Bumblebee
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Posts posted by Bumblebee
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And what if I never borrow money from a bank?? I never do it in my country, I do not like paying interest! Does it mean that I will be stuck with no credit history and will have problems because of that?
Well, I wouldn't call it problems, problems, but you will find yourself paying deposits for a lot of things. I have that problem. I don't have a credit card, and due to certain circumstances, I haven't had to pay bills or anything of that sort yet, so I don't have credit history and that's why they told me at AT&T that I had to pay $500 of deposit (which sucks). So now I'm trying to find ways to build credit history. Next semester I'll start having bills on my name and I'm considering trying to get one of those training credit cards to pay small things (a book, one week's groceries, dinner at a restaurant, etc.). I still need to figure out how that works exactly, though.
I hate credit cards. I have one that I got from my bank in my country to use when I travel abroad and to pay plane tickets (it has an additional insurance). But that's the only time I use it. I've had it for several years already and I don't like using it unless absolutely necessary. I think credit cards' evil side is way bigger than their good side. Plus, if I don't have the money, why should I spend it?. I don't think I should be penalized for not having a credit card. It means I don't spend more than what I have.
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How is social life in town? Is life expensive? (it's really important to know how much life costs: one program may offer you a better stipend, but if it's in a most expensive city it doesn't make any difference). Do professors orient you and help you with research (publications, conferences, etc.).
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Thanks.. *grins* it's a monument to my compulsive need to know every potentially relevant detail for planning my future and my unfortunate memory of no-longer-necessary information I had once spent time researching
(Edit: and it also says something about my procrastination vs. work preferences..)
Ha, ha, ha :-)
What about cellphone contracts? Does anyone have any recommendation for international students? (f.ex. with cheap international calls - to Europe in my case)
Well, for cheap international calls our best friend is Skype. I use it to talk to my family. If they are connected to Skype, it's free. If they are not (or if I'm calling someone that doesn't have Skype) it's 3 cents/min. I think (my calls are to Spain).
As for contracts, well, it depends on your needs. I use prepaid for two reasons: first, I don't spend enough so that the contract is worth it; secondly, I don't have credit history in the US (yet) so I had to leave a deposit of $500. Since I had to pay rent, food, books, some tuition, etc. I decided not to do it and keep my prepaid card.
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I agree with what has been said. I would notify the schools the change of phone number, first of all, and explain the situation (program cancelled, no access to transcripts, etc.). As somebody mentioned, we all know what's going on in Egypt, and it's not only that the school advised you to come back, the US government is bringing Americans back home, so I would expect understanding from the programs. You didn't give up, the situation forced you to.
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Wow, fuzzylogician!!! I came here to see if I could help but I don't think there's anything else that needs to be added. That was quite impressive!
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My school also uses a 4 point system, in which A and A+ is 4.0, A- is 3.7, B+ is 3.3 and so on. In my case grades are somehow important, because in order to keep getting my financial aid I need to maintain a certain GPA (I cannot be below 3.0 in my GPA).
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Great thread! Here comes my grad school experience. I'm only in my second semester of grad school, but I absolutely love my program. I love the courses I took the first semester and the courses I'm taking this semester. I love the department and the people in it. The relationship between the students is great, even when we are in different programs (I'm in the Hispanic Linguistics track, and there are people in the Hispanic Literature and Portuguese tracks). The relationship between students and professors is really good too and there is a lot of collaboration between everybody.
I love the campus. It is huge and I got lost a lot of times during my first weeks here, but it is a beautiful campus with lots of things going on all the time.
And I love the town. It is the perfect size for me (small city, with all the basics of a city and without the stress of traffic, rush hour, etc.), and it is very international (they have international festivals and plenty of international restaurants, which I love).
If I had to grade my grad school experience so far, I would say A or A+ (if I had a car it would probably be an A+
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Hi guys, I'm new here, and already this thread has been very helpful to me!
Great! :-)
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People call me B (bee) because for them it's easier than pronouncing my name the way it's pronounced in my language. But I prefer BumbleBEE because I like that word better in English. My picture is because this is The Grad Cafe (duh!) and because I love coffee (actually, I like cappuccino, which is the coffee in my picture).
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Does the school set minimum scores for each of the TOEFL sections? Sometimes they do, especially for the speaking part. If they don't, I would worry more about improving the GRE score. Some schools still ask you to pass their own English exam when you arrive on campus. Mine did. I had to take two tests: a written one (similar to TOEFL but without the speaking part) that was mandatory for all international students (although, since I'm a grad student my department was able to give me a waiver); and an oral exam that was mandatory for all TAs.
In other schools, if you score less than X they can still offer you admission, but they make you take an English course before you can start teaching.
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Thanks guys.
I contacted UIUC's Math department, and if anyone is curious, I was told that a declaration of $3300 is sufficient, so long as indicate that I will require funding to enroll. It seem that, likely, other universities that require a declaration of finances *with* the application will be similar.
