antecedent

Oooh good luck with the NSERC! I'm inching closer and closer towards accepting Edinburgh. I'm waiting on one more program, but it's not nearly as prestigious as Edinburgh, so unless some funding comes through it's not very likely I'll go.

I didn't get to eat as much of the food as I would have liked It was sure tasty though... Well, Robbie pointed out that I wouldn't really be able to get much done if I arrived early, so getting there early to secure housing would really just be expensive and a pain in the ass, was number 1. Number 2 was Myriam (the very enthusiastic girl who had just returned), who was saying how really convenient the housing was, and that when you factor in rent and council tax and whatnot, accommodations rent ends up being pretty reasonable (compared to rent elsewhere in the city). I figure I'll just apply and see if I get a place I like. Do you know what you're going to do in terms of housing?

Ah very cool. Did you manage to attend the meeting? Did you find it helpful? I found that most of the presentation was information I already knew, though talking to the alumni afterwards was enlightening. They managed to change my mind on university accommodation, which is pretty impressive

I would prefer to find a place in advance, but I've never rented from abroad before so I don't know if it's safe to just like...send someone the first month's rent, which is what they seem to normally want. I'm just afraid of getting scammed It would be really nice to just show up to Edinburgh with a place already rented though... Yeah citylets seems to have a lot on it, which I've been using to gauge prices for rent and figure out what kinds of places are out there. Did you go straight to private housing or did you spent a years in school housing first?

Great, cause I'm trying to bring as little as possible with me. Even books! I'm planning on showing up on or around the 15th of August and looking online as well as in local classifieds/EUSA/pavement pounding until I find a place, with the hopes that I can secure housing AND visit some family in England before school starts on the 10th. Should be doable, right? Do you guys know of any local forums where student apartments looking for another student can advertise? The craigslist for Edinburgh looks pretty sparse, and it looks like gumtree and citylets are mainly for landlords. Maybe that's just how it's done in Scotland, but in Canada it's more common for tenants to advertise for a flatmate than for the landlord to do it.

Perhaps we might! I have all sorts of logistical questions about moving to the UK, but I don't think a recruitment event is the place to be asking them Out of curiosity, what made you decide to apply to Edinburgh? I don't know much about the school outside my program really.

Someone over in the lit/rhet/comp forum pointed out that there is a bit of a let down phase after you accept (or decide which offer to accept) because one school, no matter how amazing it is, can never be as exciting as all of the possible schools at once. Hopefully it will pass and you will enter into a contented and mutually beneficial relationship soon

So I'm wondering if the importance of field ranking (QS-THE or USNW) for a Masters? Is it more/less? And how does something like rank or prestige compare with opportunities for teaching/field research? I'm not sure if it's very too early to worry about professionalization, but would it be a bad idea to give up those resources for a spot at a top-ranked school? And I'm bad at being cagey, even when my signature doesn't give it away. Oh well.

Yay congratulations Divigen! When is your info session? Mine is tomorrow - I'm pretty excited, even though I know it's just going to be two hours of "Why Edinburgh is Awesome and You Should Come Give Us Your Money." Do you know if you're going yet?

Congratulations, Impending! That's wonderful news

I don't have anything important to add, I'm just curious what your specialization is? I did my undergrad at UBC.

My French teacher in high school was German, but I did my French minor at UBC, where all the profs (save 2 or 3) are European, and all the students have Canadian French accents (though not necessarily Quebecois accents). Needless to say, my accent is very confused.

_speakwrite just made the following argument for the University of Edinburgh: "IV: Scotland. Scotland!" Pretty persuasive, if you ask me...

I'm still giggling about this. I dealt with both during my undergrad ;p

Ladyling, I could kiss you! I'd heard that long ago, but since then no one has been able to offer me any information on the reputation of the program. This is what happens when you're isolated from academia AND switching departments Also, yay for USCS! I grew up in Santa Cruz, which is why I applied to SFSU (and so last minute!). In-state tuition is looking really nice right about now... How are you liking the program there? Do you mind if I ask your focus? Feel free to PM/ignore me if that's too personal.

Any opinions on the one year MA in linguistics? I have an offer for a one year program, and I'm waiting on a two year program. Are linguistics departments generally cool with one year (and British) masters degrees?

Waiting for UIUC, out of curiosity now...

I am legitimately concerned about how logistically challenging it is going to be to ship my yogurt maker and food processor to Scotland, if I end up in Edinburgh. I know it sounds dumb, but I literally do not know how to feed myself without these two items. Also the price of plane tickets is a deciding factor, particularly in the face of an LDR. Finally, the likelihood that I will run into people I went to high school/grew up with and wish never to see again. You want silly? You got silly! Except plane tickets, which are unfortunately serious business.

I've heard a lot about lenovo laptops on these forums (relatively speaking, I mean, since I've visited a few threads on a similar topic). What makes them so popular? Is it that they are durable, or fast, or just plain reliable? No one I know has one, yet lots of folks here seem to!

...you just blew my mind. WE'RE LIVING IN THE FUTURE. A pen that records your notes as you write them and sends them to your preferred note taking platform? That is too cool. I know what I'm asking for for my next gift-giving holiday!

Oh man Dorinda that made me chuckle, if only cause I've caught myself misspelling that word dozens of times. What a relief to know academic rock stars also make very silly typos!

Like many of us here, after 4+ years of post-secondary education, I'm a decent editor. I've worked at my school's writing centre, I proof read and edit privately, etc. But sweet Jesus on a bicycle, why am I incapable of finding errors in my own writing? I revisited my SOP recently and it wasn't a tragic experience, but today I emailed the head of the department for a program I haven't yet heard from, and when I reread my response I found a random "and" in the middle of a sentence! Just sitting there, minding its own business, not contributing to the grammaticality or sense of my sentence whatsoever. I know people make typos all the time and we're only human but seriously? I wrote over 50 emails today (oh, work) and I had to make a typo in that one? Can we just commiserate for a second about silly typos? I'm so embarrassed even though she probably didn't either notice or care. BUT WHAT IF SHE DID? *kermit flail* Then we can talk about how this process has me freaking out over a typo, and how that's probably unnecessary and unhealthy. Sigh.

My undergrad institution had a room in the student services building that was only for prayer. There were sinks in the entrances for if your religious practice required bathing before and/or after and it was divided in half so men an women weren't together. I'm an atheist so I didn't use it much, but I did go there to meditate sometimes. Check with your institution to see if there is a room somewhere that can be used for that - if it doesn't exist already you might be doing others a favor by helping establish one!

I haven't heard anything and I'm considering it an implicit rejection. I'm not torn up about it, but it still would have been nice to get in...