long_time_lurker

I won't be returning to my program in the fall so I figured I'd chime in. You really have to clear your head and think about why you entered your program to start with and whether staying in the program will be more beneficial than leaving it. In my case, I had the same feelings as you in regard to whether I really saw myself spending my thirties working on something I may not want to do. I was only interested in private sector work and the employers that came and gave talks mostly offered jobs in academia (no thanks) or private sector employment involving research intensive and theoretical work that I'm not all that interested in (as opposed to more applied work). The key though was that I was offered my old job back for the fall and another side job at the same employer where my salary will increase compared to what it was, and will be more than twice my stipend. It didn't help the case for staying that I would have to quit the job I worked part-time this year to complete my coursework. Now in your case you say that not only do you have no job lined up but you have no idea what you would do. In that case it's pretty irresponsible to just pull up your stakes and walk. I would pick a project, register, etc. and spend the next couple of months sending resumes out to any job for which you're qualified. If you get something, then you can walk away from the University. If nothing pans out, you can at least go back in the fall and collect your stipend as well as gain more experience. If you can teach a lab, do so, and you can put that on your resume so you can adjunct or teach high school. You'll gain research and lab experience on your project that you can put on your resume. You also may grow to like your project and decide to stay at the University. It seems you have nothing to lose by staying and a lot to lose (no job, no income, etc.) if you leave right now.

If living at home is a possibility why not do that and commute to West Chester, or wait until next year and apply to schools in Philly and commute there. Even if your parent asks you for $100 a week for room and board that's way less than it's going to cost to live in Pittsburgh or DC if you did GW.

It's an easy drive but parking can be very tight over there. If you plan on using public transit it's not bad but you may get the same experience living in Jersey or on the Island and find yourself with an easier commute as the trains from there go into Penn Station. Metro North goes to Grand Central which is on the East Side, and Columbia is on the West Side. Even buses from Jersey (or even PA) go to the Port Authority and it's a 1-train ride up to Columbia.

This is a very good point. Hopefully the folks who fret about coming up with a first, last and security deposit, moving costs, etc. can prepare beforehand so they are ready to shoulder the up-front costs so that they can reap the benefits later.

I was in a similar boat to you 2 years ago, sans the moving part. I ended up repairing the car for over a grand; a few months later I had noise coming from my wheelwells the same week Toyota was offering 0% financing on new cars. I ended up trading the car in. So I highly recommend not repairing the current car. Also if you can try and trade in your car at CarMax. My local dealers were offering me a $1200 trade-in and CarMax offered me $3000 cash or trade-in. CarMax parts out their cars so they will give you a good value even if your car needs work. Also you are under no obligation to buy a new car from them, they give you a binding offer to buy your car. Meanwhile the traditional dealers offer you a $1200 trade-in and then proceed to inflate the sales price of the car they're selling you by $1000. Also don't rule out a new car. I know the whole depreciation argument of buying used vs. new, but the financing on a new car is generally much better. When I looked for cars I qualified for 0 interest for all 5 years whereas for a used car it would've been 5.9% APR. Also, you are buying more time, namely when you are doing your program, that you won't have to worry about the time and cost of doing repairs to an older car.

This is of no help whatsoever to you folks who are moving, I'm just posting for the benefit of those who do a search in the future. Do think of the cost of moving when you are sending applications and considering admissions offers! Personally, and maybe this is only because I've lived in NY my whole life, but I could never imagine moving anywhere to go to school or take a job, something a lot of people on this forum seem to do. I have to hand it to you folks. I only know from friends who've moved (and I'm talking at most 120 miles) what a pain in the neck and how costly it is. So do think of the moving hassle and expense if considering an offer from school A in your hometown or current locale and school B further afield.

Bite the bullet and live in the dorms especially if you can do it on a semester basis. You will meet people when you get here who will want to be your roommate. You'll also get a job and you will accumulate your first, last, security, and broker fee (if applicable) and the documentation (i.e. paystubs). Remember your annual pay must be at least 40x the rent. Dorming obviously isn't ideal but it beats signing a lease on a place sight unseen - a recipe for disaster.

Another thing to consider is that with an MS in Math you can certainly do adjuncting. At CUNY you get about $65 an hour for adjuncting (and it's not that hard to get a position either in STEM), most courses are 4 credits, and if you teach at least 6 credits you get paid for an office hour. You can get eligible for health insurance too after a few semester (check out the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) that's the union at CUNY). So if you get 2 courses a semester for fall and spring you're going to make another $17.5K.

