blackshirt

I went to Berkeley for undergrad, so I'm slightly familiar with this situation. Everything always takes forever to process, and there are always threats, but the good news is that bureaucracy threatening you goes even slower than the bureaucracy messing you up, so they never actually screw you out of anything. It just takes a bit of a long time. Unfortunately, your department has no control over budget cuts, so if the funding disappeared (which it probably did after your offer was made official), there's not much they can do about it. The state of CA made that decision for them. Usually when you have no office, you can set something up where you split one with somebody else or you get one in a different building. If none of this works, many grad students hold office hours at the FSM cafe. Like everyone else said, definitely talk about all of this with your DGS. Also consider approaching other students in your cohort or the year ahead of you to see if they have ideas regarding getting "officially registered" sooner. Sometimes it's a matter of just calling the right office and nagging. Berkeley is an amazing school doing cutting edge research and I'm sure (at least, I hope!) you'll grow to love it soon enough. It's just that they're under a lot of financial pressure right now, so things are rocky. It's also got a largely "go get it yourself" culture; you have to 'fight for' a lot of things but once you get used to advocating for yourself, it comes naturally. Good luck, and sorry things are starting off on the wrong foot! ***Edited to say that Berkeley's grad student's ARE unionized (of course, haha; sometimes the Berkeley stereotype is justified); as an undergraduate tutor I briefly joined the union myself. I'm not sure how you can find them (they found me) but they do exist!

I just received my new graduate school's orientation schedule today and I must say I'm soooo excited! I can't wait to move into a new apartment and get furniture and a transit pass and sign up for classes and buy supplies and attend orientation! All of this makes me feel a little childish (in other words, it reminds me of freshman year of college) but I've had a fairly boring summer so I'm excited to be busied with a new city and a new life! The only things I'm worried about are: Getting all my stuff there safely (no lost luggage or lost packages in the mail) Finding the perfect, or at least a good, apartment in my price range on fairly short order in a mostly unfamiliar area Money, of course.

Both of these, exactly. Though I have no idea why IRdreams got downvoted. Whoever thinks it's fair to suck up some of the UC's dwindling PhD funding resources with no intention of going past the MA is entirely confused. I don't think IRdreams meant to accuse the OP of planning such a maneuver; it's simply a warning to think things through before going forward with a course of study. If the OP is realizing that this course of study is not for him/her, it isn't very ethical to continue anyway with plans to drop out after a year or two, especially in a climate where so many other (very qualified) people would give an arm and their firstborn to get a shot at the full PhD.

THIS. Very much, this. I know for a fact that this made a world of difference not only for my acceptance, but also my awesome fellowship, at my new school. And if it's helpful, I was also told that the professors on the ad com all loved my writing sample, so it was clearly what ultimately made the decision for them. Good luck!

I'm interested in why you say this. I'm looking at apartments along the red line and transit times as far down as Edgewater and Lakewood seem pretty decent...is the L not on a reliable schedule or?...

I read the text of the budget deal (here) together with the Higher Education Act it modifies (here) and from what I can tell, this only affects loans taken out by graduate students after July 1, 2012. If I remember correctly, the exception is those pursuing graduate study in order to become teachers in public schools. I don't like it either, but at least the money "saved" this way goes to federal Pell grants for undergrad? Mostly, anyway...

Ok, so I haven't been around as long or as thoroughly as many of the regulars, so I don't really know your deal. I guess I'm wondering why you didn't choose a "regular" masters program if you dislike the idea of the one you're in, why you're in art if you have "zero interest in it" (or were you talking about someone else there?), why you didn't leave your program the moment you had to start sacrificing your own well-being, and why you think everyone here demands sunshines and rainbows out of you. there have been a great number of problems and issues that we've all addressed or asked our peers to address, so we're not denying that such issues exist; we're just all more about trying to make them better proactively rather than dwelling on them.

So, if you don't have time to eat, pee, or sleep, how do you have so much time to post on TGC? So I don't know the full extent of your situation, but I saw the other thread you started and I just had a thought--are there programs available for you back home, among your family, friends, girl, church, etc.? Because if it's not school itself, but rather a pesky advisor and a very lonely environment that are your problems, maybe you could have your cake and eat it too by switching to a program closer to everyone you love?

Thanks!

