CarlieE

I'm in Atlanta now. Look up Decatur (north of Memorial Drive). It's where I live and its a nice place, good school districts, very family/dog/kid oriented and safe. Also, Virginia Highlands has decent places for roughly 600-800 for a 1 BR or about 900 for a 2 BR. Candler Park/Little 5/Poncey Highlands and Inman Park are super nice but also super expensive. You could also try Old Fourth Ward. There are some cheper apartments in Midtown, but they are generally iffy. If your wife is going to GSU she could also look into Oakhurst which near is along Dekalb Ave and this road will take her straight into the GSU area without much traffic to deal with.

We're taking our MA comps this month. We get 6 questions, two which are mandatory and the other 4 are selected from a pool of options. We get 5 hours per day, so 10 hours over 2 days. The exam begins at 9am and ends at 2pm, then repeat the 2nd day. 3 questions per day (1 mandatory and 2 we choose from the pool). Max words per essay answer is 1,500. Our reading list has 193 items on it. This breaks down to roughly 1 1/2 hours per exam question.

I agree with everyone above who said go for school 2. If it helps here's an article from the chronicle of higher Ed that looks at jobs for graduates from two and three level tier universities compared to t1 phd grads.... Turns out (in some fields) that tier 1 ranks don't matter quite as much as we think in the job market... Take the article however you wish, but I think it's worth reading. http://chronicle.com/article/What-Are-Low-Ranked-Graduate/136823/ Also, top 25 in your field or top 25 overall? Ranks are funny things... All depends what parameters are being set. My school is #6 for my field but #20 overall for the grad programs.

It might actually be a pretty fluid transition for you, or less of an adjustment as you might expect as universities are increasingly corporatizing their methods and policies. As far as academic being less mentally draining than a corporate sector career... well... it might not be so easy to say one is better than the other. Academics don't work regular work hours; they work all the time including weekends and holidays. Especially if you're on a tenure track. (There was an article in the chronicle of higher ed I think that said that the avg work week for academics runs about 70 hours for pre-tenured asst or assoc professors) You'll need to teach, do committee work, advise students AND publish a book (generally). That last task is usually done when you're not on campus, so that's where most academics' free time goes to; something you have to do on your "own" time. Also, even after you get tenured you're still assessed every X number of years (5 or 6 seems to be what I gather) and your publications, conference presentations, talks, administrative contributions and mentorship (AND your teaching) is taken into account. Also keep in mind that many academics also leave the faculty and start careers in the administration of universities, though perhaps later on in their careers. All that said, for me, I'd go into academia. I like research and I like teaching. I wouldn't consider it an easier job than in the corporate world (which i've also been in, in the insurance industry). It's equally as demanding, with workload, deadlines and politics; but it's different, both in the experience and rewards.

It's definitely worth doing, but as mentioned above, you should check with your department as well since some courses (at my school) are for "grade" only and not auditable while others are and there may be limits to how many you can audit and details like that.

my 2 cents... I went with a macbook air 13" and it works out great for me. I even edit basic films in iMovie (experimenting with ethnographic film). It's not the best, but if its portability and light weight really help, especially since I have to travel over the summer and winter breaks. When I really need something with a big, high resolution display I go to school and use their iMacs. Storage seems to be an issue for some people which is fair, but I use drop box and an external 1TB hard drive so I don't feel that I run out of room. It also forces me to purge and clean up on a regular basis. it all comes back to what you're using it for, and what works in your lifestyle and study choices (ie. coffee shops, libraries or at home).

