Agradatudent

As many others have said, I just link the account to my gmail and use my gmail. I select the school e-mail when it seems prudent to be official.

I'm in somewhat of the same place, as I'm moving with my GF to a new city away from all family and friends, but it turned out two of our friends are moving there also for a separate reasons which is a nice bonus. I'm excited to be rid of the friends in this area... so maybe I'm just antisocial? haha

Infinity Blade... Plants vs Zombies.... Swords and Soldiers.... Flight Control... Fruit Ninja... Cut the Rope... pretty fun games.

I hate that it starts so much later than my undergrad!! I am excited to start.

The rumor is that there will be some sort of improvement when Lion comes out.. which is rumored to be this year. Apple does some upgrade on their products almost every year around July. Just look for when their keynote will be.

Since no one mentioned it to you, I wanted to let you know that UMBC (which is very close to JHU) has a large thriving Indian community. I'm sure you could reach out to them and they would help you find an Indian centric area to live.

Because you've written a whole response colored with the idea that I'm from Towson and therefore look down on my opinion, I'm not going to be bothered to try to defend myself too much over this. A few words however are needed: No, I'm not from Towson, I've spent alot of time working in the city, and I don't need your opinion on how the city is. What you think of as beautiful is clearly the opposite of what I do. When you say "soulless architecture," it really throws out red flags about your own tastes and biases. Obviously being a History PhD you'd appreciate more historic buildings, but they're not for everyone, and to many people it doesn't speak to us the way it does to you and we'd prefer them out. I am not going to be as assumptive as you are, but you seem oversensitive on the whole race issue-- being so quick to go to "racist" when other people would just call it prudent. Obviously you have not lived in an area where you are told repeatedly by people in authority to be alert at all times. In College Park, for example, where I live, we are sent crime reports by e-mail. In my four years living here, only once has there been a report of a strong arm robbery carried out by a white person. Is it racist of me to shed light on this fact? I don't think so. So when this is realized as the norm, what wrong is there in being prudent? Are you saying I should be oblivious to the environment I'm in at the risk of being politically incorrect? There's a fundamental difference there. At JHU, it had been reinforced to the grad students that the area was dangerous by the school, and so they responded prudently. Obviously I'm sure if they saw "someone in the streets" wearing scrubs they wouldn't be afraid to look at them regardless of their race, but because of the warnings of the department, they decided to be careful. It is not a race issue as it is an area issue-- it just so happens that many people living in that area may be of a certain race. If Baltimore didn't proudly wear the Murder Capital of the USA in recent memory, maybe this would not be an issue. However, they advised against looking at anyone in the streets (which you took to be a racist term), while several poor looking white people were there as well (I double checked this). So really, if anything they're classist.

In a word... no.

Maybe it comes from growing up in the Baltimore area, but I hate the place. It lacks everything exciting about a major city like New York, but it has all the crime and then some. Not to mention it being one of the ugliest cities overall I've ever been to. Besides the two nice sections, the city is disgusting. The crime is rough and the residents are frightening. Luckily, John's Hopkins is really making an effort to making their campus safer by literally buying up the slums around campus and bulldozing them. Apparently the city is upset with them for doing this, but JHU is the largest employer in Balitmore, and as a city with a terrible economy, it can't do much about it. My girlfriend interviewed for Hopkins Genetics and Bio programs and was told by graduate students driving her through the city "not to make eye contact" with anyone on the streets or they will "approach the car." Wonderful, right?

My GF just got back from a visiting weekend at U Penn, and she said the area is gorgeous. University City (U Penn) and Center City (really close) are the two nicest places in philly. UPenn has bought a huge part of the area and right next to U Penn, is Drexel, another huge school so it is a very safe area with their joint efforts. Also I've been to the terrible parts of Philly at night plenty of times in a group of 2 or 3 and yeah it's shady but really it's just like any other city. Use common sense. However in your position I would say it'd be find to do this on loans. U Penn will open doors to jobs for you no matter what because that IS what the Ivy league means. It's the "good old boy" network and they have the best connections in the US. Anyone telling you UoT would give you more opportunities in that respect is kidding themselves... Of course you have to make friends with the professors.

