juilletmercredi

Thanks - I just started writing and writing and then everything just poured out, lol. It was totally worth it - I see it as my duty to pass it down, as a bunch of people passed down a lot of the information on that list to me and some of it I learned on my own through hard trial and error. If we can prevent that, we should!

About your dog: I think that depends entirely on you and your program. I am in a social science program where the majority of my analysis and writing can be done from home, and I prefer to work from home or from a library (as opposed to my cube in the windowless cube farm). When I was taking classes I was generally there from 9-6 or so, but now that my coursework is finished I am rarely at the school itself. I go for meetings, seminars, interesting kinds of things and I do most of my work remotely. My time is verrry flexible, and if my building didn't prohibit it I would get a dog in a heartbeat. Another thing to keep in mind: a dog can be a great comfort when you're all stressed out over graduate school.

Advice?

Age:
-Don't feel like you have nothing to offer just because you are younger. I was 22 when I started graduate school. You got accepted to the program for a reason, and chances are you are just as equipped as any older students are to successfully complete the program, just in a different way.

-Your older classmates may be just as terrified as you. Talk to them. You have a lot in common. You are, after all, in the same place.

-You will feel like an imposter, like you don't belong, or like you are constantly behind. Or all three. It's normal. It will pass. (Well, sort of.) People of all ages go through this.

Adviser related:
-If you are lucky enough to get both research interest fit and personality fit perfect, congratulations! But sometimes, personality fit is more important than research interest fit as long as the research isn't too different. A great adviser is interested in your career development, likes you as a person, advocates for you, and wants to hear your ideas. Even if his or her research is quite different from yours, they may give you the autonomy to work on your own projects and just supervise you. A bad personality fit will drive you nuts, even if you love his or her research. Consider that when evaluating your adviser fit. (This will vary by field: research fit may be less important in the humanities, more important in the natural and physical sciences. Social sciences are somewhere in-between.)

-Don't be afraid to be straight up blunt with your adviser when it comes to asking about your progress. Ask if you are where you should be both academic program wise and getting-a-job-after-this-mess-wise.

-Be proactive. Advisers love when you draw up an agenda for your one-on-one meetings, come with talking points and progress to share, have concrete questions to ask, and have overall shown that you have been thoughtful and taken control of your own program. Of course, this won't immediately come easily to you, but in time you will work up to it. Every semester I type up my semester goals, and at the beginning of the year I type up annual goals. I show them to my adviser and we talk about whether they are too ambitious, or whether I need to revise them, and how I can meet them.

-Don't expect your adviser to actually know what courses you have to take to graduate. They will know about comprehensive exams and the dissertation, but a lot of professors don't really keep up with the course requirements, especially if their program is in flux. Get you a student handbook, and find out what you need to take. Map it out in a grid, and check off things when you finish them. Show this to your adviser every semester. You may have to explain how such and such class fills a requirement.

-Nobody loves you as much as you, except your mother. Keep this in mind as you take in advice from all sources, including your adviser. Your adviser is there to guide you, but that doesn't mean you have to do everything he says.

Studying:
-You will have to read more than you ever did before, in less time than you ever have before, and you will be expected to retain more than you ever have before. The way that you studied in undergrad may need some tweaking. Be prepared for this.

-Corollary: you may find that your methods change with age or interests or time. I preferred to study alone in college, but in grad school, I prefer to study in groups. It keeps me on task and the socialization keeps me motivated. You may find that you shift from being a more auditory learner to a visual learner or whatever.

-You will feel behind at first. This is normal.

-At some point you will realize that your professors don't actually expect you to read everything they assign you. This, of course, will vary by program, but there will be at least one class where the reading is actually impossible to do in one week. The point is to read enough that you know the major themes and can talk intelligently about them, and then pick some of the readings to really dig into and think more deeply about.

-For most programs, don't worry so much about grades. If you stay on top of your work and do what you're supposed to, you will probably get an A. How much grades matter varies from program to program. In some programs, a B is a signal that you are not up to par, and more than a few Bs will warrant a discussion with your adviser or the DGS. My program isn't like that - A, B, it's all meaningless. My adviser doesn't even know what my grades are. But at almost all programs, a C means you need to retake the course, and two Cs means you have to convince the DGS not to kick you out.

Extracurricular activity: What's that? No, seriously:
-A lot of your time will be unstructured. You will have coursework, but most grad classes meet once a week for two hours and you may have three classes. You may have meetings with your adviser every so often and some seminars or things to catch (like we have grand rounds and colloquia that are required), but a lot of time will be unstructured. However, since you have so much more work than you had in undergrad, you actually will have less free time than you had in undergrad. This may initially cause you great anxiety. It did for me. Some people love unstructured time, though. (I don't.)

-Because of this, you'll have to be planful about your non-grad school related stuff.

-TAKE TIME OFF. DO it. It's important for your mental health. However you do it doesn't matter. Some people work it like a 9-5 job. Some people take a day off per week (me) and maybe a few hours spread across the week. Some people work half days 7 days a week. However you do it, there needs to be a time when you say "f this, I'm going to the movies."

-Find your happy place, something that keeps you the you you were when you came in. I love working out. It gives me energy and I feel good. I stay healthy. I also love reading fiction, so sometimes I just curl up with a good book, work be damned. You have to give yourself permission to not think about work, at least for a couple of hours a week. You may also discover new hobbies! (I never worked out before I came to graduate school.)

-Your work will creep into all aspects of your life, if you let it. This is why I hate unstructured time. You will feel guilty for not doing something, because in graduate school, there is ALWAYS something you can do. ALWAYS. But since there will always be more work, there's no harm in putting it aside for tomorrow, as long as you don't have a deadline.

-You may need to reach outside of your cohort for a social life. None of my close friends are in my doctoral cohort. I've met master's students in my program, master's students in other programs, and I know a few non-graduate students I hang out with, too. Go to graduate student mixers. (If your university doesn't have any, organize some, if you like planning parties.) Join a student group that doesn't take up too much time. I had a doctoral acquaintance who kinda laughed at me because I joined some student groups other than the doctoral student one, and I was usually the only doctoral student in those groups, but I met some close friends (and future job contacts) and had a good time.

-DO NOT FEEL GUILTY FOR WANTING A LIFE OUTSIDE OF GRADUATE SCHOOL. This is paramount. This is important. You are a well-rounded, complex, multifaceted human being. NEVER feel bad for this. Everybody wants some kind of life outside of work. Yes, you may loooove your field, but that doesn't mean you want to do it all day long. Some other doctoral students, and perhaps professors, may make you feel bad about this. Don't let them. Just smile and nod. Then disappear when you need to.

Career:
-This is job preparation. Remember that from Day One. Always be looking for ways to enhance your skills. Read job ads and find out what's hot in your field, what's necessary, what's in demand. For example, in my field statistics and methods are a hot commodity, and they're not a passing fad. I happen to really like statistics and methods, so I have pursued that as a concentration of mine.

-Don't be afraid to take on volunteer work and part-time gigs that will give you skills that will be useful both inside academia and out, as long as it's not against your contract. Your adviser may be against it, but he doesn't have to know as long as it doesn't interfere with your work.

-If you want to work outside of academia - if you are even *considering* the possibility - please please definitely do the above. Even if you aren't considering it, consider the possibility that you won't get a tenure-track job out the box and that you may need to support yourself doing something else for a while. You will have to prove to employers that you have developed usable, useful skills and this is one of the easiest ways to do it. But don't overdo it - get the degree done.

-For more academic related ones - always look for opportunities to present and publish. Presentations look good on your CV. Publications look better. When you write seminar papers, wonder if you can publish them with some revision. Write your seminar papers on what you maybe think you may want to do your dissertation on. Even if you look at them three years later and think "these suck," you can at least glean some useful references and pieces from them. Discuss publication with your adviser early and often, and if you have the time and desire, seek out publication options with other professors and researchers. But if you commit to a project, COMMIT. You don't want to leave a bad impression.

-If you can afford it, occasionally go to conferences even if you aren't presenting. You can network, and you can hear some interesting talks, and you may think about new directions for your own research. You can also meet people who may tell you about jobs, money, opportunities, etc.

-Always try to get someone else to pay for conference travel before you come out of pocket. Including your adviser. Do not be shy about asking if he or she can pay. If he can't, he'll just say no. Usually the department has a travel fund for students, but often it's only if you are presenting.

-If you are interested in academia, you should get some teaching experience. There are two traditional ways to do this: TAing a course, and teaching as a sole instructor. If you can help it, I wouldn't recommend doing a sole instructor position until you are finished with coursework. Teaching takes a LOT of time to do right. You should definitely TA at least one course, and probably a few different ones. But don't overdo it, if you can help it, because again, it takes a LOT of time. More than you expect at the outset. If you are in the humanities, I think sole instructor positions are very important for nabbing jobs so when you are in the exam/ABD phase, you may want to try at least one. If your own university has none, look at adjuncting for nearby colleges, including community colleges. (I would wager that the majority of natural science/physical science students, and most social science students, have never sole taught a class before they get an assistant professor job. At least, it's not that common n my field, which straddles the social and natural sciences.)

-Always look for money. Money is awesome. If you can fund yourself you can do what you want, within reason. Your university will be thrilled, your adviser will be happy, and you can put it on your CV. It's win-win-win! Don't put yourself out of the running before anyone else has a chance to. Apply even if you think you won't get it or the odds are against you (they always are), as long as you are eligible. Apply often. Apply even if it's only $500. (That's conference travel!) Money begets money. The more awards you get, the more awards you will get. They will get bigger over time. If you are in the sciences and social sciences, you should get practice writing at least one grant. You don't have to write the whole thing, but at least get in on the process so that you can see how it's done. Grant-writing is very valuable both in and outside of graduate school.

-Revise your CV every so often. Then look and decide what you want to add to it. Then go get that thing, so you can add it.

-The career office at big universities is often not just for undergrads. I was surprised to learn that my career center offers help on CV organization and the academic job search, as well as alternative/non-academic career searches for doctoral students. In fact, there are two people whose sole purpose it is to help PhD students find nonacademic careers, and they both have PhDs. This will vary by university - some universities will have very little for grad students. Find out before you write the office off.

-It's never too early to go to seminars/workshops like "the academic job search inside and out", "creating the perfect CV," "getting the job," etc. NEVER. Often the leader will share tips that are more aimed towards early graduate students, or tidbits that are kind of too late for more advanced students to take care of. This will also help you keep a pulse on what's hot in your field. It'll help you know what lines you need to add to your CV. And they're interesting.

Other:

-Decide ahead of time what you are NOT willing to sacrifice on the altar of academia. Then stick to it.
I'm serious. If you decide that you do NOT want to sacrifice your relationship, don't. If it's your geographical mobility, don't. I mean, be realistic, and realize that there will always be trade-offs. But you have to think about what's important to you for your quality of life, and realize that there is always more to you than graduate school.

-If you don't want to be a professor, do not feel guilty about this. At all. Zero. However, you will have to do things differently than most doctoral students. Your adviser will probably never have worked outside of the academy (although this may vary depending on the field) so he may or may not be able to help you. But you have a special mission to seek out the kinds of experiences that will help you find a non-academic job. Test the waters with your adviser before you tell him this. My adviser was quite amenable to it, but that's because I told him that my goal was to still do research and policy work in my field just not at a university, AND because it's quite common in my field for doctoral students to do non-academic work. If you're in a field where it's not common (or where your professors refuse to believe it's common, or it's not supposed to be common)…well, you may be a little more on your own.

-Every so often, you will need to reflect on the reasons you came to graduate school. Sometimes, just sit and think quietly. Why are you doing this to yourself? Do you love your field? Do you need this degree to do what you want to do? Usually the answer is yes and yes, and usually you'll keep on trucking. But sometimes when the chips are down you will need to reevaluate why you put yourself through this in the first place.

-To my great dismay, depression is quite common in doctoral students. Graduate work can be isolating and stressful. Luckily your health insurance usually includes counseling sessions. TAKE THEM if you need them. Do not be ashamed. You may be surprised with who else is getting them. (I found out that everyone in my cohort, including me, was getting mental health counseling at a certain point.) Exercise can help, as can taking that mental health day once a week and just chilling. Don't be surprised if you get the blues…

-…but be self-aware and able to recognize when the depression is clouding your ability to function. Doctoral programs have a 50% attrition rate, and this is rarely because that 50% is less intelligent than, less motivated than, less driven than, or less ambitious than the other 50% that stays. Often they realize that they are ridiculously unhappy in the field, or that they don't need the degree anymore, or that they'd rather focus on other things in life, or their interests have changed. All of this is okay!

-You will, at some point, be like "eff this, I'm leaving." I think almost every doctoral student has thought about dropping out and just kicking this all to the curb. You need to listen to yourself, and find out whether it is idle thought (nothing to worry about, very normal) or whether you are truly unhappy to the point that you need to leave. Counseling can help you figure this out.

-Don't be afraid to take a semester or a year off if you need to. That's what leaves of absence are for.

Lastly, and positively…

…graduate school is great! Seriously, when else will you ever have the time to study what you want for hours on end, talk to just as interested others about it, and live in an intellectual community of scholars and intellectuals? And occasionally wake up at 11 am and go to the bank at 2 pm? Sometimes you will want to pull out all of your hair but most of the time, you will feel fulfilled and wonderfully encouraged and edified. So enjoy this time!

