Help in making Decision!

[samman1994]

Hello everyone, 

So I have been racking my brain for weeks now to try and make a decision, and I can't quite make up my mind which school I'd like to attend. I have made a pros and cons list, but that hasn't helped either. 

School 1                                                                                                     School 2

Pros                                                                                                             Pros  

Very Cheap                                                                                                Access to a  large variety of terrain (mountains, ocean, plains)
Lots of faculty members I am interested in                                         Smaller department, students are a lot more hands on with their collaborations
Huge departments, large variety of resources                                    Large City relatively close by 
Very Safe                                                                                                   Variety of Big Cities relatively close by (for fun traveling)
Beautiful Campus                                                                                     Faculty member interested in is really good at computational/developmental (one of the best)
Great Campus life (great sports team, etc.)                                         No requirement to TA
City population is very young                                                                  City Population is very diverse 

Cons                                                                                                              Cons

Small city with very little to do (although the quiet is a plus)             Expensive
Far away from any major interesting cities                                            Very limited faculty members interested in (i.e. 2), less resources available for use
Collaborations are often, but students are not very hands on            High Crime Rate in affordable areas
Requirement to TA every semester                                                         No campus life, part of a hospital so no real "college" events happen (main campus is about an hour drive)

                                                                                                                       Limited Housing

 

 

This list is in no particular order, but the most important thing for me is the different opportunities these schools offer. School 1 has a lot of resources and is very widespread (over 20+ faculty members in biochem), but that also means I'd be very focused in my field (focusing purely on structural bio), without really expanding into other fields (i.e. like cell bio, molecular, genetics, etc.). School 2 on the other hand doesn't have as many resources, but because it's so much smaller, all the departments are in the same building (biochem, genetics, cell, immuno, computational, etc.). This means when it comes to collaborations, the students are very much hands on (i.e. if you're in structural bio, at school 1 you may want some info on cyclo-fluor or sequencing, but you would never do it yourself, you would send it over to the genetics department to do it for you; whereas in school 2, you would go down the stairs and run your sequencing or cyclo-fluor experiments alongside whoever is teaching/monitoring you). 

So while I may not become as good in a particular field (i.e. structural bio) at school 2, I will experience and learn (hands on) other fields (genetics, molecular bio). Whereas school 1, I'd become very good at different techniques in that particular field (structural bio) due to the large variety of instrumentation they have, but not much experience in other fields. I am conflicted on which is more important. 

Both schools offer amazing opportunities for growth, just in different ways. Both cities have their pros and cons. I'm just having difficulty giving weight to everything and how much I value one pro/con over another, and thinking which growth style would be advantageous for my career in the future. I'm also having difficulty assessing how much value I give to location. While pricing, housing opportunities, and crime are incredibly important factors to me, so is having access to a big city, and interesting cities for travel nearby (especially having access to mountains and oceans). Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!

Edited March 30, 2018 by samman1994

[GeologyBird]

Especially if you are going for a PhD, in my field, it all comes down to your advisor. Do they respect you and your ideas? Do they communicate and set expectations clearly and effectively? Do they support you both financially (travel to conferences, summer work, etc) and intellectually? You can make experiences in small towns amazing just by taking up new hobbies and surrounding yourself with the right people, but very little can be done to turn a less-than-effective advisor around. Hope that helps!

[samman1994]

4 hours ago, GeologyBird said:

Especially if you are going for a PhD, in my field, it all comes down to your advisor. Do they respect you and your ideas? Do they communicate and set expectations clearly and effectively? Do they support you both financially (travel to conferences, summer work, etc) and intellectually? You can make experiences in small towns amazing just by taking up new hobbies and surrounding yourself with the right people, but very little can be done to turn a less-than-effective advisor around. Hope that helps!

