So, where are all the new admits in their process?

[coyabean]

Summer is winding down. If you're like me you are looking at a moving deadline quickly approach. Also, if you're like me, you think time decided to move at double time and find yourself unable to keep up.

My to-do list seems to be mating with itself and spawning and new entries!!!! It's been 100+ degrees almost every day for the last month. I am unnaturally tired and unmotivated. Packing up my apartment is beginning to feel like climbing Mt. Everest.

Therefore I'm posting a new topic instead of looking at the mound of clothes waiting to be cleaned, sorted and packed. YAY for grad cafe procrastination.

So, where are you guys in the process? Ready to go? Freaking out? Passing out like me?

[JustChill]

I'm spending some time at my parents' home before I move about 1100 miles to North Carolina at the end of the month. Spending most of my time reading and preparing myself. I keep worrying about being unprepared compared to my incoming peers. I really haven't started packing yet, since I have about three more weeks, but I was lucky to find a fully furnished apartment, so I don't have to worry about taking any furniture.

[Postbib Yeshuist]

Registered for classes and all ready to go. Still trying to recover from "June Vacation" before it's "August classes." July 9th ALREADY?! Ug.

[American in Beijing]

I'm spending some time at my parents' home before I move about 1100 miles to North Carolina at the end of the month. Spending most of my time reading and preparing myself. I keep worrying about being unprepared compared to my incoming peers. I really haven't started packing yet, since I have about three more weeks, but I was lucky to find a fully furnished apartment, so I don't have to worry about taking any furniture.

The same here! I've been reading through some of my PDF articles from undergrad. Everyone tells me that I shouldn't even look at anything related to my topic, because that's what I'm going to be doing for the next 6-7 years (History PhDs are notoriously long). But I can't shake this fear that my other classmates will have spent the summer reading and preparing themselves extensively and I'll look like a slacker if I don't. I'm also resisting the urge to e-mail my future classmates and ask them for their stats and what they've been doing to prepare.

I haven't started packing either. I'm leaving in two weeks. However, I don't have a lot of stuff, so it probably won't be a major issue.

[fuzzylogician]

Enjoy your last days of freedom and try not to worry too much!

[yes, I know that's hard!]

Seriously, though, graduate programs expect their incoming classes to have different levels of preparation and they are very good at dealing with that. Obviously, the program that accepted you thinks your previous training is good enough for you to excel in the program, or it wouldn't have accepted you. You will be doing so much reading/writing/problem solving once the semester begins that this effort to read one more text, solve one more problem, over the summer will end up not making any real difference. Also, I've personally found that comparing myself to others can only depress me: there is always going to be someone who does things better than me, faster than me. I much rather ignore that and concentrate on myself - how I am progressing, how much success I believe I am having. In the end, that's really all that matters.

What you're not going to have once the year starts is free time.

You have some now.

Use it wisely.

[ScreamingHairyArmadillo]

I've been working about 20-30 hours a week to pass the time and save up for the move. Yay retail! It is a daily reminder that I love school.

For the next month I will be sporadically going to the new place in Columbus (it's already lined up) to paint and move stuff in (I obviously don't live far). I'll be moving in for good mid-August with the boyfriend and will quit working then. Classes don't start until late September, so until then we'll figure out the city and probably continue to read for our studies (well, he'll continue, I'll start).

I'm also registered for classes.

I can't wait!

[alexis]

My classes don't start until September, and they haven't even posted the schedule, but I am still neurotically checking it every day hoping it'll be up and I can register for classes. I do know about our pre-class schedule though, GA/TA orientation, etc.

ScreamingHairyArmadillo, I completely agree with you! I'm working part-time and can't wait to be done. It really is a reminder of the life/career track I DON'T want and how excited I am to go into academia.

I'm also finishing up research from my master's program even though I've technically graduated. I know I love something if I do it for free/no credit in the place of taking on more paid work. We're trying to get our data coded, analyzed, and everything written up in time for a conference submission deadline in September. I haven't even thought about doing more reading my my area, I figure the research keeps me in the groove.