This is how it works too if you do work for state government. You have to pay up front and then you get reimbursed once you send in your train tickets and hotel receipts. 2 tips: 1. Don't reserve your travel or hotel until as close as possible until the event. Especially for conferences often the hotel rate is a special rate for the conference so you don't have to worry about price fluctuations as it gets closer to the conference. 2. If there is a limit to how much you can get for transportation (i.e. train or airfare) don't book the train or flight until the price gets really close to the reimbursement limit. Again, as you said, no reason to book unnecessarily early and give the school a free loan. 3. If 1 and 2 don't work, sign up for a new credit card, they always offer 0 interest for around 12 months which is always plenty of time to get reimbursed.

If you're from out of town and have no particular reason to be in Jersey then you probably want to look in Westchester or Putnam instead since you want to take PT. Metro-North stops steps from campus and will be much cheaper and faster than NJ Transit. Trains from the Harlem and New Haven lines stop at Fordham. Valhalla or Hawthorne might be good fits. You'll get the same suburban quiet feel where you'll get to keep your car.

Most definitely, I'd say close to half my department does. Anywhere along rt. 80 or something that gets you to it (like 17, 208, etc.) will work. Just avoid Paterson, Passaic, and the towns south of the GWB along the Hudson River like Pal Park and North Bergen (these aren't bad, but aren't good either).

h No doubt I wouldn't live in the Slope period, whether or not I was going to SB, but the drive isn't [i[that bad, particularly if it's timed right. You figure this person will be going east when everyone's going west, and vice versa. My in-laws live out in Suffolk and I spent another 10 years before I got married visiting my wife out there. The Belt can definitely suck but really from the Slope you would take the BQE to the Expressway or better yet take the streets; actually the Slope is right near one of my favorite shortcuts which is Atlantic Ave to Penn Ave to the Interboro. I don't see any reason why his/her drives will be any more than an hour and a half. Figure no Friday classes so no nightmares on spring Friday afternoons, no rush hour crawls. I get to Mattituck from Staten Island in 2 hours so SB isn't going to be 2 - 2.5 from Brooklyn. On the other hand you are right on the money on the overpriced hipster hell that that whole part of Brooklyn has become. Poster is better off moving out to the Island unless something else is keeping him/her in Brooklyn. Many people work at the Brookhaven Labs who are young and/or out-of-towners and rent places around there. I never got the impression from them that housing was hard to find or overpriced.

15-20 minutes is walking distance. You really ought to expand your horizons if you want to come here (or any city like Boston, Chicago, LA, etc.) $1000 on a share means a 2br for $2000 or 3br for $3000. You can check out padmapper but I think that's quite unlikely in the Village. In fact in today's Post there's an article with a graphic that states the average price of a 1br in the city is over $2600. On the other hand if you drop the 15-20 minute requirement there are plenty of places a train ride away where you can get a 2br for under $2000. Assuming you want to do public transit, anywhere in Jersey along the PATH (like Hoboken) or HBLR will work (just stay out of the parts of Jersey City away from the water and Newark), in Brooklyn along the L train (but don't go too far as it gets seedy), the N/R train (e.g. Sunset Park and Bay Ridge). You can go up to Inwood too, it's affordable and you would get to NYU in under an hour. Where you want to go will depend on your sensibilities. Personally I find anywhere along the L now to be Hipster Hell - Dante's unwritten tenth circle. If you're into that scene though you might like it.

Until I paid my Master's loans off (I did well on an investment) I just left them in deferment. As long as you are enrolled you do not have to make payments. Remember, though, that the interest does accumulate on the balance. Something you may want to look into is private loans. The company I did my Master's Stafford loans with (loans that had an interest rate of 6.8%) offers private graduate loans at 3.25% APR. So, you can take a loan from the company (I don't want to make this look like an ad but I'm sure you can find it by Googling or PM'ing me) and use the loan to pay off the higher rate loan. Not even considering compound interest, the difference on a balance of $20,000 is $710 a year. A potential rub may be if your Master's or undergrad Stafford loans are subsidized during deferment. You will then have to figure out whether paying 3.25% during and after your schooling is better than paying 0% in school and 6.8% when you get out.

Cheap is being used as a relative term here. The UES is hardly cheap, but compared to let's say the Village or hipster Brooklyn, it is. Also as pomo alluded to, many of the cheaper locations are really in Spanish Harlem but the ever truthful realtors advertise them as UES.

"South Slope", Jesus, I remember when my great-grandmother lived down there in what we all called "South Brooklyn" in a tenement on 4th avenue by the Prospect. She was one of the few Italians left down there, it was a hellhole. Those same places probably rent for 3 grand a month now! I concur that for around $1500 (assuming the married friends kick in an extra 100 or so) they should look elsewhere, but if OP is going to be at NYU she may as well go to Bayonne and take PATH in, they'll get more for their money and be just as close via PT. I hear of some of the ghettos newcomers are going to like Bushwick, because they can't afford the Slope or Willamsburg or just about anywhere in the city, and I shudder.

