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Crescenza

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  • Location
    Washington, D.C.
  • Application Season
    Spring 2020
  • Program
    Rehab professions

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  1. Anybody else out there with dyscalculia? Want to chat- about anything, but in particular how it's affecting your experiences with grad school? I lived with this alone for a long time and would love to connect with some people who are in the same boat. For anybody out there taking the GRE - my understanding is that at present you don't need a documented diagnosis to get basic accommodations This was good news for me because my LD certification "expires" every few years (lol... as if I could just magically not have dyscalculia anymore... wouldn't that be nice! :-P) and my insurance doesn't cover getting re-tested.
  2. Examples of schools I like: NYU, Kent State, Ohio State, and Baldwin-Wallace.
  3. A lot, I'm afraid... Will you be living with roommates? Unless money is no object, I would strongly recommend looking further afield than Georgetown. It is the most expensive neighborhood in a city which is very pricey (by some metrics, the most expensive city in the country) to begin with and only getting worse (that being said, for the record, I love living here and it is worth it to have some of the most amazing cultural opportunities in the country at your doorstep). I'm actually surprised/impressed that @iwearflowers found an apartment there for "only" $1500 (iwearflowers, how did you swing that? ^^) Will you be at GW? If so, you'll be right by the metro. It is slow and there are delays but it will get you where you need to go. Southeast is a few stops away and there are lots of nice, very liveable neighborhoods there that would be somewhat more affordable. Unfortunately there's not much within walking distance of Georgetown. Technically you could walk from there to, say, Metro Center, but it is a hike. Not something I would want to do in bad weather or by myself at night (although walking around Georgetown is absolutely lovely when the weather is nice). Congrats on starting grad school in the fall, btw! I am a Washingtonian and love my city. It is a beautiful place. I hope you like it! (As a side note, I am not sure if Grady Management is in DC or just in Maryland, but I was not happy with my experience renting from them at all. YMMV however.)
  4. Hello! This looks really helpful; thank you to the OP for creating it! As far as housing - not sure where you're looking, but in my experience almost everyone I know who's renting found their place themselves looking online on Apartments.com and the like. I don't think you need to go through a realtor when you're renting; the management or owner can give you a tour. Depending on how expensive the place is and how complex the lease agreement is, it miiiiiiiiiiiight be worth it to have an attorney look over it, but that's not usually necessary in my experience. Good luck!
  5. Hi, this is a late reply but I'm adding it anyway in the hopes that my experience can be useful with others. I strongly recommend not living with roommates. It's billed as the financially responsible thing to do but it can actually be extremely risky. At the college-grad-school-just-starting-a-career stage of life, people live very transient lives with a lot of unexpected changes. Sharing a three-bedroom with two other people actually ended up costing me more money than having a studio to myself would have, because just after I'd signed for another year, one of my roommates broke her lease and the other one skipped out on me. So, even having the one girl on the lease with me didn't help. Even though I was living in a very popular area, in a nice and very reasonably priced apartment, I was only able to find one replacement roommate, and then only by taking on the amount of rent my other absent roommate would have been paying. So I was paying the rent on two bedrooms. Pretty quickly it burned through all the money I saved in the first place by choosing to live with roommates, and my emergency fund. This was a year ago and my finances are still recovering. I ended up having to break my lease too. Luckily the management agreed to overlook it (bless them) so my credit score wasn't affected, but if they hadn't had mercy on me, it would have been a huge mess for me. (At one point I thought I would sublet, so I tried to rent the extra room out on Airbnb, and it was a CATASTROPHE (the company booked someone to stay in my room without asking or notifying me, and on a day I had blocked off on the app calendar that I wasn't available, so one day when I was not available I got a phone call from a complete stranger who I'd never met before saying that she was going to be at my apartment in three hours; airbnb had given her my address without my permission and without notifying me that she had booked the room). It took eight hours on the phone with customer service and they still didn't solve the problem.) If I had it to do over again I would live by myself from the get-go - less stress, less financial strain, and the added benefit of getting to pick where I live for myself instead of having to negotiate with people. And I'm finally getting a cat! :)) Hope this can be of help to some people. Best wishes!