I need to take my new hire paperwork to the HR office sometime too. It's so weird to realize you're going to be PAID to be a student. That never gets old.

[poco_puffs]

For starters, tonight was my last night of work at the restaurant where I've been gritting my teeth at customers for five years. This is big news for me, since this particular pizza place has consumed my life for the majority of my undergrad, and the year that I took off following graduation. I'll miss all the folks that really have become my second and very large family in all that time, but I'm gradually bringing my mind around to the fact that I am moving on to something that could eventually resemble a career. About half of the people I work with at that restaurant have college degrees-- forestry, agriculture, physics, music, art, political science, history, and literature, to name a few-- but the sad thing is that I'm the only one who made it into grad school this round. Several of them left to find other jobs, and came back to work at the restaurant again because the businesses they left for ended up tanking. I feel extraordinarily lucky to be getting out of food service and into grad school.

Moving-wise, my boyfriend and I are waiting for approval on the apartment that we really want. I've already started cleaning, sorting, and recycling/trashing things, but nothing has been packed yet. I've been obsessively hoarding boxes from work and from friends for a few weeks now to minimize on any I'll have to buy from U-haul. We've already done one epic Goodwill trip, and I'm thinking another is imminent. The new city is only 45 minutes away, so I have the luxury of making a few trips before the big one.

I'm kind of treading middle ground on the reading thing. Even though my passion for my very specific field/topic has been stoked in the last few weeks, I'm forcing/allowing myself to read some books that are still exercising my LitCrit muscles without overloading me on Victorian England and theory. I'd say every other book is something I should read for that big "should-read" list, and then I alternate that with stuff that I might not get to for a few years, which ranges from Willa Cather frontier type stuff to the more airport/supermarket novel.

School doesn't start until late September for me, which means I have approximately two and a half months to explore a new city, arrange my new home, do lots of yoga and biking, and get my life and brain and body in the best working condition I can before I start this next big phase.

[diehtc0ke]

Well, classes don't start until the first week of September but things are already starting to move into motion. I have a living situation set up in the new city and Round 1 of the move happened earlier this week. New city is about a 2 hour drive from current city so a friend and I road tripped over with several boxes of books, a garbage can, a wall clock and an IKEA floor lamp. Lamp has been set up (gotta have priorities) and room in the house has been chosen. I'm moving from my parents' house and because I have a younger sibling who will be moving into the room I'm abandoning, pretty much all of my furniture has had to have been purchased. This includes new bookshelf, new bed frame, new dresser and new desk. IKEA has been a good friend to me.

Other than preparing for the move, life is pretty chill right now. I've taken a rather long-ish break from reading articles/books in my field in hopes that this will reinvigorate me when the semester begins. This isn't to say that I've lost interest in what I'm studying but anything that will help me keep the momentum going for 5-6 years is worth pursuing. I've pretty much taken a break from everything that doesn't resemble either socializing, fun reading (which does actually involve those overwrought Victorians [i kid, I kid]), packing or Netflix streaming. I quit my part-time retail job of four years months ago when I realized that I was so sick of it that entering the building was making me physically ill. I've been subsisting on random odd jobs which have recently dried up along with my bank account; it's funny how the two correlate.

At this point, I'm really just looking forward to the move and the rest of what should be a mostly carefree summer in a relatively unknown (to me) area.

[poco_puffs]

I hear ya, Diehtc0ke.

a.) Netflix streaming has been an obsession of mine for ages. It helps me cope with all this excess time out of school, and I'm sure I'll become even more dependent now that I've quit my job. Probably the most cost-effective way of legally watching movies that I've found.

b.) Amen on getting out of jobs that make you ill. For me, it was serving cocktails at the same restaurant. I just did a shift of that for the first time in two years and I was visibly shaking from the nerves. Lets hope grad school treats us better!

c.) I lol'd at the "overwrought Victorians." I just finished Middlemarch. Only took about three or four months of reading twenty pages at a time, but I'm happy I finally got that monolith out of the way.

