juilletmercredi

I've never done it. They will show you around campus but probably places that are important for the undergrads. Why don't you get a map from the visitor's center and walk around yourself? You may see more of what you want that way.

I mean, this is going to be a personal one. Personally, it appears that Syracuse has a better funding package (4 years of funding, with no teaching requirements in the first year - you don't know how important that is - and in the fourth year, which means you'll have protected time to do exams and your proposal; Syracuse is a lower-cost city; and a fifth year of funding is available) plus it seems that Syracuse is stronger in your field. The only real cons are that it's cold. I would not select my graduate program on the basis of location - or rather, location would not be stronger for me than fit. Hawaii seems like a decent number two, but with only 2 years of semi-guaranteed funding that requires TAing (which is useful for jobs but also takes up a lot of time), a lot of the pros there seem related to location stuff (better for biking, better public transit). You're not going to live there forever; 5 years is quite a while but it goes by quickly. And with a stronger department, you can be more choosy about where you go for your postdocs and jobs.

Prestige is not more important unless you can pay off the loans. Two years at Chicago, borrowing the whole thing, will easily cost you $100-120K. How do you intend to pay that back? You can't hope to make that much money as an English professor. I say follow the money. Unless Villanova's program is the bottom of the barrel, you have to be pragmatic here. There's a reason you applied to Villanova's program - something appealed to you there. I say more often, we need to treat education like we treat everything else. We wouldn't buy a house we couldn't afford just because it was in a nicer neighborhood, or a car we couldn't afford for the prestige of driving around a BMW. Let's also not go for degrees we can't afford to pay back after graduation. It'd be one thing if you could get the entire degree for $50K or even $80K, but over six figures is more than the majority of us can afford to repay unless it's a medical/dental or business degree.

It's hard to say, but in your case I think I might take the grad school offer. Funded MA programs don't come around that often, and when you said growth I thought you meant that there was a promotion waiting for you right now. You don't have any concrete promises of promotions, and they may simply replace the two people who leave with outside applicants, since you are "not ready yet." That leaves you in the same place you are now. And you already said that your goal is to go to grad school eventually anyway, but with "better experience on your resume." But if you already got into your top choice school, why do you need the better experience (other than getting a job after)?

What is OPT? What is EAD? We don't know what will happen; the more appropriate people to ask would be the dean of academic affairs or student affairs for your son's school.

Given how snide you are being to the one person who tried to help you, I don't think it's Sigaba who is discouraging others from participating.

It depends on your school's policy and how they count your fellowship into your package. The only people who will know for sure is your school's financial aid office, so ask them.

BreeAnne, I live in NYC now and I'd wager that $24,500 would go further in Madison than $33,000 goes here, especially once you factor in income taxes. If Madison is the better fit, then go with Madison. AS for the OP, I have to agree - fit, fit, fit. The PhD is only 5-7 years long - in the grand scheme of things, it is worth it to forgo that extra income for a better experience, better publications and a better position from which to springboard into your career. Especially since your goal during the PhD years is just to live, not to live lavishly or save tons.

It goes away after a while. Like you said, you will be working with the top scientist in your field, and that will no doubt blossom into other opportunities. I'm sure that you will have your pick of PhD programs if you choose to go that route, and then there's choosing postdoctoral programs...there are plenty of choices to be made and opportunities to be had. You always have to choose one, and there's always the chance that the other one would've been different in a good way. We always just have to choose what's best for us in the moment. As long as you are happy with your choice, just go ahead and let your mind wander without ruminating too much, and eventually those feelings will fade as you really dig into your program.

The 1/4 off of one year at NYU would probably be equivalent to 1/2 off of two years at CMU, or close enough not to matter. So unless you are in-state to UNC I would eliminate that one and focus on CMU vs. NYU. And then I would select based on preference. Without knowing anything about the programs, just based on the name NYU sounds like a better fit for you (art politics and the political and economic aspects of exhibitions...) The CMU program sounds more like a public art management degree to prepare you to work in administration in an art museum or other public/private arts organizations.

I also would not decline the position - I would speak to the appropriate person and tell them what happened. I don't think the appropriate person is necessarily your potential PI, though - I think that is the Director of Graduate Studies (or possibly, the dean of the graduate school, but more likely it's the DGS). You may be surprised at what you hear, but it also depends on what they asked you and how big your lie of omission is on the forms. And when we are talking about lies of omission, we are obviously not referring to life and career plans like moving back to one's hometown. Those are irrelevant and not comparable to this situation.

A "cash cow" is not necessarily the same as a joke degree. A "cash cow" usually refers to a program that generates money for the department, typically because they offer little to no financial aid for the program and expect students to pay either with loans or out of pocket if they are independently wealthy. The degree might be very useful and very well-regarded, but it's going to be expensive and one of the primary motives for the department to continue sponsoring it is the money it brings in.