In terms of faculty, both school have advisors and faculty with amazing culture/personality. So I'd be okay with both in those regards

[E-P]

Personally, for me, I'd choose school 1.  Here's my logic:

 

1. Since you're in a PhD program, you're not going to have a huge amount of time to travel anyway.  So proximity to a big city is less of a factor than it would be if you were, say, a master's student.  Plus, there are plenty of options to get to St Paul and to Chicago - just hop on a train or a bus, study for a few hours, and you have a weekend trip.

2. It sounds like you'll have more research options at U1.  Your initial advisor may not be the person you "stick" with.  So if there are lots of different projects you can get involved with, you have lots of different options.

3. Money isn't everything, but living on a TA's salary is hard enough without the area also being expensive.

 

Have you visited both schools?  I had a similar pro/con list, but visiting both schools really helped me realize which one I wanted to go to.

 

[samman1994]

22 minutes ago, E-P said:

Personally, for me, I'd choose school 1.  Here's my logic:

 

1. Since you're in a PhD program, you're not going to have a huge amount of time to travel anyway.  So proximity to a big city is less of a factor than it would be if you were, say, a master's student.  Plus, there are plenty of options to get to St Paul and to Chicago - just hop on a train or a bus, study for a few hours, and you have a weekend trip.

2. It sounds like you'll have more research options at U1.  Your initial advisor may not be the person you "stick" with.  So if there are lots of different projects you can get involved with, you have lots of different options.

3. Money isn't everything, but living on a TA's salary is hard enough without the area also being expensive.

 

Have you visited both schools?  I had a similar pro/con list, but visiting both schools really helped me realize which one I wanted to go to.

 

1) I've talked to grad schools from both schools. They've both said they've had plenty of time to travel to nearby cities (like Chicago for one school, or Boston or NYC for another)

2) Well I do have a back up plan at School 2, if the initial doesn't work. Also, the agreement I join is that i join their lab, so they have not only attained funding for me, but it's the main reason I am even accepted to go there. 

3) True

I have visited both schools. That's the problem. I was hoping the visit would make it clear cut, but it's only made the decision harder. 

[TakeruK]

I think you have two very good choices but they actually seem very different to me. I'll tell you my choice (if I were in your shoes) and my reasoning, but I just want to make it clear that I don't think any one choice is objectively better than the other, it's is all due to the subjective things each of us values.

I'd choose School 2. The only unknowns from your initial post were advisor fit (you've now said they are both great, awesome!) and actually being able to live on the stipend (not clear if this is the case for School 2). So if the stipend for school 2 is still enough to get by (i.e. current grad students aren't going into debt and the way they live is acceptable to you), then I'd definitely choose School 2.

The reasons are:

- I've lived in a place like School 1 before and I was miserable. 
- There's a ton of value in having more hands-on experience and direct interactions with your research.
- I personally did not choose grad school for the college life/experience and I was personally looking for departments that ran more like a research institute rather than a typical college. 
- Not having to TA means more time for research

Ultimately, for me, it all boils down to the fact that grad school is a big commitment and a huge chunk of my time. If I am going to do grad school, I'd want to make sure I am happy with my life (e.g. not a place like School 1 and be able to live on the stipend) and also that I get the most research-bang for my buck. The no-TAing, intensive research environment (i.e. everyone at the hospital is there for research, rather than classes etc.) and the hands-on experience sound like the ideal graduate program to me!

[samman1994]

9 hours ago, TakeruK said:

I think you have two very good choices but they actually seem very different to me. I'll tell you my choice (if I were in your shoes) and my reasoning, but I just want to make it clear that I don't think any one choice is objectively better than the other, it's is all due to the subjective things each of us values.

I'd choose School 2. The only unknowns from your initial post were advisor fit (you've now said they are both great, awesome!) and actually being able to live on the stipend (not clear if this is the case for School 2). So if the stipend for school 2 is still enough to get by (i.e. current grad students aren't going into debt and the way they live is acceptable to you), then I'd definitely choose School 2.