I just can't imagine buying all new furniture! I know so many people move across the country with just their clothes and one or two items like the lamp and the clock. I've always been attached to the physical bits and pieces that make up my immediate environment. I'd make a terrible Buddhist

Edited July 10, 2010 by poco_puffs

[Bumblebee]

I'm spending my last weeks of holidays with my family before I move to Indiana. In the meantime, I'm enjoying all my beloved Spanish food, which I won't be able to taste for almost a year (I have a wedding in South America in early January, so I'll be spending Christmas there), I'm enjoying the Spanish team's victories in the World Cup, I'm trying to read some articles on Hispanic Linguistics and I'm getting ready for my visa interview.

Luckily, I already have an apartment (and it's furnished, so I'll have a bed to sleep in my first night in Bloomington) and I cannot register until my orientation week (last week of August), which means I don't need to worry about courses just yet.

[ilovedogs]

I'm registered for classes and have a furnished apartment lined up in Chapel Hill. I just finished a pretty intense undergrad summer class in Probability that I think will help me a bit in my grad school Probability/Stat Inference class. I'm also learning a bit of SAS programming on my own before I get down there.

In a couple weeks I'm driving a carload of stuff the 700 miles to NC, stopping to visit relatives on the way. I'll be getting a feel for the city, the bus system, etc. for a few days. I will then be going back to RI for a couple weeks and making the final move in mid-August. Right now I'm getting some work done on my car that I've put off forever.

I'm starting to get kind of down since I'll be leaving my husband and dog behind. I just got a 4th year PHD student as my "buddy" to talk to about the department/school. Like a lot of folks I feel like I'll be the most unprepared person entering the program.

[diehtc0ke]

I hear ya, Diehtc0ke.

a.) Netflix streaming has been an obsession of mine for ages. It helps me cope with all this excess time out of school, and I'm sure I'll become even more dependent now that I've quit my job. Probably the most cost-effective way of legally watching movies that I've found.

b.) Amen on getting out of jobs that make you ill. For me, it was serving cocktails at the same restaurant. I just did a shift of that for the first time in two years and I was visibly shaking from the nerves. Lets hope grad school treats us better!

c.) I lol'd at the "overwrought Victorians." I just finished Middlemarch. Only took about three or four months of reading twenty pages at a time, but I'm happy I finally got that monolith out of the way.

I just can't imagine buying all new furniture! I know so many people move across the country with just their clothes and one or two items like the lamp and the clock. I've always been attached to the physical bits and pieces that make up my immediate environment. I'd make a terrible Buddhist

I've had a Netflix subscription for a really long time and I'm just now getting into streaming. I made a really really long queue when I first started and still haven't gotten to the end of it. Needless to say, my world hasn't been the same. There's no shame in giving in to the addiction. As for jobs, I moonlighted as a cashier/office supplies associate at the local Staples. I swear, there's something about shopping for pens and paper that makes people extra nasty in their interactions with others. Did you also get people who would treat you like working in retail/food service was your career or your life and somehow that makes you a lesser person? Even if it were my career, I'm not quite sure how that works but I had to get over people's disrespect rather quickly. I really lost a part of my trust in humanity after I worked there and I'm sure serving cocktails couldn't have helped with that trust either. Amen to graduate school treating us better. I'm a 20th c. Americanist who never really liked the Victorian novel and I've been trying to give it more of a chance recently, especially those novels that I know I should have read but never did: Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Mansfield Park, etc. Right now, I'm re-reading Charle's Chesnutt's The House Behind the Cedars which is more in vein with my research. Middlemarch, however, is definitely on my list; did you enjoy it once it was all said and done?

And the whole buying furniture thing is actually really annoying and I seriously envy your ability to hold on to those pieces. I would have taken more but my younger brother needs them for when he moves in to my room and my mother is getting rid of all of his (really) old furniture to make room for a study. Thankfully the folks realized that this was a burden and they're helping me financially (in exchange for the fact that they didn't have to spend a dime on college tuition) but all the assembly during this past week's Northeastern heat wave has been frustrating at best and I'm nowhere near done. Most of the assembling will be done at the new place tomorrow.

