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MicroNano

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Everything posted by MicroNano

  1. My acceptance was smeared out over a period of time. I was contacted by a professor pretty early and informally offered admission. The formal admission came later, along with the funding offer and an invite to the visit day. I ended up having to reschedule my visit a few weeks later due to scheduling conflicts, but I did visit and Berkeley did cover expenses. Why do you ask?
  2. Recently accepted Berkeley PhD in mechanical engineering. Very excited. I do have a question regarding funding though, and I hope this is not too much of a sensitive subject to bring up (ignore my post if it is). I will have a stipend just shy of $20K, and I was told I can expect to be paying around $800-$1200 / month in rent (expensive place to live). Assuming there will be some non-insignificant tax cuts to my stipend (thanks to California), this leaves me in a very tight spot to then be trying to pay for a year of food, clothes, textbooks, and any hopes of recreational activities. Am I overlooking some detail? Did you all get better stipends and I somehow got the shortest stick? Not sure if I'm over-worrying myself here.
  3. Hey, I'm also an EST guy, through MechE, phd in MEMS / microheat. Have you guys picked advisors yet? And yeah we should definitely look into housing options.
  4. Unfortunately I do have to decide now. Technically speaking, I was actually supposed to pick and advisor by April 15, when I picked the school. However, the original advisor (Professor A) was kind enough to give me an extra week to decide. Although I intend to make the decision asap, because every day later I delay Professor A, the worse position it puts him if I choose Professor B (because he will have kept the slot "reserved" for me for enough time to lose other possible students).
  5. Question in short: is it more important to pick the advisor with whom you get along the best, or the specific area of research for which you are the most passionate? More detail: I've heard countless tales of "when you're in your 3rd year and everything is going horribly, to make it through, it will really help to have..." where ... is equally filled in with "a good advisor that you like" or "a research project that you care about and interests you". I have already made a decision for a graduate school and am currently deciding between two advisors. To be fair, I like both advisors and both respective research groups, but one more so than the other, and vice-versa. Professor A: I got to meet him, I agree with his philosophy toward research and grad students, I get the distinct impression that he will always hold my personal best interests as highest priority, and he is genuinely a good person. He is also extremely well-established in his field, tenured, and all his grad students like him and I seem to get along with them too. Fairly large group (~30 people) Professor A's research: I find very interesting, but not my original motivating area of research back when I was applying to grad schools. He is also much more applied / inventory-like, as opposed to theoretical / research-scientist-like. Professor B: Younger, well respected and somewhat established, but newly transferred up to my school, and therefore presumably will be working hard to get tenure (and also will be as new to the school as I am, regarding which courses to take, quals, and other advising areas etc.). I have a good initial impression of him, but frankly I know very little about him. He has only recently come under consideration and I will not get an opportunity to meet him in person or have extended interaction beyond phone calls before having to decide. Smaller lab (~8 people) Professor B's research: Almost exactly what I was originally shooting for when I applied to grad school. Already a few interesting projects I may be able to work on. More theoretical in nature (although does include experiment), and more research-scientist-like. All advice is greatly appreciated, as well as some context on what your background is and where you and your advice are coming from.
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