TakeruK

At most US colleges, the term freshman is reserved only for first year undergraduate students. I have not yet heard this term used to mean first year graduate students, ever. I agree with everyone that said you should contact the housing office first to figure out whether this is intentional or a mistake. Contact the school's housing office directly and confirm that they did intend to put you in this particular residence hall even though you are a graduate student. I think this is probably a mistake and it's more likely that they made the mistake of putting you with the other 3 freshman than they made a mistake of putting 3 people in your unit. It could also be a mistake due to the way they processed your form---maybe whoever processed your housing request accidentally filed you with first year undergrads instead of grads. Or, it might actually be intentional and unfortunately they ran out of graduate housing spots and rather leave you without any housing at all, they placed you in an undergraduate residence. Or, it might just be temporary. In any case, you should first work with the housing office directly to ensure there was no mistake. I do not think you should figure out who your roommates are or whether or not they are really freshman. It's not really your potential roommates' problem if there was a mistake and they can't really help you in any way. They are also brand new to the school and might not know what's going on either. I would only contact your potential roommates once the housing office confirms that your assignment is correct and once you are certain they will be your roommates.

With a GPA of 3.5, there are no schools out of your reach. Sure, you will be competing against some people with GPAs of 3.7+ but 1) there are not many of those applicants and these applicants cannot take all the available spots and 2) GPA is not the only thing that matters. I think you are competitive enough for the top ranked school if the research fit is good. By competitive enough, I mean that it's worth your time and money to submit an application. With the top schools, it's never a sure thing even with a higher GPA, so in my opinion, a 3.5 is the point where your chances are good enough that there are no schools out of your reach.

Yeah, I know how you feel. Although after a few years of grad school, now I think booking something more than 4 weeks in advance is "far in advance". Don't worry you will definitely be able to see your family, it's just a better idea to wait until you know your commitments! So you'll still be able to make plans a few months in advance! Also, most of what I'm saying applies more to those who are working as RAs as well. If your funding is just from TAship, then you might not be required to be on campus other than your TA duties so there may not be as many restrictions on your vacation time. And like fuzzy said, some supervisors are okay with you being out of town and working instead. When I was writing about breaks above, I was thinking true vacation time where you don't do any work. But to clarify, there are plenty of students that even spend several months away from campus and work remotely (especially those in long distance relationships).

This depends on the policies of your state/province, your school, your department and your supervisor. At my school, the official policy is that graduate students get all University holidays (11 or 12 days per year) plus 2 weeks of vacation time off. We are expected to work the rest of the time. For Christmas in particular, the University holidays are all the weekdays between Dec 25 and Jan 1. In essence, we should be working whenever the administrative staff is working. In addition, our 2 weeks of vacation must be scheduled and approved by our supervisor ahead of time. This is the same as any real job though. So, I can't just take 2 weeks off whenever---I always talk about vacation time with my supervisor ahead of time and figure out a good time to do it (i.e. during an experiment would be a terrible time to do it). So, the short answer is likely no, we do not have the same breaks as undergrads. Just because classes are not in session does not mean that we have the time off. We should have some number of vacation time but that depends on your school and your department. I think you are starting grad school this fall right? If so, I would not make any plans for December/January yet. You will likely be able to get a week off, but you don't know when that will be. Wait until school starts and see what your responsibilities are and whether or not you need to get vacation time approved. Once you do this, then you can make vacation plans. For example, at many schools, exams might go until Dec 23 and if you are a TA, then you may have to keep working and grade exams etc. So that's the policy side of things. In reality, at my program, people don't really keep track of our vacation time. I think I can pretty much get whatever reasonable request I want off, but in general, I try to keep it within the official vacation time limits. I usually work on random holidays though (e.g. Columbus Day, Memorial Day, etc.) that aren't meaningful to me and take a different day off instead. I just give my advisor(s) a heads up before I plan a personal trip (or if I'm staying an extra few days/week at a cool conference place). For visits home, my family and my spouse's family does not do Christmas so we always try to avoid traveling during the Christmas season. I find that it's best to go home during American Thanksgiving week. They get Thursday and Friday off and so it only costs 3 vacation days to go home for a week (my spouse has a "real job" where vacation days are carefully tallied). And, travel outside of the US is generally pretty cheap during American Thanksgiving because most people are flying to various places in the US to visit their family.

