Usmivka

Talk to someone at your university career center. They will have had experience with something similar. I do not believe it is appropriate to request a LOR from your advisor because of the clear conflict of interest--if I were writing a letter of reccomendation for my partner, I doubt I could be objective regardless of best intentions. Such a letter would be viewed as suspect by anyone who knew of the situation, and hiding that but obtaining a LOR from your current advisor would not be a very ethical course of action. Maybe someone else here on the forums will make the case otherwise... You don't have to disclose your relationship, and it may or may not hurt your standing in your prospective PI's eyes, or in the view of the admissions committee. This decision is where the career center could be a valuable resource.

Answer the questions they pose and address the issues they highlight in the prompt. Getting off topic and trying to extoll your virtues when only tangentially related to the format an adcom is expecting does not help your chances. For specifics on how to frame your SOP and what you should (and shouldn't) include, I strongly encourage you to look in the Applications section of the forum, where there is an entire subforum devoted to this question.

What exactly do you guys think is unusual about this? The commuter rail is not the T, and I've found it to have consistent, timely service. I live in Boston, but take the train North a few days a week, several times a year for work. Since this is in the opposite direction of the regular commute I have, if anything, a more constrained set of departure times but even then I find the roughly hourly trains to be plenty frequent. Do either of you have any experience otherwise that you'd care to share, or basis for thinking that my experience is anything besides normal? TLC is not asking whether s/he should commute from Haverhill, but how. And as s/he correctly pointed out, the trip is more than an hour by car if there is any traffic at all. Taking a train means you have to stick with its schedule, and as you both point out the T can certainly complicate things (however howfuckedistheT doesn't provide any useful info on the E line). But the train is clearly the better choice here given the constraints on issue as posed: 2 days a week (not a daily commute) for a specific class schedule (ie unlikely to be working extended or odd hours where the train schedule could be a real problem), uncomfortable with driving in Boston weather. Commuter bus services like Greyhound or P&B might be another alternative with extended hours of operation, but are unlikely to be cost competitive or any more frequent during commuting hours.

I don't think the job market is too tight to find work in academia if you set your expectations realistically, develop multiple skill sets (including the ability to manage people and money, nontrivial job components as a prof) and aren't picky about your job. But "big name" places sometimes hire on tenure track and avoid hiring assistant profs, lecturers, etc...and tenure achievement may occur at a much lower rates in such places. For example several departments at MIT and Harvard are infamous for their "chew 'em up and spit 'em out" approach to young faculty. So what you may really be asking when you question the possibility of getting hired at a big name school, is "can I get a tenure track position, and can I actually get tenure?" (with all the usual caveats about department, culture, etc). In my field, which is if anything expanding in these positions, I'd say your odds are about 1% of getting tenure at one of these places (if they were restricted to only grads of the most recognized schools, ~3 posit a year, 200 grads, 60% rate of tenure success). That again precludes anyone on their second postdoc or otherwise in a holding pattern angling for the same jobs, and assumes that every candidate is equally qualified for the specific position that is open any given year.

I regularly use commuter rail to the north of Boston, and it is pretty reliable. I've never been more than 5 minutes late to North Station or the far end (I go to Rowley, zone 7). It takes about an hour on the dot, regardless of weather. Haverhill is a bit further out (zone 10?) but only three more stops on a parallel line, so I'd gues not much longer, and the schedules are very reliable. And definitely get a rail commuter pass!

I tend to agree, if it hasn't been published on it is more likely that initial results weren't very promising than that no one thought about the problem before. New techniques to answer old questions better seem more common than entirely new questions. Not to say that new (nontrivial) questions don't arise when examining data or models, just that it is rare.

And I've had nothing but trouble with Lenovo's warranty service. My current Lenovo has now come back three times with problems it did not start with, and the original issues were never fixed. The thing crashes every 10-30 minutes because of overheating, even with a wiped harddrive. I can redo the thermal paste and soldering myself, and at this point have had to, but previously did not becuase it would have voided the warranty. However, since they never took these basic steps the warranty wasn't worth much to begin with. Hardwear failure is a different story entirely than unfavorably comparing to more recent models--I'm pointing out that I have had consistant problems with the former using Lenovo lines other than the Thinkpad, which I actually recommended above--just not the warranty.

Ice cream and cereal.

With the pace of technological development for next gen sequencing in genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, etc, it may be that many tachniques in microbiology and molecular biology will be obsolete by the time any student can finish a PhD. We are already at the point where 3rd gen sequencing is giving qPCR a run for its money, and you saw how fast PCR did away with Northern and Southern Blots. If you have to learn new techniques for your postdoc, probably anyone else interested in the job will have to also! I do think some sort of 3rd gen sequencing experience will become increasingly important for postdocs doing anything molecular biology related, and these skill sets seem to be impacting hiring decisions in the univeristies and research institutions I'm familiar with.

