Jcar

A studio for 600 or under shouldn't be too hard if you look around. A lot of the larger apartment complexes don't use craigslist, so I'd search here as well: http://www.apartments.com/Results.aspx? ... &mode=6144

I did an MA with a full fellowship that stipulated no outside employment. I liked my job, though, so I kept working (I worked part time when doing classes and then went back to full time during the summer and when writing my thesis). I was scared too that they would find out, but no one ever asked and I never told anyone. Unless they specifically ask for your tax returns (and there's no reason any school would, I don't think), you'll be fine. No one will know if you don't mention it.

Has anyone who got into UIA's Phd Program back on the 4th heard about funding yet? The admissions letter said they would contact us "shortly," but they are taking their sweet time.

"A large part of my decision was based on how I would be able to afford to live," says Verity Mathis, a Ph.D. student in evolutionary biology at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. Her stipend for 12 months as a teaching assistant is a little more than $20,000. Ms. Mathis, 30, pays $500 a month in rent for a two-bedroom house. Louisiana State pays the bulk of her $500 annual health-insurance premium. Student fees, about $800 or so each semester, are among the expenses that she must cover. "I stretch my money out with student loans," Ms. Mathis says." She has a 500 dollar a month 2 bedroom house (that's insanely cheap!) and yet she's still not able to live in Baton Rouge on 20,000 a year? Is she also financing a crack habit or something?

Iowa admits lots of people who already have MAs. If you look at their current list of grad students about half have MAs from other schools.

I didn't even think of looking at schools in Hawaii. I kind of wish I had applied there now. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Parking at the U of MN is impossible. They have a tiny number of parking slots that they auction off every year in a random drawing. Everyone else has to pay obscene amounts of money to park in ramps (although if you get there before 8 am you can park all day in the ramps for like 3 dollars. I haven't been there for a few years, however, so maybe that's changed). As to Minneapolis, Tom Waits (who lived there for a while and wrote a few songs about the town) had a joke he used to tell at concerts. It went something like, "First prize is a one week stay in Mpls," "Second prize is a two week stay in Mpls," "Third prize is a three week stay in Mpls," .......and so on. Anyways, as I said I love the Twin Cities, but I am a "homer" I guess.

LOL That's hilarious. Are you serious? Or are you joking? If you're serious, what a total douche. A massive vinegar douche, to be more exact. I actually did my undergrad in MN, and all my professors advised people not to apply to the U of MN for grad school in English if you are from MN as they have a history of snubbing Minnesotans. I never knew if it was true or not, so it's interesting that other people have heard the same thing. It's the only reason why I didn't bother applying there this year.

I wouldn't go to Chicago, or anywhere for that matter, for an MA without funding. Some schools tend to just admit basically everyone without a MA that they rejected from the PHD program, knowing that most will not attend without funding anyway. It's a cash cow. Often times they're more interested in your money than they are in you. Which isn't to say that it ultimately wouldn't be a good experience, if you can afford it. But it'd really only be a luxury for the wealthy. For the rest of us it'd be completely insane to take out loans for an MA in English with the job market like it is now. I know some will probably disagree with me on this, but that's just my opinion. Better to just wait another year. It goes by fast.

You mentioned Duluth. If you're looking in the MN area there's MN state (Mankato), U of St Thomas (St Paul), and I think Hamline (St Paul) might offer an MA as well (but I'm not 100% sure). I don't know what their funding is like, however.

Minneapolis is fun. Tons of movie theaters, live theaters, clubs, bars, and lots of stuff to do. I live in St Paul and love the Twin Cities Metro area (Although I'll be moving to go to school, which kind of sucks). It's a great place to live if you don't mind cold snowy winters, as it has most of the stuff you could want from a larger city without a lot of the bad stuff that sometimes comes with larger cities. If you have a car (or don't mind public transportation), I'd recommend living in a suburb, as oppossed to Minneapolis. Rent will be WAY cheaper in the suburbs, and the U of M campus is quite accessible from most of the inner suburbs (Roseville might be a good option if you want someplace cheap to live. Both the St Paul and Minneapolis Campuses of the U of M would be like a 10-20 minute drive from most areas of Roseville and they have lots of apartments. Otherwise just get a guide and expand your apartment/house search to the inner suburbs). Also, if you have kids the schools will be much better either in the suburbs or in St Paul. Some of the public schools in Minneapolis can be kind of rough.

Type "Rosetta Stone" + "Language you want" + "Rapidshare" into google. You'll find one that works eventually. Otherwise just search a torrent site.

It's good for learning pronunciation and basic vocabulary. It's bad for teaching things like the intricacies of grammar, however, so you most likely will not be fluent after completing all three levels (and no, you will not be able to read an entire novel in your selected language after finishing them. The vocabulary focuses on mostly everyday tourist type stuff). It's still a good tool despite this, you just have to use it in conjunction with a more traditional style instructional book. It's definitely not worth 500 dollars for all three levels, so if you do decide to use it I'd recommend just downloading a cracked version of the internet. They are readily available if you know where to look.

I went from 550 to a 700. First time I didn't study at all. 2nd time I basically just made flash cards of the words I didn't know from a couple GRE study guides and memorized them. It's boring as shit and incredibly time consuming, but memorization of vocabulary is really the only way that you'll ever dramatically improve your score on the GRE verbal section. Which is really what sucks about that section of the test, as doing well on it doesn't have much at all to do with intellect, logic, or reasoning ability. It's mostly just a test of how many arcane and completely useless words you know.