I think it really depends on a lot of factors. We really can't be comparing stipends across fields, locations and needs. I mean, city vs country living make quite a difference, not only in how much stuff costs but the kinds of activities people prefer or can do in those respective locations. Also, it seems as though the discussion here is mainly around cost of living for single persons... It's quite different for grads with spouses and/or children ie. with rising costs of daycare and additional health insurance etc. And as someone mentioned above, it also matters if you have a 9 or 12 month stipend; and for how long is it guaranteed? Or must you reapply every year? Was your stipend negotiable at the start or was it a flat, non negotiable offer? In my case I get just under $22k which is great for my field, and its fixed for 4.5 years (but doesn't include field work) at 12 months. Everyone in our dept gets the same so there's no negotiating. I live with my partner so my rent and utilities are half what they might be on my own. That said, we still are on a tight budget and what extra money we have generally goes towards a nice night out for dinner and occasional movie. Date might for us typically means a cheap dinner out and a DVD rental! Of course, we do save up for nicer things for bigger occasions but its meager.

I've been feeling the same... oddly enough, when I've talked to other grads it seems we've all been feeling similarly but no one's been saying so... I googled "how to cope with grad school" yesterday and came across this article: http://www.gradresources.org/articles/emotional_fatigue.shtml which I found helpful.. at least now I know it's not just me.. For me, I feel isolated even when I'm surrounded by people and even while I'm interacting with them sometimes...it's more than "just" isolation and I'm trying to figure out a way to reason with it so I don't get wrapped up in my head.. I know my post isn't helpful in that I'm not offering a solution, but perhaps it might help to know that the reason you might be feeling isolated is endemic and inherent in grad life in general.. : / a kind of paradoxical "collective isolation" *ironic lol*

For iPad users who want to annotate PDFs, add text or highlight in different colors: Notability is a good one, as is iAnnotate Both sync to Dropbox and you can email out as PDFs. If I have a physical paper reading I have to do (i.e. chapter in a book on reserve at the library) I usually take 10 minutes to scan it in as a PDF and then annotate it on my iPad. This ensures that I'll have a copy of all the readings along with all my other notes on my hard drive for the future. I also use Genius Scan to take photos of papers and turn them into PDFs that way. The quality isn't so great so I generally just use this for handouts or pictures, or stuff that's just a couple of pages of not-so-fine print.

I think occasionally about the schools I didn't get into... Not with regret but I wonder what life might like if I had gotten accepted and gone there instead... Just random thoughts... I also wonder about what my experience might've been like if I had stayed with history instead of anthro... I understand what you mean though when you wonder and feel bad. I applied to 5 schools and luckily got into my first choice but I got rejected from all the others. When I feel down on myself I get into a rut thinking that maybe I really wasn't good enough and that luck really carried me all the way through... It's the imposter syndrome talking and trying to suck me into a depressed vortex... I think it might be worthwhile to examine why you're not happy with your program and if a switch might be worth it.

Grad seminars are famous sites for posturing. Honestly, in some of my classes I wouldn't be surprised to see a student get up and thump him/herself on the chest and whoop like a primate in some bid for discussion dominance. Sometimes I find myself checking out of the discussion when things get to be too much. I give myself a few minutes to blow off steam by texting/fb chatting to a friend, usually one back home who doesn't know the Chest-Thumper Then after I give myself a few minutes to calm down, I try to re-enter the discussion, but on another topic or bring one up.

I agree with platysaurus. I'm doing a PhD and hoping to get into academia when I'm done, but I'm not going to sweat thinking about it until I get further along. I'm in my 30s and I've had my share of jobs I've hated; I'm in anthropology just because I like it. So for me, when I'm done, if there are no jobs in academia I'm going to try seeing what's going on overseas in Europe, Australia, Asia in the academy there; and if there's nothing there then NGOs or the corporate sector. And if THAT fails then.. .hmmm... *gasp* the state dept. There'll always be something and really, I think once we've slogged through the poverty of grad school, we'll be just fine.