This book on graduate admissions essays.  I'm an excellent writer, but writing an admissions essay (especially within 500-1000 words) was really difficult for me.  This book really helped break down what admissions committees wanted, and gave some pretty good sample essays.

I know this question is a few months old, but still going to answer in case someone finds it useful. I went to Columbia for graduate school; for three years I lived in off-campus housing in Washington Heights and then for three years I lived in campus housing in Morningside Heights.
Morningside Heights is very much dominated by Columbia - there's a 10-block radius from 110th St to 120th St, between Broadway and Morningside Dr (and, to a certain extent, extending to Riverside Dr) that feels like Columbia's campus/neighborhood. I am a woman and I always joked that I've walked outside in Morningside Heights every one of the 24 hours of the day, and I never felt unsafe. Public Safety is very good, and I got to know some of the officers and infrastructure at Columbia and I always felt completely equipped to reach out if I needed help from campus police. I never had to, though (not for myself...I worked in student services.). Actually, because I worked in student services I actually had exposure to the sorts of incidents that happen around Columbia's campus, and there's virtually never any violent crime against Columbia affiliates. I walked home from lab (or the libraries) late all the time.
Living in grad student housing, IMO, is the way to go. You'd be hard-pressed to find an apartment anywhere in the city for the same price you can get it through Columbia, and if you can, it's likely further away than the grad student housing. I lived and attended school there from 2008-2014, so likely some things have changed, but for context: I split a 2-bedroom with one other person for $1850 a month on 172nd St. and Haven Ave., in Washington Heights, four blocks away from the Columbia University Medical Center and about a 20-minute subway ride to the main Columbia campus in Morningside Heights. (I was a dual PhD student - 50% public health at CUMC, 50% psychology at the main campus). We each paid $925, and it was a pretty decent-sized apartment by New York standards. Later, I moved into a Columbia graduate housing two-room studio (bedroom, bathroom, and another room that had the kitchen in it but also our desk) with my husband, who attended GS, on 119th and Amsterdam. I'd guess it was around 600 sqft? If that? We paid $1400/month for it. There is no way in hell you'd find a studio in Morningside Heights for that price. Both were in walking distance to a ton of restaurants, grocery stores, bars, and other amenities, and had two subway stops in close reach. 
When I was living there 5-6 years ago, the prices in Inwood and Washington Heights were rising but were pretty much the only neighborhoods left in Manhattan where you could expect to find prices comparable to Columbia's graduate housing (perhaps with the exception of some parts of Harlem, like East Harlem and Hamilton Heights). Otherwise, you were kind of stuck either going into the Bronx (which very few Columbia students do) or into Brooklyn (which more do, but you have to go pretty far out into Brooklyn to get something affordable these days. Which is baffling in and of itself - my mom grew up in Brooklyn in the 60s and 70s, and she's baffled that anyone wants to live there now, lol). There are also some further neighborhoods in Queens that might be more affordable...but they're going to be relatively deep into Queens.

Hi.  I'm a Columbia grad student.  I've been here for 6 years.
 
-Campus housing: I will grudingly admit that the campus housing prices are a pretty decent deal for what you get and especially for the neighborhood you're in.  They say they range from $840 to $1425.  The high end is mostly for law student housing, I think; most of my PhD student friends in the shares are paying around $900-1000 a month and they usually have two roommates, occasionally three.  The apartments are average-sized by NYC standards but small by the standards of anyone coming from a place where a box is not the standard.  You can fit a full-sized bed, a dresser, and maybe a desk in most of the shares' bedrooms, and they have living rooms and full kitchens.  The apartment buildings are like regular NYC apartment buildings.
 
Studios are reserved for couples and one-bedrooms for couples with children.  My husband I have a junior one-bedroom/two-room studio thing.  We have a bedroom (big enough for a queen-sized bed and our three dressers, with a little room to move around) and then another room that has the kitchen against one wall and is big enough for our kitchen table and my desk, some storage bins and some room to walk.  Oh, and a bathroom.  We pay $1385 a month for it, which is right in line with what they say their average is.  That includes Internet but no utilities.  Our electric and gas usually runs $100/month.  I'm from Atlanta so I am appalled and I actually wanted to move to Harlem or Wash Heights (where I lived my first 3 years here) but my husband wanted to live close to campus (he goes to Columbia too).

Quality is great.  We have a doorman in our building which is great for getting packages, and an elevator.  I have seen one bug (not a roach) since we moved here in September 2012.  We had a brand new tub and toilet, and a brand new fridge, when we moved in.  Quick maintenance service, very nice super and staff.  There's laundry in the basement ($2/load to wash and dry apiece).  I live right behind the building with my lab in it, so it's excellent as far as travel time is concerned.
 
-In the case that you are a CUMC student, you're not eligible for the Morningside Heights UAH housing.  CUMC has its own housing in Washington Heights.  It is crappy and overpriced compared to what you can get in the same neighborhood, so my advice is to skip it and just go on the open market.
 
If you're looking for your own housing...
 
-Look into upper Manhattan.  Harlem is the neighborhood du jour for Columbia students because it's within easy commuting distance and relatively cheap.  There are parts of Harlem that are actually getting pretty expensive all things considered, as Columbia builds north.  Still, I have some friends who were living in VERY nice renovated apartments in the 130s, 140s and 150s who weren't paying much (I'm talking stainless steel appliances, exposed brick, and decent-sized rooms.  Two of my friends even had dishwashers, which is like the holy grail around here).  One of my friends lived in a very nice 2-bedroom in a brownstone on 135th and she and her roommate were paying like $2,000 together.  Another friend lives in a very spacious and pretty and modern 3-bedroom with 2 other roommates; I'm not sure how much she was paying abut I don't think it was more than $3,000 altogether.
 
I lived in Washington Heights (starts at about 155th-160th St and goes to ~190th-200th St) my first 3 years and I liked it a lot; I was ready to return there when I quit my student affairs job, but my husband insisted on living in campus housing.  I lived at 172nd St. and it was a 20 minute commute to the Morningside Heights campus on the 1 train; there is also a somewhat unpredictable shuttle that goes from the CUMC campus on 168th St to the main campus.  I hate this shuttle for a variety of reasons, so I never take it, but other students like it.  I could also get to midtown Manhattan in about 30-40 minutes, so that was nice for hanging out.  The neighborhood itself is cheaper than Morningside Heights, but there are fewer choices of restaurants and pretty much zero lounges and bars - it's more residential - so if you wanted to hang out you had to go at least to Harlem.
 
Inwood is even further up, above the 200s.  It's really pretty and leafy and you can get apartments super cheap up there, but of course you're talking perhaps a 20-40 minute commute to the Morningside campus depending on how far up you live.
 
I know some people who lived in Queens and Brooklyn and commuted to campus.  I checked out an apartment in Flatbush and it took me an hour and 15 minutes to get back to campus, so I vetoed that.  Some closer neighborhoods of Queens like Astoria might be commutable to Columbia in like 40 minutes, but Astoria in particular is getting pretty popular these days and more expensive - not as bad as most of Manhattan but not necessarily that much cheaper than Harlem and Wash Heights to make it worth it.
 
Columbia has an off-campus housing office that has listings from landlords and great recommendations for what's safe, what's good, etc.  That's how I found my first apartment here.
 
HUNTING:
 
It is very difficult to find an apartment from afar in NYC.  Landlords and companies stretch the truth or even outright lie on Craiglist (the apartment usually exists, but they use coded language to try to make it sound better than it is or do the bait and switch with the price).  On the other hand, though, as a grad student I was pretty loath to pay someone else (aka a broker) a fee to do something I felt I could do myself.  If I were rich or living here permanently I think I might pay a broker to find my new apartment for me, though, just because the process is stressful.
 
Landlords in NYC need to see a ridiculous amount of personal information before you can move in.  You usually need to apply and pay an app fee, around $40.  They want proof of income; your award letter will suffice.  Most landlords will say that you need to make 40x the rent in order to move in.  You will never be able to find an apartment that is your stipend/40 - for me that was an $800/month apartment, which is a epic myth.  Therefore, you will probably need a gurantor.  I felt silly as a grown person, but I asked my father if he would serve as a guarantor for me.  The guarantor usually needs to make 80x the rent.  I'm pretty sure my dad did not make 80x the rent but landlords can do what they want, so my dad provided some extra documentation (like the equity in his house) and they made it work.  SOMETIMES you can get around the guarantor requirement by paying more rent up front, if you have it, or giving a larger security deposit.  There's also a renters insurance company called Insurent that will act as your guarantor for a fee.
 
You also need to have the equivalent of three months' rent up front.  You usually need to pay them a security deposit equivalent to 1 month's rent (you will get this back when you move out unless you tras the place); the first month's rent and the last month's rent.
 
For a hope spot...I came to New York on a Monday with zero prospects and by Friday me and my roommate had rented an apartment.  The process moves very quickly.
 
What I usually recommend:
 
-When you are budgeting for your apartment rent, remember that your stipend amount is pre-tax and you'll need to pay taxes on it.  Total taxes (federal + state) are usually about 20% of your income.  That means that if your stipend is $25,000, your after-tax stipend is really $20,000, which is about $1700/month.
 
-Don't try to look more than 2 weeks out, as someone said above.  Landlords don't want to deal with you; they'd rather rent to someone else who will rent it right now.  If you see a great apartment in June, it will be gone by the time you are ready to lease it in August.
 
-Don't try to live on your own, unless you have a lot of money saved from a previous job, your parents are willing to supplement your income, or you're willing to go into debt just to live by yourself.  Seriously.  A *cheap* studio apartment is $1200 and more realistically you'll pay around $1500-2000 a month trying to live in a one-bedroom.  Even in Harlem.  Even in Brooklyn.  If you see a studio or one-bedroom advertised for less than $1100, it is probably a scam ("sorry, we rented that one, but we have this beautiful one for $1300") or has major issues with it.  Some people really, really can't stand to share their space with anyone else, and that's fine.  But even if your stipend is $30,000, that means after-tax it's really $24,000, or $2,000/month.  It will be VERY hard to afford a one-bedroom apartment in NYC without outside assistance - either an additional job, savings, parents.
 
-Most Craigslist listings with reasonable rental rates seem to be legit.  Always visit an apartment before you sign any papers.  A reasonable rate, IMO, is at least $1100 (but really at least $1200) for a one-bedroom or studio and at least $700 for a share.
 
-If you don't have good credit or don't want to deal with a guarantor, use either the Columbia off-campus listing or Craigslist to look to sublet a room in an apartment.  There are many normal, friendly students and young professionals who use CL in NYC to rent out their second or third or fourth room because they have a sweet deal they don't want to lose just because their third friend went to London for a year.  I found my second roommate using CL, and we're still close friends (she actually was a student at my school, too).  I didn't have to put her on the lease.
 
-If you can afford it, I recommend subletting a room in early August and using ~3-4 weeks to look for apartments.  Use ~1-2 week to get to know the housing market and get a feel for prices and what you get for the price; then use the following ~1-2 weeks to actually find a place and rent it.  I even know people who subletting an apartment for the first semester and then moved over the winter break.  You can often get an apartment for cheaper in December because there are fewer people moving, although there are fewer vacancies.
 
If you have residential life experience (like you were an RA) or if you have any student affairs experience from college or life, consider applying to be a graduate hall director at either Columbia or Barnard.  It's a 20-hour-a-week live-in position that provides free housing, a small stipend (around $500/month) and some meals in the dining hall (75 meals for the year).  In return, you supervise a group of resident assistants (usually between 8 and 13), do some administrative work like manage an area budget and fill out paperwork, and serve on crisis call duty between 5 pm and 9 am about 10 weekdays and 2 weekends a semester.  I did it for two years and it was a total blast; I only quit because I got married and needed to focus on my dissertation, plus Columbia didn't have good married housing for GHDs.  Barnard's GHD housing is better than Columbia's.  Columbia's deadline for GHD applications is March 7; Barnard's application isn't up yet but should be soon (app deadline is usually in March).

About your dog: I think that depends entirely on you and your program. I am in a social science program where the majority of my analysis and writing can be done from home, and I prefer to work from home or from a library (as opposed to my cube in the windowless cube farm). When I was taking classes I was generally there from 9-6 or so, but now that my coursework is finished I am rarely at the school itself. I go for meetings, seminars, interesting kinds of things and I do most of my work remotely. My time is verrry flexible, and if my building didn't prohibit it I would get a dog in a heartbeat. Another thing to keep in mind: a dog can be a great comfort when you're all stressed out over graduate school.

Advice?

Age:
-Don't feel like you have nothing to offer just because you are younger. I was 22 when I started graduate school. You got accepted to the program for a reason, and chances are you are just as equipped as any older students are to successfully complete the program, just in a different way.

-Your older classmates may be just as terrified as you. Talk to them. You have a lot in common. You are, after all, in the same place.

-You will feel like an imposter, like you don't belong, or like you are constantly behind. Or all three. It's normal. It will pass. (Well, sort of.) People of all ages go through this.