The reasons are:

- I've lived in a place like School 1 before and I was miserable. 
- There's a ton of value in having more hands-on experience and direct interactions with your research.
- I personally did not choose grad school for the college life/experience and I was personally looking for departments that ran more like a research institute rather than a typical college. 
- Not having to TA means more time for research

Ultimately, for me, it all boils down to the fact that grad school is a big commitment and a huge chunk of my time. If I am going to do grad school, I'd want to make sure I am happy with my life (e.g. not a place like School 1 and be able to live on the stipend) and also that I get the most research-bang for my buck. The no-TAing, intensive research environment (i.e. everyone at the hospital is there for research, rather than classes etc.) and the hands-on experience sound like the ideal graduate program to me!

Well my counter-argument for that would be 

1) While School 2 is possible to live acceptably, wouldn't it be better to have more money and not be worried about your spending 24/7? I'd imagine that would contribute to your happiness. Also no stress in housing or anything of that sort either. 

2) Both have a lot of hands on experience in the research lab itself. The hands on is more with collaborations in other fields. But from what I've been told, it's better to be more focused and go into more depth of one particular field, than get your hands dirty in multiple different areas of a subject. 

3) While not having to TA would mean more time for research, wouldn't TAing overall be advantageous to your resume and skill set in the future? Everyone always keeps telling me how important and useful it is to TA (although, I think TAing every semester is overkill). 

And yeah, the hardest part for me is I personally don't know what I value and how much. The only possible subjective portion of my list I think is the difference between being knowledgable/good at multiple fields vs. being exceptional in one field. 

Edited March 31, 2018 by samman1994

[TakeruK]

2 hours ago, samman1994 said:

Well my counter-argument for that would be 

1) While School 2 is possible to live acceptably, wouldn't it be better to have more money and not be worried about your spending 24/7? I'd imagine that would contribute to your happiness. Also no stress in housing or anything of that sort either. 

2) Both have a lot of hands on experience in the research lab itself. The hands on is more with collaborations in other fields. But from what I've been told, it's better to be more focused and go into more depth of one particular field, than get your hands dirty in multiple different areas of a subject. 

3) While not having to TA would mean more time for research, wouldn't TAing overall be advantageous to your resume and skill set in the future? Everyone always keeps telling me how important and useful it is to TA (although, I think TAing every semester is overkill). 

1) We should clarify what we mean by "live acceptably". When I said it above, I meant enough of a stipend where you can afford to pay rent and all the necessary bills. You might not save a lot of money per year, but for me, if I can pay for all necessities, then there's no need to worry about money 24/7. Yes, I would still worry about things like saving up for the future (house, retirement etc.) but in my opinion, earning a few thousand dollars extra per year during grad school is not worth potential opportunity costs in the long term. For me, out of my 3 options, I picked the one with the lowest "effective" stipend (i.e. adjusted for cost of living). It was still enough to pay for necessities though.

I don't know what you mean by "stress in housing". I definitely agree that if you cannot feel relaxed at home, it would affect your productivity and success though! I would count "being able to afford to live in housing that doesn't cause you stress" as part of "live acceptably" though. So if School 2 doesn't grant a stipend large enough to have this, then my answer above may change of course!

2) Oh okay. My own field is incredibly multidisciplinary so I naturally favour breadth over depth in terms of exposure/experience. But for your own thesis work, you'll definitely want depth. I wrote my answer because of the example you gave. For a student in my field, it's far more valuable to be able to do the side analysis yourself instead of sending it off to another group to do. I personally find a lot of value in taking leadership/ownership of my own project and doing the various parts of the analysis. I want to be able to know exactly what happened in every part of my analysis from work that I am leading as a student. That is, no black boxes. I think this level of knowledge is valued in my field and I can see it when students are evaluated---the ones that know how every step of the analysis went do better than the ones that have to answer with something like "Our collaborator X ran this analysis so we should ask them" etc. 

Also, maybe I misunderstood, but I read your chart as both School 1 and School 2 having a lot of depth in your own research area, however, School 2 also allows you to have hands-on experience in other areas. 

