barbarian

Anybody know how to combine (if at all) fellowships? Can you accept NDSEG and something else?

Actually I wouldn't want to date a mathematician. There are all kinds of complications to dating in your own discipline (professional gossip if you break up; two-body problem; even just being in direct competition with your S.O.) I've seen happily married pairs of math professors, but it probably doesn't work for everyone. Now, smart is always good, and I'd like him to respect mathematics.

There's some intrinsic things about academia that I think select for liberals, or promote liberalism. 1. It's not the highest-paying field in the world. That's going to select for people who don't put the highest priority on money. 2. It's creative work, done on a fairly free time schedule. That means that you aren't earning your pay on a 9-to-5 job. That changes your attitude to money. You're less likely to think "I earned every penny of this with my own drudgery." You're more likely to feel lucky (rather than justified) to be paid for playing with your brain. Since productivity waxes and wanes, you're also more likely to feel undeserving some of the time. There's a more tenuous relationship between effort and pay; and I think that makes us less likely to resent taxes. 3. Respect for authority is built in. It's school. For a long time, into our late twenties, we work for teachers. Then we are teachers. People who like that setup tend not to be either very anti-authoritarian, or very much in favor of arbitrary authority; if you've spent your life admiring good teachers then your ideal is a thoughtful and considerate authority. 4. The pen is mightier than the sword. To be an academic, you have to believe that persuasive writing is worthwhile, compared to physical force or economic clout. The thing is, whenever I meet a conservative who's a die-hard academic, complete with the academic personality, I find myself liking him or her. They tend to be either libertarians or religious conservatives. Mainly, conservative academics agree with liberal academics on point 4, which is why we get along. I think I would have trouble getting along with anyone who didn't see the value of reasonable debate.

At some schools the boundary is fluid; you can apply to one department and get an advisor in the other. I applied to a mix of math and applied math departments.

I'll be going for math. I'm inclined to go for the grad dorm (the price is right) but I might move out later if everyone's doing it.