Nurse Wretched

I wore jeans constantly for my master's program. No one cared. But rainbow sandals? Need more info.

Last summer there were five. The summer before, there were none. There were two or three touchdowns near A2, not big. It's precautionary. It's okay; you take your laptop into the basement and sit there for an hour or so, then come up. Look, I come from a place built on two fault lines. At least with tornadoes there's a warning.

Ann Arbor fancies itself much more liberal than it is. I moved here from Large West Coast City, and it's not especially liberal compared to that, but is compared to Michigan in general. If you've never lived in snow (I never had), it's a little hard to get used to. But there's no lake effect snow like west Michigan or Chicago, and you deal with it. The tornado warnings in the summer are much more nerve-wracking. We don't run errands in A2 on game days, but otherwise the football thing doesn't bother us much. If you live within a mile or two of the stadium, you can rent out your yard for parking -- $20 a car, minimum. The drunken undergrad thing -- yes. I've never really seen a party grad school, but maybe when I'm a student I'll have to eat my words.

My wife commutes to her job on campus and has for fifteen years, mostly by bus, from Ypsi. AATA is a problem everywhere, including in A2. It's not the best bus system ever. But short of living in walking distance of central campus, it's what's there. Many people commute via car and park in one of the orange lots and ride the shuttle to central campus. Honestly, you can always find parking on central campus if you get in a jam and have to drive. It's not going to be free, but it's there. Honestly, coming from a large city with some of the worst traffic in the country and almost no parking in the downtown core, I'm not impressed with Ann Arbor traffic. Except for the goddamn undergrads who walk out in front of my car on State St like their iPods give them a shield of protection against both cars and traffic laws.

Ann Arbor is a college town that thinks it's a city. If you want a non-UM town, try Ypsi.

No, in this case, it's a big meanie who wants to give $140 million in kickbacks to his supporters and then balance the budget by stripping people of their labor rights.

Spoken like someone who's never had a public sector job. I've worked in public health and two state academic medical centers as a nurse. Unions are absolutely critical both for attracting and retaining good staff in the public sector. The pay is lower. The benefits are better. If there's no upside, why would people in demand choose the public sector?

You might want to consider that there is a fair amount of mocking of med students who wear scrubs everywhere, possibly in the hope that they will be recognized as med students.

I'm an RPCV who ET'd for medical reasons. I have very mixed feelings about PC's effectiveness and the issues of affluent white kids doing development work, but it was an amazing experience.

Wedgwood and Northgate are both fair distances from the U. Look at Eastlake, Capitol Hill (the unfashionable west side of same) and Wallingford/Fremont. If you live too far to bike, it's not a big deal; you can bike to a busline and throw your bike on the rack on the front of the bus. A lot of people do that because Seattle has major hills. A bus pass is included with your tuition (though I suppose you could send it back) and was $98/quarter (three calendar months) when I left. You will love your bus pass; it also gets discounts in the U district. If you do live in the u district, look at the west side, almost to I-5. I would talk to the GPSS (graduate and professional student senate) about options for housing. A LOT of people move to Seattle for grad school and GPSS used to have a roommate matching service and some housing resources. I don't know anything about temporary housing in Seattle because I lived there, you know? They might. Welcome to Seattle! It's a beautiful city and I miss it very much.

Oh! Remember too that the UW doesn't start until the end of September (often the 25th or later), so August is ample time. Campus housing is acceptable but not fancy -- Hansee Hall is single rooms for grads and upperclassmen, the other dorms are full of freshmen; Stevens Court is apartments run by the U. The ASUW maintains a rental database as well, but most of my places were found on Craigslist.

I lived in Seattle for 33 years. Renting there is competitive regardless of time of year, because it's not a college town; it's a city with three universities. Rentals go fast. I can't imagine distance renting. I would not live in the U district under pretty much any circumstances; it's expensive for what you get and packed full of undergrads. The bus system is efficient, for the most part, and all buses pretty much end up in the U District or downtown. Don't live in West Seattle or far north or south and it'll be fine. Do you have somewhere to stay for a few weeks while you look for a place?