Ah, okay, having direct info is good! Most of the times, the salaries for postdocs in my field have a large range, like $45,000 to $70,000 and that makes a huge difference. The advice/lesson I mentioned before came from a friend who was on the job market. There was a position in the SF area (but not in SF itself) and while the "typical" pay for this position was just under $50,000 based on national average for this employer, the salary for this particular position got some kind of cost of living adjustment so it was more like $65,000. Rent in this area is something like $1800/month for a 1 bedroom apartment, so it's only affordable with the increased salary. And now this is just personal choices but I wouldn't mind a commute up to ~45 minutes to live close to a big city like SF. For me, the appeals of a large city outweigh the hassle of the commute. Also, even if I could afford a 1 bedroom place in the city, I think I would choose a bigger living space and the commute!

Maybe our fields are too different, but I was surprised by the pay rate for some of the jobs in my field. Except for prize fellowships, most positions do not publish their salaries (you can often negotiate) and instead say something like "pay will depend on ability and experience". So, the advice I've got for going on the job market this fall is that unless the published pay rate is definitely too low to live on, don't sell yourself short. Definitely do not accept a job offer for a place you can't afford to live, but don't prevent yourself from applying if the job is otherwise a good match. Maybe you will end up with a salary where you are able to afford it!

You can figure out which schools/departments to apply to before the end of the summer. I understand your anxiety about not knowing which field to specialize in. You are right that it's not a good idea to choose fields just because you are familiar with the research---it's sometimes a good idea to try a new direction! It's okay to not have everything figured out at this point. When picking schools, find the programs that will fit what you need in order to succeed. For example, many programs in your field will be for the "generalist" and not accept you specifically into a lab. Instead, you will enter the program and then rotate through several labs to decide what you'd like the most. This is how it is for students in your field at my school (I'm not in that field but I know people who are---also my own program in a different field works in a similar way). To me, since you want some flexibility, I would recommend looking for strong programs that both 1) will give you the ability to try out several labs and 2) have interesting/strong research programs. I would avoid programs that are smaller and want you to specialize into a group right away, unless you know you will be happy in that group! When applying to these "broad" and "general" programs, you would follow a different application strategy. You would not write about how you are great in field X and how you will want to work on leading problems in field X. Instead, speak to your strengths and interests as a generalist (for now). Perhaps you can focus on things like specific research skills that are transferable from one subfield to another. By picking programs correctly, you will find programs that will value the traits and attributes that you yourself value and have developed. You can infer that if a program wants students to diversify their research interests and work in different labs on different subfields that they would likely value a broad education and an open-ness in research interests. I also sense that you feel anxiety about picking a subfield because you have not experienced enough to know what is the right one for you. What if you rule out a subfield that you would love just because you were not familiar with it?? My answer is that I don't think that each person has only one sub-field in which they will be successful / happy in. So don't worry if you miss out on a potential subfield---in the end, when you complete a PhD, you can only be a specialist in one sub-field, so you will have to rule out many other subfields that are good for you anyways. Instead of trying to figure out what is the best and most optimal path, just find a path that is good for you. One way you can do this is take the above approach and find schools that will let you explore. Another way is to do what Sigaba suggests---if you have the ability to do so, take an extra year and spend more time figuring out what you would like (It's better to spend an extra year now than to spend many more years in grad school realising you are unhappy). Or, spend even more effort this summer talking to people in various subfields and getting a sense of what it is like. I think one summer is enough time to talk to professors, postdocs and grad students in various subfields and find out what works for you. Remember to ask about things like job prospects and other factors important to you!

I think there are two types of "breaks". For one type, you don't care whether or not your brain is "working", you just want it to be thinking about something else other than research. To get this kind of break, I get involved in other things on campus. For example, I'm co-captaining our department softball team. I am part of our student government (most of the work happens over the summer to prepare for the next year). I join committees to plan things like orientation. I enjoy using my problem solving skills so I look for other activities to work on to get a break from thinking about my research. The other type of break is one where you distract yourself from thinking all together. Physical activities are good. I agree with you that hikes aren't always very good for this because it's too easy to think about other things (unless you are on a strenuous hike!) The biking very fast idea is a good one. Some people like running too. Other ideas are things like reading things you enjoy (for me, escapist fiction is good), or watching dumb TV shows, going to the movies, Netflix binge etc. Another good category of things to do is something that occupies your mind but does not require a lot of critical thinking. For example, knitting or crocheting works for some since it's a repetitive motion that you have to focus on. And you get something useful out of it at the end!

