hellatrangsty

Hi! I got accepted into my top choice PhD at University of Southern California. I got a really lovely email from an advanced grad student who's in their fifth or sixth year offering to guide me through the program and field any questions I might have. They also sent a 'living in LA' guide that around six of the current grad students had made with breakdown of the neighborhoods they live in and all sorts of helpful information. Here's my dilemma, however: I'm finishing a Master's at Queen's University in Kingston,Ontario, Canada. I have a sublet here with my partner from May 1st to August 31st and classes start August 22nd at USC this Fall. My partner is also applying to USC but for a much different program and they don't usually notify until late March or early April. So, I'd love any advice anyone could offer me on how to get from here to LA with my 'stuff'. I'm not bringing furniture (which may be a bad thing? I'm not sure how many LA apartments come furnished, although that's common in the places I've lived), I have probably 100 books I'd like to bring, I'm ditching a lot of clothes since it won't be anywhere near as cold there, and I have more books stored at my parents' house in North Carolina. I've already begun trying to figure out if it makes the most sense to ship things and try to beat the shipment there to pick them up, or if I should try to check multiple bags on a flight, or if there's some way that I could go down and get a storage unit or something before getting there. Two other things. I'm American so I don't have to worry about a visa or anything (although my partner will, because he's Canadian). And I don't have like *any* savings because this degree as an international student has been quite expensive. I have between now and whenever I leave to potentially make/save money, but I just don't know what makes the most logistical sense. There's the smallest of chances my family might be able to pool resources to help me get out there, but even between them it won't be much more than a couple hundred or so (we're not a very well-off family at all). Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated! And yes I do plan to ask the department about potentially helping with moving expenses, but not sure I want to rush that.

just got into USC so it looks like some folks took other offers cause i was wait listed before. super stoked. good luck to everyone still waiting.

hi! i'm currently finishing my MA at queen's! feel free to pm me if you have any questions and it depends on the program you're talking about at UBC...I have a friend who was accepted a while back to their PhD but it may be that their MA has a different timeline

nope. saw a post on the results search under 'tisch' not even nyu that said there was an email that said 4 applicants accepted and that all of them would hear yesterday, march 11th, and the rest would get emails from graduate arts and sciences to confirm rejection hoping it's a troll and/or wondering why the review period that they notified us about went until march 13th, if they were going to make decisions by the friday instead... i'm betting it was a rejection for me since i didn't do my master's there (even though i've curated performance art festivals, performed alongside vaginal davis, run a non profit artist collective, and had a bomb ass project on curation as care thinking through trans-ness, disability, and race as curated performances of 'good patients' deemed worthy of care) i'm not bitter at all......

snap! small world. jealous you get to go home(ish?) for a degree you're stoked on. i'll be pretty far away no matter where i end up.

oh that's cool! if you are new to chapel hill/the triangle area in NC then feel free to PM. I was born and raised in NC and spent lots of time in Carrboro/Chapel Hill and still know lots of ppl there. Congrats on a solid choice

damn. i mean that's kind of what happens though....i'd be afraid of it too but i still want all my answers before i make decisions even though i'm pretty sure it's a no from them where'd you accept? congrats on making a decision!

~*still no words from Santa Cruz*~ which is really awesome! I think they're trying to get yes's out of the folks they already made offers to before they even notify everyone else because they're shady and were so behind they couldn't even do wait list notifications... or maybe they're just disorganized anyways, it's def a turn off like other folks have said

thanks for this info. again like i mentioned i was told it'd be early this week. but i also was pretty sure that ucsc was one of few schools that sends all decisions at the same time? like both rejections and admissions? so maybe they're either backed up, or it's a rejection if we haven't heard my last prospect for a full-fledged acceptance is NYU performance studies (notorious for denying PhD applications that don't come from within the MA) so we'll see..... guess i gotta start begging my way off the wait list and into the admits for USC

yeah thank you for this update. I'm not sure why it's taking so long either. When did you speak with them? this whole situation is a little...yikes. ya know?

I feel this. Ironically I have TA'd for two years now in my gender studies department and my students usually love me. I still get interrogated on my grading policies, especially since participation counts usually for between 25 and 40 %. It isn't until they're dissatisfied with their grades that I am suddenly public enemy number one. It also doesn't help that I'm a transgender woman who's been medically transitioning on the job. I can literally feel some of my authority slipping away from me as they begin to read me as more feminine, but I can simultaneously tell that they're more respectful of my gender ID as I transition before their eyes. REally strange shit. But still, I'm lucky and currently teach in gender studies and am a white person so they take me seriously when I talk about gender, race, sexuality etc. The way I combat this is I usually have specific instructions for how review of grades will go. IF they're dissatisfied they have to print out their assignment with my comments and come during my office hour to go over their grade with me first. Then at the end of that discussion they can choose to have me reevaluate or keep their original grade with the caveat that if I reevaluate it can go either up or down. I get very very few requests for reevaluation. And I've only ever been overly harsh to one student because her paper happened to be sandwiched between really terrible ones. So I don't often give out new grades.

i haven't heard either but without revealing names, i am an MA in gender studies at queen's university right now and a prof here i'm friends with knows a junior faculty member at UCSC who told her that official offers were coming early this week. since it's wednesday i'm betting i can expect a rejection. i was kind of hoping i'd be the next sandy stone or eva hayward since the HistCon program there (which kind of birthed feminist studies) has had about one trans woman doctoral candidate a decade. I thought it was my time! and my project's cool. but we'll see. fingers crossed for everyone oh and since i hadn't posted before i got rejected at Rutgers and UW. and if UCSC rejects me too then it's a resounding NO from all gender/feminist/women's studies programs despite BA with honors thesis and current MA all in gender studies. oh well. I'm wait listed at USC for american studies and ethnicity, so i hope that comes through. they may be reading my work as not really about gender...

super late to actually posting on the forums, my bad. i was one of the wait listers for USC american studies & ethnciity anyone accepted going for the visit? are the other wait listers on here?