  6. Congratulations and welcome to DC! GW is an amazing school, you will be going places for sure! I'm a Washingtonian and love my city I don't know what your criteria are for an "awesome neighborhood" but regardless there'll be something that's a good fit for you. DC offers wonderful variety. Are you a quiet sort or do you like to go out on on the town? Will you be living alone or with roommates? If you're living alone you won't find anything super close to main campus (but that's city life for you - part of the adventure ). Personally I wouldn't want to live near Gtown anyway; it's expensive and I find it stuck-up (gorgeous to visit though - beautiful parks, lovely walks along the canal, and river views, and you're near the Kennedy Center - it doesn't get any better than that!) Assuming you'll be taking Metro, I would check out Alexandria (you'd have to transfer from the blue/orange/silver line, which is a pain in the butt, but you're far more likely to find affordable rent there), or, I don't know much about neighborhoods in Southeast but I hear Eastern Market is fun, and in general SE is not quiiiiiiiite as expensive as most of the rest of DC, although unfortunately it is gentrifying rapidly. Southeast would be relatively close to campus for you (I say relatively because there are often severe delays on Metro, especially on the weekends and during off hours). Only area I would absolutely say to avoid living in is around Union station. I dreaded walking there every night to catch the metro home. At night the place is a ghost town - scary! My friends who've lived there have all said it was awful. But they're covering over the highway near there and putting up some new businesses and I think housing on top of it, so that will probably change in the next couple years. Good luck!
  7. @clmogel not sure where you're living atm, but just wanted to say I lived in Rockville for a number of years (enough that I consider myself a Rockvillean at heart) and absolutely loved it! It's perfect. Vibrant, diverse, historic, cultural, safe, public transport as good as you'll find anywhere in the country, wonderful libraries, parts of it are very walkable, lovely parks, theatre, art, restaurants, close enough to DC to have an infinite variety of cultural and educational opportunities, but some pretty good chunks of it are suburban enough to not be too hectic (although unfortunately that's changing as developers are stuffing it full of overpriced high-rises), and (for now) it's still relatively affordable compared to, say, Bethesda. I was so happy there and would move back in a heartbeat if I could! I met so many interesting people from all walks of life and all of them were brilliant. As far as finding jobs in the DC area, I can't really speak to that because I found my current job through someone-who-knew-someone-who-knew-someone etc etc, but I will say volunteering is a great way to get a foot in the door. I got my first job offer in the area that way.
  8. @Aspire_to_BeThank you so much for such a thoughtful reply, and for your encouraging words! I really appreciate it! Sorry, I should have clarified; I meant I want to live & work in a big city after graduating. I'm perfectly fine with going to grad school in the boonies if that's what it takes. And congrats on your reach acceptances; that's awesome!
  9. Hello lovely people, I have seen a lot of really good discussion in these boards about how it's a good idea and doable to have a hobby during a demanding full-time grad school program (in my case, the program I am hoping to go into is Occupational Therapy). My question is - is it doable to pursue something that's not-a-career-but-more-than-a-hobby? Context: I’m a soprano who's been training vocally for over ten years (been performing my whole life, piano from 7-14, started voice lessons at 14, and am now 25) and I take it very seriously. My initial goal was to get my degree in vocal performance but that wasn't possible due to financial and family reasons. I got my bachelor’s is in psychology (and I found it very interesting and fun) and then had to go out and get an honest job ^^ and now I must turn my sights toward grad school. Singing is still a significant part of my life and very much more than a hobby. I'm too old now to reasonably expect to pursue a full-time career in vocal music (25 is absolutely ancient for a female in the performing arts, unfortunatey), and thus I'm in that awkward place where I'm not a professional or full-time music student but calling myself a hobbyist doesn't quite fit either. I guess I'd say "serious amateur" for lack of a better word. I would like to pursue singing and performing semi-professionally (which is very much a thing - I know many outstanding performers who sing and act professionally whilst also having a career in another field; indeed, my home city, DC, seems tailor-made for this kind of lifestyle as it has a number of outstanding theatre and opera groups that straddle the line between community and professional) whilst also having a “normal people job” that hopefully also makes a more concrete contribution to society. I'm in the early stages of applying for master's programs in Occupational Therapy and a couple in speech-language pathology because of my passion for the human voice (I would be applying to all SLP programs were it not for the fact that ASHA requires a course in chemistry or physics to become a certified SLP, and I have dyscalculia, so I’m hesitant to put all my eggs in one basket when it’s by no means a guarantee that I could pass a chem or physics class without hiring a lot of expensive tutors.) For the record, I’m not defaulting to this out of disappointment or as a last resort; I'm excited and enthusiastic about both of these fields and looking forward to the possibilities. They both suit my personality in a number of ways (active, extraverted, creative, social, compassionate, a good listener, flexible, patient, resourceful, resilient, blahblahblah), I love learning about health, medicine, and the human body, and I like working with seniors. Altogether the rehab professions are a great fit. I 100% see myself doing one of these two careers (I’d be thrilled and honored to do either of them) for the rest of my professional life. The trouble is getting through grad school... In your opinion, is it possible to still pursue music seriously on the side (e.g. practice every day, lessons once a week, involvement in serious chorales, possible community theatre participation and/or recording some tracks, etc) during grad school, esp in a demanding program like OT or SLP? It would break my heart to lose the progress I've made from all my hard work. I want to be the best musician it is possible for me to be, and that takes dedication. I do have good time management skills, but each of us is only given 24 hours in the day. Fortunately I do have some GI bill benefits from my dad's army service, which will cover a significant part of my grad-school expenses (such an amazing blessing and I'm so grateful!) so I don't have to work while taking classes (plan to take on a side job in the summers though). (I am looking at Ohio State’s singing health program because that would represent a perfect juxtaposition of my two interests, but again, I have to decide whether it’s worth the money and time it would take me to pass a physical-science class in order to do SLP. Also, that program is very competitive, so I don’t want to stake all my hopes on getting in there if I do decide to apply ). Any input is appreciated. Please be respectful/positive/blahblahblah, thanks! I realize that the above probably makes my career trajectory sound like a bit of a s***show (and it is! It absolutely is! ^^ ) but it's not due to a lack of direction- I had a number of major, major life crises (family members dying, medical problems, blahblahblahdepressingyoudontwanttohearaboutthat) that prevented me from following a typical career template and I'm sincerely trying to do the best I can with the circumstances that were given to me to work with. *I did read an article about one guy who secretly completed two wholly-unrelated master's program's at the same time - LOLOL! - but all I can say is, he must be made of stronger stuff than I am! ^^ Thank you so much in advance! Any help is greatly appreciated!