I think the problem is this myth that "you have to be sure," coupled with all of the stereotypes of PhD holder (perpetuated by professors themselves) - that the "life of the mind" means you have to be a hermit that only thinks about your research and works 80-hour weeks, taking no vacations. First of all, I would be worried if someone said that they couldn't imagine doing anything else besides being a professor. That either shows a lack of imagination or some other issues...anyone who would make a good professor would also be good at a variety of other things. So I think it's only natural to wonder if maybe you should do one of those other things that takes far less time and hard work to achieve. It was only when I realized that I had many options besides being a professor (including options if I decided to leave my program) that I felt truly content here. So that's rule number 1 - never feel trapped. You can always leave. If you got into a PhD program, you are intelligent, resourceful, and hard-working. You can figure something else out! I think that made me feel better going into the program, when someone told me that even if I hated it, I could just leave with my MA. The other thing is that with a PhD, you only have to work as hard as you want to (after a certain point). That's not really true during the coursework phase; you have to do the coursework rather quickly to maintain adequate progress. The coursework is kind of a grind, but it's a predictable grind - you've taken classes before; you know what to expect. They're at a higher level, but at their basic core the structure is the same. After that...your progress is more or less on you as long as you stay on your advisor's standards. I decided that I wasn't going to kill myself to try to be America's Next Top PhD Student, but I still have a first-authored publication in a great journal, a third-authored paper in the final stages of prep and two more first-authored ones in the planning stages. The statement "it's a marathon, not a race" is so, so, so true. So don't think that you have to stress yourself (unless everyone at your intended program is running the rat race. I chose my PhD program, in part, because people seemed much more laid-back here. Work gets done but people leave at 6 pm).

Hi all! Graduate and post-doctoral stipends were tax-exempt until 1986, when federal law changed to make them subject to federal income tax. There is a petition on WhiteHouse.gov right now to get the Obama administration to consider changing them back to tax-exempt status. The first petition on this issue fell just 2,500 signatures short by the deadline, and so it wasn't considered. This one needs 25,000 signatures by April 16. It only has 343. http://wh.gov/RlM I don't know about you, but the taxes on my graduate fellowship are about 20%. That brings it from decent to...not so decent. We're already working on low wages; spread the word to other grad student and postdoc friends who might be interested.

Before I had an apartment, I was waitlisted for campus-housing. The housing office forwarded this list to everyone else on the list, and one of the other women on the list e-mailed all of the women. I was the first to e-mail her back, and so we chatted and decided to room together. We lived together for two years, and we're still friends. She finished her MPH program and I wanted to keep my apartment, so I listed it on Craigslist. A lot of the people I interviewed were also students at my school or were students at other schools in my university, and I ended up living with another MPH student for a year. We're still friends, too. So contact your school's office to see if they offer some sort of list of students also looking for housing, and try CL.

I'm going to tell you what people told me when I was choosing between a fully-funded PhD program and a half-funded MPH program - if you take the PhD offer and decide that you don't want to continue, you can just leave after you've earned your MS. This is not unethical. It'd be different if you knew 100% that you didn't want to continue onto the PhD and took the offer just because it was funded. But the truth is, you aren't sure, and most people aren't 100% that they can stick it out for the long haul when they go to programs. Although I will say that you need to gear yourself up for that possibility and keep your eye on the prize because leaving a PhD program is a lot harder than it seems. Don't pick your program based on location - choose that last. You can always move somewhere new when you finish your program. A lot of engineering PhD holders end up going into business and industry. I talked to an electrical engineering PhD holder who is now a consultant at Boston Consulting Group. Many begin startups or go to work for top agencies like Google or Apple with their PhDs. If you really want to go to Stanford, I would wait for Stanford first, and see if they offer any funding. But personally, I'd take the Caltech offer.

People's popular opinions and stereotypes of universities rarely match up to what people working within your field think of them. Frankly, you are an adult and you shouldn't care so much what your parents think about UCLA vs. USC, especially if they do not work in your field. What are YOUR reasons for preferring USC? Research fit? Networking? Job prospects? If they are the RIGHT reasons, then there's no reason to hold out for UCLA just because of some perceived ridicule you may get from...someone. In any case, I definitely don't think that's the perception that people have of USC. It's a well-respected school with a lot of great programs.

