SiraRaven

I've never heard of Squire Village, but I've never heard great things about The Boulders. I don't think it's terrible, but not the nicest apartment complex in the area either. However, I do believe there's a bus stop right outside the complex that will take you to into town and to campus (if you look up the PVTA, it's route 31), and there are pretty constant bus stops in town to go to Hadley (where you'll do all your shopping) Looking up Squire Village, it's up in Sunderland, so while you'd probably be about the same distance to campus, you'd be farther away from anything else, though there should be buses as well. I do have a car, but the few times I've had my car unavailable, I've been able to get around fine with the buses, and I have friends who don't have cars and do fine. For utilities, it varies. Last year, I rented a house with 4 other grad students (near The Boulders, actually), and it was generally about $50/month for electric and then $65/month for oil (we were on an oil budget plan, so we played a fixed price every month for the oil heating and then got a nice refund that summer for the amount we over-paid), and we didn't get cable (I'm not sure if internet was factored into the electric bill or not - one of my roommates handled that). That house had half electric/half oil heating, which was weird and inefficient. In my current place, it's about $50/month for electric right now, though during the winter, it was closer to $120 (all electric heating). Our Comcast bill (for both internet and cable) comes to around $40/month. For inexpensive furniture, I used Goodwill/Salvation Army. Without a car, you'd have to find someone to drive you to transport things, but that's where I got both my desk and dresser, which are quite nice and should last a while. There's both a Goodwill and a Salvation Army in Hadley and another Goodwill over in Northampton. There are also a zillion mattress stores, which will generally also sell you a cheap bedframe, so you can look around for the best prices. Not sure if you've already settled on a place to live or know about this, but I highly recommend umoch, UMass's off-campus housing website. It's how I found my first place up here, and it's a great place to get connected with other students who are looking for a place to live or people who have a place and are looking for additional roommates.

Sounds like a good idea! Here's my referral link: http://db.tt/mtPg8jo7

I've never used STATA, but I really like R. It's not always straightforward, and there are weird typing issues that I've run into, but there are a whole lot of resources online and a lot of nice packages. It's able to make some really beautiful graphs if you know what you're doing, and I've ended up making good use of RCaller, a Java library for calling R. However, I would agree with what others have said - if everyone in your lab uses STATA, that's probabaly the way to go, since you can ask your labmates for advice.

Yeah, if the school's that disorganized and rude, it might be good to reevaluate if that's really where you want to go. It doesn't sound like a good environment in the department, and unless you think those problems would go away upon actually becoming an MS student, I'd say look elsewhere.

(sorry if this topic already exists or is inappropriate for this board) As a preface: going in to grad school, I was nervous and had lots of doubts. I had no clue if I was actually ready for graduate-level work and research and if I had chosen the right program. At this point, I've been in graduate school for about a month and a half, which isn't super long, but I think it's long enough to give me a decent feel for my program. I'm half a semester in, and I'm absolutely loving my grad program. My cohort is wonderful - we've organized a weekly anime watching group, we go to movies a lot, eat lunch together, have game nights, go to parties...it's just a fun group of people. My classes are challenging, but manageable and interesting. My classmates are really smart, and people pull together before assignments are due to help each other out. In my undergrad, I had a really tiny department (class size averaged 3-4 students, and each class was only taught every other year), so being surrounded by so many students who are genuinely interested in and good at computer science is a new and wonderful experience. The professors in the department are all very friendly and helpful and get along with each other - there's a lot of collaboration. There are 3 weekly lunch-talks in systems, machine learning, and computational social science where we can get free food and listen to interesting (or not-so-interesting) talks. My advisor is wonderful. I only got a research project two days ago because the lab's been very busy and my advisor's been trying to think of a good project for me, but everyone in my lab gets along really well and works together a lot. There was a big deadline two weeks ago where the entire lab pulled together to finish one project in time, which was kind of cool to be a part of. There. I just wanted to share my excitement with other graduate students and see if anyone else is feeling similarly. I see a lot of topics about people having problems with their grad program which has left me wondering how many new students are enjoying grad life. It's just such a weight off my shoulders to feel, after agonizing about it for the past year, that I've actually made the right decision.

I'm a new graduate student with an RAship, and I was wondering what tax is going to be like on my stipend. I just signed my contract today so I actually got to see how much I'll be making - the paper said $24.50/hour at 20 hours/week, which works out to $1960/month. I'm assuming, though, that that's before tax. I realize this probably varies by state (I'm going to grad school in Massachusetts), but does anyone have any idea what sort of tax I should expect on that? I'm trying to figure out how much money I'll actually have to work with on a month-by-month basis.

Yeah, I feel like, as long as you sent an e-mail saying that you were indeed accepting them, they should be fine with it. I'd still call them on Monday, but I'm sure they'd check their e-mail before giving your spot away!

