timuralp

definitely do date outside of your department. look for clubs you might be interested in, like a wine club, beer club, running club, etc and join it. Also, dating undergrads can be fine, since age is a state of mind. The mature ones are few and far between, but that doesn't mean all of them should be stigmatized.

So, there is Farnam Jahanian's group, which looks at security in mobiles, enterprises, and they do some work with spam and botnets. You can read papers by Farnam's students like Jon Oberheide and Sushant Sinha to get a sense for the direction. Then Atul Prakash is more interested in web security stuff. You can look at his publications. Lastly, the latest faculty member with security focus is Alex Halderman who did the voting machine stuff that got so much publicity, the shift-key hack, the paper fingerprinting analysis. Long story short, you can do security research here and actually do quite well. Side note: Brown would be great if you want to do cryptography. Anna Lysyanskaya does a lot of good work, e.g. anonymous credentials, e-cash.

The only thing i'd say about comments is that sometimes they are utterly useless. Example: all three comments are "great project, great idea, showed clear connection to a broader impact". Err, how does one improve that? Or know what was wrong? rant over

My perception obviously will be skewed, since I have to spend a lot of time in the lab. There are a few things happening in Ann Arbor where you can meet people outside of U-M, like the Art festival and the film festival. There is a regular comedy club, where some of the comedians that ended up on comedy central presents appear once in a while. There is a whole bunch of people who are professionals and work, but they tend not to be close to campus, since all the jobs are on South State and Eisenhower. Overall, I like the town, because there is good cultural diversity and I can find ethnic food, good beer, good running trails. Also, make sure to partake in some student activities. I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you might have...

Congratulations! welcome to AA, well, when you finally move here

This is somewhat amusing, since i was going through the same thing last year. My field is mobile systems and security and I ended up at U-M, since it fits better research wise. If you have specific questions about U-M, I could answer them, but I can't compare the machine learning fields as well. Try to look at the research going on and see where you think you'd fit in better.

To be fair, Ann Arbor is not Detroit

I think you're really making a bad judgment of these schools if the only things you're considering are: rankings, location, length of winter (related to location, obviously). What about research? Which area are you interested in? Which faculty do you want to work with? How many are in your field? Ultimately you're going to grad school to study and do research. I'm not saying location is irrelevant, but I'd say it should factor in after these other questions... Oh, well, just my 2 cents on this

On North, parking isn't too big a deal. The two lots for students are about a 10 minute walk from the center of north campus. The key is to get the after hours permit, which lets you park in all of the parking garages and lots after 3 pm - really convenient. The permit will run about $130 for the year, which overall isn't that bad. As far as I can tell it's really easy to get - just go to parking services and they'll give you one right there.

Ok, so I'll preface this with saying this isn't acceptable, obviously. I think the general sentiment can be summed up as: "you're ruining the academic community". I don't know if this is as disastrous as that. Obviously, the other students in the class suffer from your actions, but I'm not sure I see how the academic community at large is. So, the argument would obviously go something like this: "well, s/he cheated in a class, then still passes classes, gets a degree, begins publishing, steals others' ideas, and BAM! The field is ruined forever". I'm sorry, but I don't buy it. First of all, if you can find a solution to your research problem online, that's not actually research and no one will accept your work as such. Isn't the whole point of PCs to review papers for proper citations, acknowledging all important, relevant prior work, and making sure the research is original? You're not going to survive in the academic world this way - it will crush you. So, then let's take a different argument "well, s/he cheated in a class, then still passes classes, gets a degree, and BAM! the reputation of the school is ruined forever and the degree doesn't have value." This may have some validity, but at the same time sometimes you have a class with, say, a 30 average on everything, which gets scaled up to a B- or B, and an A would be a 50. I'm not entirely sure how that grade is valid. Of course, it may speak to the fact that the assignments are too hard, the professor doesn't explain material well, etc, doesn't matter. The point is these students still have to be interviewed and we all know grades alone get you, well, nowhere (as far as I can tell; feel free to disprove it, but I haven't found any places). Finally, just felt like starting a somewhat provoking conversation about this, and that's the reason for this post

check out the city guide thread about ann arbor

Hehe I'd say that it's subjective, so people interested should just look up the average temperature by month and go by that Haha nice. For me Ann Arbor's actually a better place, since my parents are in NH - yikes.