And although not directly related to hands-on ness, your chart seem to show a lot of excitement and good research fit for School 2. But nothing for School 1 (you say there are people you're interested in but you don't mention any particular ones that excite you!)

3) Yes, a little bit of TA experience is good for you. However, unless you are an instructor of record, the typical TA experience for us in the sciences isn't real teaching experience and it won't do very much for us in terms of getting teaching jobs. In general, I would rank TA opportunities like:

i) No TA requirement, but opportunities to pursue TAships if you want.
ii) Minimal TA requirements (e.g. 1 course per year, on average, or less)
iii) Full TA load for some years but chance for you to earn a RAship or win a fellowship and reduce TA load
iv) TA every semester

If you are not interested in academia, or interested in a research career, you only need to TA maybe 2 or 3 times before you reach diminishing returns and having more TA work won't help you. But for these paths, even zero TAing won't really hurt you at all.

If you are interested in a teaching career, then the type of science TAing isn't going to be good enough. In this case, I would say that some limited number of TAing is better than zero TAing, but I am not sure if full TA load every semester is better. Even teaching schools want to see good research from their applicants and if you are TAing then you are either spending less time on research or you are not sleeping/have free time etc.

Also, I would say that if you really do want to beef up your teaching CV, there are plenty of things that might even be better for you than TAing. Sometimes a local nearby school will hire grad students as adjunct lecturers/sessionals and you can teach that way. Or you can work with other community groups and do science outreach in a way that can build teaching experience. This lets you teach on your own terms, with time commitments that you can tailor to your needs from year to year instead of being required to TA when the department wants you to. I had a minimal TAing program (I only TA'ed for 3 quarters during my entire program) and instead, I spent a lot of time volunteering with a local educational organization and developed lectures and classes for them and that I also taught. I got a lot more out of these experiences than TAing.

2 hours ago, samman1994 said:

And yeah, the hardest part for me is I personally don't know what I value and how much. The only possible subjective portion of my list I think is the difference between being knowledgable/good at multiple fields vs. being exceptional in one field. 

It is a hard choice! Again, I don't think there is one right choice for everyone so the good news is that you will probably do well at both! As for the difference you bring up here, is that really the two choices you have? I don't see anything here that prevents you from being exceptional in the area of your research and being good at related fields. 

[samman1994]

35 minutes ago, TakeruK said:

1) We should clarify what we mean by "live acceptably". When I said it above, I meant enough of a stipend where you can afford to pay rent and all the necessary bills. You might not save a lot of money per year, but for me, if I can pay for all necessities, then there's no need to worry about money 24/7. Yes, I would still worry about things like saving up for the future (house, retirement etc.) but in my opinion, earning a few thousand dollars extra per year during grad school is not worth potential opportunity costs in the long term. For me, out of my 3 options, I picked the one with the lowest "effective" stipend (i.e. adjusted for cost of living). It was still enough to pay for necessities though.

I don't know what you mean by "stress in housing". I definitely agree that if you cannot feel relaxed at home, it would affect your productivity and success though! I would count "being able to afford to live in housing that doesn't cause you stress" as part of "live acceptably" though. So if School 2 doesn't grant a stipend large enough to have this, then my answer above may change of course!

2) Oh okay. My own field is incredibly multidisciplinary so I naturally favour breadth over depth in terms of exposure/experience. But for your own thesis work, you'll definitely want depth. I wrote my answer because of the example you gave. For a student in my field, it's far more valuable to be able to do the side analysis yourself instead of sending it off to another group to do. I personally find a lot of value in taking leadership/ownership of my own project and doing the various parts of the analysis. I want to be able to know exactly what happened in every part of my analysis from work that I am leading as a student. That is, no black boxes. I think this level of knowledge is valued in my field and I can see it when students are evaluated---the ones that know how every step of the analysis went do better than the ones that have to answer with something like "Our collaborator X ran this analysis so we should ask them" etc. 

