anon1 Posted April 20, 2012 Author Posted April 20, 2012 My fiance is an outdoorsy, adventurous person though, and would be happy to move along with me to UCSD or UCLA. Sounds like the consensus of those who've commented is UCSD. Is that because the city is just that much nicer?
anon1 Posted April 20, 2012 Author Posted April 20, 2012 You make a good point about theory at UCSD, too. Thanks for all of the thoughts, I definitely appreciate them.
Eclectic4 Posted April 20, 2012 Posted April 20, 2012 Yes, San Diego is far nicer than LA. Minus a few select areas in the LA area, LA is simply not a nice city. This is coming from a life long Californian. lecorbeau and kaykaykay 2
ghanada Posted April 20, 2012 Posted April 20, 2012 Yes, San Diego is far nicer than LA. Minus a few select areas in the LA area, LA is simply not a nice city. This is coming from a life long Californian. This is a pretty bias statement. I lived in Cali myself for 26 years and I don't think it is as simple as saying SD is nicer than LA. It REALLY depends what types of things you are into. I lived in LA (or near UCLA) for about 8 years and I think there is a lot to offer. Obviously if you are into nightlife, restaurants, clubs, bars, etc. than LA beats SD, I don't think that is debatable. All my undergrad friends at UCSD got so bored at SD because the lack of these options. SD is also a very conservative city. If you are into sports, SD and LA are more or less the same and probably provide the same opportunities. For instance, I love surfing and snowboarding. Surfing is better in SD, but I was by no means unhappy with surfing in LA. Snowboarding is also better/closer in LA than SD, plus Mammoth (a top resort in the country) is much closer for LA than SD. There are also lots of hiking spots around the hills of LA as well. You can easily get to a Dodgers/Angels game, Lakers/Clippers game, etc. LA also gives you lots of easy access to other cool places within a reasonable drive. Las Vegas is only 4 hours away, Yosemite is about 3 hours, Santa Barbara is 2 hours, and San Francisco is 5 hours. If you want culture, there are tons of museums (LACMA, Getty, MOCA, Norton Simon, etc), lots of concerts, lots of jazz bars, Griffith Observatory, cool artsy neighborhoods like Venice, Silverlake, Abbot Kinney, downtown Culver City, etc. There are tons of ethnic neighborhoods (Japantown, Koreatown, Chinatown, Little Ethiopia) where you can experience lots of different people and get some of the best authentic foods for cheap. Now I agree that if you are just comparing downtown LA to downtown SD as a city than SD is nicer. But that completely disregards all of the cool areas around UCLA--Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Silverlake, Manhattan/Hermosa/Redondo Beach, Pasadena, Topanga Canyons, Huntington Beach, and the list goes on forever. Don't get me wrong, I love SD and hope to goto SD for my future post-doc or professorship and I could see myself settling down there. But I would be hard pressed to say in a blanket statement that SD is nicer than LA. elcherry, aberrant and kaykaykay 2 1
anon1 Posted April 20, 2012 Author Posted April 20, 2012 Academically: UCLA or UCSD? ...Or equal? UnixGuy, aberrant and bluebunny 3
ANDS! Posted April 20, 2012 Posted April 20, 2012 Yes, San Diego is far nicer than LA. Minus a few select areas in the LA area, LA is simply not a nice city. This is coming from a life long Californian. Context is everything. Nicer in terms of "what". If I was going to pick the "nicest" looking city in Southern California, it would be hard to pass up Santa Barbara. But there is no way in hell I'd live there; go insane with boredom. I would pick Los Angeles over SD simply because of the size of LALA Land. I (with great passion) hate the Lakers, but would be able to deal with that with the staggering amount of "diversity" the city has to offer. kaykaykay 1
ghanada Posted April 20, 2012 Posted April 20, 2012 Academically: UCLA or UCSD? ...Or equal? ok anon1, it is time for some tough love. I feel like you are really missing the main point about doing a PhD. I tried to emphasize this in my earlier post about RESEARCH FIT. It sounds like you are trying to make this decision based on rank, reputation, city living, family life, childhood dreams, etc. I don't understand how in this entire thread you haven't mentioned a single thing about the PIs you would work with and the work you would be doing (besides a broad field). It took you 8 posts to even mention what field you are in. Myself and many others have said the same thing over and over in this thread--the most important thing is research fit and your PI. You haven't responded at all about this very important piece. You will be closely involved in 1 lab everyday for the next 5+ years. It is kinda funny (but true), that many people describe their relationship to their mentor like a marriage. You see them everyday for hours, argue over ideas, have to work and write together, have long meetings, bet upset with each other, etc. You will probably see your adviser (or others related to your work) for more hours a week than your fiance. How is this not your MAIN consideration? You aren't choosing between a top 10 program and a top 100. They are all more or less the same academically, ranking, reputation, etc. Stop thinking about that stuff and start focusing on your relationship to your potential adviser and the future work you would do in each lab. Moreso than anything else, that will be the hugest part in your overall happiness at the school you pick. felicidad, bluebunny, kaykaykay and 2 others 5
anon1 Posted April 21, 2012 Author Posted April 21, 2012 Thank you for the feedback, I do appreciate it. The thing is that this is a public forum and I don't want to identify myself, in case one of my potential advisers were to read this. I will say though: the adviser at UCSD is super nice and really seems to want me there. He even offered to help my fiance find a job. My two main interests are in scientific computing/mathematical modelling and algorithms/theory. His area deals with HPC which is tangentially related to scientific computing. I do like the idea of HPC though, because it sounds practical and enables new science (plus to be honest I'm not as confident in my algorithms ability). UCSD is also great in theory as others have mentioned, though since I will be starting out as an RA I'm not sure how easy it is to change advisers, if I want to. The adviser at UCLA was also nice, but didn't spend as much time trying to get me to go there. His area is theoretical AI, so it would be close to the theory/algorithms interest. He has also written textbook algorithms and is known as an excellent author of papers and teacher. The thing is though, I still will have time to change advisers after I'm there-- right? And I haven't had the chance to meet every professor at each school.
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