So, here's what I did: I got an internship over the summer before starting grad school and saved around 8-10k. Then I asked my parents to help me. The down payment was $21k + closing cost. The total ended up around $25k. Then, since I was working, I asked my mom to help me out by flying out to look at condos. This was great of her and I'd say if you can't pay someone to do this for you or if you can't visit, it may be worthwhile waiting like you're planning. In the end, it worked out great for me, as we managed to snatch a condo that was on the market a total of 2 weeks before we contacted the sellers. I'd say I got a bit lucky and I didn't run into any surprises along the way. Everything was pretty clear and straightforward. Getting a feel for the area is just a great idea in general, so be sure to do that. If you go to school somewhere for a year, you'll definitely do that, so that's a good idea. Otherwise try to find people to talk to who live there already. Then with your mortgage concern, typically a bank will take your stipend and divide it by 12 (I know it's 9 months, but you have no guaranteed funding for the other 3). Then that's your monthly earnings. Then they'll compute the tax you're paying. Then they subtract any outstanding payments you might have, such as car, credit card, etc. Then from that number they compute the monthly payments and they typically want to see a figure that is at most a third of your income. So, in my case it was 1500/3 = 500 maximum they'd let me get away with. From that you can figure out the mortgage you can get. Finally, if you realize that you need more in mortgage and you know you can afford it, you could ask your parents to co-sign it. My parents didn't want to do that since then their taxes would be quite a bit higher, so we just looked at cheaper condos. Hope this helps

I got a condo for $75k with a $54k mortgage. So it's possible Do you have specific questions?

For some things funding information will take longer, especially if the department nominates you for a fellowship, but you'll hear by the end of March for sure.

Haha, well, you'd have to drive out of Ann Arbor a little and go to one of the wetlands. I thought the winter was tolerable, but my perception was probably affected by 7 years in New England.

Google says yes

Well, my fellowship was 8k per semester and I still managed to save about 2-3k in the fall and hoping to do the same in the spring. My mortgage+condo fees runs about $820/month. If you rent and have roommates, you can do it for around $600 around campus. The summer funding is usually available, but you gotta get your advisor to pay you. The pay is usually $2k/month, at least that's the case in computer science. I found that it's possible to live on it comfortably and didn't feel constricted in any way.

Well, walk around Central Campus, obviously. Walking around will give you the feel of the place. I'm only saying this because so many programs just give a bus tour to their students and that's silly. Then, depending on your interests, there are a few notable places. Ashley's (State St, between William and North University), Grizzly Peak (Washington St and Ashley St), and Arbor Brewing Company (Washington St, between 4th and Main St) all are good beer places and have decent food. Might be of interest if you're looking for dinner and a good beer. Arbor Brewing Company and Grizzly Peak are less populated by students and are farther from campus. Then you want to walk around Kerry town (the square formed by Ann, 5th Ave, Kingsley, and State st). This is where a lot of students live, grad and undergrad. A lot of houses are not in a great shape and are overpriced. If you get a chance, stop by Zingermann's deli (Kingsley and Detroit St). Also, you could look at housing heading south on East University St from Hill St (close to business school and sociology, as well as the main quad). Essentially, you'll be competing with undergrads all around campus, since they all generally want to live within walking distance. I know quite a few students living in Kerry town and they all seem to like it, so I would try to find something decent there. The last housing you could look at is in the triangle formed by Geddes, South University and Elm. Finally, walk around South university (up to Washtenaw, after that is housing pretty much), check out the Michigan Union on State St (it's pretty neat inside), check out the libraries on campus (Undergrad (Shapiro) and Grad). Check out the Law Quad: State St and South University. Hope this helps If you have specific questions, let me know. Hope you enjoy the visit

guys, check out squire village. The prices are cheap and the location is not awful, although you'll need a car for groceries. You can get to school by bus though, that runs pretty frequently. I graduated from UMass last year, and no, I'm not affiliated with squire village apartments

The thing with parking, if you're on North Campus (that's where all engineering stuff is) it's not too bad actually, since the lot's about a half a mile walk from all the buildings. Don't know anything about central campus, but there are buses from the lots for sure. Also, you probably want to do something like my friend did: look at places online, if you find a few, visit in July and try to get a lease that starts in the end of August. Also, Michigan does the whole summer institute thing, which would make it pretty easy to find housing, since you'll be here in May/June anyway.

Hey man, I'd say start early. Maybe June. You'll be competing with undergrads for housing, so beware Depending on which program you're in, you'll be looking in different places of town probably, unless you want to drive. Driving would definitely lower the rent for you, since anything close to campus is expensive.

Having almost spent one winter here (yay, spring is coming), I'll say it wasn't that bad. Then again, I lived in MA before this, so could be used to it. A few times it got really cold (below 10), but the teens weren't bad. Also, if you're close to campus, then it's just a matter of finding a path that goes primarily through buildings

pretty sure this is a moot point now...

Cute. I approve Hahaha don't worry, I don't discriminate based on the operating system you use. Only the beer you drink