Also, maybe I misunderstood, but I read your chart as both School 1 and School 2 having a lot of depth in your own research area, however, School 2 also allows you to have hands-on experience in other areas. 

And although not directly related to hands-on ness, your chart seem to show a lot of excitement and good research fit for School 2. But nothing for School 1 (you say there are people you're interested in but you don't mention any particular ones that excite you!)

1) It appears there isn't abundant housing opportunities available at an affordable price (that is covered by the stipend) in School 2 as there is in School 1. I haven't met any grad students that didn't find a place to live, but they all appeared to have some difficulty finding one. Whereas all the grad school students easily found a place to live in School 1. The grad students in School 1 also had a lot more money to spend for traveling and activities (i.e. going out at night drinking/clubbing or camping etc.). Overall, the students at one were able to spend more freely and enjoy more activities (although the city itself didn't have many activities to do in the first place) whereas in School 2, a lot of the students seemed like they were just trying to conserve enough money to get by. 

2) No you understood correctly. Both schools have a enough depth in my own research area, however school 2 allows me to have hands-on experience in other areas. The real issue is the amount of depth. School 1 has a lot more resources for my own research area, that school 2 does not. I guess the main issue is, in regards to career, I don't know how multidisciplinary my field really is (I plan to discuss this with my previous PI soon), so I don't know how important it is to get hands on experiences in other areas vs. expertise in my particular research focus. 

In terms of excitement, I was very excited in school 1 until I talked to my POI. I told him my interests (protein NMR), and his response was that outside of him, not many people do that anymore (even though the research interests/papers of other faculty do indicate they do). So in regards to what I really want to do, he is the only person I'd really like to work with (although I would not be opposed to working with other groups). I think it is important to note, this guy has been trying to recruit me though for months now. He planned my interview so that I could spend 2 interview times with him (instead of interviews with 5 faculty members I only met 4 because I met this POI twice), and told his labmates that I am their next lab mate. So I don't know if that has anything to do with what he said, but I do really like him. On the other hand, for School 2, there are only 2 faculty members I'd like to work with, so I do have some anxiety towards that school in case, I don't know, something happens and they can't take me, then I'm screwed. Personally, I did like the faculty/setting of School 2 a little bit more. I just felt more.... comfortable. In terms of excitement for the cities.... it's a bit mixed. I'm excited to be in a school with a big campus spirit, but don't really know if I really care that much about it. I also know for a fact I will not like being in a city with nothing to do and just plains (terrain), but I also am excited to not be super broke for once. Best way I could describe it is an uneasy anxious excited. 

[TakeruK]

Sounds like a tough choice to make. for (1), I've found it hard to compare the way people spend money with how I financially secure I would be. Everyone has lots of difference circumstances---some people might have large undergrad loans they want to pay off so they spend less, or they might need to support their family, or they might get help from their family, or they might have savings, or they might value saving for the future more etc. Most of these things are fairly personal so it's not like they would share this with a prospective student.

So I wouldn't look at current students' ability to spend on fun things as a measure of how I would be spending money. Some exceptions might be a school where every student owned a home or every student was taking out more loans. Those might be more telling signs. So, since places like those are less common, instead, I'd ask what their living arrangements are and how much rent costs, for example. For me, being able to afford a 1-bedroom if my spouse and I both worked was the minimum stipend needed for housing. For others, they might look for a stipend that allows them to share a 2-bedroom with someone else. And others may be okay with (or even desire) to share a larger house with many more housemates. 

Good luck on making a choice!

[cabbysaurus]

Are you set on researching protein NMR? Did the advisor at school 1 suggest other projects that you are interested in working on?

Also, what are you planning on doing over summers? If you're looking to do internships off campus, then maybe where you live for 9 months doesn't matter so much. Or maybe you make so much during your internship that you can live comfortably at school 2.

If all else fails, you can flip a coin, and when the coin is in the air you will know which way you want it to land and that's where you go. 

 

[E-P]

Do you have close family or friends in either area?  Familial/social support can make a big difference in one's personal success too.