Childcare in the city is expensive. If you're from here and have family it's a lot easier. Even then, my wife is going to stay home when our child arrives in June. As much as it will be a struggle if she worked the money would go in one hand and out another. And we don't even live in the city. Bargain daycare up there goes for between 250 and 350 a week. There are waiting lists for the good programs too. It's not at all unheard of for people to drop 500-700 a week on "tuition". These are people though who are trying to get their kids into 30K a year pre-K. What I would do is call places on Monday in the places you are looking into the live, ask if they have openings and how much they charge. You'll get an idea of how much you'll be paying. You may do a little better if you don't need it 5 days a week or 10 hours a day because you're not going to be in class or teaching or otherwise working on that kind of schedule. Also what does your husband do? If he has a well-paying job then obviously this will all become much easier.

Chatham is nice but nowhere near Hoboken at all. Chatham is near Short Hills. Very nice, upscale area. Not too far from the city. North Bergen is not right near Hoboken but it's in the vicinity, it's one of the towns near the Hudson between 1/9 and the river. I drive through on my way home from campus at night. Personally I wouldn't move my wife and soon-to-arrive child there without taking a much closer look at the place.

Definitely no train; and really, any place convenient to a train is going to be more expensive or downright overpriced. However, Milford and Stroudsburg are both very walkable (i.e. to get groceries, go to the bank, etc.) and if your husband is willing to go without a car for 3-4 days a week then you would be ok. My friend from Bethlehem, his wife works in the City and gets a bus; it's not cheap though for the monthly ticket, and it's geared toward traditional working hours so you'll need to see if it will fit your class schedule.

If the money is really an issue, and you want a nice & safe place where your kids can run around, you should take a serious look at PA. In particular I'm thinking Milford. A guy I worked with came from there, and it's beautiful and cheap. Especially if you're only on campus 3 or 4 days a week it's very doable - under 2 hours each way even in traffic (probably more like 90 minutes). I know people in East Stroudsburg who commute to the city and also I work with someone now who lives in Bethlehem. The cost of living (particularly rent) is far lower and you may even be able to get a house with a yard instead of being holed up with the kids in an apartment with no room. Even with the price of gas you come out way ahead.

I could be wrong too; this was based on three schools only, but the experience was eerily similar. They offered a "student insurance plan" which was not comprehensive health insurance. What was even more nuts was one school offered this to me with a fellowship, but if I could have gotten a TA position I would have gotten less money but would have been eligible for the same benefits as state employees (i.e. really good). I'm glad to hear you got a good deal and hope OP's is as good.

As others have mentioned, it's certainly doable. Not easy, but doable. Part of what makes it doable is doing other work besides your assistantship. I teach two classes at a private high school - so I work less than two hours a day - and make about 20 grand. Another guy in my program adjuncts, and someone else works as a consultant. If you can find a part-time job in your current field that will help tremendously. Obviously the key is you can't do too many hours because it becomes impossible to manage your workload, so you have to make good money per hour. Also, I and a few other people in my program are married and have spouses who work. The biggest adjustment so far has been in regard to benefits. I used to get them for free, and now I pay out-of-pocket for mine and my wife's. She's underemployed, so her entire check from her $12/hr part-time job goes to our insurance company. Make sure when you go over your offers what kind of benefits you're being offered. Most schools seem to offer ersatz "wellness programs" that are not real insurance. Otherwise, "quality of life" is no big deal. I found I was just blowing a lot more money on crap I really don't need when I made more money, and going out drinking and eating which isn't good for your health either.

I live on Staten Island, and can tell you that you can definitely find a place in a safe neighborhood with good schools within your budget. I can also tell you that if you're using public transportation that you're looking at 90 minutes (give or take 15 minutes) each way to Columbia. Driving is faster - especially off-peak hours - but parking is tight there and if you want a free space you're going to have to leave early. There are a slew of metered spaces on 120 st right in front of TC but you have to get there at the right time to get them. As has been stated you may want to look into Bergen County in Jersey, Westchester (perhaps your best bet since TC is uptown) or on the Island. The good thing about the Island is that if you're taking PT you will go into Penn Station which is already on the West Side. The issue with the Island, Westchester, and Jersey is that the good towns are mostly single-family housing so the price of apartments is high.

Mon the Hoops!

If you're that worried about this, you may benefit from some counseling or therapy. It may not help you by March, but getting over that is something you're going to have to do eventually. I suggest putting your questions on index cards. No one is going to slag you for coming prepared with questions. Treat it like a job interview. Know how you want to answer their questions ahead of time, and know what you want to ask them. Also, you will see that you'll be glad you're visiting on your own. You'll get a more genuine view of the day-to-day experience in the department.