  10. Hello everyone! I am currently in the process of building up my resume with a view to applying for postbac programs and then hopefully on to a master's in SLP. (I don't want to go into research, so either M.A. or M.S. is fine). I am trying to get an idea of the kind of schools I should be applying to. My question is, do "safety schools" exist in a field as competitive as SLP? Context: My GPA is 3.76; my major GPA (I have a B.A. in psychology) is 3.6. Not sure whether this is relevant, but I went to a college that unfortunately seems to have fairly mediocre reputation value from what I can gather (it was a perfectly respectable, accredited school, but not really known at all outside of a small region), though I was in the honors program if that makes a difference. Also studied abroad at a tippity-top uni and got perfect grades in every class that semester and a fancy-sounding academic award, if that helps at all. I have not decided whether I want to take the GRE (it would be a lot of stress, and a lot of money and time that I don't have sunk on prep courses, as I test poorly in math) but if I do, it's a safe bet that my quantitative score will be average at best while my analytical writing and verbal reasoning scores would be in a v. high percentile (this has been the same story with every standardized test I have ever taken, lol). I haven't done my shadowing yet but I have a good number of volunteering hours with a diverse array of relevant programs, and will have a very respectable number of hours by the time I start applying to master's programs. I very much enjoy working with seniors, so my hope would be to work with that population, probably in an SNF. (I am also eyeballing the Ohio State singing-health SLP program, as I have a music background, but that program seems to be pretty unique, so I'm not pegging all my hopes and dreams on that one option. ) I'm fortunate enough to have some recommenders who are willing to write me really good letters. I also have a background of taking on a lot of the responsibility in my family from an early age, which was part of my inspiration to look into this field (it taught me flexibility, compassion, patience, responsibility, resilence, and so forth which are important qualities in the rehab professions), and makes for good essay fodder (feel a bit gross about leveraging my family tragedies that way but it's what ya gotta do I guess! ) Folks I've talked to so far have been pretty impressed with my backstory and encouraged me to make a point of it in my applications as it gives me a pretty unique perspective. I currently work as a research assistant, mainly assisting with projects related to child neglect in military populations. I have been at the same institution for several years and have my name on a couple publications, albeit not as a main author or anything like that. Let's assume for the sake of argument that I do decent in a postbac program - not okay, not 4.0. This isn't one of those "what are my chances" posts, but I'm wondering, are there safeties into this field? I plan to apply to a couple prestigious programs. I've been a city girl all my life, DC born & bred, and I thrive on that energy, so it would be nice to get a job in a competitive, fast-paced city like DC or NY or Chicago if I can swing it. I like NYU, Kent State, Ohio State, and Baldwin-Wallace, for example. ( UPDATE: To clarify here - I'd like to work in a big city after graduating, but I'm fine with going to grad school in the middle of nowhere if that's what it takes. I apologize for the confusing wording!) But I'd like to aim mostly for schools that are in the middle of the pack. Are there any programs that would be considered safeties by anyone (let alone little old me, haha)? This whole process is still pretty new to me and I am still working on getting my bearings (my spreadsheet currently has almost fifty schools listed in it - LOL!!! - so clearly I need to find a way to start narrowing down my list!) Thank you so so much!
  11. @Kslptobe thank you for posting! You are amazing! I too have a learning disability (the struggle is very, very real - so many people just don't get that we are perfectly smart and capable of learning) and this was so encouraging for me! :)
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