Adviser related:
-If you are lucky enough to get both research interest fit and personality fit perfect, congratulations! But sometimes, personality fit is more important than research interest fit as long as the research isn't too different. A great adviser is interested in your career development, likes you as a person, advocates for you, and wants to hear your ideas. Even if his or her research is quite different from yours, they may give you the autonomy to work on your own projects and just supervise you. A bad personality fit will drive you nuts, even if you love his or her research. Consider that when evaluating your adviser fit. (This will vary by field: research fit may be less important in the humanities, more important in the natural and physical sciences. Social sciences are somewhere in-between.)

-Don't be afraid to be straight up blunt with your adviser when it comes to asking about your progress. Ask if you are where you should be both academic program wise and getting-a-job-after-this-mess-wise.

-Be proactive. Advisers love when you draw up an agenda for your one-on-one meetings, come with talking points and progress to share, have concrete questions to ask, and have overall shown that you have been thoughtful and taken control of your own program. Of course, this won't immediately come easily to you, but in time you will work up to it. Every semester I type up my semester goals, and at the beginning of the year I type up annual goals. I show them to my adviser and we talk about whether they are too ambitious, or whether I need to revise them, and how I can meet them.

-Don't expect your adviser to actually know what courses you have to take to graduate. They will know about comprehensive exams and the dissertation, but a lot of professors don't really keep up with the course requirements, especially if their program is in flux. Get you a student handbook, and find out what you need to take. Map it out in a grid, and check off things when you finish them. Show this to your adviser every semester. You may have to explain how such and such class fills a requirement.

-Nobody loves you as much as you, except your mother. Keep this in mind as you take in advice from all sources, including your adviser. Your adviser is there to guide you, but that doesn't mean you have to do everything he says.

Studying:
-You will have to read more than you ever did before, in less time than you ever have before, and you will be expected to retain more than you ever have before. The way that you studied in undergrad may need some tweaking. Be prepared for this.

-Corollary: you may find that your methods change with age or interests or time. I preferred to study alone in college, but in grad school, I prefer to study in groups. It keeps me on task and the socialization keeps me motivated. You may find that you shift from being a more auditory learner to a visual learner or whatever.

-You will feel behind at first. This is normal.

-At some point you will realize that your professors don't actually expect you to read everything they assign you. This, of course, will vary by program, but there will be at least one class where the reading is actually impossible to do in one week. The point is to read enough that you know the major themes and can talk intelligently about them, and then pick some of the readings to really dig into and think more deeply about.

-For most programs, don't worry so much about grades. If you stay on top of your work and do what you're supposed to, you will probably get an A. How much grades matter varies from program to program. In some programs, a B is a signal that you are not up to par, and more than a few Bs will warrant a discussion with your adviser or the DGS. My program isn't like that - A, B, it's all meaningless. My adviser doesn't even know what my grades are. But at almost all programs, a C means you need to retake the course, and two Cs means you have to convince the DGS not to kick you out.

Extracurricular activity: What's that? No, seriously:
-A lot of your time will be unstructured. You will have coursework, but most grad classes meet once a week for two hours and you may have three classes. You may have meetings with your adviser every so often and some seminars or things to catch (like we have grand rounds and colloquia that are required), but a lot of time will be unstructured. However, since you have so much more work than you had in undergrad, you actually will have less free time than you had in undergrad. This may initially cause you great anxiety. It did for me. Some people love unstructured time, though. (I don't.)

-Because of this, you'll have to be planful about your non-grad school related stuff.

-TAKE TIME OFF. DO it. It's important for your mental health. However you do it doesn't matter. Some people work it like a 9-5 job. Some people take a day off per week (me) and maybe a few hours spread across the week. Some people work half days 7 days a week. However you do it, there needs to be a time when you say "f this, I'm going to the movies."

-Find your happy place, something that keeps you the you you were when you came in. I love working out. It gives me energy and I feel good. I stay healthy. I also love reading fiction, so sometimes I just curl up with a good book, work be damned. You have to give yourself permission to not think about work, at least for a couple of hours a week. You may also discover new hobbies! (I never worked out before I came to graduate school.)

-Your work will creep into all aspects of your life, if you let it. This is why I hate unstructured time. You will feel guilty for not doing something, because in graduate school, there is ALWAYS something you can do. ALWAYS. But since there will always be more work, there's no harm in putting it aside for tomorrow, as long as you don't have a deadline.

-You may need to reach outside of your cohort for a social life. None of my close friends are in my doctoral cohort. I've met master's students in my program, master's students in other programs, and I know a few non-graduate students I hang out with, too. Go to graduate student mixers. (If your university doesn't have any, organize some, if you like planning parties.) Join a student group that doesn't take up too much time. I had a doctoral acquaintance who kinda laughed at me because I joined some student groups other than the doctoral student one, and I was usually the only doctoral student in those groups, but I met some close friends (and future job contacts) and had a good time.

-DO NOT FEEL GUILTY FOR WANTING A LIFE OUTSIDE OF GRADUATE SCHOOL. This is paramount. This is important. You are a well-rounded, complex, multifaceted human being. NEVER feel bad for this. Everybody wants some kind of life outside of work. Yes, you may loooove your field, but that doesn't mean you want to do it all day long. Some other doctoral students, and perhaps professors, may make you feel bad about this. Don't let them. Just smile and nod. Then disappear when you need to.

Career:
-This is job preparation. Remember that from Day One. Always be looking for ways to enhance your skills. Read job ads and find out what's hot in your field, what's necessary, what's in demand. For example, in my field statistics and methods are a hot commodity, and they're not a passing fad. I happen to really like statistics and methods, so I have pursued that as a concentration of mine.

-Don't be afraid to take on volunteer work and part-time gigs that will give you skills that will be useful both inside academia and out, as long as it's not against your contract. Your adviser may be against it, but he doesn't have to know as long as it doesn't interfere with your work.

-If you want to work outside of academia - if you are even *considering* the possibility - please please definitely do the above. Even if you aren't considering it, consider the possibility that you won't get a tenure-track job out the box and that you may need to support yourself doing something else for a while. You will have to prove to employers that you have developed usable, useful skills and this is one of the easiest ways to do it. But don't overdo it - get the degree done.

-For more academic related ones - always look for opportunities to present and publish. Presentations look good on your CV. Publications look better. When you write seminar papers, wonder if you can publish them with some revision. Write your seminar papers on what you maybe think you may want to do your dissertation on. Even if you look at them three years later and think "these suck," you can at least glean some useful references and pieces from them. Discuss publication with your adviser early and often, and if you have the time and desire, seek out publication options with other professors and researchers. But if you commit to a project, COMMIT. You don't want to leave a bad impression.

-If you can afford it, occasionally go to conferences even if you aren't presenting. You can network, and you can hear some interesting talks, and you may think about new directions for your own research. You can also meet people who may tell you about jobs, money, opportunities, etc.

-Always try to get someone else to pay for conference travel before you come out of pocket. Including your adviser. Do not be shy about asking if he or she can pay. If he can't, he'll just say no. Usually the department has a travel fund for students, but often it's only if you are presenting.

-If you are interested in academia, you should get some teaching experience. There are two traditional ways to do this: TAing a course, and teaching as a sole instructor. If you can help it, I wouldn't recommend doing a sole instructor position until you are finished with coursework. Teaching takes a LOT of time to do right. You should definitely TA at least one course, and probably a few different ones. But don't overdo it, if you can help it, because again, it takes a LOT of time. More than you expect at the outset. If you are in the humanities, I think sole instructor positions are very important for nabbing jobs so when you are in the exam/ABD phase, you may want to try at least one. If your own university has none, look at adjuncting for nearby colleges, including community colleges. (I would wager that the majority of natural science/physical science students, and most social science students, have never sole taught a class before they get an assistant professor job. At least, it's not that common n my field, which straddles the social and natural sciences.)

-Always look for money. Money is awesome. If you can fund yourself you can do what you want, within reason. Your university will be thrilled, your adviser will be happy, and you can put it on your CV. It's win-win-win! Don't put yourself out of the running before anyone else has a chance to. Apply even if you think you won't get it or the odds are against you (they always are), as long as you are eligible. Apply often. Apply even if it's only $500. (That's conference travel!) Money begets money. The more awards you get, the more awards you will get. They will get bigger over time. If you are in the sciences and social sciences, you should get practice writing at least one grant. You don't have to write the whole thing, but at least get in on the process so that you can see how it's done. Grant-writing is very valuable both in and outside of graduate school.

-Revise your CV every so often. Then look and decide what you want to add to it. Then go get that thing, so you can add it.

-The career office at big universities is often not just for undergrads. I was surprised to learn that my career center offers help on CV organization and the academic job search, as well as alternative/non-academic career searches for doctoral students. In fact, there are two people whose sole purpose it is to help PhD students find nonacademic careers, and they both have PhDs. This will vary by university - some universities will have very little for grad students. Find out before you write the office off.

-It's never too early to go to seminars/workshops like "the academic job search inside and out", "creating the perfect CV," "getting the job," etc. NEVER. Often the leader will share tips that are more aimed towards early graduate students, or tidbits that are kind of too late for more advanced students to take care of. This will also help you keep a pulse on what's hot in your field. It'll help you know what lines you need to add to your CV. And they're interesting.

Other:

-Decide ahead of time what you are NOT willing to sacrifice on the altar of academia. Then stick to it.
I'm serious. If you decide that you do NOT want to sacrifice your relationship, don't. If it's your geographical mobility, don't. I mean, be realistic, and realize that there will always be trade-offs. But you have to think about what's important to you for your quality of life, and realize that there is always more to you than graduate school.

-If you don't want to be a professor, do not feel guilty about this. At all. Zero. However, you will have to do things differently than most doctoral students. Your adviser will probably never have worked outside of the academy (although this may vary depending on the field) so he may or may not be able to help you. But you have a special mission to seek out the kinds of experiences that will help you find a non-academic job. Test the waters with your adviser before you tell him this. My adviser was quite amenable to it, but that's because I told him that my goal was to still do research and policy work in my field just not at a university, AND because it's quite common in my field for doctoral students to do non-academic work. If you're in a field where it's not common (or where your professors refuse to believe it's common, or it's not supposed to be common)…well, you may be a little more on your own.

-Every so often, you will need to reflect on the reasons you came to graduate school. Sometimes, just sit and think quietly. Why are you doing this to yourself? Do you love your field? Do you need this degree to do what you want to do? Usually the answer is yes and yes, and usually you'll keep on trucking. But sometimes when the chips are down you will need to reevaluate why you put yourself through this in the first place.

-To my great dismay, depression is quite common in doctoral students. Graduate work can be isolating and stressful. Luckily your health insurance usually includes counseling sessions. TAKE THEM if you need them. Do not be ashamed. You may be surprised with who else is getting them. (I found out that everyone in my cohort, including me, was getting mental health counseling at a certain point.) Exercise can help, as can taking that mental health day once a week and just chilling. Don't be surprised if you get the blues…

-…but be self-aware and able to recognize when the depression is clouding your ability to function. Doctoral programs have a 50% attrition rate, and this is rarely because that 50% is less intelligent than, less motivated than, less driven than, or less ambitious than the other 50% that stays. Often they realize that they are ridiculously unhappy in the field, or that they don't need the degree anymore, or that they'd rather focus on other things in life, or their interests have changed. All of this is okay!

-You will, at some point, be like "eff this, I'm leaving." I think almost every doctoral student has thought about dropping out and just kicking this all to the curb. You need to listen to yourself, and find out whether it is idle thought (nothing to worry about, very normal) or whether you are truly unhappy to the point that you need to leave. Counseling can help you figure this out.

-Don't be afraid to take a semester or a year off if you need to. That's what leaves of absence are for.

Lastly, and positively…

…graduate school is great! Seriously, when else will you ever have the time to study what you want for hours on end, talk to just as interested others about it, and live in an intellectual community of scholars and intellectuals? And occasionally wake up at 11 am and go to the bank at 2 pm? Sometimes you will want to pull out all of your hair but most of the time, you will feel fulfilled and wonderfully encouraged and edified. So enjoy this time!