I'm spending my last weeks of holidays with my family before I move to Indiana. In the meantime, I'm enjoying all my beloved Spanish food, which I won't be able to taste for almost a year (I have a wedding in South America in early January, so I'll be spending Christmas there), I'm enjoying the Spanish team's victories in the World Cup, I'm trying to read some articles on Hispanic Linguistics and I'm getting ready for my visa interview.

Luckily, I already have an apartment (and it's furnished, so I'll have a bed to sleep in my first night in Bloomington) and I cannot register until my orientation week (last week of August), which means I don't need to worry about courses just yet.

I'm assuming that you're going to Bloomington and I hope that you know that there are some really great restaurants tucked into that small town (though I'll admit that I didn't have any Spanish food when I went there to visit). If you're not going to Bloomington, well, that sucks lol.

[PastHistory]

The closer I get to August, the more nervous I become. I know, logically, that I was admitted because I have the necessary skills, drive and basic intelligence to pursue higher higher education but in many ways, I feel like a 6 year old on the first day of school. What if everybody else knows more than me? Understands more than me? I am dealing with serious butterflies and a big case of impostor syndrome!

I registered for classes back in the Spring, so I already know what I'll be taking and what books I need to buy. The prospect of reading (at current count) 40+ books in one semester is freaking me out a bit, but I'm trying not to focus on that. There is supposed to be some sort of orientation before the semester starts, but details on that haven't been sent out yet.

While I have my general topic area narrowed down, I still have no clue as to what I want to focus on. I also have to figure out what faculty I want to work with and plan out the next few years of my life in rapid succession.

Well, seeing all this in writing has only made me more nervous!

Good luck to all of the other new admits!

[DJLamar]

I'm doing an internship in Munich this Summer related to the field I'm going into that involves some research. Some of the research is good preparation and we submitted a paper to a conference a week or two ago (my first first author paper if it gets accepted, actually), but the biggest motivation for doing it is just because I don't have the money to go anywhere interesting unless I'm getting paid there . If I didn't have work to do, I would just be sitting around my chronically boring, small, crappy hometown (I'm a little bitter about my hometown...).

I'm also hypothetically traveling around Europe while I'm over here, but due to a tax error on my employer's behalf (they lost my tax card and didn't tell me they didn't have one on file, so they put me in the default high tax class with 3 times the taxes I should have, and I can't get the money back until the end of July when I'm paid again) my cash flow is not what I expected it to be. I've been to Paris already this Summer (second time I've been since I went when I lived here before) and I'm almost definitely going to Budapest for four days at the end of this month, and I'll probably take a four or five day trip between the time I finish work and the time I fly back home (I'm thinking Warsaw for this one).

Other than that, I'm supposed to pay some security deposits for my apartment in Ithaca, and I still need to take and upload a photo for my ID card. Once I get back home from Germany, I'll rest at my parents house for a day or two and pack up only the bare essentials (clothes and textbooks and that's basically it... my apartment is furnished and I'm planning on buying everything else there new) before taking a nice 16 hour road trip from (one hour south of) Atlanta to Ithaca, NY. My dad might come with me and see Ithaca for a few days and then take a one-way flight home from there. We'll see, but five days after I get back to the U.S. I have grad school orientation...

[prolixity]

I'm doing an internship in Munich this Summer related to the field I'm going into that involves some research. Some of the research is good preparation and we submitted a paper to a conference a week or two ago (my first first author paper if it gets accepted, actually), but the biggest motivation for doing it is just because I don't have the money to go anywhere interesting unless I'm getting paid there . If I didn't have work to do, I would just be sitting around my chronically boring, small, crappy hometown (I'm a little bitter about my hometown...).

I'm also hypothetically traveling around Europe while I'm over here, but due to a tax error on my employer's behalf (they lost my tax card and didn't tell me they didn't have one on file, so they put me in the default high tax class with 3 times the taxes I should have, and I can't get the money back until the end of July when I'm paid again) my cash flow is not what I expected it to be. I've been to Paris already this Summer (second time I've been since I went when I lived here before) and I'm almost definitely going to Budapest for four days at the end of this month, and I'll probably take a four or five day trip between the time I finish work and the time I fly back home (I'm thinking Warsaw for this one).

