ritapita

Hey! geeze, I suppose I could have included that when I started this thing. I am heading to Community Sustainability.

Hey everyone, I just withdrew my app from Kentucky since I accepted another offer. In my email I implied that this would open a spot for others if I was indeed wait-listed. I received a quick reply stating that they are still making initial decisions as the weather this semester closed the university down so much that it caused them a huge delay. So for those of you waiting on Kentucky, I would say hold out just a bit longer. They are really pushing the deadline this year but they are still figuring out acceptances. Best of luck to you all.

Who's headed to MSU for fall 2015? Program, etc...

Yes, I am confident in my choice. But thanks for implying that I am daft in my efforts. You make it sound as if the majority of Lansing is some awful ghetto that we females will violently perish in once we arrive. Why bother to go to school there if there is no real safe place to live? I am an extremely resourceful person that does their homework and am able to work well in dealing with real estate and landlords. The entire area I am in is full of higher end housing and friendly retired folks and families. I feel very safe and very confident that I, as a multiple home owner and landlord myself, can navigate finding a safe place to live, and as a result pass on 2 cents worth of advice. I got a cute (small!... size, not neighborhood = lower cost) 4 bedroom house for that price because I do my research, and network and talk to people. (and the bike bath is not the river trail). My point with my post was that if you do a bit of research in certain ways, you can find other options. There are many ways to approach a move. Doing thorough research is one of them. How about pulling up crime stats from the police department when considering an address? Do you know you can do this for Lansing and pull up all crime for a 5 mile radius of an address? Maybe this could have helped you, if you feel so unsafe. Your post makes it seem like you are having quite the miserable experience there. I don't know about you, but I'm good. Somehow I feel like I am leaving this post unnecessarily defensive....thanks....from a successful, secure, and intelligent female.

I will be incoming this fall 2015. I am also a bit older. I found a house on craigslist by searching what I wanted and directly contacting people from there. I also posted on craigslist exactly what I was looking for and what my requirements were, and I got a decent amount of response. I personally need a house with a yard since I have pets and want a garden. I was able to get a cute little 4 bedroom house with a yard, basement, and garage for $850 in a cute and quiet neighborhood just west of east lansing. I am only 3.5 miles from campus with a straight shot drive of approx 10 min. from door to door, and close to bus lines and a bike path. While this housing situation doesn't sound like it will work for you, I am just wanting to let you know that you can easily find nice and inexpensive housing outside of east lansing and still close to where you need to be. There are several nice house duplexes that would fit your cost range and get you out of an apartment situation if that isn't your cup of tea. Google earth is my dear friend when looking at neighborhoods, and neighbors, etc and was very helpful in differentiating between the ad photos and real life. I am moving early this summer instead of closer to fall start date, and am glad I secured a living situation sooner than later since there is much more available now.

Just an FYI - I know from a department contact that Kentucky sent out all their MS acceptances early last month. I think I already sent you the contact information for who you need to call at Kentucky. She is very nice and friendly. I highly suggest you call her for your status. If you haven't gotten a rejection from them, my guess is that you are waitlisted since funding for MS's was supposed to start being announced about now. (They still haven't sent accepts or rejects for Phds! and they are on spring break this week too.)

Hi everyone. Still no word from Kentucky, but I will be primarily disconnecting from this thread as I have accepted an offer from another school since I won a 3yr competitive predoc fellowship. I will have 2 foci, one of which will be geography but I will not be attached to a geography department as my home. Its where I should be, but bummed Kentucky is so slow this year. I will be at Michigan State so if anyone happens to be going there, you are welcome to message me to connect. Best of luck to you all. I will be peeking in now and then to see who is going where.