I know this question is a few months old, but still going to answer in case someone finds it useful. I went to Columbia for graduate school; for three years I lived in off-campus housing in Washington Heights and then for three years I lived in campus housing in Morningside Heights.
Morningside Heights is very much dominated by Columbia - there's a 10-block radius from 110th St to 120th St, between Broadway and Morningside Dr (and, to a certain extent, extending to Riverside Dr) that feels like Columbia's campus/neighborhood. I am a woman and I always joked that I've walked outside in Morningside Heights every one of the 24 hours of the day, and I never felt unsafe. Public Safety is very good, and I got to know some of the officers and infrastructure at Columbia and I always felt completely equipped to reach out if I needed help from campus police. I never had to, though (not for myself...I worked in student services.). Actually, because I worked in student services I actually had exposure to the sorts of incidents that happen around Columbia's campus, and there's virtually never any violent crime against Columbia affiliates. I walked home from lab (or the libraries) late all the time.
Living in grad student housing, IMO, is the way to go. You'd be hard-pressed to find an apartment anywhere in the city for the same price you can get it through Columbia, and if you can, it's likely further away than the grad student housing. I lived and attended school there from 2008-2014, so likely some things have changed, but for context: I split a 2-bedroom with one other person for $1850 a month on 172nd St. and Haven Ave., in Washington Heights, four blocks away from the Columbia University Medical Center and about a 20-minute subway ride to the main Columbia campus in Morningside Heights. (I was a dual PhD student - 50% public health at CUMC, 50% psychology at the main campus). We each paid $925, and it was a pretty decent-sized apartment by New York standards. Later, I moved into a Columbia graduate housing two-room studio (bedroom, bathroom, and another room that had the kitchen in it but also our desk) with my husband, who attended GS, on 119th and Amsterdam. I'd guess it was around 600 sqft? If that? We paid $1400/month for it. There is no way in hell you'd find a studio in Morningside Heights for that price. Both were in walking distance to a ton of restaurants, grocery stores, bars, and other amenities, and had two subway stops in close reach. 
When I was living there 5-6 years ago, the prices in Inwood and Washington Heights were rising but were pretty much the only neighborhoods left in Manhattan where you could expect to find prices comparable to Columbia's graduate housing (perhaps with the exception of some parts of Harlem, like East Harlem and Hamilton Heights). Otherwise, you were kind of stuck either going into the Bronx (which very few Columbia students do) or into Brooklyn (which more do, but you have to go pretty far out into Brooklyn to get something affordable these days. Which is baffling in and of itself - my mom grew up in Brooklyn in the 60s and 70s, and she's baffled that anyone wants to live there now, lol). There are also some further neighborhoods in Queens that might be more affordable...but they're going to be relatively deep into Queens.

I know this question is a few months old, but still going to answer in case someone finds it useful. I went to Columbia for graduate school; for three years I lived in off-campus housing in Washington Heights and then for three years I lived in campus housing in Morningside Heights.
Morningside Heights is very much dominated by Columbia - there's a 10-block radius from 110th St to 120th St, between Broadway and Morningside Dr (and, to a certain extent, extending to Riverside Dr) that feels like Columbia's campus/neighborhood. I am a woman and I always joked that I've walked outside in Morningside Heights every one of the 24 hours of the day, and I never felt unsafe. Public Safety is very good, and I got to know some of the officers and infrastructure at Columbia and I always felt completely equipped to reach out if I needed help from campus police. I never had to, though (not for myself...I worked in student services.). Actually, because I worked in student services I actually had exposure to the sorts of incidents that happen around Columbia's campus, and there's virtually never any violent crime against Columbia affiliates. I walked home from lab (or the libraries) late all the time.
Living in grad student housing, IMO, is the way to go. You'd be hard-pressed to find an apartment anywhere in the city for the same price you can get it through Columbia, and if you can, it's likely further away than the grad student housing. I lived and attended school there from 2008-2014, so likely some things have changed, but for context: I split a 2-bedroom with one other person for $1850 a month on 172nd St. and Haven Ave., in Washington Heights, four blocks away from the Columbia University Medical Center and about a 20-minute subway ride to the main Columbia campus in Morningside Heights. (I was a dual PhD student - 50% public health at CUMC, 50% psychology at the main campus). We each paid $925, and it was a pretty decent-sized apartment by New York standards. Later, I moved into a Columbia graduate housing two-room studio (bedroom, bathroom, and another room that had the kitchen in it but also our desk) with my husband, who attended GS, on 119th and Amsterdam. I'd guess it was around 600 sqft? If that? We paid $1400/month for it. There is no way in hell you'd find a studio in Morningside Heights for that price. Both were in walking distance to a ton of restaurants, grocery stores, bars, and other amenities, and had two subway stops in close reach. 
When I was living there 5-6 years ago, the prices in Inwood and Washington Heights were rising but were pretty much the only neighborhoods left in Manhattan where you could expect to find prices comparable to Columbia's graduate housing (perhaps with the exception of some parts of Harlem, like East Harlem and Hamilton Heights). Otherwise, you were kind of stuck either going into the Bronx (which very few Columbia students do) or into Brooklyn (which more do, but you have to go pretty far out into Brooklyn to get something affordable these days. Which is baffling in and of itself - my mom grew up in Brooklyn in the 60s and 70s, and she's baffled that anyone wants to live there now, lol). There are also some further neighborhoods in Queens that might be more affordable...but they're going to be relatively deep into Queens.

I work in this field. It's called human-computer interaction, or user experience research.
A rhet/comp degree would be an unusual background; most people who come into this field have social sciences graduate degrees (psychology is common) or computer science-related graduate degrees (you can actually get a PhD in HCI). That's because the research techniques are social sciences methods, and are actually applied versions of psychological methods.
However, with some programming skills, you might make a good UX designer. There are also design-adjacent roles like design strategist or technical architect that may work at some firms/companies.

About your dog: I think that depends entirely on you and your program. I am in a social science program where the majority of my analysis and writing can be done from home, and I prefer to work from home or from a library (as opposed to my cube in the windowless cube farm). When I was taking classes I was generally there from 9-6 or so, but now that my coursework is finished I am rarely at the school itself. I go for meetings, seminars, interesting kinds of things and I do most of my work remotely. My time is verrry flexible, and if my building didn't prohibit it I would get a dog in a heartbeat. Another thing to keep in mind: a dog can be a great comfort when you're all stressed out over graduate school.

Advice?

Age:
-Don't feel like you have nothing to offer just because you are younger. I was 22 when I started graduate school. You got accepted to the program for a reason, and chances are you are just as equipped as any older students are to successfully complete the program, just in a different way.

-Your older classmates may be just as terrified as you. Talk to them. You have a lot in common. You are, after all, in the same place.

-You will feel like an imposter, like you don't belong, or like you are constantly behind. Or all three. It's normal. It will pass. (Well, sort of.) People of all ages go through this.

Adviser related:
-If you are lucky enough to get both research interest fit and personality fit perfect, congratulations! But sometimes, personality fit is more important than research interest fit as long as the research isn't too different. A great adviser is interested in your career development, likes you as a person, advocates for you, and wants to hear your ideas. Even if his or her research is quite different from yours, they may give you the autonomy to work on your own projects and just supervise you. A bad personality fit will drive you nuts, even if you love his or her research. Consider that when evaluating your adviser fit. (This will vary by field: research fit may be less important in the humanities, more important in the natural and physical sciences. Social sciences are somewhere in-between.)

-Don't be afraid to be straight up blunt with your adviser when it comes to asking about your progress. Ask if you are where you should be both academic program wise and getting-a-job-after-this-mess-wise.

-Be proactive. Advisers love when you draw up an agenda for your one-on-one meetings, come with talking points and progress to share, have concrete questions to ask, and have overall shown that you have been thoughtful and taken control of your own program. Of course, this won't immediately come easily to you, but in time you will work up to it. Every semester I type up my semester goals, and at the beginning of the year I type up annual goals. I show them to my adviser and we talk about whether they are too ambitious, or whether I need to revise them, and how I can meet them.

-Don't expect your adviser to actually know what courses you have to take to graduate. They will know about comprehensive exams and the dissertation, but a lot of professors don't really keep up with the course requirements, especially if their program is in flux. Get you a student handbook, and find out what you need to take. Map it out in a grid, and check off things when you finish them. Show this to your adviser every semester. You may have to explain how such and such class fills a requirement.

-Nobody loves you as much as you, except your mother. Keep this in mind as you take in advice from all sources, including your adviser. Your adviser is there to guide you, but that doesn't mean you have to do everything he says.

Studying:
-You will have to read more than you ever did before, in less time than you ever have before, and you will be expected to retain more than you ever have before. The way that you studied in undergrad may need some tweaking. Be prepared for this.

-Corollary: you may find that your methods change with age or interests or time. I preferred to study alone in college, but in grad school, I prefer to study in groups. It keeps me on task and the socialization keeps me motivated. You may find that you shift from being a more auditory learner to a visual learner or whatever.

-You will feel behind at first. This is normal.

-At some point you will realize that your professors don't actually expect you to read everything they assign you. This, of course, will vary by program, but there will be at least one class where the reading is actually impossible to do in one week. The point is to read enough that you know the major themes and can talk intelligently about them, and then pick some of the readings to really dig into and think more deeply about.

-For most programs, don't worry so much about grades. If you stay on top of your work and do what you're supposed to, you will probably get an A. How much grades matter varies from program to program. In some programs, a B is a signal that you are not up to par, and more than a few Bs will warrant a discussion with your adviser or the DGS. My program isn't like that - A, B, it's all meaningless. My adviser doesn't even know what my grades are. But at almost all programs, a C means you need to retake the course, and two Cs means you have to convince the DGS not to kick you out.

Extracurricular activity: What's that? No, seriously:
-A lot of your time will be unstructured. You will have coursework, but most grad classes meet once a week for two hours and you may have three classes. You may have meetings with your adviser every so often and some seminars or things to catch (like we have grand rounds and colloquia that are required), but a lot of time will be unstructured. However, since you have so much more work than you had in undergrad, you actually will have less free time than you had in undergrad. This may initially cause you great anxiety. It did for me. Some people love unstructured time, though. (I don't.)

-Because of this, you'll have to be planful about your non-grad school related stuff.

-TAKE TIME OFF. DO it. It's important for your mental health. However you do it doesn't matter. Some people work it like a 9-5 job. Some people take a day off per week (me) and maybe a few hours spread across the week. Some people work half days 7 days a week. However you do it, there needs to be a time when you say "f this, I'm going to the movies."

-Find your happy place, something that keeps you the you you were when you came in. I love working out. It gives me energy and I feel good. I stay healthy. I also love reading fiction, so sometimes I just curl up with a good book, work be damned. You have to give yourself permission to not think about work, at least for a couple of hours a week. You may also discover new hobbies! (I never worked out before I came to graduate school.)

-Your work will creep into all aspects of your life, if you let it. This is why I hate unstructured time. You will feel guilty for not doing something, because in graduate school, there is ALWAYS something you can do. ALWAYS. But since there will always be more work, there's no harm in putting it aside for tomorrow, as long as you don't have a deadline.

-You may need to reach outside of your cohort for a social life. None of my close friends are in my doctoral cohort. I've met master's students in my program, master's students in other programs, and I know a few non-graduate students I hang out with, too. Go to graduate student mixers. (If your university doesn't have any, organize some, if you like planning parties.) Join a student group that doesn't take up too much time. I had a doctoral acquaintance who kinda laughed at me because I joined some student groups other than the doctoral student one, and I was usually the only doctoral student in those groups, but I met some close friends (and future job contacts) and had a good time.

-DO NOT FEEL GUILTY FOR WANTING A LIFE OUTSIDE OF GRADUATE SCHOOL. This is paramount. This is important. You are a well-rounded, complex, multifaceted human being. NEVER feel bad for this. Everybody wants some kind of life outside of work. Yes, you may loooove your field, but that doesn't mean you want to do it all day long. Some other doctoral students, and perhaps professors, may make you feel bad about this. Don't let them. Just smile and nod. Then disappear when you need to.

Career:
-This is job preparation. Remember that from Day One. Always be looking for ways to enhance your skills. Read job ads and find out what's hot in your field, what's necessary, what's in demand. For example, in my field statistics and methods are a hot commodity, and they're not a passing fad. I happen to really like statistics and methods, so I have pursued that as a concentration of mine.

-Don't be afraid to take on volunteer work and part-time gigs that will give you skills that will be useful both inside academia and out, as long as it's not against your contract. Your adviser may be against it, but he doesn't have to know as long as it doesn't interfere with your work.

-If you want to work outside of academia - if you are even *considering* the possibility - please please definitely do the above. Even if you aren't considering it, consider the possibility that you won't get a tenure-track job out the box and that you may need to support yourself doing something else for a while. You will have to prove to employers that you have developed usable, useful skills and this is one of the easiest ways to do it. But don't overdo it - get the degree done.

-For more academic related ones - always look for opportunities to present and publish. Presentations look good on your CV. Publications look better. When you write seminar papers, wonder if you can publish them with some revision. Write your seminar papers on what you maybe think you may want to do your dissertation on. Even if you look at them three years later and think "these suck," you can at least glean some useful references and pieces from them. Discuss publication with your adviser early and often, and if you have the time and desire, seek out publication options with other professors and researchers. But if you commit to a project, COMMIT. You don't want to leave a bad impression.

-If you can afford it, occasionally go to conferences even if you aren't presenting. You can network, and you can hear some interesting talks, and you may think about new directions for your own research. You can also meet people who may tell you about jobs, money, opportunities, etc.

-Always try to get someone else to pay for conference travel before you come out of pocket. Including your adviser. Do not be shy about asking if he or she can pay. If he can't, he'll just say no. Usually the department has a travel fund for students, but often it's only if you are presenting.

-If you are interested in academia, you should get some teaching experience. There are two traditional ways to do this: TAing a course, and teaching as a sole instructor. If you can help it, I wouldn't recommend doing a sole instructor position until you are finished with coursework. Teaching takes a LOT of time to do right. You should definitely TA at least one course, and probably a few different ones. But don't overdo it, if you can help it, because again, it takes a LOT of time. More than you expect at the outset. If you are in the humanities, I think sole instructor positions are very important for nabbing jobs so when you are in the exam/ABD phase, you may want to try at least one. If your own university has none, look at adjuncting for nearby colleges, including community colleges. (I would wager that the majority of natural science/physical science students, and most social science students, have never sole taught a class before they get an assistant professor job. At least, it's not that common n my field, which straddles the social and natural sciences.)