I'm not the OP so maybe my experience was just one case and maybe @jujubea can give a more general answer. When I crossed on my DS-2019, the border agent did not look at any evidence of funding. My DS-2019 shows two sources of funding: my school and a NSERC fellowship. The border agent did not ask to see verification of the NSERC funding. I don't remember for sure whether or not they even looked at my letter of acceptance from my school. This letter does say there is funding but the numbers do not match the DS-2019 values because it lists the total funding, not the breakdown between NSERC and my school. Also, the DS-2019 "cost of attendance" value includes tuition and my letter just says "tuition waiver", not a dollar amount. No, Canadians are exempt from the visa interview so you just take your documents with you. If you are flying from a Canadian airport with US preclearance, then you actually "cross the border" in the Canadian airport. If you are doing this and you are extra worried, then you can come to the airport really early so that if you end up needing documentation you don't have, you can go home and get it and return early enough to catch your flight. You do not need to show any proof of ties to Canada. Again, @jujubea could answer this better, but I think there is an understanding that most students like us would not own property. In the chance that they ask you what you plan to do after your degree, the correct (and honest) answer would be to return to Canada because it's unlikely that you already have a job offer that will allow you to stay in the US. I think at this point, they mostly just want to know that you are not using the student visa to try to attain some sort of US status because the purpose of the US visa is to be in the US for study.

This may depend on the norms of your field so perhaps talk to your advisor. In my field, I'd say that since you did this work completely while at your MA school (correct me if I'm wrong) so therefore you should just use your MA school affiliation. If you also continued this work while in your PhD program using resources at your PhD school, then students in my field would usually list both affiliations. However, it's not uncommon for students in my field to still only list their former affiliation if they did not use any resources of their PhD school to complete their paper (and especially if they worked on it only on their own time, i.e. not during the working time funded by their PhD school). I don't think the email from your PhD school makes a difference in the affiliation listed on your paper.

I echo some of the thoughts of others above. It is important for you to find out what is the root cause of your anxiety. Are you worried that you are not going to be able to do a good job at applying to grad school? And that you want to be in grad school but are afraid that things are moving too fast and now you're in over your head? Your description of your profile tells me that you are well qualified for graduate school. I will say it again, because it's very common for people, even accomplished ones, to feel "imposter syndrome" and think they do not belong. So, here it is again: If you want to go to grad school, then you should apply. You don't have to worry about whether or not you're "ready" for it (it's so hard to judge it for yourself anyways). If you want this, you can do it. I know it sounds like a cliche "you can achieve all of your dreams" but I feel the need to say it because it's so common for qualified people to feel unqualified. On the other hand, if you are seriously doubting how much you will enjoy graduate school and research and academia, then I agree with the others that taking time to figure out what you want could be a good idea. Entering a graduate program simply because you don't know what else to do is usually not a good idea (however, many people are still successful in grad school in this way). I think that's the first most important thing. Why are you anxious? If it's uncertainty in your ability, then don't let this get in the way of your potential. You can get into grad school. You are ready. If it's uncertainty in what makes you happy, then I think this is a good reason to pause. But the good news is that applications don't start until the fall. Spend the summer really thinking about what you want and you can have this figured out before you start senior year. ----- Okay, if you think you want to pursue graduate school, now it's time for some "tough love": As for taking time to apply for schools, no you do not need extra time. Maybe you are being a perfectionist about your applications and your senior year and this is holding you back. In graduate school, you cannot be a perfectionist, so you might as well learn now. Most people applying to grad school are not taking time off from other responsibilities to do it. Instead, it's a matter of time management and prioritizing. How much time are you spending on your courses etc? It would be worth it to reduce your time spent on coursework by a few hours each week so that you can spend that time on applications instead. Also, it sounds like you are going to be pretty busy with 2 jobs (that must be hard) so take advantage of the summer now to get things like the GREs out of the way. Again, you don't need the best score possible, just a decent one. You can't think of the applications process as a "distraction" or that it's something that will get in the way of your senior year. Instead, just think of the applications process as another course you have to take---it's a part of your college experience. If you have enough credits, one time management strategy is to take one fewer course even so that you can devote that time to your applications. In my opinion, if after thinking about what you want, you still have a small amount of desire to continue in academia, I would highly advise applying to both graduate programs and non-graduate program alternatives at the same time (whether these are the post-bacc programs or just research positions in your lab). Maybe if you discussed your uncertainty with your professors further, you would be able to find a year long research position in their lab next year. I do think that if you do not find something useful to do during your year off, you would be disadvantaged in future grad school applications. ----- Finally, I just want to say I sympathize a lot. In Canada, we have a nice system where you do 2 years of a MSc and then 3 years of a PhD (both MSc and PhD are funded and you generally must do a MSc before a PhD). I did the MSc first (then moved to the States for a PhD) and I really liked having the shorter 2 year program first because it is much easier to commit to grad school when there is a "easy"/clear path out after 2 years if it turns out to be terrible.

