NeilM

I just accepted my fellowship awards for graduate school and they’re way more generous than I expected. I can’t believe it’s only 3 months away! My boyfriend and I have been spending so much more time together preparing for being long distance for a while, and he said after he finishes his graduate program (he only has 2 years left) he would love to move up to New York with me 🥰

I’m not in a philosophy program but this advice is excellent, thank you!

I just accepted part of my award online that was specified in a package letter from the financial aid office. However, I am missing part of it that was later promised in writing by the director of the program (not the name, if it was a named award, but the amount and the duration of the award). I plan to wait until June at least to ask about the missing award because classes start in August but has this happened to anyone else? Were you worried?

I’m going to CUNY, but I received my offer in 2 parts. I interviewed on Feb 22, and was offered a position I believe on Feb 25/26. I received a letter postdated Feb 27 for my fellowship (broken into two scholarship chunks for fall and spring, biweekly grad assistant stipend for rotations, and my tuition award). Then on Mar 27 I was offered an additional fellowship. For actual acceptance of the award? I was told I would receive word on how to accept the package in May. I believe your situation is totally normal and you might not get any information until the summer. My understanding is they don’t do payouts until the very beginning of the semester, which can make it hard to get established beforehand. Edit: also, congratulations and good luck!

I would love to blog about 1 and 2! I’m about to enter my first year and was already planning on keeping some kind of account of my experiences. Edit: oh, this is from last year and someone bumped it. Well at any rate, if you’re still looking for bloggers to regularly contribute I would definitely like to.

My advice: don’t. Look into living in another borough and commute, unless you have a ton of savings burning a hole in your pocket for rent.

I think you would get better results in the City Guide forum.

My story is probably just as long as most people's, but basically a combination of depression and circumstances had me in undergraduate for 5.5 years (I've had severe depression since I was a child). I was only medicated/seeing a therapist for the 4th year. For graduate school, I intend to be proactive about therapy! As soon as I move I plan to find a mental health office and establish at least monthly meetings so that when things do get bad, I have a professional support system. I'm also being proactive about contacting all of my friends in the area I'm moving to, and saving enough money per check to go out and have fun pretty regularly. Even if I don't want to party something I love is to be around people, like sitting at a cafe for a few hours or going to a museum. I'm getting into bullet journaling, back into creative writing, and I play a ton of video games. Basically its all about coping mechanisms, and being at least halfway stable before shit hits the fan. If anyone in this thread (or the whole site) wants to talk, I'm pretty available! I don't always have time or spoons but if you just need an open ear I'm there. Edit: on "fighting it long enough without prescriptions"--I don't think going into graduate school with this attitude is wise. The human body has its limitations. Maybe its because I'm into the biochemical pathways of the brain because of my research, but I know some people just don't produce enough hormones and there's nothing wrong with that! If hormone supplements or reuptake inhibitors in the form of antidepressants, etc. are what your body needs (as determined by your own research and the guidance of your psychiatrist or GP), then don't try to grin and bear it.

I don't go to UMD and I am not a speech pathologist, but I do live in the area! College Park is a college town (maybe that's obvious 😅) that is full of apartments and restaurants and a pretty reliable shuttle and generally suited to student living (there's even an IKEA like 5 minutes away!). However, if you have a car, you have the opportunity to live in nearby/quieter towns like Takoma Park (which is in DC) or Silver Spring! My boyfriend is a PhD student studying engineering at College Park and he lives in TP, which isn't more than 15-20 minutes away I think? If you haven't visited the school, the campus is very beautiful but also very massive. It takes up to 20 minutes to walk from one class to another sometimes, depending on the buildings you need. College Park itself is pretty... worn looking to me. It is off of Route 1, a long, winding, single-lane highway that gets super packed with traffic at rush hours. It's not as beautiful as the campus itself. And because the campus is massive, the amount of students is also massive! These numbers are public somewhere but when I was applying for undergrad (ended up going to a different university) there were close to 40k undergraduate students. I'm not sure about the graduate numbers. In general, UMD-CP (be careful when referencing it, btw--there are other schools nearby like UMBC and UMB that often get confused by outsiders for College Park, because they're all technically UMD campuses) has excellent faculty and if you choose to go there I'm sure you would have a great mentor and a good experience in your degree.

I'm not yet a graduate student, so I can't say for sure, but there are several factors that will influence making friends that are different from undergrad! For one, are you going to a state school or a private school? The culture of the university is usually the main attraction for undergrads and not graduate students (who tend to gravitate toward research potential) but if you're surrounded by parties, party-minded graduate students may go out and drink and dance as well. If your university is in a place with no bars then "parties" may be more get-together like, with some light drinks and board games. Next, is your university graduate only or do you share the campus with undergraduates? I'm going to be attending CUNY, which has an entirely separate campus for graduate student classes, so the only undergraduates I will talk to will be in the labs I rotate in. Most of my interaction will be with my graduate cohort and not undergraduate students. Third, the ages of graduate students vary greatly, especially when you factor in international students. The graduate student I'm interning under in my post-bac position is Korean, and she is almost 30 years old and in her third year. My PI is also Korean and he said that the norm is for Korean students to wait until around that age to begin graduate studies. One person I interviewed with at CUNY will be graduating undergrad at the end of this semester and told me that she's 21. I'm 23 myself, having attended undergrad for 5.5 years. So your desire to hang with "older students" might not work out so well, despite your graduate status. Lastly, do you expect to only make friends within your cohort or will you also be attempting to make friends in the city/town you live in? If you like D&D or hiking or some other hobby you can easily find meet-up groups to make friends without drinking/bars! I already have a ton of friends in New York City, and they are all professionals, so I'm not depending so much on hanging out with my cohort. Of course I want to be friendly with them but I don't plan to stick around them in all of my free time. Hopefully this helps, even coming from someone who just got their bachelors 😅

Thank you both so very much! This was extremely helpful!

Hi GradCafe, I have no idea how I'll be paid (W-2 vs other tax forms) and I plan to ask graduate students at the university I will be attending, but how do you all pay your taxes? Are they automatically withheld or do you pay them quarterly? Do you use a CPA?

Most of the time you make all your own reservations and then forward the receipts to the appropriate person for reimbursement. If they didn't give you the email of that person they might after your trip is over.

This morning I got two rejections out of my 8 applications. They were both top schools and I didn't really think I would get into them, but I'm still feeling really discouraged ? I wish the other ones would just hurry and tell me my results so that I don't have to worry anymore!

Thank you very much for the advice!