). Plenty of good food, plenty of bad traffic. Coffee at Demitasse in Little Tokyo is still one of my fave places to go, though! @hippyscientist what you are researching sounds...intense, and sciencey, and awesome. What I'm working on now is nowhere near that: I'm writing about how a character in the comic book Bitch Planet uses her self-confidence in her body, and her non-compliance, as a new schema to be used in challenging capitalist patriarchal societies, so....yeah!

If you need any recommendations for things to do/see/eat in L.A. (as well as places to avoid), I'd be happy to help you out! Unless of course you meant Louisiana....then, um... have fun?