-Always look for money. Money is awesome. If you can fund yourself you can do what you want, within reason. Your university will be thrilled, your adviser will be happy, and you can put it on your CV. It's win-win-win! Don't put yourself out of the running before anyone else has a chance to. Apply even if you think you won't get it or the odds are against you (they always are), as long as you are eligible. Apply often. Apply even if it's only $500. (That's conference travel!) Money begets money. The more awards you get, the more awards you will get. They will get bigger over time. If you are in the sciences and social sciences, you should get practice writing at least one grant. You don't have to write the whole thing, but at least get in on the process so that you can see how it's done. Grant-writing is very valuable both in and outside of graduate school.

-Revise your CV every so often. Then look and decide what you want to add to it. Then go get that thing, so you can add it.

-The career office at big universities is often not just for undergrads. I was surprised to learn that my career center offers help on CV organization and the academic job search, as well as alternative/non-academic career searches for doctoral students. In fact, there are two people whose sole purpose it is to help PhD students find nonacademic careers, and they both have PhDs. This will vary by university - some universities will have very little for grad students. Find out before you write the office off.

-It's never too early to go to seminars/workshops like "the academic job search inside and out", "creating the perfect CV," "getting the job," etc. NEVER. Often the leader will share tips that are more aimed towards early graduate students, or tidbits that are kind of too late for more advanced students to take care of. This will also help you keep a pulse on what's hot in your field. It'll help you know what lines you need to add to your CV. And they're interesting.

Other:

-Decide ahead of time what you are NOT willing to sacrifice on the altar of academia. Then stick to it.
I'm serious. If you decide that you do NOT want to sacrifice your relationship, don't. If it's your geographical mobility, don't. I mean, be realistic, and realize that there will always be trade-offs. But you have to think about what's important to you for your quality of life, and realize that there is always more to you than graduate school.

-If you don't want to be a professor, do not feel guilty about this. At all. Zero. However, you will have to do things differently than most doctoral students. Your adviser will probably never have worked outside of the academy (although this may vary depending on the field) so he may or may not be able to help you. But you have a special mission to seek out the kinds of experiences that will help you find a non-academic job. Test the waters with your adviser before you tell him this. My adviser was quite amenable to it, but that's because I told him that my goal was to still do research and policy work in my field just not at a university, AND because it's quite common in my field for doctoral students to do non-academic work. If you're in a field where it's not common (or where your professors refuse to believe it's common, or it's not supposed to be common)…well, you may be a little more on your own.

-Every so often, you will need to reflect on the reasons you came to graduate school. Sometimes, just sit and think quietly. Why are you doing this to yourself? Do you love your field? Do you need this degree to do what you want to do? Usually the answer is yes and yes, and usually you'll keep on trucking. But sometimes when the chips are down you will need to reevaluate why you put yourself through this in the first place.

-To my great dismay, depression is quite common in doctoral students. Graduate work can be isolating and stressful. Luckily your health insurance usually includes counseling sessions. TAKE THEM if you need them. Do not be ashamed. You may be surprised with who else is getting them. (I found out that everyone in my cohort, including me, was getting mental health counseling at a certain point.) Exercise can help, as can taking that mental health day once a week and just chilling. Don't be surprised if you get the blues…

-…but be self-aware and able to recognize when the depression is clouding your ability to function. Doctoral programs have a 50% attrition rate, and this is rarely because that 50% is less intelligent than, less motivated than, less driven than, or less ambitious than the other 50% that stays. Often they realize that they are ridiculously unhappy in the field, or that they don't need the degree anymore, or that they'd rather focus on other things in life, or their interests have changed. All of this is okay!

-You will, at some point, be like "eff this, I'm leaving." I think almost every doctoral student has thought about dropping out and just kicking this all to the curb. You need to listen to yourself, and find out whether it is idle thought (nothing to worry about, very normal) or whether you are truly unhappy to the point that you need to leave. Counseling can help you figure this out.

-Don't be afraid to take a semester or a year off if you need to. That's what leaves of absence are for.

Lastly, and positively…

…graduate school is great! Seriously, when else will you ever have the time to study what you want for hours on end, talk to just as interested others about it, and live in an intellectual community of scholars and intellectuals? And occasionally wake up at 11 am and go to the bank at 2 pm? Sometimes you will want to pull out all of your hair but most of the time, you will feel fulfilled and wonderfully encouraged and edified. So enjoy this time!

About your dog: I think that depends entirely on you and your program. I am in a social science program where the majority of my analysis and writing can be done from home, and I prefer to work from home or from a library (as opposed to my cube in the windowless cube farm). When I was taking classes I was generally there from 9-6 or so, but now that my coursework is finished I am rarely at the school itself. I go for meetings, seminars, interesting kinds of things and I do most of my work remotely. My time is verrry flexible, and if my building didn't prohibit it I would get a dog in a heartbeat. Another thing to keep in mind: a dog can be a great comfort when you're all stressed out over graduate school.

Advice?

Age:
-Don't feel like you have nothing to offer just because you are younger. I was 22 when I started graduate school. You got accepted to the program for a reason, and chances are you are just as equipped as any older students are to successfully complete the program, just in a different way.

-Your older classmates may be just as terrified as you. Talk to them. You have a lot in common. You are, after all, in the same place.

-You will feel like an imposter, like you don't belong, or like you are constantly behind. Or all three. It's normal. It will pass. (Well, sort of.) People of all ages go through this.

Adviser related:
-If you are lucky enough to get both research interest fit and personality fit perfect, congratulations! But sometimes, personality fit is more important than research interest fit as long as the research isn't too different. A great adviser is interested in your career development, likes you as a person, advocates for you, and wants to hear your ideas. Even if his or her research is quite different from yours, they may give you the autonomy to work on your own projects and just supervise you. A bad personality fit will drive you nuts, even if you love his or her research. Consider that when evaluating your adviser fit. (This will vary by field: research fit may be less important in the humanities, more important in the natural and physical sciences. Social sciences are somewhere in-between.)

-Don't be afraid to be straight up blunt with your adviser when it comes to asking about your progress. Ask if you are where you should be both academic program wise and getting-a-job-after-this-mess-wise.

-Be proactive. Advisers love when you draw up an agenda for your one-on-one meetings, come with talking points and progress to share, have concrete questions to ask, and have overall shown that you have been thoughtful and taken control of your own program. Of course, this won't immediately come easily to you, but in time you will work up to it. Every semester I type up my semester goals, and at the beginning of the year I type up annual goals. I show them to my adviser and we talk about whether they are too ambitious, or whether I need to revise them, and how I can meet them.

-Don't expect your adviser to actually know what courses you have to take to graduate. They will know about comprehensive exams and the dissertation, but a lot of professors don't really keep up with the course requirements, especially if their program is in flux. Get you a student handbook, and find out what you need to take. Map it out in a grid, and check off things when you finish them. Show this to your adviser every semester. You may have to explain how such and such class fills a requirement.

-Nobody loves you as much as you, except your mother. Keep this in mind as you take in advice from all sources, including your adviser. Your adviser is there to guide you, but that doesn't mean you have to do everything he says.

Studying:
-You will have to read more than you ever did before, in less time than you ever have before, and you will be expected to retain more than you ever have before. The way that you studied in undergrad may need some tweaking. Be prepared for this.

-Corollary: you may find that your methods change with age or interests or time. I preferred to study alone in college, but in grad school, I prefer to study in groups. It keeps me on task and the socialization keeps me motivated. You may find that you shift from being a more auditory learner to a visual learner or whatever.

-You will feel behind at first. This is normal.

-At some point you will realize that your professors don't actually expect you to read everything they assign you. This, of course, will vary by program, but there will be at least one class where the reading is actually impossible to do in one week. The point is to read enough that you know the major themes and can talk intelligently about them, and then pick some of the readings to really dig into and think more deeply about.

-For most programs, don't worry so much about grades. If you stay on top of your work and do what you're supposed to, you will probably get an A. How much grades matter varies from program to program. In some programs, a B is a signal that you are not up to par, and more than a few Bs will warrant a discussion with your adviser or the DGS. My program isn't like that - A, B, it's all meaningless. My adviser doesn't even know what my grades are. But at almost all programs, a C means you need to retake the course, and two Cs means you have to convince the DGS not to kick you out.

Extracurricular activity: What's that? No, seriously:
-A lot of your time will be unstructured. You will have coursework, but most grad classes meet once a week for two hours and you may have three classes. You may have meetings with your adviser every so often and some seminars or things to catch (like we have grand rounds and colloquia that are required), but a lot of time will be unstructured. However, since you have so much more work than you had in undergrad, you actually will have less free time than you had in undergrad. This may initially cause you great anxiety. It did for me. Some people love unstructured time, though. (I don't.)

-Because of this, you'll have to be planful about your non-grad school related stuff.

-TAKE TIME OFF. DO it. It's important for your mental health. However you do it doesn't matter. Some people work it like a 9-5 job. Some people take a day off per week (me) and maybe a few hours spread across the week. Some people work half days 7 days a week. However you do it, there needs to be a time when you say "f this, I'm going to the movies."

-Find your happy place, something that keeps you the you you were when you came in. I love working out. It gives me energy and I feel good. I stay healthy. I also love reading fiction, so sometimes I just curl up with a good book, work be damned. You have to give yourself permission to not think about work, at least for a couple of hours a week. You may also discover new hobbies! (I never worked out before I came to graduate school.)

-Your work will creep into all aspects of your life, if you let it. This is why I hate unstructured time. You will feel guilty for not doing something, because in graduate school, there is ALWAYS something you can do. ALWAYS. But since there will always be more work, there's no harm in putting it aside for tomorrow, as long as you don't have a deadline.

-You may need to reach outside of your cohort for a social life. None of my close friends are in my doctoral cohort. I've met master's students in my program, master's students in other programs, and I know a few non-graduate students I hang out with, too. Go to graduate student mixers. (If your university doesn't have any, organize some, if you like planning parties.) Join a student group that doesn't take up too much time. I had a doctoral acquaintance who kinda laughed at me because I joined some student groups other than the doctoral student one, and I was usually the only doctoral student in those groups, but I met some close friends (and future job contacts) and had a good time.

-DO NOT FEEL GUILTY FOR WANTING A LIFE OUTSIDE OF GRADUATE SCHOOL. This is paramount. This is important. You are a well-rounded, complex, multifaceted human being. NEVER feel bad for this. Everybody wants some kind of life outside of work. Yes, you may loooove your field, but that doesn't mean you want to do it all day long. Some other doctoral students, and perhaps professors, may make you feel bad about this. Don't let them. Just smile and nod. Then disappear when you need to.

Career:
-This is job preparation. Remember that from Day One. Always be looking for ways to enhance your skills. Read job ads and find out what's hot in your field, what's necessary, what's in demand. For example, in my field statistics and methods are a hot commodity, and they're not a passing fad. I happen to really like statistics and methods, so I have pursued that as a concentration of mine.

-Don't be afraid to take on volunteer work and part-time gigs that will give you skills that will be useful both inside academia and out, as long as it's not against your contract. Your adviser may be against it, but he doesn't have to know as long as it doesn't interfere with your work.

-If you want to work outside of academia - if you are even *considering* the possibility - please please definitely do the above. Even if you aren't considering it, consider the possibility that you won't get a tenure-track job out the box and that you may need to support yourself doing something else for a while. You will have to prove to employers that you have developed usable, useful skills and this is one of the easiest ways to do it. But don't overdo it - get the degree done.

-For more academic related ones - always look for opportunities to present and publish. Presentations look good on your CV. Publications look better. When you write seminar papers, wonder if you can publish them with some revision. Write your seminar papers on what you maybe think you may want to do your dissertation on. Even if you look at them three years later and think "these suck," you can at least glean some useful references and pieces from them. Discuss publication with your adviser early and often, and if you have the time and desire, seek out publication options with other professors and researchers. But if you commit to a project, COMMIT. You don't want to leave a bad impression.

-If you can afford it, occasionally go to conferences even if you aren't presenting. You can network, and you can hear some interesting talks, and you may think about new directions for your own research. You can also meet people who may tell you about jobs, money, opportunities, etc.

-Always try to get someone else to pay for conference travel before you come out of pocket. Including your adviser. Do not be shy about asking if he or she can pay. If he can't, he'll just say no. Usually the department has a travel fund for students, but often it's only if you are presenting.

-If you are interested in academia, you should get some teaching experience. There are two traditional ways to do this: TAing a course, and teaching as a sole instructor. If you can help it, I wouldn't recommend doing a sole instructor position until you are finished with coursework. Teaching takes a LOT of time to do right. You should definitely TA at least one course, and probably a few different ones. But don't overdo it, if you can help it, because again, it takes a LOT of time. More than you expect at the outset. If you are in the humanities, I think sole instructor positions are very important for nabbing jobs so when you are in the exam/ABD phase, you may want to try at least one. If your own university has none, look at adjuncting for nearby colleges, including community colleges. (I would wager that the majority of natural science/physical science students, and most social science students, have never sole taught a class before they get an assistant professor job. At least, it's not that common n my field, which straddles the social and natural sciences.)