So I've had a color nook, a kindle ( still do; the b/w kindle keyboard) and an iPad. FWIW, the iPad is the one I use the most and which I find to be the most productive and conducive to reading and annotating. I convert almost all my readings into PDFs and load them into dropbox, then use iAnnotate on my iPad to annotate them - it saves as a PDF so I can read the annotated ones almost anywhere. My problem with nook was that it was too small, they have fewer apps and it was awkward to annotate with. Granted, I had the original nook color a few years back. My problem with kindle keyboard 3G is that the annotated highlighting for PDFs SUCKS. I mean it really sucks. It highlights the wrong lines and its hellish to get it to re-highlight the right ones. I give up most of the time because by then my concentration in reading has been broken and distracted by the highlighting mess up. Also, if you get PDFs which are scanned books then you can have a really problem with rotation and moving around the screen. Kindle's great for reading kindle books and PDFs that come off jstor but not scanned stuff. The reason I use my iPad: I highlight with a stylus so it feels like a pen, it can highlight in various colors (my kindle was in b/w) and I can write notes in the margins or type in comments. I can move freely around the page with zooming in with pinches in seconds, rather than using arrow keys that move too much to the left or too much to the right. There are also apps for blackboard and dropbox and a host of other things which makes my utility of it much more than just reading. There are days when I just take my iPad to school and that's all I need. The downside of an iPad (for me): the back light takes getting used to. I got gamer/computer glasses for my birthday which tint yellow and make it easier on my eyes (Gunnar glasses) and they really do help. You have to make sure you're charged or bring a charger if you plan to use it all day, though my battery lasts a good 6-7 hours even in full use. (Yes, I read from about 9am - 4pm with a half hour break or so for lunch 2 or 3 days a week.) The cost of course, but I bought my iPad 2 refurbished so it wasn't too bad and it hasn't failed me yet. I also asked for a griffin rubber case with stand for Christmas (which I got) so that lets me just throw it into a bag and go. Some people say that the internet connection is distracting - and yes, it can be (I play words with friends on it too) - but that's just a matter of discipline. Just my two cents having been (and still am) a nook, kindle and iPad owner...

It's really not so bad and believe me, not EVERYTHING gets done. For instance, this week the department had 4 events (1 special speaker, lunch said speaker, a talk, a job talk for a new professor and lunch with that candidate). I attended one of those events. The others conflicted with my film screening and class time. DNAgyrase - I'm glad you got to talk to your PI; that helps. I just told mine that I changed my mind on a research design field school in the summer and I haven't gotten an email response back yet... Hmm.. but he DID tell me that (based on its curriculum) it might not be something that is relevant to me. I decided it wasn't relevant enough. The fact that a friend of mine wants to meet up in Cambodia and traipse Angkor with me over that same time has NOTHING to do with it whatsoever.

My program has a minimum of 12 credits per semester, but each course is 4 credits generally... some labs are 1 credit, some seminars vary from 1-4 and some out-of-dept courses are 2 credits. We're free to mix-n-match so long as we hit 12 credits per semester. I believe that TAing counts for a couple of credits too so that goes towards the 12.

Some people I've met don't really understand what a PhD entails; it's not a part of their world, so they think I'm telling them I'm starting a new job or just switching to a different university and basically doing the same thing I did in UG. Some people also think that doing a Phd is a cop out, a way to avoid "having to get a job". Most people who have a blase response to my telling them simply don't have a point of reference for "how to react". They don't know how hard it is to get into a good program, or they think it's just a matter of applying just like for a BA degree. Think about it this way: you probably don't react the way some people hope you will to other things ie. if someone tells you "I'm getting divorced" you might say "Oh, that's too bad" but they were looking for a little more empathy than that. Or a friend is absolutely ecstatic that they won an award for Most Hotdogs Eaten in 30 Seconds and you might say "uh... yeah, that's awesome", and not really exhibit the same enthusiasm they have or were looking for from you. Its just different experiences and priorities that inform their reactions (and yours) to certain situations. I take it you got in somewhere though.. so CONGRATS!!! In this forum we know how hard it is!!!

