Golden Monkey
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Posts posted by Golden Monkey
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Hopefully nada. I work for a private university and am earning my MS through a tuition remission program. In today's job market, I probably wouldn't have opted for grad school if tuition remission were not an option.
However, my husband has about $30K in undergraduate loan debt, so I'll be assisting in paying that off.
That's what I did too (the university employee/tuition remission, not the husband.) I wouldn't have wanted to do it any other way.
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I'm in the same situation, only I already have housing. I've been out there to visit twice now, (the last time for a week,) so I think I got a little bit of a feel for how the area is. I don't know about the complexes you mentioned. I get the idea that that light rail is quite safe, though crowded, and obviously its route is very limited. As far as crime goes, the closer you are to campus, the better the neighborhood is, generally speaking. South Scottsdale (right across the river from campus) is pretty nice, IMO, even though it's the older part of Scottsdale, and you might be able to find housing there. I'll be staying there temporarily from next week. The drawback to that area is that there is only one bus line that runs north/south to the ASU area, but it's also close enough to bike (or even walk if you like walking,) which I plan to do.
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Bayonne is a good suggestion. Also, Jersey City Heights (on the cliff right above Hoboken,) Jersey City, Weehawken, and Union City.
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Thanks. Good info. I've settled on buying a car, probably in late fall/early winter. Fortunately, I have a grocery store across the street, and another one a few blocks away, so at least I won't starve before then.
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Yeah, I only turn in pdfs too. It eliminates all kinds of problems.
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I wanted to choose two options as well; I use MS Office '08 for Mac (Word & Excel) but for presentations I use Keynote '09 (Mac's version of Powerpoint) because it's just sooooo much better for my needs. I'll be buying a new MBP in a month or so, and I'm excited to get a free or very cheap version of the new MS Office for Mac because I hear Powerpoint has gotten scores better.
That's good to hear about Powerpoint. Keynote was the only Mac-only application I used, and I gave my Macbook to my sister (I'm not nearly as huge a fan of Apple as most people.) Keynote was the only thing I was worried about giving up.
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I haven't much need for MS Office or iWork since OpenOffice came along, though the one application that I really like is Keynote in iWork. I haven't tried Impress in OpenOffice, yet, but it says it can save PowerPoint files.
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I got some amusement from looking at prices (mostly from Carmax,) because it's interesting to see which cars seem to depreciate a lot, which cars' owners apparently don't drive much before selling, etc.
A random sampling of the $16-$18k range in used cars will get you:
$18K: 2004 BMW Z4 with 72k miles
$18K: 2011 Ford Fiesta with 15k miles
$16.5K: 2008 Ford Mustang (V6) with 45k miles
$16K: 2003 Mercedes C230 with only 32k miles (!)
$18K: 2009 Honda Fit Sport with 33k miles
$17K: 2006 Nissan Maxima with 68k miles
Meanwhile, dealers' sites for new cars are listing:
$18K: 2012 Hyundai Elantra
$17K: 2012 Honda Civic LX
$18K: 2011 Honda Fit
$17K: 2011 Ford Fiesta
$18K 2012 Ford Focus S
$17K 2011 Toyota Yaris
$18k 2011 Toyota Corolla
My conclusion is that if you want to buy something stylish, fun, impractical, etc., used is the way to go. For instance, you can be the only grad student driving a Benz, or if you want to drag race at green lights in a Mustang (though you'd better spring for the V8 if you're going to do that,) you can buy one of those for the same price as a new, or low-mileage grad-student issue econobox. If you're about to buy a boring econobox like me, it doesn't make much sense to buy used instead of new, unless you're going to buy an older econobox (for instance, you can get a 2005 Hyundai Accent for 10K.)
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I can speak to this as well. When I was looking for a car back in 2007/8, I had decided to only look at compact Toyotas, Hondas, and Subarus because my family's had such good experiences with these cars and because they're rated so highly for reliability on Consumer Reports. However, the price for late-model used cars with 3k miles or more on them was not much cheaper than just buying new, so that's eventually what I just did.
I bought my car in February (not many people are keen to walk around a parking lot in Jan/Feb, so prices were a bit cheaper). I also used online quotes from several dealerships to haggle a good price on my car, saved myself about $2k.
Although it's been a pill to pay a car payment while in grad school, I'm really glad I did it. I'm starting my third year of school but only have 26k miles (partly racked up from drives home, partly from my commute when I was still working full time). My car will still be in good shape by the time I graduate, so I won't have to deal with trying to find myself a car once I'm fresh out of school.
I ran into the same thing the last time I bought a car. A loaded, used Honda Civic with 30k miles was as expensive as a new one with fewer options. Since reliability was a lot more important to me than a moonroof, I just bought new instead.
Just out of curiosity, I looked up a 2007 Honda Fit Sport (41k) miles compared to a new 2011 Honda Fit Standard. The 4-year-old car with 41k miles on it is $15,599, while the new one is $16,670!
I did find some good prices on cars with iffy reliability reputations (for example a 2007 Dodge Caliber for $9000,) but I really don't enjoy waiting for tow trucks a whole lot.
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I've been pricing used cars too, and have found that finding something with low miles (like less than 50k,) a recent model year of a make/model with a good reputation for reliability, and good gas mileage is really hard to find a good deal on. The gas prices now have driven up the prices of used compacts/subcompacts that get good mileage, and they're not depreciating the way they used to. Since there's nothing like new car reliability, I've just decided to buy new instead.
I just read a story on Yahoo, though, that predicted prices to drop from this fall through the winter, so I'm not going to buy anything for a while.