You don't have to take time off of school in order to work in California for 1 year in order to attain California residency. All of my American friends attending UC schools are able to attain California residency within 12 months of arriving in California. The requirement is that you are moving to California permanently, which in reality just means being able to honestly say "I have no plans to leave California to leave California during my school's ''off season'' and after I am finished school." So, in effect, this means: remaining in California the entire year, even if you don't have to stay in California for the summer and as others said above, it means you must transfer everything you can to California residency if possible. As others said, this means changing your driving license, changing your permanent mailing address and everything that is related to your home state should be changed to California. Registering to vote in California is probably a good idea too (I don't think you have to register to vote in California, but you definitely should not be registered to vote in your old state). In essence, you just need to actually make California your home, and take actions that reflect this. In today's world, "permanent" doesn't mean that you have to live in California for the rest of your life. It just has to mean that as of the moment you apply to become a California resident, you have no plans on moving out of state. Note: wanting to live elsewhere / dreaming of leaving elsewhere doesn't count as "plans", I mean things like having a job offer or keeping your old state residency etc.

I'm also about to enter the job market (applying this fall for positions beginning Fall 2017) so I don't have much experience here. But I can add one thing based on my observations of my friends going through this process. Regarding Q1, you definitely do not have to have your PhD before applying to postdocs. Typically, the prestigious fellowships timeline in my field goes like (example dates for starting Fall 2017): Applications due September-November 2016, decisions made January 2017, people have to make their choices by Feb 15, 2017 (in a very similar deadline to grad students and April 15), and the position typically begins September-November 2017 (although depending on the award and the faculty and the postdoc, this date may be flexible). For non-fellowship postdocs (i.e. positions where you work directly with a prof on a project they chose or an area they chose) then everything is shifted by a few months. Decisions are made after Feb 15, 2016 because they will wait until all of the movement from fellowships settle before making offers. So, in my field, everyone who is looking for a first postdoc after a PhD is applying about a year before they are going to defend. In my field, most students don't want to have a gap in income between their PhD and their postdoc, so they only set their defense date after negotiating a post-doc start date. For example, 4 months ago, my friend accepted a postdoc fellowship and chose to start on Oct 1, 2016. But they only finalized their defense date (September 2016) a few weeks ago. This allows for no gap in income. In addition, this means that many people will start their postdoc before they have the actual PhD degree in their hands. My school only confers degrees once per year (in June), so my friend who is defending in Sept 2016 will not receive their physical degree until June 2017. The degree itself is not often important for the postdoc, often all you need is the letter from your school that states you have met all degree requirements, which you get after you defend and submit your thesis! Because of these factors, in my field, it's much more common for students to secure a job first (whether it's academic or industry or elsewhere) and then set up their defense and write their thesis afterwards. So, sometimes students will go on the market but if they don't get an offer that interests them (or receive additional funding for another year of grad school), they might choose to remain in grad school for another year and reapply with a stronger application the following year. You also see the opposite---sometimes a student isn't planning on graduating but then get a great unexpected job offer (a postdoc opening up exactly in their field of expertise or they get headhunted by a company) and then suddenly they are defending way sooner than they had originally anticipated. In my field, it seems like the minimum amount of time needed between deciding to defend and actually doing it is about 6-8 weeks.