A word of warning on Lenovo, their build quality has gone downhill rapidly over the last three years. The thinkpads are still ok (still the same ibm line they bought out), but I'd avoid anything else like the plague. Do not waste your money on the extended warrenty, the computers generally come back in worse shape than they leave--spend a minute googling to see what I mean. Carefully read the lenovo forums and elsewhere about any lenovo you are thinking about, many have serious design flaws that are not apparent until after a few months of use (for example overheating and cracking soldering or frying chipsets is a very common problem becuase of poor heat sink design common in Lenovo laptops). Dell latitudes are still alright, but maybe not as good as a thinkpad. Macbooks tend to not wear as fast but are expensive and use out of date hardware that you get to pay a premium for. An alternative is to accept that anything you buy now will be toast or obsolete in 3 years, and buy a $300 webbook or some such, then buy a nice internal or portable hard drive to install the operating system and all your programs on, plus some expanded ram on Amazon for ~$100. The hard drive will last a couple of computers if you are kind to it, and if you boot from it and add your own ram to the laptop the system will be quicker than most high end off the shelf laptops. Sometime university IST/CIS departments will help you with the hardware installs. Check with them regardless, they may be able to get you significant discounts on new computers or parts.

I think a second PhD is a bad idea for all sorts of reasons, not least in that it keeps you in school for another 5 years when you could instead be getting job experience. Your economics degree should have produced work output (papers, books, teaching experience?) to prove that you can tackle questions in the social sciences and produce your own novel work on a specific question. If you can't get the post doc you want with that, another PhD is not probably not going to be viewed favorably the second time around either. Also, you should not be surprised if an admissions comittee is reluctant to take you on: you already have a degree, and "professional students" are sometimes shunned, and your stated desire to get into a "well ranked American University" as a means to open career doors rather than interest in the work done in the department will not be viewed favorably. This seems like a long shot.

Last year the solicitation went out in early October, and was due by the end of November. I've seen other programs delay their solicitations by 1-3 months in the past, but then the due dates are usually pushed back as well.

I suspect that you will need to share a house with others to make those area's affordable, unless you two want to get super cozy in a studio. I think anywhere on the red line would be fine for both of you. How about Savin Hill or somewhere else in Dorchester? Is there any reason your friend would prefer north of the river other than proximity?

For JP in particular only the expensive stuff uses rental agencies. Most of the landlords are locals who grew up in the buildings they are renting, so they use Craigslist or signs to avoid agents fees.

No idea, sorry. Could you get your assumed advisor/1st year sponsor to work on this with you? I assume you will be talking with potential advisors before then?

NASA NESSF or Jenkins fellowships are both good options. The NOAA Foster fellowship might also be a fit, depending on your research. But we still don't know how many NASA will give out next year, they may cut back significantly from the current hundred or so.

The IRS updated its forms such that only two named fellowships (http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc421.html) are completely tax free. Both have a post-graduation service requirement. While there are a few other fellowships out there that fall into the grey area as neither explicitly tax free nor "fee for service," you are now required to report as gross income anything you use towards room and board and incidentals regardless. I'd carefully read the bulletin in the link and decide what that means for your situation. Also confirm that your fellowship source will back you up if you claim tax exempt status for any portion of your fellowship--all but one or two of those in the grey area will not, which leaves you on the hook for additional fines if the IRS audits you and disagrees with your interpretation. Make sure to include a specific revenue ruling (citable as precedent) that backs your case, or a private letter ruling (unique to your situation and only applicable to you, can't use others' as precedent).

I think funding is likely to be at the least restricted based on the lack of updates to the website and the overall budget picture for EPA (most funds already commited), but I don't have any proof to back this up. I also noticed that the NASA GSRP ended this year, with no new grants allocated after 2013, but some other NASA fellowship programs appear to still be running.

I don't know whether it has/will live up to the intent of the program, but the whole point of UW Bothell was to be a STEM focused institution, particularly related to computers and technology. If it isn't currently the obvious choice for you in CS, I have to wonder if all our tax dollars were being wasted in trying to expand the UW system up North.