Good! See? You really didn't have to worry that much about it :-)
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My case was quite similar. Some schools didn't ask for a financial statement, others asked for one but offered you the possibility to check the box that said "I depend on the school's financial aid to attend" and one asked for the actual amount of money available. I gave an approximate amount, which wasn't enough even to support me for 3 months.
I wouldn't worry too much about it, anyway. As fuzzylogician said, as long as you can proof that you have funds when you're applying for the visa, you're fine. And by then you should already know whether you're getting financial aid from the school.
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Thanks for the tip!
You're welcome :-)
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Title says it all. I'm a Canadian and am here under the F-1 heading that limits me to 20hrs/wk.
I would like to either work full-time for financial reasons during the summer, or I would like to be able to work full-time to further my career.
Do you have any knowledge that in any way relates to this subject?
If I can only work 20hrs/wk it might be cheaper to fly back to Canada for the summer months. That's annoying--I'd like to not have to constantly shift my life back and forth.
With an F-1 visa you're allowed to work on campus up to 40h/week during the recess periods (breaks, holidays, etc.). However, I don't know whether you have to fill in some additional paperwork or whether it's automatically done. Ask the international student services office of your institution, they will be able to advise you better than me.
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Yes, they receive an e-mail immediately giving them instructions on how to submit the letters. Once they submit their LORs, you will most probably receive an e-mail letting you know that Prof. X has submitted it.
When I applied I told my LORs writers to expect an e-mail from X institution so that they didn't delete it accidentally. It was really convenient and fast.
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Hi everyone,
Has anyone had success using the GRE Poweprep on a mac? I tried downloading and keep running into problems. Do you know of any plugin I could use?
Thanks
I had the same problems, because Powerprep only works with Windows. What I did was install Parallels and Windows, so every time I wanted to use Powerprep I switched to Windows. I don't know whether there are other options.
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Well, all I can say is so far, so good. I had two weeks of orientation (one for international students, which was useless since I've already been living in the country for 3 years) and my department's orientation that was intense and, as we say in Spain, longer than a day without bread. However, I got to know my cohort and they're all great. We get along very well and we have been going out together since day 1. We even went to a drive in movie on Saturday (my first ever!!!). We also got to meet people in other years of MA and PhD and they're really nice and helpful. They all offered themselves to help and they even passed on the material for the courses we're teaching.
As far as courses are concerned, today was my first day of class (yes!!! I'm officially a grad student) and I'm already stressing out with things. Ok, I must confess I'm a perfectionist and want to have everything well done, organized and done ahead of time. Let's see how I survive the week!
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Mine were too.
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I chose "That Guy"
I chose "Envy Inducer"
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I am going to take the test really soon and I started to reread section On Test Day of the official website. And it says "Do not bring cell phones <...> into the test center. If you do, you will be dismissed from the test, your test fees will be forfeited and your scores will be canceled."
My question is, if I bring it and put it into a locker - is it against the rules or something?
To take the test I will have to go to another city and I just cannot leave my cell phone at home!
Thanks!
I brought my cell phone with me when I took the GRE since I also had to travel to take it and left it off in the locker. However, I cannot tell you for sure whether the rules said something about cell phones in the test center. I took the test less than a year ago, so I don't think the rules have changed. But we never know...
They're extremely strict with what you can take to the exam with you, though.
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Thanks for the link! I found it really useful.
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Great video!!!
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I agree with this to an almost pathological degree.
I lived with my older sister's family (husband, daughter, dog etc) for a few summers. Her sweet, loving, damnable dog destroyed one of my books, and my sister called my cell phone while I was on the hour-long bus ride back home. She had thrown the book away immediately, and couldn't even tell me which title it was and couldn't understand my near-hysteria at not knowing whether the dog had chewed up one of my favorite, precious books.
When I was 9 or 10 I caught my little brother scribbling in one of my books (I didn't even especially like it). He was 3 or 4 and the poor thing had to listen to my several-minute talk about how sacred books are, that they were little treasures that had to be cherished and that he had to treat them like living things. He didn't dare put a finger on one of my books for several years.
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I loooooooveeee my books and I love keeping them. For me they're sacred to the point that no one (not even me) is allowed to write on them. I know, it's going to be tough surviving grad school without writing down notes in the books. I'll have to find a way.
The good thing is that in Spain in undergrad you barely don't have to buy books (I think I only bought 5 during my 4 years in undergrad), since most of the classes involve note taking. I did accumulate books that I bought for pleasure, though, but most of them are in Spain, so they're not taking any space in my shelf here. I guess I'll worry about space issues in a year or two (hopefully two).
The only books that I tossed away (that is, sold for less than $20 after spending almost $200 on them) were the ones I bought for the American Society course I had to take when I came to the US as a Teaching Fellow. I didn't like the course or the readings that much and only kept one of the books, which was about rampage shootings (I thought it was an interesting reading).
Documentation, visa and bureaucratic stuff
in IHOG: International House of Grads
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You're more than welcome! :-)