-Always look for money. Money is awesome. If you can fund yourself you can do what you want, within reason. Your university will be thrilled, your adviser will be happy, and you can put it on your CV. It's win-win-win! Don't put yourself out of the running before anyone else has a chance to. Apply even if you think you won't get it or the odds are against you (they always are), as long as you are eligible. Apply often. Apply even if it's only $500. (That's conference travel!) Money begets money. The more awards you get, the more awards you will get. They will get bigger over time. If you are in the sciences and social sciences, you should get practice writing at least one grant. You don't have to write the whole thing, but at least get in on the process so that you can see how it's done. Grant-writing is very valuable both in and outside of graduate school.

-Revise your CV every so often. Then look and decide what you want to add to it. Then go get that thing, so you can add it.

-The career office at big universities is often not just for undergrads. I was surprised to learn that my career center offers help on CV organization and the academic job search, as well as alternative/non-academic career searches for doctoral students. In fact, there are two people whose sole purpose it is to help PhD students find nonacademic careers, and they both have PhDs. This will vary by university - some universities will have very little for grad students. Find out before you write the office off.

-It's never too early to go to seminars/workshops like "the academic job search inside and out", "creating the perfect CV," "getting the job," etc. NEVER. Often the leader will share tips that are more aimed towards early graduate students, or tidbits that are kind of too late for more advanced students to take care of. This will also help you keep a pulse on what's hot in your field. It'll help you know what lines you need to add to your CV. And they're interesting.

Other:

-Decide ahead of time what you are NOT willing to sacrifice on the altar of academia. Then stick to it.
I'm serious. If you decide that you do NOT want to sacrifice your relationship, don't. If it's your geographical mobility, don't. I mean, be realistic, and realize that there will always be trade-offs. But you have to think about what's important to you for your quality of life, and realize that there is always more to you than graduate school.

-If you don't want to be a professor, do not feel guilty about this. At all. Zero. However, you will have to do things differently than most doctoral students. Your adviser will probably never have worked outside of the academy (although this may vary depending on the field) so he may or may not be able to help you. But you have a special mission to seek out the kinds of experiences that will help you find a non-academic job. Test the waters with your adviser before you tell him this. My adviser was quite amenable to it, but that's because I told him that my goal was to still do research and policy work in my field just not at a university, AND because it's quite common in my field for doctoral students to do non-academic work. If you're in a field where it's not common (or where your professors refuse to believe it's common, or it's not supposed to be common)…well, you may be a little more on your own.

-Every so often, you will need to reflect on the reasons you came to graduate school. Sometimes, just sit and think quietly. Why are you doing this to yourself? Do you love your field? Do you need this degree to do what you want to do? Usually the answer is yes and yes, and usually you'll keep on trucking. But sometimes when the chips are down you will need to reevaluate why you put yourself through this in the first place.

-To my great dismay, depression is quite common in doctoral students. Graduate work can be isolating and stressful. Luckily your health insurance usually includes counseling sessions. TAKE THEM if you need them. Do not be ashamed. You may be surprised with who else is getting them. (I found out that everyone in my cohort, including me, was getting mental health counseling at a certain point.) Exercise can help, as can taking that mental health day once a week and just chilling. Don't be surprised if you get the blues…

-…but be self-aware and able to recognize when the depression is clouding your ability to function. Doctoral programs have a 50% attrition rate, and this is rarely because that 50% is less intelligent than, less motivated than, less driven than, or less ambitious than the other 50% that stays. Often they realize that they are ridiculously unhappy in the field, or that they don't need the degree anymore, or that they'd rather focus on other things in life, or their interests have changed. All of this is okay!

-You will, at some point, be like "eff this, I'm leaving." I think almost every doctoral student has thought about dropping out and just kicking this all to the curb. You need to listen to yourself, and find out whether it is idle thought (nothing to worry about, very normal) or whether you are truly unhappy to the point that you need to leave. Counseling can help you figure this out.

-Don't be afraid to take a semester or a year off if you need to. That's what leaves of absence are for.

Lastly, and positively…

…graduate school is great! Seriously, when else will you ever have the time to study what you want for hours on end, talk to just as interested others about it, and live in an intellectual community of scholars and intellectuals? And occasionally wake up at 11 am and go to the bank at 2 pm? Sometimes you will want to pull out all of your hair but most of the time, you will feel fulfilled and wonderfully encouraged and edified. So enjoy this time!

I work in industry. While a postdoc won't hurt you, it's certainly not necessary for the vast majority of non-academic positions. There are some non-academic positions that function pretty similarly to academic ones, and some of those might prefer a postdoc (think think tanks or policy institutes). But for the vast majority of non-academic jobs - especially if they are not research roles - not having done a postdoc is totally fine.
Second, if I want to gain industry experience while still in graduate school, what might be some recommended ways to go about it? My research focuses on questions of development in Latin America so I'm considering incorporating ethnographic fieldwork not only at my research site but with NGOs/development agencies working in my geographic area of interest to see another side of things. Would this be the best way to go about it or should I consider internships as well?
Both? This doesn't have to be an either/or; if you are considering non-academic careers, you should get any kind of industry experience you can in graduate school. Working with NGOs/nonprofits/other agencies while doing your fieldwork is an excellent way; you can build connections and demonstrate your research skills. I know several people in social sciences who have gotten non-academic jobs this way. But you should also consider internships as well.
Lastly, and maybe this is more personalized to different jobs/fields, but for any of you who are now working outside academia, do you feel that you're still able to do enough research, apply the skills you learned through your PhD, etc. in your non-academic position? 
It's definitely dependent on what you do. I'm a research manager at a tech company, and I definitely apply the skills I learned in my PhD - both the "hard skills" of statistics, research methodology, etc. and the "soft skills" of critical thinking, time management, planning and executing on a giant project, prioritization, communication, conflict resolution, etc. I would say that the latter set of "soft skills" has been FAR more important in the long run for my success here, and I actually work in a direct research role. I do less research myself now that I am a manager - I manage other researchers - but my research skills are still necessary so that I can advise them and direct their work for maximum impact. I also do research project planning that can be multi-year and cover large strategic areas of the business, so that research agenda planning that your PhD teaches you (perhaps indirectly) - that's super useful, too. Surprisingly, grant-writing was useful, too. Not because I write grants here, but because learning to budget what you need to get your work done and learning how to ask for money and resources that you need is a generally useful skill in business, and I now do that all the time.

This book on graduate admissions essays.  I'm an excellent writer, but writing an admissions essay (especially within 500-1000 words) was really difficult for me.  This book really helped break down what admissions committees wanted, and gave some pretty good sample essays.

I know this question is a few months old, but still going to answer in case someone finds it useful. I went to Columbia for graduate school; for three years I lived in off-campus housing in Washington Heights and then for three years I lived in campus housing in Morningside Heights.
Morningside Heights is very much dominated by Columbia - there's a 10-block radius from 110th St to 120th St, between Broadway and Morningside Dr (and, to a certain extent, extending to Riverside Dr) that feels like Columbia's campus/neighborhood. I am a woman and I always joked that I've walked outside in Morningside Heights every one of the 24 hours of the day, and I never felt unsafe. Public Safety is very good, and I got to know some of the officers and infrastructure at Columbia and I always felt completely equipped to reach out if I needed help from campus police. I never had to, though (not for myself...I worked in student services.). Actually, because I worked in student services I actually had exposure to the sorts of incidents that happen around Columbia's campus, and there's virtually never any violent crime against Columbia affiliates. I walked home from lab (or the libraries) late all the time.
Living in grad student housing, IMO, is the way to go. You'd be hard-pressed to find an apartment anywhere in the city for the same price you can get it through Columbia, and if you can, it's likely further away than the grad student housing. I lived and attended school there from 2008-2014, so likely some things have changed, but for context: I split a 2-bedroom with one other person for $1850 a month on 172nd St. and Haven Ave., in Washington Heights, four blocks away from the Columbia University Medical Center and about a 20-minute subway ride to the main Columbia campus in Morningside Heights. (I was a dual PhD student - 50% public health at CUMC, 50% psychology at the main campus). We each paid $925, and it was a pretty decent-sized apartment by New York standards. Later, I moved into a Columbia graduate housing two-room studio (bedroom, bathroom, and another room that had the kitchen in it but also our desk) with my husband, who attended GS, on 119th and Amsterdam. I'd guess it was around 600 sqft? If that? We paid $1400/month for it. There is no way in hell you'd find a studio in Morningside Heights for that price. Both were in walking distance to a ton of restaurants, grocery stores, bars, and other amenities, and had two subway stops in close reach. 
When I was living there 5-6 years ago, the prices in Inwood and Washington Heights were rising but were pretty much the only neighborhoods left in Manhattan where you could expect to find prices comparable to Columbia's graduate housing (perhaps with the exception of some parts of Harlem, like East Harlem and Hamilton Heights). Otherwise, you were kind of stuck either going into the Bronx (which very few Columbia students do) or into Brooklyn (which more do, but you have to go pretty far out into Brooklyn to get something affordable these days. Which is baffling in and of itself - my mom grew up in Brooklyn in the 60s and 70s, and she's baffled that anyone wants to live there now, lol). There are also some further neighborhoods in Queens that might be more affordable...but they're going to be relatively deep into Queens.

I know this question is a few months old, but still going to answer in case someone finds it useful. I went to Columbia for graduate school; for three years I lived in off-campus housing in Washington Heights and then for three years I lived in campus housing in Morningside Heights.
Morningside Heights is very much dominated by Columbia - there's a 10-block radius from 110th St to 120th St, between Broadway and Morningside Dr (and, to a certain extent, extending to Riverside Dr) that feels like Columbia's campus/neighborhood. I am a woman and I always joked that I've walked outside in Morningside Heights every one of the 24 hours of the day, and I never felt unsafe. Public Safety is very good, and I got to know some of the officers and infrastructure at Columbia and I always felt completely equipped to reach out if I needed help from campus police. I never had to, though (not for myself...I worked in student services.). Actually, because I worked in student services I actually had exposure to the sorts of incidents that happen around Columbia's campus, and there's virtually never any violent crime against Columbia affiliates. I walked home from lab (or the libraries) late all the time.
Living in grad student housing, IMO, is the way to go. You'd be hard-pressed to find an apartment anywhere in the city for the same price you can get it through Columbia, and if you can, it's likely further away than the grad student housing. I lived and attended school there from 2008-2014, so likely some things have changed, but for context: I split a 2-bedroom with one other person for $1850 a month on 172nd St. and Haven Ave., in Washington Heights, four blocks away from the Columbia University Medical Center and about a 20-minute subway ride to the main Columbia campus in Morningside Heights. (I was a dual PhD student - 50% public health at CUMC, 50% psychology at the main campus). We each paid $925, and it was a pretty decent-sized apartment by New York standards. Later, I moved into a Columbia graduate housing two-room studio (bedroom, bathroom, and another room that had the kitchen in it but also our desk) with my husband, who attended GS, on 119th and Amsterdam. I'd guess it was around 600 sqft? If that? We paid $1400/month for it. There is no way in hell you'd find a studio in Morningside Heights for that price. Both were in walking distance to a ton of restaurants, grocery stores, bars, and other amenities, and had two subway stops in close reach. 
When I was living there 5-6 years ago, the prices in Inwood and Washington Heights were rising but were pretty much the only neighborhoods left in Manhattan where you could expect to find prices comparable to Columbia's graduate housing (perhaps with the exception of some parts of Harlem, like East Harlem and Hamilton Heights). Otherwise, you were kind of stuck either going into the Bronx (which very few Columbia students do) or into Brooklyn (which more do, but you have to go pretty far out into Brooklyn to get something affordable these days. Which is baffling in and of itself - my mom grew up in Brooklyn in the 60s and 70s, and she's baffled that anyone wants to live there now, lol). There are also some further neighborhoods in Queens that might be more affordable...but they're going to be relatively deep into Queens.

I know this question is a few months old, but still going to answer in case someone finds it useful. I went to Columbia for graduate school; for three years I lived in off-campus housing in Washington Heights and then for three years I lived in campus housing in Morningside Heights.
Morningside Heights is very much dominated by Columbia - there's a 10-block radius from 110th St to 120th St, between Broadway and Morningside Dr (and, to a certain extent, extending to Riverside Dr) that feels like Columbia's campus/neighborhood. I am a woman and I always joked that I've walked outside in Morningside Heights every one of the 24 hours of the day, and I never felt unsafe. Public Safety is very good, and I got to know some of the officers and infrastructure at Columbia and I always felt completely equipped to reach out if I needed help from campus police. I never had to, though (not for myself...I worked in student services.). Actually, because I worked in student services I actually had exposure to the sorts of incidents that happen around Columbia's campus, and there's virtually never any violent crime against Columbia affiliates. I walked home from lab (or the libraries) late all the time.
Living in grad student housing, IMO, is the way to go. You'd be hard-pressed to find an apartment anywhere in the city for the same price you can get it through Columbia, and if you can, it's likely further away than the grad student housing. I lived and attended school there from 2008-2014, so likely some things have changed, but for context: I split a 2-bedroom with one other person for $1850 a month on 172nd St. and Haven Ave., in Washington Heights, four blocks away from the Columbia University Medical Center and about a 20-minute subway ride to the main Columbia campus in Morningside Heights. (I was a dual PhD student - 50% public health at CUMC, 50% psychology at the main campus). We each paid $925, and it was a pretty decent-sized apartment by New York standards. Later, I moved into a Columbia graduate housing two-room studio (bedroom, bathroom, and another room that had the kitchen in it but also our desk) with my husband, who attended GS, on 119th and Amsterdam. I'd guess it was around 600 sqft? If that? We paid $1400/month for it. There is no way in hell you'd find a studio in Morningside Heights for that price. Both were in walking distance to a ton of restaurants, grocery stores, bars, and other amenities, and had two subway stops in close reach. 
When I was living there 5-6 years ago, the prices in Inwood and Washington Heights were rising but were pretty much the only neighborhoods left in Manhattan where you could expect to find prices comparable to Columbia's graduate housing (perhaps with the exception of some parts of Harlem, like East Harlem and Hamilton Heights). Otherwise, you were kind of stuck either going into the Bronx (which very few Columbia students do) or into Brooklyn (which more do, but you have to go pretty far out into Brooklyn to get something affordable these days. Which is baffling in and of itself - my mom grew up in Brooklyn in the 60s and 70s, and she's baffled that anyone wants to live there now, lol). There are also some further neighborhoods in Queens that might be more affordable...but they're going to be relatively deep into Queens.