If you want to work at schools in the US ever, don't go to school in canada.

I would note that graduate programs seem more willing to give out A's since C's basically failing so you should have no trouble having a higher GPA than undergrad...

Looks very similar to a website you may be on....

Then I guess I should use she then! You really can't tell on forums and I'm all to lazy to use a slash. Well, if that is how you feel then that is the way to go. I do interact with people in my class about the classes themselves and work with other people etc so I'm sure that time would be useful for you to practice. Are you going to be TAing or anything like that if you go to UPenn? That if anything may be more helpful because you'll be forced to be clear to students and have office hours. But I do not know if your program would be like that. Also you have an advantage really because your a girl. Girls definitely have the advantage in the "who people want to talk to" area. I have had many classes where the room is silent save for the group who sat around the only girl in the class. Maybe that's an undergraduate thing.. but that was happening in a physics class. I'm sure it will help your english to be around native speakers for your goals. Most of the time we don't slow down for you guys, even if we suspect you are having trouble. We will ramble away and if you miss it, you miss it-- unless you make it clear we need to slow down. If we think you're not understanding, nine times out of ten we get frustrated and talk quicker ahaha. That is students anyway, professors can just be completely misunderstandable because many of them have their own strange accents, even if their English is impeccable. You will most probably have classes taught by foreign teachers as well, just perhaps not chinese! It's just a stange world out there for English! I think the hardest part is how many different people speak english and how all the accents are different. I'm sure this is similar to all languages but I doubt as many people learn chinese as they do English... I go to a major state school and over 40% of the department were not from the U.S. I've had Greek, Japanese, Korean, Russian, South American, British and small eastern European country teachers. You will definitely see the spectrum of how English can be spoken where ever you go in a college setting because the market is so diversified for teachers. Good luck!

oral exam

I think it really depends on the specific student. A grad student at my public college went to Princeton in his undergrad and did terribly which is why he ended up at my school instead of another Ivy League for finance. That was his explanation. He definitely looked down at us going said university as an undergrad. He was in an undergrad class because he had to catch up in mathematics before starting his program, which is how i met him.

Thank you for explaining the gist. I figured I'd explain if he was interested but you beat me to it. However I didn't want to assume that just because he wasn't from here he wouldn't know-- a lot of these stereotypes come straight out of movies. Like if we were talking about Japan from what I've watched I think of people in places like Tokyo to be the more trendy japanese where a place like Osaka is more rural with more traditional japanese values... etc.. He is pretty much on the money, but I would like to add a lot of my interests outside of academia (like music, for example) have thriving scenes from the southern area and it's almost like a partial statewide museum to visit. LA is also in southern cali if you did not know. I have to agree that east coast is completely different. Even our hippy types look more like centrists to the ones out west. One of the most liberal girls I knew growing up went out to Boulder University (Colorado, very very left area) for college and came back after a year because it was so past what she was used too. I wouldn't say altogether there's milder attitudes in the east but it seems like we do not have as full of a left as places like CA. I live in a historically (well, since I've been alive) blue (democrat) state (which is generally associated with liberal here) and we have none of the extremes you see in San Fran. It's just more moderate overall from my perspective, but there are those extremists on both sides.

I watched 5 seasons of How I Met Your Mother

I would personally choose UPenn since I live on the east coast and am more familiar with Philly. Also I personally would not want to be where the closest major city is San Fran. That's more northern california, and everything I find alluring about CA is in the south. Besides UPenn is a much more prestigious school. Also don't worry about a program being any % chinese because if you wanna learn about America, go outside. Everyone in the city will speak English and be native speakers. Also UPenn itself has plenty of native speakers to speak too just not in that program. It also may make you feel closer to home to have a large population where you can speak to about your own culture etc. That being said, I notice they give you a significantly smaller stipend so.... looks like you should go to the other one.