For international students, most US schools will not convert an international GPA to a US GPA. It's not fair to simply do this conversion since grades mean different things in different countries. For example, in some countries, a grade of 70% is a very very high mark but in the US, it's not very good at all. So, someone with a 70% average from this first country would not be compared equally to a US student with a 70% average. So, there is some danger is simply taking your 2.62/5.0 GPA and converting it to 2.8/4.0 GPA and then saying this is a bad GPA because most US PhD programs have a cutoff of 3.0/4.0 GPA. When evaluating international students, schools will consider how grades are awarded in your country and how you compare to students from your country and your graduating class and what this corresponds to if you were in a US class. So, if a 2.62/5.0 GPA means you are near the top of your class, this will not disqualify you. Typically, I would say that an international person is competitive for graduate programs if they are in the top 35%-40% of their undergraduate class. By competitive, I don't mean that they will get in, but if they pick a good range of programs to apply to, their chances of acceptance are high enough that it is worth the try.

I think this is a very bad idea and you should not pursue it. It is academically dishonest and I do not think a person that would cheat in this way should be part of the academic community. I hope you reconsider. (Note: I'm not saying that the GRE is a good test at all. In fact, I think the GRE is a terrible test and it does not fairly assess candidates for graduate school success. However, I do not condone cheating as a way to circumvent the bad test. There are other ways to protest the use of GRE scores).

I think that it's generally bad form to have regularly have academic/work/professional events that limit access to a group of researchers. Alcoholism is a serious health problem and I don't think it's a good idea to restrict a researcher's access to an event based on their own struggles. That is, I don't think it is correct nor productive for the department to "bar the student until they get their alcoholism under control" because it's not the department's purview nor ability to judge whether or not the alcoholism is under control. We should give agency to those who are in trouble and let them decide for themselves. Of course, I am not excusing the person's behaviour. I'm just pointing out that instead of seeing this person as a problem and trying to remove them, we should view the alcoholism as the problem (not the person) and try to help the person defeat the problem. Ideally, removing alcohol from important professional events is a good idea. I can see why many people do not want this though and in this case, separating the two aspects could work. For example, hosting a wine & cheese reception after a seminar, so that someone who needs to not have alcohol can still go to the academic/professional part of the event and leave before the social part. I understand that a lot of important networking happens at the "after" reception too though, which is why it's not an ideal solution. In general, I just think that academics should stop romanticizing the idea that great breakthroughs happen when two academics get meet up at a bar and come up with the idea over drinks. There are lots of ways to network, brainstorm and collaborate without alcohol. I'm not saying all alcohol events should be banned, but that it is important to have variety. So that if someone doesn't want to drink for health reasons or religious reasons, or whatever, they don't have to feel excluded. Or, for example, if someone is trying to conceive or is already pregnant but they don't want their colleagues to know, then a professional event where drinking is encouraged could be awkward. I'm not against alcohol altogether, just the bad combination that I see a lot in the sciences where alcohol is available, drinking is idealized/romanticized, and there is pressure for people to drink (i.e. people coming up to a person who isn't drinking and saying something like "oh, why don't you have a drink in your hand?" or jokes that promotes drinking to excess etc. that are commonly heard in academia).

Oh yeah, I somehow forgot this! I hate texting so I'm so glad I can just respond to texts on my computer when I am at home or at work

What are you looking for in a phone? The "best phone" is probably a personal decision but here is my testimony: I love my Nexus 5X that I just got a couple of months ago. Before that, I had the Nexus 5 and enjoyed that very much too. For me, the Nexus 5X is a perfect balance of features and price. I love the operating system on the Nexus 5X. Here are other things I enjoy about this phone: 1. A good (good enough for me) camera: 12.3MP is more than enough for my main use of this camera---quick snaps for facebook or twitter and/or viewing on the computer only (i.e. most of my vacation photos). I don't even have a separate camera because I don't have a use for higher quality photos at this time. 2. Fingerprint unlock option. It's on the back of the phone and my finger naturally goes there when picking up my phone and holding it. Very easy to use! 3. Being a Google phone means you get the Android OS updates first and your phone can always be up to date. In the past, old Samsung phones sometimes were not even capable of updating past a certain version of Android (not sure if this is still true for new phones). 4. I like the battery life (with my typical use, I probably only use 50% battery from 8am to 6pm normally and around 70% battery if I have bluetooth on to sync my fitbit regularly --- I decided that "all day sync" on fitbit is not useful now though, especially since I mostly sit at my desk!). Note: I think I use more battery power than typical because my location on campus has terrible WiFi so the phone continually connects and disconnects. 5. Finally, my favourite thing about the 5X is Google's Project Fi as a phone carrier. The quality of the cell service is amazing and the price is the best I've seen ever. I pay $20 per month for the basic phone services (calls, text, voicemail) and then $10/GB of data, and they charge based on actual usage. My typical bill is about $25/month per line because I use about 0.5GB of data per month. There is no extra charge for international roaming for many countries and the 5X is designed for excellent WiFi calling abilities. I can call US phone numbers when I'm out of the country via WiFi calling for free (this week, I'm at a conference and need to deal with USPS and being on hold a lot). International data is typically charged at the same rate as domestic data. I especially like the "pay only for the data you use" model because our last provider, T-Mobile charges a fixed amount for a data bucket and the smallest bucket size is way too big for me. Since Project Fi runs on both the T-Mobile and Sprint networks, we are now getting the exact same coverage for 2/3 of the price (our very similar T-Mobile plan was $40/month per line).

