crustaceangirl

ohno, not sure if you're flying yourself when you relocate, but some airlines will let you take a small pet in a soft-sided carrier as a piece of "carry-on baggage." I've seen cats transported this way before on (I think) Delta and JetBlue. I'm using PODS for my ~1100 mile move. Considering how expensive gas is, and how bad the MPG of a moving truck is, it's actually not much more expensive than renting a similar sized U-Haul. And WAY more convenient than driving a big truck from Boston to Atlanta. We've been getting rid of our excess stuff but it's hard. Will be selling some furniture here and buying new things upon arrival, because some of our stuff isn't worth moving (we needed a new couch and new bed anyway).

Hey StudyMom, I grew up in Gainesville on the NW side of town (where most suburban "townies" and lots of professors live) and I like the area around NW 43rd. I used to work at the Publix at the intersection of 43rd St. and 23rd Ave when I was a high schooler! There are a lot of nice little quiet streets around there. Many have subdivision names but it's not a gated community Stepford Wives kind of thing, just a way to distinguish one neighborhood from the next when you're looking for where to turn. A lot of that area falls into what's called "Suburban Heights" and it's quite nice. The Publix and the natural foods store Wild Harvest are nearby, along with some restaurants. I live in New England now and I know of its small town charms, but I wouldn't worry about Gainesville being unsafe for your kids. There are some streets where I wouldn't let them go unsupervised, but in the residential areas you're talking about it's VERY safe, kids ride their bikes all around the subdivisions to play at friends' houses and it's all fine, lots of other families with kids will be your neighbors. There are busy streets around, so make sure they know how to cross safely, but you can let them roam without concern.

Braingirl, you could search Craigslist for places in Inman Square. This will be cheaper than living right on the Red line, but it's about 1.5 miles from MIT's campus, shorter walking distance to either Harvard or Central Square, and several bus lines go through that area including the CT2 express commuter bus (which goes to Kendall Sq./MIT). Another option would be East Cambridge, which is further away and closer to the Green line (Lechmere) than the Red, but still a reasonable walk to MIT. East Cambridge and Inman kind of bleed into each other. Inman is cuter, more indie businesses and restaurants, East Cambridge is a less homey and near a big shopping mall (people have told me about getting mugged/robbed in the area near the mall, because where do thuggy kids like to hang out? ...exactly) but I still feel fine walking around most of that area after dark. Looks like you can find some studio/small 1BR places for $1000 in that area. But if you can stand to live with a roommate, life will be more affordable. I would not suggest "move to the suburbs," actually -- I had an hour commute each way to work for a year and it slowly drove me insane; I moved closer to my job downtown. But I share a 2BR with my partner.

One of my future classmates just did this today. And, for the record, it was a guy. ;-) I tried to add him on Facebook but he has a pretty common name and I couldn't figure out which one was him. Alas. I will have to kill time some other way.

I lived a 5-10 minute walk from Tufts for about a year. When you're apartment hunting, look for things that say they're near Teele Square or Powderhouse Square. This will put you a reasonable distance from both the Tufts campus and Davis Square, thus allowing access to classes and extracurricular activities. The apartments REALLY close to Tufts fill up with undergrads and are often run by really slummy landlords -- avoid. I found a nice 3BR near Teele that was the first floor of a house on a quiet street, my neighbors were young professionals and families. That 3BR currently rents for $1900/month not including utilities (and heat can get expensive, especially in poorly insulated old houses. Medford has a reputation for being more boring and full of townies than neighboring Somerville. I haven't spent much time in Medford proper, so I can't really comment. Tufts is right on the line between the two. Boston has many popular online communities for social networking, discussing local issues, etc. If you use LiveJournal there are communities called "b0st0n" and "davis_square" that might be useful. If you're looking for stuff to do, check out Going.com (events) or Yelp.com (bar/restaurant/etc. reviews). And check out housing prices on the almighty Craigslist. Good luck, let me know if you have any more qs!

I've been out of school for two years, but I can feel the temptation to slack at my job now that I'm quitting in less than two months. I've broken down a reasonable amount of stuff that I hope to accomplish before I leave, but sometimes I'm like "Why bother?"

Definitely take a tour of the area. As for things to do, I use Yelp.com all the time to find restaurants, bars, businesses and so on in my neighborhood. They're nicely integrated with GoogleMaps to find stuff near you, and user reviews let you know what's good. Plus, Boston Yelp users are a really fun bunch of people who have social outings regularly so it can be a neat way to have fun (if you have any free time!).

