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I study in a different program but had the same choice to make last year. Even the pros and cons are similar to your case. The academic fit should certainly weigh the most, and maybe the prestige, depending on the discipline. I chose Chapel Hill because of the academic style fit after all, and it seems that within a 30-min drive, Triangle area is relatively more lively than South bend. Taking classes at Duke is a thing in my program. Though at the end I did have the trade-off of having more financial constraint, i.e. less funding, the need to secure summer funding, and the uncertainty regarding the funding source the next year, but I guess there will be just trade-off in either way. If you still have time, maybe relaying your questions to the graduate student in the program, or even your current adviser, and see what they say.

Thanks! The link is broken though. Is it along the line of what is good vs. unsatisfactory for the students?

Hey thanks @Bumblebea and @PsyDGrad90for the input! As OP I have valuable take-aways from both of your posts. I acknowledge that the evaluations I got have revealed some weak points I can work on. Seeking student feedback early on would also be helpful. Besides that not much can be done on the circumstantial constraints other fellow TAs and I observed in the experience, but with time and practice there should be growth I suppose.

Thanks @AP and @Sigaba for your suggestions! Like you said the meeting did go well and focus on specific steps I could take to potentially improve the outcome. Once the action steps are clear it becomes easier to handle.

Hi, I finished my first semester of TA and graduate school this past fall semester. I held two recitation sections on an experiment design course that help students write a research paper as a semester-long project. Recently my department Director of Undergraduate Studies requested to meet with me and follow up on the course evaluations I received from the fall semester, regarding how I "might improve the ratings." I am both appreciative and defensive over the meeting and the course evaluation at the moment. I could use the meeting because it is true that some feedback was very constructive and that on two or three student evaluation questions my average rating was below neutral, but the rating and feedback from different students are notably variable, even conflicting such as suggesting prepared/clear vs. not at all prepared/clear. Furthermore, there was no TA training at the beginning, and I sometime have to refer to other TAs' progress to clearly see what the appropriate weekly goal would be; we did not have any other materials or guideline in addition to those that our students also have access to. To mentally prepare myself for the meeting, I would appreciate any input on whether undesirable ratings often happened, and/or how serious a situation this type of director meetings would imply...Any other thoughts or comments would also be helpful. Thanks!

Great I never clearly realized this, and it should be a more efficient starting with getting to know the problems first. I will make sure to add this to my question list for my adviser once we meet soon. Hope the semester goes well for you.

@orange turtle I think you can stick to your plan with the same seriousness and sincerity, as other great posts here have suggested. The chair probably needs that reconciliation even more now?

Many thanks @Sigaba for your perspectives! You are on point that I should only work towards being on the same page with my adviser, now that the problem is that I still could not communicate or discuss works with my adviser. I will keep that in mind while trying to fit any extra materials into my schedule.

Glad to know that worse outcomes did not happen, and hope you recover soon... I am sure someone here could advise on this better than me. I am just guessing the chair knows he is not the person to mention this first, and it is up to you to set the tone of the debriefing. In any case it is the right thing to thank him for lending the clothes and the shower, and for help with the medic trip, so maybe you can start with that, shortly after you both get seated, and with the kind of polite, preemptive smile that is planned but seemingly emerged spontaneously as a result of embarrassment, and see how that works. (Edited typos.)

Hi. I am wondering how practical it is to learn new materials on my own during the semester, in addition to the first-year coursework and teaching I will be doing. I am starting my doctoral program this fall with 3 courses in our psychology department. My adviser and I agreed, however, that sometime this or next year I could take some biostatistics courses to better prepare myself for the actual research projects. Hearing about my adviser's current projects and works, I thought that I need to catch up a lot in biostat and programming to have proper background knowledge for my future works. That's why I wondered if I could start early on my own, such as learning from a biostat textbook or an online programming course now and during the academic year, but would it still be practical during the semester given the first-year workload and teaching? Thanks for any input! Edit: I asked my adviser if I need to start early on anything. The answer is not really...anything will be fine.

I am also new to the game, but previously my experience was to look for published literature review articles on the topics or its related fields. These works could give you a framework. Then I looked for key articles and references mentioned there and see how those key works were then reviewed, cited and developed in the literature. In this way you have a few threads to work with and to fill in the framework. Probably there are more mature and experienced ways to do it. Others can pitch in for you.

I did quite some searching on this forum for "impostor syndromes" and there are some helpful threads here you could look up. For me it's really about focusing on actionable steps I could take instead of generalized perception on my capabilities against the new environment.

I thought it is easier and more typical to sign a lease 1-3 months in advance unless it is for big metropolitan areas. Available leases are up online as soon as the previous tenants give their vacancy notice 60-90 days before the end of their leases, so it might be hard to get a lease on the spot after you arrived. Plus the process of settling down also takes time. Several apartment rating websites as well as generic rating forums (google, yelp) might have reviews and pictures on the apartment units you searched. I have found those quite reliable. Another way to identify desirable apartment units is to ask your senior friends who are already there or on forums like this for recommendations.

It is common to do two separate contracts. Bundles are meant for discounts. I haven't tried it myself, but in NC it seems possible to do a bundle phone+internet plan with AT&T. This depends on the specific region you are at though. You might have to check the new student guide from your school/graduate student union. In most cases an internet-only package is available. Just make sure your apartment is not forcing you to buy a cable plan.

If she knows that she missed it because of something that came up, she might follow up with you later with some more proposed time slots (and maybe an explanation.) You could follow up if you have not heard from her say for the rest of this week...This happens sometimes.