If you already thanked them with personal notes (and maybe even a gift) earlier with the recommendation submissions, I don't think there is a need to do anything elaborate again. You can simply email them (or call, or a write a letter, or drop in their office, whatever your normal way of communicating with these professors is) to say something like "Hi! Thanks again for submitting those reference letters. I just thought you might want to know that I've decided to attend University's XYZ program in ABC field this fall. I'm excited for ___(whatever you are most excited about in this place, could be academic or personal [e.g. California Sun])______." If you know the prof well, you could add another sentence or two to personalize the communication (e.g. if they did school there in the past, maybe ask about their favourite restaurant, coffee place, tips for living there etc.) or if you want to stay in touch or keep a collaboration going, then mention that.

What field are you in? In my field, there is very little connection between the reason for obtaining a PhD and TA work. There are so many things you can do with a PhD that do not involve any of the stuff you do as a TA, so to me, saying that you don't want to get a PhD because you don't like TAing is like saying you don't want to eat breakfast because you don't like pancakes. Others above already mentioned non-academic careers being different from TA work. This is certainly true, but even within academia, there are positions that will let you avoid the things you don't like about TAing. First, depending on the field, there are staff scientist or researcher positions where you will not be teaching at all. You'll just be paid to do research. Second, even if you end up in a professor-type position, not all of these positions will involve teaching work that is like your TA experience and the other aspects you don't like. I think teaching a course as a professor or the instructor of record is pretty different from being a TA (but I can only be certain of this for my field). All of the things you describe here are something that a TA mainly has to deal with (in my field). As an instructor later on in your career, you will have your own TAs that are paid to deal with the things you dislike. Finally, I don't think this realisation about yourself is bad and on its own, it definitely does not rule out the sense of completing a PhD. Many people don't know what they want when they near the end of their PhD, but to figure that out, it's good to know what you don't want. From this, it sounds like you can safely rule out teaching-heavy positions (or even teaching-only positions) for job prospects post-PhD. This is good to know! This is not a reason to stop the PhD program (at least, not a good reason on its own), now you know that you just need to focus your efforts and energies in the many different aspects of being a PhD student and aim for career goals that actually interest you.