Other than that, I'm supposed to pay some security deposits for my apartment in Ithaca, and I still need to take and upload a photo for my ID card. Once I get back home from Germany, I'll rest at my parents house for a day or two and pack up only the bare essentials (clothes and textbooks and that's basically it... my apartment is furnished and I'm planning on buying everything else there new) before taking a nice 16 hour road trip from (one hour south of) Atlanta to Ithaca, NY. My dad might come with me and see Ithaca for a few days and then take a one-way flight home from there. We'll see, but five days after I get back to the U.S. I have grad school orientation...

If you're looking for stuff to do in the .de.. I interned in Erlangen last Summer.

Take a Schönes Wochenende pass up to Nürnberg. From there take Regiobahn to Zirndorf.. You'll find Zirndorfer Brauerei, home of, in my opinion, the best kellerbier in Germany.

Also while you're in Nürnberg check out the Seven Deadly Sins Fountain and eat some Nürnbergers (or maybe Drei im Wiggla). Don't bother visiting Fürth (boring for the most part), but nearby Erlangen offers a lot to do.

Annafest (one of the larger beer festivals in Bayern) begins July 24th in Forcheim, which is just north of Nürnberg and Erlangen. I STRONGLY recommend you make it out to this event.

Edited July 10, 2010 by prolixity

[Bumblebee]

I'm assuming that you're going to Bloomington and I hope that you know that there are some really great restaurants tucked into that small town (though I'll admit that I didn't have any Spanish food when I went there to visit). If you're not going to Bloomington, well, that sucks lol.

Yes, I'm going to Bloomington. I already checked the restaurants and supermarkets and all I could find was Latin American stores/restaurants. Fortunately I know of a store in Virginia that sells Spanish food online. They don't have all the things I like and it can be quite expensive, but I will definitely use it when I have a serious "homesickness crisis". American customs and borders don't help either. I cannot bring many things from Spain and I just don't want to risk having my luggage opened and having to pay a fine. :-(

[Halfpasser11]

Sitting, waiting, working.

That really makes up the rest of my summer until I have to have a week of TA training in the middle of August. I am currently working in the middle of the Frank Church Wilderness in Idaho with little to no contact with the outside world except wireless internet. It's a beautiful thing to not use a cell phone for 3 months.

I also am getting a bad case of the Imposter Syndrome. The school I was accepted to was the only one I didn't visit or have an interview with. So I know nothing about it really, I am just crossing my fingers that they don't withdraw all my funding when I get there.

I have an apartment that accepts large dogs, and my father is going to drive all my stuff down there from WI to NM middle of August while I drive from ID. Basically move in, register for classes, and start TAing. There isn't a lot that I can prepare for. My advisor gave me the topic of research that I will be focusing on (Glutamine metabolism in the equine placenta) so I starting doing some lit research. But I am figuring that I'll have better luck using the school resources than google scholar.

In the meantime, I am gaining some income for the inevitable cash-crunch that is graduate school.

[American in Beijing]

If you're looking for stuff to do in the .de.. I interned in Erlangen last Summer.

Take a Schönes Wochenende pass up to Nürnberg. From there take Regiobahn to Zirndorf.. You'll find Zirndorfer Brauerei, home of, in my opinion, the best kellerbier in Germany.

Also while you're in Nürnberg check out the Seven Deadly Sins Fountain and eat some Nürnbergers (or maybe Drei im Wiggla). Don't bother visiting Fürth (boring for the most part), but nearby Erlangen offers a lot to do.

Annafest (one of the larger beer festivals in Bayern) begins July 24th in Forcheim, which is just north of Nürnberg and Erlangen. I STRONGLY recommend you make it out to this event.

I actually spent a summer in Austria, and I know that there's this great program run by the ÖBB (the Austrian train company). If you're under 26, you're eligible to buy a Sommerkarte. Once you buy this card, you get FREE TRAIN RIDES throughout the entire country of Austria for the ENTIRE summer. Last time I was there, the card was 75 Euros, including the discount card you have to buy in order to be able to buy the Sommerkarte.