I looked at what faculty were studying and described how that could be expanded and synthesized in my research; I have specific reasons for wanting to study with different faculty and each of them brings something valuable to me. Essentially, without saying so, I laid out my prelim committee and explained why each member's work was significant to the research I want to do.

I'm from a working-class family. That's my people, that's who I know. I was very clear about that in my personal statement, because the question asked about what led me to graduate school and how my background influenced that. Being working class, being first generation college -- those are not shameful things. Those are not embarrassing details on which one should not dwell. As for the adcomm who asked how one expected to make it in grad school without family support (as a first-generation student) -- who would want to attend an arrogant, classist institution like that? If the adcomm felt free to disclose their classism, that won't be the last time it shows up. Better to know in advance.

You're in Redmond. Commune with your Aspie brotherhood down the road at MS. Seriously, as the parent of an Aspie, I can tell you that there are worse places to be on the autism spectrum than the PNW. It seemed like every third person I met either was on the spectrum or had a kid on the spectrum. Your comfort zone is in non-direct communication. That's fine. That's a neurological difference, not a flaw. That said, it's easier to be around neurotypicals if you can make a nod to the norms. Most of the time, one good hobby will do it. Hiking. Hiking is big in the Northwest, and has the benefit of being essentially a solo sport. Say you're a hiker, and people will leave you alone, unless they have REI memberships, in which case they'll want to talk. If you tell people you spend time at the dog park at Marymoor, no one will bat an eye. You get the idea. Interpersonal communication is exhausting for most Aspies I know, including my son -- he says it's like speaking French all the time, except you don't get good at it very fast. NTs often do extrapolate from our experiences to everyone; it's one of the hazards of being in the majority. It's okay to spend time by yourself, it's okay to have solo hobbies, but there are benefits to being able to be yourself in a way that's understandable to NTs. We try. We're just a little dense sometimes. We don't get that there are people who really do enjoy time with little contact, that we're exhausting. I don't think that you MUST HAVE SOCIAL CONTACT to avoid burnout in grad school; that's a very NT-centric way to think. But I do know that life in and after grad school is easier if you can find ways to be yourself and still find a compromise with social norms.

Which is appalling. I've never worked a non-union nursing job, and I never will. The difference between collective bargaining and at-will employment is profound, not only in conditions of work, but in respect accorded to labor by management.

This recently became an issue for medical residents, and the IRS decided that they were workers who were students, not students who were workers, so needed to pay FICA. They had not in the past done so.

Well, you certainly chose the best weather.

Wisconsin is in the news because the governor, after granting $140 million in special-interest kickbacks to his supporters, is claiming that to fill a $137 million budget shortfall public employees should lose their collective bargaining rights. It's not in a particularly shaky financial situation, but bear in mind I'm from Michigan, and "shaky financial situation" is a way of life here. I personally would not worry. The reality is that there are budget shortfalls everywhere, and no guarantee that a private university won't find itself short next year, particularly if funding dries up for a particular program. I'd be much more concerned about supporting the right of public employees to collectively bargain, because guess what GSIs are at public universities?

We live in Ypsi and love it. Not thrilled with the school district, but it's great for grownups. Rents are a little lower here.

I'm 34. The average age of new nurse PhDs is 45. So I'm a mere babe in the woods.

It's not true that almost all PhD students hold a prior master's. At many research universities' nursing programs, there is pressure to enter the doctoral program direct from undergrad, since master's degrees in the OP's field (nursing) are clinical degrees. OP, I think the most important question is what do you want to do? About a third of my nursing faculty at Major Northwest Research University held DrPH degrees, in part because the PhD in nursing was uncommon in the past. Do you want to study public health, or is your primary interest in nursing research? The joint MPH/PhD program isn't uncommon; the University of Washington has that as an option, for an example.

Random Person (or possibly my mother): So, why are you getting a doctorate? Can you prescribe then? Me: No, I can already do that. I'm a nurse practitioner. I want to study the culture of nursing units and effects on outcomes in perinatal care. RPOPMM: So you're still going to be just a nurse?

I'm a nurse-midwife, and worked as a nurse for years before that. Everyone always knows Nurse Ratched -- thus, Nurse Wretched. It would totally be my roller derby name.