Yes! I went last year. I have been in contact with them for well over a year (which is why I am so stressed out that I haven't heard anything yet!) It is a very lovely campus and I really really like Lexington. The main building where most of the department is located is nothing special for sure. In fact rather lackluster. Its in some 8 story industrial type office building with horrible colors and dated looking everything..most likely early 80's is my guess. I must say I felt a bit blah when there, but the look of the faculty office building is not why we chose a school for sure. However, everyone had nice welcoming offices and was really enthusiastic and great to talk to. I visited a few other places on campus...I really enjoyed it and could see myself actually wanting to spend time on campus. That is not the case where I am now, in the southwest, with dirt colored everything, ugly architecture, and very few trees. I hate being on campus where I am now. And before anyone says that the atmosphere of the campus doesn't matter, if the program is great, I beg to differ. I want to feel like being on campus...it helps with morale and productivity. And now that I have been somewhere for almost 4 years that I loathe stepping foot on, and I try to do as much work as possible at home, I know that I want to be at a campus that I can be engaged with. UK to me provides that. I had to make a very short visit so I didn't visit the GIS lab or a few other things I should have tried to squeeze in, but I wanted to spend my time with faculty as much as I could.

Most likely your first semester, and possibly your first year will be spent as a grader, or assistant with recitation, or discussion leader, or proctor, or all of the above. I seriously doubt they will dump you in to teach in your first semester, unless you have actually taught that material before. And I concur with GeoDUDE...I have never spent 20 hours on any teaching duties. Current case in point: I grade for two undergrad seminars making my load about 300 students, plus I am an adjunct at another university for my own course and I put in about 15-18 total, which is the most I have done. I have successfully done 2 courses and an R&C with that approximate load. I was certainly ready for a break at the end of the semester, but I was not completely dead. Time management is key.

Great. That is why they are my first choice. They are very theory based too, which I love. There is a good mix of faculty and research there, between the GIS/Geomorph folks, and the human/cultural and political ecology folks.

Hey Kentucky PhD applicants - I just spoke to the super nice admissions secretary, and she said she has not received ANY recommendations for PhDs from Geography yet...no decisions have been made either way. Guess we keep holdin' on.

Another week down, another week without word from Kentucky. Oh anxiety...

A couple quick things.... 1. LISTEN TO YOUR GUT! Go with the program that you find yourself internally smiling about more than the other. 2. I have an Interdisciplinary Masters, and found it difficult to find PhD programs that took me seriously just at that level, even though I am very field specific. It suited me well for my diverse research at the time, but MANY of my faculty were very adamant about ensuring I DID NOT do an Interdisciplinary PhD. Hiring is TOUGH after. Very Tough. Consider that battle. If you are good with it, and you feel the other factors of the program can mitigate the defined degree after the fact, than go for it if it is really what you want. But yes, there are horror stories about hiring. You will need to ensure your published research is clearly able to be categorized with where/what you want to work in later. Work backwards...get an idea of what you want to do AFTER your PhD, and then plan your program around fitting that goal. If you want to work at a small liberal arts college with loosely defined course parameters, such as my alma mater Evergreen, it might work. But if you know you want to be in an RS or Philosophy department, then do some research on where and what those faculty got their degrees in. Read some CVs. 3. Yes, internal fellowships weigh outside the program. Others will see that you are worthy of the award, or capable of securing the grant/fellowship, which will give you a level of respectiveness on your CV. It can also help you secure other awards... the old adage that once you get funding, you can get more funding, is true. Edit PS: 1. congrats on such an amazing return on apps! and #2, if I were you, unless your gut is telling you otherwise, I would go with your second program listed. It seems to have a lot more 'pros' than the other one. It may not be as diverse, etc, but you can make your research and experience whatever you want it to be. You are not limited by the brick and mortar of the institution itself. If you need more diversity in your research OR your social life, you can find it. Same with interdisciplinarity. You can always do joint projects with students at other institutions...which would look good on your conferences and publications! 3. A visit will do wonders to this process.

I think it is dependent upon what the department is doing that year. A few of us PhD apps for my top program have discovered all the MA admits have gone out...like a month ago. None of us have any word on anything at the PhD level and we are freaking out....the reverse of you.