Awwww Dal that's sweet.. It's ok - it's just life and I mean, social stuff varies from week to week, month to month.. My cohort just went out for drinks for someone's birthday and I did an afternoon of pedicures and light dinner with a cohort mate recently.. Being social and having a social life really takes a lot of factors to come together Just Right and sometimes it just takes awhile to get stuff to gel. That being said I just had a facebook falling out with a good friend from "back home" so, meh... stuff just doesn't gel sometimes too. If I didn't have friends I wouldn't have to deal with the drama but then... it's also cool having friends.

Yep.. right now I'm at about 1000 pages a week, but in 2 weeks once spring break hits I'll be at 1500. I think it depends on your discipline/program, but this seems to be the average in my program.

I'm taking four courses now BUT one of them is a directed reading with my advisor and we meet every other week. I think it depends on your field and what kind of workload you have. I have a very heavy reading list. This semester is comes to about 1000-1500 pages. Echoing rising_star, I think organization is going to be KEY to getting my papers and projects in by the end of the semester. For sure in one class I can't take an incomplete.... I think it depends on your field and individual people; one girl in a senior cohort overloaded every semester while others could only cope with the compulsory 3 (12 credits). Keep in mind that there may other "drains" on your time such as department events, talks, roundtables, seminars, workshops etc that you will be required to participate in or that your advisor will "strongly recommend".

Just my 2 cents... It seems in my cohort that each of us have bouts of the same feeling you're getting even though in each case the situation is slightly different. I mean, some of us came with SOs or families, but still feel very isolated. I moved with my SO but I feel like I haven't been able to make a lot of friends beyond him and so sometimes it feels like we're suffocating each other. Bearing in mind too that he moved with me and is now separated from HIS former social circle. It's hard even as a couple to break into social circles. One of my cohort mates arrived single, decided to use a free online meet up kind of website (ie. a dating website) and is now dating happily. (Note: not every date was a winner and it did take a lot of effort and time to weed out the uh... not so good ones) It takes a lot of effort on my cohortmate's part to make this new relationship work; grad school doesn't allow for a lot of "free" time. Sometimes you just have to make the cut and devote time towards relationship building. I know there's a lot of taboo around online dating, but hey, it at least gives you something fun and new to do on Friday nights! I know how hard it can be when cohort mates repeatedly turn you down; in many cases it's not that they want to but feel that they just don't have time. In one instance I invited a cohort mate and their SO over for dinner and they stood us up; I was super hurt but found out that they really did just get the dates mixed up. The first year with a move - with or without SOs - is really rough and it takes awhile for people to get their bearings socially, even to respond to invites. I tried meetup.com but the group I was meeting with kinda fell apart But now I'm finding that I am seeing familiar faces around campus and figuring out organizations and groups that are there but kind of "hidden" amongst all the official groups and email overloads. I'm facebook friends with some new people I've met and hopefully things will bloom into deeper, more social or meaningful friendships. Sometimes it feels incredibly lonely and isolated, as if school work is all there is... Take heart, you're not alone and if what older cohorts tell me is true, the feeling will pass with time. It takes a couple of years (from what I have experienced and what I've been told) to really rebuild a social network.

you guys have such healthy snacks. My weakness is Pringles... but I don't snack while I'm studying or reading as I find it too distracting... rather, I gorge myself on potato chips at the end of the day as a reward for having finished X or Y or whatever.