Yeah, I'm experiencing the same thing. :-\ I accepted an offer last Saturday via the website and, besides the little "You accepted the offer!" sentence in their online system, I haven't heard anything from them. Despite the fact that their system pretty clearly says that I accepted, I'm kind of having irrational fears that maybe they didn't notice I accepted and are going to give my offer to someone else...I just wish they'd e-mail me something! (I sent an e-mail to the professor I want to work with on Thursday to just let him know that I accepted and was still interested in working with him, so hoping he'll reply soon)

I've finally decided on UMass Amherst, on the MS/PhD track. Really excited! Not sure what subfield yet, but I've talked a bit to one professor in data mining, so I'm leaning that way right now. Not sure what my top choice was, but I did an REU at UMass a couple of summers ago and really loved it, so I'm thrilled!

Haven't seen a topic for this one yet! I'm going into their MS/PhD program in Computer Science. Anyone else heading there this fall?

Yeah, that was what I assumed, which is why it was so strange when the professor flat out said that, if they're between two candidates who are close, they'll try to pick the female.

I recently visited a school (let's call it school X). Early on, I had a visit with a female faculty member. We sat down and she immediately asked "Do you have any questions about being a woman in CS?" I was kind of surprised by the question, but I decided to ask the only real question I could think of: "What's the gender ratio here?" She answered and went on to discuss their CS women's organization, which seemed very nice and all, and she seemed very proud of their ratio (in the 20-30 range). Later, I was talking with someone else, and he was talking again about how proud they are of their ratio and went on to say "We do try to recruit women. Well, I mean. we don't choose them if they're worse, but other things being equal, we try to accept more women." I was...kind of taken aback. It was always in the back of my mind that things like that might go on, but I didn't think that was the kind of thing he would just come right out and tell me (kind of felt like it diminished my acceptance there). I come from a very small liberal arts school where there are really no other women in the department, but it's never been something that's bothered me or that I've given much thought to. I understand that there's a significant gender gap and that people are trying to take action to close it, but it was just very strange at School X when people seemed so fixated on my gender (and assumed that my status as a 'woman in CS' was something I fixated on as well). Has anyone else had a similar experience?

I would definitely say go with Option 1, especially if you want to go into Computer Science. I'm in my fifth year of my bachelor's since I'm double majoring in Computer Science and Music, and if grad schools care, they've done a really good job at hiding it. 4 or 5 years is perfectly normal (from my experience) for a bachelor's, and especially if it will lead to the degrees you want and get you better research experience, as long as finances aren't a problem (and you said they aren't), I'd say Option 1.

I'm not throwing away other universities without thought...I've looked at the programs at Emory and Case Western and decided against them, I've visited Ohio State and have very seriously considered it (it's still on my radar), and I'm visiting Pitt on Friday. However, I was really impressed by my visits to both UMass and UNC, and they both seem like great fits for me. Official grad school ranking is playing very little into my actual decision.

Trying to decide right now between UMass Amherst PhD and UNC Chapel Hill PhD. About the same level of funding (assistantship), and they both look ridiculously awesome. I have no idea how I'm going to decide!

I'm attending the visitation weekend! Currently debating mostly between UNC and UMass, so definitely looking forward to checking UNC out.

Hello! I'm a computer science major and have been accepted at a couple of PhD programs that I'm really excited about. I had my first Candidate's Day this past Friday, and it brought something concerning to my attention... In my undergrad, I've done two summer research programs (one at the school I just visited), and I did my senior research project, all in different areas of CS. Like, really different - no real connection at all. The problem is, those aren't the areas that I actually want to go into in grad school. It took me a little while to decide what I'm actually interested in, and these research experiences have really helped me figure out what actually interests me, but the problem is that I have no actual experience in my desired area of research. We ended up meeting with different professors one-on-one at the candidate's day, and I found that most people had already done some research in their chosen area of study. At the very least, they seemed awfully familiar with the terminology and seems fairly knowledgable. The professor that I'm most interested in working with has told me that it's not a problem and that he's interested in working with me, so I realize I shouldn't worry about it too much, but I was just wondering if anyone has had a similar experience. Is it really that uncommon to go into a new area of research in graduate school?

I feel the same way! I go to a small liberal arts school with a tiny computer science department (think less than 20 undergrads total), and I've been accepted at two top 20 CS PhD program, which is great except that I feel ridiculously unprepared. It just kinda seems like there's no way my undergrad preparation has gotten me ready to go to grad school alongside people who went to large/well-ranked undergrad schools and that it will quickly become apparent that I don't belong there. (just 'cause I did well in my 4-person undergrad cs classes doesn't mean that'll translate to a larger department) Soo...can't really help with your questions, but I definitely get how you feel.

Hello! Question unrelated to the current discussion (back to the main topic): I've been accepted at UMass Amherst (in computer science, if that affects the clothing choice), and the candidate's day is coming up this Friday. I'm pretty sure this is my first choice school, so I'd like to make a good impression. I'm a female who doesn't really dress up very much, so I don't really have any casual skirts, and the only pairs of slacks I have are black (might be a good investment...). I was thinking of going with dark jeans, a nice sweater, and tennis shoes (don't have a massive shoe selection either...), and I was just wondering if people think that would be appropriate. I don't want to show up and be the only person in jeans!