It's really great, especially if you want to visit parts of Southern Europe. All you have to do is pay for the price of the tickets outside of Austrian territory. For example, I bought a round-trip ticket from Vienna to Ljublijana (Slovenia) for 12 Euros. And I saved even more money by taking a night train there and back, meaning no money spent on hostels, ! And since Munich is relatively close to the Austrian border, I doubt tickets would cost very much. A ticket to Budapest would be practically free, as Budapest is right on the Austrian border. Although visiting cities in Austria, such as Vienna and Innsbruck is definitely worth it as well. Vienna is my favorite city in all of Europe, and summer in Vienna is absolutely wonderful.

Also, for travel in Germany I would highly recommend using the DB's online website to buy tickets. If you buy them at least 3 weeks in advance, tickets to almost anywhere in Germany cost only 25 Euros one way. Another way to save money, !

I wish I had money to travel . . . I was originally planning on doing a little bit of travelling in China before I left, until I realized that I need to buy furniture when I get back to the States. In spite of the fact that I am very excited to pick out my very first set of furniture, I'm dreading what it's going to do to my bank account. My stipend doesn't kick in until the end of August, so I have to save save save! So that means lots of reading, TV watching, and dealing with panic attacks brought on by the dreaded impostor syndrome! Only 2 weeks left!

[Riotbeard]

I have one more week of work, and then I am done paralegaling forever (except for after I get my PhD to find there are no jobs!)! I have registered for classes. I am doing my summer reading and got some text book recommendations for Latin American Social History (I ended up needing to take this class but have absolutely no background in Latin American history so...) After I finish my work I am going to visit friends in Charleston for a week, then I have a week to pack up my life. I did order my furniture from Ikea this week.

[poco_puffs]

Middlemarch, however, is definitely on my list; did you enjoy it once it was all said and done?

I'll admit, I was more sad when I closed it than I thought I would be. I carted that thing around with me everywhere, and it seemed like it would never end. The characters develop verrry slowly, and there's a political subplot that drags especially, but it did a good job of making me care about a few of the people. If you do end up reading it, I almost think it would be helpful to read some more Jane Austen first. Her style is lighter, which might make Middlemarch seem unfair when you do start it, but the novels share themes of country/town life, webs of social interactions, propriety etc. It would be a good introduction to some of the larger ideas in Middlemarch that sort of rumble and groan under the weight of those 800+ pages.

[breakfast]

I'm just sitting around waiting for the big move (2,300 miles). A lot of my stuff is already packed (books and movies), but my day-to-day stuff is still all around the room waiting to get packed. My girlfriend and I are flying to our new home on Wednesday with nothing but our cats and clothes. We have to buy furniture when we get there and get the rest of our stuff shipped out to us.

This next week is going to be pretty hectic and stressful.

Edited July 10, 2010 by breakfast

[joro]

I'm currently panicking because I feel very unprepared. I'm also trying to figure out things to buy before the move next month.

[hubris]

Enjoying two parallel thoughts process:

1) Slowly packing and getting everything ready

2) Slowly planning what to do instead of going to grad school.

Fun, fun, fun.

[diehtc0ke]

I'll admit, I was more sad when I closed it than I thought I would be. I carted that thing around with me everywhere, and it seemed like it would never end. The characters develop verrry slowly, and there's a political subplot that drags especially, but it did a good job of making me care about a few of the people. If you do end up reading it, I almost think it would be helpful to read some more Jane Austen first. Her style is lighter, which might make Middlemarch seem unfair when you do start it, but the novels share themes of country/town life, webs of social interactions, propriety etc. It would be a good introduction to some of the larger ideas in Middlemarch that sort of rumble and groan under the weight of those 800+ pages.

Lol what's great is that I touted myself in undergrad as the only English major who couldn't stand Jane Austen. What's almost unfortunate now is that my fondness has grown to the point where I can say that I actually love her work. I only really put Middlemarch on the list because of a friend who had a similar experience as you but with The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch sounded more interesting to me.

Edited July 10, 2010 by diehtc0ke