Like everyone else said, it would depend on the field, job prospects in said field, and how far apart the two MA programs. I wouldn't turn down a fully funded offer at #10 to go to #4, or even a fully funded offer at #20 to go to #2. But if the school is like #65 and you have the chance to go to #1? Well, it would also depend on how much prestige and relative rank means in your field. In some fields - like if you wanted to be a K-12 teacher or an accountant - it probably wouldn't matter, whereas in others it might. In general, though, I am a big fan of follow the money. Just FYI, $65,000 in 10 years at 6.8% interest is about $748 a month. Your loan interest will likely be a little higher than that even if you get Direct PLUS loans, since those are capped at 7.9% interest. If you get a 20-year repayment plan instead, that's only $496 a month, but then you are paying almost as much in interest as the original loan.

Thing number one is that you probably don't actually sound as bad as you think you do: it's because you are painfully shy that you think you sound completely and unavoidably weird. I'm a very outgoing and extraverted person, and I have rarely been put off by people who describe themselves as shrinkingly shy. It's usually other extraverts who say things that make you think they are an ax murderer, lol. Maybe you could try practicing talking in front of a mirror? It may sound really silly, but it will get you more comfortable with the sound of your own voice and the body language that you use. You might also chat with some current students first to get a sense of the professor and put you at ease. Current students can be endlessly funny and usually like to complain about their graduate programs no matter how much they like them, so listen to some stories and that may loosen you up a little. You may also get a current student to take you to, or introduce you to, one of the professors you want to talk to and sort of grease the wheels a little. I agree with the Xanax if you feel your social anxiety is so crippling it interferes with the normal living out of your life.

I second splitends' advice. It's unlikely that a department offered you a lower stipend because they expect you to compete for other scholarships/fellowships; if they wanted to include that in your package, they would've already. Usually your application also puts you in competition for fellowships, so if you had won one they would let you know. I totally agree that you should call the school and gently negotiate. It's a real concern, but handling it exactly like splitends said will, worst case scenario, get you a "no." Which is fine; then you know that it's time to explore other options. But if you get a "yes," well then. That changes everything.

Never put rent on a debit card. If you can do direct deposit (if that is an option with your landlord) that would work, too, but don't put it on a debit card because of hold situations that can bring you into the red. That would only put you in the red if you didn't have enough money to make your rent in your account. I also don't know what you mean by hold situations, because whenever I've paid a large bill with my debit card they just take it out immediately. If you monitor your account and don't spend more than you have, you shouldn't go into the red. It's really not any different than paying your rent with a check, which I did for three years successfully without ever over drafting my account. And referring to the roommate issue - I had a lease on my apartment with my first roommate, who moved out. After that, I found a second roommate on CL who went to my school and moved her in. She didn't have to go on the lease and she never went through a credit check. There are tons of sublets or situations where one roommate is moving out for a year or more and the other roommate(s) need someone to take their place(s) so they can keep their apartment, and usually they don't require you to hop on the lease. Check out things like CL, and your university's off-campus housing office.

I don't live in GSAS housing but I've been inside a few apartments of friends that do. It's fairly nice. They're small, but any NYC apartment in that area is going to be small anyway. Well appointed, and they look like regular apartments. The furniture is relatively dorm-ish but that's because those wooden bed last forever. I've never been inside the corridor-style dormitory buildings. The rent for an apartment share is actually pretty decent if you get one in the mid-range ($950 for the apartment shares). The problem is if you get offered one of those like $1200 and up shares. Probably less likely than getting a cheaper one, but I'd say paying a $1250 rent for a share is kind of shitty since you can get a studio in Harlem for that price. I wouldn't go with the dormitory style options, just because you can get an apartment share (either through the university or off-campus) for around the same price.

I was like that too, during my first few years. I preferred to work at home instead of at school or the lab if possible. Now I'm not that way, or I'm at least split - I like to work in the library sometimes and home others. Circumstances change and it's nice to have the option open if possible.

Even if you're not required to be in the lab, though, you still may WANT to be on-campus. I don't have to be in the lab to do my research - all I need is a computer with a statistical program and my data, and I'm set. (My data collection is with human subjects, so we do have to do that in the lab, but people don't come to the lab at 10 pm. They usually come between 10 and 6.) But sometimes I'm on the lab computers until 8 or later, and I've spent the night in the library before (rare, but it happens. It's a quiet place to study and write). I don't even do social things on campus with my cohort much, but from a work perspective it's kind of nice to be able to be around the department and really dig in and concentrate. I tend to get distracted at home.

My advisor does NOT control my life...and no one's advisor should control their life. Even my academic life isn't really controlled by my advisor, because if for some reason he happened to turn into a dragon (which I don't think is likely, since he's a sweetheart) I can always find another one, or simply leave. I'm not saying that to be petty, but honestly I think the key to being happy in graduate school is realizing that YOU control your life. There's a certain level of BS after which you should be able to go "You know what, not worth it."