Like many, I can't afford flying out, staying at a motel while I look at apartments, and then flying back...only to fly out again when I actually move. However, I'm not comfortable with renting a place sight-unseen, so I'll be depending on my magical powers of quick apartment-securing. I will be flying to Chicago at the end of August (classes start in late September for me), crashing with a fellow member of my cohort who happens to be from the area, and hopefully nabbing a great apartment within a week or so. In my experience, the best way to prepare for this kind of stressful apartment marathon (yeah, I've done it before) is to do a lot of thorough research beforehand. I know the OP didn't want site suggestions, but I swear by padmapper because it draws from multiple renting sites and uses google maps as its interface, plus you can keep track of places you've looked at, your "favorites," etc. They even have a smartphone app! I've been watching my preferred neighborhoods for a little over a month, so I know the places that have gone mysteriously unrented for awhile (red flag!), as well as what price ranges and amenities I can expect. It may seem like a huge hassle to do it this way, but it is doable in most cases. YMMV, of course, so I would definitely try to ask current residents in the area if they think my strategy will be successful in your new city. As a final note, I know there are a couple of apartment-finding companies in Chicago (The Apartment People, Chicago Apartment Finders) that will help you find potential apartments and drive you around to see them (for free!). Maybe check to see if such services exist in your city as well?

Right now, Warehouse 13 Burn Notice Royal Pains White Collar I spend a lot of time on USA and SyFy. I've also been working my way through LOST on Netflix. Next, I think I may jump on the Game of Thrones bandwagon; I've heard good things. When it returns, I will also be keeping up with Glee again. It's my guiltiest pleasure, currently (used to be GRΣΣK but the series ended). Finally, favorite shows of all time: Star Trek, Scrubs, Firefly. And I'll always watch an episode of Seinfeld or M*A*S*H. Wow, I seem like I watch a lot of TV--I promise I don't! Anyway, I won't have one when I get to grad school, so it'll be all Netflix and Hulu in about a month.

Out of context, we all sound nuts. "Right now it's stars and circles but this morning it was folders." Hehe FWIW, I *thought* it was a browser thing but now both Safari & Chrome for Mac are using dots and stars instead of folders, which I used to see in Chrome only...

Hi meowmeowmix, There's been a bit of talk on this and similar topics before/recently. You might find them helpful. Here's a with lots of shipping discussion, and here's an Good luck with the move!

This. FWIW, I use Apple's 1 TB time capsule, which conveniently also doubles as a wireless router. I also have a cute little flash drive (total no-name brand) keychain that's disguised as a rubber superhero and I swear by it; it's compatible with every computer I've met (everything from old Dell & BM laptops to brand new iMacs) and less at-risk for being stolen since it looks like some little trinket a kid gave me. For cloud backup, I recommend Mozy; it syncs beautifully between my macbook, the internet, and my iphone. And, you get to choose which files to back up or not back up. When I get to my PhD program in the fall, though, I'm going to get in the habit of saving everything to Dropbox too; it keeps archives of past versions of your documents. This is incredibly useful in case you make big changes to a paper/article that you end up not liking.

I wanted to choose two options as well; I use MS Office '08 for Mac (Word & Excel) but for presentations I use Keynote '09 (Mac's version of Powerpoint) because it's just sooooo much better for my needs. I'll be buying a new MBP in a month or so, and I'm excited to get a free or very cheap version of the new MS Office for Mac because I hear Powerpoint has gotten scores better.

I may be an aesthetic nazi for pointing this out, but the proportions on the home page seem a bit off; over half the screen is devoted to recent blog posts/status updates and the most recent respondent/thread in each main forum. The focus used to be on the forums themselves, and rightly so; now IHOG, Applications, and the various disciplinary forums and their immediate subforums all seem pretty squished over there on the left side of the screen....is there any way you could mess with the widths a bit? And I, too, would love to see a non-anonymous vote-down/dislike feature. I'd definitely use it. Otherwise, I like the new look!

You might want to get everything all packed and then drop it off with friends/family in your current city (ones with a car, since it's probably a bunch of heavy boxes). That way, when you arrive in your new city and either check into grad housing or sign a lease on your own apartment, you can call to give them the OK to ship it.

