InquilineKea

So I'm visiting Yale - and I'm not really taking any courses this quarter (I am doing some research though), so I can probably stay longer than most. I feel that several days is insufficient for getting to know the campus well - would 4-5 days be good? I may consider doing a dual PhD if I go there, so I'd need to get familiar with both the Astronomy and Geology departments, on top of the other stuff on campus (like the libraries and other amenities).

I just got invited for an open house weekend at Yale (Feb 10-11). Does anyone know the easiest way of getting to Brown from Yale? I'm planning on visiting both schools in one trip. And also - how dangerous is New Haven compared, to say, the neighborhoods around UChicago and Columbia?

Does anyone else have any additional information or advice about interviews in the geosciences? Thanks!

I usually do find ordering online to be cheaper than shopping in a store for many of my needs. Not just through Amazon but other services too. And regarding shipping costs - I can usually find enough things to push my order over $25 (especially if I primarily rely on Amazon.com for my needs). Also, if I live in a place like the graduate dorms, then there will be a place that holds my packages for me when I'm away. I had that service when I was an undergrad.

Like - are the costs of Amazon.com delivery the same regardless of whether you're in expensive Manhattan or in cheap Texas?

Yeah - that's true. But do the professors care *that* much about it? I mean, they have their own research too. And jointly-supervised research is most likely less burdensome on a professor than research with a single supervisor. But with that said, if they have a project that they REALLY need labor on (from a grad student), then I suppose that it would matter to them.

Wow - good point. I've never heard of that happening before. Does that mean that the project is centered around the grad student or something?

Interesting - did you get an informal acceptance anywhere? And if you did, which program was it from? I'm just curious to know.

Interesting.... do environmentally conscious people accept grants from petroleum companies?

...what should I say to the 1st and 2nd questions? They pretty much paid for almost everything I did last year. There's no straight-forward way to fully quantify the second question.

I think when it comes to the earth sciences, many people are so interdisciplinary that working with multiple professors is even a plus. Many graduate students have numerous co-supervisors. And many professors have encouraged me to get into contact with their collaborators.

Yes - Dr. is usually safest. It does appear, though, that people in the geosciences are a lot less formal than people in most other fields. Some even prefer being called by their first names. But I suppose that there is an additional psychological barrier when one is foreign.

Intriguing about interdisciplinarity and grants. Don't some grants look down on interdisciplinarity though? I agree though - that interdisciplinarity does increase the range of grants that you can apply for.

Do atmospheric scientists drink lots of beer too? I pretty much stuck to planetary atmospheres and saw virtually no beer around.

Interesting - what happens when they see at least part of your application package by then?

Wow - that is so cool! Thanks for sharing!

Anyone else applying this year?

haha me too

lol

Anyone here? I'm more into atmospheric science, but I am applying to Caltech ESE, Yale Geology, MIT EAPS, Columbia EESC, and Chicago Geophysical Sciences (among others).

What if the professors told you to remind them to look in your file? If that is the case, should I reply to their old email? (as they might have forgotten that they specifically reminded you to do it).

Or does it not matter much?

After looking around the webpages of so many universities, I can appreciate my own university (University of Washington) a lot more. Many at UW are pretty liberal about putting class webpages up online, and the site design is usually quite slick across departments. Professors also have a lot of independence over their own webpages (rather than borrowing the department's awkward interface, which rarely meshes well with what the professor puts up). It's not MIT (MIT still wins), but even then, it beats MIT in that it doesn't paywall most of its course content behind Kerbedos (sure MIT has OCW, but OCW is practically useless compared to a good course website). I can't even believe how many Ivy League universities don't even list course webpages on their departmental webpage.When it comes to information that's helpful to applicants, many universities show practically nothing. Not only that, but it's one of the very few universities where departments often archive class webpages across multiple years. Want to see how a CS course looked 5 years ago? Then check this out: http://www.cs.washin...courses/cse473/. I've never seen a parallel like that anywhere else for any other school or department. But at the UW, this applies for not only CS courses, but also Atmospheric Science ones, and others too.

Probably not. Though maybe you could list them. There's always a chance that you might have given an unfavorable impression too though...

I've just written mine. Does anyone else want to exchange theirs with mine so that we can critique them? My email: simfish [at] gmail.com