I got my PhD in psychology from Columbia (from GSAS, not from TC). It's not putting down another program to factually state that the psychology programs at Teachers College are not as well-regarded as other top psychology programs; it's just factual. That doesn't mean that the program is not good; or that OP should not go there. It just means the program is not as prestigious. It's important to go into any program with one's eyes open about where one's program stands relative to other ones, as unfortunately it does matter in placement (especially in academic placement.) Most rankings of clinical psychology programs demonstrate that TC's program, while good and a great fit for many students, isn't necessarily considered prestigious. In the U.S. News rankings, clinical psychology at TC is ranked in the 70s.
It is also true that clinical and counseling psychology doctoral students at TC are not always funded, and when they are funded, it's not always fully. I knew some unfunded students in those programs. I also knew students who were funded; they had lower stipends than the students in most other doctoral programs across Columbia, including in the humanities and social sciences. They also were not eligible for a lot of the internal funding/fellowships that other doctoral students at Columbia could get because they were not in GSAS.
HOWEVER! The OP is talking about Science Education, which is one of the fields TC is very strong in, so that's all a moot point.
That said, OP, I'd strongly advise against attending an unfunded program. Education is a field that it is more difficult to get funding in, perhaps, but I have a few people I know who have gotten funded education degrees. As you've noted, New York is incredibly expensive. Columbia is also incredibly expensive. Even if we were generous and said you secured funding by your third year (which is not guranteed), you'd still probably be about $150,000 in debt ($45K tuition and fees + $30K living expenses x 2 years) by the time you get there.
I would stay at your school, teach one more year, and reapply to more programs with the hopes of getting funding.

I got my PhD in psychology from Columbia (from GSAS, not from TC). It's not putting down another program to factually state that the psychology programs at Teachers College are not as well-regarded as other top psychology programs; it's just factual. That doesn't mean that the program is not good; or that OP should not go there. It just means the program is not as prestigious. It's important to go into any program with one's eyes open about where one's program stands relative to other ones, as unfortunately it does matter in placement (especially in academic placement.) Most rankings of clinical psychology programs demonstrate that TC's program, while good and a great fit for many students, isn't necessarily considered prestigious. In the U.S. News rankings, clinical psychology at TC is ranked in the 70s.
It is also true that clinical and counseling psychology doctoral students at TC are not always funded, and when they are funded, it's not always fully. I knew some unfunded students in those programs. I also knew students who were funded; they had lower stipends than the students in most other doctoral programs across Columbia, including in the humanities and social sciences. They also were not eligible for a lot of the internal funding/fellowships that other doctoral students at Columbia could get because they were not in GSAS.
HOWEVER! The OP is talking about Science Education, which is one of the fields TC is very strong in, so that's all a moot point.
That said, OP, I'd strongly advise against attending an unfunded program. Education is a field that it is more difficult to get funding in, perhaps, but I have a few people I know who have gotten funded education degrees. As you've noted, New York is incredibly expensive. Columbia is also incredibly expensive. Even if we were generous and said you secured funding by your third year (which is not guranteed), you'd still probably be about $150,000 in debt ($45K tuition and fees + $30K living expenses x 2 years) by the time you get there.
I would stay at your school, teach one more year, and reapply to more programs with the hopes of getting funding.

I don't think a Harvard degree will necessarily open more doors in public health than a Johns Hopkins degree. They have about equal reputation in our field. Harvard might have an edge if you wanted to leave the field of public health and/or do something prestige-driven like consulting. No, employers don't look at program rankings; but they do think about the reputation of a specific program in the field and JHU is widely known as a leader in health and medicine.
 
JHU is like, synonymous with medicine - tons of hospitals and health coalitions associated with Hopkins too. And it's the leader in the world for health and science funding, according to the NSF. I have a couple of friends who got their PhDs at Hopkins; one is actually headed to start a faculty position at Harvard in the fall. I also don't think smaller class sizes, in graduate school, necessarily translates to superior training (just like it doesn't in college - I wouldn't say that Eastern Tennessee State University has superior training to Columbia, even though the class sizes at ETSU are smaller on average).
 
You really can't go wrong here. One way to narrow it down is to decide whether you'd rather have a degree in epi or a degree in international health. A lot of jobs I've seen really ask for someone with a degree in epidemiology.

I moved from the Southeast to the Northeast for graduate school, and then from the Northeast to the Pacific Northwest for my first job. The first move is more relevant - much like dippedincoffee, I scaled down significantly; I got all of my belongings into two suitcases.
I agree with @dippedincoffee that buying new stuff where you go might be cheaper than shipping things. I looked into shipping my bedroom furniture (really nice stuff) from my home in the Southeast to the Northeast, but it was cheaper for me to buy an inexpensive but still good quality mattress and bed frame in the new location.
If you have family that have larger houses, you might consider storing some of your precious but large things with them, and just sending for them when you've moved somewhere a little more permanently. But that also depends on where you're going - if you're going to a small college town you might be able to rent a larger place for relatively cheaply; in a large city, you may have to downsize.
Renting a trailer is easy. UHaul and other companies like that rent them out. If your car can tow a trailer, you can get one. Hell, renting a truck is also easy - I did that moving from New York to Pennsylvania for my postdoc. Depending on where you live, you could rent a UHaul truck and park it in front of your place for a little bit, packing it over the course of a week or something. (My partner and I did this, but over only two days.)
You could pack it yourself or you could probably pay people to pack it for you, maybe using a service like dolly or Bellhops (although I don't know how feasible that is during the pandemic.)

I got my PhD in psychology from Columbia (from GSAS, not from TC). It's not putting down another program to factually state that the psychology programs at Teachers College are not as well-regarded as other top psychology programs; it's just factual. That doesn't mean that the program is not good; or that OP should not go there. It just means the program is not as prestigious. It's important to go into any program with one's eyes open about where one's program stands relative to other ones, as unfortunately it does matter in placement (especially in academic placement.) Most rankings of clinical psychology programs demonstrate that TC's program, while good and a great fit for many students, isn't necessarily considered prestigious. In the U.S. News rankings, clinical psychology at TC is ranked in the 70s.
It is also true that clinical and counseling psychology doctoral students at TC are not always funded, and when they are funded, it's not always fully. I knew some unfunded students in those programs. I also knew students who were funded; they had lower stipends than the students in most other doctoral programs across Columbia, including in the humanities and social sciences. They also were not eligible for a lot of the internal funding/fellowships that other doctoral students at Columbia could get because they were not in GSAS.
HOWEVER! The OP is talking about Science Education, which is one of the fields TC is very strong in, so that's all a moot point.
That said, OP, I'd strongly advise against attending an unfunded program. Education is a field that it is more difficult to get funding in, perhaps, but I have a few people I know who have gotten funded education degrees. As you've noted, New York is incredibly expensive. Columbia is also incredibly expensive. Even if we were generous and said you secured funding by your third year (which is not guranteed), you'd still probably be about $150,000 in debt ($45K tuition and fees + $30K living expenses x 2 years) by the time you get there.
I would stay at your school, teach one more year, and reapply to more programs with the hopes of getting funding.

I'm sorry, that really sucks!
I can't imagine that there's any chance of getting into a new program for Fall 2020. Most applications were due months ago, most decisions were finalized weeks ago, and a lot of schools suddenly have way more funding problems than they did 2 months ago.
It's also generally really difficult to transfer credits in Ph.D. programs. Occasionally a program will let you count a course you took somewhere else for their requirement, but in general Ph.D.'s are much less about the number of credits and much more about fulfilling the specific classes that program thinks you should have.
I do not have any great suggestions, but maybe:
Check your admission offer? (If you got promised more funding when you accepted there may be some recourse in this situation.*)
Ask around if there are any other funding opportunities at the school, like maybe another professor with a research assistant position?
Ask if there's any way to get a masters degree on your way out?
Do some hard thinking about whether you're willing to take out loans to self-fund until you can secure funding again? (This is probably a bad idea!)
Think about what you might want to with a year out of school while you re-apply to start somewhere else?
[*Just want to note somewhere here for anyone reading this who hasn't started a Ph.D. program yet that you should really think hard about how you are going to fund your Ph.D. all the way to the end of getting the Ph.D. before you decide to start a program. It's usually a bad idea to go to a school if they aren't promising at least 5 years of funding.]

Actually, many of my professors/ other faculty and 2 members of my cohort attended Teachers College (for masters in psych). It is one of the most prestigious programs in clinical and counseling psychology in the areas in which their faculty specialize. There's no need for putting down another program and to my understanding, it is indeed funded. Please remember to be respectful on this forum.

About your dog: I think that depends entirely on you and your program. I am in a social science program where the majority of my analysis and writing can be done from home, and I prefer to work from home or from a library (as opposed to my cube in the windowless cube farm). When I was taking classes I was generally there from 9-6 or so, but now that my coursework is finished I am rarely at the school itself. I go for meetings, seminars, interesting kinds of things and I do most of my work remotely. My time is verrry flexible, and if my building didn't prohibit it I would get a dog in a heartbeat. Another thing to keep in mind: a dog can be a great comfort when you're all stressed out over graduate school.

Advice?

Age:
-Don't feel like you have nothing to offer just because you are younger. I was 22 when I started graduate school. You got accepted to the program for a reason, and chances are you are just as equipped as any older students are to successfully complete the program, just in a different way.

-Your older classmates may be just as terrified as you. Talk to them. You have a lot in common. You are, after all, in the same place.

-You will feel like an imposter, like you don't belong, or like you are constantly behind. Or all three. It's normal. It will pass. (Well, sort of.) People of all ages go through this.

Adviser related:
-If you are lucky enough to get both research interest fit and personality fit perfect, congratulations! But sometimes, personality fit is more important than research interest fit as long as the research isn't too different. A great adviser is interested in your career development, likes you as a person, advocates for you, and wants to hear your ideas. Even if his or her research is quite different from yours, they may give you the autonomy to work on your own projects and just supervise you. A bad personality fit will drive you nuts, even if you love his or her research. Consider that when evaluating your adviser fit. (This will vary by field: research fit may be less important in the humanities, more important in the natural and physical sciences. Social sciences are somewhere in-between.)

-Don't be afraid to be straight up blunt with your adviser when it comes to asking about your progress. Ask if you are where you should be both academic program wise and getting-a-job-after-this-mess-wise.

-Be proactive. Advisers love when you draw up an agenda for your one-on-one meetings, come with talking points and progress to share, have concrete questions to ask, and have overall shown that you have been thoughtful and taken control of your own program. Of course, this won't immediately come easily to you, but in time you will work up to it. Every semester I type up my semester goals, and at the beginning of the year I type up annual goals. I show them to my adviser and we talk about whether they are too ambitious, or whether I need to revise them, and how I can meet them.

-Don't expect your adviser to actually know what courses you have to take to graduate. They will know about comprehensive exams and the dissertation, but a lot of professors don't really keep up with the course requirements, especially if their program is in flux. Get you a student handbook, and find out what you need to take. Map it out in a grid, and check off things when you finish them. Show this to your adviser every semester. You may have to explain how such and such class fills a requirement.

-Nobody loves you as much as you, except your mother. Keep this in mind as you take in advice from all sources, including your adviser. Your adviser is there to guide you, but that doesn't mean you have to do everything he says.

Studying:
-You will have to read more than you ever did before, in less time than you ever have before, and you will be expected to retain more than you ever have before. The way that you studied in undergrad may need some tweaking. Be prepared for this.

-Corollary: you may find that your methods change with age or interests or time. I preferred to study alone in college, but in grad school, I prefer to study in groups. It keeps me on task and the socialization keeps me motivated. You may find that you shift from being a more auditory learner to a visual learner or whatever.

-You will feel behind at first. This is normal.

-At some point you will realize that your professors don't actually expect you to read everything they assign you. This, of course, will vary by program, but there will be at least one class where the reading is actually impossible to do in one week. The point is to read enough that you know the major themes and can talk intelligently about them, and then pick some of the readings to really dig into and think more deeply about.