My partner and I (both students) lived at the north end of JP, 5 min from Mission Hill and the E line terminus for $1300 a month in a large, well maintained 2 bedroom on a dead end next to a park and community gardens. One bedrooms in the same area were about $1000 as of last year. We now live in a one bedroom condo in the same neighborhood, $1000 a month (mortgage + HOA). If you go into Mission Hill, the prices were similar or lower to what I mention for northern JP as of last year. BU is also easily bikeable from this portion of JP using the bike trail along the Emerald Necklace parks adjacent to Riverway and the Fens. I think either is a good option given where you will be working and since you are older and probably don't want to be living with all the undergrads in Alston and Brighton.

One. I knew where I was moving regardless, though, and did not care whether I was in school or not--I'd have been paid more to do the same thing as a non-student employee, and would have had evenings and weekends to boot. My peers applied to three to five on average, and most seem to think that was more than enough.

The T or bus + T takes me 45 minutes. If I take the free Harvard/MIT longwood shuttle, it cuts the commute to 30-40 minutes if I get there via E line. If I bike the whole way, I can do it in 25-30. But I'm way up next to Mission Hill, and I suspect a lot of your travel time is making your way up Centre or S Huntington!

On the 49, see above--not a reliable bus compared to most routes int he city. I'm not trying to convince you it is a bad neighborhood--clearly it isn't for you. But just as clearly several posters (including myself) feel it is not the best choice for those moving to Seattle as grad students. I've been trying to explain (for the benefit of interested forum readers) why the above opinions and concerns shouldn't be dismissed out of hand and aren't the product ignorance or narrowmindedness, which is what you have implied with your responses. Every neighborhood has things to love and issues of concern, and posters aren't being spiteful of you or dismissive of the neighborhood in pointing out that the CD has more concerns than many of the other neighborhoods discussed here. I don't think it really matters much how it compares to LA, or anywhere else outside of the communities that people here are considering living in. I'm not going to keep harping on this--I've said my piece, and I hope you understand where I'm coming from, and perhaps where others are as well. PS. I spent much of my childhood in the CD, including living and working there for a number of years.

Lots of good thoughts above. There was also a long discussion on affordability in Boston either earlier in this thread or in another post--I'd do a forum search, folks have broken down costs quite a bit. I think average utilites are ~$150 month ( less in the summer, but more in the winter). I spend ~$600 a month on everything other than housing, including utilities, communication, transit, food, clothes, outings, and on my pets. I have a heavily subsidized t-pass though, and central AC/heating a w/ double paned windows. Previously I could cut my utilities by a few hundred dollars over the year by weatherproofing my rental. It very much depends on where your money comes from. Universities around here often pay TA/RAs as employees, with a W-2 and withholding. Fellowships often are paid as stipends (ie 1099-MISC). You are responsible for quarterly withholding on these. There are very, very few fellowships that are tax free. In fact are limited to two specifically named by act of congress and a handful of national, "non-compensatory" fellowships that are largely similar in scope to the named ones (national service, research at least partially directed by government, military or public health related). For the latter category, even if you are in the right in claiming tax exemption you may very well be audited, adn if you don't cite the correct and specific "Revenue Ruling" applying to your case you will have to request your own personal version from the IRS--last I checked this cost in excess of $2000, but you only need to do it once. The upshot is, if you qualify and do all that work, you are also exempted from state taxes.

It think the rents being reported above reflect the areas being rented being higher priced. Again, it is entirely possible to get a 1 bedroom (or 2 bedroom) for less than $1500--please see the statistics link above or do a few minutes of googling for your own favored source, and note that the average price reflects the mean, not a minimum or even the mode. If anecdote is more persuasive to you, I lived in a two bedroom in Jamaica Plain (a trendy neighborhood) for $1300, and I was three blocks from the T. The rents of my classmates around Central, Porter, Inman and Davis Squares in Cambridge and Sommerville (all higher priced areas) are in the ball park of $1600 for one bedrooms and $2500 for three to four bedrooms, but the ones living in JP, East Cambridge, Savin Hill, Southie, and Ashmont (all nice, safer neighborhoods) were more like $1000 and $1800 for the same. And the few living in Quincy and Medford (both still on the T) were averaging $800 for a one bedroom as of last year. Rents are increasing quickly in Boston, and it is a high priced city--there is no reason to assume that what is affordable now will stay affordable. But the point of all of the above is that more affordable options currently exist. I too have a long term partner and group housing was unacceptable. It took a lot of work to find a place we liked, no doubt about it, but if anything we were being picky and went with one of our higher priced options. crackthesky, make sure to talk about the boyfriend with roommates before signing any lease--lots of people say "yeah sure" about the idea of an occasional visit and then get understandably upset when it turns into an every weekend occurance. You'd need to move in Winter through earlier summer to avoid the "student premium pricing" that show up by late July.