In this town/city, what is the rental market like? Is it one of those places where you need to be there 60-90 days before your lease is supposed to begin in order to find a decent place? Or, is it a place where people typically show up, stay in a motel for a week and find a place then? Or somewhere in between? And how does August 1 compare to the start date of your program / start date of your intended lease? Some general tips: I am also particular about where I live and I would never rent a place without seeing it first, unless it is something like a school owned building and the intent is to just live there for a few months, get settled, then move to another place if you don't like it. So, I wouldn't commit to either a place nor a roommate until I arrived there. For both of my moves, I visited the town/city ahead of time to see apartments and sign a lease. In one town (also a college town), renters give 60 days notice to vacate so the best time to go visit is 2 months before your intended lease start date and basically all of the good places get snatched up within days. All of the stuff that is remaining when school begins (i.e. when all the students come back) were either overly expensive places or very poor quality places. It's typical to "interview" roommates before signing a lease together. It's a serious commitment. If there is more than one person on the lease, then leases are typically "joint and several" for co-tenants, which means that each one of you will be responsible for the whole lease amount (the landlord will treat all co-tenants as a single entity). That is, if your roommate doesn't pay their half of the lease, the landlord will demand it from you and it's up to you to get that money from your roommate. If you are not named on the lease at all, then only your roommate is responsible for the rent, but then they can basically kick you out whenever (plus it may not be legal for them to not include you on the lease if you are there all the time). So, like how I would not sign a rental lease without seeing the apartment, I would not sign a contract with another person without meeting them first. Discuss important issues for you. Typically, some key points are whether you'd share food, how you'd clean the common areas, how clean you want the common areas to be, noisy/quiet times, whether guests are allowed etc. etc. For new students, it's pretty hard to both find a new place, see it, and also meet potential roommate if the roommate is also a new student (i.e. the timing of things might not line up). So, the "use student housing until you find something better" option is appealing to many who have the option. Or, if you can sign a very short term lease that might work too. Or, you can eliminate one complicating factor by doing a skype roommate interview but if they are also a new student, then there's still the issue of not seeing the place ahead of time. Another thing that happens a lot in my department is that there are apartments/condos/houses that are typically rented by students in my school/department. When someone moves out, the other roommates typically send department-wide emails (to students and postdocs) seeking new tenants. If you are already on the dept mailing lists, you might get them. Alternatively, if you are not yet on these lists but have a contact in the department (a student perhaps), you can ask them to forward such requests to you. This is a good compromise if you cannot visit and you are a new student because 1) you can meet your potential roommate on Skype and 2) you can kind of see the place on Skype and that it's a real place that students live in. Finally, for me, it was worth the money to fly out in advance to look at apartments. For the places I went to, the trip cost about 1 months rent. Since leases are typically one year long, it's well worth it, for me, to pay an extra month's rent than to be stuck for 12 months in a living condition I'd hate. But that's just my preference (I really want the place I live to be a sanctuary from the rest of life, so that's how I'd spend my money!). If you do this, research the housing market in the area to find out the best time to visit. I would even call landlords ahead of time asking about typical months/weeks that things go vacant, especially in a college town where there is likely a "season" where there is a lot of turnover.

Oh okay, sorry for misunderstanding. When I read "study abroad in Europe", I thought you were referring to an exchange program where you did a year or a semester in Europe during your undergraduate degree, oops!

What do you mean by your visa was denied after you couldn't show progress after 6 months? If you are already in the US, you cannot be denied a visa because you don't need a visa (visa is only for entrance to the US). It's not clear what to do next without knowing what the issue is, because depending on the problem, you may have to go to your international office or to your graduate department.

When you say "trying to find something", do you mean another graduate program? If so, it makes no difference where you apply from. Registering for the summer could cost you money right? I don't think that's worth it. If you mean finding a job, then you have to ensure you have a valid visa status for that job? As we wrote in the other threads, you can't use F-1 OPT if you did not complete your program (if this is what you meant by fired). If you are just fired from your RA but you still finished your program, then you can use F-1 OPT. Talk to your international office about this. Being on OPT means you don't have to be registered for the summer.

I agree with the above---the one acting unethically here is PI #2 for bullying you and going against the way the NSF GRFP works! When I applied for the Canadian equivalent (NSERC), for both the Masters and Doctoral awards I didn't take on the project that my application proposal was written (actually I didn't even attend the same school in the end). I was up front when contacting the potential PI about writing the proposal with them that 1) I'm only asking for 30-60 minutes of their time to help me write this and 2) there is no obligation on their part to accept me into their group nor an obligation on me to attend their program/join their group. I also especially agree with juilletmercredi's comment about this being a warning about collaborating with this person in the future. This is not the type of professor I'd want to interact with. My advice is that you should get faculty on your side in this. Talk to PI#3 especially---I hope they will support you and get them on your side in case PI#2 decides to say bad things about you to the other faculty. Then, let PI#2 know your decision. Be respectful and very appreciative for everything you learned in their lab and for their help in developing you as a researcher (i.e. with that grant). But be firm in your statement that the NSF grant writing class and the GRFP itself is not meant to bind the student to the lab/rotation in which they write their proposal. Express regret that you cannot work with them but that you need to pursue the best opportunity for yourself and that is in Lab #3. I would also talk to the Dept Chair or Director of Grad Studies or equivalent after your conversation with PI#2. Let them know that this has happened so that if PI#2 becomes unprofessionally upset with you and tries to damage you in some other way, there is a written record of this and so that they would be on the lookout. If the relationship with PI#2 goes really bad, you may even want to request that PI#2 not be included on your committees (whether it's prelims, quals, candidacy and/or defense).