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My mother has always believed that college degree = $100K. Doesn't matter what kind of degree or what field. She believes this because her coworker's daughter went to college for something or another and earns a six-figure income. Well, since I didn't get the coveted hundred-thousand dollar job a year or two out of undergrad, she decided it was for my own good to go and get my master's degree in art. Knowing full well I don't want to teach (thankfully she doesn't pressure me to do that). What she fails to realize is that if I list my degree (and possibly degreeS) on any joe schmoe job application, I will most likely be overqualified.
Well, if it's money that's important to her, she picked the wrong degree to pressure you into. I could understand an MBA, JD, or medical school, but if she thinks people with MFAs make a lot of money in general, she's pretty sadly mistaken.
Average pay for MFAs in California
And I think that number of $58k listed is being pretty generous. That's assuming you can get a job with an MFA in the first place.
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Just curious as to how your mother got the impression that people with MFAs tend to get $100k jobs? Did she mistake the letter "F" with "B?"
- hejduk, mandarin.orange, lambspam and 4 others
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7
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I got my Master's while working full-time for the university, so that worked out well. During the first semester, I worked a different full-time job off-campus, and that didn't work out so well. I will hopefully be doing some freelance work at home during the PhD, but I'm not sure yet how that will work out.
If you get the job, I'd accept it and just see how it works out later. If you have to quit to pursue grad school, they probably won't mind, and jobs are really scarce right now.
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What sorts of rates did you get for FedEx Home? How much stuff (weight, or # boxes) are you looking to transport? I believe I tried to get quotes at one point this spring from both FedEx and UPS, and other bulk freighting possibilities. I concluded that USPS was by far the cheapest option, if using parcel post, and have been shipping stuff to my folks' house via them. It's run me about $450 so far for almost 20 boxes with just over 300 lbs of stuff. About $25/box, including insurance.
Sorry, didn't see your question until now. When I moved out here in 2006, I remember that I compared Fedex Home, UPS, and USPS, and for whatever reasons (cost was the most important, but there were others too,) I picked Fedex home. I think a lot of it at the time had to do with the fact that they penalized you less for going overweight, or something like that. Also, there was a convenience factor. Using the website, it was really easy to weigh/measure my packages at home, print out a shipping label, and then drop them off at Kinko's over a matter of days without waiting in line at all. This time, it's slightly more complicated, because I don't own a car anymore.
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For those shipping stuff: how did you arrange for receiving the shipments if you're not there yet?
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I'm moving from northern New Jersey (right outside of NYC) to Arizona. Being from the South, and having lived most of my adult life in California and Florida, I absolutely hatehatehate the winters here. This year, I slipped on the ice and fell down the stairs, injuring my back. Then I fell three days later and dislocated my shoulder. Then while I was going through physical therapy for my shoulder, I slipped on the ice again and fell on my injured shoulder.
I am completely finished with winter. You can have it. I never need to see snow, sleet, or ice again.
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Hi all,
I am a nontraditional applicant. I will turned 36 this year. I want to get my PhD after +10 years of working in research and biotech industry. I will applied this year.
Do you think I have a chance with adcomm?
You have to try to find out for yourself, which I completely encourage you to do, but I would think that your chances would be excellent. This is not really the same thing as someone having a midlife crisis and wanting a 180 degree career change.
- 36 is not old compared to some of us!
- 10+ years in a relevant field, I would HOPE, would look really good
I think my only advice, as one who went through a similar process last year (15+ years in a relevant field, age 43) is to "cast the net wide" and apply to as many places as possible. I would apply to programs you weren't that interested in, programs that seemed like they had sketchy funding, and programs that seemed geographically undesirable. You never know, because places that don't look well-funded actually might be, programs that don't seem like a good fit for you might actually be a really good fit, and geographically undesirable programs might be the best fit after all, with the location being something you can deal with. Yes, the application fees can add up, but my only regret is that I didn't apply to twice as many programs.
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Yep, the big catch with rentals is the insurance, and the fact that you have to get to the airport, or some place like that in the first place. I haven't owned a car in five years, so I don't have auto insurance. I recently rented a car, and while the rental rate was super cheap ($28 a day,) the insurance and tax made it shockingly expensive.
I imagine I'll end up using zipcar for a few months, then I'll finally give up and just buy a car.
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I just found out that where I'm moving, there's a zipcar program, and the fee is only $35 a year, with rates at $8 an hour and $66 a day. There are only 6 cars for the area, though, and I'm wondering if they're just constantly booked, since it's a campus of thousands. I'm wondering if anyone has used zipcar in such a situation? It would be really nice to use it for entire weekends, but I have to wonder if the demand even makes that possible.
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Arg! Anyone have recommendations for folding bikes! Hate to hijack the thread again, but really needing some advice!
I have a Dahon Mu SL, which is incredibly light, at 19ish pounds, but as others mentioned is also probably a thief magnet. I also have a great beater bike, but I'm not sure if it's worth moving, or if I should just buy a new (old) beater bike after moving.
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I'm doing this myself right now. The area I'm moving to is still not cheap to rent, but really cheap to buy, so buying will actually lower my cost of living (a lot.)
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Also, if you don't want multiple gears, but still want to be able to coast, single speed instead of fixed gear bikes are available. Example:
http://www.amazon.com/Schwinn-Freewheel-Single-Speed-Wheels/dp/B001STXBAI
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The last time I moved, I used Fedex Home, as it was the cheapest. I'm going to try to do the same thing this time, then fly out.
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I put my home page URL, phone #, and email address on mine, and that was it.
grad school at 42?
in The Lobby
Posted
I started my master's at 40 and started on a PhD a couple of weeks ago at the age of 44.