-For most programs, don't worry so much about grades. If you stay on top of your work and do what you're supposed to, you will probably get an A. How much grades matter varies from program to program. In some programs, a B is a signal that you are not up to par, and more than a few Bs will warrant a discussion with your adviser or the DGS. My program isn't like that - A, B, it's all meaningless. My adviser doesn't even know what my grades are. But at almost all programs, a C means you need to retake the course, and two Cs means you have to convince the DGS not to kick you out.

Extracurricular activity: What's that? No, seriously:
-A lot of your time will be unstructured. You will have coursework, but most grad classes meet once a week for two hours and you may have three classes. You may have meetings with your adviser every so often and some seminars or things to catch (like we have grand rounds and colloquia that are required), but a lot of time will be unstructured. However, since you have so much more work than you had in undergrad, you actually will have less free time than you had in undergrad. This may initially cause you great anxiety. It did for me. Some people love unstructured time, though. (I don't.)

-Because of this, you'll have to be planful about your non-grad school related stuff.

-TAKE TIME OFF. DO it. It's important for your mental health. However you do it doesn't matter. Some people work it like a 9-5 job. Some people take a day off per week (me) and maybe a few hours spread across the week. Some people work half days 7 days a week. However you do it, there needs to be a time when you say "f this, I'm going to the movies."

-Find your happy place, something that keeps you the you you were when you came in. I love working out. It gives me energy and I feel good. I stay healthy. I also love reading fiction, so sometimes I just curl up with a good book, work be damned. You have to give yourself permission to not think about work, at least for a couple of hours a week. You may also discover new hobbies! (I never worked out before I came to graduate school.)

-Your work will creep into all aspects of your life, if you let it. This is why I hate unstructured time. You will feel guilty for not doing something, because in graduate school, there is ALWAYS something you can do. ALWAYS. But since there will always be more work, there's no harm in putting it aside for tomorrow, as long as you don't have a deadline.

-You may need to reach outside of your cohort for a social life. None of my close friends are in my doctoral cohort. I've met master's students in my program, master's students in other programs, and I know a few non-graduate students I hang out with, too. Go to graduate student mixers. (If your university doesn't have any, organize some, if you like planning parties.) Join a student group that doesn't take up too much time. I had a doctoral acquaintance who kinda laughed at me because I joined some student groups other than the doctoral student one, and I was usually the only doctoral student in those groups, but I met some close friends (and future job contacts) and had a good time.

-DO NOT FEEL GUILTY FOR WANTING A LIFE OUTSIDE OF GRADUATE SCHOOL. This is paramount. This is important. You are a well-rounded, complex, multifaceted human being. NEVER feel bad for this. Everybody wants some kind of life outside of work. Yes, you may loooove your field, but that doesn't mean you want to do it all day long. Some other doctoral students, and perhaps professors, may make you feel bad about this. Don't let them. Just smile and nod. Then disappear when you need to.

Career:
-This is job preparation. Remember that from Day One. Always be looking for ways to enhance your skills. Read job ads and find out what's hot in your field, what's necessary, what's in demand. For example, in my field statistics and methods are a hot commodity, and they're not a passing fad. I happen to really like statistics and methods, so I have pursued that as a concentration of mine.

-Don't be afraid to take on volunteer work and part-time gigs that will give you skills that will be useful both inside academia and out, as long as it's not against your contract. Your adviser may be against it, but he doesn't have to know as long as it doesn't interfere with your work.

-If you want to work outside of academia - if you are even *considering* the possibility - please please definitely do the above. Even if you aren't considering it, consider the possibility that you won't get a tenure-track job out the box and that you may need to support yourself doing something else for a while. You will have to prove to employers that you have developed usable, useful skills and this is one of the easiest ways to do it. But don't overdo it - get the degree done.

-For more academic related ones - always look for opportunities to present and publish. Presentations look good on your CV. Publications look better. When you write seminar papers, wonder if you can publish them with some revision. Write your seminar papers on what you maybe think you may want to do your dissertation on. Even if you look at them three years later and think "these suck," you can at least glean some useful references and pieces from them. Discuss publication with your adviser early and often, and if you have the time and desire, seek out publication options with other professors and researchers. But if you commit to a project, COMMIT. You don't want to leave a bad impression.

-If you can afford it, occasionally go to conferences even if you aren't presenting. You can network, and you can hear some interesting talks, and you may think about new directions for your own research. You can also meet people who may tell you about jobs, money, opportunities, etc.

-Always try to get someone else to pay for conference travel before you come out of pocket. Including your adviser. Do not be shy about asking if he or she can pay. If he can't, he'll just say no. Usually the department has a travel fund for students, but often it's only if you are presenting.

-If you are interested in academia, you should get some teaching experience. There are two traditional ways to do this: TAing a course, and teaching as a sole instructor. If you can help it, I wouldn't recommend doing a sole instructor position until you are finished with coursework. Teaching takes a LOT of time to do right. You should definitely TA at least one course, and probably a few different ones. But don't overdo it, if you can help it, because again, it takes a LOT of time. More than you expect at the outset. If you are in the humanities, I think sole instructor positions are very important for nabbing jobs so when you are in the exam/ABD phase, you may want to try at least one. If your own university has none, look at adjuncting for nearby colleges, including community colleges. (I would wager that the majority of natural science/physical science students, and most social science students, have never sole taught a class before they get an assistant professor job. At least, it's not that common n my field, which straddles the social and natural sciences.)

-Always look for money. Money is awesome. If you can fund yourself you can do what you want, within reason. Your university will be thrilled, your adviser will be happy, and you can put it on your CV. It's win-win-win! Don't put yourself out of the running before anyone else has a chance to. Apply even if you think you won't get it or the odds are against you (they always are), as long as you are eligible. Apply often. Apply even if it's only $500. (That's conference travel!) Money begets money. The more awards you get, the more awards you will get. They will get bigger over time. If you are in the sciences and social sciences, you should get practice writing at least one grant. You don't have to write the whole thing, but at least get in on the process so that you can see how it's done. Grant-writing is very valuable both in and outside of graduate school.

-Revise your CV every so often. Then look and decide what you want to add to it. Then go get that thing, so you can add it.

-The career office at big universities is often not just for undergrads. I was surprised to learn that my career center offers help on CV organization and the academic job search, as well as alternative/non-academic career searches for doctoral students. In fact, there are two people whose sole purpose it is to help PhD students find nonacademic careers, and they both have PhDs. This will vary by university - some universities will have very little for grad students. Find out before you write the office off.

-It's never too early to go to seminars/workshops like "the academic job search inside and out", "creating the perfect CV," "getting the job," etc. NEVER. Often the leader will share tips that are more aimed towards early graduate students, or tidbits that are kind of too late for more advanced students to take care of. This will also help you keep a pulse on what's hot in your field. It'll help you know what lines you need to add to your CV. And they're interesting.

Other:

-Decide ahead of time what you are NOT willing to sacrifice on the altar of academia. Then stick to it.
I'm serious. If you decide that you do NOT want to sacrifice your relationship, don't. If it's your geographical mobility, don't. I mean, be realistic, and realize that there will always be trade-offs. But you have to think about what's important to you for your quality of life, and realize that there is always more to you than graduate school.

-If you don't want to be a professor, do not feel guilty about this. At all. Zero. However, you will have to do things differently than most doctoral students. Your adviser will probably never have worked outside of the academy (although this may vary depending on the field) so he may or may not be able to help you. But you have a special mission to seek out the kinds of experiences that will help you find a non-academic job. Test the waters with your adviser before you tell him this. My adviser was quite amenable to it, but that's because I told him that my goal was to still do research and policy work in my field just not at a university, AND because it's quite common in my field for doctoral students to do non-academic work. If you're in a field where it's not common (or where your professors refuse to believe it's common, or it's not supposed to be common)…well, you may be a little more on your own.

-Every so often, you will need to reflect on the reasons you came to graduate school. Sometimes, just sit and think quietly. Why are you doing this to yourself? Do you love your field? Do you need this degree to do what you want to do? Usually the answer is yes and yes, and usually you'll keep on trucking. But sometimes when the chips are down you will need to reevaluate why you put yourself through this in the first place.

-To my great dismay, depression is quite common in doctoral students. Graduate work can be isolating and stressful. Luckily your health insurance usually includes counseling sessions. TAKE THEM if you need them. Do not be ashamed. You may be surprised with who else is getting them. (I found out that everyone in my cohort, including me, was getting mental health counseling at a certain point.) Exercise can help, as can taking that mental health day once a week and just chilling. Don't be surprised if you get the blues…

-…but be self-aware and able to recognize when the depression is clouding your ability to function. Doctoral programs have a 50% attrition rate, and this is rarely because that 50% is less intelligent than, less motivated than, less driven than, or less ambitious than the other 50% that stays. Often they realize that they are ridiculously unhappy in the field, or that they don't need the degree anymore, or that they'd rather focus on other things in life, or their interests have changed. All of this is okay!

-You will, at some point, be like "eff this, I'm leaving." I think almost every doctoral student has thought about dropping out and just kicking this all to the curb. You need to listen to yourself, and find out whether it is idle thought (nothing to worry about, very normal) or whether you are truly unhappy to the point that you need to leave. Counseling can help you figure this out.

-Don't be afraid to take a semester or a year off if you need to. That's what leaves of absence are for.

Lastly, and positively…

…graduate school is great! Seriously, when else will you ever have the time to study what you want for hours on end, talk to just as interested others about it, and live in an intellectual community of scholars and intellectuals? And occasionally wake up at 11 am and go to the bank at 2 pm? Sometimes you will want to pull out all of your hair but most of the time, you will feel fulfilled and wonderfully encouraged and edified. So enjoy this time!

I also have to disagree with NicholasCage's comment.  90-95 percent of academic institutions in the United States are teaching-focused institutions; therefore, most of us will end up there.  Your teaching skills are going to be an important part of the hiring process at those places.  Plus, even research-intensive institutions would rather have a professor who can connect well with students AND is a great researcher than a professor who is a terrible teacher (unless that second research has mad money).

My advice:

1. Don't spend an inordinate amount of hours preparing...well, anything for class.  Learn to limit your prep time.  Part of that is because the students are going to ignore a lot of it anyway, but most of it is because you need to learn balance early in your career.  For example, I have a tendency to do line edits on students' papers, so I try to limit myself to editing only the first page to a page and a half and then add a comment like "You have errors like this throughout your paper; please proofread and fix."

2. Related to #1, learn to wing it.  I create slides for my lectures but I no longer write extensive notes.  I actually find I lecture better when I don't have notes, because then I'm more free-form.  And I don't just mean talking extemporaneously - I mean switching gears when your students look bored or aren't getting it.  As you get more experience this will become easier.  

3. Create an organizational system for grading.  Buy folders or binders or trays or whatever you want to organize 1) graded papers 2) to-be-graded papers for different classes.  This way you won't have paper all over the apartment, which drove me absolutely nuts.  You also will be better able to keep up with assignments, lowering the risk of losing one.  If you have a choice, absolutely collect everything electronically through the course management system.  Forget all that paper.

4. Totally agree with not assuming that upper-level students know how to write properly.  If you are at an elite university, do not assume that your students are automatically good at whatever it is you're teaching them.  I was kind of shocked my first semester TAing at the quality of work I got from students at my elite university - I went to a not-elite place and assumed that the students at the elite place would be simply amazing, since the students at my not-elite place were great.  And they are amazing...in different ways...in the typical way that college students are amazing in their ingenuity and creativity (both for good and evil).  But they're not substantially smarter or better than students from other, less elite institutions. They're just richer and better prepared (on average).

A few years ago my younger sister asked me to help her with a paper that was very similar to a paper I was currently grading for a class very similar to the one she was taking at her regional public college, to which she commuted from home.  My family is blue-collar; she went to a regular public high school and was a slightly above-average student.  Her paper was better written than MOST of the students' papers in my class.

5. If you are TAing for a professor and it gets down to 2 weeks before the class starts and you haven't heard from them, contact them yourself.  Most times you will get an apologetic "Oh yeah, I'm teaching a class!"  If you get a brush-off equivalent to "Mmm, I'll think about it in two weeks," prepare for an interesting semester.

I think the most important to remember is similar to what hashslinger said.  Remember that we were the nerds in high school and college - we showed up shiny and excited to learn.  Particularly if you are teaching an intro class, your students will not be as excited as you, and some of them will never get excited.  They may be taking it because it's an easy GE requirement, or they need some extra credits, or they heard it was an easy A.  Perhaps 10% of your class will decide to major in the field; maybe another 10-20% will not but will be genuinely interested.  The rest will be some varying levels of "whatever." Visualize that 20-30% when you are preparing lectures, but realize that not even close to everyone is in that area and some people will be grubbing for grades.

Oh, also, don't be afraid to indulge in geekery, as long as you don't go down the rabbit hole too deeply.  One of the things that has reached my students is how geeked and enthusiastic I am about my interest area.  Even when they think I'm silly and uncool, they still appreciate my passion, and in some of them it has led to really productive curiosity.
 
ALSO.  I lurk on the "In the Classroom" threads on Chronicle of Higher Education's forum.  There are lots of experienced professors there and they have AWESOME advice (and really funny stories).