THIS. I've compared all possible options, and media mail definitely has the best rates. Having got rid of books I don't want or need, and having left some that I love but can't justify shipping in storage in the 'rents' attic, I'm at 5 boxes each weighing 20-30ish lbs, and each will cost between $12-$15 (though I will pay more to get them insured). Which brings me to runonsentence's cautionary tale: Do you happen to know how large/heavy the boxes in question were? I know the weight limit is 70 lbs and I've heard that it's best to stay under 40 so I'm sticking to 35 max. Do you think this will protect me? Your story scares me, because I know it's very hard to get USPS to replace things without receipts, and I have some rare old books...I think I just may sneak those into my luggage. I'll also create the inventory as you suggested, so I can figure out which of the more replaceable books need to be replaced if it comes to that. For others considering plane tickets, I agree with rising_star and have thoughts to add. I am a single woman moving alone without a car (CA to Chicago) so my only real option is flying. Having done the math, I found that it was cheaper to fly Virgin (Southwest would have taken me to the wrong airport) and pay $25 for extra bags up to 50 pounds than to ship everything. They allow lots of additional bags for this flat rate, so I plan on checking 3-4 large duffels and 2 standard suitcases. Of course, I also popped the small fee for flight insurance so I can recover bags that go astray. This way, my parents will only have to ship the 5 boxes of books and my only real difficulty will be finding a taxi/friend's car big enough to fit me AND all my luggage. I very much suggest trying this; the more you minimize shipping, the cheaper and easier your life will probably be. Another note on flights--if you're on a budget (which I'm pretty sure we all are), you may want to use Yapta to track the prices of the flights you're looking at, or if you've already purchased, to see if rates drop enough for a partial refund/voucher from the airline. I discovered it too late for purchasing, but I'm still praying for the refund/voucher option. =) Other moving tips-- As others have said, sell everything you can. I made about $350 by selling all my furniture. And, if I didn't wear all my clothes to death (many already hand-me-downs from my pickier/more stylish friends), I'd have sold a bunch of them at a clothing exchange store (we have one called Crossroads; there are probably a bunch).Wait until arrival to buy your necessary grad school staples. I'll be buying a new laptop, printer, filing cabinet, etc. in addition to your standard notebooks and pens, pots and pans. And by "new" I don't necessarily mean brand new; lots of things can be purchased used or refurbished. This also saves money.If you do use the standard moving van and boxes, make sure you're organized with your labeling system. I usually use something like "Kitchen 3/5" so you know which room it belongs in and how many boxes there should be. Some people get even more specific--that's up to you. Alrighty, this is pretty long. Good luck and happy moving to us all!

Well, I'm in the humanities and my department doesn't really assign advisors so things work a little differently for me. However, my experience might be of use to you anyway. I went to a (large) top public university for undergrad (with two majors; one in the humanities and one in the social sciences) and noticed that my professors weren't able to devote a whole lot of time to their grad students. Thus, the grad students were more on their own for things like editing papers to be published and tackling the job market. I'm about to enter a smaller private school for my PhD, and from what I can gather, things will be quite different there; the professors are more attentive because they can afford to be. I think everything you listed, Strangefox, is fair game for advisors. Obviously s/he won't be able to spend large amounts of time on each one of your papers for submission, nor hold your hand through the job acquiring process, but don't feel shy asking for help on any of the topics you listed. I also think that, over time, you'll get to know your advisor well enough that you will know what is and isn't "too much" intuitively. Some people form very close personal relationships with their advisors; others just have a good professional one. It will depend on your particular situation!

Mac user here! I just downloaded the 15-day trial of Things and it looks great. Did you guys shell out the $50 for the full version or is there an Education discount or something? I used to use Stickies on my laptop, and then I upgraded to a (free) To-Do list app for my iphone but I wanted something that would sync between my laptop and my phone so I started using Evernote. But, I think I prefer using it for more general list & note purposes than for tasks. Haha, apparently I'm very picky about my to-do lists! All that said, I do agree with the previously mentioned value of good ol' pen & paper; soooo satisfying to whip out a sharpie and cross that business OUT. I use iCal for general calendar stuff and I like how clean it is on both my laptop and my phone (though I DISlike how rough the syncing with Google Calendar is, so I don't do it); MyCal seems too busy to me but I'd definitely like a cloud backup of my calendar and my to-do...hmmmm.

As I will be matriculating there in the fall, I'd like to suggest that you take a look at Northwestern's Comparative Literary Studies program. Sounds like it might be what you're looking for. =)

Dropbox is great, but I also recommend Mozy. It's an online backup service, so if your external backup drive fails (I've had 2 fail on me, an iomega and a SimpleTech), everything important is backed up to the Internet and easily restorable! Like Dropbox, it can also sync to a smartphone, which is awesome, because now I can access alllll my documents from anywhere!

I have accepted Northwestern (CLS) and have informally declined Rochester (VCS; official declining letter going out this week). I will decline UChicago (MAPH) as soon as my mom mails it to me...although that probably won't help anybody out. Good luck to all!

I'm so sorry to hear that, Hicks! Your letter must have sounded pretty silly--"Even though we see that you already have 2 masters, we're CONVINCED THAT YOU NEED A THIRD FROM US." ...ummm... =\

I'm in CA and received my MAPH offer via postal service today. It went to my mom's house, and she tells me there's nothing in there about funding, so I assume mine is unfunded. (I will be attending a fully funded PhD program, so I'm not as upset about that.) There's a variety of opinions regarding the usefulness of the MAPH; you can poke around (read: search) the humanities threads to find the various perspectives on it. Good luck to all!