Sounds like you are feeling a bit overwhelmed. Here's a "hug" While I'm not in your field, I think this is a common feeling for everyone. Here's how I cope and how my day typically runs. 5:30am - alarm goes off. If I feel I have time I go to the gym, work out for about a half hour, take another half hour to shower and get dressed. Head to the library and eat breakfast there (I pack my food for the day in the morning or the night before). By 8AM I am ready to start work which for me is reading, reading, reading interspersed with a bit of writing. My typical workload for the week includes about 1000-1500 pages of reading, one or two presentations (ie. running class discussion), working on my research project (field work plans for the summer, IRB submission, making travel plans etc) and applying for various grants/field schools/fellowships. I also have other obligations such as showing up to dept events, talks, roundatables etc and 2 film screenings a week. And of course, attending classes. I'm taking 4 seminars this semester so it does take up a bit of my day. It sounds like a lot, but it's actually not too bad. The key thing for me is to utilize my work time which means to make a list and set a time limit. I will only spend an hour (or whatever time I designate) on this reading or task. It takes practice but after awhile you can get your skimming and absorption rate to adjust. And I find that I'm much better able to stay on track. It's also a matter of prioritizing; some readings are not as important as others; I don't disregard them but I spend less time on them. No one expects us to be memorize and fully absorb ie. know the material inside and out in a single reading. The point is to know of them and to be able to draw on them again in the future and, in my field, to discuss them. My day ends around 5pm. When I get home I just relax and if I do any work it is peripheral stuff that doesn't require too much mental effort. IE making sure my drop box has all the readings I need, getting documents into the proper file to be printed tomorrow morning, responding to emails etc. If I do any reading it's the lighter sort of reading ie. short articles or books for class that I enjoy. You need to have time off even when it feels like you can't afford any. Professors know and understand that. Is the pressure coming from an external source ie. your professors or from within, from your own expectations of yourself? If the former, then you might want to see your DGS about the workload. If the latter, then try to take a breath to relax - you're not Atlas and not expected to be BRILLIANT at everything (if you were, you wouldn't need to be in grad school; they'd have given you a honorary PhD and you'll be running your own lab already).

My comment was that I wasn't interested in the grad organizations they have. Whether or not UGs join them or vice versa, I have no clue. The organizations that exist are religious or professional network oriented; not stuff I'm interested in. The social aspect is important, but school isn't the only avenue for building a social life. In fact, what is more encouraged is building a social life OUTSIDE of school so that you have a break from location of campus and everything that comes with it. Most programs seem to encourage building friendships with other members of you cohort or other grads, if only because of the difference in workload, age and activities between the grads and UGs. I'm in my 30s, I'm generally not interested in hanging out with people who just turned 21 or 22; I've passed that stage of my life and the things and activities I'm interested in aren't the same. That's not to say that I don't have friends who of that age, nor to say that clubs necessarily should segregate based on grad/UG status. Most grads I know build social lives beyond the university on purpose - they don't want school to be the foundation or common thread that a friendship is premised on. As far as what is "appropriate" that's entirely based on your personality not your grad or UG status. About increased grad tuition or fees, I have to say I have no idea really how much my tuition is since the school pays it. In most grad programs (though not MA ones necessarily) the cost of fees and tuition I think are more, but generally since your package "should" include tuition it becomes kind of a moot issue IMO. One of the reasons why grad fees might be more is because grads tend to use the academic facilities more ie. access to databases, we can request the library to buy certain books/materials we want etc. Some of these privileges aren't available to UGs.

Actually we had a mandatory orientation, but it was not really a "social" thing. There are grad organizations and clubs to join but none of them interest me... As far as events, we have to attend department events - even the social ones. They are generally only for grads, the UGs have their own events apparently but they rarely come to the dept events.

I think it all depends on the school as well. Harvard (anthro) has a habit of in-hiring amongst their PhD graduates I've heard - and some other schools do this too; they are creating their "school of thought" and so there's a specific slant they want their department to have. Other schools have a hiring bias that goes the other way where they try NOT to hire from amongst their graduate students unless they have a very specific program; or if they do hire within they want that person to have other experience elsewhere ie. post docs in other places, or employment at other universities in between. The advice I was given was to do my grad at a different institution so that hiring committees can see that I have been schooled in many (perhaps conflicting) perspectives which would make me a more "well rounded" candidate (no idea what that ACTUALLY means). I think the idea is that if you are TOO married to a way of thinking, ie. pomo or materialist or whatever, you might not change with the department as it needs to over time. AND if this is tenure track position, you might be there for 10-15-20-25 years and will HAVE to be fluid enough to change with the department as it needs to. Departments do have their flavors and preferences theoretically and they don't want to hire a one-trick pony so to speak.