UCSD IR/PS

[OregonGal]

You mean when they mentioned the categories? Do you remember who they said to contact about that? I'd go back and listen again but the hosting site for the video isn't responding.

[Seaking]

irps-studentaffairs@ucsd.edu

[OregonGal]

Great, thanks for the reminder!

[understatement700]

Anyone know if IRPS has some kind of admitted (and accepting) student forum set up? Maybe after May 1? This would be particularly helpful for finding roommates etc.

[OregonGal]

I seem to recall them mentioning forums within the IR/PS internal system for finding roommates etc but we don't get those IDs until later.

[understatement700]

Hmm Ok, guess I'll just have to wait for a few weeks. I wonder how getting on campus housing works if you are planning to live with people you have met before since everyone puts different preferences for the waitlist and then when something opens up they just call you.

[Seaking]

My friend and I who both got in looked into this: getting on-campus housing with someone you know sounds impossible. They very rarely get a whole apartment up for grabs, and try to plug people into singles. It would take too long to get placement.

[OregonGal]

Ok, so random google searches do sometimes yield results: for those interested in TA'ing to offset costs, here is the March 2012 PDF detailing those positions for the 2012-13 Academic Year. This is just making me even more determined to work at least a couple quarters--if you get at least 10 hrs/week, you get $4600+ tuition remission plus minimum $13/hr as a grader (going up to max $19/hr as a tutor and $1900/month at 20 hrs/wk TA). And, all those are 2011-12 numbers so one assumes they will at least stay at that level.

http://ogs.ucsd.edu/_files/financial/prospective-financial-support/jobopportunities.pdf

[Seaking]

We can make our email addresses now. Too bad it requires a client server.

[OregonGal]

Hey guys, just a heads up--

I participated in the admitted students chat yesterday afternoon and one point of concern came up for me with the summer prep program. One of the other participants asked about financial aid availability for summer program, and it came out that financial aid disbursements will not start until the last week of September, even if you are in summer prep. Apparently the summer prep program is structured such that prep students don't count as enrolled at UCSD, and therefore don't trigger aid disbursements/eligibility. They said they did that so it was lower-cost--enrolled for credit would make each course $1500-1750--but I am not at all happy at the lack of warning that I need to be prepared to live out of pocket for two months without financial aid support.

[OregonGal]

And another financial update--this time on the unfortunate state of funding in the UC system. Due to the revised budget released by Gov. Brown the UC system is looking at an overall 6% tuition increase and if the higher ed tax initiative fails in November, the UC system has to find another $200-250M in cuts (or tuition increases). So, for those evaluating your budgets, you might want to factor in 6-7% up from 2011-12 budgets for 12-13, and tack on another 5-10% from that for 2013-14.

[Seaking]

It could be even worse, actually. Brown's budget factored in a significant boost in revenue from the Facebook IPO, which has so far under-performed and could cause a serious shortage in the State's revenue.

[OregonGal]

Sigh... My original budget was what I thought was pretty pessimistic and conservative at projecting 7% increases each year; I really don't want to deal with even more than that

[Seaking]

If you TA, I think that would solve a lot of the problems. The financial benefit from the fee remission is ridiculously good.

[understatement700]

Anyone who applied for on-campus grad housing hear anything else? Also, there's not a facebook group or anything is there? There should be a way to connect with all of our classmates before the semester starts and possibly find roommates.

[understatement700]

I have a feeling these next few months are gunna drag slowly, excited to move to SD and start!

[OregonGal]

I called Housing a couple weeks ago and they said there's no backlog, but they will be contacting people no more than 60 days prior to move-in date listed on the housing request form. So, I should be hearing from them at the start of June (next week!) because I listed August 1 for my move-in date--which I may need to discuss with them, as I have an airplane ticket for the 3rd.

AFAIK there's no facebook group, so all we've got is the FirstClass folders for housing etc. When I logged into Tritonlink I was able to register for classes, though I'm not sure if I should've been able to Managerial Econ is going to be awful, it's a 160-seat lecture at 8am on Monday.

[Seaking]

Woah, you cheater, how did you get classes? =o

Also, housing is going through the motions. My friend already got placement in one hall. I think they wait until exactly 60 days prior to your desired move-in to contact you.

[OregonGal]

I don't know how! I registered for Tritonlink, and one day I was clicking through the registration site to see the class schedule and went "hmm wonder if I can click this register now" button and it worked. Turns out that was the first day classes were available too. I registered for the classes I was 90% sure were for first term first year--Managerial Econ, Quant 1, Policy Making Processes and International Politics and Security.

...as you can see, I'm a bit antsy waiting for the school year to start

[Seaking]

Yeah, at the admit day, they gave us a schedule of the classes we can take. Most of them have two sections. I'll have to take a look at that when I get home from work.

[Seaking]

And I'm definitely antsy, too. Work is like purgatory...

[understatement700]

Were you able to sign up for language classes too? I thought they told us sometime that we'd sign up for classes after orientation. I feel like since the first quarter/year is somewhat standard for everyone that there wouldn't be much of an issue. The only thing is language classes since some of them would be with undergrads depending on level and language.

[OregonGal]

No, I didn't sign up for language classes yet--we have to take a placement test to see where we end up. I was looking at the course descriptions though, and the IRPS grad Japanese language courses start at "low-intermediate proficiency" so I'm hoping I can place into that.

[Seaking]

Got my housing offer today. Rita Atkinson, here I come.

[understatement700]

Awesome, congrats, when did you say your expected move in date is? Hope I get Rita-Atkinson too, that was my first choice.