[Aromando]

Just to chime in, I am making a wild assumption that School 2 is UCONN.

I have been living in CT for the last 5 years (undergraduate into a year off to work).

I have lived in the New Haven and Stamford area and have worked in Hartford. 

My personal experience is that CT does have some unsafe parts, especially around Hartford, but I also know plenty of fresh out of college individuals who moved into cheaper housing in the Hartford area that are very happy with where they are at. So safety and affordability does exist. 

As for CT in general, I am so over it. Connecticut is a real bore. If you like history and wine tastings, then CT may fit you, but otherwise all the action is in Boston or NYC. Also, the nightlife is very trashy and it is hard to find a clean bar or club to go out too. The beaches in CT are very sub-par as well. The only beaches that are worth visiting in the Northeast are the ones in Jersey in my opinion (I will leave Cape Cod out since I have never been there and it seems nice). CT also gets very cold and snowy. A lot of businesses are also leaving CT too because of its high cost of living. 

Relating to your issue, I believe I have decided to go to a school that is far away from major cities (like 4-6 hours from nearest major city), but the campus is amazing and a lot of the student population enjoy the area (continually voted one of the "happiest" campuses). I find that the atmosphere and that I am honestly looking to get away from the urban environment to be helpful in choosing the school. It really depends on what you are looking for. The university does have a huge population though so that helps. In all honesty though, I sit home and play World of Warcraft everyday in CT cause there's nothing to do so I do not see how I could end up having less to do. 

Of course I am biased, as would anyone when expressing their opinion, but I would not assume just because an area has a larger population means that you will be less bored. 

Lastly, my monthly rent for a one bedroom apartment in CT could land me a five bedroom house where I will probably be doing my PhD. 

[samman1994]

Thank you all for your replies. 

I am looking to do protein NMR, yes. However, there are computational and developmental aspects I could explore, that would be very easy to explore in School 2 vs. School 1. 

I have no relatives/friends in the locations for both schools. School 2 I do know one or two people that live a few hours away. 

While I understand it can be boring, I think it really comes down to personality though as well. I live in LA right now, and we have a lot of great clubs. However, I do know a lot of people that also stay home and do nothing, primarily because the clubs have long lines, can usually be costly, and they just aren't the type to go out clubbing. I don't need clubs/bars everynight, or even high end ones, just a city with a decent nightlife if I did want to do something (in all reality, I may actually go to the club maybe 2 or 3 times a year at most). I don't need a great beach, I'd be okay with just having an ocean I could visit a few times throughout the summer, or maybe if I just really miss it (literally just need sand and an ocean, nothing fancy). I also like that there is mountaneous terrain up north for skiing and hiking (depending on the season). 

While the other school does have a younger population, and amazing school spirit (which is a big plus for me), there is relatively not much to do in the city itself (all plains as well). There is absolutely no clubs, with mostly breweries and a handful of bars (and I don't even really drink). There is one bowling alley, a few movie theaters here and there, and that's about it. Now there is a major city about 20 miles away, but nothing nearby (whereas Hartford is pretty close to Farmington, and even West Hartford is pretty nice). I like having a lot of options for things to do. I don't want the main option during the summer time to be, hey you want to visit a brewery? Grab a few drinks? I like the option of, hey wanna just go to the beach? Wanna go to the big city tonight? Wanna go to a club? etc. 

So while I understand Hartford and the surrounding area does not have amazing quality clubs/bars (especially apparent in the reviews), I don't need high quality, i just need it to exist (same with the beaches). Although my other school is ISU, and they have Des Moine which is relatively close by (20miles). 

[Carly Rae Jepsen]

I'm not in your field but the difference in location and life seems substantial enough that I would perfectly understand why you would choose School B. Bottom line, you won't be able to do well if you aren't happy, and location can determine happiness a lot. It also boils down to preference of small vs. large department, small could mean more attention from faculty (more guidance) which will come in handy when it's time to look for a job.