Hmm. Budget quotes about $1100 for a truck big enough to hold our stuff and tow our car. That doesn't include gas, which I'm sure would be a lot for 1300 miles in a big truck so heavily loaded (I think a moving truck gets maybe 10 mpg?). The option of having the POD people handle the moving/storage container while we drive the normal (fuel-efficient!) car down seems more appealing and when you factor in the cost of gas, not that much more expensive.

Haha, my family has had our stuff turned down by the Salvation Army, too. I think they just take things that they know will sell at their shops/they don't already have a bunch of. Funny, though. :-) I just called PODS yesterday to get a price quote for my Boston to Atlanta move -- over $1600 for a small container, over $2000 for a big one! I realized that I'd find it difficult to beat that price by doing it myself (renting a truck, or getting rid of all but a carload of my stuff and buying everything new/used again in ATL) and find myself wondering if I should've accepted the offer from a different program than included $2000 for moving expenses...

Moving from Boston to Atlanta, taking a ~3 week vacation in Europe, attending a friend's wedding in NY, and doing my first lab rotation.

It depends. At my program, if you're doing a summer rotation you're expected to work 40 hours/week (at least) for a minimum of 6 weeks. This is with no classes or anything else going on. If you do a rotation during the semester, it has to go on for at least 8 weeks, so that would imply working ~30 hours/week to get the same amount of total lab time in as a summer rotation. In practice I think it varies depending on the project, the PI's expectations, and the student's schedule (if you're taking an insane courseload, or TAing a class, obviously you can't put in as many hours/week and might instead choose to have the rotation extend over a longer number of weeks).

This is an issue that I've thought about as well. My partner and I are already committed to moving far away from where we live now. Ultimately, I was torn between two programs, and I ended up choosing the one that's driving distance from where my partner's parents (and some friends) live. Since I felt the two options I was considering were both good, it seemed fair to let his preference determine where we'd go. (The city we chose also has more employment opportunities for him.) My partner is a pretty introverted person, so I am concerned that he'll feel socially isolated when we move and leave our friends behind. I think having the options to visit his friends and family in a neighboring state on a semi-regular basis will be helpful. I've talked to grad students at my program about balancing school/friends with time for a romantic partner. They assure me that all the students are welcoming and that I should feel free to bring my partner to social events, but I do want to make sure that he and I are able to have some "separate" friends, so he won't feel like his entire social life is dependent on me. He tells me I'm overthinking this and that he'll be fine, of course. But I don't want to make things harder than they need to be.

Yes, like many of the posters here have mentioned, I don't particularly care whether my thesis advisor is a woman or a man. I think one should choose the best possible mentor regardless of gender, race, and so on. But I DO want to make sure I choose a department that takes 'women's issues' (most of which should be EVERYONE'S issues, like child care availability...) seriously. When I met a successful, happy female assistant professor with two young babies at one of my schools, I was kind of shocked. The cliche is that women professors have their first child 9 months after getting tenure. So this school clearly is working with this assistant prof, keeping her happy, and her lab is productive so it's working out! That gave me a very positive impression (although of course it's not the only reason I chose to accept that offer). For some actual data (with pretty graphs and everything!) on gender discrepancies in academia, I invite you to check out the slides from this presentation: http://www.aps.org/programs/women/works ... erence.pdf

I'm in life science, where women are currently the majority of graduate students, but at some institutions make up only ~15% of faculty. I have definitely considered the number of female faculty at each school while making my decision -- it's been shown that in science, female graduate students who attend programs where there are more female role models tend to "stay in the pipeline" more than their peers at male-dominated schools. I was lucky to go to an undergrad institution (Brandeis) where some really amazing women taught my classes, served as my research advisers, and inspired me to go on in academia. Prof. Ben Barres at Stanford is another inspiring figure -- he's really involved with activism for women in science, and convinced Stanford to offer additional child care support for assistant professors with children (a major concern for those who want a family AND tenure, during that publish-or-perish time); he also got the NIH to change its nomination/voting procedure for some prestigious awards so that more women would be recognized. I think it can be really hard to be the only woman in the room, and it takes courage to stand up and point out the things that are wrong with the system. I hope I can be active in this area as a graduate student and beyond.

You could try to pick a school that's in an area with several universities for your spouse to choose from. Move to Boston -- you'll have more than you can count! Then you could live in the same city but commute to different schools, so you don't have to find one perfect institution.